Today, as Comanus entered the storeroom, Abd el-Aziz sprang to his feet as usual. Comanus greeted him, took off his jacket and pulled on black satin protectors over his shirtsleeves. There was some heavy lifting to be done. Abd el-Aziz went up to the bar and brought back a crate of empty beer bottles. Then he took a crate of whiskey to the restaurant. When he returned to the storeroom, he stood examining the list of instructions Comanus had written up for him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Comanus asked him to make two cups of tea, and when Abd el-Aziz brought the tea, Comanus told him to sit down and offered him a cigarette. Abd el-Aziz sipped the tea and took a drag of his cigarette. Comanus returned to the subject: “You don’t look yourself. Please tell me what the matter is.”
Abd el-Aziz leaned back in his chair and replied in a faint voice, as if talking to himself, “I’m a bit overtired, boss.”
Comanus looked somewhat worried. “What has brought this on?”
“Finding the money to keep my children in school is proving a bit of a yoke around my neck…”
“I told you so at the beginning, but you didn’t listen to me!”
“God knows, I have done everything within my power.”
“You rent a large apartment that costs a quarter of your salary. You could have chosen a smaller, affordable one. Just do what you can afford, and things go easier.”
“Boss, our house in Daraw was four hundred meters over two floors, not to mention the date orchard and guesthouse. After living like that, how could I coop up my children in one room?”
“We all have to live through our share of ups and downs.”
“I couldn’t do that to children who bear the name Gaafar.”
Comanus fell quiet and appeared to be thinking. He felt for Abd el-Aziz. He looked at him, and in his straightforward and well-meaning way, he made a suggestion, “Listen. I can give you an advance on your salary, and you can take as long as you need to pay it back.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I need your help for something else.”
“If it’s anything I can do, just tell me.”
“I want some extra hours. After the storeroom closes, I could go work in the bar or the restaurant. Every extra piastre would help.”
Comanus scratched his beard and said, “It’s not so easy. You would need the authorization of Mr. Wright.”
“Then I can go and see him.”
“Mr. Wright is not particularly fond of Egyptians, and even if he were to give you the authorization, there’s still another problem. In the restaurant or the bar, you’d be working under Alku’s supervision, and he is very tricky.”
“Well, that would simply be a work relationship.”
“You don’t know Alku! He likes to humiliate anyone under him.”
Abd el-Aziz remained silent for a moment, then raised his head and asked Comanus, “Please, boss. Give it a try.”
SALEHA
The following day, I stayed in bed. My mother brought me endless cups of hot mint tea with lemon as well as laxative pills that I could hardly get down. She made me a piece of poached chicken and a green salad for my lunch and urged me to eat something. By the end of the day, she had stopped asking me how I felt but still came into my bedroom from time to time for a quick chat. I felt that she knew I was feigning sickness and was putting me to the test.
In the evening, Kamel came in and kissed my head. He smiled and told me, “I’ve paid your school fees today. Here’s the receipt. You can go to school again tomorrow.”
He put the receipt on the bedside table and got up to leave, but I grabbed hold of his hand and said, “Kamel. Just a moment.”
“All right.”
“What is going on with our father?”
“Everything’s fine with him, praise be to God.”
“Why didn’t he pay the fees?”
“I told you already. He must just have forgotten.”
“Kamel. Please tell me the truth.”
I burst out crying. The tension was more than I could bear. Kamel placed his hand on my head to calm me. I kept on asking him, and he nodded and said quietly, “The fact is that our father is going through a financial crisis.”
“Isn’t our father a rich man?”
“Of course he is, but this year’s crops didn’t sell well.”
I kept looking at him in silence. He said gently, “Don’t worry about such things. They happen to everyone.”
“Oh, but it must be so hard on our father.”
“The crisis will pass, please God.”
“Isn’t there something I can do to help?”
“If you want to help him, then look to your studies. What will help our father the most is to see us doing well.”
I looked at him and tried to smile. He leaned over, planted another kiss on my forehead and left the room.
The following day, when I went to school, nothing was the same. Everything had changed. My feelings toward myself, toward my girlfriends, the way I dealt with the teachers. I felt as if I was hiding the truth from everyone, as if I had a secret life apart from the open life with my schoolmates. I felt inferior to all of them, even those I disliked or considered ugly or at the bottom of the class. They were all better than me because they had not had to stay home until their father paid their fees. I started sleeping fitfully and became completely absentminded and could no longer follow what the teachers were telling us. After two weeks of aimlessness, I started to really worry about my behavior. If I carried on like that, I would end up having to repeat the year, and I kept remembering what Kamel had said to me, “The thing that will help our father the most is to see us doing well.”
I decided to throw myself into my studies. Prayer helped me to get over my melancholy. The moment I did my ablutions, I would feel a sense of calm, and I regained my focus. I set myself a serious and methodical study schedule. Math was like falling off a log for me. For as long as I could remember, I had always loved numbers. They were real and definite, whereas a word could be ambiguous. The number five was always the number five. It meant the same for everyone. As a child, whenever I was on the tram, I would amuse myself by seeing how many numbers I could spot through the window. I tried to memorize all the numbers I saw on license plates and houses. As time went on, I realized I could do complicated sums in my head. I can’t remember not getting top marks in math, and my mother used to beg me to refrain from showing off in front of my classmates so they wouldn’t get jealous. I was always ahead of them, astonished that they could not grasp the relationships that to me seemed totally obvious. Whenever I would sit down to solve a problem and then checked the solution at the back of the book, I was always thrilled to discover that I had not made a single error. I often think of my life in terms of mathematics. If I were to draw a graph of my childhood, I would find that it went along a straight path and then veered sharply. The straight line represents the carefree time. I was the only daughter, spoiled by everyone. It was as if I grew up snuggling in my mother’s lap inhaling her familiar smell. Then my dream world vanished. We were poor, and our father had difficulty making ends meet. I studied harder.
My mother and Kamel were very supportive, but my brother Said was jealous because I was getting good marks, whereas he had ended up in a vocational school. He would cause all sorts of problems in order to stop me from studying. He would accuse me of not doing enough around the apartment, of lacking manners, and would invent excuses to punish me. He would rant and rave because I gave myself a manicure or curled my hair in ringlets. He would tell me off for lying on my stomach and reading with my bedroom door open. When he tried to slap me, Kamel and my mother would always intervene. Thinking about Said, I would always become sad and fearful. Why did he resent me so much? His feelings toward me hurt much more than any physical pain he inflicted.
After every argument, when I was crying, I felt that Said became a little more relaxed, as if he had achieved his aim. His physical presence filled me wit
h dread, particularly when Kamel was out at university. The moment I heard Said’s voice, I would lock my door. Complaining about him to our father was out of the question, as he did not need any more problems. He was already going through enough for our sakes. Contrary to his intent, the war Said was waging against me only made me more determined in my studies. Unfortunately, no sooner had the matter of the fees been decided than I found a new problem waiting for me at school. I wasn’t the only one of my classmates to be taken by surprise when Miss Suad, the physical education teacher, told us we had to buy white ballet shoes.
We did our gym classes in sports shoes, which had always done the job, but Miss Suad, in one of her fickle moments, had decided that ballet shoes were what we had to have. Some of the girls resisted, telling her that our regular rubber-soled gym shoes were cheaper and sturdier than ballet shoes, which were not only expensive but so flimsy they would only last a few classes. But such efforts were in vain, and Miss Suad declared with finality, “You girls will simply have to purchase ballet shoes. Any girl who comes without them will be punished.”
I was torn. After the school fees, I did not dare ask my father for ballet shoes. And I was overcome by guilt. If only I had saved the money I frittered away on the cinema and unnecessary purchases, I would at least have been able to contribute toward the cost. There was a small hope that Miss might forget the matter. But she did have her moods the following week, when I turned up in my regular gym shoes and stood at the end of the row, hoping that she would not notice. She said nothing until a few minutes before the end of class; then Miss came up to me and said in a hard voice, “Saleha! Where are your ballet shoes?”
I apologized and said that I had forgotten to bring them. “Bring them next week or you’ll be in serious trouble. Understood?”
I nodded and promised not to forget, but then I showed up next time in my rubber-soled shoes anyway. I was the only girl in class with the wrong shoes. Miss was as good as her word. She pulled me out of the class, stood me in the yard as my classmates continued their exercises and threatened to march me off to the headmistress if I did not bring the ballet shoes to the next class. I felt trapped. Could I simply skip school on Saturdays in order to avoid her class? That would mean missing some other important classes. In the end, I had to tell my mother. She put her arms around me and said, “Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning?”
“I don’t want to be a burden on my father. He has enough to worry about.”
It was the first time I had spoken frankly with my mother, rather than going along with the rosy picture she always painted. She replied in a serious tone, “I’ll tell your father. He’ll manage.”
“I need the ballet shoes before Saturday; otherwise, I won’t be able to go to school!”
“Don’t worry, Saleha. We’ll get them for you, God willing.”
“What do I do if my father doesn’t have the money?”
This last question seemed to weigh heavily on her. She shook her head and left my bedroom looking worried. That evening, the moment I saw my father, he said, “Saleha! I’ll take you to buy the shoes on Friday.”
I looked at him and smiled, but it must have been a somewhat despairing smile, as he added, “Don’t worry. I promise you. We’ll get them on Friday, God willing!”
I tried to speak, but no words came out. I wanted to tell him that if it were not for Miss Suad’s stupid obstinacy I would have given him no more worries. I wanted to apologize for ever having nagged him to buy me little treats in the past, to tell him that I loved him and thank him with all my heart and say I was sorry for all the grief we were causing him. When Friday arrived, I put my prettiest clothes on. I always loved going out alone with my father. I loved holding his hand and walking alongside him in the street. It gave me a sense of security and pride to be protected by my father, and, in turn, I was proud of him. This time, my feelings were a little different. I felt sorry for him, and embarrassed, but at the same time, I was worried about what could happen to me if I did not buy the ballet shoes. The thing I feared most was being made fun of by my classmates when they learned that my father was too poor to buy ballet shoes.
We started looking at the shops on Soliman Pasha Street. Most of them had the right shoes. I looked at my father, and the moment I saw him hesitating in front of a shop window, I said, “This shopkeeper is a thief. Miss Suad told us that the shoes should cost much less than that!”
Miss Suad had mentioned nothing of the sort, but I was trying to save my father from feeling embarrassed. For this purpose, I lied freely without feeling any guilt. I just could not bear to see him admit that he couldn’t afford the shoes. We went into every shop in the street, but the shoes were a fortune in every one. Finally, I said, “These shopkeepers are all thieves. I don’t think you should buy anything from them. I know you could afford to pay double what they cost, but why should we let ourselves be robbed?”
But my father only became more agitated, and I regretted speaking so thoughtlessly. He took my hand and said, “Come on. Let’s go to Sayyida Zeinab. They have the same goods at half the price!”
We went to a shop in front of the mosque and then to another after that, but there were no ballet shoes to be found. At last my father found some blue shoes that looked similar, and he asked me to try them on. I hesitated a little, but when I got them on and they fit, he got up to pay. I did not have the heart to mention that I was supposed to get white ones. He walked over carrying the shoes with a smile, “I know you were supposed to get white shoes, but don’t worry. We’ll fix them!”
I could hardly object. Anything I said at that moment would have shattered him. When we got home, my mother was waiting. Her kind voice had some worry in it when she asked, “Did you get them, then?”
I was carrying the bag with the shoebox. My father boomed, “Thank God! It’s all sorted out now!”
I thanked him again and said I was going to my bedroom. I lay awake for a long time but then fell into a worried, listless sleep. When I woke up with a dreadful headache, my mother handed me the ballet shoes, which had been dyed white.
“Your father, bless him, dyed them after you went to bed. After all, you’ll only be using them for one lesson a week.”
I did not say a word. I tried the dyed shoes on. They looked awful and misshapen. They screamed, “Can’t afford the real thing.” On Saturday, I changed into my gym clothes and tried again to disappear among the other girls. I tried as hard as I could to keep my feet out of sight and thanked God that none of my classmates had noticed them, but just as I was drawing a breath of relief, Miss Suad swooped down like a vulture, “Saleha! Get over here!”
I moved a little toward her, but she gestured for me to come closer. Looking down at my shoes, she said, “Are those ballet shoes dyed?”
9
At ten o’clock in the morning, when the staff arrived at the Club, there would be a clamor of shouts, greetings and guffaws. It was joviality itself, perhaps because they were starting a new day or because they were simply relaxed before having to deal with their supervisors and the club members. They would go up to the changing room on the roof and get into their work clothes—old galabiyyas whose hem they hitched up and tucked in at the waist, showing their long underwear and their undershirts. Then they would fan out through the Club carrying the tools of their trade: brooms, floor rags, dusters and various cleaning liquids. They would start from the top of the building, working their way down, floor by floor. They worked together so efficiently and rhythmically that they might have been doing a Nubian dance. One would call out a snatch of song, or someone else might tell a joke in a loud voice, and they would all burst out in laughter, working without interruption all the while. They emptied all the cigarette and cigar butts into rubbish bags and removed scores of stains from the seats, the tables, the floor and the walls. Each kind of stain had its own specified treatment. Those on the rugs could be removed with cleaning fluid. The dirty tablecloths were gathered together and sent off to the l
aundry, but those with burn marks from cigarettes were thrown away. Sometimes they would find bits of vomit from a customer who had had too much to drink. They would cover it with a thick layer of sawdust, give it a good brushing and wash the spot with carbolic soap. They scoured the place like a team of expert mine sweepers, and they often found something valuable a drinker had left behind: a gold lighter or a diamond earring or sometimes a full wallet. They would hand over any item immediately to the office of the general manager, Mr. Wright. This was not so much out of a sense of moral duty but out of fear. Many of them, if they could have got away with pocketing something, would not have hesitated for an instant.
The cleaning took around two hours. After they had finished, they would all return to the roof, shower in turn and put on their clean and ironed work caftans and receive their instructions for the day according to where they worked in the Club, in the bar, the restaurant or the casino, the cleaning crew thus transformed into the serving staff. The Club opened its doors at one in the afternoon. The first shift ended at eight in the evening, and the second shift went on until the last guest left near dawn. It was hard work at the Club, and it usually left everyone exhausted by the end of their shifts. Not that they went straight home, most typically preferring to spend a little time at the Paradise Café, which had many advantages, being close to the Club, large enough to contain all of them and open twenty-four hours a day. Being frequented by the staff, it became known as the “Servants Café,” a name that Abd el-Basit, the owner, found distasteful and worked hard to stamp out. To any customers not on staff at the Club, he offered a warm welcome, sometimes even free drinks to encourage them to stay longer. He had Ramadan calendars printed with the name Paradise Café on them, as well as regular calendars and greeting cards for the holidays of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr, which he handed out to residents of the area. He had an enormous and expensive illuminated sign reading “Paradise Café” installed above the door at great cost. All these efforts came to nought, however, as the “Servants’ Café” became so well known that, in the end, the owner gave up trying to convince people otherwise. The staff of the Club took great pleasure in spending a little time at the café, with their hot and cold drinks, smoking a nargileh and playing chess, dominoes and cards.