Was Alku so unreasonable for wanting an increase in the bonus? He always watched his managers very closely, and his ubiquitous spies fed him daily reports. He knew exactly how much money they were creaming off from the Club, which is why he set the bonus on a sliding scale rather than at a fixed amount. Hence, the amount of the bonus had been carefully calculated, and, after all, there were no exceptions or favoritism. Receiving the bonus always prompted Alku to go on an inspection spree, after which he would harshly rebuke the managers and have their subordinates flogged for the slightest error, all this just to remind them that payment of the bonus would neither absolve them of their responsibilities toward him nor inspire any laxity in his review of their accounts.
That was how Alku had lorded it over the staff for the last twenty years—eagle-eyed and ironfisted. There is, however, usually a gap in even the most foolproof systems.
One morning, Mr. Wright called Alku and asked him to come to his office. Alku demurred, saying he could not leave the palace before seeing to the affairs of His Majesty, who never arose before the afternoon, but Wright’s insistence worried Alku, so he went to see him. Wright greeted him curtly, lit his pipe and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, and then said, “Listen. Tomorrow a lad called Abdoun is coming to see you. Put him in the school until he learns service, and then he will work for us in the Club…”
It was an order. There was nothing to discuss, so Alku bowed and said, “A vos ordres!”
Mr. Wright said nothing more and started reading again as a signal that the meeting was over. Alku asked him whether there was anything else he might do for him. Wright shook his head without raising his eyes from the book. Alku left the office astonished. James Wright, the English general manager who treated Egyptians like muck, was now intervening personally to appoint a waiter! Alku ordered his ubiquitous spies to get to the bottom of this, and a few hours later he received a report. Abdoun was the son of the doorman of the Lycée where James Wright’s lover, Odette Fattal, taught. Alku smiled and muttered to himself, “Cherchez la femme!”
The following day, Abdoun came for an interview with Alku. He was a sinewy boy with a mocha complexion. Tall and polite. He had wide, dreamy eyes, and his pleasant smile revealed pearly white teeth. He was so handsome that Alku detected on his assistant Hameed’s part nervous tension as he brought the lad into his office. Alku gave Abdoun a cold, sullen look and said, “Mr. Wright’s intervention on your behalf has clinched the matter, but you should know that there are thousands who dream of getting a job at the Automobile Club. If you show you can work hard, we will take you on.”
“I shall do my utmost.”
“First, you will go to our school so that we can see how much training you’ll need.”
Abdoun smiled and said, “I hope to live up to your expectations.”
The boy seemed polite enough, but he left Alku feeling slightly uneasy. In all his sixty years, and having dealt with hundreds of servants, Alku had hardly ever erred in appraising a new servant. This Abdoun was clever, he acted politely and appeared eager, but there was something unsettling Alku could not put his finger on. He had a recalcitrant edge to his voice and was hiding something. Alku gave orders for a background check and discovered that his record was completely clean. Abdoun made good progress at the school, passing all the tests without any of the usual beginner’s mistakes, and after just two months, he could execute the royal protocol so skillfully that he reminded Alku of his own younger self. All that should have left Alku feeling content, but something kept nagging him and he said to himself, “I’ve got a strange feeling about that lad.”
Alku decided to implicate Abdoun in some misdemeanor that would lead to his dismissal, so he appointed him assistant barman. Bar work, for a new employee, was very risky. The most important personages in Egypt frequented the bar, and one slipup with them could be catastrophic. Moreover, one had to be very sensitive when serving the inebriated, because alcohol made people both fickle and tetchy. Weeks passed without Alku hearing about any issues with Abdoun, and when he asked Bahr about him, the barman only sang the boy’s praises. This astonished Alku because Bahr took immense pride in his work, and his assistants hardly ever lived up to his expectations. Abdoun’s presence continued to gnaw away at Alku, who finally decided to go on the attack. He went off to see Mr. Wright.
Standing in front of the Englishman, he feigned confusion and hesitancy to speak. Wright asked him to spit it out, but Alku stuttered as if from the awkwardness of a bad situation. “Mr. Wright, please do not be angry with me.”
“For heaven’s sake, what is it you want?”
“That lad Abdoun keeps making mistakes.”
“He’ll learn,” Wright answered peremptorily.
Alku sighed, “I have tried and tried to teach him, but to my chagrin it has no effect.”
“What are you driving at?”
Alku now had his goal in sight and so he took his shot. “In all honesty,” he muttered, “that lad Abdoun is not fit for service. I could find him another job outside the Club at a better salary.”
Wright shook his head and said, “No, he stays with us at the Club.”
Alku tried to object, but Mr. Wright had returned to his paper, signaling the discussion was over.
Giving Mr. Wright a look of disbelief, Alku bowed, turned and walked out.
10
Some things in life seem so natural that it is difficult to imagine when they began. Such was the intense friendship between the two strapping young men, Mahmud, son of Hagg Abd el-Aziz Gaafar, and Fawzy, son of Ali Hamama the grocer. But in fact there was every reason why they should get on with each other: their age—Mahmud was just a few months older than Fawzy; they lived in the same building in al-Sadd al-Gawany Street; and they were both in their third year at the Abd el-Latif college. Beyond all that, they had an identical outlook on life. Fawzy and Mahmud were both convinced that studying was a waste of time.
Fawzy would ask his friend, “Can you tell me what use are all those trivial facts that they try to cram into our brains?”
“Yeah. It’s just a load of old nonsense.”
Fawzy, the more excitable, would work himself into a lather and ask, “Take calculus. If all those complicated equations don’t help us with simple calculations, then why do we have to study it at all?”
At this point, Mahmud assumed a look of forbearance and mused calmly, “Anyway, calculus is a piece of cake compared to geography, with all those tedious maps and crops and precipitations. God alone knows why we should have to know the varieties of crops grown on Sumatra! We live in Egypt and we’re never even going there!”
According to the boys’ way of looking at things, school was simply a place set up to torment you. Whoever said that success in life depends on success in school? There were lots of wealthy and successful men who had never gone to school, whereas some spent long years studying and then could not find a job. In addition to their dislike of studying, the boys shared four hobbies. First, cutting class—they had thought up many tricks for getting out of school, from jumping over the wall to bribing the doorman, old Shazli, with cigarettes to unlock the gate for them after the first lesson. Second, playing soccer on the “triangle,” a patch of empty ground in front of the Rimali Mill in Sayyida Zeinab. Third, chatting up girls, going out with them and trying to snatch a cuddle or a kiss. Fourth: weight lifting, on which they spent all their free time trying to bulk up their bodies.
That life was secret, their real life, far from the stupidity and boredom of school. Fawzy could still remember how they’d become friends. One day, he had cut class as usual and gone to play soccer on the triangle. Having left his books on the pavement, he was dribbling a bit on his own to warm up for the game. Then the ebony-skinned, svelte and muscular Mahmud suddenly appeared. In that first time the two played football together, as a result of some well-judged passes from Fawzy, Mahmud scored two out of their side’s four goals. At their victory celebrations, everyone stood around drinking ice
d soda paid for by the losers. As Mahmud was happily sipping his bottle of Sinalco Orange, with a satisfied and grateful look that said, “I wish that I could drink it all the time,” Fawzy walked over and introduced himself. They exchanged a hearty handshake and eyed each other slowly up and down like a pair of animals sniffing each other. Then Fawzy cried out, “Well done, Captain Mahmud! A great match. You were great on the attack. And those killer strikes!”
“May God keep you, Captain Fawzy. Thanks!”
Fawzy took a step closer to Mahmud and said, “Looks like you do a lot of lifting.”
“As much as I can.”
Fawzy reached out and felt his musculature, commenting admiringly, “Great shoulders and traps!”
“Well, I’ve been working on them a lot. God knows!”
“I’ve been trying forever but with no results. I just end up tired and then I stop.”
A serious look came over Mahmud’s face, and he offered to help Fawzy. That same day, Fawzy visited Mahmud at home for the first time. He greeted Mahmud’s mother, Umm Said, and kissed her hand, and then Mahmud took him off to his bedroom at the far end of the large apartment for his first lesson in how to put on some muscle. Mahmud pulled two- and five-kilo dumbbells out from under his bed, with which he demonstrated a few exercises that Fawzy tried. Next, Mahmud lay flat on the floor and disappeared under the bed, and when he reappeared he was dragging something Fawzy had never seen before: one of those big sturdy wooden poles like the one peasants used for stirring the laundry; at either end were attached two identical cans labeled “Authentic Sultan Ghee.”
Fawzy looked astonished, but Mahmud chuckled and said, “Well, real metal weights are expensive. I made these myself.”
“How?”
“Simple. Just get a heavy wash pole and two empty cans full of cement when it sets. You’ll have a perfect set of barbells. Just watch!”
Mahmud dipped his hands into the round tin of talcum powder under the bed and got himself into position. With his feet together and his back straight, he took a few deep breaths and then gracefully leaned over, gripping the pole with both hands. He stayed in that position for a few seconds as he focused himself, before letting out a loud cry, “By the strength of God, let me do it, O mother of miracles!” In one movement he snatched the weights and held them above his head for a few seconds as his face reddened and his arms and neck bulged. Fawzy clapped and cheered, “Bravo, Mahmud. You’re really something!”
Mahmud lowered the weights to the ground and let out such a loud roar of victory that Umm Said came rushing in to see what the matter was, but Mahmud simply asked her if she would bring them some mint tea with lots of qaraqeesh and cheese. Mahmud promised to give Fawzy a training session at least twice a week, and soon the results of organized and proper weight lifting started to show. Fawzy’s biceps got bigger and his abdominals became tighter. After that, the two lads became inseparable, doing everything together. They would meet in front of the school gate in the morning, then slip away to a café far enough from school to be safe, and they would sip tea with milk and smoke a nargileh, trying to decide whether they should see a film, take the tram to the zoo and try to chat up some schoolgirls or just play some soccer on the triangle. They even tried to convince their respective families to let them do their homework together. Aisha agreed immediately, but Umm Said said she would not allow it.
“Listen, son. You are supposed to study with clever people so that you can learn from them. So why on earth would you study with that Fawzy? You’re both terrible students!”
Mahmud, however, would not relent, and he whittled away at his mother’s resistance. The two boys started doing their homework together every evening, preparing for their sessions as if for a party or the opera. First a long, hot bath, followed by a careful shave. Then they would slather moisturizing lotion on their bodies. With the aid of hair cream, they would comb their hair into a neat part, before dressing and dousing themselves with cologne. Naturally, all these preparations took quite a while. At whoever’s flat they met in, they would greet each other as if he were returning from a long trip. Then they would prepare the theater of their drama. First they would check that the floor was spotless, sweeping it if they found even a speck of dust. Removing the clean, ironed cloth from the table, they would check the glass top underneath it for any spots.
One might ask at this point why bother over a few flecks of dust on the floor or a small spot smudged on the tabletop that was covered anyway? What had any of it to do with their homework? In truth, it went against their meticulous nature to overlook these minutiae over which they might spend a whole hour. Then they would sit down facing each other, open their books and get on with their homework. It would generally only take a few minutes for Mahmud to mutter in disgust, “Oh God, my pencil has gone all scratchy!”
At this, Fawzy would stop reading and take the pencil from his friend to check the extent of the problem. Then he would smile and say, “Don’t worry, boss! I’ll sharpen it for you.”
Some might think it is a piece of cake to sharpen a lead pencil, but they could not be more mistaken. Sharpening a lead pencil to get the point just right is a fine art requiring concentration and expertise. Proof of this is the fact that Fawzy Hamama, for all his sharpening powers, often gave the pencil one twist too many in the sharpener, and the worst would happen: the slight cracking sound of the point breaking off. Fawzy would start all over again, while Mahmud sharpened another pencil. The boys would sit there working away until they had a good supply of finely sharpened pencils. After completing this task, which naturally took a good a bit of time, they would set about their homework again, but then, no matter whose apartment they were in, the host felt it his duty to ask the guest whether he would like to eat or drink anything. These were the inviolable rules of etiquette. The requests were usually manifold and very specific: a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich, a plate of mashed fava beans served with spices or fried eggs with pepper and cumin. That would be followed by cups of mint, delicious salep or fenugreek tea, which is known the world over for its excellent nutritional value. The host would go and prepare the food himself, but as a matter of form, the guest would go with him to keep him entertained. And so between sharpening pencils, polishing the glass tabletop, making food and wolfing it down, not to mention trying to come up with yet another new exercise for their shoulders and thighs, evenings spent doing homework passed this way. It should have come as no surprise when they got their marks at year’s end that both of them had to repeat that year for the second time in a row. They were not particularly bothered by this, though they resented it when their parents cut off their pocket money for a few weeks as punishment. Fortunately, they had already put some aside for emergencies and survived on it until the sentence was served.
That winter, as the two friends were sitting the same classes for the third time, they hatched a brilliant new plan. They would meet in the early morning and each down a glass of buttermilk, before a hearty breakfast: plate after plate of fava beans, fried liver and eggs, this in order to gain the necessary energy. Afterward, they would go down onto the street in the cold, in short sleeves with the top buttons open. They would head for the Huda Shaarawy Girls School, where—as they stood with their bulging muscles and open-necked shirts showing off their thick tufts of chest chair, another blessing that God had granted them—the sight of them would arouse the curiosity of the girls, who, wrapped up in their pullovers against the cold, would chirrup excitedly and flock around them.
One of the girls would call out, “Look at that! They’re wearing short sleeves in the middle of winter!”
Fawzy would turn to her and shrug, “What of it?”
“What of it? It’s freezing out here.”
At that point, Fawzy would puff himself up like a bird and say, “Fortunately, God made us tough.”
During these morning struts, they got to know two pretty girls in particular: Nawal and Soraya. They even managed some snogging with them in the b
ack row of the upper circle during the morning show at Cinema al-Sharq. It was typical that the two friends passed their days in utter contentment. In fact, they were simply confirming the old adage which says that a man’s happiness comes from within. They took things as they came, unperturbed by what might bother other people. They were totally at ease, precisely because their priorities in life were different from those of the rest of mankind. A muscle that did not respond to training, a girl that turned up late for a date at the cinema, a soccer match lost on the triangle or even a zit one might get on his face—such were the matters that occupied their minds, whereas other benighted souls thought about getting good marks at school.
One week, Fawzy, the brains of the duo, asked his friend, “Mahmud! Have you forgotten our kushari bet?”
From time to time they would wager to see who could eat more kushari—a dish of rice, lentils, onions and tomato sauce. They would go to the kushari café in Tram Street and gobble their way through plate after plate until one of them gave up. A winner would be declared, and the loser, as per their bet, had to pay the bill.
Mahmud smiled and said, “Of course I haven’t forgotten. It’s always such fun!”
“Do you know that guy Sidqi al-Zalbani?”
“Yeah. I know him.”
Al-Zalbani had been a classmate of theirs at the Ali Abd el-Latif School, but he had managed to move ahead and get a place at the Ibrahimiya Secondary School. Fawzy continued, “I’ve set a date with Sidqi al-Zalbani. Next Friday, please God, after prayers. The three of us are going to the kushari café to see who can eat the most. The loser will pay not only for the lot, but he’ll have to give a pound to each of the others. Don’t you think it’s a great idea?”
The torrent of information overwhelmed Mahmud, who could only take things in slowly. A platitudinous smile froze on his dark face as he looked inquiringly at Fawzy, who went over the plan again more slowly this time: Sidqi was the son of Muhammad al-Zalbani, owner of the famous Zalbani Sweet Factory, who had heaps of money. The two friends would easily beat Sidqi in the kushari competition, not only getting to eat a huge amount free of charge but getting paid a pound each to do it.