So I woke up at six o’clock the next day and told my mother I had an early lecture before work. I took a taxi from the square, and when we reached Garden City, I got out on the Corniche to prevent the driver from knowing my destination. I continued on foot to the prince’s palace but got lost in the winding streets of Garden City, which all looked alike. I walked past a uniformed guard on the street and was about to ask him where the palace was, when I remembered that the prince was intent on keeping the visit a secret. So I asked him, “Excuse me. Do you know Aisha al-Taymouriya Street?”
He eyed me suspiciously but then gave me directions. Finally, I saw the palace, and when I rushed over, I found the prince standing outside. He shook my hand as I panted and, since it was quarter past seven, gave me an accusatory look.
“I’m sorry for being late,” I spluttered. “But I got a bit lost.”
He laughed and answered, “Ce n’est pas un début encourageant. Viens.”
He made a gesture, and I followed him. After walking along the outside wall, we entered through a small iron gate into the garden, down a few steps, where he produced a key to open another door. To my astonishment, he locked the door behind us. It was a small underground apartment, which must have been for a chauffeur or some servants. I followed the prince further inside, crossing the small living room and down a long, dark, narrow corridor. Finally, we came out into a large, bright room, and what I saw was stranger than anything I could have expected.
SALEHA
For as long as I have been aware of the world, I cannot remember my brother Said ever being nice to me. I have no memory of him playing with me as a child, buying me a toy or taking me out to play. He was always a source of worry and aggravation. I did love him, but I have to be honest and say that I resented his presence at home and tried to avoid him. I would go to my bedroom and lock the door. So I felt relieved when he married Fayeqa and moved to Tanta, since we no longer had to deal with his problems and, for the first time, could enjoy a placid family life.
During his first visit home as a married man, Said had offered to help my mother out with some money, but she turned down the offer. The next day, as we were sipping our tea, I asked her, “Why did you refuse the money from Said?”
She thought awhile about how to answer. “Your brother is now responsible for his own family,” she told me, avoiding my gaze. “May God provide him support.”
“Said only has his wife to support. He ought to give you something as Kamel and Mahmud do.”
“Well, he offered to, and I refused.”
“Had he really wanted to help, he wouldn’t have asked.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t think the worse of him.”
“You yourself said that Said is selfish. So why are you defending him now?”
“When you are married and have children,” she smiled and said dolefully, “you’ll understand. A mother loves her children unconditionally. However they wrong her, she’ll carry on loving them.”
There was something in her tone that made me fall silent. She sipped her tea and said quietly, “May God guide and help him.”
Said’s wife, Fayeqa, was just as irritating as he was. Her mere presence in our home riled me. I did not like her and knew that she had no use for me or my mother. Fayeqa loved no one except herself. All her altruism after the death of my father had been devised to snare a husband, no more and no less. The moment she achieved her aim and married Said, her true nature emerged, and she started to treat my mother and me as rivals for her husband’s love. Each time before Said and Fayeqa came to visit, my mother and I would work our fingers to the bone preparing a spread for Fayeqa to sneer at with her usual condescension. She was obviously trying to show her husband that she was the better cook or else she meant to provoke an argument and cast herself as the victim. My mother would listen to Fayeqa’s comments and give an embarrassed smile, but I could hardly contain my anger.
One time, when Fayeqa mentioned that the okra needed a bit more salt, I responded, “If you think so little of our cooking, you might come and help us in the kitchen with your superior knowledge.”
Fayeqa was taken aback. She beat her hand on her chest and sobbed. “Oh good Lord. I didn’t mean to offend. I’d rather cut out my own tongue than say anything to upset you or my mother-in-law.”
But even as she was apologizing, she put on that dreadful cloying voice and flounced around. Just like her mother, she had no sense of decency. She would play the temptress with her husband in front of everyone, as if we weren’t there, as if to show my mother that “the son you devoted your life to raising is no longer yours but now belongs to me alone, and with the ring on my finger, I can control him.”
Another time, my mother and I were sitting with Fayeqa on the balcony, when she suddenly started up petulantly, “Mother-in-law, I want to complain to you about something.”
“I hope it’s nothing awful.”
Fayeqa ran her hands through her hair, sighed and continued, “Your son Said won’t leave me alone. I’d like to be able to do my hair, you know. I have to take a shower twice a day. Each time I tell him, ‘Just let me have a break, Said,’ and he implores me. Really, I’m getting exhausted, but what choice do I have?”
Fayeqa let out a cackle. And after an embarrassed silence, my mother quickly replied, “Listen, my girl, those are matters for you and your husband. You shouldn’t be talking about them to anyone, not even your relatives. Saleha, please go and make us some tea.”
My mother was trying to spare me. I went to the kitchen furious with Fayeqa. All this talk about her sex life made her sound like a slut. It was hardly surprising considering that she was Aisha’s daughter, but I felt she was sending me a message. She was a year older than I was, but we were different. Whereas her mother had brought her up to get married, my father had encouraged me to get an education. I felt that she was jealous of my success at school and wanted me to see a husband was much more important than an education.
Fayeqa and Said’s visits were always marked by these little provocations and irritations. Their visit that day had been suspicious, with Said calling my mother to tell her that he was coming with his wife. We had been surprised that Fayeqa would make the trip in the first months of her pregnancy. After eating the mulukhiya with rabbit, which they had requested, Said went off to the sitting room with my mother, and I heard my mother’s raised voice, with Kamel soon joining in and shouting too. Fayeqa was sitting outside the room, her head down, listening. I was used to these arguments, and as I had an examination the next day, I shut myself in my bedroom and studied until I could do no more. Then I made my ablutions, said my evening prayers and climbed into bed.
In the morning, my mother looked exhausted and tense. I did not ask her what had happened because I wanted to keep my mind clear for the examination. When I got back from school, I was able to report that I had got top marks. My mother gave me a kiss and then sat me down beside her. I could tell that she was still on edge.
“Said, your brother,” she said with a smile, “has found a husband for you.”
“A husband?”
The word sounded so strange.
“Who is it?” I asked mechanically.
“He’s a camel merchant called Abd el-Barr from Kom Ombo. He’s forty. Very well off. He has already been married, but his wife was barren so he divorced her.”
I did not know what to say. The surprise was too much for me to take in. My mother sighed and asked me quietly, “What do you think?”
“What does Kamel think?”
“Kamel insists that you finish your studies.”
“Then we should do as he says.”
“We need to think on it very carefully, Saleha. The worst thing is to rush into a decision on a matter like this.”
That night I lay in bed and shut my eyes, but sleep did not come. I thought about what my mother had said. I knew that I was pretty. I always felt proud when I looked at my naked body in the bathroom. I considered myself well proportion
ed and attractive, not to mention the smooth black hair and the green eyes that I inherited from my grandmother. Enamored as I was with my own looks, I had not thought about marriage at all. It just had not occurred to me. Marriage was for me a faint notion, something that happened to other people. Of course, like all other girls I did hope one day to have a home and a husband and children, but I always dreamed of other things before marriage. I had always imagined my life to be a series of hurdles that I would overcome one by one until I finally became a university instructor, my father’s dream for me. I could still hear his words: “Saleha, God gave you and Kamel to us to make up for the useless Mahmud and Said. Be strong. I want you to be first always.”
Now I found myself pushed in another direction. The word “bride” kept echoing in my head. “Saleha, the bride.” For the first time, I felt myself a seriously, and respectably, desired woman. It was different from what I felt when men gave me lascivious looks. In spite of dressing modestly, it sometimes seemed that they could see right through my clothes, and I felt cheapened by that. Now I was happy at the thought of being a bride, quite apart from the idea of marriage itself. That a man should ask for my hand meant that he had chosen me above all other girls and was willing to spend hundreds of pounds to make me his wife and the mother of his children. That thought alone made me happy and stirred my imagination. I took out a pile of magazines I had borrowed from Kamel, The Illustrated, The Studio and The World of Art. I spread them out on the bed and looked at the photographs of the actresses, imagining that I was as beautiful as they were, that I was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress or a white silk outfit and an elegant black hat with a veil over my face. I could see myself wearing all those fashions, with a handsome young man who looked like the actor Anwar Wagdi or the singer Farid al-Atrash drawing close to me, bending over to kiss my hand and ask for a dance. Everyone would stop to watch us and the other dancers making way and forming a circle around us. At the end of the night, the young man would ask me to spend my life with him in a small house with a garden on top of a small hill, undisturbed by anyone. As I gave myself over to such daydreams, I knew that even if I were to turn down the offer from Abd el-Barr I would always be grateful for his expression of such admiration and respect in asking for me to be his wife and bear his children according to our religion and customs.
The morning call to prayer sounded as I lay in bed. I heard my mother going to the bathroom, making her ablutions and whispering her prayers. After a little while, she came into my bedroom. She gave me an anxious look and asked, “Are you awake?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
She sat down on the bed and looked at me. Then with a sigh she asked, “Have you thought about Abd el-Barr? Said is nagging me, and I just don’t know what to do.”
“Mother,” I answered in a state, “we have to listen to what Kamel says because he has our best interests at heart. Said is only out for himself.”
My mother seemed about to object but she did not.
“All right,” she said as she got off the bed. “Try to get forty winks before you have to get up for school.”
After she left the room, I had a worrying thought. Why was Said bringing his pregnant wife from Tanta specifically to plead on behalf of a suitor? Why was he pressuring my mother for a speedy decision? Had he suddenly become so interested in my future? Perhaps it was merely that he could not bear it that his younger sister was going to university when he had not even got his school certificate.
When I saw Kamel, he looked at me and said solemnly, “Saleha, the worst thing you could do would be to give up school to get married. You have to finish your studies.”
I nodded. He smiled and continued, “I am certain that you will make the right decision.”
The next Friday, Said and Fayeqa arrived for their visit. This time Said was taciturn and brooding as if spoiling for a fight. Fayeqa, on the other hand, was as sweet as could be, which only increased my suspicions. After lunch Said went out to do an errand, leaving Fayeqa at home with my mother. They sat together on the balcony for around an hour, during which time they could not stop whispering.
In the evening Said and his wife went back to Tanta, and my mother came into my bedroom and sat down next to me, hugged me and asked me, “Do you want to hear some good news?”
“Of course!”
“Your intended, Abd el-Barr, is going into business with Said, a textile factory. Abd el-Barr will provide the funding, and Said will manage it in return for half of the profits.”
“So Said wants me to marry him for that reason. I knew he was only out for himself.”
“If Said didn’t believe that Abd el-Barr was a decent man, he wouldn’t go into partnership with him.”
“A man with money can find scores of people like Said, but it would be difficult for Said to find someone to fund a factory for him.”
“You speak about your brother as if you really dislike him.”
“I resent his behavior.”
“Anyway, have you thought about the marriage proposal?”
“I have decided to finish my studies.”
“Oh, Saleha, you’re a girl. However much you study, your fate is to get married, and Abd el-Barr is a respectable man who can offer you a comfortable life.”
“It seems that Fayeqa has managed to win you over.”
My mother seemed troubled, and her voice shook as she spoke.
“I wish she had won me over. I’m tired of all this thinking. I’m afraid of giving my agreement and wronging you, but I’m also afraid of turning him down and then having regrets.”
“I won’t have any.”
My mother said nothing for a while, as if not wanting to quarrel with me.
“In any case, I agreed with Said that we will invite Abd el-Barr for lunch next Friday. Let’s at least see what he’s like before we make a decision.”
27
When Mahmud got home, he seemed a little out of sorts. He greeted his mother and kissed her hand.
“Should I get your dinner?” she asked him.
“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten with some friends. Good night.”
As he walked down the hallway, he had the same feeling he had as a child when his father took him to the cinema for the first time. A feeling of sheer astonishment at a dazzling world full of animation and color that he had never even imagined. In the heavy silence of his bedroom, he undressed, put his pajamas on and threw himself on his bed, where he lay looking at the ceiling and thinking about how baffling it had all been. That was the last thing he would have expected. Good Lord. Had it really happened?
Madame Khashab, whom he now called Rosa, had been going about her business quite normally, in a motherly way. She had kissed him good-bye on his cheeks, as she had often done before, but suddenly she pressed herself against him and kissed him on the mouth. Mahmud was not completely devoid of experience, having kissed a fair number of girls in the gloom of Cinema al-Sharq, but the way Rosa kissed was different. She pressed her lips and tongue against his and lingered, sliding around in his arms and letting him feel the heat of her body. Then she shut the front door of the apartment with one hand as she pushed him inside. He tried to resist, but she started groping him, getting him more excited than he had ever been in his life. She had not given him the chance to say no. She pulled him into the bedroom, gently pushed him down onto the bed and started kissing him ravenously, stroking his arms and shoulders and massaging the thick thatch of hair on his chest.
“You’re so beautiful, Mahmud,” was all she could whisper, her breathing become shallow. “So beautiful.”
At some point, Mahmud’s vision had become blurry, and he could no longer make anything out. Rosa had led him along the tender paths of delight, swimming in deep waters familiar to her but which he was entering for the first time. She whispered instructions into his ear and apparently climaxed three times before he did. The two of them lay there naked, subsumed in the deep silence, that existential, visceral and postcoital my
stery. Mahmud was like a man bewitched, unable to decide if it had all really happened. How had Madame Khashab gone from the decent lady whom he treated like his mother into a naked woman who could excite him as much as the women in the blue magazines he used to swap secretly with his school friends? He was also perplexed by the intensity of the sexual experience, which had been so searing and explosive, nothing at all like the frenetic orgasms he had while fumbling with girls in the gloom of the cinema. Rosa lay there next to him, and after a while she opened her blue eyes and seemed to be looking at him with pure gratitude. Her face was blushed as she whispered, “Can I hold you?”
“Yes.”
She slid her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. Mahmud looked down at her naked body and saw how raddled it was. Her neck was deeply lined, her heavy breasts sagged pendulously to the side and there were liver spots all over her flabby skin.
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” she asked as if reading his mind and wanting reassurance.
“Of course.”
Rosa planted a kiss on his neck, smiled sadly and looked up at the ceiling.
“No, Mahmud. I used to be beautiful. I’m old now. You’re young, and you must know many prettier women.”