“So you’re against what Abdoun is planning?” the prince asked.
“Yes,” replied Odette.
“I’ve become the most outspoken of the staff,” said Abdoun, “when it comes to demanding their rights. What’s wrong with that?”
“What we need from the staff,” Odette smiled patronizingly, “is for them to serve as a conduit for intelligence on the king, the court and the government.”
Abdoun looked at her incredulously. “The staff of the Club,” he said with feeling, “need to understand that they are respectable people with rights and not just servants of His Majesty.”
“You’re correct in principle, of course, but that is not our immediate objective.”
“I see no contradiction between our plan and raising the consciousness of my colleagues. Very soon I’ll have most of them on our side.”
“As I’ve already said, that is not our immediate objective.”
“Comrade Odette, I don’t understand you. You are in favor of recruiting the cadres in the factories but oppose the recruitment of anyone from the Automobile Club.”
“Yes, because,” she said without a moment’s hesitation, “those in the factories are workers and not servants. There is a difference. If a worker can be correctly politicized, he becomes a real asset, but a servant’s way of thinking is generally so mangled that he is resistant to any change.”
“What you’ve said doesn’t apply to any of my colleagues at the Club.”
“Even if they were recruitable, the time is not right. You have to carry out our plan for the New Year’s Eve party. That’s only two weeks away and the plan will only work if the Club staff are in their accustomed mode of behavior. It’d be a mistake to push them into a confrontation with Alku.”
“A confrontation with Alku is inevitable.”
At this point Odette became agitated. “Now is not the time,” she retorted. “Going off to see Alku will only result in collective punishment. What you are intending would jeopardize the operation we have been planning for weeks. I’ve already had to intervene with James Wright to stop you getting fired from the Club. I can’t do that again.”
“Then don’t.”
“Why are you being so difficult?” Odette shouted in irritation. “I have made myself clear. Your task at the Club is to gather intelligence. Nothing more. Nothing less. Your proposed scheme will put your colleagues under unbearable pressure, and we will all be exposed.”
“What do you think, sir?” Abdoun asked the prince.
“Odette is right. An escalation in tension could have a deleterious effect on our plan.” The prince said nothing for a few moments and then turned to Odette.
“On the other hand, if Abdoun backs down from having his meeting with Alku, he might lose his colleagues’ confidence forever.”
“So what’s to be done?” she said.
No one said anything as the prince weighed all the various considerations.
“We don’t have any choice,” he said. “Abdoun, go and see Alku, but in my capacity as this working party’s coordinator I would ask you not to take such initiatives again without consulting us.”
Then the prince turned to me and chortled, “The first meeting you attend and you have to sit and watch a quarrel! What will you have to say about us now!”
“Only good things!” I said with a smile.
The prince picked up the thread again, “Differences in opinion are natural and usually help us reach the right decision.”
The prince seemed to be the one who always had the final word, followed by Odette, who had a strong personality and wielded some influence over the others. After approximately an hour, the prince said to me, “Before we bring this meeting to an end, I would like to ask that, at our next meeting, you provide us with a two- or three-page analysis of the political situation. The analysis should reflect your opinion of what is happening and your expectations for the new cabinet. You will read it out to us and we’ll discuss it.”
I nodded my agreement, stood up and shook hands with everyone there. They started leaving.
“Wait a moment,” Hasan Mu’min told me. “I’ll go with you.”
It was around nine o’clock, and although the sun was shining, there was a cold edge to the breeze.
“So what do you think of the working party?” Hasan asked.
“I’m glad to be part of it.”
“In a few days’ time,” he said, “we’re going to undertake an operation that will be the talk of all Egypt.”
“Can you tell me anything about it?”
“Our organizational rules prevent me from giving you any information, unfortunately.”
“I’m a member of the organization, like you are.”
“But you haven’t been involved in the planning of this operation, and thus you are not entitled to know the details.”
My disappointment must have been apparent.
“The prince likes and trusts you,” he said, as if trying to console me. “I’m sure he’ll involve you in one of our upcoming operations.”
We reached the tram stop where we would go our separate ways. Hasan gave me a warm hug and said, “Stay strong, young hero! See you at the next meeting.”
I hailed a taxi and sped off to the Automobile Club. I was about half an hour late for my lesson with Mitsy. I rushed up to the top floor, but she was nowhere to be found. I was sure that she must have gotten angry and left. I felt downcast. It had not been my fault that I was late. Could Mitsy not have waited?
I went off to look for Khalil, the office clerk, and accosted him, “Uncle Khalil. Something came up and I arrived a little late for my lesson, but Mitsy has disappeared.”
“In fact, she never came.”
“I hope nothing has happened to her.”
Khalil said nothing, and then the bell rang, and he scuttled off to Mr. Wright’s office. I sat down and lit a cigarette. It was unlike Mitsy not to turn up for her lesson. I could not be the reason. I had never done anything to offend her. After a while, the door opened, and Khalil reappeared. His voice sounded anxious.
“Mr. Wright wishes to see you.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. He just told me that he wanted to see you straightaway.”
I followed two steps behind Khalil. Before he knocked on the office door, he leaned over to me and whispered, “He has been in a bad mood all morning. Be careful, Kamel.”
29
When Mahmud came down from the roof, he felt much better. Fawzy could always dispel his worries and get him to see things differently. As much as he might disagree with Fawzy, he always came round to his opinion. For Mahmud believed that Fawzy knew much more than he did and that he was rarely wrong. So the next day, Mahmud started to carry out Fawzy’s plan to the letter. He went off to visit Rosa and spent a few hours with her, during which he was so rough in bed with her that her shrieks echoed from the bedroom walls. He left her lying there while he took a hot shower. Then he got dressed and sat in the sitting room.
Rosa, having put on her silk dressing gown, came over and joined him there, putting her arms around him and planting little kisses on his forehead, as she asked him in an anxious whisper, “Can you stay the night with me?”
“Sorry, Rosa. I’ve got something I have to finish.”
She hugged him as if trying to squeeze the last few moments of satisfaction from his body before he left.
Mahmud did not respond. He was concentrating on carrying out the plan. Rosa was about to give him a long, deep kiss, but he pushed her away gently, moving away a little and lighting a cigarette. He had a worried look on his face.
“What’s the matter, Mahmud?” Rosa asked him anxiously.
“I’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?”
“As if you need my problems.”
“Please, let me see if I can help you.” Her voice was trembling with a mixture of sympathy and desire.
“You know,” Mahmud said, without looking at h
er or letting her see from his eyes that he was repeating the words Fawzy had taught him, “that I work and give my salary to my family and that I need every piastre. On top of working at the Club, I had a bookkeeping job for a grocer, which gave me a little extra income. Unfortunately, the grocer died two days ago, and his family are going to close down the shop.”
“Is that why you’ve been looking so downcast?” Rosa smiled.
Mahmud looked down and said nothing, so Rosa put her hand on his cheek and whispered softly, “How much did you earn at the grocer’s?”
“A pound a week.”
She got up and went off to her bedroom. When she came back, she slipped a banknote into the breast pocket of his shirt and whispered, “I’ll give you a pound a week. So don’t worry about it.”
According to the plan, Mahmud had been supposed to hesitate and decline the money, but Rosa’s speedy response to his request, his joy at having the pound in his pocket and his feelings of gratitude, all made him throw his arms around her.
“So,” she whispered in his ear, “are you going to spend the night with me?”
At this point he remembered Fawzy’s instructions, and as Mahmud gently pushed her away, he told her, “I can’t tonight.”
Rosa sighed and went with him to the door. Just as he was leaving, she held his face in her hands and said, “Please, if you ever need anything, just tell me.”
“Thank you, Rosa.”
She gave him a peck on the mouth.
“I love you, Mahmud. I wonder if you love me as much.”
He smiled and nodded. Then he gently eased himself out of her embrace and left. Rosa now gave him a pound every Thursday. On the first of the month, when his mother tried to give him some pocket money from his salary, Mahmud resolutely refused to take it.
“Mother,” he told her, “thank God that I’m now starting to earn some decent tips. You can keep my whole salary.”
His mother poured her blessings down on him. The four pounds he was earning from Rosa every month was more than enough to cover the cost of his and Fawzy’s nocturnal excursions. His relationship with Rosa had settled into a fixed routine. Day by day, she became more attached to him and started calling him at the Automobile Club to check that he was all right and to hear his voice. He enjoyed Rosa’s company. After having sex with her, he would tell her all about his life, and she would listen intently, giving him some bits of advice. Mahmud used to tell himself, “Rosa has a lot of life experience. She loves me and wants the best for me. I should learn from her.” Mahmud considered Rosa a kindly and devoted lady friend. He loved her in his own way but not in the way she loved him, and he found it uncomfortable when she tried to get him to say things he did not feel. She kept on telling him that she loved him in the hope that he might reciprocate. He tried and tried to avoid saying it, but her persistence won out, and he sounded like a little child trying to pronounce a difficult word for the first time. He had often thought of being frank with her and telling her that, in spite of their relationship, they were friends and not lovers. He had been on the point of saying it a few times, but at the last moment he always felt sorry for her and kept it to himself.
“I’ve got a problem,” Mahmud told his friend Fawzy during one of their regular sessions on the roof. “Rosa is in love with me and wants me to be in love with her.”
“So be in love with her, chump,” retorted Fawzy taking a drag on his fat spliff.
“I can’t go on with her this way,” Mahmud sighed. “I do like her. She’s a nice, kind lady, but I can’t love her the way she wants me to. Do you see?”
“By the Prophet, you’re useless. What’s all this talk of love, you idiot! Women only want one thing. Just go and see her one time without doing anything with her. Then you’ll see what happens!”
Fawzy’s method of making light of Mahmud’s anxieties always left Mahmud with a feeling of relief. Their chats were akin to a psychoanalysis session, during which Mahmud could get everything off his chest and then face the world again.
His relationship with Rosa had been going on for three months now, and he spent the whole twelve pounds he had earned on his evenings out with Fawzy. Mahmud’s life had fallen into perfect shape now that he was finished forever with the nightmare of school. He was having regular sex and had become a man of means.
One night, Mahmud told Rosa what was going on with Abdoun and Alku at the Automobile Club. She turned serious on him and told him, “Listen, Mahmud. You have got a family and responsibilities. Don’t get involved.”
“But it’s also wrong for Alku to beat us like kids. All right, he’s never beaten me. But if he ever beat me in front of other people, I honestly wouldn’t be able to cope with it.”
“He only does it if someone puts a foot out of place. I mean, as long as you work properly, he’ll never beat you.”
Mahmud appeared perturbed, but Rosa smiled and told him, “Promise me that you won’t get involved.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Rosa was a woman whose motherly instincts were as sincere and gushing as her sexual appetite was visceral and raw. This schizophrenic behavior confused Mahmud to the point where he thought of her as two different women behind the same face. She was lover and mother. The former was only interested in getting satisfied sexually, and the other treated him with sincere kindness in a way that moved him. One night, he went to deliver a dinner order to a German Club member called Madame Dagmar. Mahmud thought her name sounded strange, and Mustafa told him that she had come to Egypt thirty years ago with her German husband and that they had opened the famous Librairie Max in Soliman Pasha Street. Her husband had died two years earlier, and his son and daughter decided to go and live in Germany, leaving Dagmar running the bookshop and living alone in her apartment in Garden City. Mahmud rang the bell and stood waiting at the door with the delivery. The door opened quickly, and there appeared Madame Dagmar. Her smooth and completely white hair was cut in a boyish bob, which, along with her skinny body, gave her a military air. Her metal-framed round spectacles gave her the appearance of a grandmother or a headmistress.
Mahmud took two steps forward, bowed and uttered his usual greeting, “Bonsoir, Madame. Automobile Club.”
She looked him up and down. “Can you take it into the kitchen?” she said in a monotone.
She stepped back and opened the door. Mahmud came in, looking at his feet and stood in the hall.
“The kitchen is through here,” Madame Dagmar said. “Follow me.”
He followed her through the sitting room to the kitchen, and after putting the food parcel on the marble table, he pulled the bill out of his jacket pocket. She paid the bill, leaving him a tip of fifty piastres. He put the banknotes in his pocket and thanked her in a low voice. He suddenly felt confused. The situation was rather strange. Here he was with this German lady, and they were both standing alone together in the kitchen. Why had she asked him to come inside the apartment when the package was so light that she could have managed it herself?
Mahmud smiled, nodded good-bye and turned to leave the kitchen, when Madame Dagmar called out, “Just a moment.”
Mahmud stopped, and Madame Dagmar walked up to him. Then, smiling, she held out a whole pound. “Have it.”
“Oh no, Madame!” he retorted. “It’s too much. You have already given me a tip.”
She reached over and pushed the pound into his breast pocket. He thanked her profusely, but she suddenly came right up to him, and in a lascivious whisper, she said, “I want you.”
The situation had become tricky. Mahmud barely managed to stutter in response, “At your service, Madame.”
She reached out and started feeling up his broad shoulders, then her face froze, and in a serious tone of voice that did not seem quite appropriate for the situation, she told him, “I want you to come and visit me the way you go and visit Rosa Khashab.”
Mahmud blinked. He was speechless. He gave her a worried
look, and all he could think about was how she could possibly have known about his relationship with Rosa. Dagmar was still smiling when she asked him nervously, “So what do you say?”
He had a whole pound in his pocket, which he could use for going out and having fun, but at the same time, the woman was the furthest thing he could imagine from sexually attractive. She had the body of an old soldier. Lank and dried out. No juicy backside or anything up front. Had he not feared her wrath, he might have turned her down, but he was just a delivery boy at the Automobile Club, and she was a rich, foreign lady who could cause him a lot of trouble.
“At your service, Madame,” he said weakly.
“Come and sit down,” she told him affectionately. “We can have dinner together…”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. I have to get back to work.”
She gave him a peeved, almost angry, look. “Then finish work and come back.”
“I finish quite late.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“Could we do it tomorrow?”
“Okay. Tomorrow, finish work and come to me.”
The moment Mahmud got out of her apartment, he heaved a sigh of relief. He needed to think over this bizarre development. He carried on working absentmindedly, and when he got home, he tried to think some more, but it was all too much for him, and he fell into a deep sleep.
The following day, before going to work, he dropped in on Fawzy. It was Aisha who opened the front door, telling him, “You’ve come just at the right time! It’s one o’clock, and your friend doesn’t want to wake up.”
Mahmud went in and had to smile when he saw Fawzy in his pajamas, snoring away. He woke him and waited while he took a shower. Fawzy came back from the bathroom, towel around his neck, his hair dripping. They drank tea, and as Mahmud told him what had gone on with Dagmar, Fawzy worked his way through a number of bean and egg sandwiches with pickled cucumbers. When he had finished, he lit a cigarette.