The Automobile Club of Egypt

  The little show that Fawzy put on for Tafida made Mahmud cringe, and he could neither talk nor eat with any appetite. He would have to wait at least an hour for Fawzy to reemerge from the bedroom. He disliked sitting there with nothing to do, but he knew he could not get up and leave. Sometimes, Tafida’s lovemaking screams would reach his ears and make him angry for some reason he could not understand. He would go out onto the balcony to look at the cars and pedestrians down below. The time would pass slowly, but finally, Fawzy would appear again, showered and with his clothes back on.

  “Come on, Mahmud. We’ll be off now!” he would announce proudly.

  Fawzy got his two pounds. Then he started choosing items he wanted from her apartment. If he liked something, instead of stealing it, he would place it on the table in the sitting room. After getting his two pounds and carefully putting the banknotes away in his wallet, just as his father did with his earnings from the grocery, Fawzy would pick up the item he had chosen and state casually, “Tafida, I’m taking this.”

  She did not dare to say a word. She would nod and smile and then cast a long glance at the item, as if to say farewell. Fawzy’s plunder included: a perfume bottle, an electric razor, a pocket torch and a bottle of whiskey. Fawzy was earning eight pounds a month from Tafida, not to mention his booty, but he kept all the money for himself rather than sharing it with Mahmud.

  “Fawzy! Where’s the money you get from Tafida?” Mahmud would ask angrily.

  “In a safe place.”

  “Whatever I get from Rosa and Dagmar, I share it with you immediately, but you stash away your take. You’re just selfish, Fawzy.”

  “Mr. Mahmud! What a thing to say!” Fawzy said quietly as he looked at his friend. “I’m like your brother, and what’s mine is yours. I’ve put the money in a post office account. You never know what might happen. If we need something, we’ve always got a reserve.”

  Mahmud was not convinced and felt hurt, but he said nothing more about it and changed the subject. He was not capable of arguing with Fawzy long enough to resolve any matter. Fawzy was his teacher, one who guided and protected him. A soldier could not reproach his commanding officer! The most you could do was offer a comment, but if the officer disagreed, that would be the end of the matter. Mahmud needed Fawzy, and besides, he enjoyed his company. The two of them were living large. Nights out, money, girls. Every pleasure you could think of. The only thing that ruined Mahmud’s happiness was having to go to Tafida’s apartment with Fawzy. Every week, Fawzy would nag him until he gave in and went along.

  The previous time, Mahmud had refused and tried to put his foot down, saying, “Fawzy, I’m not going.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re just going there to sleep with her, so why do I have to go?”

  “Listen. I want you there. What do you have to lose? You eat and drink for free. What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “So, when your friend needs you, you give up on him. Is that what you call being a man?”

  “I’d never give up on you, but I’m not going to Tafida’s.”

  Fawzy tried to get him to change his mind, but whenever Mahmud recalled his embarrassment at sitting in the sitting room while Fawzy was banging away at Tafida, he just became angrier. After much haranguing, Fawzy was still having no luck, so he threw his last card down on the table. “All right, Mahmud. You don’t need to come to Tafida’s ever again. But please, just come tonight, for the last time. Tafida’s got a surprise for us.”

  “What surprise?”

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise!”

  Mahmud still appeared hesitant, but Fawzy promised him that it would be worth his while. Tafida had gone to great lengths to try to prepare them a nice surprise, and it would be wrong for Mahmud to cancel. So he should go this time. When the two friends went to Tafida’s apartment that evening, the visit proceeded along the usual lines. Tafida offered them a bottle of wine, stuffed vegetables and vine leaves and two roast chickens, one of which Fawzy ate all by himself. Then Fawzy went off to the bathroom and came back wearing the dressing gown over his naked body.

  “How are you?” he asked Tafida playfully.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Then get on with it.”

  Tafida jumped up from her armchair and went into another room as Fawzy smiled mysteriously at Mahmud. After a while, Tafida appeared again in the middle of the hallway.

  “Ready?” she called out mischievously.

  “You can come in now!” Fawzy replied theatrically.

  Mahmud started to feel worried that something strange was about to happen. He turned to ask Fawzy what was going on, but the lights suddenly went off, and they were plunged into total darkness.

  SALEHA

  I woke up late and took a hot shower, emerging refreshed. I brushed my hair, put on my housedress and went to the kitchen, but my mother was not there. As I looked for her, I noticed that the sitting room door was open, which was unusual. Walking over to it, I beheld a strange sight: my mother was sitting there with a foreign girl. The moment my mother saw me, she rushed over and pulled me by the hand back into the hallway.

  “The daughter of a foreigner, the general manager of the Automobile Club, is staying with us,” she said softly.

  “What does she want?”

  “She’s had an argument with her father and left home.”

  “What’s it got to do with us?”

  “Kamel brought her here. He wants her to stay with us until she can find her own place,” my mother said, smiling meaningfully. The mere mention of Kamel’s name was enough to make me accept anything.

  “If that’s what Kamel wants, it’s all right with me.”

  “She’ll be sleeping in your bedroom. I’ll make up a bed next to yours.”

  I was immediately taken with what seemed like an exciting adventure.

  “What’s her name?” I asked.

  “Mitsy. Come along. I’ll introduce you.”

  Mitsy jumped up and smiled.

  “Are you Saleha? Lovely to meet you. Kamel has told me so much about you.”

  “And you speak Arabic!”

  “Your brother has been teaching me.”

  The way she pronounced the consonants was childish and sweet. We had some tea and ate breakfast. Mitsy insisted on helping my mother and me in the kitchen. I lent her one of my galabiyyas, and she looked so funny wearing an Egyptian housedress, holding the ladle and listening as I explained how to stir the okra stew. When Kamel appeared, the four of us sat down to eat. We all chatted during the meal, but I felt a sort of silent understanding between Kamel and Mitsy. After lunch, my mother went with Kamel and Mitsy into the sitting room. I tried to call her away so that they could be alone, but she insisted on staying until Kamel went off to study in his bedroom. By the end of the day, I felt completely delighted with what had happened. I told myself that God had sent Mitsy to bring me out of my misery. I sat with her and my mother, who was explaining our circumstances. Mitsy spoke of her love for theater and how much Kamel’s lessons had helped her. She spoke of Kamel with enthusiasm and admiration. At the end of our chat, my mother kissed her and said, “I want you to feel at home here, among your family.”

  She looked at us, my mother and me, and said with some emotion, “Thank you! I shall never forget what you are doing for me.”

  “It’s nothing,” my mother answered quickly. “We are really happy to have you with us.”

  Just before midnight, my mother called Kamel from his bedroom and took him to the roof. After a while, Kamel came down carrying the parts of a fold-up metal bed on his shoulder and spent the better part of an hour putting it together. He then brought down a mattress and pillows, which my mother covered with a sheet and two clean pillowcases. Finally, Kamel threw himself onto the bed to check its stability and gave a satisfied smile. Mitsy laughed.

  “If it collapses while I’m sleeping,” she said, “you’re the one responsible!”


  “I’m also responsible for you,” he replied.

  No one said anything, but I felt that she was moved by his response and that, had I not been there, she would have thrown her arms around him. I felt some sympathy for her feelings, which I could now discern clearly. I was always entranced by love stories, and because I loved Kamel, I loved anyone he loved. As the days passed, I grew closer to Mitsy. Every night, we would sit up in my bedroom talking until we heard the dawn call to prayer. After a few days, she told me of her problem with her father. I felt for her but was careful not to express a strong opinion about her father’s behavior. As angry as she was with him, she might still be upset to hear someone else criticize him.

  “Now I’m looking for work,” Mitsy said.

  “I’m sure you’ll find something. You speak Arabic and English, and you’re pretty and clever.”

  She thanked me but looked a little embarrassed. I was astonished to hear myself telling her all my life without feeling embarrassed. I felt that she understood me completely. When I had finished, she stretched out on the bed looking at the ceiling. Then she smiled and said, “Saleha, you have also made a brave and honest decision. You must never go back on it.”

  “Abd el-Barr is refusing to divorce me.”

  “Forget about finalizing a divorce. The most important thing is for you to start studying again.”

  “I feel like a failure.”

  “How can you be a failure when you haven’t started your life yet? You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s your family who made a mistake.”

  “They didn’t pressure me.”

  “How could you have married a man you didn’t know?”

  “I told myself that I’d get to know him after marriage.”

  “Marriage isn’t a means of getting to know someone. You have to know the man and be in love with him, and then, at a certain moment, you both decide to spend the rest of your lives together. Then marriage makes sense.”

  “Lots of girls get married before getting to know their husbands.”

  “Marriage without love is a contract for the sale of a woman’s body, whatever religious or legal face we put on it. If you get married without love, then you’re just a piece of merchandise.”

  I had never thought of it that way. If that was the crux of marriage, then all that merriment and celebration was just to prettify a commercial transaction.

  “I disagree. I can’t deny that I agreed too hastily to marry Abd al-Barr, but I have never been a piece of merchandise.”

  She jumped up from the bed and came over to me.

  “I’m so sorry, Saleha,” she said. “I always get carried away with my opinions. I’m always upsetting my friends without meaning to.”

  I gave her a kiss on the cheek. Her hair smelled lovely. I got up, went to do my ablutions and said my prayers as Mitsy watched. When I finished, I took off my headscarf, and Mitsy said, “You look so beautiful when you’re praying.”

  That night, we did not end up going to bed until after the dawn prayer. When I woke up at noon, I looked over and noticed that her bed was empty. After a while, I heard a light knocking on the door. Mitsy came in smiling and said, “I waited until you woke up…”

  I noticed that she was carrying a heavy linen bag. She threw it down onto the bed and took out a pile of books.

  “These are the books for the baccalaureate,” she said excitedly. “Kamel brought them while you were sleeping.”

  38

  The staff had waited eagerly for Suleyman and Karara to come back from their meeting with Alku. They all found a moment from their work to go down to the entrance door or to go up to the restaurant to ask about the outcome.

  “What happened with Alku?” they all asked.

  Suleyman and Karara seemed to have agreed to give the same answer: “Come to the café tomorrow at five o’clock, and we’ll talk.”

  The staff’s anxieties ran wild. Some of them thought that this answer meant that Karara and Suleyman had failed in their mission, while others thought that they merely wanted to save themselves the kerfuffle of having to repeat themselves over and over again. The following day, most of the staff went to the café, filling the whole right side. Abdoun and his friends sat on the left. Suleyman waited until everyone had settled down and then made his way with Karara to the center of the café. There was silence as Suleyman stated slowly, “Alku refuses to let us have our tips again.”

  Shouts of objection went up, but Suleyman waited until they calmed down again before continuing, “Alku wants to be sure first that we have understood the error of our ways before he lets us have our tips.”

  “Alku has to give us our tips! It’s our right!” said Abdoun.

  Suleyman gave him a look of rage and shouted, “Hey, son! What job do you do?”

  “I’m an assistant barman.”

  “You’re a servant, then!”

  “No, Suleyman. I’m not a servant. I do my job and I get paid.”

  “And we,” said Suleyman angrily, “have been servants our whole lives long and accepted our situation and were happy until you put a wrench in the works.”

  “God forgive you!”

  “You, Abdoun, and Bahr and Samahy and the rest of your lot—you have your way of thinking, and we have ours. You want to go head-to-head with Alku! You’re the cause of our woes.”

  Abdoun smiled sadly and replied, “Suleyman, we objected to Alku’s beatings.”

  Avoiding his glance, Suleyman responded, “Well, thanks a million, Abdoun. We don’t need more problems. We were happy and contented until you turned up and started agitating. And now, the whole Club is in chaos. All the arguments and squabbles have left us unable to earn a living.”

  Some voices seconded Suleyman’s opinion.

  “Abdoun,” Suleyman shouted, getting himself worked up, “you knew what the Club was from the start. You must have been told, before you came to work here, that Alku is strict and hard-hearted. So why did you come?”

  “It’s our right to work, and it’s our right to be treated with respect.”

  Suleyman blew his top at this, screaming at Abdoun, “You can speak for yourself but not for us!”

  There were shouts of support for Suleyman, but Abdoun looked at him and said, “Alku will never reinstate the tips just because you beg him and kiss his hand. We have to take a united stance and demand our rights.”

  “You can take your united stance and stick it,” replied Suleyman. “We have a different plan. We will keep begging him to forgive us until he reinstates the tips.”

  Abdoun looked at his colleagues with a mixture of sorrow and disgust.

  “We,” he told them, “will neither beg for forgiveness nor kiss any hands. We will defend our rights and make him reinstate the tips. You’ll see for yourselves.”

  Abdoun turned to leave the café amid a clamor of sarcastic jeers:

  “We’ll see about that, idiot!”

  “You’re not as clever as you think!”

  “You’re deluded!”

  Abdoun walked straight on without turning back, followed by Samahy and Bahr and some others. Suleyman then continued solemnly, “Brothers! We have nothing to do with them. Karara and I are going to beg Alku again tonight, and please God, he will listen to us.”

  KAMEL

  It was our second meeting in one week. The comrades had managed to complete the mission ahead of schedule. We had distributed thousands of photographs in most of the provinces. I decided to show up ahead of the meeting in the hope that the prince might bring up the personal matter that he had offered to help with, but he did not mention it. It was as if the conversation had never happened and as if he had not promised to help me. I resented being ignored and told myself that while Prince Shamel was a good man, a fighter and an artist, he did not have time for my problems.

  Now I regretted having sought him out for help and felt dismayed and frustrated. My only consolation was Mitsy’s presence in our apartment. She was curious about everything,
and it was delightful to see her standing in the kitchen with my mother. She was enjoying real Egyptian life. Once, she asked me to go up to the roof with her to watch Saleha hanging out the wash.

  “I have seen clothes being hung out since I was a child,” I told her.

  “Come up to the roof with me,” she said, smiling, “and I’ll show you just how beautiful it is.

  Saleha blushed and said softly, “I don’t think it’s worth watching what I do.”

  Paying no attention to Saleha’s comment, Mitsy grabbed one side of the washtub while Saleha grabbed the other. I opened the front door for them, and our procession went up the stairs. I was taken by the oddity of the scene. An Egyptian girl and an English girl carrying the wash. Mitsy Wright, born and raised in London, carrying a tub of damp clothes on al-Sadd al-Gawany Street. They put the tub underneath the line on the roof. Mitsy pulled me back a few steps by the hand and told me, “Stand here so that you can see properly. Now, Saleha, please start hanging out the wash, and imagine that we are not watching you. Try to pretend that you are alone.”