Authors: Ahdaf Soueif
The Map of Love (22 page)
‘It was so sad. Tosca,’ Anna says, ‘when she sits on the floor, with Baron Scarpia at the table behind her, and asks what she’s done to deserve this.’
‘Yes. You were in black.’
‘I was still in mourning. It had only been ten months.’
‘Anna?’
‘My darling?’
‘Where is your wedding ring? Your old wedding ring?’
‘It’s in a purse. In my dresser, with his ring and my journals of the time.’
‘…’
‘You may read them if you wish. I have no need to keep secrets from you.’
‘No.’
‘Truly.’
‘No, my dear. Not yet. Maybe some day, when we’re old …’
Cairo
14 March 1901
My dear Sir Charles
,
This time I have news of more interest (certainly to me and I hope also to you) to communicate than another musical evening or another day seeing the sights. For I have had, by a curious occasion, the opportunity to meet a young lady of the Egyptian Moslems. I say ‘lady’ advisedly, for you would consider her such, both in family and demeanour. She is the niece of Mahmoud Sami Pasha al-Baroudi, the Prime Minister in Urabi Pasha’s short-lived government and his companion in their ill-starred ‘Rebellion’ which I have heard you speak about with some sympathy. He (Mahmoud Sami Pasha) was allowed to return home some eighteen months ago, being old and almost blind, and he has no more to do with politics but occupies himself with what they say is a vast collection of poems. Her mother is Zeinab Hanim al-Ghamrawi, from an old and distinguished family in Minya in Upper Egypt, but I have not met her yet.
My new friend’s name is Layla and at the time that I met her, her husband, a lawyer, was (briefly) imprisoned for helping to organise a representation by some workers for better conditions. These men laboured on the tram lines and demanded the same terms of employment as foreign workers. Their demands and the refusal of the Government to countenance them had led to their going on strike. The tram companies brought in what we in England call blackleg workers to break the strike, and in the heat
of confrontation her husband and a colleague lay down on the lines to prevent the trams running. They, together with some of the more prominent among the men, were then arrested and taken off to jail — from which they were later released through the good offices of my friend’s brother, Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi, a lawyer himself and, I understand, a man of influence by reason of his position, his integrity, his patriotic stance and, naturally, his lineage.
You can imagine, I am sure, all the questions I have put to my new friend, and so I know now that what the ‘talking classes’ are demanding is not only an end to the British Occupation but that the country should be governed — like ours — by means of an elected Parliament and a Constitution.
When I asked what view the Khedive took of this, my friend, with a gentle smile, said that the Khedive expresses to the Nationalists sympathy with their demands and says his father should have granted them when Urabi Pasha first demanded it instead of running to the British. However, there are some who believe that he merely tries to make use of the Nationalists in his conflict with Lord Cromer, but there is no guarantee that left to himself he would grant the wishes of the people and transform himself into a Constitutional Monarch. That is an argument which will have to be resumed at the end of the Occupation.
I know that there are other questions to be asked — regarding the National Debt, for example, of which I have heard so much at the Agency, and what the Sultan in Constantinople would be if Egypt were a Constitutional Monarchy — and I fully intend to ask them when an occasion next presents itself. But for now, I am filled with delight at having made this new acquaintance and at the prospect of getting to know her better and so, possibly, to understand something of this country, which has for so long held such an attraction for me.
It does seem strange to me that I have not met someone like her before, in my now not inconsiderable sojourn here. We tend to meet our own countrymen and the members of the other Consulates — and the only Natives we have to do with are the ones who serve us. I fancy it is somewhat like coming to England
and meeting the servants and the shopkeepers and forming your ideas of English Society upon that. No, it is worse, for in England Society displays itself in public, so the stranger, even with no entrance to it, knows it is there. Here, I have come to see, Society exists behind closed doors — but it is no less Society for that. And then there is the problem of the language. I have conducted my new friendship in French, but I am now resolved to really learn Arabic, and will hope to impress you, soon, by signing myself off in that language as your most dutiful and loving, etc. etc.
One class of tale is typically Egyptian. These tales are distinguished by three characteristics: they are picaresque, feminist and pantheist.
Ya
qub Artin, 1905
And so it is that our three heroines — as is only fitting in a story born of travel, unfolded and shaken out of a trunk — set off upon their different journeys. Anna Winterbourne heads eastwards out of Cairo, bound for Sinai in the company of Sharif al-Baroudi. Amal al-Ghamrawi and Isabel Parkman take the Upper Egypt road which will lead them to Tawasi, in the Governorate of Minya.
‘I told you I was going to work on it.’ Isabel laughed.
‘Well, you certainly have,’ Amal said, glancing down at the paper Isabel had given her. As she slows down behind a mule-drawn cart, she smooths the paper out on the steering wheel and examines it. She reads:
Umm: mother (also the top of the head)
Ummah: nation, hence ammama: to nationalise
Amma: to lead the prayers, hence Imam: religious leader
A blank space, and then
Abb: father
‘And that’s it?’ Amal says, handing the paper back as she sees her way clear, shifts into second gear and overtakes.
‘That’s it,’ says Isabel, ‘unless you can think of something else.’
Amal frowns, concentrating, murmuring, ‘Fatherhood, fatherly. No, I can’t think of anything.’
‘So two incredibly important concepts,’ says Isabel, ‘nationhood and religious leadership, come from “mother”. The word goes into politics, religion, economics and even anatomy. So how can they say Arabic is a patriarchal language?’
‘Brilliant!’ Amal turns briefly to flash her a large smile. ‘On the other hand, you could say that “abb” stands alone because it’s unique, because it shouldn’t even be in the same realm as any other concept.’
‘No,’ says Isabel. ‘And
you
don’t really think that.’
They are so alike, Isabel thinks. Not just the black hair and black eyes. Everybody here has those. It’s more the manner: the smile that’s both friendly and amused. Their way of throwing you compliments that you couldn’t be sure were quite serious. The sudden questions that cut through to the heart. But Amal did not quite have her brother’s spark, his vitality. Or rather she seemed to be holding her vitality — her aura — in check.
‘Let’s stop for a moment,’ Amal said.
They had been on the road for an hour and a half. When they got out of the car, the air that hit them might have come out of an oven. They were pacing and stamping their feet when Amal noticed Isabel’s long skirt, the loose, long-sleeved top, the scarf tied casually over the hair.
‘What is all this? A new image?’ she asked.
Isabel shrugged. She had worked it out for herself. She had seen the groups of tourists in the old city, in the Bazaar, their naked flesh lobsterlike in the heat, the locals either staring or averting their eyes as they passed by. And these clothes were much more comfortable anyway.
Amal smiled. ‘You still look good,’ she said.
They watched a woman coming towards them. Ahead of her a donkey walked, his head drooping patiently. Tied across his back was a big load of long yellow canes and with each step the canes swayed, as though something was in the balance — something that could go either way.
‘Salamualeikum.’
‘Aleikum es-salam.’ The woman stopped and she and Amal started chatting: Where are you headed? Who’s this moon with you? While the donkey took the opportunity to nose about for a green stalk in the dust.
Isabel had grown used to Amal chatting to people during their rambles in Cairo: the shop owners, the parking attendants, even the traffic police. But as the city had retreated further and further behind them, Isabel had felt herself grow — not uneasy, but somewhat less assured. Here she would not be able to get away. Here there were no service stops, no telephones, nothing but the road running through fields, a small town, then more fields. Occasionally there was a notice spelling out the name of a place she had never heard of before. Sometimes they were trapped behind a cart, sometimes behind a truck. That was the main traffic on the Upper Egypt road: trucks, carts and the dusty Peugeot station wagons that served as taxis in which each person bought a seat. And the road led into the heartland of the terrorists. Or at least that was what it said in the papers. She was putting her trust in her friend, but what if something were to happen to Amal? What if she fainted in the heat or got appendicitis? What would Isabel do? Amal herself seemed to have no fears and was talking happily to the fallaha and selecting one of her canes before the woman went on her way.
Amal stripped back the tough, glossy skin and cut off a segment. Isabel chewed on it, releasing the sweet juice, then spitting the dry white pulp discreetly out into her hand.
‘Did she just give you that?’ she asked.
‘She asked if I would like it.’
‘You didn’t pay her.’
‘She didn’t want paying. It’s just a stick of sugar cane,’ Amal said as they got back into the car.
The first barricade was not too bad. They saw it from a distance: the red and white barrels, the kiosk at the side, the officers waving them to a halt. Amal wound down her window and the young officer leaned into it. Amal el-
Ghamrawi and Isabel Parkman. American. My brother’s fiancée. Tawasi in Minya. Our village, our land. A few days … Soldiers stood by with guns and the officer stepped back. ‘Look after her. We don’t want foreign blood spilled here.’
After the second barricade, three hours from Cairo, the car broke down. When it started smoking they decided to press on, but when the smoke got too bad they had to stop. The temperature indicator was on red. They pulled in to the side of the road and opened the bonnet and smoke poured out everywhere. The sun was in the middle of the sky and it was blazing hot.
‘What are we going to do?’ Isabel asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Amal said. But she did not seem worried. ‘Wait, I suppose.’
‘Do you have a rescue service here?’
‘No,’ Amal said. ‘Oh, no. Let’s just sit in the shade and wait.’
She took a striped rug from the car and laid it on the ground. They sat and ate tangerines; Isabel watched as Amal rubbed the peel into her hands and breathed in the scent. A car pulled up — one of the beaten-up old station wagons, empty apart from the driver, who looked out of the window and said: