Authors: Ahdaf Soueif
The Map of Love (48 page)
And all his doubts and questionings have disappeared. She is no longer ‘Lady Anna, the Englishwoman’. She is Lady Anna, his wife. ‘Anna Hanim, Haram Sharif Basha al-Baroudi.’ He smiles to himself as he soaks in the bath, as wrapped in a loose white towelling robe he walks around the house he will leave tomorrow, after so many years. It is strange to feel so happy, so calmly happy. Even in that wretched meeting with Cromer he had not found it in his heart to hate the man. Ah, but how Cromer had hated him! And hated having to sit there with the marriage contract in front of him. Sharif Basha grins. And she had been magnificent — not one word of English, not one concession. At every turn she had delighted him. Her wish that had made it possible for him to no longer worry over his
mother’s loneliness. Her surprise at the extra clauses he had put in the contract. Her hand on his arm in front of Cromer. In his bedroom he opens once again the black velvet case on the dressing table. Tomorrow night, when he sees her, these sapphires will be shining in her ears and at her throat, and it will be his hands which — later — will unclasp them.
In the act of love there is decreed for every part a portion of pleasure: so the eyes are for the pleasures of looking, and the nostrils are to smell sweet perfume. The pleasure of the lips lies in kissing, and of the tongue in sipping and sucking and licking. The teeth find their pleasure in biting, and the penis in penetration. The hands love to feel and explore. The lower half of the body is for touching and caressing and the upper half is for holding and embracing — and as for the ears, their pleasure is in listening to the words and sounds of love.
al-Imam Jalal al-Din al-Sayuti, Cairo, 1495
AD
5 August 1997
She is determined that my brother should make love to her.
‘I cannot take her on,’ he said. ‘I am too old. Too used to living the way I live. It’s a hell of a juggling act already. I just cannot go through all that again —’
The operator came on the line: ‘Say goodbye.’
‘Your time’s up,’
Omar said. ‘I’ll call you back.’
‘Goodbye?’ said the operator.
‘And what’s with you anyway?’ my brother said when he came back on. ‘Can’t you get an international line?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘So you’d actually rather go and queue in one of those centrale dumps to book a phone call? They are the most depressing —’
‘I don’t queue. There’s hardly anyone there. Most people
have
international lines.’
‘So why don’t
you
get one?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘I see. It’s an informed position. Well, OK, what was I saying? Your friend —’
‘My friend? You sent her here.’
‘I took her out last night. She called me. She is very … I can’t deny that I’m attracted to her.’
‘I didn’t phone to ask you to — take her on.’
‘No, but you intimated —’
‘I just thought you ought to know she’s pretty hard hit.’
‘Yes, well. I know that.’
‘What modesty, yaOmar!’
‘No. Look, come on. What am I supposed to do? I’m fifty-seven. I’ve had all that. I cannot bear …’
‘Cannot bear what?’
‘Explaining everything all over again — a whole new sadness.’
‘Does it have to be sad?’
‘It always is.’
‘Good. Khalas. You’re free.’
‘Free?’ He laughed.
I did not tell him about her vision, epiphany, whatever, in the old house.Omar has never had patience with old wives’ tales. I can imagine him cutting in before I’ve even finished: ‘And you want me to take her out? No, ya habibti, no. Cousin walla ma cousin, I’m out of this.’Omar has remained good friends with every woman he’s been involved with. His children adore him. If he is attracted to Isabel, why doesn’t he ‘take her on’? And then I think maybe there isn’t enough time for it to turn sad. A sad thought.
‘Tell me,’ he says, ‘what about that trunk I sent you? How are you getting on with your story?’
‘Very well. They’re almost married. I’m thinking of taking the whole lot and going up to Tawasi.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought I’d stay there for a while. On the land, you know.’
‘In August? You must be mad. Listen, I might be coming over in the second half of the month. We can have a couple of days together.’
‘That would be wonderful,’ I say. ‘Will you let me know?’
I did not ask why he would be coming or via where. I knew it was possible — even likely — that his phone was tapped. For thirty years New York had played up his Egyptian ancestry, loved him and congratulated itself on its own broadminded-ness. It had winked at stories of his being in the fighting in Amman in ‘70, at his membership of the Palestine National
Council. And then, with the world celebrating another diplomatic triumph, another reluctant handshake on the White House lawn, he broke with the PNC. He was the spectre at the party telling anyone who would listen that Oslo would not work, could not work.
THAT NIGHT, THE NIGHT OF
the 6th of Safar, 1319, she looked like a queen. She glittered and shone as she moved among the ladies and God had touched her with His blessing so that her every word and movement found its true place in the hearts of those around her.
It was our custom that the bride should sit in her bridal bower where the ladies would salute her as they arrived and then take their seats or walk about conversing with each other. But Anna could not do that for long and soon she rose and began to move among the ladies, conversing with those who could speak French and exchanging smiles with those who could not. And after their first surprise the ladies warmed to this and considered it a mark of her lack of affectation and her desire to find favour in their eyes and they liked her well for it.
For a wedding gown she wore the long, golden sheath that Madame Marthe had made for her, the low neck showing off her delicate bosom and shoulders. On her arms were the heavy golden clasps that were my mother’s wedding gift to her. Around her neck and in her ears were the sapphires and diamonds my brother had sent that morning. She had gasped when she opened the box and looked up at me; the sunshine caught her face and I said, ‘They are exactly the colour of your eyes.’ We dressed and pinned her hair into a loose, golden crown in which her tiara was embedded. She wore no veil.
Mabrouka had lit the best amber incense and carried it round the bridal apartments muttering spells and incantations all day and when Anna was dressed, the old woman circled her with the burner and made her step over it seven times and recited every spell and aya she
knew to protect her from the evil eye and from misfortune, and Anna submitted to it all with good grace and rewarded Mabrouka with gold made even sweeter by an embrace.
All day the trays of sherbet were carried around our quarter and that night the flares were lit in the courtyard and at the entrance of the house, the gifts were laid out for inspection, the baskets of flowers with the cards from my brother’s well-wishers filled the rooms and the carriages rolled up to the door, the men staying in the courtyard and the great reception rooms below, while the women came up to the haramlek drawing rooms and terrace and the children moved perpetually between the two floors.
From behind the lattice I kept an eye on what was going on downstairs: my brother, in full court dress and flanked by my husband and Shukri Bey, greeting his guests, receiving congratulations. All the Cabinet was in our house that night and the Azhar and Prince MuhammadAli on behalf of Efendeena and Mukhtar Basha on behalf of the Sublime Porte. My uncle Mahmoud Sami Basha was helped to a seat and made a poets’ corner with Ahmad Shawqi, Hafiz Ibrahim, Ismail Sabri and Ibrahim al-Yaziji. Mustafa Bey al-Ghamrawi was staying in our house with his family. Mustafa Bey Kamel was there and Qasim Bey Amin, but they avoided each other. Cattaouie Basha and his son Henri. Anba Kyrollos and Muhammad Bey Farid, Sheikh MuhammadAbdu, SheikhAli Yusuf and Sheikh Rashid Rida and many, many others. In short, all of Cairo celebrated in our house that night. And an English gentleman arrived and I went to Anna and drew her to the lattice and she said, ‘That is James Barrington, so he
has
come.’ And Mrs Butcher also came and took Anna’s hands in hers and kissed her kindly and wished her happiness.
Sheikh Yusuf al-Manyalawi had sent word that he would sing for us and the takht was set up and he sang
two beautiful turns, and just as he had finished ‘b’iftikarak eih yefidak’ we heard a noise and a stirring and voices raised and I looked and saw thatAbdu Efendi al-Hamuli had arrived, and Sheikh Yusuf was insisting that he would sing no more but give up his place toAbdu Efendi and sing behind him with the chorus. And soon that wonderful voice rose up to the haramlek and to the sky and all talk and movement ceased and I remember that I looked around the room and I saw the young women transported with tarab, and I saw them become grandmothers and I heard them say to their grandchildren, many years from now, ‘That was the night I heard SiAbdu Efendi: at the wedding of Sharif Basha al-Baroudi and his English bride.’