Authors: Ahdaf Soueif
The Map of Love (77 page)
I packed my computer and Anna’s papers. Isabel came with me to the Thursday, and on Friday morning we put everything in the car. We agreed that she would sit in the back seat and hold Sharif since I did not yet have a baby-seat. We kissed Khadra and Rayessa and said we would be back soon and try to bring the Basha with us, and I remembered I had not packed Anna’s green flag. So I ran back in and fetched it, which was just as well since after the third barricade the temperature gauge teetered towards the red, and we decided we would not wait for the car to start smoking, but we would stop and let her cool down, then fill the radiator from the massive firkin of water we had brought with us, for we were women who learned from our mistakes. Once again we spread out our rug and sat by the roadside — but this time we had the baby. So I rooted in the car and found the flag and
we pushed three sticks into the earth and spread the flag over them, and the baby lay on the rug with his mother on one side of him and me on the other and above his head the green and white flag of national unity.
And as we sat there, Isabel told me she wanted to make sure my brother knew that she understood his work and what it meant to him — not just the music, but the writing too. She had created a home page for him and linked it with several information sites, and now his articles went across the world and into cyberspace the moment they appeared in the paper.
Cairo, 26 October 1911
«Put simply, the East holds two attractions for Europe:
1. An Economic attraction: Europe needs materials for its industries, markets for its products and jobs for its men. In the Arab lands it has found all three.
2. A Religious, Historical, Romantic attraction to the land of the Scriptures, of the Ancients, and of Fable.
This attraction is born in the European while he is still
in his home country
. When he comes here, he finds that the land is inhabited by people he does not understand and possibly does not much like. What options are open to him? He may stay and try to ignore them. He may try to change them. He may leave. Or he may try to understand them.»
Self-evident, Sharif Basha thinks, laying down his pen. So self-evident as to be hardly worth saying. But Anna does not think so. Anna, when she sees a wrong, cannot rest until it has been put right. Besides, she wants to make him happy. Not just happy at home, but happy altogether. He knows she imagines a day when the shadow within which their life together has been lived will be lifted. And she still has confidence in public opinion; that if only people can be made to see, to understand — then wrongs can be undone, and history set on a different course.
«The last two options are harmless, but they are never chosen — unless it be by individuals. The first two, when linked to large movements of people, to Colonial Enterprise, are of untold harm.
As to the first option, it may be safe to suggest that the more the Colonialist wishes to ignore the inhabitants, to deny their existence, the stronger the historical or religious ties he claims to the land. This is what we are witnessing now with the Zionist Colonial enterprise in Palestine. I say Zionist rather than Jewish, since there are many Jews who, seeing the Zionist project in its true colours, have been at pains not only to distance themselves from it but to warn other of their co-religionists against it. They have done this at no small cost to themselves.
And for the second, the Romantic European can lend himself without too many pangs of conscience to a Colonial Enterprise such as the one we have been living with in Egypt for thirty years — the one that is beginning in Morocco and Libya. He speaks of the White Man’s Burden, of his duty to help ‘primitive’ nations fulfil their potential, his duty to civilise them. He is intrigued by the image of himself as a Reformer — a Saviour. He feels righteous as he ‘protects the peace’, ‘supports the legitimate sovereign’, ‘ensures the safety of the religious minority’ or the Europeans.
There is also a kind of attachment that comes from a satisfaction with the European’s own image of himself in the East, an image different from the one he has of himself in his own country and among his own people. Certain aspects of the European’s personality which find no outlet in his own land, he allows to flourish while he is in the East.
Thus the new economic ambitions of Europe in the East find a good use for the old feelings of Europe towards the East.
Seen in this light, every question is answered and all
the pieces fit into place: the Treaties between the Powers according them ‘free hands’ in the countries of the East. The aggression of France against Morocco and Italy against Libya. The cooperation between finance and politics in the project of displacing the Palestinians and creating — in the heart of the Arab lands — a state not merely friendly to Europe, but European in substance and Colonial in ideology. Europe simply does not see the people of the countries it wishes to annex — and when it does, it sees them in accordance with its own old and accepted definitions: backward people, lacking rational abilities and subject to religious fanaticism. People whose countries — the holy and picturesque lands of the East -are too good for them.
And what of us Orientals? What of our responsibility in all this? We in Egypt have been proud of our history; proud to belong to the land that was the first mother of civilisation. In time she passed the banner of leadership to Greece and then Rome, and from there it reverted to the lands of Islam until in the seventeenth century it was taken hold of by Europe. For the last hundred years, we have tried to find a place for ourselves in the modern world. But our attempts have collided with what Europe perceives as her interests.
There have been those among us who have been so dazzled by the might and technological wizardry of Europe that they have been rather as a man who stands lost in admiration at the gun that is raised to shoot him.
And our hands have been tied by the presence in our countries af an earlier Imperial Master: the Ottoman Turk. And it was in the weakness of the Turks and the turbulence that attended each country’s attempt to rid herself of the rule of Constantinople that the European Powers saw their chance to take control of our lands.
The Colonialists’ response — if response there is — to this article, will be to say that it does not express a general
view. That its author is an Anglophile or Francophile or a -phile of some sort that renders him not representative of the mass of his people. To this I say that there are many others who think and speak as I do. And that this body of men and women bears the same relationship to the fallaheen of Egypt and the Arab lands as your Honourable Members to the farmers of Somerset or the factory-hands of Sheffield whom they represent in your Parliament.
If there are elements of Western Culture in us, they have been absorbed through visiting your countries, learning in your institutions and opening ourselves to your culture. There we have been free to choose those elements that most suited our own history, our traditions and aspirations — that is the legitimate commerce of humanity.
Our only hope now — and it is a small one — lies in a unity of conscience between the people of the world for whom this phrase itself would carry any meaning. It is difficult to see the means by which such a unity can be effected. But it is in its support that these words are written.»
Cairo, 2 August 1998
‘The Internet,’ Isabel says, lifting little Sharif against her shoulder, patting his back. ‘I am serious. The potential is incredible. Look at all the action and information groups on it. The speed with which you can get a piece of news out. The freedom from control. Have you seen all the postings in support of the civilians in Iraq?’ The baby burps and she turns her face slightly to kiss his head.
Cairo, 28 October 1911
Sharif Basha puts Anna’s translation into an envelope and seals it. Tomorrow it can go to Barrington. The Arabic will come out in
al-Ahram
, under his own name, as a letter. Anton el-Jmayyil will see to it. The French will appear in
Le Temps
,
when Ginsberg and Blunt have done theirs. For him, he is finished. He stands, pushes back his chair and stretches. Anna looks up from her book.
‘Ça va?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’ He nods.
‘You are supposed not to know English, but you always read my translations?’
He smiles, shrugs. ‘An old habit; I read what will come out under my name.’
‘You think I might misrepresent you?’ Her answering smile is mischievous.
‘Only with the best intentions. I am a lawyer, after all.’ He sits down heavily on the sofa next to her. He lifts her book and looks at the cover. ‘Are you reading
War and Peace
again?’
‘I like going back to things I know.’ She puts the book aside. ‘You see more in them the second time.’
‘A pity we can’t do that with life,’ he says.
‘What would you do differently?’
His face clouds for a moment, then he answers lightly, ‘I would walk up to you in the Costanzi and say, “You do not know it yet but you are in love with me ‥
Anna laughs as she reaches for his hand. ‘We would have had an extra fourteen months.’
‘Or you might have run away — and we would not have had this.’ He eases a lock of blond hair from the grips that hold it down, fingers it, lets it spring free.
‘We could never have not had this,’ she says, ‘it’s impossible. What would life have been? This is forever.’
‘Amen,’ he says, smiling into her eyes.
‘That’s what Mabrouka always says,’ says Anna, leaning back, ‘but she says “Ameen”. Is it Arabic?’
‘Yes.’ Stroking the smooth neck, the soft skin behind the ear.
‘When I was a child I always wondered what it meant,’ Anna says.
‘ “Amn” is safeness and security and “amana” is to believe — to become secure in your belief. When someone says
something and you say “Ameen”, you are saying you believe in what they’ve said and also that you wish to secure it.’
‘I love you when you explain things seriously.’
‘You weren’t listening.’
‘I was. But I was also thinking how sweet you are.’
‘Sweet, yes. That’s me. Anna, you are a frivolous woman.’
‘You know, when Nur is serious she looks just like you.’
‘I see
you
in her all the time. She is the most beautiful child. These eyes, Anna, these eyes —’ and now he gathers her close and his lips are on hers and there is that familiar feeling, miraculous in its constancy, at first like the strains of music heard from far away, then coming closer and closer till Anna pulls her head back and says, ‘Shall we go upstairs?’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘yes. But I have to look in on my father. Wait for me in bed.’
He stands, pulls her to her feet and pats her off in the direction of the doorway. Then he steps out into the cold courtyard.
Perchè, perchè, Signore,
Perchè me ne rimuneri così?
Tosca
Cairo, 8 August 1998
My brother is conducting in Sarajevo, in the ruins of the National Library. I have seen photographs of it: the high ceiling and all the central floors collapsed, the marble columns rising from the edge of the abyss to support the charred scalloped arches, the atmosphere dreamy with the smoke of one million Ottoman books gone up in flames. And now, in the midst of it all, I see my brother, intense and concentrated. The moon and the stars shine down on him and his orchestra. His arms are raised, the baton poised in his fingers. A flick, a spreading of the arms and the music soars up like a great voice from the heart of the earth.
He should be here in a couple of weeks. I have copied out Sharif Basha’s article for him. I have a mind to suggest that — with a few small amendments — he prints it again, now, under his own name. I see him coming through my door and I know how tight I shall hold him. I imagine him with Sharif in his arms, tender, rueful, amused at himself. Will I have finished Anna’s story by then? I know I am close to the end and I have slowed down. I don’t want it to end.
My brother has sent his panel of Anna’s tapestry with Isabel. We unfolded it and hung it up from the bookcase: Isis, mother of every king, queenly in poise, on her head the cow-horn crown and the sun-disc of Ra. Her arm is stretched out, but her hand is missing. Isabel is delighted that she has carried her namesake from Omar to me.
‘I told you it was meant.’ She laughs. ‘Isn’t this a sign?’
‘I thought you were rational,’ I say.
‘I am.’
‘What about your millennium?’ I ask as I watch her smooth a dab of Bonjela on little Sharif’s gums.
‘He’ll be two,’ she says. ‘Imagine that. Two in the year 2000.’
‘I found you something for your paper,’ I say. ‘Listen’:
If we could shrink the Earth’s population to a village of 100 people, with all existing human ratios staying the same, it would look like this: There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans. 80 would live in substandard housing. 70 would be unable to read. 50 would suffer from malnutrition. 50 per cent of the entire world’s wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people. And all 6 would be citizens of the United States.
Isabel fastens the fresh nappy round Sharif’s waist. ‘No!’ she says.
‘Are you going to finish your course?’ I ask.
‘Of course I will,’ she says.
‘Is there a time limit on it?’ I ask.
‘Oh, Amal —’ she begins and then interrupts herself. ‘I bought you a book. How could I have forgotten? I found it in a second-hand bookshop. It’s about your Mr Boyle.’
Boyle of Cairo
(printed by Titus Wilson & Son Ltd, 28 Highgate, Kendal: 1965) is Clara Boyle’s memoir of her husband. Isabel is delighted at my obvious pleasure as we study the photograph of Harry Boyle, looking just as I had imagined him, with a long, straggly moustache and a crumpled collar, and there is even a photograph of Toti.
Cairo
31 October 1911
Dear Sir Charles
I hear from James Barrington that you have not been too well. It is very naughty of you not to tell me yourself. I should so much
like to come and see you — and my husband says I must. He speaks of travelling to Europe, of giving Nur her first proper Christmas. I own I do love the idea — but then thinking about it creates a kind of unease in my mind, I cannot quite tell why
.
You must tell Mr Winthrop to prepare a list of any medicinal herbs that he may need. If we do come for Christmas I can bring them with me. And if we do not, I shall find somebody — Mrs Butcher perhaps, or one of our Hilmiyya guests — to carry them
.
Al-Ahram
has published an article by my husband, setting out most simply the state of relations between the West and the East as he sees them today. It should appear in English and French soon, accompanied by articles from Mr Blunt and Dr Ginsberg, and I have hope that it may yet make an impression upon the public mind
.
Nur is grown into such a beautiful child, you would love her immediately. I see a great deal of her aunt, Layla Hanim, in her. In her vivacity and her frankness and her readiness to laugh. But when she is thoughtful, I see her father —