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 h.e.l.l 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, ya Omar!"
"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 G.o.d 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 Muhammad Ali 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 Muhammad Abdu, Sheikh Ali 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 that Abdu Efendi al-Hamuli had arrived, and Sheikh Yusuf was insisting that he would sing no more but give up his place to Abdu 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 Si Abdu Efendi: at the wedding of Sharif Basha al-Baroudi and his English bride."
How do I translate "tarab"? How do I, without sounding weird or exotic, describe to Isabel that particular emotional, spiritual, even physical condition into which one enters when the soul is penetrated by good Oriental music? A condition so specific that it has a root all to itself: t/r/b. Anyone can be a singer - a "mughanni" - but to be a "mutrib" takes an extra quality. Abdu Efendi al-Hamuli"s recognised t.i.tle was "the Mutrib of Kings and Princes", and that night, in the old house in Touloun, his gift kindled joy and sorrow in the hearts of his audience. What did Anna make of this strange music? My guess is that she opened her heart to it as she did to everything in her new, strange life.
IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN we heard the relay of zagharid and the beat of the drums that told us my brother was coming up to claim his bride. There was a general movement as the ladies found their seats, some drawing their silk veils across their faces and fastening them with golden pins. Anna returned to her throne in the bridal bower. The drumming and zagharid grew louder and louder until they were at the door, then all was silent as my brother stood alone in the doorway. In my whole life I never saw him look more handsome than he did at that moment. His eyes found Anna and they lit up with a smile that found its answer shining in hers. Slowly he crossed the room while she sat waiting for him, still and straight.
He took his seat at her side in their bower and the drumming started up again, joined now by the women musicians and singers in the songs of the zaffa and after a while my mother, whose happiness was overflowing and who had long sworn that the day her son married she would dance at his wedding, stood up and danced for them the slow, stately dance of the hanim. Presently she was joined by Jalila Hanim, Husni"s mother, with the waving handkerchief and the rhythmic, dignified steps of the Palestinian dance. Abeih had covered Anna"s hand with his and Anna had tears in her eyes as she noted the great honour these two elderly ladies were doing her.
My mother never danced her Palestinian dance at any of our weddings. Omar"s first marriage was the only one that took place in her lifetime, in "66 - the year after my father died -and it was such a hurried affair that we did not even have time to go to New York for it. "G.o.d have mercy on your father," my mother said. "If he was still with us, this could not have happened: your brother is sitting in Amreeka getting betrothed and marrying with his own head as if he has no kin." And when the marriage ended with the war in "67, my mother was even more bewildered that such momentous events should take place with such seeming casualness. I remember her sitting in the drawing room of our old house in Hilmiyya, saying, "It"s good I did not meet the girl"s people; where would I have hidden my face from them now?" And I remember looking at her helplessly, for how could I begin to tell her how out of touch she was? When Omar came to visit after the war she reproached him as if his American bride had been a friend"s daughter: "How will she be regarded now? What will people think of her?"
"It was a joint decision, ya Ummi," he said. "It"s better for both of us like this."
"But what could have happened so soon?" she asked. "In a year?"
"The war," he said.
"The war? A war makes a husband divorce his wife?"
"We both discovered I was an Arab," he said lightly.
I THINK OF THAT TIME and of how that night our happiness was complete. For my father, we had grown accustomed to his state and those closest to us among our guests had visited him and saluted him and he was not unhappy. I believe, in a way, I was happier that night than on the night of my own wedding. For although I loved Husni as my cousin, on that night six years before, I knew that by marrying him and going with him to France, I was entering into an unknown world. And leaving my mother alone in the old house weighed heavily also on my mind. But now, my happiness with my husband and my delight in Ahmad were secure, my brother was at last marrying, and marrying a woman he loved, and my mother"s happiness was twofold, for her son was getting married and he was coming back to fill her house once again with life.
My brother stood up. In front of the a.s.sembled guests he kissed our mother"s hands and her head and held out his hand to Anna. And with her on his arm he made their way slowly through the zagharid and the drumbeats and the singing and the shower of wafer-thin golden sequins thrown upon him and his bride by us all. And I would swear by all that I hold dear that there was not a heart in that room that did not wish them well that night.
Sharif Basha took his bride to her new quarters and the closed door behind them did not quite shut out the sounds of the house and the street humming with the noise of their wedding party and their guests.
26 May My husband has taken his leave, for urgent business calls him to his office. I do not know its precise nature but I know it is to do with the news he received last night of the Khedive"s pardoning Urabi Basha. When he told me this, I informed him that I had heard that the Duke of Cornwall had visited Urabi Basha in Ceylon some two weeks ago, and I thought he looked at me somewhat oddly. Then he said, "Come. We have better things to do than to talk about politics."
And indeed we did. For I have had - as the late Queen said so famously half a century ago - a most bewildering and gratifying night. And now, today, I feel as if - I hardly know how to describe it, but it is as if my body had been absent and now it is present. As though I am for the first time present in my own body.
Before he left, I went with my husband to meet my new beau-pere. He is a very gentle man and appears far older than his sixty-six years. My husband kissed his hand and I followed suit and old Baroudi Bey smiled and nodded.
The house is very quiet today and - apart from a visit from Zeinab Hanim and Mabrouka, who came to wish us a "happy bridal morning" as we were seated at breakfast - I have been left quite alone. I imagine Zeinab Hanim and the servants are in need of a rest after their labours of the last few days. And Layla is naturally occupied with her house guests. And I am content. I am content just to be. To perform my toilette slowly and lie on the divan under the mashrabiyya watching diamonds of sunshine change form on my hands and my clothing. To sleep and wake and wait for his return.
10 August 1997 Isabel calls me and says, I"m missing you.
"I"m missing you too," I say. "How are you getting on?"
"My mother is - I think she"s going. She"s very, very thin, and she hardly speaks."
"I"m sorry."
"She"s quite calm. She"s not unhappy. But she"s not there."
"What do the doctors say?"
"Nothing much. I keep looking at her and wishing I knew more about her life. Not as I saw it. As she saw it."
"It"s all this stuff we"ve been doing with Anna."
"Yes. Why didn"t I speak to her - ask her, when I still could?"
"One tends not to," I said.
"G.o.d, you sound so British!" She laughs. "One tends not to," she mimics, putting on her version of a posh English accent.
"Well," I say, "you"re the American. Ask her to share her feelings with you - or better: to share your feelings with you -"
"I"ve seen Omar a couple of times." "And?"
"He"s very - sweet to me. He"s terribly busy and always in a rush. We went to an exhibition of photographs of China at the ICP and he just whizzes past the photos - just takes them in as he pa.s.ses. He stopped a couple of times and said - for my sake - "Shall we linger?" But when he"s waiting like I"m taking a really long time to work things out, I can"t even think about the photograph because I"m thinking about him waiting. I just followed him round at high speed. But he bought me a wonderful dinner afterwards."
"Isabel. Are you all right? You sound a bit hyper."
"Yeah, sure. No. No, I"m not. I just want him to be in love with me."
"Oh, Isabel!"
"I do. I can"t help it. Honestly. I"ve tried. It"s like I know it could be wonderful. It"s almost as if -" she pauses, searching for her words - "It"s almost as if it"s already there and already wonderful, only he won"t look. I know that sounds crazy."
"Isabel -"
"That is what it feels like. I can"t believe he doesn"t feel it."
"He"s older. He"s been through a lot."
"And Amal "What?"
"I"ll tell you something crazier."
"What?" I said again.
"You know that thing with the Hidden Sheikh and how we agreed it couldn"t have happened? Or you said it couldn"t have happened?"
"Yes?" My heart sinks. Her mother is dying. She has built this thing up round my brother. I have drawn her into an obsession with Anna and our history - "Well, listen. I opened my laundry bag today, just now, for the first time after I"d been in there. In the house. That"s where I put the clothes I was wearing that day. And you know what I found?"
"What?"
"They smell of orange blossom."
"Isabel!"
"It"s true. I swear to you. Where would I get a scent of orange blossom?"
I can think of nothing to say.
"Amal?"
"Yes."
"What do you think?"
"Listen, Isabel, you know you shouldn"t talk about this to Omar?"
"He"ll think I"m nuts."
"Yes, he will. And he"ll run. That"ll be it."
"I know. I know I shouldn"t. He has to go away anyway. In a week."
For a moment I almost say I"ll go over. But if Omar is coming - "Are you going to be all right?" I ask.
"Yes, of course I am."
"You sound a bit fraught."
"No, it"s just - I"ll be fine."