Despite the frantic packing and last-minute sale of all the furniture, my mother, my grandmother, and Aunt Elsa had decided we should hold a Passover seder on the eve of our departure. For this occasion, two giant candelabra would be brought in from the living room, and it was decided that the old sculptured candles should be used as well. No point in giving them away. Aunt Elsa wanted to clean house, to remove all traces of bread, as Jews traditionally do in preparation for Passover. But with the suitcases all over the place and everything upside down, nobody was eager to undertake such a task, and the idea was abandoned. “Then why have a seder?” she asked with embittered sarcasm. “Be glad we're having one at all,” replied my father. I watched her fume. “If that's going to be your attitude, let's
not
have one, see if I care.” “Now don't get all worked up over a silly seder, Elsa. Please!”
My mother and my grandmother began pleading with him, and for a good portion of the afternoon, busy embassies shuttled back and forth between Aunt Elsa's room and my father's study. Finally, he said he had to go out but would be back for dinner. That was his way of conceding. Abdou, who knew exactly what to prepare for the seder, needed no further inducements and immediately began boiling the eggs and preparing the cheese-and-potato
buñuelos.
Meanwhile, Aunt Elsa began imploring me to help read the Haggadah that evening. Each time I refused, she would remind
me that it was the last time this dining room would ever see a seder and that I should read in memory of Uncle Nessim. “His seat will stay empty unless somebody reads.” Again I refused. “Are you ashamed of being Jewish? Is that it? What kind of Jews are we, then?” she kept asking. “The kind who don't celebrate leaving Egypt when it's the last thing they want to do,” I said. “But that's so childish. We've never not had a seder. Your mother will be crushed. Is that what you want?” “What I want is to have no part of it. I don't want to cross the Red Sea. And I don't want to be in Jerusalem next year. As far as I'm concerned, all of this is just worship of repetition and nothing more.” And I stormed out of the room, extremely pleased with my
bon mot
. “But it's our last evening in Egypt,” she said, as though that would change my mind.
For all my resistance, however, I decided to wear one of my new ties, a blazer, and a newly made pair of pointed black shoes. My mother, who joined me in the living room around half past seven, was wearing a dark-blue dress and her favorite jewelry. In the next room, I could hear the two sisters putting the final touches to the table, stowing away the unused silverware, which Abdou had just polished. Then my grandmother came in, making a face that meant Aunt Elsa was truly impossible. “It's always what she wants, never what others want.” She sat down, inspected her skirt absentmindedly, spreading its pleats, then began searching through the bowl of peanuts until she found a roasted almond. We looked outside and in the window caught our own reflections. Three more characters, I thought, and we'll be ready for Pirandello.
Aunt Elsa walked in, dressed in purple lace that dated back at least three generations. She seemed to notice that I had decided to wear a tie. “Much better than those trousers with the snaps on them,” she said, throwing her sister a significant glance. We decided to have vermouth, and Aunt Elsa said she
would smoke. My mother also smoked. Then, gradually, as always happened during such gatherings, the sisters began to reminisce. Aunt Elsa told us about the little icon shop she had kept in Lourdes before the Second World War. She had sold such large quantities of religious objects to Christian pilgrims that no one would have guessed she was Jewish. But then, at Passover, not knowing where to buy unleavened bread, she had gone to a local baker and inquired about the various qualities of flour he used in his shop, claiming her husband had a terrible ulcer and needed special bread. The man said he did not understand what she wanted, and Elsa, distraught, continued to ask about a very light type of bread, maybe even unleavened bread, if such a thing existed. The man replied that surely there was an epidemic spreading around Lourdes, for many were suffering from similar gastric disorders and had been coming to his shop for the past few days asking the same question. “Many?” she asked. “Many, many,” he replied, smiling, then whispered, “
Bonne pâque,
happy Passover,” and sold her the unleavened bread.
“
Se non è vero, è ben trovato,
if it isn't true, you've made it up well,” said my father, who had just walked in. “So, are we all ready?” “Yes, we were waiting for you,” said my mother, “did you want some scotch?” “No, already had some.”
Then, as we made toward the dining room, I saw that my father's right cheek was covered with pink, livid streaks, like nail scratches. My grandmother immediately pinched her cheek when she saw his face but said nothing. My mother too cast stealthy glances in his direction but was silent.
“So what exactly is it you want us to do now?” he asked Aunt Elsa, mildly scoffing at the ceremonial air she adopted on these occasions.
“I want you to read,” she said, indicating Uncle Nessim's seat. My mother stood up and showed him where to start,
pained and shaking her head silently the more she looked at his face. He began to recite in French, without irony, without flourishes, even meekly. But as soon as he began to feel comfortable with the text, he started to fumble, reading the instructions out loud, then correcting himself, or skipping lines unintentionally only to find himself reading the same line twice. At one point, wishing to facilitate his task, my grandmother said, “Skip that portion.” He read some more and she interrupted again. “Skip that too.”
“No,” said Elsa, “either we read everything or nothing at all.” An argument was about to erupt. “Where is Nessim now that we need him,” said Elsa with that doleful tone in her voice that explained her success at Lourdes. “As far away from you as he can be,” muttered my father under his breath, which immediately made me giggle. My mother, catching my attempt to stifle a laugh, began to smile; she knew exactly what my father had said though she had not heard it. My father, too, was infected by the giggling, which he smothered as best as he could, until my grandmother caught sight of him, which sent her laughing uncontrollably. No one had any idea what to do, what to read, or when to stop. “Some Jews we are,” said Aunt Elsa, who had also started to laugh and whose eyes were tearing. “Shall we eat, then?” asked my father. “Good idea,” I said. “But we've only just begun,” protested Aunt Elsa, recovering her composure. “It's the very last time. How could you? We'll never be together again, I can just feel it.” She was on the verge of tears, but my grandmother warned her that she, too, would start crying if we kept on like this. “This is the last year,” said Elsa, reaching out and touching my hand. “It's just that I can remember so many seders held in this very room, for fifty years, year after year after year. And I'll tell you something,” she said, turning to my father. “Had I known fifty years ago that it would end like this, had I known
I'd be among the last in this room, with everyone buried or gone away, it would have been better to die, better to have died back then than to be left alone like this.” “Calm yourself, Elsica,” said my father, “otherwise we'll all be in mourning here.”
At that point, Abdou walked in and, approaching my father, said there was someone on the telephone asking for him. “Tell them we are praying,” said my father. “But sirâ” He seemed troubled and began to speak softly. “So?” “She said she wanted to apologize.” No one said anything. “Tell her not now.” “Very well.”
We heard the hurried patter of Abdou's steps up the corridor, heard him pick up the receiver and mumble something. Then, with relief, we heard him hang up and go back into the kitchen. It meant she had not insisted or argued. It meant he would be with us tonight. “Shall we eat, then?” said my mother. “Good idea,” I repeated. “Yes, I'm starving,” said Aunt Elsa. “An angel you married,” murmured my grandmother to my father.
After dinner, everyone moved into the smaller living room, and, as was her habit on special gatherings, Aunt Elsa asked my father to play the record she loved so much. It was a very old recording by the Busch Quartet, and Aunt Elsa always kept it in her room, fearing someone might ruin it. I had noticed it earlier in the day lying next to the radio. It meant she had been planning the music all along. “Here,” she said, gingerly removing the warped record from its blanched dust jacket with her arthritic fingers. It was Beethoven's “Song of Thanksgiving.” Everyone sat down, and the adagio started.
The old 78 hissed, the static louder than the music, though no one seemed to notice, for my grandmother began humming, softly, with a plangent, faraway whine in her voice, and my father shut his eyes, and Aunt Elsa began shaking her head
in rapt wonder, as she did sometimes when tasting Swiss chocolate purchased on the black market, as if to say, “How could anyone have created such beauty?”
And there, I thought, was my entire world: the two old ones writhing in a silent stupor, my father probably wishing he was elsewhere, and my mother, whose thoughts, as she leafed through a French fashion magazine, were everywhere and nowhere, but mostly on her husband, who knew that she would say nothing that evening and would probably let the matter pass quietly and never speak of it again.
I motioned to my mother that I was going out for a walk. She nodded. Without saying anything, my father put his hand in his pocket and slipped me a few bills.
Outside, Rue Delta was brimming with people. It was the first night of Ramadan and the guns marking the end of the fast had gone off three hours earlier. There was unusual bustle and clamor, with people gathered in groups, standing in the way of traffic, making things noisier and livelier still, the scent of holiday pastries and fried treats filling the air. I looked up at our building: on our floor, all the lights were out except for Abdou's and those in the living room. Such weak lights, and so scant in comparison to the gaudy, colored bulbs that hung from all the lampposts and treesâas if the electricity in our home were being sapped and might die out at any moment. It was an Old World, old-people's light.
As I neared the seafront, the night air grew cooler, saltier, freed from the din of lights and the milling crowd. Traffic became sparse, and whenever cars stopped for the traffic signal, everything grew still: then, only the waves could be heard, thudding in the dark, spraying the air along the darkened Corniche with a thin mist that hung upon the night, dousing the streetlights and the signposts and the distant floodlights by the guns of Petrou, spreading a light clammy film upon
the pebbled stone wall overlooking the city's coastline. Quietly, an empty bus splashed along the road, trailing murky stains of light on the gleaming pavement. From somewhere, in scattered snatches, came the faint lilt of music, perhaps from one of those dance halls where students used to flock at night. Or maybe just a muted radio somewhere on the beach nearby, where abandoned nets gave off a pungent smell of seaweed and fish.
At the corner of the street, from a sidewalk stall, came the smell of fresh dough and of angel-hair being fried on top of a large copper standâa common sight throughout the city every Ramadan. People would fold the pancakes and stuff them with almonds, syrup, and raisins. The vendor caught me eyeing the cakes that were neatly spread on a black tray. He smiled and said, “
Etfaddal,
help yourself.”
I thought of Aunt Elsa's chiding eyes. “But it's Pesah,” I imagined her saying. My grandmother would disapprove tooâeating food fried by Arabs on the street, unconscionable. The Egyptian didn't want any money. “It's for you,” he said, handing me the delicacy on a torn sheet of newspaper.
I wished him a good evening and took the soggy pancake out onto the seafront. There, heaving myself up on the stone wall, I sat with my back to the city, facing the sea, holding the delicacy I was about to devour. Abdou would have called this a real
mazag
, accompanying the word, as all Egyptians do, with a gesture of the handâa flattened palm brought to the side of the headâsignifying blissful plenitude and the prolonged, cultivated consumption of everyday pleasures.
Facing the night, I looked out at the stars and thought to myself, over there is Spain, then France, to the right Italy, and, straight ahead, the land of Solon and Pericles. The world is timeless and boundless, and I thought of all the shipwrecked, homeless mariners who had strayed to this very land and for
years had tinkered away at their damaged boats, praying for a wind, only to grow soft and reluctant when their time came.
I stared at the flicker of little fishing boats far out in the offing, always there at night, and watched a group of children scampering about on the beach below, waving little Ramadan lanterns, the girls wearing loud pink-and-fuchsia dresses, locking hands as they wove themselves into the dark again, followed by another group of child revelers who were flocking along the jetty past the sand dunes, some even waving up to me from below. I waved back with a familiar gesture of street fellowship and wiped the light spray that had moistened my face.
And suddenly I knew, as I touched the damp, grainy surface of the seawall, that I would always remember this night, that in years to come I would remember sitting here, swept with confused longing as I listened to the water lapping the giant boulders beneath the promenade and watched the children head toward the shore in a winding, lambent procession. I wanted to come back tomorrow night, and the night after, and the one after that as well, sensing that what made leaving so fiercely painful was the knowledge that there would never be another night like this, that I would never eat soggy cakes along the coast road in the evening, not this year or any other year, nor feel the baffling, sudden beauty of that moment when, if only for an instant, I had caught myself longing for a city I never knew I loved.