Authors: Ahdaf Soueif
The Map of Love (44 page)
Looking up from Anna’s journal I am, for a moment, surprised to find myself in my own bedroom, her trunk standing neatly by the wall, my bed, the top sheet folded back, waiting for me to ease myself in. I had been so utterly in that scene, in the hall of the old house, in my great-grandmother’s haramlek. My heart had beaten in time with Anna’s, my lips had wanted her lover’s kiss. I shake myself free and get up to walk in the flat, to stand on the balcony, to look down at the street and bring myself back to the present. Who else has read this journal? And when they read it, did they too feel that it spoke to them? For the sense of Anna speaking to me — writing it down for me — is so powerful that I find myself speaking to her in my head. At night, in my dreams, I sit with her and we speak as friends and sisters.
In the kitchen I pour myself a cold glass of water from the fridge and pick up a cucumber which I bite into as I go back to the bedroom. Isabel is gone. All her things, the clothes she would not need, the big holdall with her camera and all her lenses, the books and tapes she has acquired, they are all here,
stored in the boys’ room. And she is somewhere over the Atlantic headed back for Jasmine and my brother. I have to speak to him. I have to talk to him straight. About her. I do not know what to make of her story of the shrine in the old house. Isabel is a practical, sensible woman. She is also romantic and full of feeling, but she is not mad. Not UFOs and alien abductions. Yet she was certain that she had pushed open a door and entered the shrine. She had sat there drinking Seven-Up and, by her account, conversing with a strange sheikh, a cheery serving-woman and a woman dressed like a Madonna in a painting.
We had gone back to the house next day and of course the door to the shrine was locked. Locked and padlocked and covered in cobwebs as it had been before. We went round to the front of the mosque. The tomb was covered by the usual green cloth and, yes, there were candles, but there are candles in many shrines. Beyond the iron screen the rest of the place was too dark for us to make out anything. I called the caretaker and told him we wanted to see the sheikh.
‘Here’s the sheikh,’ he said, pointing at the tomb.
‘No, the other sheikh,’ I said. ‘The one who lives inside.’
‘Ah! El-sheikh el-mestakhabbi? There isn’t one right now,’ he said. ‘The old one died and they haven’t brought a new one in his place yet.’
‘When did the old one die?’ I asked.
‘About a year ago,’ he said. ‘He was a youth, almost. But he was a pious man and the veil was lifted from him. And his father was here before him. They’ve been here a long time. For a hundred years. From before the house was taken by the government and turned into a museum.’
‘So for a year now there hasn’t been a sheikh inside?’
‘It’s known, ya Sett. The thing is, a sheikh who lives here has to be — as you know — a man of God. It means he wants nothing of this world. This is the condition of the waqf. And you won’t find a man like that every day.’
As we turned to go I thought of one more question: ‘And Umm Aya, does she still live around here?’
‘I don’t know, ya Sett,’ the man said. ‘I haven’t heard of her.’
Isabel is upset. She wants to argue with the man but I pull at her arm. In the car she says ‘I do not understand this. They
were
there. I saw them. I
talked
to them.’
‘Isabel,’ I say, ‘sometimes I think of people, or places, and the image is so strong that I’m quite shocked when I realise it was only in my head.’
‘They were there,’ she says, ‘just as you and I are here.’
Tomorrow, I think, as I smooth on my night cream in the mirror, tomorrow I’ll place a call to her. And one to
Omar. I haven’t got an international line. I would have been constantly tempted to call the boys.
Cairo
12 May 1901
Dear Sir Charles
,
I have just received yours of the 8th, in which you write that the Duke of Cornwall has promised to intercede for Urabi Pasha with the Sultan and the Khedive. This is welcome news indeed and will go — I hope — some way to redressing the wrong done these many years ago. I believe I have mentioned that Mahmoud Sami Pasha al-Baroudi lost his eyesight in Ceylon — so little did the climate agree with him — and now employs his daughters and grandchildren to read to him, for he is engaged on a work of compiling the best of Arabic poetry in one edition, with his notes. A formidable task for a blind gentleman. The others, of course, are now all dead. So I pray that the pardon of Urabi may heal some of those wounds which are still felt here today
.
Life here is much the same. There was a Grand Ball in fancy dress at Shepheard’s last week. The Moorish Hall is very grand and well suited to such occasions. Four officers who wished to attend but — arriving late in Cairo — had no costumes, availed themselves of some ladies’ gowns which are kept hung in closets in the corridors outside the rooms. They were a great success at the Ball but, by neglecting to return the dresses before they retired
,
caused a great deal of upset to the management next morning. The ladies were eventually pacified and peace reigned again. Such is the tenor of our amusements here
.
James Barrington has confided to me that he thinks of returning to England. His mother has been recently left a widow and as an only child he is sensible of his responsibility towards her. He thinks he would not be unhappy — and could be of some use — on the staff of a London newspaper. I have promised to write and ask if you know of an opening? He is a very able young man and I believe you would find him sympathetic
.
You ask when I think of returning. I have not made any plans. I do not yet find the heat too burdensome and I am making good progress with my Arabic —
Anna breaks off. She feels too false writing glibly to her beloved Sir Charles about the progress she is making with her Arabic. She sets this page aside and starts again. She must have copied out the first four paragraphs for the letter continues on a different sheet:
… and I believe you would find him sympathetic. I think he will be in England before me, so I shall enlist his services in carrying to Mr Winthrop those herbs he asked me for last autumn. If there is anything at all that I can send you from here …
And yet, the truth is that for the last two months, as her life in Cairo became more and more real to her, it has seemed to me that Sir Charles and Caroline and her home in London have receded in her mind. She worries about Sir Charles, but she knows that she is powerless to lift from him the greatest grief of his heart. Did she also fear that if she were in England she would be for ever ensnared in that grief?
17 May
Today I removed Edward’s ring from my finger and put it — together with the ring I gave him — into the felt purse Emily
made for me many years ago. Perhaps it is as well that I have had this time alone to prepare for the great change which is about to overtake my life. To bid farewell to the past, in as much as that can be done, and lay it to rest
.
I should have thought that I would feel some concern towards Edward at this time. But I believe that were he alive, he would be indifferent to my marrying again — perhaps even happy for me and relieved for himself. Except — except that I think he would only feel that if I were marrying someone acceptable to him. As for this marriage —
I try to imagine Edward and Sharif Basha (I still cannot use his name without the title!). I try to imagine them meeting but even in my mind I cannot get them to shake each other’s hand. Piece by piece it is coming to me: the distance I am placing between myself and those I have known and cared for all my life. I can imagine Caroline meeting Sharif Basha, and perhaps flirting with him a little. But of the men — even dear Sir Charles — lean only imagine my father. He, I think, could have been his friend. Not here in Egypt, nor yet in England, but had they met in some other country I can quite imagine them conversing with quiet amicableness — even though it would have had to be in French. As for my mother, I am sure they would have become great friends upon the instant
.
I have not seen him these eleven days. Nor will I — if all goes according to plan — until the 23rd. But Layla — my dear friend and soon to be my sister — has relayed his messages and tells me with smiles how he chafes and frets at each passing day that I am not with him. ‘Dear Anna,’ she cries, ‘I am so happy! I thought it would never happen. And now you must hurry and give us a bride for Ahmad!’ Sometimes she looks at me thoughtfully, though. And once she said, ‘You know Abeih will let you go home and visit whenever you want.’
‘I am sure he will,’ I said
.
‘Only —’ She looked troubled. ‘You must not expect him to go with you.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I had realised that.’
‘He could wait for you in France.’
‘Layla,’ I said, ‘all is well with me. It is too soon to start worrying about my homesickness.’ And indeed, I would not wish him to come to London and be stared at — or worse. One day, perhaps. When Egypt has her independence, we can take our children and open up Horsham for the summer months and I can show him — but that is a long time away
.
Layla has told me of the arrangements. The contract on one day. The ratification at the Agency on the next — for the contract being in place, Lord Cromer can do nothing to stop the marriage. And the wedding itself will take place on the third day. We have discussed the details and I have said I should like as much as possible of the events to take place as though I were an Egyptian, for I feel sure that will bring much pleasure to Zeinab Hanim, who has been waiting these many years to rejoice in her son’s marriage. I think also it will make him happy. And, for me, since it will not be the old church at Horsham, then it may as well be entirely different. So I have told Layla that I leave myself in her hands and she is to arrange all things as she would for her sister. She is well pleased and has started by ordering me an evening gown of gold lamé from a French seamstress on the rue Qasr el-Nil which I am to wear as a wedding gown. And whenever I go to the old house, I find her and Zeinab Hanim and the maids all stitching and embroidering various garments which they hold up against me and pin and adjust until I beg for mercy. It is a shame for Emily’s sake that she cannot be made a part of all this for she would well love to — except, I do not know how she will take this marriage
.
18 May
Today I asked Layla to ask Sharif Basha if we could live with his mother. I have not seen his house, but I understand it is in the European style as all new houses are — and I have grown to love the old house more with every hour I have spent there
.
‘Could we not live here?’ I asked. ‘If only for a while. It will be very hard for me to learn to keep house in the way he likes, and I would far rather learn from your mother than from the servants.’ I know also that Zeinab Hanim would dearly love to
have her son once more under her roof, although she will not suggest it. And I should like, if one day pray God there is a child, to sit with Layla in the loggia at the edge of the courtyard, embroidering frocks, and watching our children play by the fountain, while I listen for the clatter of hooves and the bustle at the door that tell me my husband is come home
.
And lend me leave to come unto my love.
Edmund Spenser
22 May 1901
Sheikh MuhammadAbdu shakes his head. The level brows, still black, are knitted over the lowered eyes as he reads the letter addressed to Prince Yusuf Kamal. In the large, austere room, its diwans and cushions covered in plain white fabric, its bookcases rising to the ceiling, the men sit in silence. When he has finished he hands the letter to Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Rida sitting at his side.
‘Those people —’ he says sadly. ‘We will never move forward as long as people think in this way.’