Authors: Ahdaf Soueif
But one week later, in a hurried, distraught hand:
15 June
I have been alone in my room for two hours. I cannot believe that the man I have chosen above all others — the man for whom I have left everything I ever held dear — can I have been so mistaken? I go over our argument and I am at a loss to understand it in any way that might bring me comfort
.
When he came in to lunch I noticed that his face was changed and he ate in silence. Zeinab Hanim and I exchanged glances and when I was alone with him I asked whether he had received news not to his liking, to which he responded by asking me where
I
had been the day before. I listed the shops I had gone to and he asked where else I had been. I searched my memory and then said that I had also been to the bank
.
‘Why did you go to the bank?’ he asked
.
‘Whyy because I needed some money,’ I replied, surprised
.
‘Do you not realise you are married?’ This in a cold tone that I had not heard from him before. I was at a loss and said yes, I realised I was married but I did not see what that had to do with visiting the bank
.
‘You are my wife,’ he said, ‘and you go to the bank and withdraw money — and without telling me?’ He spoke so angrily that I was stung and retorted that surely as it was my money I could withdraw it if I pleased and that I was disappointed that he employed his servants to spy upon my actions
.
‘It seems, madame, my servants have more sense than you of what is fitting.’ And with that he left the room. I could hear him moving next door but I would not go to him and presently I heard him leave
.
I do not know what to think. He has been so generous with his gifts and with the terms of the marriage — have I been blind?
Surely Madame Rushdi would have warned me? But we kept the impending marriage secret. I have since felt no reservation in her happiness for me. Oh, how little I really know him! Could my heart have been so mistaken?
Can it be that all I am to him is a foolish, wealthy English widow? Oh, hurtful, hurtful thought —
All certainty is dissolved. The rooms she has so lovingly arranged, the wordless companionship with his mother, the bond she had thought so secure with his sister; what is Anna to make of those now? Images from the hours she has spent with him, in his arms, in this very room, bring a hot blush of shame and anger to her face and her tears spill out yet again.
I DO NOT ALLEGE THAT
all was always well between them. How could that be when they had fallen in love across countries and seas?
And I recall that once I entered upon Anna during the first month of their marriage, and I had heard from my mother that there was a problem between them, the nature of which she did not know. My mother was worried, for my brother’s face was dark and thunderous as he left, and as for Anna, she kept to her room but Hasna, her maid, said she had been weeping. Anna would not sit but I begged her to tell me what had happened, for are we not sisters? I asked. At that she looked at me strangely but eventually I understood that she had been to her bankers to withdraw money and that my brother had found out and questioned her and she had taken this amiss. I told her she must expect him to be angry if he is insulted, as he surely would be — for if she needed money, why did she not ask him? I explained that with us, if a woman is married, her money is her own and her husband, if he is able, is obliged to furnish her with all the money she needs for her personal expenses as well as any household expenses she might incur.
‘If you use your own money, Anna, you are accusing him of negligence, or of being miserly. Or you lay yourself open to the charge of having some secret expense which you cannot divulge to him.’
‘And why does he have me spied on?’ Anna holds on to her anger a little longer.
‘That is more difficult,’ Layla says. ‘But look into your heart: what were you thinking of him before I came in? You know so little of each other. He is a public man and, as well as his heart, he has placed his reputation in your hands. Think of the bank clerks whispering why Sharif Basha al-Baroudi’s wife should come in person to withdraw money from her account. That news will already be with the Agency.’
Anna’s face has been changing as Layla speaks. Now she rushes to her dresser.
‘I must send it back immediately,’ she says.
AND IT WAS WITH DIFFICULTY
that I persuaded her that that could make matters worse. For she had that impulsive generosity of spirit that made it a necessity to her to right a wrong upon the instant.
Oh, wicked, wicked, wicked! How could I have doubted him so? I am ashamed of my thoughts and happy beyond measure to be in the wrong
.
I have prepared a note to Mrs Butcher saying that as an act of grace for my present happiness, I wish to make a donation to her charity for orphaned children. I placed it in a purse with the money and waited
.
28 June
Last night my husband came back early and walked into my room and stood before me with his hand outstretched, looking pale and tired. ‘I could not work,’ he said. ‘Come, Anna. Let us not quarrel. I cannot believe you meant to wound me.’
‘Would you send the money to Mrs Butcher tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘For one of her charities?’ And he took me in his arms
.
Late in the night, he held my face between his hands and said, ‘Our ways are so different. Let us be patient with one another.’
5 July
It is grown hot and Ahmad and I are not allowed into the courtyard during the day without our bonnets. Hasna is constantly appearing at my side with glasses of cool water scented with rose-water. I am aware at times that my husband is regarding me with some anxiety, for it seems he cannot feel certain that I am happy and content. He persists in thinking that I find my life too confined, but in truth, it is not so dissimilar to life in London — except in that we cannot do things together outside the house, for Egyptian Society is segregated, and there is no place for him among the Europeans. But where we cannot walk in the park, we walk in our garden, and he has procured for me some bushes of an English rose which we have planted in a
shady spot. I have warned him that he is to draw no conclusions if they do not thrive, ‘for I am no rose’, I said
.
‘So, what are you?’
‘I do not know. But I know that I have everything I need
.
‘Tell me, then,’ he said, drawing me close. ‘Tell me what you need now.’
Can love grow infinitely? Each day I feel my love for him push its roots deeper into my soul. I rest in his arms, so close that I can feel his heartbeat as though it were my own, and I wonder that just four short months ago I did not even know him
.
12 July
It has come about quite naturally that I am learning Arabic of my husband’s father for I had taken to visiting him for a few moments each day, and as I saw that he welcomed me but we did not converse together, I took my book with me and he, seeing my attempts, read for me and I repeated after him and so we began our lessons. He is a very gentle man, made frail and uncertain by his long seclusion and by the great sadness he has carried for so long. My husband is unfailingly courteous to him but I sense he is impatient of him, not because of his present infirmity but because of the path he chose some twenty years ago. They are so different to each other that it is hard to think of them as father and son. But I used to think that of Edward and Sir Charles
.
Sir Charles writes to me, but not so often. And after the first letter in which he wished me happiness — ‘although, my dear, I cannot say I confidently expect it’ — he writes without mention of my new condition, so that I feel constrained not to mention any particulars of my life to him and restrict myself to reports on my Arabic and the garden and such political news as I hear from my husband. Caroline writes from time to time with news of our friends and she expresses curiosity about my life but I find in myself a strange unwillingness to provide a detailed picture of ‘life in the Harem’. If she were to visit, however, I would be glad to have her as my guest for it is only then, I think, that she would gain a true picture of my life here. Mrs Butcher is the only one of my English acquaintances here who continues to see me and she
brings me news of James Barrington, who is soon to leave for London. I have given her a parcel to give to him with the request that he deliver it to Sir Charles that he may in turn give it to Mr Winthrop. It contains the camphor and the oil of Habbet el-Barakah he asked me for many months ago, and will serve as an introduction between Mr Barrington and Sir Charles. Mrs Butcher has promised to write some pieces for the ladies’ magazine that we are planning. The magazine is the idea of Madame Zeinab Fawwaz and a young woman by the name of Malak Hifni Nasif. They plan Arabic and French editions and wish to attract writers from as many communities as possible and — while the idea is to compare the condition and the aspirations of women in different societies — it is not to confine itself to the ‘Question of Women’ but to enter into matters of more general concern and so demonstrate that women are ready to enter a wider arena than that to which they have hitherto been confined
.
My husband speaks of a School of Fine Art that is being planned and has said that he wishes me to have a part in the planning. Nothing is to be done until November, though, for all of Cairo is now gone either to Europe or to Alexandria for the summer months and, if we can prevail upon my beau-père to travel, we shall go to Alexandria as well and I shall be most curious to see — in such different circumstances — that city which was my first port of entry to this my new world
.
25 August 1997
My brother is incapable of walking slowly. He takes long strides along the sea’s edge and I find myself playing my old game of secretly trying to match his footsteps. I manage to stay in rhythm for seven long steps, then I have to do a speedy little cha-cha shuffle forward. My earliest memories of him are on this beach — no, my earliest memory is of him leaving: there I am, in focus, in a red sun frock with ribbons for straps, seated on my father’s shoulder waving goodbye. My mother stands next to us and in the distance, across from the men rushing about on the quay, across from the expanse of brownish water dotted with small boats with more men in them, my brother
stands at the rails of his ship, a pale, slim figure, his black hair shining in the sunshine. After that my memories of him are here on this beach at ‘Agami, where our father built his own modest beach house for us after he sold the big villa that my grandfather and Sharif Basha had built on the other side of Alexandria so that their wives might play and swim with their children in privacy. My brother came back in the long vacations and amused himself as best he could with a sister twelve years his junior. We built sandcastles and he taught me to swim and to play racquet ball and we went for walks like this one: he marching by the edge of the sea, kicking up the spray with his feet, while I ran along at his side.
I catch his arm and hold on, slowing him down.
‘But it must be good,’ I say, ‘in principle, anyway, to get everybody together to talk?’
‘It’s just containment,’ he says. ‘What ‘Arafat is interested in is containment and maintaining his credibility. But what’s he doing? He’s got eleven security services. Eleven!’
My brother speaks with vehemence. I’ve hardly ever heard him speak except with vehemence — each word underlined. To look at him you would think he was a dandy, a dilettante, with his good looks, his fine clothes, his fastidious attention to detail; then he moves into action and you are caught up in a whirlwind. A whirlwind with method.
‘He has his own prisons and he uses torture and bone-breaking just as much as the Israelis. At least with them there’s some kind of process by which people can question what goes on in their jails. But with him there’s nothing. Nothing at all. The only ones with anything to offer now are Hamas. They’re the ones with credibility on the streets. And they’ve earned it. They’re the ones who’re putting up resistance — and suffering losses.’
‘So?’
He’s shaken free of my arm and once again I am breaking into the occasional trot to catch up. The sea is turning iron grey and people are rolling up their straw mats and shaking out their towels.
‘So it’s very sad. They turned up to my talk and they asked good questions. They’re intelligent. They’re committed. They certainly have a case. But one cannot approve of fundamentalists — of whatever persuasion.’
‘And the conference?’
‘Nothing. Empty talk. He wants Hamas to stop operations. But they said, quite rightly, that without them the Israelis have no incentive to give up anything.’
‘And you? How did you leave it with him?’
He kicks the water, bends down and picks up something, wipes it on his trousers and holds it out to me: a smooth shiny black stone, a perfect egg-shaped oval, polished by sea water and sand and sun over who knows how many hundreds of years.
‘Keep it,’ he says. ‘I told him this was the first meeting — the first official meeting I’d attended since Ï resigned from the PNC, and it would be the last. It’s a good job I have an American passport. But I’m going back. I am going to Jerusalem. I want to see our mother’s house.’
‘You want to be careful,’ I said. Hate mail is a normal part of my brother’s life and his house in New York has been letter-bombed twice.
‘So tell me about her, about Isabel,’ I say at last. Outside the glass panes of Zephyrion the night and the sea are all one blackness. We are in Abu Qir, where my grandfather’s house used to be; a large, many-roomed villa with an enclosed sand-garden where the fig trees grew. It was pulled down years ago and everywhere now there are small cement shacks which families that used to be middle class but are now poor rent for their summer holidays. But it is mercifully dark and we cannot see them. We can hear the gentle roar of the waves. The old British soldier who had stayed behind after the war and beat his unending tattoo on this beach is no longer there. We used to sit in this restaurant and the strains of ‘Scotland the Brave’ from his bagpipes would float in as he approached, and recede into a ghostly echo as he retreated. Perhaps he is dead, I think.
Lay down and died on this beach and people found him in the morning and picked him up and gave him a shroud and a grave as they had given him food and shelter when he was alive.