Authors: Tariq Ali
Within two weeks Mariam and I were together. These were times of real happiness for both of us, but now when I look back even on that early period I remember episodes that at the time seemed insignificant or even childish.
All of us have different aspects to our character, Stone Woman. It would be unnatural if this was not so, but Mariam was a deeply contradictory woman. In a way I think she really would have preferred Hamid Bey to deny us permission to marry. In her eyes that would have been a test of my love. Would I have run away with her to some other part of the world? My affirmative responses had little real effect on her because it was something that could never be proved. At other times she would say: “I hate it when you’re too happy with me. I prefer you when you’re sad.” I never fully understood why and when I questioned her about this later she denied she had ever said anything of the sort.
It was a long time after the festivities that she explained why Hamid Bey had been in such a hurry. He knew that if there had been a long engagement, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to prevent her mother’s attendance.
Her mother, Arabella, was the daughter of an English plantation owner and his Chinese mistress, who lived in the British colony of Malaya. Her father, who was unmarried, recognised her and she had grown up in the plantation house, but without her mother, who saw her once or twice a week. Later she was sent to study in Britain. Mariam loved and hated her mother. The words in which she told me the story reflected this duality.
On her way back home from London Arabella was overcome by an urge to see the pyramids at Giza. The ship’s captain telegraphed Singapore and her father agreed. She disembarked at Alexandria. Her father had friends here and had informed them that his headstrong child was on her way. An old couple (now dead) had arrived at the pier to receive her. She was always a spoilt child and took everything for granted. In her photograph she appears to be an Englishwoman. In real life her complexion was slightly darker, but she never wanted to be mistaken for a hybrid. That’s why what happened in Egypt astonished everyone.
Hamid Bey had sighted her at a private dinner, where she confessed her desire to see the Sphinx. He offered to organise her tour and a chaperone. But he was smitten with her and followed her everywhere. Hamid Bey is still a striking man. Twenty years ago, he must have been irresistible. She was flattered by his attention, amused by his jokes, impressed by his wealth and attracted by his body. He proposed. She accepted. Her father sent numerous telegrams forbidding the match, but she was of age and in a defiant mood. Her hosts told her she could not possibly marry an Egyptian. She walked out of their house, declaring that she was half-Chinese and proud of the fact. Everyone knew, of course, but it was never mentioned since everything about her appeared to be English.
Another small problem arose. Hamid Bey comes from a Copt family which traces its descent back over a thousand years. They were already upset that he was defiling the purity of his family by marrying an Englishwoman, but his mother was close to tears when Hamid Bey proudly told his mother that he, too, would have been doubtful if Arabella had been completely English, but the fact she was half Chinese had greatly reassured him.
For Mariam’s grandmother, the Chinese did not exist except as figures that appeared on the screens she sometimes bought from Italian furniture shops. She probably thought that the whole Chinese race was a comic invention. Hamid Bey got very angry. He screamed at his mother. Then he calmed down and gave her a lecture on Chinese civilisation. They had invented the compass, gunpowder, printing, and so on.
They were married quickly. Mariam was born. Her mother was bored. Hamid Bey was travelling a great deal in those days. She led an aimless life. She read little, was not really interested in Egypt or its history and soon began to resent the fact that she was no longer invited to European homes. Soon she started seeing a new set of people. They were non-official Europeans and they met at one club in particular, but usually at each other’s houses to drink gin and play cards. One day she met an Englishman on his way to India. She left her husband and daughter without even a note. Mariam was eleven years old at the time. Her mother wrote to her once saying that she had never really loved Hamid and that true passion was a wonderful experience, which she hoped Mariam would discover one day. Mariam did not see her again, though the two exchanged letters and Arabella sent money every month. She went on to have two more children, whose photographs Mariam has never asked to see, for fear of upsetting Hamid Bey.
It was unbearable for her to witness the decline in her father. He became a mere shadow. They would eat together, discuss books, meet friends, but the joy had gone out of his life. Arabella’s room was left just as it had been on the day she left. Her clothes remained in the cupboard for many years. That dress Mariam wore the first time she and I met, which I liked so much, belonged to Arabella. Later Mariam emptied the room, gave most of her mother’s things away, kept a few for herself and transformed it into a library. She told her father that books were the one item that would never remind him of his wife. He smiled.
Then he went with Uncle Kemal Pasha on a long journey to Japan. He returned a different man. Mariam had no idea what happened or what he experienced, but he became more like his old self. They began to entertain in their house again. Once she tried to speak with him about her mother. His face became lined with pain and he whispered that she had died a long time ago. Mariam never raised the subject again.
The aspect of this story that struck me as peculiar, Stone Woman, did not concern Hamid Bey. His feelings were natural. The only surprise in his case is that he never married again. What puzzled me was Mariam’s own reaction to her mother. In her tone there was always a mixture of anger and admiration. She had been abandoned. That made her angry. But her mother had put love and passion before all else and Mariam had forced herself to admire this side of her mother. I suppose it was the only way she could deal with the betrayal.
The thought that a woman who had done this to her only child was selfish beyond redemption was something that occurred to her but it was always put out of her mind. The result was a deep ambivalence in Mariam’s own character. She developed a real fear of commitment. The experience of losing her mother at a young age had wounded her deeply and the scars never disappeared. To me, who had never known a mother, it was incredible that in all our time together she never once evinced the slightest desire to see her mother again. I was more curious than she was and offered to take her to India, but she was angry with me for the suggestion. It would, she said, be an act of betraying her father and he had suffered more than enough in a single lifetime.
After a year and a half she had still not conceived and this made her very unhappy. She wanted children for more reasons than a normal woman in her position. Her own family and children would help her forget what her mother had done to her, and she became so desperate that it began to affect our relationship.
One day she said, “Perhaps it is your seed that is defective. I should find another man.” She would start crying after she made remarks of this nature, hug me warmly and plead forgiveness. I was not angry at that time, Stone Woman, just sad. To find a woman whom you love so much that she becomes part of your very being and you learn to share everything—joys, sorrows, victories, defeats, good times and bad—is this not rare for men as well as women?
She became pregnant in our third year together and then again the following year. I have rarely seen her so happy. She became absorbed in the children and would take them to visit Hamid Bey every week, sometimes spending the whole day in the big house. Her interest in me had diminished considerably. I remember on one occasion when Uncle Kemal was passing through Alexandria and stayed as our guest, she became extremely irrational when he kissed the children and gave them each a tiny little purse with a gold coin. It was when he began to speak to them with great affection and as a great-uncle that I first noticed her face. When Uncle Kemal said, “Your grandfather Iskander Baba will be so pleased to see you one day”, I saw Mariam’s face darken with anger and she left the room in a rage. I was genuinely amazed. It was inexplicable.
After Uncle Kemal left I tried to discuss her behaviour with her, but my remarks only provoked a tirade against my family. She spoke of why she did not want her children to be taken over by the Pashas of Istanbul; of how there was degeneration and madness in my family and she manufactured numerous other complaints. Given the extent of my own alienation from the family, I found her conduct pathetic and unreasonable.
Even at this stage I made excuses for her irrationality. I convinced myself that she was merely being extra possessive because having lost her mother, she was now fearful of losing the children. Who knows how long I would have continued deluding myself, Stone Woman? But fate took pity on me.
One day, while taking my afternoon walk by the sea, I was approached by a European woman dressed in black and wearing a hat with an attached veil. She was clearly distressed and asked if I was “Signor Salman Pasha, the son-in-law of Hamid Bey”. I acknowledged my identity, whereupon she insisted on speaking with me urgently and immediately. I asked her to accompany me to a less crowded section of the promenade. We sat down and she began to sob. The memory still upsets me and I will not dwell on it too long, but she told me the truth, Stone Woman, even though I only half-believed her at the time. I may sound calm now as I talk to you about all this, but at the time what she told me made me want to die. The sky and the sea went dark. The people walking in front of us became shadows. My mind became numb. The Italian lady told me that I was not the father of our children. Her husband was their real father. It emerged that she was married to the son of the furniture-maker who supplied the needs of the rich in Cairo and Alexandria. The furniture in Hamid Bey’s house had been made by them and I now remembered the young man, Marco, who had measured our villa and who visited our house often till the job was done.
His wife described in every painful detail how Mariam had seduced Marco away from her. She knew because she had taken her suspicions to her father-in-law, who had expressed amazement, but instructed an old carpenter to follow his son discreetly. They used to meet in the early afternoon in my little secret cove, where Mariam and I had first tasted each other. I screamed aloud on hearing this detail. She must have been far gone in her depravity that she took such a risk, knowing that I often went there to read and write. Was she hoping I would see her?
Marco’s father had forced him to confess this and every other detail. He had been sent first to the confessional and then despatched to work in his uncle’s shop in Genoa as a penance. His wife told me that she and her two young daughters were preparing to join him within a month. He now pretended to be remorseful and claimed it was Mariam who had taken the initiative and enchanted him. He had become a slave to her passion. He did not see her before he left, but he told his father that she wanted him to give her another child. Marco’s wife referred to Mariam as a loose and crazy woman and said she had come to me with the truth because she had heard that I was also suffering. I doubt that this was her real motive, but I took my leave of her and wished her well in the future.
I have no recollection of what I did after that encounter. When I reached home it was past midnight. I went into my room and sank on the bed. She was in her room but not asleep. Will it shock you, Stone Woman, if I say that my love for her was so strong that even at this stage I was prepared to forgive her? It was, after all, my seed that had failed to sprout. I told myself that if she was so desperate for children, what else could she have done? She came into my room wearing my old grey silk dressing gown and asked why I had been out so late. I looked at her face and found myself overcome with rage. I wanted to hit her, but I controlled my anger.
“Mariam, I knew we had employed the best furniture-makers in town to supply us with tables and chairs and beds. I had no idea that you had asked their carpenter, Marco, to furnish you with children as well.”
She was shaken, Stone Woman. Her face became pale and she began to tremble. I spoke to her again. “If only you could see your lying, hypocritical face in the mirror! Are you trembling with fear and guilt? Good! Before I finish with you...”
I stopped because she had begun to weep. The sight of her tears had always touched me deeply. I walked to her and began to stroke her face. She reacted to my touch as if I were a leper. Her face was transformed completely. I no longer recognised her as the woman I loved. A strange, scornful smile appeared on her face, a smile of triumph. She was actually pleased at the sight of my misery, glad that I had been humiliated and betrayed. She looked at me with real loathing and said, “My true feelings for you have long been those of disgust and contempt. It is not just that your seed was infertile, but your love had become a punishment for me. I needed to free myself from you and the restraints of this life.”
I did not sleep that night. Her pitiless cruelty left me with no choice. I thought of the two beautiful children I adored. It was difficult to think of them as not belonging to me. I was tempted to see their little trusting faces for the last time, but I resisted the urge. I packed a little
valise
and walked out of the house at the first sign of dawn.
The streets were empty. The only noise was that of the seagulls scavenging for food. The beautiful sky was red at the edges and slowly turning pink. I couldn’t help contrasting the beauty of nature with the ugliness of what Mariam had done to my life. I walked to Hamid Bey’s house. Maria the crone opened the door, clutching her rosary. For the first time she looked at me with sympathy and patted my back as I entered the hall. Perhaps the pain etched on my face attracted her sympathy. Perhaps she knew. Hamid Bey came down the stairs, took one look at me and realised what had happened. He embraced me warmly and asked Maria to bring us some coffee.