When Omar's English mother died, of a heart attack, during the Suez War of 1956, his father, the Air Marshal, after a barely decorous and minimal period of mourning, started seeing and going out formally with Mrs. Ebeid. Omar left for England to continue his studies as our English School had disintegrated. Not physically. Its soul was wrenched. The all-English staff was expelled from Egypt, the school was reorganized by the Egyptian Ministry of Education and it started functioning as a caricature of its former self. Perhaps, I should suppress this hint of criticism because the task was far from easy. The English left a rich and weighty legacy not easily duplicated. But back to it I went after the war and, and the year I wasted there, and as a result the year I wasted at MIT, with all the shattered dreams and heartbreak, were my entire responsibility. In this story I shall not delve into my educational debacle; I shall write how it helped me keep track of the Air Marshal's romance, of the growing up of Isabel, of the convolutions of life and the inadvertent encounters with that name.
The Air Marshal was a tall, vigorous, friendly and extremely sociable person.
A successful man in whatever he undertook, he was, after his retirement as Air Chief-of-Staff, a consultant in the airline world and high-powered businessman with top connections in government and in the air industry in Egypt and abroad. A few years later in his life he made loads of money. His self-confidence was such, I imagined him capable of telling jokes to the Queen of England, laughing out loudly and patting her on her back unselfconsciously. I kept in touch with him, sporadically, when Omar was away, mostly by phone, but some friendly dinner invitations did take place where my mother and father were included and Mrs. Ebeid was always present. Sometimes so was Isabel.
Mrs. Ebeid was also English. I never really inquired if she was a widow or if she was divorced from Isabel's father. She was a teacher at the Junior School during the English period and returned to it after the Suez war, to continue teaching, probably because she had acquired through her marriage the Egyptian nationality. After we met socially, I used to keep a lookout for her at school and go and say hello whenever I spotted her. She always seemed pleased to see me and inquired about my progress and my parents. She was a handsome woman, undoubtedly English, tall, well built, a perfect body with slightly prominent breasts, graying hair and a relatively fresh complexion considering she must have been in her early fifties at the time. I often thought how wonderful it would be to make love to her. And I did not blame the Air Marshal for being so obviously taken by her. They were very tender with each other and I found it strange that their relationship went on for years without ending in marriage. Forever tender, romantic and loving, never deteriorating.
She lived with Isabel in a pleasant, ground-floor flat, in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, and her glasshouse patio, which faced a garden, was superb in the winter 26
sunshine. As for Isabel, I was, at first, vaguely aware of her at school as a pretty, dark haired girl, with her mother's milk-white complexion, shapely and buxom in an immature way. I never gave her much thought for age differences at school amounted to a caste system, practically forbidding social intercourse, and Isabel was two years younger than I was. We were friendly enough when we met outside school and through her reticence I sensed a liking.
In a way, I was constantly in touch, with the romantic lovers during the years that followed, though not very frequently so. That may sound like a contradiction but it was the result of circumstances. After the wasted year at school in Cairo and the wasted, expensive, and super disappointing failure at MIT in the States, I ended up in London. There, I lived and studied and grew up for five years in the company of many of my former classmates. Omar's dad, the Air Marshall, was in town at least three or four times a year for business and we had our fill, thanks to him, of Farnborough Air Shows and champagne dinners and lunches with the Lords and the Sirs, the elite of the British Aviation Industry. Omar took everything in his stride. I felt like a little impostor when a Sir or a Lord engaged me in a polite but obviously patronizing conversation. Mrs. Ebeid often joined him on his trips to London and I was always happy to see her and be with her and even to accompany the couple for shopping or a treat to the theatre. We fattened up during their visits because the lunch invitations of the Air Marshal were frequent and the food plentiful. Ramzy, Omar's elder brother, was always there when his dad was around but we rarely saw him otherwise. The romance was going full blast and the sweethearts used to take long walks in the lovely London parks when the sun was out and the weather permitted and I really thought it extraordinary that love bloomed so youthfully at their age.
Then, there were the summers. Most of us would return to Egypt for the summer vacation. It was not strange that Omar never did. He always had a valid reason but mostly, I think, it was his fear that he would be nabbed for compulsory military service. Some of us other boys that returned were foreign nationals, others, the Egyptians, were the only male offspring in the family and thus exempt from the service. In Cairo, we would invariably meet with the Air Marshal and my father always made it a point to extend a splashy invitation to repay him for the many kindnesses he showered on me when he was in London. I remember one such occasion in particular because I suddenly became aware and attracted to Isabel. For the life of me I cannot place the time. It may have been during my third year in London. I vaguely remember that mother was away. Probably visiting her own mother and sister in Greece. Andy, my Greek friend was back, as well, and with my father, we picked him up and then collected my exquisitely beautiful cousin Maria, with whom I was, on and off, in love for a lifetime. The more, the merrier was the motto but we were not so many.
In the car Andy whispered in my ear, I hope Isabel comes. She should be quite a dish by now. And, by coincidence, just as he uttered these words, the Air Marshal's car passed us by. Hey, there she is, cried Andy, she's come. Isabel noticed us as they passed alongside, waved and smiled. Yes, she was dishy and pretty and fresh. Not to be compared with Maria but oh, so nice and desirable.
We got off at the old Semiramis Hotel, right next to the Kasr El Nil Bridge, on the Nile. I say old, because it has, since, been torn down to be replaced by an air-conditioned nightmare, as Henry Miller would have called it. We greeted each other merrily, happily, shaking hands, heartily, vigorously. Kissing was still not as widespread as it is now. The Air Marshal, hearty and loud and cheerful, telling me,
“Ahlan ya Guirgis, hamdella bil salama fi Masr. ” Welcoming me back to Cairo, 27
addressing me in the Arabic pronunciation of my name. The ladies were looking splendid. Mrs. Ebeid, with a minimum of makeup, ten years younger; Isabel with somewhat more, ten years older. It was the smile that was sweet but shy, that gave her youth away. Maria, as beautiful as ever but cool and collected. Once I told her mother, my aunt, that I was in love with her and she said, “What? With that block of ice?” Didn't she know that in love we do not choose, we are chosen? Maria always accepted my compliments and kisses and petting with a smile but in the end always pushed me away. Never explaining, and I, never knowing why. Perhaps it was too obvious for words and I did not want to understand.
The hotel was not air-conditioned. The rooms had individual units installed but the lobby and corridors were warm and a little musty. On the other hand, they were wide and majestic and the furnishings had character and history and, well, it is very much a matter of what you look for in life. An old fashioned lift to the roof, to a cool breeze, another gift of the Nile, which was bejeweled and glittering with the lights of the city oscillating on its surface, moving, always moving, flowing, giving life, giving beauty to our life, an assurance, a continuity. On the roof, the nightclub without a roof, with a clear sky, the full moon obscuring the glitter of the stars in its vicinity, with a dance floor and the tables arranged around it, with a live band on a slightly elevated platform and music and singing in sensible decibels, enabling us to be sociable and carry on conversations across the table, unlike the mad sounds of modern clubs which seem to drill into your ears, driving you mad, isolating you on a desert island of noise, making you wonder why no one protests, why anyone would want to be there.
I tried to maneuver to sit down next to Maria but managed the worst possible arrangement. She was next seat to me but one, making it difficult to talk to her across my neighbor, who was my father. She smiled at me amused. She was a clever girl.
Isabel was opposite to me and I talked with her, asking her about school. We did not have much in common to talk about but our eyes continually met and we smiled.
Well, the gathering was jolly and noisy and we ordered drinks and food in the usual middle-eastern manner. Much more than we would ever consume. The band was local. They were an American University music group called the Bell Boys making a little money in summer but with a lot of talent and good spirits.
After a while of talk and banter, the Air Marshal and Mrs. Ebeid opened the ball, so to speak, for our little group and in an easygoing manner and various combinations, we started dancing. Andy was a great talent. In London, he picked up his girls in dancing clubs. He danced with Maria and Isabel and Mrs. Ebeid. There was very little rock-and-roll. In Egypt, it was the time of romantic slows, of mambos, sambas and cha-cha. I was not proficient and waited for the odd slow to drag my feet, one step at a time, this way and that. I was much amused and surprised to see my portly dad doing the cha-cha with Maria. Then, I asked her for a slow, and we danced but when I held her tightly, she pushed me back and when I tried to kiss her she told me to please stop. She did not want the others to see us flirting. She was my first cousin. There were religious constraints in our Orthodox Church, though for the Moslems, the first cousin is the match of choice.
After dinner and a little drink, I danced with Isabel. It was Maria in reverse. I held her loosely but she snuggled into my arms, her body on mine, and a discreet perfume and body odor invaded my senses. I tightened my embrace and she looked at me and smiled and I was aroused and embarrassed. Egyptian women have lovely, large, dark eyes. Isabel was half-and-half but her eyes were Egyptian and her smile, enticing. She was not super but she was attractive and soft and inviting and I noticed 28
it for the first time. She had no shield I had to penetrate. I danced with her again and again. She tried to teach me the mambo and the cha-cha but they were too difficult for me and, some of them, we danced in any old way, with giggles and hugs. We talked as well. She had just finished school and was coming to London for a secretarial course though her mother wanted her to enter university to study literature but she doubted she could do that.
Oh what a pleasant evening that was. It had to be, to stay so much alive in my memory. In the car, Maria smiled at me and said, “You had a nice time!” I said, “Yes, didn't you?” “Of course,” she said and smiled again. She was so cool I could never understand if she was talking straight or out of pique for my dalliance with Isabel.
Well, if she did care, it surely did not break her heart. A few days later, mother returned from Athens and the family moved to our summer house by the sea, at Sidi Bishr, in Alexandria. To swim in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, which we considered an essential part of our well-being and health, to meet with some old school friends who were also vacationing there, especially Tousson, practically a brother, to enjoy the city which was still charming, still small but cosmopolitan, where besides Arabic, one heard Greek, Italian, Armenian, and where French and English were the languages of preference of the rich, educated and trendy, to go to all the "in" places, cinemas, hotels, discos, beaches, sporting clubs where pretty girls abounded and to read once again the Alexandria Quartet and the poems of Kavafi and revel in the enchantment of Alexandria, pretending you did not notice that it was, slowly but surely, wasting away, becoming frayed, haggard, the victim of overbearing, multiplying humanity and haphazard, lamentable expansion.
Then back to London and gray skies, rain, and the chill of the weather and the people; another way of life, by no means unpleasant because it was civilized. I lived, at the time, at 3 Wetherby Gardens, a rooming house in South Kensington, which at one time or another was a repository for every single one of my former English School classmates. Even when apart, we were never far from one another and loneliness was never much of a problem in our life in London. We lived a coddled agreeable life and, in any case, life is what you make of it. I like to think that, given my character, I did as good a job as I could. Not a profound brain, I studied moderately, managed to scrape through my exams, lost my virginity at nineteen, a mite retarded in that respect, had a few affairs where I should have had many more for the opportunities abounded, read a great deal of modern literature, saw most of the worthwhile plays that were put on the English stage, did not neglect the Festival Hall for music nor Covent Garden for ballet and the odd opera.
I met Isabel in London a few weeks later under funny and farcical circumstances. Omar phoned me one evening and told me that she had arrived a few days earlier, was installed in a rooming house near his own, was lonely and was breaking his balls (sorry) wanting to see me. “I‟ll bring her around on the Vespa,” he told me, “and she can come up to your room on her own.” There were three Georges at 3 Wetherby Gardens. George Z., George C. and George, me. It would, perhaps, round up the story to give some idea of these two neighbors and friends of circumstance. George Z. was a Copt from Cairo, scion of a prominent family that published a number of weekly periodicals. He was a few years older than I was and when I first met him, I kept out of his way. One would not care to throw him a second glance. Seedy looking and squinty eyed, he had nevertheless a piercing stare that reached you through the extra thick lenses of his spectacles. He was totally unattractive, slouchy and soft. Slow to talk or express an opinion, slow to move, I even wondered if he knew how to run and often asked myself how the girls he 29
brought to his room from time to time, would bear to have him touch them. But little by little, I discovered him. His brilliant brain, his subtle sense of humour, his upright morals, his kindness, and his modesty given his gifts and his family's wealth. He was studying for a PhD at LSE and he bequeathed to me his undergraduate lecture notes, which were detailed and razor sharp and contributed considerably to my passing grades. I have lost track of him but I am sure he is there, somewhere, at the very top.
George C. was a bird of a different feather, even if at times they flew together.
A Greek from Egypt, I had known him all my life, though there were many black holes in our relationship and one in particular that ended it. He was a funny boy and usually fun to have around. It is ironical that no one took him seriously and in the end he was the most successful of all of us other geniuses. He was not short but on that side of the median, plump, bustling, energetic, funny looking. He cultivated this image of the unkempt, tousle-haired artist, which he believed he was. And indeed, perhaps he was. He was a cinema fiend, a real movie maniac and was studying film direction and techniques in a small college in London. He reached the very top in Hollywood, directing typical Hollywood fare, that is, big budget, glamorous action films with well known stars and Hollywood legends.
George was a chain smoker and compulsive talker and I hated it when he came to my room. He would chain smoke and talk for hours and the smoke and smell of cigarettes would be a problem especially during winter when one could hardly open a window without freezing to death. One day, I lost my patience and told him, “OK, George, time to go, I have studying to do.” He took it badly and our friendship cooled off and I have felt bad about it ever since, though I have not seen him for over thirty years. We both lived on the top floor of the type of standard, identical-style Victorian building which covers ninety percent of the London residential areas. In rooms with a sloping roof and inadequate heating. Another peculiarity of his was that he was sexually hyper active. Libido unlimited. I still cannot decide whether, in life, this is desirable or not. On second thoughts, it must be rather wearying for his tales of this quest, were never ending.
He had a ravishing Swedish girlfriend, whom I liked enormously. She was blonde, of course, and tall, slightly taller than him, and gentle and quiet and she was a painter. An odd match and oddly solid at that. They were stuck to one another.
Possessive and jealous on both sides. I always felt his annoyance and suspicion whenever I showed her the slightest affection. But it seems the same held for her, which did not deter him from a little sex on the side and if that was unavailable, he confided to me, a little masturbation! They eventually got married and she must have led an exciting and glamorous life and was often commissioned to make the portraits of the likes of Anthony Quinn. When our relations cooled and our chance meetings were just curt hellos, she always looked at me in an aggrieved, accusing manner, which never failed to upset me.
That evening, when Omar called me up about Isabel, the two Georges were horny. I reconstruct the happenings from what I was told later. George Z. took his car and drove to Paddington to a club where he could pick up a prostitute. They needed an orgasm, quick and simple, without too much fuss. One girl for two, taking turns, paying for the service. To loosen up and relax. George C. stayed behind to tidy his room, which was always in a mess. He shaved, put on his aftershave lotion and waited impatiently, chain smoking, fogging up his room. At about the right time, a knock on the door. He opened; it was her. The whore. Hey, what a lovely girl. He was thrilled.
Young, shapely, black hair, just a trace of makeup, Latin looks.
“George?” she asked. “Is George here?”
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“Yes, yes, come in.”
She entered the room, cautiously.
“Please sit down. Would you like a coffee?”
“No thank you. No need.”
He didn't know how to treat her. She was so young and seemed so uncomfortable. It must have been her first time out. She sat on his bed. She looked around. He sat on the armchair opposite and smiled at her. He didn't know what to say. He offered her a cigarette. She didn't smoke. He got up and sat next to her on the bed. She seemed discomfited.
She asked him, “Where's George?”
“I'm George.”
“No, not you.”
“Oh, the other George. He's downstairs. Second floor.”
“They told me he's on the top floor.”
“No. I'm the George at the top floor. When we finish I'll take you to the George of the second floor.”
“Finish what?”
“You know…..”
“No I don't know!”
“Is there something wrong?”
“I just want George Loukas.”
“God! Why didn't you say so?”
“I did. I said I wanted George.”
“For heaven's sake, there are fifty Georges in this house.” So Isabel came to my room and fell in my arms and we hugged and kissed chastely on the cheeks and she smiled and we had some coffee and we talked and talked and I forgot my studies and late at night I walked her to her house. Outside her door we kissed and kissed and kissed again and we could not get enough of it, we could not tear ourselves apart.
“Can I come up?” I asked her.
“No. It's not allowed.”
“Shall we go back to my room?”
The answer was a fiery kiss, and we did. She was still a virgin and we became lovers as gently and as tenderly as I could manage that first night. We stayed together for the six months of her secretarial course and then she had to leave because, meanwhile, after the long romance and idyllic love affair, her mother, Mrs. Ebeid and the Air Marshall were married and then divorced within two months.
My God! That was a shock. I could not believe it. What was the reason?
I never did find out. I suspected the Air Marshal did love Mrs. Ebeid for she was a classy, delicate, refined and beautiful woman. I suspected he was a vigorous, sensual man and like George C. could not resist tasting something purely physical, purely animal, on the side. I had gone to his office several times and was appalled by the familiarity with which his two secretaries addressed him. Two youngish, fair skinned, large, plump, sensual Egyptian women. The type of houris Moslems will enjoy for an eternity in paradise. They were attractive too, if a little too stout for my taste. Which did not stop me from thinking about them often, and undressing them and making love to them, in my fantasies. Could he have had them both? In any case, Mrs. Ebeid probably found out and the shock was too great for her to bear, too unacceptable for her self-respect. Love flew out of the window and very soon after the rapid, adequate and effective, thrice repeated, “I divorce thee,” the Air Marshal 31
married Samia, the larger and more beautiful of the two women, promptly fathered a son and kept the other for office duties. He was at the time in his mid sixties. And he never stopped being a darling of a man.
I never saw Isabel again. But the world is ever growing smaller and the coincidences of life more frequent. Isabel married an Egyptian airline pilot and for a time, a few years back, lived in the same exclusive apartment building as my friend Andy in a suburb of Athens called Voula. I don't think Andy remembered our evening out at the old Semiramis or connected her with Omar and the Air Marshal but he did talk with Isabel about the English School, which was a landmark in our lives, and she told him that at one time she was in love with me. Nearly forty years have passed and I, too, cannot forget our tender love affair. I would not want to meet her now. I want to remember the pretty, large eyed, luscious young woman with black hair and Latin look as she was then. I do not want to spoil that image.
7 / 5 / 2001
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