Except for the hardcore winter months our veranda at home was a vital part of my lonely existence. In the autumn and spring with the weather cool but not cold and the sunshine agreeable, I spent part of my free days and holidays sitting on a bamboo armchair reading or thinking or drinking a whiskey to let the faint, dizzy euphoria that came with it lull me to a better mood. It always came this respite with many deep sighs but it was phony and momentary. In summer when the daytime was hot, I came out at night to enjoy the evening cool, the vastness of the Nile, its barely discernible movement and the reflection of the city lights on is surface. On the opposite bank, in a luxurious high-rise, lived a friend and I often tried to catch a glimpse of him with my binoculars but his business was doing well and he did not resort to lonely musings in his balcony. On Saturdays, we often had an evening meal together and talked of books and politics. It was one of the few infidelities to my veranda.
Usually, I was at my station with the unending random thoughts that circled my mind. My daughter, my wife, how life separated us but not without our consent, not without our foolish decisions, mine in particular. I thought of my father‟s two Greek directors who were with me for a few years, who could have helped me decisively, advised me with prudence and sagacity, both dead. My present yes-men, my factory and foundry foremen and technicians, the good and the bad. The good that were not good enough and the bad that were awful. I thought of my friendly enemies, my workers. I liked some of them though they could never be friends and I hated most of them because their hate was plain in their eyes. Oh yes, they smiled at me often but it exploded in the slightest argument, at my slightest reprimand. And yet I cannot blame them. The chasm between us was too great, their lives too poverty-stricken, their education absent, their upbringing religious and fanatic, their milieu steeped in 98
lies and dishonesty. Yes, I am a softie and I find excuses even for this scum instead of ruthlessly bashing them. Perhaps that‟s one more reason for my failure.
I think of so many things that circumnavigate around my person lately. And now this story, just a few days ago, about my right-hand man. My office boy, Makram, told me that my right-hand man, on occasion, when the office is empty, was in the habit of bringing a young man who used to work at our factory, taking him to a room where I keep our extra tools, and having intercourse with him. He squeals like a pig being slaughtered, Makram said about the boy who is delicate, extremely good-looking, and obviously homosexual. My right hand man had also the keys to the factory and some months ago my chief technician took me inside the factory in a secluded place and showed me a used condom lying on the ground. We did not voice our suspicions because it was too embarrassing but they obviously were identical.
And now the confirmation. My right hand man is a handsome and charming man about my age who is married and has two grown sons. How am I supposed to deal with this? I just told Makram to lock up when the office is empty and, on my orders, to allow no one inside.
Magdi became a permanent feature at the factory. Now that demand slackened he was not in any hurry to load up a huge truck with destination Tripoli. Undoubtedly he had his contacts there and was monitoring the situation closely. The other traders had also eased up on the frenzy of orders. He sensed my desperation and lack of cash and kept up pressure for a reduction in prices. I told him it was impossible and that I was already selling at the margin. It‟s your fault, he told me, you sold to anyone who came along, and the result was that you created a price war between us. We fought each other until prices reached a level where it‟s not worth bothering with this merchandise any more. I didn‟t tell you to start a price war, I said. No, but it was inevitable with so many traders and so much merchandise, he said. Did you expect me to refuse to sell my liners when someone came to me with an order and ready money?
I asked. As the main supplier you should have called us to reach a sensible distribution plan to avoid this muddle, he said. Why didn‟t you do it? I asked. I did not have the authority you have, he said. In any case, he added as an afterthought, they are a bunch of sons of bitches and it would not have worked. The only winners are the consumers in Libya. He looked at me in the eye. Ya khawaga, he addressed me Moslem to Christian, I‟ll give you as much money as you want, more than you need even, but you must give me a twenty percent discount on all prices to get things started once again. Impossible, I said. I‟ll be losing money. He smiled. Perhaps he believed me, perhaps he didn‟t. It did not concern him. He had his priorities and he was in no hurry. Why don‟t you buy the business? I asked him. I‟ll sell it to you cheap. Then you can put it on a sound footing. He laughed out loudly. Do you think I am mad? he said.
That was part of the story. Apart from my hefty payroll which seemed to increase weekly with inflated overtime, I had serious problems with my raw material supplier. At the foundry our furnaces were coke fired. I had not yet mechanized the casting processes nor installed modern electric furnaces which would involve considerable investment as well as a trained metallurgist to operate them. Most of the work was manual requiring a large number of workers and apprentices. They were close to one hundred strong. The four main items I needed in large quantities were coke, pig iron, ferrous silicon and top quality cast iron scrap which came in the form of disused engine blocks. From my father‟s time we worked with one single scrap 99
dealer called Abu Amira who looked to all our needs. In the quarter century we worked together he advanced from modest beginnings to considerable wealth.
The great advantage of a trader to a manufacturer is that the trader has negligible running costs. The manufacturer is often swamped by them. No wonder the Prophet considered trading the noblest of professions. And yet it is manufacturing that gave impetus to science and science to manufacturing, to human progress and increasing wealth, all despite Abu Amira‟s oft pronounced proud declaration: I am a merchant. In other words, not a fool. No, he was not a fool; he was uneducated but shrewd, ignorant but clever, a man of God but not generous, religious but not necessarily honest, in other words, he had the qualities for success. He had three sons in his mold but not his experience. Just before he died I was in his office. Three men carried him sitting on a chair from his house nearby. He needed to check the accounts.
His sickly face was puffed with vexation and rage. He could hardly form his words coherently. Those boys will ruin me, he said. They have been giving away tons and tons of merchandise on credit. Don‟t they know that it‟s easy to give it away but difficult to collect the money? Take a break, you silly man, I thought, you‟ll be leaving us in a few days and you‟ll not be taking anything with you. He died the next day. In the evening, I went to pay my condolences at the huge tent beneath his house.
I wore a sad face and praised him to his sons and in-laws. Hypocrisy is the lubricant that keeps the world functioning.
For many years those boys provided my raw materials and took whatever money was available but suddenly, one day, they looked a little more closely at their accounts and found my accumulated debt was enormous. That started a new era of friction and pressures between us. Demands for money before they delivered my weekly quotas, two or three telephone calls a day if I was late in sending them the cash, tongue lashing whenever I put it off for another day and finally, one day, refusal to provide the materials. That time, I scraped what cash I could and send my truck to buy scrap from another merchant. The news reached them like lightning, perhaps even directly from my own employees at the foundry, and they demanded to see me. The showdown was ugly and I shall not ever forget the accusation: that I bought merchandise from another merchant with their money. Which was, of course, technically correct given my enormous debt to them. The pressures and the quarrels went on and on and somehow they heard that a man called Magdi was a sort of busybody alter ego of mine, that he was loaded, and they asked to meet him but wily old Magdi would have none of it.
Our apartment building is the oldest one on the street called Serait El Gezira, which means the Palace of Gezira. The palace was built by the Khedive Ismail to offer hospitality to the Empress Eugenie during the ceremonies of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and has been rebuilt and extended as the Marriott Hotel. A street separates it from our building which is called Pyramid House and is smaller than the neighboring luxury apartment buildings, and quaint. Like most of the older buildings in Cairo, on its roof or terrace it has single rooms for the servants working in the flats below and a servant‟s iron staircase at the rear of the building. The elevator, which is tiny, slow, and old fashioned, reaches the roof but the door to the terrace is locked so that the servants may not use the elevator. A jet black Sudanese door keeper lived with his family in a room down some steps below the street entrance and theoretically the doorman was on call any time of day. Theoretically, that is, because most of the time he was drunk and in the best of circumstances it was difficult to make him 100
understand what you were saying. An elderly messenger and office boy of the Greek Community‟s administrative center, Am Mohammad, lived on the roof with his wife and two children. My wife happened to know him from years back and we were on cordial terms and occasionally I gave him a pound or two and cashed in elaborate thanks and blessings.
We did not have much contact with the other tenants except for a medical student who often knocked on our door and asked my daughter to lower the music because it distracted him from his studies. And an American employee of the U.S.
embassy who befriended her and she often went upstairs in his furnished flat for a chat which worried me. He was single and although much older than her, was extremely friendly with all of us due, in part, to the fact that we spoke English. One summer, before the family dispersed, when wife and daughter were vacationing on the island I invited him for dinner at a private club where I was a member. The club that evening was nearly empty and next to our table were two burly Egyptians who seemed to interest David very much. He kept staring at them in a very obvious and persistent fashion and at first I surmised that he knew them or at least was trying to recollect where he had seen them before. Our conversation flagged because of this preoccupation and I had a thoroughly uncomfortable evening. I had not noticed any telltale signs in his body movements previously and years later I told my daughter about it. She said she had been puzzled as well that such a good looking and pleasant man seemed to have no female friends. He had you, I told her. She laughed. We were just buddies, she said.
The flat above us, however, had the more intriguing chronicle. It belonged to a rich Palestinian impresario whom I never saw mainly because he did not use the flat himself. Striking, sexy, and vulgar showgirls with differing combinations of these attributes arrived at daybreak at the flat, slept all morning, and emerged again in the evenings. This remarkable rotation of multinational female entertainers went on for the first few years of our residence much to my wife‟s irritation. Then we heard that the Palestinian was jailed on drug dealing charges and the comings and goings in the flat that titillated me and annoyed my wife were cut short. A year or so later his wife and two young sons moved in, and I sometimes met them on the stairs and in the elevator. The wife was young, extremely attractive and spoke perfect English and the boys went to an exclusive, very expensive foreign school. I wondered how the romance developed between a seemingly cultivated young lady and a wholesale drug dealer and juggler of showgirls.
Sometime after my wife and daughter left Cairo, the young wife convened a meeting of tenants in her flat. She said that her husband, who was abroad, had a plan that needed our endorsement so that he could proceed with negotiations with the Greek Community, which was the major shareholder of our building. A few knowing glances were surreptitiously exchanged by some tenants at the disclosure of the husband‟s whereabouts. The plan was to demolish Pyramid House and erect on its site, which was unique, a super luxurious apartment building. She said the architectural plan was ready, the funds were on stand-by, and the whole affair would not take longer than a year and a half. With a contract to each and every one of us, her husband would guarantee lodging for the period of construction elsewhere and, on the new building‟s completion, would give us a new flat in it of comparable size to our own. We would thus get a modern, superb flat worth many times the one we lived in and he would cover his costs by building a much larger, multi-storied residence and selling the extra flats. My fellow tenants did not laugh in her face; they did it later when they were out of her house.
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The second contact I had with her was when she knocked at my door to ask me to sign a petition. It was a collective request of tenants to the Greek Community to expel Am Mohammad from his rooftop terrace rooms. Why? Because instead of using the servant‟s staircase to go to his room, he and his family used the elevator to go to the top floor and exited to the roof through a window. But he‟s an old man, I told her.
Do you think he can climb five floors on his feet? He‟s a servant and he has been warned repeatedly, she said crossly. I am sorry, I said, I cannot sign the petition because I do not think what he does is that serious and then he has known my wife since she was a little girl. I do not think my wife would have liked me to sign it. She looked at me just barely annoyed and said, Okay, as you wish. It doesn‟t matter. A fortnight later Am Mohammad came to my flat. I greeted him heartily but he was reserved. I never thought you would agree to sign the petition, he said. I didn‟t, I said.
He took a photocopy of the petition out of his pocket and showed it to me. On it was my name and a signature next to it which was not mine. This is not my signature. I swear to you I did not sign it, I said. Maalesh, (it doesn‟t matter), he said. I found a room somewhere else. God does not forget anyone. Probably he did not believe me and I was reluctant to take him up to the Palestinian‟s wife and humiliate her in front of him. But I finally realized how well husband and wife were matched. Am Mohammad left his rooms shortly after and I didn‟t see him since.
It was during those days, the last two difficult years of my life in Egypt, that Amina left her husband. Left or was thrown out, I don‟t remember which. She announced it matter of factly one day and I asked her what her plans were. She said she moved to a tiny flat in Shoubra with a woman relative. Apart of that, she said, what other plans could she possibly have. Her husband got engaged to a cousin from his village and the new bride would arrive as soon as the marriage contract was signed. My, my, I said, your husband must be from an aristocratic lineage. I mean, first, formal engagements, and then contracts to be signed, all in the quest of an heir to inherit his fortune. Yes, a miserable grocery store in Old Cairo, she said laughing. Did he consider that the infirmity might be his that you did not have a child? She laughed again. We shall know that in a few months. Are you upset? I asked. It was coming ya khawaga, she said. I was pushed to marry him and after a while he stopped loving me.
I am upset because nearly ten years of my life have been wasted and who shall marry me now? You are a beautiful woman, Amina. Perhaps this divorce will open up new possibilities for you. Surely your family will find someone for you. Yes, they are already at it, she said, but so far one prospect is worse than the next and I don‟t want to be trapped again with another Mustafa.
In the three years since my wife left and especially after my daughter‟s departure, my intimacy with Amina grew. It was inevitable. I was careful to keep it within the bounds of propriety while being aware that any advance on my part would have been reciprocated. I did not need any more complications in my life and I suffered my sexual deprivation and occasional desperation with stoicism and the anticipation of forthcoming licit sexual explosions with my wife. Amina had the key to our flat and arrived to work after I had left for mine. It was an easy time for her without a mistress in the house for, being a man, I did not care to examine too closely her housecleaning competence. Between two and three I was home for lunch, which she cooked. She determined the menu and ordered meat, vegetables and fruit from the souk, which I went round and paid at my convenience. When I arrived, the table was set and Amina was dressed, combed and neat. She asked permission to use the bathroom to shower, which, of course, I granted, because in the flat she shared they did not have one, just a squat toilet with a tap and washbasin. She used a little kohl for 102
her eyes but lightly as to be barely noticeable. She wanted to be pretty but not provocative and that, she managed well. I knew she was fond of me as I was of her but my cautious familiarity did not provide openings for her. In any case, the gulf was too wide to be breached, in age, education, social class and religion. At most I could have used her as a sexual plaything, which I considered a dangerous emotional involvement for both of us and mostly unfair for her. When I ate at table, she usually stood watching me, leaning on the buffet, and at first I found this disconcerting but I soon got used to it and we chatted on all sorts of topics. I often praised the food and received the smile that is the contented response of a woman flattered for her cooking.
She was sweet, well built and attractive and sometimes, on a Sunday or a holiday, when I was alone and lonely, I daydreamed about her but the Monday hassle brought me pronto back to reality.
After my business‟s unexpected Libyan boom gave unmistakable signs of faltering, the thought that I should start moving to sell it lodged itself firmly in my mind. The undertaking would not be easy. By Egypt‟s private sector standards it was a large establishment. It was not clearly profitable because like most small affairs the bookkeeping was largely falsified and the tax inspectors verified and endorsed these accounts only with an appropriate bribe. In that jungle of corruption, without a bribe even the most upright accounts were rejected. However, the single greatest drawback was the inordinate number of workers on the payroll. Despite that, I had to start moving. Discreetly, I let some people know of my intentions. Secrecy was imperative as I did not know what repercussions the knowledge would have had with my workers, creditors and government. One of the people I talked to was a client and former competitor who operated a motor reconditioning workshop. He phoned me a few days later and he told me that an acquaintance of his was interested. Magdi was sitting right opposite me in my office at that moment with eyes and ears like radars and he tried to glean what the conversation was about. I kept my reply as vague as possible mostly with yeses and noes. The client told me that the man was a speculator, was loaded, and he made his money through buyouts like mine. He is an opportunist and a killer but his money is ready, he said. Are you interested? Yes, let him call me.
It was mid July and the city was sizzling on the Sunday I met him. I especially chose our weekly holiday and the hour of early afternoon. We met at our shop in town and after a small, strong tea and a shisha (narghile) from the coffee shop nearby, after a little small talk, bashmohandes (chief engineer) Omar and his son got up to inspect the goods. He must have been between fifty-five and sixty, an indifferent but not unpleasant face, balding, plump with the ever-present protruding stomach of a well-off Egyptian. Friendly and with a familiar manner we immediately had a good rapport which in no way negated the hawk eyes of a predator or the self confidence of success and a deep pocket. He liked the shop, which was central and we drove in his car to our factory and offices behind the Hilton. He inspected the factory, the machinery and then I locked up and we moved to our offices in the ramshackle building opposite. On the ground floor was the storage area and it happened to be packed with liners awaiting shipment to Libya. He was impressed and I explained that it was a big part of our business. At my office on the first floor he asked for a shisha and I shouted the order from my window to the coffee house next door. Next we drove to the foundry half way to Heliopolis, a half hour‟s drive in the sparse traffic due to the heat. The foundry grounds impressed him particularly because it was a vast area; half of it occupied by the foundry itself and the other half empty, awaiting the relocation of our 103
factory and offices, which I had planned to effect sometime in the future. At the time of the Libyan boom it seemed so near and now simply a fraudulent dream.
There was the shop in Alexandria that he wanted to see and also a meeting with my accountant. We fixed the Alex date for the following Sunday and went to my accountant‟s office two days later. Badran bey, the accountant was frank. He was an elderly gentleman, obviously intelligent who prided himself on being frank and upright. He told bashmohandes Omar that if he were not so fond of me he would not have kept me as his client. He told him, he presumed the business was making a profit because our accounts which he inspected were anything but reliable and his only reservation was that the percentage of expenditure for the payroll was excessive.
Neither of these reservations fazed Omar. He was a past master of the sleight of hand with accounts and tax people, and an old and ruthless tamer of workers and labor.
They agreed that in the case of a sale, Badran bey would supervise the contracts and we left the office and strolled down Soliman Pasha Street his arm fondly encircling mine like old buddies.
On Sunday we left for Alex at noon. Our appointment was at nine but bashmohandes Omar overslept. He arrived below my house with his son in a brand new Mercedes. Three hours and a mid-journey shisha stop later, we faced my morose employees who were waiting for us since morning. They were cold as ice and unfriendly to my guests. A cursory inspection of the shop, another shisha and tea and he took us to a fish joint for a meal. We had a feast and on the way back he asked me what the asking price was. Two million pounds, I said. He laughed and let it go at that. Two hours later, just before we entered Cairo he said, I offer two hundred thousand. Are you serious? I asked. The foundry property alone is worth the two million. It‟s rented, he said. Nobody can move you out, I said. It‟s been in our hands even before the government sequestrated it in 1956 during the Suez crisis from a Maltese businessman who held a British passport. It will be as good as yours for a minimal rent. The original contract with the former owner which is in force and is perfectly valid, gives us the right to use the property as we please. We can even build a skyscraper on it. Think about my offer, he insisted. You think about mine, I said. I shall be leaving for Greece next week for my holidays and we‟ll talk when I return.
He called me on the phone before I left. Did you think about it? he asked. I was curt and almost rude. There‟s nothing to think about, I cut him short. I‟ll call you when I‟m back.
There‟s a saying: shape the iron when it‟s red hot. Perhaps it‟s correct. I called him when I returned from the island a month later. Five or six times his secretary told me he was not there. I had the feeling he was right beside her. I was sure I heard his voice. Finally he talked to me. He seemed distant and unfriendly. We met two afternoons later supposedly to talk but he dragged me with him on a mini Odyssey.
He wanted me to see his main factory: a copper pipe extrusion plant. The fibbing secretary was there; a young, sexy, giggly girl to whom he talked atrociously and kissed on the cheeks. Shocking behavior for Egypt but it was probably a case of a dog that barks but does not bite. The two skilled workers of the factory were his sons and a porter to lift and move the merchandise. No excess baggage: no accounts, no national insurance, minimal salaries, and small bribes to the taxman. Then on to a car paint shop manned by another son and three teenagers and a car electrician‟s shop by the fourth son. No false pride there; despite his millions, his sons had to earn their daily bread and give him his capital‟s share, fair and square. On and on to shops and flats, which he owned, rented and had partnerships. Where I had to wait in the car till he finished his discussions and collected his rents. Shoe shops, lingerie shops, 104
furnished flats, unfurnished flats, and finally a large car dealership where he invited me to choose a car. I‟ll give it to you cheap and on installments, he said. Have a look around and I‟ll be right with you. Half an hour later I was fed up. I went looking for him in an inner office. I‟m leaving, I said. Just five more minutes and I‟ll be with you, he pleaded. Another half hour and I flagged down a taxi and returned home.
He called me the next day as I was having lunch. I‟m going for a coffee and a shisha at Groppi‟s. Come and join me. I want to talk to you, he said. I‟m just finishing lunch, I said. Why don‟t you come over instead and we‟ll have a coffee here. You know the house. Third floor. He arrived within half an hour and when he entered he went directly from the living room to the veranda. That‟s quite a view, he said. You rich people know how to live. Poor you, I said laughing, what a pity you can‟t afford such luxury. How much? he asked. It‟s not for sale, I said. How do you drink your coffee? Without sugar. I have diabetes. I went to the kitchen and asked Amina to prepare the coffees. We sat down on the armchairs. He looked around the room. It was large, airy, and bright with large windows facing the river and a French window on the side leading to the veranda. The original furniture had been sent to Greece for the flat my daughter lived in and I brought some furniture from my parent‟s flat which was unoccupied. It was the furniture I grew up with and felt comfortable with it. How many children have you got? I asked him to start a polite conversation. Five boys and four girls. The girls I married off and the boys, well, you saw them, they are raring to get married but I am holding them back. Why? I asked. They are still young and if they marry before their brain solidifies, the wives will split them apart. We are now one fist and we are tough. I control them and they control one another. The wives are sure to bring discord and divisions in the family. And a whole lot of quarreling. My wife, by the way, is expecting a baby soon. Oh? She must be your second wife, I said.
Yes, she is young but she makes me sick. She is fat and sleeps all day. I had nothing to say to that. I just thought, poor girl!
Listen, he said changing the subject, my last offer is three hundred thousand. I looked at him exasperated. I half expected it and yet hoped we would not go through this dead-end bargaining. Are we going to haggle like souvenir sellers at Khan el Khalili? I asked. I owe a hell of a lot of money to people. I want to pay off my debts and have a little left over to live peacefully. I think there‟s no point in giving you a reduction in my price while we are miles apart. No, give me your last price, he insisted. Please bashmohandes Omar, give me a break. Let us drink our coffee and just be friends. As if on cue, Amina came in smiling and offered us the Turkish coffees. One sweet and one bitter. Omar was lost. He stared at her and could not look away. When she left, he asked, who is she? She is a girl who takes care of me. She has been with our family for some years. Are you fucking her? he asked in a low voice. No, I said. Is she married? She is divorced. He was silent for a while and sipped his coffee. When he finished he asked again for my final price. I balked but he pressed me and I told him, a million and a half, but that was final. Good luck, he said and got up.
All the while I did not stop searching to dispose of my business and if that was not feasible, I thought I should try to sell assets that were more attractive such as the two shops and the office building opposite the factory. I was not the owner but could get a considerable sum for ceding the premises due to their central location. Things were tightening and I was thrashing left and right desperately with little success. The only thing that kept me going, and I strongly believe it, was my early morning jogging 105
and swimming. Getting up and getting started required a big effort but I usually left the club at seven thirty and walked to work across the river with a sense of optimism that soon, however, dissipated. My clients came around not to order merchandise but to talk and press me to reduce prices. Magdi warned me that a general reduction for all would be useless as it would maintain the internecine struggle for sales in Tripoli between them. The only viable solution was to give him priority and let him handle the Libyan market. Eventually I was forced to give in and he pumped the necessary cash in the business to keep it from collapsing. It was a sort of long-term euthanasia: a slow demise that kept us in the intensive care unit on an artificial respirator that would soon, inevitably, be disconnected. A clever man this Magdi, did he not see the ultimate result? He kept pumping more money than the merchandise he took out. I used to call him, Magdi, I need five, I need fifteen, I need twenty thousand pounds, and he complied. My debt to him was increasing in leaps and bounds and I kept up the struggl