The airliner was over Cairo at about a quarter past ten. I looked eagerly out of
the window trying to pick out familiar landmarks but could not distinguish much in
the darkness despite the city lights. The emotions of my return were varied and
confused but there was little doubt at that moment that I was heading back home. A
peculiar home, this Egypt, where I both belonged and not. Which I both loved and
not. In which I felt both welcome and not and where I felt that at some point in my
life I would abandon. Leave it, because it would no longer tolerate me: me the foreign
implant. The intolerance increasingly reciprocal.
I was born and raised in Egypt at a time when the romance of the country was
being steadily eroded by revolution, nationalism, industrialization, an exploding birth
rate and later on, an Islamic renaissance with its attendant religious radicalism and
fanaticism. One must be clear: this romance was for the few. Mainly tourists,
foreigners, novelists and the native moneyed class. Not much romance for the lower
classes; servants, workers, farm laborers and villagers living in squalor and iniquity.
With the nationalization of foreign companies and businesses and the departure of the
foreign “colonies” from Egypt, the charming cosmopolitan atmosphere of the two
main cities Cairo and Alexandria was lost. Socialism was the order of the day and
those who experienced it learned the inevitable lesson early on: it does not work.
Perhaps in Egypt it had its usefulness. In the few decades before capitalism was
reinstated, it liberated from virtual feudalism large sections of the agrarian society and
instituted labor legislation, which however, the government controlled with an iron
hand through puppet labor unions.
The shrinkage of the Greek community, although slower than other foreign
ones, was inexorable. A very special and prosperous section of expatriate Hellenism
was returning to the motherland after a century and a half of residence in Egypt to
become diluted and anonymous. A sense of superiority characterized the Greeks of
Egypt. They had produced poets, novelists and artists of international renown, scores
of philanthropists that endowed their fortunes to build schools, hospitals and stadiums
both in Egypt and Greece. They were proud of their cosmopolitanism, of their
mastery of foreign tongues, of their refinement and good manners.
I would see my mother in a few minutes. I had been so infatuated with Lisa
that for days she did not cross my mind. I felt guilty for this disloyalty. She was
younger than my father by some ten years, with an attractive face on the borderline of
the truly beautiful with light chestnut hair, which gave a reddish hue in the sunshine.
Of fair complexion and milky white skin, she had a slim, athletic body for she was an
outstanding athlete in her youth. She was one of those women, which within limits, as
they age become even more attractive.
She looked as young and pretty as ever as I emerged from customs and smiled
happily. We kissed long and tenderly. Then I looked at my father. My mother had
warned me that his health was deteriorating and it was evident in his appearance. He
walked slowly towards me and kissed me too and I felt his disappointment at the
abrupt termination of my studies in the US. My involvement with Lisa caused me to
slacken in college. The failure that followed was inevitable.
2
Next morning when I opened my eyes I wondered where I was. Oh God, yes,
Cairo. I can hear the traffic in the street and my father getting dressed for work. I have
to get up. It is a significant day for me. A new page in my life. A new beginning.
Without Lisa, without my love. However much I ache for her, she is thousands of
miles away in distance and already three days past in time. They seem more like three
months. A deadly combination of space and time.
I got out of bed and left my room. I came face to face with my father. I
approached and kissed him. We were not accustomed to such displays of tenderness
but his sadness at the airport touched me and I felt that he shared my sense of failure.
I asked how he was feeling and he said, “Well enough”. You could not tell whether he
meant he was well or that it could be worse. I asked him for some money and he
showed me the combination of a safe embedded in the wall of his bedroom. He told
me I could draw whatever money I needed from there.
It was understood that I would enter the family business. There was no other
viable option for me in Egypt. I had a few days" grace before starting work. I went for
a long stroll in the city. I was away from Cairo for only a few months and yet it was
as if I had returned to an alien world. I had taken it for granted that I would eventually
reside in the US but my immaturity, Lisa and my college failure landed me back in
my family"s lap. I could not decide if that, finally, was good or bad luck. It was the
easy way out, that was certain, but as I walked slowly adding and subtracting the pros
and cons, I did not manage to reach a conclusion.
Later, when I returned home, I found Anna and my grandmother there. They
lived two floors above us in the same apartment building. Anna, my unmarried aunt
was much younger than my mother and only five years older than I was. She had none
of the beauty and nobility of my mother or even much resemblance either physical or
of character. She was a pretty, pert, brown-haired girl of normal height and a nice slim
body, which she kept in shape because she was a classical dancer for a time and later
became a fashion model. She was cheery, always with a funny story or incident to
relate and at all times fun to have around. When she switched to modeling her
reputation was tarnished somewhat because at the time the profession was not
considered respectable and her lifestyle encouraged moralists to voice malicious
comments. She was not intimidated and, I must say, her mother was always a pillar of
support. Anna was her one and only weakness.
I kissed both of them and it was obvious that my delight to see Anna again,
was reciprocated. My mother could not hide her happiness either. She had a
permanent smile on her face.
“I hope you're not taking it too hard Michael,” Anna said after I explained why
I was back so soon.
“Well, it was a big disappointment. Sometimes I feel wretched and sometimes
I wax philosophical.”
“Listen Mickey, a little ignorance did no one any harm. Look at me. I did not
even finish secondary school and I'm doing fine. I lead the life that suits me. I am
quite content.”
“Will you stop talking this way, Anna? You give a very bad impression,” my
grandmother scolded her.
“Oh let her be,” said mother, “we're amongst ourselves.”
“That's what you think,” granny replied, “She tends to talk this way
everywhere. She has no sense of propriety. Nor do any of her friends. She has this
fellow Raymond, whom they call Moni, who not only is a homosexual but also talks
as if he grew up in the gutter. He's from a good family too. He's stuck to Anna. He has
3
become a fixture at our house.”
“Yes Michael, I want you to meet Moni,” said Anna smiling. “He's so much
fun, you'll never stop laughing. I can't go anywhere without him. He's better than a
lover.”
“There you go again. I hope, at least, you'll shut your mouth when Michael's
father comes.” Granny was getting annoyed.
“How was America, Michael?” Anna asked.
“Oh all right. Though not the dream world we imagine.”
“Did you meet many girls?” Anna broached her pet topic.
“Leave the boy alone, Anna. He did not go to America to study American
girls,” said my grandma.
“No, not many.”
“Oh stop being so eloquent. A few, then?”
“Not even.”
“Will you cut it out, silly? One, then?”
“Yes.”
“So? Go on. Hey, what is this? Do I have to jerk the words out of your
mouth?”
“No, Anna. But I can't talk just now under Granny's disapproving look.”
“Sure you can. Did you go out on a date? Did you kiss her? Did you make
love?”
“For the last time, will you please leave Michael alone and stop being so
indiscreet, Anna.” Granny was exasperated and mother smiled. She was probably not
averse to hearing a few details herself.
With the meal over, we remained at table while Mohammed, our servant,
cleared it and brought us coffee. Anna kept us amused with an inexhaustible supply of
funny stories, which my mother loved and granny mostly tolerated with a frown. I
looked at Anna. Not an exceptionally pretty girl but attractive because she was so
high-spirited. Not innately sexy either despite a slim and well-shaped body. She
provoked only with her air of availability and her gaiety. Yet she was neither fast nor
indiscriminate in her love affairs. She was of the new crop of young women who, like
Lisa, wanted to enjoy their sex life and wanted to have a say in choosing their
partners. Without being aware of it, she was in the avant-garde of the feminist
movement and the sexual revolution. In Egypt, no less.
2