Next day, early in the evening, my mother entered my room to tell me Anna
had just called. “His Excellency Mr. Raymond Homsy had arrived.” I went upstairs
6
and as soon as Anna opened the door, she jumped on me and gave me a resounding
kiss on each cheek. I kissed her back. She was all made up and looked very attractive.
“At last, my two best friends meet. Michael, this is Raymond. Raymond, this
is Michael.”
She was smiling ecstatically.
I looked at him. I remembered Anna told me the meeting would be a surprise.
It was. His physical appearance. He was very short. Shorter than Anna. He was very
thin but perfectly proportioned. With black hair of normal length perfectly cut and
combed and the most beautiful face I had ever seen on a man. Not handsome;
beautiful. Fine featured; a lovely smile with a milky white set of teeth and a striking
pair of blue eyes, which dazzled you with the aura of their blue color. He was perhaps
just entering his thirties. Anna sensed my surprise. She looked sharply at me for my
reactions with a smile on her face.
“I heard so much from Anna about you,” he said, shaking my hand. “You are
my big rival.”
“Rival?” I did not understand.
“For Anna's affections.”
“Oh hardly. From what I hear, you are not only friends but you have the same
temperament and interests, the same sense of humor and sense of fun. How can I rival
that?”
“True, true. But love is unpredictable. Although she did not say it in so many
words, I think she has fallen for you since you returned from America. She keeps
talking about you.”
“Surely you"re exaggerating.”
Anna looked incredibly happy. She did not speak to deny or confirm what he
said. She just smiled. She bid us to sit down and went to fix us a drink. “Whisky for
all,” she decided.
“Isn't he beautiful, our Moni?” she told me when she came back with the
drinks.
“She always talks about me as if I'm her pet dog. I know I'm half a mouthful,
but mercy!”
“You're more than a mouthful, my dear. You know, Michael, he is a fantastic
couturier. As good as any of the big names abroad. I tell him to go to Paris. I'm sure
he'll have an extraordinary career there. But he's a mama's boy, just like you. Only
more so. He doesn't want to leave his mother unaided. He says the business needs
him. I personally think he's dead scared of her. He's afraid he'll get a spanking or
something. I told him if he goes to France, I would go with him. Be his muse. Be his
mistress if he'd have me.”
Moni smiled.
“One thing I am grateful about,” he said, “is that I am not overambitious. I am
happy with my work. I am not famous but I have independence. I cannot create some
of the more daring clothes that I would perhaps have been able to create in Europe but
what I do is appreciated and it fulfills me. And I have my mother on hand to give me a
spanking when I need it, as Anna says. She is here to take care of me and restrain my
impulsive nature.”
“Oh rubbish. Your mother is smothering your talent with her iron hand. Phew,
you mother-lovers.”
We sipped our whisky and nibbled at salted biscuits and peanuts. Anna
initiated conversations with the intent of cementing a new friendship, Moni's and
mine. Her earnestness was touching. She was praising each of us to the other. She
7
made me into an intellectual because of the few books I had on the shelves in my
room and a romantic one at that by attributing my failure at university to the love
affair which took too much of my time.
“Oh Anna, please don't exaggerate, I can do without compliments I cannot
believe in.”
“On second thoughts, you are rather thick,” said Anna incensed, “and modesty
will get you nowhere. Look at my sweet little Moni; he loves compliments. He just
laps them up. And why not? I believe what I say. He is clever, cultured, well read. He
is a collectionneur of rare books and paintings. He is knowledgeable about furniture,
carpets and antiques. Is liable to pass outside an antique shop and drool over a broken
chair. He loves everything that is worn and old. Mrs. Homsy tells me that had she not
put her foot down he would have filled their house with the most repulsive artifacts.
Just the other day, he went to work carrying a life-size erect penis he had just bought
made of polished ebony and created a commotion at the atelier when he showed it to
the girls working there and asked them if any one of them wanted to borrow it for a
few days. Isn't that so my little Moni?”
“Yes, we had a good laugh,” said Moni with a smile.
“He jokes with the girls and at times when they do something wrong he
screams at them like a shrew and insults them. They love him just the same. They
know his bark is worse than his bite. As you see, he is a bundle of antitheses. He is
cultured and vulgar. He can be extremely kind and at times unbearably cruel. He is
cheerful most of the time although he has his black moods as well. Tonight he's on his
best behaviour. I told him you were a serious person and he's out to impress you.”
“I am sure not. He doesn't have to try. I am impressed because he is an artist, a
gifted person. Anna, you are lucky to have such a fine friend.”
“Thank you,” said Moni.
“Thank you Mickey,” said Anna, “I am so happy you two got on so well
together.”
The conversation developed easily with discussions on all sorts of topics. Very
often, it drifted inevitably to their everyday life, activities and amusements. They had
a super-active social life especially since they became a couple of sorts. They had an
amazingly large circle of friends and acquaintances and were themselves very
popular. They were present at every big party, every important social event and
absolutely relished the fact. So now and then, they slipped into their own particular
interests and carried on a dialogue in which I had no part. They would talk of people
and events, the latest gossip or scandal, ridicule this and that and laugh heartily
together. The theory that opposites attract, did not hold in their case. They were, in
fact, so attuned to one another that they could have been a single person talking to
himself. When they would suddenly realize I was out of the conversation they would
apologize.
“Oh, don't apologize. I enjoy listening to you enormously. I get a taste of what
an active social whirl is like. It's something I will never know first hand because by
temperament I am an outsider. I cannot stand receptions, cocktail parties, dinner
invitations and the such. I find it difficult to talk to people. I have absolutely no talent
for small talk.”
“It's a matter of practice,” said Moni. “Of doing often what may not be
agreeable at first. Eventually one gets the hang of it and may even enjoy it. I never did
go out as much as I do these days. And it's because of Anna. We have so much fun
together, such a merry time. You know, we are out every night. If by chance, once
every few months, we find ourselves at home, we wonder what happened.”
8
“You're not going out tonight are you?”
“Sure we are,” said Anna with a smile.
“Then I'd better get going.”
“No, no, stay. I'll start getting dressed and then we'll all leave together.”
Anna went to her room and I stayed with Moni and asked him about his
business. He explained that ever since his teens he was interested in clothes. His
mother had a small dressmaking business and when he finished school and went into
the Fine Arts department of Cairo University, he used to spend his afternoons at the
atelier where he learned the nitty gritty of dressmaking. He said art in modern Egypt
is practically ignored. There is a tradition in poetry and Egypt has produced some
good poets. Only a few great novelists, most of them laboring in an antiquated literary
style, and one or two outstanding filmmakers. Nothing exceptional in painting,
sculpture or architecture. As for music, he could not offer an opinion. Middle Eastern
Arab music did not agree with his ear.
He left the university because he could no longer stomach the pomposities
uttered by his teachers and worked full time at the atelier with his mother. Whereas
previously they made dresses for individual clients that were selected from foreign
fashion magazines, Moni little by little started making changes in the designs to fit a
client's personality and after he gained both experience and confidence, started
designing his own clothes. The business flourished and grew and they began
exhibiting their models in major hotels in Cairo. The Revolution gave a major boost
to their business when it restricted imports and Moni became a well-known persona in
the local haute couture circles and with women that could still afford to dress
expensively.
Anna called from her room, “Moni, come see how I look.”
He got up with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. I looked at him as he
moved to the bedroom. It takes all kinds to make a world, I thought. A perfect body
with smooth movement and yet so short and thin. A beauty of a face; so attractive in
speech and expression, smile and laugh. A pleasant voice that reflected his cheerful
disposition. Yet a homosexual. Well, nothing wrong in that and in any case, nothing
to be done about it. One just thinks of the difficulties and obstacles this will cause in
his life in a country like Egypt, where homosexuals are held in the greatest contempt
and are figures of ridicule.
Moreover, the incongruity of his relationship with Anna. Perforce a brother
and sister relation. I was sure Anna loved him very much and may even be in love
with him. She would sleep with him willingly despite his size. But that cannot be.
They go out together and are constantly seen to be inseparable. Mother was probably
correct in saying that Anna is developing a peculiar reputation. People must be
wondering what she is doing with a homosexual to the exclusion of anyone else.
Someone who is interested in her will be reluctant to approach her. Not only that: if
someone shows her clearly that he likes her and is interested in her and assuming the
interest is mutual, would she let Moni go? Would a potential suitor put up with Moni
even if he knows there is no sex between them? She is not only cutting herself off
from marriage, which in any case claims not to interest her. She is cutting herself off
from sex.
Suddenly it struck me. A Machiavellian thought. Was Moni, by insinuating
that Anna was falling in love with me, trying to throw us together? Perhaps he was
conscious and troubled at her impasse and I presented him with the ideal solution. I
would become her lover and solve her sex problem, which left unsolved might cause
her eventually to turn to someone else for sex. With me as her lover, he would
9
guarantee not to lose her. Ours would be a semi-incestuous, hidden love affair with no
marriage prospects, which would allow them to continue the mad life they enjoyed so
much. So Moni, a homosexual, in his own way loved a woman and did not want to
lose her. Where did that leave me? Confused, to say the least. The idea excited me.
How could I be so fickle? Not a week had passed since I said good-bye to my love.
Oh hell. Is it the men who are the pigs after all? Yes. Probably.
They came out of the room and I let out a gasp of surprise. Anna was stunning.
She came up to me smiling and did a full turn so I would admire the whole of her.
“Anna you look gorgeous,” I said.
She said, “Yes,” and smiled happily. She agreed. No false modesty. She wore
a black dress with a white embroidered collar, a pair of high-heeled pumps and a
black coat over that. All with an impeccable fit. What made me unable to take my
eyes off her was the fantastic way she was made up.
“You are a modern-day Cleopatra!”
“Thank you. It's my Moni. He made me up. He said let us give Mickey a
surprise. He's my Pygmalion. He makes me up, he designs and sews my clothes in the
atelier. I am like a mistress. He even wanted to buy me jewelry but I did not accept.
That's why I am not wearing any.”
“They would add nothing to your appearance. Nobody would notice them,” I
said.
“That's sweet. Don't I have a lovely nephew, Moni?”
“Tonight, it's you who's sweet and lovely,” answered Moni. “Shall we be
going?”
They took the elevator to the ground floor and I went by the staircase down
the two floors to our apartment. It was past eleven and my father had already retired.
My mother was waiting to hear my impressions.
“We talked several times about Moni but you never told me a thing about his
physical appearance. Of course, I got a shock. First his height, then the fact that he is
so thin and lastly his beauty. Why didn't you tell me?” I asked her.
“I did not think to. I get so much grumbling from your grandmother that he is
part of our everyday life, almost part of the family. It slipped my mind to tell you of
his peculiarities.”
“If he were not homosexual, I am certain they would have been lovers.”
“Yes. What a crazy girl!”
“I don't think there's much we can do under the circumstances. I think the only
thing is to weather it out. Perhaps they will tire of this frenzy. I don't know what to
think. I cannot foretell how it will end.”
We talked with mother some more but mainly we went round in circles.
4