The tragedy of my life was that I was not born three years earlier and was thus
not able to dominate the woman of my life but was dominated by her. She was a year
older than I was. Women mature earlier than men and some even much earlier than
that. So it is a chancy assumption that three years would have made a difference but
as it was I did not have a chance. What flaw of character is it that makes a man so
vulnerable to the existence of a single woman? That ties him to her for life and
dominates his being? Is it her indifference? The occasional crumb she will throw his
way? Will our scientists solving the puzzle of the human genome not discover the
aberrant gene that brings on this illness and eliminate it from the human race? It will
make for a happier humanity.
For a year now, her phone no longer answers. I shall have to go on the spot for
an investigation. It will be a tricky business. I keep on postponing the trip. I keep
hoping she will answer. I have no wish to become a Sherlock Holmes at my age. In
any case, I am not well. Perhaps not well at all. I just had a liver biopsy. The doctor
hawed and hummed and said it was serious. He is afraid to be honest. It is our culture.
In the west, they would tell you, you shall be dead in two months. Here they will
discuss your case in whispers with their colleagues and leave you in the dark. So I do
not know where I stand. I have stopped drinking on irrevocable orders. Perhaps I shall
now live to be a hundred. Perhaps. Not very likely.
I last met Sisi two years ago in New York. She came up from New Jersey to
see me. She still looked terrific for her age. After four children, she was still
hauntingly beautiful. We were just over fifty. She had put on some weight and this
caused the delicacy, the subtlety of her beauty to give way to a more homely version.
But her beauty could neither be disguised nor eliminated. The sweetness of her smile
was intact, undiminished. Nothing is eternal and I suppose it will wear off in time
though I envisage her being desirable at seventy. And then, my eyes did not see her as
she was because my brain, my senses were still tuned twenty, thirty years back. At the
height of her beauty, I was tempted to say. But there was no peak for she was always
there, even now that she was descending a gentle gradient.
We met at the lobby of the hotel just after ten in the morning. I had flown in
from Greece and had arrived the previous evening. We arranged the appointment over
the phone. It was more than a whim this need to see her. We had been talking on the
phone for ten years. More, perhaps twenty. Well, I saw her once before long ago after
she had her second child and she came to Italy to see her aunt Yola who was dying.
We met in Rome and we spent two days together cooped up in the house, chaperoned
by an aunt on her deathbed. We both lodged at Yola"s to be close to each other since
we were stuck in the flat but the arrangements were cramped and she refused to make
love with me. I told her Yola would be too preoccupied by her forthcoming
rendezvous with the reaper of souls to notice our love play. She did not agree and she
had qualms about her husband too. So we just kissed a little and I told her it was the
same thing. She was being just as unfaithful as if we made love. For this too was love.
She laughed and said I used the most preposterous arguments. I still believe it is true.
And I was annoyed for when did Sisi ever respect conventional morality?
Anyway, that time at the lobby as I saw her coming towards me, that killer
smile of sweetness hovering on her lips, I thought of the words in Brel"s song. Tu es
mon Amerique a moi. She loomed as large and as intricate. I loved America because
43
she was in it. She was the hope that got lost, the beauty that haunted, the passion that
was derailed into murky dead ends, the amorality and fickleness that drove you crazy.
I held her in my arms and could not let her go. It was not a whim this need to see her.
It was a cry of agony.
“Sylvia, you are amazing. You look so good. What is it? What"s wrong?”
She was crying. Smiling and crying. I could not believe it. She was never
sentimental. Not with me.
“It is you, my Gian. You are my past and I am crying for it.”
I took her by the arm and we moved to the bar. She ordered a coffee and I a
double whisky with a dash of soda. At ten o"clock in the morning. We must have
looked like lovers. We could not take our eyes from each other"s face. We were lovers
at that moment. A little too late.
“You look fine too,” she told me, smiling. “I often think of you. You are tied
to the happy moments of my life. Tell me about Alexandria. Is Justine still there?”
I laughed. She never read and I used to tell her stories from the novels I loved,
sometimes, at night, when she was not out making love with anonymous men I did
not know. And she, the femme fatale, listening like a baby does to fairy tales.
“Oh, what shall I say? Justine is now called Fatma and is too busy making a
baby a year and managing her household to get involved in intrigues and love affairs.
In any case, our Alexandria is past and gone. It no longer exists though our house in
Mazarita is still there. So are the Luna Park and the gas station at the corner. When I
pass by, I cannot bear to look at them. Alexandria is another city. It is alive and
exploding with hotels and huge apartment blocks, with crushing crowds and traffic
jams, dirty streets and polluted beaches. But it is not ours. Our own Alex is stuck
there in the middle, a heart that beats without a soul. Can you imagine those endless,
desert beaches of Agami and Maamoura where Justine, and you too perhaps, would
swim naked, becoming satellite cities? For us old timers, for us Europeans, the Alex
that we loved is now a Frankenstein city.”
“One more illusion spent and I must cry for it no more. But it is part of my life
that fills me with nostalgia. I was so happy there and I did not know it.”
“What"s wrong Sisi? Aren"t you happy?”
“Oh, things are rolling well enough. I don"t know why I am so restless. My
husband is good and loves me as much as ever. I have four lovely, blond, American
children that do not speak a word of Italian. But my life is flat. My mother hated
America. I think she was happy to die. We used to quarrel terribly. I used to tell her
that it was she that brought us here. She practically forced me to marry Bill. I was
never really mad about him, let alone in love. It"s terrible of me to tell you this but it
is true. He was madly in love with me and chased me relentlessly. He wanted to marry
me and my mother was his greatest ally. „I had to get you away from all the Mafiosi
scum you were running around with," she used to tell me. „I did not want to find you
some day at the morgue with your throat slit."”
I looked at her; at her beautiful face. What were left of my life, as well, were
memories.
“What a strange period that was,” I said. “How can I forget the weird trips you
forced me to take? I could not understand what was happening. Of course I did pretty
soon. And the way you thanked me! You did enjoy it, didn"t you? It was not all pure
bitchiness to have me under your thumb?”
“I always enjoyed it with you my Giannino, in Rome as well as in Alex. In any
case, you could never refuse me anything. I did not have to do it for that. Yes, those
last few years in Rome were getting out of hand. I was playing a dangerous game. But
44
it"s all over, of course, and here I am, today, with a family, with a good life, both
happy and unhappy, wondering where this depression is coming from.”
“We all go through it now and then, my dear. And then the serenity of family
life after so much excitement must be rather flat.”
“I was so happy Gian when you told me you would come. Did you really
come just for me?”
“Just for you, my love. Haven"t you understood anything all those years?”
“Understood what?”
“That you are my life. That I have been leading a truncated existence without
you?”
She looked at me sadly.
“I never understood where our friendship ended and love began. The fact that
you were younger did not help. Still we had some good moments too. Did we not?”
“Subject to your caprices.”
“One has not another life to live and it is not much use to have regrets. They
always come too late. But sometimes one has still a few hours" grace.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, let"s go to your room.”
At fifty you cannot love like thirty. Sometimes a miracle does happen.
Especially if your love is worth your whole existence and you have desired her and
have been denied her most of your life and might never see her again. We made love
all morning, talking in the intervals and all too soon it was time for her to leave. She
had a home, a husband and children.
“Gian,” she said and kissed me as we were dressing, “it reminded me of Alex
when dawn always came too soon. It was still wonderful after so many years. At our
age.”
“Yes, my lusty Cleopatra. You have revived a middle-aged Caesar.”
“When are you leaving?”
“In three days" time.”
She laughed.
“That was an expensive fuck,” she said.
“Oh nonsense. It was a bargain for what it offered. It will allow me to die in
peace.”
“You are as sweet as always. I was thinking we might halve its cost.”
“Oh my darling, you do love me a little after all.”
“After tomorrow at nine. In the morning,” she added with a smile.
My mother"s side of the family was unusually good looking. They were
Italians from some obscure village near Venice and in Egypt they oscillated restlessly
for two generations between Cairo and Alexandria playing hide-and-seek with their
fortune which they never found. The distaff side of the family was the more
interesting and seems to have contributed most of Sylvia"s genes. My grandmother
was beautiful and scatterbrained. Her sister was a rare beauty and was a femme fatale
to some and una putana to others. She left a handful of children from a handful of
marriages and a big pile of broken hearts. Women like her fascinate me for the way
they weave in and out of marriages and the lives of men spawning, in the process, as
is a woman"s destiny, a good number of children. They are a gift from heaven to
relieve our lives from boredom. I met her a few times but she was already an old
woman. Two of her girls, Yola and Nina were from the same father. Nina was
Sylvia"s mother; a pretty, lively person who lost her husband soon after Sisi was born
and never remarried. Yola was a rare beauty like her mother. She married a Greek
45
womanizer, who was one of the most lovable, charming and demagogic people I have
ever met, and never had any children. She had a string of small pet dogs on which she
lavished her affections. But over and above all else she loved Sisi. She was not a very
friendly person and never showed me much affection unlike her husband who,
whatever his true feelings, was the friendliest of souls. She was stuck up and not a
particularly interesting person. My grandfather, who had a sense of humor, and,
indeed, needed it to get along with his wife, related how once at an art exhibition Yola
stood in ecstasy looking at a huge painting. He approached her and asked her if she
liked it. She said she was thinking it must be a pretty big nail on the wall to support all
that weight. So much for her artistic bent. My mother, too, was beautiful. She died
when I was twelve and it took me some terrible years to recover from her loss.
For a time, Yola and her husband and Nina and Sisi lived together in Cairo.
Before my mother died we used to visit them often at a lovely flat they had in Dokki
just across the Pont des Anglais. They had a large veranda and I was more interested
in Sisi"s bicycle than Sisi who was, even then, a doll. A few trivial memories remain
from those days. My agony to ride the bicycle which Sisi seemed to need as soon as I
touched it and Nina"s eternal question to Sisi. A fato cé a? A fato pé i? Caca and pipi.
Then they all moved to Alex and I did not see them for many years until Yola and her
husband returned to live in Cairo but Nina and Sisi stayed on in Alexandria.
Sometime in that interval, my mother died of a cancer and I was disconsolate for
years. My father, an Egyptian born Greek, could not be a substitute and he did not try.
He was a successful businessman making a lot of money and had his mother and
another woman from the same island village take care of me and our household. The
pair did not touch me. They were ignorant and growled more than they talked and I
felt no need for their companionship. I was left to my own devices, as my father was
not much at home, in any case. He had his friends and they met in the evenings at a
bar and sometimes played tennis in the afternoons at the club. He traveled a lot to
Europe for his import-export business and loved to go to Paris where I suspect he
frequented the poules de luxe. He often used to say, Il y a des belles femmes a Paris.
The year after my mother died my father asked her parents, my grandparents,
to occupy themselves with my summer vacation. He rented a small villa in a small
seaside village just outside Alexandria which was used as a summer resort by a
steadily diminishing number of Europeans. Dekhela had a small, well kept hotel
which filled up in July and August and had a few permanent European residents. I
found the village acceptable because one of my school friends lived there. John, who
was my namesake except that outside school I was Gianni, had an English father and
a Greek mother. He also had a beautiful girl cousin who was a boarder, like him, in
our English school in Heliopolis and spent the greater part of her summer holidays at
his house. I was in love with her. We were both thirteen and at that age love was
consummated by talk and looks and close proximity and for the more daring, a kiss,
an asexual caress and the holding of hands. That was enough for me. It carried me to
the limits of my experience and knowledge of sex. I don"t know if it was enough for
Rosie and, in any case, John"s constant presence prevented more intimate contact and
experimentation.
My empty-headed, pretentious grandmother was a super-hospitable person.
She was a good cook and an uncomplaining hard worker who kept an open house and
loved to have people around her. Her house was always full, primarily with family but
friends were always welcome as well. That year her beautiful sister was often with us
with her last husband who was apparently the big love of her life. She must have been
in her middle sixties and though one could discern the beauty, it was also, clearly, of
46
the past. She had white hair tied in a bun behind her head, beautiful skin and a
serenity that I suppose derived from having lived one"s life to the full. Her husband
was an artist, a painter. He was baldish on top but his hair was extra long at the back.
It was a time of short neat hairstyles and such indulgences were the prerogative of
artists. I often followed him in his long walks, burdened with his tools, canvases,
stand and paints, in search for the right view or seascape to put on the canvas. In due
course Nina and Sisi put in an appearance. They joined the long procession of my
mother"s family and stayed a few days.
In Dekhela I became acquainted with a small group of boys and girls, a
mixture of Greeks and Italians. The village was small and dull and the group tried to
find ways to enjoy themselves as best they could. They went to the beach together in
the mornings to joke and laugh, to monkey about and swim. They bullied and good
naturedly manhandled the girls, petted them and fondle their breasts and behinds on
the sly, getting slaps and screams for their efforts and always a good laugh. They
played volley ball in the afternoons and went for long walks along the empty beaches
or the desert hills on the other side of the village at sunset. At thirteen I was too young
to be accepted by the group. Until, that is, I introduced Sisi to them. After that I was
their darling. Sisi was fourteen and already a gorgeous young woman that drove the
boys out of their mind. Because of her I was readily accepted in their midst though I
was kept away from their more intimate moments of sexual experimentation by
various stratagems. A boy would approach me during the walk and suggest we take a
different path and on the way would launch into the most incredible stories
imaginable to keep me busy with this nonsense so the rest of the group did their
kissing and petting and who knows what else without the irksome presence of the kid.
When Sisi would depart for Alexandria, I was the official go-between. Especially the
boys would come and ask me to phone Sisi and tell her she was badly missed at
Dekhela and would she come the soonest possible. We did not have a telephone at
home and I had to go to the post office, which was next door to our house and do my
pleading from there. I too wanted Sisi to come. I loved to look at her. I loved that
lovely face with the exquisite smile. I loved her woman"s body and her full breasts. I
loved her gay and merry moods. It really was unfortunate I was not a little older. We
used to swim sometimes on our own. She played games with me and fought and
ducked me in the water. But she also hugged me and held me tight and caressed my
breasts. How could I know, then, she was slyly trying to tell me what she wanted done
to her? I did not even suspect it.
I was sixteen that first summer my father sent me to Alexandria for my
summer holidays. He came to some arrangement with Nina and I stayed at their house
in Mazarita, just out of the city center. He provided me with a chauffeur and our light
green Chevrolet. The driver was Sudanese and throughout that summer, in the worst
of heat and humidity he wore a suit and tie. Needless to say, the same suit all summer.
But he was clean and did not smell. He was a thin, tall, good looking man. Not totally,
shiny black. A matt off-black color and had the traditional three cicatrices on his
cheek that one rarely sees on Sudanese people in our days. While forever waiting for
me he used to while his time away listening on the car radio the music and songs of
his country. When I entered the car, I would ask him not to shut it off. Unlike
Egyptian songs and music, the Sudanese hit a chord in my aesthetic sensibilities and I
enjoyed them very much. He taught me to drive and most of the time I did the driving
to and from the beach and for the few excursions we went together. I used to take him
to the cinema with me, which he appreciated, instead of letting him wait outside in the
car. Then he would take me and feed me some delicious but super spicy meats with
47
bread and it is a wonder I did not get hemorrhoids that summer. At night he would
park the car in the garage beneath the house and disappear until next day at nine. His
name was Soliman. With the peripherals out of the way, I shall talk of Sisi.
I had not seen her for three years and I fell in love within a second. We had
traveled by desert road for four hours and I must have been disheveled and creased
up. I rang the bell holding some loose packs and some pastry I had bought for them,
with Soliman hauling my two suitcases behind me. Sisi opened the door and I can still
see her smile. Delicious on a ravishing face. She was nearly my height, at the time,
but I have since put on a few centimeters. She had a full Italian body. Italian like
Loren in her prime and was wearing a rough housedress and was a mite disheveled
herself. In that instant I wondered: will I be kissing her? And then we kissed
affectionately on the cheeks but that was not it. I yearned for her lips and in those few
seconds was naive enough to think a girl like her would be waiting for me.
Nina came running to kiss me and she fussed over me and we sat and talked
about the family. We had some of the pastry and then she went back to her housework
and Sisi showed me my room and my cupboard. We spoke in Italian although I had
lost my fluency through disuse since my mother"s death. We spoke familiarly because
she seemed to like me and I felt it. My room had a balcony and we talked for a while
bending over the ledge. Our arms touched at times and I looked at her luscious
shoulders, bare arms and full breasts as we talked watching the drift and movement of
people and street sellers on the pavement below. I was in dreamland constructing
dreams that were never to be fulfilled. In retrospect, I often thought that had I made a
bold pass at her I would have pierced the fort. My dilly-dallying was not for her. She
did not have the patience and she had no lack of eagerly awaiting lovers. Worst of all
for me, she was experienced and a woman who knew her own mind. The day passed
easily and in the evening she dressed up, applied her makeup and went out. It was a
multiple stab in my heart. I realized I had not the smallest corner in her plans. She had
a life of her own long before I came along, and was so glamorous and beautiful when
she dressed that she totally intimidated me. She looked quite a few years older than
her age and, by comparison, I was just a child. All grounds for optimism were
summarily eliminated. All hope was lost.
That summer Sisi had two boyfriends. For a while, that is, because she soon
got rid of the better one. Better in my opinion, of course. She, obviously, had other
criteria. I met him during my first days in Alex. His mother was Nina"s friend and we
passed by, all three of us, Soliman driving, and picked them up from a narrow
crowded street in Camp Cesar. Then we drove down the Corniche to the private beach
of the San Stefano Hotel which was not far out of town. It did not have an extensive
sandy beach but it had the amenities which would allow the ladies to sit comfortably,
drink their coffee and later to have our lunch in a civilized manner. It also had cabins
for changing in and out of our bathing costumes. Pierro was a thin, tall and very
handsome young man. He was the perfect match for Sylvia and it was the fondest
wish of Nina and Pierro"s mother that the two would marry. Pierro was obviously
very much in love with Sisi but things don"t always work out as one wishes. He was a
polite, serious boy, was studying at the university and would soon graduate as an
engineer. He would make an ideal husband and Sisi too seemed happy with him.
However, impressions are often misleading. Sisi did not much bother with him
beyond that single occasion, as far as I could tell.
Sandro was the man who occupied her mind and dominated her being that
summer. Theirs was a tempestuous relationship with quarrels every other day and
then reconciliations; constant jealousies and I suppose not a few infidelities on both
48
sides. Their lovemaking must have been wild and passionate and deeply rewarding to
both. Sandro was a meaty hunk, tall, ungainly and untidy, his blond hair usually in a
mess. He was not good looking but neither was he unpleasant to look at. He was
unfriendly and regarded me with suspicion and distaste. Perhaps, knowing his Sisi he
would have preferred I was not around. He owned a huge Harley Davidson which was
just about right for his size and bulk and if you moved around Alexandria, which in
those days was still a small city you were bound to fall upon him, at least once a day,
speeding this way and that. If he did work, his application to his job must have been
casual indeed. He was the typical semi-educated, macho male and perhaps that was
what Sisi liked though she often rebelled at his overbearing and bullying ways. He
often came home and the pair shut themselves in her room for hours and left a
discomfited Nina to carry an uneasy, self-conscious conversation with me. Once, in
her room I found a round half shell, like a large coin, of thin gold aluminum foil. On
the outside was the logo GOLD COIN and around the circumference was written, For
the Prevention of Diseases. I could not understand what it was. It was not a pill and it
was not chewing gum. I put it in my pocket and later showed it to Sisi and asked her
what it was. She grabbed it from my hand with a smile, ruffled my hair, called me