A HUMDRUM EXISTENCE
I woke up late my first working day. I told our servant Mohamed to prepare breakfast in a hurry and he asked me why. I said I was late for work and he said, 'Maalesh ya Messiou, is the world about to grind to a halt?'
Maalesh is the password to the happy life in Egypt. To an existence free of worries. It means, it doesn't matter, not to worry. Its use is widespread. It transcends social strata. There is no matter, however serious, which does not merit a maalesh. It is the tranquilizer that makes life bearable to the average Egyptian. A philanthropic concept sadly lacking in the advanced nations of the West. Exasperating and indispensable at the same time.
Father sent me his driver to pick me up and we drove directly to his offices, which were next to one of his machine shops. They occupied two floors of an old building in a very old and impoverished part of Cairo. I entered timidly the offices of a business that was destined to be mine. I was reluctant to enter my father's room. All of a sudden not a father but an employer. Everyone looked at me. My father caught a glimpse of me and called me inside.
'Good morning, Michael. Did you have a good excursion?'
'Yes, thank you, father. I came in late last night and you were asleep.'
'Well, this is where we earn our living. Today, my day is practically over. My program is this: I come in promptly at eight and by telephone; I make sure everyone is at his post. At about nine, with Manos our manager, we visit the factory, the foundry and then the sales shop. We don't stay long at each stop. By eleven or so, we return to attend to the general affairs such as accounts, taxes, paying our bills, our suppliers, collecting the money from our clients and sales outlet and so on. Round about noon, I leave. You should stay at least until four when the employees leave. There is plenty of work to do, if you feel like working.'
These were the directives I received on assuming what was supposed to be a position of responsibility in the business. There is plenty of work to do, if you feel like working! I was not allotted an office. Not even a desk. The situation improved with time but that first day, my disappointment was traumatic. I cursed myself for returning to Cairo. I should have stayed in Boston with Lizzie. Married her. Married any other American girl for that matter. Anything would be better than this.
At home, the first letter from Lizzie awaited me. I picked it up and went to my room. I looked at it. Turned it over. Looked at her magic name. My craving for her creeping back into my soul. Or if it were dormant, awakening. I opened the letter and sat in my armchair. I smelled it in search of a few stray molecules of her, of her odor. I looked at the handwriting. Typically American. The sentences written in a mixture of capital and small letters.
My dearest Michael,
I received your card from Italy and, today, your letter and hasten to reply.
Your letter was sweet and thoughtful. It amounts, indirectly, to a search for the meaning of our existence in this world and the best way to overcome our frustrations and live our life as pleasantly and as happily as possible, or at least as painlessly. Even the fatalism and passivity point to this.
Do you think those questions of our existence do not concern me? I am just as confused as you are as to the best path for happiness. A woman, on top of everything else, is more vulnerable.
I often wonder, beyond the need to work for our daily bread, what should be my long-term goals. Marry and raise a family? I don't think I could bear that just now. An interesting career would suit me better but where is that to be found? Surely, not in a coffee bar. I think, finally, I ruined my chances of doing something worthwhile by not going to college.
And life outside marriage is not a nonstop recreation of sex. Much as I love this game, I am tired of moving from one Teddy to another. You were a break in the chain and it was so unfortunate that just about everything seemed to be stacked against us. I am not telling you that if we continued together we would have lived happily ever after. But we had something going for us. I think.
I liked you because you were something new and fresh in my life. And your desperation in the last few days moved me deeply. A woman does not often fall in love from pity. In my case, it was not only that, though it undoubtedly was the spark that caused the conflagration. There was also companionship and the feeling of comfort in your presence. The absence and the absence of the need for pretense. The presence of sincerity. Mind you, having someone love you as desperately as you loved me, can be suffocating and I would be lying if I told you I never felt it. In the end, the miracle called love was there. How long it will last is another matter. Am I in love now? I don't know. I don't mince words. Perhaps not. Time and distance and prospects do not help.
Let me tell you one thing, however. I love you. I shall always love you as a friend. And I shall try to keep my promise to come to Egypt. I do, very much, want to see you again. For there is a question mark hanging in the air with us. There was a beginning and I cannot accept this ending.
Life in Boston is much the same. The weather is cold and nothing to warm my heart. My family is well.
Your letter amused and comforted me and reminded me of the few but very pleasant moments we had together. I shall be waiting for your news.
Love, Lisa.
Immature handwriting expressing mature introspection. My bright, unlucky Lizzie. She deserved better than the Teddies and the Michaels and speculations on a middle class existence. If that. She deserved fortune and glamour. She missed the train on education but she had the gifts of a Goddess. Beauty, warmth and a radiant sexuality. She should move to California to a climate that would help her remove her boots, coats and hoods and show her lovely face, abundant hair, her perfect body. Let the sun highlight the color of her eyes and shine on her lovely smile and Italian sweetness.
Surely, there, a producer would notice her or a millionaire fall for her and she would be where she belongs. A beggar to his hovel, a plumber to his wooden frame, a Goddess to her mansion. As Mohammed was fond of saying, ya messiou are all our fingers the same?
At five in the morning on Sunday, I accompanied Corina to the airport. She had reverted slightly to the Boston-to-Cairo-flight Corina. Smartly dressed in a light blue suit, white blouse, a short pearl necklace and with high heels she towered over me.
'Good morning, Corina. Do you find it necessary to wear high heels? I mean, you literally have to bend over to kiss me. And what's more, you intimidate me.'
She smiled. 'Oh dear! The only flat shoes I wear are sneakers and they wouldn't exactly blend with the rest of my attire. I would have thought you are sophisticated enough not to be intimidated by mere physical attributes.'
'Perhaps I got used to the Corina of Djebel Moussa.'
'Well it's the same me, with some added artifice.'
'In any case, I was expressing my own inadequacies. You are looking splendid.'
'Thank you. You have been a terrific companion and friend to the last.'
An hour later, we were following the porter who was carrying her luggage to the airline counter. After checking in, we walked slowly to the gates of the passport control and customs. She gave me her card with address and I wrote mine, for her, on another.
'We are sad but not as sad as you were in Boston,' she said, smiling. 'Good thing, too! Apropos, tell me Corina, is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved?'
'I would have thought the answer was obvious.'
'I ask because at this point of our sentimental lives we are both losers.'
'I told you that I try to solve my problems, sentimental or otherwise, with cold logic, consequently I consider the question superfluous because the choice is never ours. It is a matter of chance. Of fate if you prefer.'
We kissed and held each other for a moment. Then she walked off, into the restricted area and I lost sight of her. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Often but not always.
Three years went by. At work, I assumed increasingly greater responsibilities and my father came to rely on me. He felt free to travel more often and for longer periods to Greece where he had two sisters and many cousins. During that period, I worked unnecessarily hard. There was no need for it since everything at work was as smooth as silk. Hard work was an escape. I was happy that I had a six-day working week. It left only one day of the week to puzzle out how best to organize a long, gloomy day. I frequented Pavlos, my Armenian friend Jack and Nelly, a schoolmate and budding social historian. With Pavlos, we shared a love of horses. He encouraged me to buy a beautiful animal, which I named Bedouin Boy and we rode very often together at the club.
We made a good pair. He was the talker and I, the listener. His fertile mind produced the most outrageous schemes for making a fortune. He never succeeded, however, in drawing me into them. I just enjoyed listening to the details. He rarely tried them out himself in any case. Apart of that, he was the initiator of most of the bad habits I have. I began going to the Nile Hilton casino with him and little by little developed a taste for the roulette. Of course, he had a system, which he explained in detail. The funny thing was that it worked for him, never for me. Still, it was the fun and excitement I enjoyed and he always invited me to a sumptuous dinner after each session where we chewed the fat and had plenty of laughs and a merry time.
One correspondence foundered, another flourished. My angel Lizzie forgot her lovesick little puppy. But the pup was never cured of its sickness. I still dreamed of her and often took out her pictures and the longing never failed to return. I was not a masochist. I did not enjoy feeling miserable. I just wanted to feast my eyes on beauty. Beauty, the balm of the soul. Our need of beauty differentiates us from animals. Makes us artists and poets, dancers and singers. My constant pen friend turned out to be none other than Corina Ingard. From her initial, civilized letter of thanks she sent me as soon as she reached Boston, we gradually developed a regular, satisfying and friendly exchange of letters such as I had hoped to have with Lizzie. Corina was, in tone, both sweet and intellectual. With her advice, concerned and realistic. When talking of herself, like all worthwhile persons, funny and self-deprecating. When referring to me, fond, and I fondly believed, interested. In the Sinai, we shared our warmth, in our correspondence, we shared our worries and dreams and humdrum affairs. She seemed to have changed, to have recovered from her divorce because her letters came across as gay with a lighthearted sense of humor. She had not yet managed to land another trip to Cairo. It was constantly on the way. Like a geometric progression, the distance kept on halving but never getting there. Perhaps infinity was not far off.
In the spring, sometime in March and April is the period of the khamsin. Khamsin means fifty in Arabic and designates the days when hot, sandy winds blow in from the desert covering everything in dust. In vain, one shuts all windows in one's house. By the end of the day, a film of the finest dust will be covering floors, furniture and clothes. The smell of sand is permanently in your nostrils and the most voluptuous sensation of the day is the evening shower before going to your dusty bed. It is not always as bad as that but it can on occasion get worse. Sometimes one remembers events in one's life together with the sensations of a particular moment. A storm, a smell, a song.
A khamsin was blowing that day. It was still early in the spring and the wind was not hot but carried a good load of dust. The Greeks call this month Crazy March. It was the third spring since my return from the States. Three years and a month to be exact. As I was leaving for work, I found a letter in the mailbox. It was a happy letter from Corina announcing her forthcoming trip to Cairo, At Last, and asking me to make reservations for her at the Nile Hilton. She would be arriving in a month's time. At a whim, I decided to ask her to be a guest at home instead. That same day, after I returned to the office, I wrote out my invitation to Corina. Partly as a joke, I told her that it was an invitation with no strings attached. It was purely an expression of friendship. Two weeks later in a letter of acceptance and thanks, she said she had no doubt that an invitation from me would have no strings attached but she also hoped that a declaration so clearly spelled out was not an indication of indifference. Let us keep things interesting, was the intriguing phrase that followed. Perhaps it was her subtle humor.
That day, after writing the invitation, I phoned my friend Jack and suggested we have dinner together. We fixed an appointment for nine o'clock at the Hilton. I did not go to the club because of the khamsin. I went home for a shower and a nap.