But. Let‟s not go into the buts. Nevertheless I do love him. He is the father of my child. I fell pregnant after a year and was busy with Samir, my son, for another two and I entered into a routine that occupied my life and made me forget its emptiness. One day I looked at my chubby face in the mirror and told myself that in a little while I would be just another fat, sexually frustrated, empty headed, gossipy wife like the ones I saw at the club. Where had my love of literature gone? My philosophy studies? My dreams? The promise I had made to myself? That round face woke me up. I went to a dietician and joined the golfers for the exercise and in the back of my mind I kept alive my hope of meeting someone. I made friends with the crowd you call birds-of-a-feather. I wanted to learn how they operate. I admired their guts, their secret disregard for conventional morality and finally their selfishness because above all else they dared to care about themselves. They nurtured their pleasure. They stopped being second fiddle to their husbands. I think you have helped me do the same. Much as I love him, I do not feel sorry for Mohsen. My logic tells me he had it coming.” The installments went back and forth in time. They were snatches of personal history. After their lovemaking Robbie would often ask her,
“What are we on today?”
She would smile and say,
105
“You, of course. All my stories are connected to you. Why would I tell you a story that has nothing to do with you? I remember when I saw you the first time, I thought, That must be a nice person. I did not know the rest of your hidden traits. Even now, I know very little. I started going to the golf about a year and a half before you appeared but I used to go much less frequently and, hence, my very poor skill at the game. I practiced my drives, talked with the birds and surveyed the men. More out of intellectual curiosity than with an intention of doing something about it. Taking on a lover seemed over the moon. A sheer fantasy. My hard feelings towards my family and Mohsen and my thoughts of revenge had long since faded. Of course, there was still the frustration of my sexual life. The certainty that there was more to sex than what Mohsen had to offer. That my lack of pleasure was not due to my personal frigidity. That I had a right to sexual pleasure. Yes, all that may have been true but in practice things seemed so impossibly difficult. And then, the crop of men available did not inspire me. I thought, how ironical! The man I married, the man with whom I would live a lifetime was forced on me and was not to my liking. And I was being finicky in choosing a transient sexual partner for a short love affair! But it obviously had to be so. I would not enter into such a relationship for more of the same. It had to be something special, something worth the risk, worth the betrayal.
“I saw you from the very first days you came to the golf. You were young and good looking and those first days you seemed lost and withdrawn. You attracted my interest and I kept an eye on you. I saw you develop, gain confidence and become much more sociable. Your golf improved very quickly and pretty soon you were giving me pointers on the green. I loved it when you held me from behind to correct my drive. I knew you were aroused. I felt you were interested and I started to think, Shall I or shall I not? We became friends and this question was constantly buzzing in my mind. Shall I or shall I not? Until you asked. Until you proposed a look at the stamp collection. So, do I have regrets? Not in a million years! Oh Robbie, I do not want to say I love you because I shall believe it and I don‟t want to, though it is probably true. But I cannot conceal that your lovemaking thrills me. It exhilarates me. I love those carnal sensations that flood my being every time you touch me. The arousal of your caress, the passion of your kisses, the vibrations, the tension, the agony, the love I feel, yours and mine, the hardness of your body, your need to bury yourself into me, to suck every part of my body, to build me up, on and on and on and on until I can stand it no longer, until your helpless growl of release triggers me off as well and I feel your love spurting into me. Then we rest a few minutes because there is not much time and we talk. Well, I talk mostly and I wonder why there is not a world where we could stay like this, in bed, forever.” He asked her how she felt making love with two men. She looked at him reproachfully for bringing up something that was constantly troubling her. The feeling that she was being unfaithful both to Mohsen and Robbie. Each one with the other.
“With you,” she said, “I feel like a lovesick mistress. With Mohsen like a prostitute with her client. With my child like a traitor. With my family like an avenging victim. With the world at large like a secret agent. You see our affair has given me many faces.”
Robbie was ashamed he asked the question. It was indelicate but revealing. A woman‟s adultery involved her soul. It was not easy to sleep with two men. Robbie kissed her and she responded passionately. Then she looked at him.
106
“It is for this,” she said, “that I have changed my life. It is so wonderful this coupling of two people. I am so lucky to have finally discovered it. Why did God make of it a riddle?”
She kissed him again and reached for his penis.
One day as they were talking about feminism and the birds that were, in a way, practicing a special brand of it, he asked her if she ever happened to meet a Greek girl called Fay. Aziza said, “Yes”, because Fay was often in the bird‟s company.
“She is a lesbian, you know,” she told him.
Robbie was startled.
“No,” he said. “That cannot be the girl I was asking about. The Fay I know is married and lives in Greece.”
“I know, said Aziza. But she does come to Cairo every so often.” Robbie was confused.
“The Fay I am talking about I have known since she was a little girl. I was her brother‟s friend and I was in and out of their house for years. She never displayed any such tendencies. On the contrary, she was quite a lively and sexually precocious girl. She went around with plenty of boys. I met her at the pavilion many months ago, at the time of the earthquake and I wondered if you knew her.”
“I think it is the same Fay we are talking about,” said Aziza. “I mean, how many Greek girls called Fay are there in Cairo? It is not a usual name. Anyway, I only met her once or twice but I heard a few things about her from the birds-of-a-feather group. She is a brunette, pretty and petite and much younger than us.”
“What did you hear,” asked Robbie.
“That she married this fellow in Greece,” said Zizi. “That they do not get along well together but she does not leave him because he is very rich. That she is promiscuous and has innumerable affairs. The husband knows it but tolerates it because he loves her and feels responsible as he is much of the time away from home on business. That when she is in Cairo she stays with her lover who is a Greek woman in Heliopolis.” It was getting more and more specific but Robbie still could not swallow it.
“What is the woman‟s name?” he asked.
“I forget the name,” said Zizi. “The only thing I remember is that she is lame.”
“Yes, that‟s the one,” said Robbie. “But you just said she goes about with innumerable men and just because she stays with that woman does not mean she is a lesbian.”
“Yes,” admitted Zizi, “perhaps she is not. Perhaps, she acquired that reputation because the other lady almost certainly is. But why are you so preoccupied, Robbie?”
“She is like a sister to me,” he answered.
Months went by and then a year. Aziza was blooming. She had slimmed down and took a new interest in her appearance, her hair, her skin, her clothing. There was a sparkle to her face, a radiance to her smile that made her quite the most luminous woman of the pavilion. She was constantly stalked and courted by most of the male sex-scavengers. With Robbie they still met at the pavilion and even played the odd game of golf together but kept apart. They were cautious because even their fleeting glances, when they crossed, betrayed their tenderness, their collusion. Their happiness was almost too great to hide, too precious to put to risk. Theirs was a once a week visit to paradise. It 107
was enough to keep the flame burning. Perhaps more frequent encounters would deflate their infatuation.
Robbie kept up his other sports and was much sought after as a golfing partner.
He flirted conspicuously with other women and discreetly withdrew when the familiarity became an invitation. He was in love with Zizi. He had eyes for no one else. He often wondered, had she been his wife, would the adoration be the same? And thought, probably not. Their love, that strange condition of physical and mental need for one another was kept alive and kicking, alive and conflagrating by the obstacles, restraints and prohibitions of society and its condemnation of such relationships. By the dangers they encountered and the consequences they would have to face if discovered. He also wondered about the future. He knew there was no future. He wondered when and how it would end. He was still too young to be a cynic but he did know that there is an expiry date for everything.
Aziza fell pregnant. She made love with two men and fell pregnant by the one she did not love: her husband. Her emotions were ambivalent. She wanted a second child.
She craved for a girl. She did not want to have it with Robbie. She thought carrying the infidelity to such lengths was unacceptable. There were certain moral limits you could not exceed. If she wanted a child with Robbie she would have to leave Mohsen. To do what? Marrying Robbie was out of the question for every possible reason. Financial, religious, cultural and because of their age difference. She felt hemmed in. With Robbie, they scrupulously practiced contraception. Mohsen had a sloppy and careless attitude and expected Aziza to concern herself with these matters. But mistakes do occur and decisions have to be taken whether to keep the child or abort it. She discussed it with Robbie who was reluctant to express an opinion and said that it had to be solely her decision and in the end rather than go through the traumatic experience of abortion she decided to keep the baby.
It was a strange new turning in their relationship. It was as if the baby was Robbie‟s. As though they were married. The wild, sexual desire subsided to the normal levels of a married couple and Robbie displayed an unprecedented tenderness towards her. They made love calmly, carefully as if to protect the embryo from the acrobatics and violent jabs of their former passion. Aziza was thriving. She was more beautiful than ever. She kept a strict regimen to keep her weight down and her visits to the pavilion were less frequent and she did not play golf. She took long walks around the horse-racing circuit and Robbie often joined her there at the far end of the course away from the crowds and prying eyes.
After the third month her belly started swelling and a few months later she started feeling the movements of the baby. Robbie loved caressing her belly and putting his ear on it hoping to hear a sound. They continued their lovemaking and the conversations after it. They were more subdued and thoughtful. It was as if a circle was being completed and something was coming to an end. Obviously their love affair but they could not utter the thought, would not admit it even to themselves. At times they were silent for hours in each other‟s arms. She had grown a little heavy and her breasts were swollen and sometimes, in their lovemaking when Robbie suckled them, she would laugh and tell him to profit because soon he would have a rival.
“I hope not for your love,” he said.
“Oh, yes, that too,” she would answer. “I feel she will separate us.” 108
She was convinced she would have a daughter. They made careful love the day before the delivery. Her belly was stretched to the utmost, ready to explode. Robbie was in awe. He found the sight moving. Their separation was almost a good bye. She left by taxi. She could no longer drive. She would enter the hospital the next day and would phone him as soon as she could but they would not see each other for a long while.
Aziza did not call him. Not straightaway. At the golf pavilion he learnt that she had a daughter. That she was well. He wondered, why the silence? First Fay, then her.
Had he done something wrong? He wished he knew what happened to Fay. He met Teresa a few times during that period at her foundry for work but he did not ask about Fay. There was something wary in her look and he connected it with Fay. He did not want to open a subject that was touchy and Teresa would perhaps not wish to broach.
It seemed the only constant in his life was Mona. They met constantly in the elevator. Usually with little Marianne. She had grown and was a lovely child. She was already four and was turning out much prettier than her mother. She called him uncle and Uncle Robbie and she was always ready with a kiss. He had not stopped buying her little presents. Dolls and balls and jigsaw puzzles and even a toy gun when she asked for one.
As for Mona, she seemed to sense it when he was unattached. It was as if she were spying on him. For the nearly two years that he was with Aziza, he heard not a peep from her.
Not since that extraordinary encounter when she taunted him about Fay. Now he was single again for several weeks and Mona reappeared.
She sometimes rang the bell at night during the week but she was always there on a Sunday morning. Usually early. Just after hubby left for work and Marianne was still asleep. Robbie could not resist her. They were the emotionally vacant periods of his life when the sexual stagnation built up his tensions and he was grateful for the mercy of her visits. The visits were not prolonged. Mona had not much time to spare. It was just as well. The half hour or the hour was well fought. Her sexual appetite and energy were inexhaustible and her passion undiminished. The relationship was purely physical, that is, if such complete sexual harmony can ever remain purely physical. They spoke roughly and taunted one another but their kisses, sometimes, after the passion was sated, were tender. He would send her away telling her,
“Come on, time to go. Marianne will be waking up soon,” She would get up, annoyed, and tell him,
“I really don‟t know why I come. You are such a son-of-a-bitch. You love to fuck me but you cannot stand me.”
Robbie would feel sorry for her and jump up and kiss her and ruffle her hair playfully.
“Yes, I really am a son-of-a-bitch,” he would say. “I am sorry. Please forgive me.
Will you come again tonight?”
She would smile and say,
“I‟ll think about it. Wait and see.”
Aziza called him eventually. Many months later. She begged his forgiveness for her silence. She had a difficult delivery and the baby Amina had an infection with respiratory problems and was in an incubator for several weeks. Now Aziza was breast feeding the baby and would be doing so for as long as she would be able to because the antibodies of her milk protected the baby from a recurrence of the illness. She was tied down to staying at home. She did not call; she would not be calling because she wanted 109
him to be free to live his life. She loved him dearly and was forever grateful for the love and joy he poured in her life. It made a meaningless existence worthwhile and gave her hope for the future. Perhaps they would meet again in the golf pavilion one day and if he were free they might pick up the thread of their love. If not, well, they might play a game of golf together. For her, even that would be enough.
“Live your life Robbie,” she said. “Right now I cannot share it. I love you.” She clicked off so he would not answer and prolong the pain. Even in parting it was her that did the talking.
BI-FOCAL PENCHANT
“Robbie?”
He felt a hand caress his head. The voice was soft and questioning but, oh, so familiar. He had not heard it for two years. It startled him more than the hand on his hair.
He spun around and got up. He was sitting at the bar of the pavilion. He was alone. He had just finished a game of squash, had jogged round the racetrack, showered and changed and was quenching the remnants of his thirst with a double gin tonic and lemon juice, all mixed in a huge glass with plenty of ice and was waiting for that pleasant, relaxing dizziness that had become his addiction.
“Fay!” He cried almost before he saw her. “I don‟t believe it!” She was laughing as they embraced. They looked at each other.
“Two years,” he said with a smile, “two years! Don‟t you have a heart? Not a word, not a peep?”
She laughed again.
“I did not want to intrude,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” asked Robbie.
“I knew you were romantically engaged,” she explained.
“Well, yes,” said Robbie. “Months after I waited for you in vain. Oh, but I am so happy to see you. You look wonderful.”
They sat at a table and Robbie brought Fay a drink.
“Just like old times,” she said looking around the pavilion. “I arrived yesterday and was in town finishing some business and I thought I must pass from the club. I might see my Robbie.”
“My Robbie? Am I still that? I thought I had become a memory.”
“You shall always be my Robbie. We are lovers and friends and brother and sister. My heart skipped a beat when I saw you at the bar. You look fine too. Lean and mean and beautiful. And I owe you an explanation. You are so sweet. Never one to take offense.”
“Praises will get you nowhere. Say what you have to say, you heartless girl.”
“Not heartless. Scatterbrained, perhaps, but not heartless. I thought of you constantly. I was heartbroken when I left Cairo. I lost your phone number. I have a talent for misplacing things and throwing away important papers. I asked Teresa to send it to me but she ignored me. She hates it when I see or show an interest in other people. She is a funny girl. Of course you did not call either.”
110
“I did call, Fay. But there was either no reply or else your husband answered in which case I clicked off.”
“Yes? Well, when I came back the first time after about six months, Teresa told me you were with a girl from the club. A married woman. I think I know her, too. You had joined the merry-go-round and I did not want to intrude. I did not want to embarrass you or put you in a difficult position. After all, the mistake was mine. I returned to Cairo twice after that but you were still with the same woman.”
“How did Teresa know?”
“She has friends that tell her all the gossip in town. She does not circulate much but she is well informed.”
“Did she tell you I was no longer with Aziza?”
“No. Yesterday, as soon as I arrived, I called another friend who frequents the pavilion and she told me the romance was over. And here I am.”
“My God! I am astounded. I thought we kept the secret pretty well. I did not think anyone had the faintest notion.”
Fay laughed.
“I suppose the only one who doesn‟t know is her husband. The people are wondering if the baby is his or yours.”
“Oh, poor Zizi,” said Robbie. “She really did not deserve this. Finally, the woman is always the victim.”
“And the laughing-stock is always the man,” said Fay with a smile. “Listen, perhaps she was wonderful and madly in love with you. The fact remains she cuckolded her husband. She has the world buzzing, speculating on whose baby it is. The blessing is that the world has a short memory. If you don‟t get together again this affair will be forgotten in six months.”
Robbie was troubled by the news that his affair with Aziza was common knowledge in the birds-of-a-feather group. Fay was amused.
“You cannot be that sensitive in this game,” she told him. “Most of the Casanovas are callous and selfish. Not to mention the huge ego they usually exhibit. You must realize that, like a lie, any extra-marital dalliance will eventually come out. It is inevitable. Especially if it lasts long. The little group of hedonists you call birds-of-a-feather have horrendous powers of detection. These are little tips I give you. I have much more experience than you. And another thing, the more affairs you have the more your reputation as a lady-killer is enhanced and the more women will run after you. I know you are already in the sights of a number of birds. They are brushing up their golf to give you a game. I was told by my friend.”
“Who is she this useful friend?” asked Robbie.
“I do not reveal my sources,” said Fay and laughed. “Also, if you want to widen your field of action in sex, learn to play bridge and join the Bridge Group of the club. I believe they provide lessons for beginners.”
“Thank you for your solicitous advice,” said Robbie. “It sounds as if you are shooing me away. Trying to get rid of me.”
“Oh hardly. I would not have come searching for you. But I shall not always be with you and I want you to know the pathways to a happy and varied sex life. Staying two years with one woman is too long. It creates problems and attachments. You have been through that and you know what I mean. You must be as flighty as a butterfly and 111
go from flower to flower so that when I shall come I shall find you free or easily available.”
Fay laughed. She was sure Robbie would not take her frivolous advice seriously.
Not everyone could live as she did. It was, certainly, a question of character but also of circumstance. She loved Robbie and their lovemaking on the day of the earthquake was unbelievable but would she be able to be faithful to one man for life?
Fay and Robbie talked animatedly for a while. Then the comings and goings of friends distracted them. They had to say hellos every few minutes and Fay had to get up to give and receive kisses and embraces. Practically all the birds paid their respects. She smiled at his exasperation and told him that not only was she a club member for many years but was one of the original birds-of-a-feather girls.
“I was a regular at the group before I left for Greece to marry and have become something of an honorary member ever since. I keep in touch and informed about the extramarital activities of the Egyptian upper classes. I personally know most of them and keeping track of the couplings and separations amuses me no end. Gossip really is the spice of life.”
Neither had gone for lunch. The alcohol had made them dizzy and hungry and they left the pavilion and drove to the Hilton cafeteria across the Nile. It was mid October. The weather was fresh and the day was shortening but though it was already almost dark it was too early for a restaurant. They walked hand in hand in the din, the constant movement and piped music of the cafeteria, found a table and ordered their food and wine. Fay told Robbie of her travels since the earthquake. A zigzagging of the globe.
A cruise in the Norwegian fjords, Madagascar and Mauritius, India and Portugal.
Vancouver to see a friend she met in Bali a year earlier and a friend in Montreal. A beautiful male model dying of AIDS.
“What else?” she asked herself. “Oh, well, mainly that. I try to travel cheap. I do not want to ask too much from my husband though, heaven knows, he has plenty of money.”
“My God,” said Robbie, “you make me feel so provincial. And Cairo, some backwater city.”
“No, no. In Cairo I have my roots,” she cried as if surprised that he missed this point. “Cairo, you, Teresa, the club, the birds-of-a-feather and this hotel, you are all my roots. When you travel so much you need a place of reference, a sort of mental anchor.
For me it is the place of my birth and my growing up.” They had finished their meal and drank a bottle of Omar Khayam. The spirit of the poet, his love of drink, his sensuality, seemed to have entered their being through his wine.
“Robbie,” she asked, “are we going home soon?”
“Yes, my love,” he answered. “Unless you want us to do something else.”
“Don‟t tease me. Just hurry up.”
They did not just copulate. They made love like lovers, like friends, like companions, like brother and sister. They loved one another mentally and physically, epidermally and subcutaneously. They loved with every part of their bodies, the wet and the dry, the narrow and the thick, the outward and the inward, the mobile and the fixed.
They loved with their voices, their moans and cries, their love words and vulgarities.
With roughness and tenderness, strength and submission. With all the passion and 112
inventiveness that makes this simple, strange and funny act an art of a thousand variations, a thousand breathless yearnings, and a science relentlessly researched. Then the concluding orgasm that both enslaved them and set them free and let them sleep in dreamless lethargy.
They emerged from their torpor an hour later. They did not need to relocate. They were already in an embrace and they kissed. They were already in love and they reconfirmed their avowals with their voices, their smiles and caresses. Their wonder, too, that those two years were like yesterday, and their other affairs of no consequence. They slid into a less frantic and long winded lovemaking that ended with shrieks and heartbeats and uncontrollable ecstasy. They rested, looking at each other, panting, smiling and kissing gently. Then they showered and dressed and went down for a snack at a nearby restaurant, walking hand in hand in the crowded, noisy streets of Cairo.
The restaurant was quiet and dark attempting to create an atmosphere of romantic intimacy. They held hands and talked of their lives. Despite their lack of monetary worries, their life was oddly aimless.
“Even when I was in love with Aziza,” said Robbie, “I was not going anywhere. I was living day by day. She provided the novelty that I was initiating a married woman with child to sex. And she did have a longing to experience what she was missing in her marriage. You see, finally, a happy woman has no need to be unfaithful.”
“That‟s obvious,” said Fay. “My unhappiness stemmed from my husband‟s absences and neglect. He was never there when I was lonely so I looked for someone who would show some interest. Of course, in the last analysis, sex without love is never satisfying. It is like a drug that keeps you going but has lost the power to provide happiness. It is a physical relief but is emotionally neutral. No doubt it is better than nothing and sometimes, but rather rarely, when there is some feeling on both sides it can be very good. Robbie, my love, our lovemaking is superb. You are not technically expert.
I have been with more sophisticated womanizers. It is your unassuming sincerity and love, and of course, mine too that creates the fireworks. I am in love again and it‟s wonderful.”
“Oh Fay, leave your husband and let‟s get married,” said Robbie. “I haven‟t got much money and you will have to forget your travels but then you might no longer need them. No travels, no lovers,” he said and smiled.
She smiled, too, and touched his cheek.
“Too late, my love,” she said, “I have become too warped. But I shall not lose your number again. I shall call you regularly and we will meet often; here in Cairo where I have my roots. You shall be my deepest root if you wish. That is all I can offer. It is all you should ask for.”
“Why? I don‟t understand.”
“I cannot belong to anyone. I don‟t even belong to my husband. I do not trust myself to make any promises. That I am in love is your only guarantee that I shall see you again. A mite sporadically perhaps but I shall not disappear. Shall we go home, my love? I want you. I have no sense of measure.”
They returned to Robbie‟s flat and made love and then Fay asked if he could take her to Heliopolis. If he were too tired she would take a taxi. It was one past midnight and Robbie told her to sleep with him and she said Teresa would be angry. She did not want her to sleep away from the house.
113
“Why?” he asked.
“She is jealous,” Fay answered.
To his mind came thoughts he had suppressed long ago. Rumors he did not believe.
“Fay,” he said, “don‟t be angry. You know I love you. I do not want to hurt you.
There are things that are being said about you. Are they true?”
“What things?”
“Your dear companions, the ones that were kissing you at the pavilion, the birds-of-a-feather, are whispering that you are a lesbian. That you and Teresa are lovers.” Fay looked intently at his face searching for an indication of his feelings. A deep blush suffused her face. Was that an answer? That she was not indignant?
“I shall answer truthfully,” she told him. “But first you answer me this question.