Louisa Young - Desiring Cairo

Halfway through Hakim came in and said: ‘He’s no good that man. No good for Egypt. Rich as ten thousand men. And he did not look after your princess. In Egypt they say your government killed them because they hate Islam and want no Muslim man in your royal family. I say bollocks.’ At the same time as I was amused by his finding so soon the grosser end of our lovely language, and pronouncing it like the young bull he so reminded me of, I could see the sincerity of his distaste.

The next day, Saturday, there were two letters. One contained a razor blade, the other a poem.

Distracting is the foliage of my pasture

The mouth of my girl is a lotus bud

Her breasts are mandrake apples

Her arms are vines

Her eyes are fixed like berries

Her brow a snare of willow

And I the wild goose!

My beak snips her hair for bait,

As worms for bait in the trap.

I knew this poem. Not that it’s famous, out of its field. It’s from an ancient papyrus. It’s, I don’t know, three thousand years old. I didn’t like it – I’d never liked it. Hair as worms, bait in a trap. Ugly. Violent. Fixed berries, vines, snares. It speaks to me of desire and resentment – a bad combination.

And a razor blade.

How very unpleasant.

Each one gave me a cold shudder. I didn’t know, actually, which was nastier.

I burnt the poem and broke the blade in half with a pair of pliers, then wrapped it in cotton wool, soaked the package in baby oil and threw it in the rubbish, which I then took out on to the balcony and dropped – plop! – into the wheelie bin seven storeys below. I’m pretty ritualistic on occasion.

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