Samia Serageldin - The Cairo House

‘I’m sorry, I can’t imagine how he got loose.’ It could only be Tamer, she thought grimly, as she caught Domino’s collar and dragged him back towards the chalet.

Om Khalil cleared the lunch table and set down a tray of baklava and a basket of the earliest mangoes of the summer: green, comma-shaped Hindi; sweet, round, orange Alphonse; huge ‘calf’s egg’. Gigi regretfully decided to skip the mangoes – no matter how careful she was, there was no way to eat a whole mango without risking a stain on her new dress or at least getting her fingers all sticky. At home Mama would have made sure the mango was served peeled and diced in a bowl. Gigi started to serve the baklava to Yussef and Madame Hélène.

Tamer chose a round, fleshy Alphonse. He held it upright in his fist, stuck a knife into the middle and cut about an inch deep all the way round. ‘Aren’t you going to have a mango, Gigi? You like them so.’ He twisted the top half off, ending up with one half like a cup and the other with the large pit still attached, protruding. The sticky, indelible, bright-orange juice ran down his hands. Gigi watched with horror out of the corner of her eye while trying to make conversation with Yussef.

‘So what was the weather like in London when you left?’

‘Wet and cold, as usual. But you get used to it. There aren’t many days in the year you’d get a chance to wear a dress like the one you have on.’ He glanced at her bare shoulders, lightly tinged with pink from the sun.

Gigi blushed, she wasn’t sure why. She tried to think of something to say but every topic seemed fraught with implications of one sort or another. She was a little resentful that Yussef seemed to be making no effort, while she felt it was incumbent upon her, as hostess, to keep up the conversation. For his part, he seemed perfectly at ease answering questions but devoid of curiosity himself. She wondered if it simply meant that he had already made up his mind. But based on what? Her looks and her pedigree? She was disappointed rather than flattered. But she tried to put herself in his shoes: it must be awkward to be the suitor, waiting to be accepted or rejected; perhaps that explained why he didn’t want to appear to be trying too hard.

‘Did you find it hard to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road in England?’ she hazarded.

‘A little at first. Not that I drive much there, I don’t have a car. But one time, I borrowed a friend’s car and found myself going the wrong way down a one-way street.’

Gigi’s attention was distracted. Tamer had acquitted himself of the first half of the mango easily enough, scooping out the flesh with his spoon, but when he came to the half with the pit he abandoned all decorum and simply sucked on the pit like a dog worrying a bone, juice coating the incipient down on his upper lip and dribbling down his chin. He picked at a mango fibre stuck between his teeth.

When they left the dining room Gigi pointed Yussef to the washroom and, as soon as his back was turned, lobbed a small, hard mango at Tamer’s ribs. He gave an exaggerated yelp.

‘Now, now, children,’ Madame Hélène remonstrated automatically, ‘ jeux de mains, jeux de vilains. ’

Gigi flushed, mortified. But Yussef only looked amused. At least that was one point in his favor, she thought; Tamer’s antics didn’t seem to disconcert him.

‘Well?’ Mama asked impatiently on the phone late that afternoon, after Yussef had left. ‘What did you talk about?’

‘Oh, nothing special. We went for a walk on the beach. You know, he was wearing espadrilles all the time.’

‘Espadrilles?’ Mama sounded puzzled. ‘Darling, have you made up your mind yet?’

‘Not yet, Mama. But I will by the time I come home tomorrow, I promise.’

Gigi decided to take Domino for a walk on the beach; he had been cooped up a good part of the day to keep him out of Yussef’s way. She changed out of her dress and put on a pair of comfortable Bermudas.

The sun was setting and the beach was deserted. In the distance she saw a windsurfer skimming the water, headed for shore. A lonely swimmer bobbed in the foreground.

Gigi turned and headed away from the chalets, splashing calf-deep in the surf, looking away from the blood-orange horizon periodically to check the sand under her feet for the dread jellyfish. She knew she had been gone long enough for Madame Hélène to fret, but she was reluctant to head back.

Mama would expect an answer about the marriage proposal when she arrived in Cairo. Gigi tried to concentrate. She realized it was the first time she had had to make a real decision in her life, and it would be the most important decision she would ever make. It frightened her to feel as detached from the outcome as if it concerned someone else.

The idea of marriage seemed unreal, somehow. Whether she said yes or no, Yussef would go back to England and life would go on as usual for her. Even if she said yes, she would have a year to change her mind.

Years later, many years later, Tamer was to ask her: ‘Why did you marry Yussef? I always wondered about that.’ It would be years later, on a balcony overlooking the Nile, overlooking a by-pass bridge like a gigantic Ferris wheel spanning the city; a bridge that would not be built for another decade, and would be named after a war that was yet to take place: the Sixth of October Bridge. Years later Tamer would ask her that question, long after they had both crossed over to adulthood; when they had changed as unrecognizably as the transformed vista over the familiar old river; when they were trying to reach across the distance the years had stretched between them. He would ask her that question then, and for the first time, even to herself, she would have an answer.

But the girl walking her dog on the beach that day had no answer. Except perhaps that she was tired of waiting for life to begin.

The month before the wedding went by in a whirl. Gigi tried to concentrate on her final exams, but she was distracted by the sessions at the dressmaker’s and other preparations. She left the details to Mama, even the styles and colors of the embroidered satin negligées for her trousseau. But the choice of a stone for the solitaire engagement ring was to be entrusted to the Pasha, by family tradition. He was considered as much a connoisseur of jewelry as he was of period furniture.

Rather than pick a ring, Yussef’s parents had presented Gigi with an equivalent sum of money, discreetly concealed in a navy Sèvres bonbonnière. She called her uncle.

‘Of course, dear, I’ll call my jeweler right away. Do you have any preference as to cut? No? All right then, I’ll tell him what your budget is and he’ll pick a few stones for us to choose from. You can pick them up from the shop in town tomorrow morning and bring them right over. It’s the Sirgani jeweler downtown, but make sure you ask to speak to Sirgani Senior himself. Just tell him you’re my niece, he’ll be waiting for you.’

Gigi had driven downtown to the busy square and circled a couple of times, not looking so much for a parking space, which was near impossible at this time of day, but for a minadi, one of the self-appointed parking attendants who offered to watch your car when you triple-parked. In exchange for a small tip, they staved off the roving policemen so you did not get a ticket or your car towed. She finally caught the eye of a minadi and parked. She hopped out, telling him she would be in the jewelry shop and he was to fetch her if one of the cars she was blocking needed to pull out or if the tow truck showed up.

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