Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

“I’m so sorry for being late.”

“You cannot be late! Work is work. Go and fetch the empty beer crates from the bar.”

I carried the crates back to the storeroom. Then I did a few chores and sat down to go over the inventory. I was so tired that I had to do the simple arithmetic over and over again. I became aware of a hand touching my shoulder and saw Monsieur Comanus standing there, smiling.

“Monsieur Comanus,” I said quietly, “I apologize again for being late. I stayed up late studying and couldn’t wake up.”

He looked at me sympathetically and said, “Don’t be late again!”

“No, sir!”

I quickly started reading the lists again in order to avoid further conversation. I did not want to talk to Comanus about Mitsy, even though I was fond of him and trusted him. At that moment, I somehow considered him a foreigner and expected him to be angry if he knew about the presence of Mitsy in my home since she was a foreigner like him. I then felt ashamed at that stupid and racist assumption. Comanus had been a devoted friend to my father and had helped us out by giving Mahmud and me a chance to work in the Club. When it was time to go home, I shook his hand and told him, “I want to thank you for everything that you have done for me and my family.”

Monsieur Comanus gave an embarrassed smile and replied, “I haven’t done anything. Your father was like a brother to me.”

I felt better for having thanked him. After all he had done for me, he did not deserve to be treated like a stranger. I was about to go back and tell him about Mitsy, but then I realized that would be stupid. I was exhausted and could not think straight. I went for a walk down Soliman Pasha Street and then suddenly had an idea. I called the prince from the telephone in the tobacco shop.

The moment I heard his voice, I blurted out, “Your Royal Highness! I would like to come and see you now.”

“Is everything all right?” he asked worriedly.

“I can’t discuss it over the telephone.”

He hesitated a moment and then said, “All right. Come over.”

Half an hour later, the head footman was leading me to the studio. The prince was in his work clothes, seated at a table cropping some photographs, just like the first time I’d come to see him.

He gave me a warm welcome and invited me to sit.

“You’ve got me worried, man!” he said. “What’s going on?”

That was all the prompting I needed. I told the prince about Saleha and Abd el-Barr, as well as about Mitsy staying with us. I did not keep anything from him. The prince listened calmly, occasionally asking questions. When I finished, I felt as if I had freed myself from some heavy burden. The prince got up and poured himself a whiskey, adding a few ice cubes, and as he sipped it, a mischievous smile appeared on his face.

“Are you in love with Mitsy?”

I said nothing, and the prince gave an enormous chuckle.

“Looks like you are!”

“Mitsy is a very lovely person,” I mumbled.

“Have you ever been in love before?” His eyes twinkled with glee.

I shook my head, and the prince called out, “Ah, le premier amour, cher poète ! You must set down your feelings for Mitsy in poetry!”

There was silence again, and then the prince became serious and said, “With regard to the other matter, if you want my opinion, your sister must get a divorce. She can’t live with a man like that.”

“He’s refusing to grant her one.”

The prince said nothing, thinking it over. Then he handed me a sheet of paper.

“Write down for me,” he said, “the name and full address of the gentleman in question.”

I did as requested. He glanced at it, then placed it on his desk. Shortly afterward, as I was taking my leave, he grasped my hand and said, “I can’t promise anything, Kamel, but I shall do all I can to help you.”

It was after midnight when the two friends left Tafida al-Sarsawy’s apartment on the Lambretta. They disappeared at top speed, saying nothing, as if stunned into silence by what had just happened. After a while, Fawzy started humming a song by Abd el-Wahab, and Mahmud noticed that he was not heading home to the Sayyida Zeinab district.

“Where are you going?” he shouted.

“Somewhere nice,” Fawzy shouted back, laughing the laugh of someone in a good mood. Fawzy headed to the citadel district, then turned right into a narrow alley and parked the Lambretta. The friends went into an ancient building and climbed a narrow, winding staircase to the roof. Mahmud had never been to this smoking den before. The customers were seated on wooden benches against the wall. In the middle of the roof terrace, there was a large metal drum with lumps of glowing charcoal, and the serving boys were rushing to and fro carrying water pipes and small braziers. The customers seemed to know Fawzy, as did the proprietor, who got up and greeted him with a big hug. In the brash voice he used when trying to seem important, Fawzy asked the proprietor, “How are you, boss? It’s been ages!”

The two friends took a seat in a corner, and one of the serving boys scurried over with a water pipe and some glowing pieces of charcoal. Fawzy took a lump of hashish out of his pocket and bit off small pieces from it, placing a small lump on each of the prepared tobacco bowls. He lit the first one and took a deep drag, making the water gurgle in the pipe. Then he handed the mouthpiece to the serving boy, who drew in deeply and exhaled a cloud of smoke from his mouth and nostrils. Then Fawzy turned to Mahmud.

“We have to distract ourselves after what happened with that Tafida woman.”

Mahmud preferred the delightful rush he got from wine to the heavy-headedness and dullness he got from hashish, but he took a few short drags on the water pipe anyway. Handing it back to the boy, who finished off what was left and then started fitting another bowl of tobacco and hashish to the pipe, Mahmud sat back on the bench and asked Fawzy, “And just what were you doing with Madame Tafida? I was sitting there embarrassed as hell.”

Fawzy guffawed and said, “Listen to me. You’ve got to be rough with women like that.”

Mahmud nodded but remained unconvinced. Fawzy reached into his shirt pocket and unfolded two pound notes.

“My high and mighty attitude got us double what you get with all your politeness!”

Mahmud sat there with a vacant smile, saying nothing. Yet again, Fawzy had managed to outdo him. Yet again, he had shown him that he knew more about life and people. Mahmud had been expecting Tafida to blow her top at any second and tell them to leave, but to his amazement, while Fawzy’s vulgar moves upset her at first, in the end, she gave in to him. After Fawzy had been to bed with her, she came out looking less wrinkled and much more relaxed. Fawzy had taken her in his arms one last time and nibbled her ear, at which she let out a girly shriek most unbecoming in someone of her age. Fawzy told her, “Tafida, I’ll be back on Wednesday.”

She nodded, looking at him dreamily as he placed his hand behind her neck and pulled her toward him, as if to head-butt her.

“I’ll make sure you’re satisfied like tonight.”

That was how Fawzy instigated a new type of relationship with women. Mahmud might have frenetic sex with his two lady friends, but he still treated them with some respect. He thought of Rosa as a good friend, and even with Dagmar, for all her sharpness and severity, he was gentle and tried not to hurt her feelings. When she told him that her daughter had given birth to a baby girl in Germany, he congratulated her and asked her to write the baby’s name down on a piece of paper so that he could learn how to pronounce it. Mahmud, it could not be denied, was selling sexual favors, but he did so with polite gentility. Fawzy’s coarse behavior with his mistress was naked machismo, but perhaps he needed to be that way. He had acted outrageously with Tafida; it was as if he did not want her to forget that she was paying for sex. Unlike Mahmud, Fawzy was offering sex-with-humiliation. He had made Tafida look at herself. He had shattered any illusions she might have had. While caressing her body, he gave her gentle goading slaps whose subtext was, “You can’t fool me into thinking you are anything but a cheap frustrated old hag who’ll pay anyone to go to bed with her. That’s how it is. If there is any pretending or lying, I’ll be the one doing it.”