Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

“These are the books for the baccalaureate,” she said excitedly. “Kamel brought them while you were sleeping.”

The staff had waited eagerly for Suleyman and Karara to come back from their meeting with Alku. They all found a moment from their work to go down to the entrance door or to go up to the restaurant to ask about the outcome.

“What happened with Alku?” they all asked.

Suleyman and Karara seemed to have agreed to give the same answer: “Come to the café tomorrow at five o’clock, and we’ll talk.”

The staff’s anxieties ran wild. Some of them thought that this answer meant that Karara and Suleyman had failed in their mission, while others thought that they merely wanted to save themselves the kerfuffle of having to repeat themselves over and over again. The following day, most of the staff went to the café, filling the whole right side. Abdoun and his friends sat on the left. Suleyman waited until everyone had settled down and then made his way with Karara to the center of the café. There was silence as Suleyman stated slowly, “Alku refuses to let us have our tips again.”

Shouts of objection went up, but Suleyman waited until they calmed down again before continuing, “Alku wants to be sure first that we have understood the error of our ways before he lets us have our tips.”

“Alku has to give us our tips! It’s our right!” said Abdoun.

Suleyman gave him a look of rage and shouted, “Hey, son! What job do you do?”

“I’m an assistant barman.”

“You’re a servant, then!”

“No, Suleyman. I’m not a servant. I do my job and I get paid.”

“And we,” said Suleyman angrily, “have been servants our whole lives long and accepted our situation and were happy until you put a wrench in the works.”

“God forgive you!”

“You, Abdoun, and Bahr and Samahy and the rest of your lot — you have your way of thinking, and we have ours. You want to go head-to-head with Alku! You’re the cause of our woes.”

Abdoun smiled sadly and replied, “Suleyman, we objected to Alku’s beatings.”

Avoiding his glance, Suleyman responded, “Well, thanks a million, Abdoun. We don’t need more problems. We were happy and contented until you turned up and started agitating. And now, the whole Club is in chaos. All the arguments and squabbles have left us unable to earn a living.”

Some voices seconded Suleyman’s opinion.

“Abdoun,” Suleyman shouted, getting himself worked up, “you knew what the Club was from the start. You must have been told, before you came to work here, that Alku is strict and hard-hearted. So why did you come?”

“It’s our right to work, and it’s our right to be treated with respect.”

Suleyman blew his top at this, screaming at Abdoun, “You can speak for yourself but not for us!”

There were shouts of support for Suleyman, but Abdoun looked at him and said, “Alku will never reinstate the tips just because you beg him and kiss his hand. We have to take a united stance and demand our rights.”

“You can take your united stance and stick it,” replied Suleyman. “We have a different plan. We will keep begging him to forgive us until he reinstates the tips.”

Abdoun looked at his colleagues with a mixture of sorrow and disgust.

“We,” he told them, “will neither beg for forgiveness nor kiss any hands. We will defend our rights and make him reinstate the tips. You’ll see for yourselves.”

Abdoun turned to leave the café amid a clamor of sarcastic jeers:

“We’ll see about that, idiot!”

“You’re not as clever as you think!”

“You’re deluded!”

Abdoun walked straight on without turning back, followed by Samahy and Bahr and some others. Suleyman then continued solemnly, “Brothers! We have nothing to do with them. Karara and I are going to beg Alku again tonight, and please God, he will listen to us.”

It was our second meeting in one week. The comrades had managed to complete the mission ahead of schedule. We had distributed thousands of photographs in most of the provinces. I decided to show up ahead of the meeting in the hope that the prince might bring up the personal matter that he had offered to help with, but he did not mention it. It was as if the conversation had never happened and as if he had not promised to help me. I resented being ignored and told myself that while Prince Shamel was a good man, a fighter and an artist, he did not have time for my problems.

Now I regretted having sought him out for help and felt dismayed and frustrated. My only consolation was Mitsy’s presence in our apartment. She was curious about everything, and it was delightful to see her standing in the kitchen with my mother. She was enjoying real Egyptian life. Once, she asked me to go up to the roof with her to watch Saleha hanging out the wash.

“I have seen clothes being hung out since I was a child,” I told her.

“Come up to the roof with me,” she said, smiling, “and I’ll show you just how beautiful it is.

Saleha blushed and said softly, “I don’t think it’s worth watching what I do.”

Paying no attention to Saleha’s comment, Mitsy grabbed one side of the washtub while Saleha grabbed the other. I opened the front door for them, and our procession went up the stairs. I was taken by the oddity of the scene. An Egyptian girl and an English girl carrying the wash. Mitsy Wright, born and raised in London, carrying a tub of damp clothes on al-Sadd al-Gawany Street. They put the tub underneath the line on the roof. Mitsy pulled me back a few steps by the hand and told me, “Stand here so that you can see properly. Now, Saleha, please start hanging out the wash, and imagine that we are not watching you. Try to pretend that you are alone.”

Saleha seemed a little confused but leaned over and took out an article of clothing and started hanging it out.

“The hanging of the wash,” Mitsy said in the tones of a teacher addressing a class of children, “is one of the most beautiful expressions of Egyptian femininity. When an Egyptian woman reaches out to arrange an item on the line, her body achieves its highest humanity, realizing the height of her attractiveness and powers of seduction.”

Saleha stopped and looked at us with an embarrassed smile.

“Please don’t be embarrassed,” Mitsy said. “I’m not talking about you personally. I’m an actor, and I have studied body language. I just want to explain how beautiful the sight is to Kamel.”

Saleha bent down and pulled out another item to put on the line.

“Just look how the form exudes femininity,” Mitsy carried on enthusiastically. “As an Egyptian woman hangs out the wash, she is as alluring as a belly dancer in whose dance the seduction is frank and direct, a sort of invitation to sex. When a woman is hanging out the wash, her appeal is subdued and coy. The woman moves as if unaware of the excitement she arouses in any man watching her. Look. When the woman puts the clothes peg in her mouth and then takes it in her two fingers to peg the wash on the line, the use of the peg is loaded with strong, sensual overtones.”

That was more than Saleha could bear. She dropped the wet shirt into the tub.

“Mitsy!” she said with apparent anger. “I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing. Either leave me alone or I’ll go downstairs and come back in the afternoon.”

“Okay,” Mitsy said with a laugh. “I’m sorry.”

We left Saleha hanging out the wash. Mitsy brought as much happiness into our family as a young child discovering things for the first time, making silly comments which made everyone laugh and enjoy repeating them.

That night, I studied past two in the morning. I went to take a shower, wearing just my trousers and a shirt. Since Mitsy had come to stay with us, I never went out of my room in just my pajamas. I was walking down the corridor, but before I reached the bathroom door, I heard a whisper behind me, “Kamel…”