Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

Comanus looked somewhat worried. “What has brought this on?”

“Finding the money to keep my children in school is proving a bit of a yoke around my neck…”

“I told you so at the beginning, but you didn’t listen to me!”

“God knows, I have done everything within my power.”

“You rent a large apartment that costs a quarter of your salary. You could have chosen a smaller, affordable one. Just do what you can afford, and things go easier.”

“Boss, our house in Daraw was four hundred meters over two floors, not to mention the date orchard and guesthouse. After living like that, how could I coop up my children in one room?”

“We all have to live through our share of ups and downs.”

“I couldn’t do that to children who bear the name Gaafar.”

Comanus fell quiet and appeared to be thinking. He felt for Abd el-Aziz. He looked at him, and in his straightforward and well-meaning way, he made a suggestion, “Listen. I can give you an advance on your salary, and you can take as long as you need to pay it back.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I need your help for something else.”

“If it’s anything I can do, just tell me.”

“I want some extra hours. After the storeroom closes, I could go work in the bar or the restaurant. Every extra piastre would help.”

Comanus scratched his beard and said, “It’s not so easy. You would need the authorization of Mr. Wright.”

“Then I can go and see him.”

“Mr. Wright is not particularly fond of Egyptians, and even if he were to give you the authorization, there’s still another problem. In the restaurant or the bar, you’d be working under Alku’s supervision, and he is very tricky.”

“Well, that would simply be a work relationship.”

“You don’t know Alku! He likes to humiliate anyone under him.”

Abd el-Aziz remained silent for a moment, then raised his head and asked Comanus, “Please, boss. Give it a try.”

The following day, I stayed in bed. My mother brought me endless cups of hot mint tea with lemon as well as laxative pills that I could hardly get down. She made me a piece of poached chicken and a green salad for my lunch and urged me to eat something. By the end of the day, she had stopped asking me how I felt but still came into my bedroom from time to time for a quick chat. I felt that she knew I was feigning sickness and was putting me to the test.

In the evening, Kamel came in and kissed my head. He smiled and told me, “I’ve paid your school fees today. Here’s the receipt. You can go to school again tomorrow.”

He put the receipt on the bedside table and got up to leave, but I grabbed hold of his hand and said, “Kamel. Just a moment.”

“All right.”

“What is going on with our father?”

“Everything’s fine with him, praise be to God.”

“Why didn’t he pay the fees?”

“I told you already. He must just have forgotten.”

“Kamel. Please tell me the truth.”

I burst out crying. The tension was more than I could bear. Kamel placed his hand on my head to calm me. I kept on asking him, and he nodded and said quietly, “The fact is that our father is going through a financial crisis.”

“Isn’t our father a rich man?”

“Of course he is, but this year’s crops didn’t sell well.”

I kept looking at him in silence. He said gently, “Don’t worry about such things. They happen to everyone.”

“Oh, but it must be so hard on our father.”

“The crisis will pass, please God.”

“Isn’t there something I can do to help?”

“If you want to help him, then look to your studies. What will help our father the most is to see us doing well.”

I looked at him and tried to smile. He leaned over, planted another kiss on my forehead and left the room.

The following day, when I went to school, nothing was the same. Everything had changed. My feelings toward myself, toward my girlfriends, the way I dealt with the teachers. I felt as if I was hiding the truth from everyone, as if I had a secret life apart from the open life with my schoolmates. I felt inferior to all of them, even those I disliked or considered ugly or at the bottom of the class. They were all better than me because they had not had to stay home until their father paid their fees. I started sleeping fitfully and became completely absentminded and could no longer follow what the teachers were telling us. After two weeks of aimlessness, I started to really worry about my behavior. If I carried on like that, I would end up having to repeat the year, and I kept remembering what Kamel had said to me, “The thing that will help our father the most is to see us doing well.”

I decided to throw myself into my studies. Prayer helped me to get over my melancholy. The moment I did my ablutions, I would feel a sense of calm, and I regained my focus. I set myself a serious and methodical study schedule. Math was like falling off a log for me. For as long as I could remember, I had always loved numbers. They were real and definite, whereas a word could be ambiguous. The number five was always the number five. It meant the same for everyone. As a child, whenever I was on the tram, I would amuse myself by seeing how many numbers I could spot through the window. I tried to memorize all the numbers I saw on license plates and houses. As time went on, I realized I could do complicated sums in my head. I can’t remember not getting top marks in math, and my mother used to beg me to refrain from showing off in front of my classmates so they wouldn’t get jealous. I was always ahead of them, astonished that they could not grasp the relationships that to me seemed totally obvious. Whenever I would sit down to solve a problem and then checked the solution at the back of the book, I was always thrilled to discover that I had not made a single error. I often think of my life in terms of mathematics. If I were to draw a graph of my childhood, I would find that it went along a straight path and then veered sharply. The straight line represents the carefree time. I was the only daughter, spoiled by everyone. It was as if I grew up snuggling in my mother’s lap inhaling her familiar smell. Then my dream world vanished. We were poor, and our father had difficulty making ends meet. I studied harder.

My mother and Kamel were very supportive, but my brother Said was jealous because I was getting good marks, whereas he had ended up in a vocational school. He would cause all sorts of problems in order to stop me from studying. He would accuse me of not doing enough around the apartment, of lacking manners, and would invent excuses to punish me. He would rant and rave because I gave myself a manicure or curled my hair in ringlets. He would tell me off for lying on my stomach and reading with my bedroom door open. When he tried to slap me, Kamel and my mother would always intervene. Thinking about Said, I would always become sad and fearful. Why did he resent me so much? His feelings toward me hurt much more than any physical pain he inflicted.

After every argument, when I was crying, I felt that Said became a little more relaxed, as if he had achieved his aim. His physical presence filled me with dread, particularly when Kamel was out at university. The moment I heard Said’s voice, I would lock my door. Complaining about him to our father was out of the question, as he did not need any more problems. He was already going through enough for our sakes. Contrary to his intent, the war Said was waging against me only made me more determined in my studies. Unfortunately, no sooner had the matter of the fees been decided than I found a new problem waiting for me at school. I wasn’t the only one of my classmates to be taken by surprise when Miss Suad, the physical education teacher, told us we had to buy white ballet shoes.