Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

We did our gym classes in sports shoes, which had always done the job, but Miss Suad, in one of her fickle moments, had decided that ballet shoes were what we had to have. Some of the girls resisted, telling her that our regular rubber-soled gym shoes were cheaper and sturdier than ballet shoes, which were not only expensive but so flimsy they would only last a few classes. But such efforts were in vain, and Miss Suad declared with finality, “You girls will simply have to purchase ballet shoes. Any girl who comes without them will be punished.”

I was torn. After the school fees, I did not dare ask my father for ballet shoes. And I was overcome by guilt. If only I had saved the money I frittered away on the cinema and unnecessary purchases, I would at least have been able to contribute toward the cost. There was a small hope that Miss might forget the matter. But she did have her moods the following week, when I turned up in my regular gym shoes and stood at the end of the row, hoping that she would not notice. She said nothing until a few minutes before the end of class; then Miss came up to me and said in a hard voice, “Saleha! Where are your ballet shoes?”

I apologized and said that I had forgotten to bring them. “Bring them next week or you’ll be in serious trouble. Understood?”

I nodded and promised not to forget, but then I showed up next time in my rubber-soled shoes anyway. I was the only girl in class with the wrong shoes. Miss was as good as her word. She pulled me out of the class, stood me in the yard as my classmates continued their exercises and threatened to march me off to the headmistress if I did not bring the ballet shoes to the next class. I felt trapped. Could I simply skip school on Saturdays in order to avoid her class? That would mean missing some other important classes. In the end, I had to tell my mother. She put her arms around me and said, “Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning?”

“I don’t want to be a burden on my father. He has enough to worry about.”

It was the first time I had spoken frankly with my mother, rather than going along with the rosy picture she always painted. She replied in a serious tone, “I’ll tell your father. He’ll manage.”

“I need the ballet shoes before Saturday; otherwise, I won’t be able to go to school!”

“Don’t worry, Saleha. We’ll get them for you, God willing.”

“What do I do if my father doesn’t have the money?”

This last question seemed to weigh heavily on her. She shook her head and left my bedroom looking worried. That evening, the moment I saw my father, he said, “Saleha! I’ll take you to buy the shoes on Friday.”

I looked at him and smiled, but it must have been a somewhat despairing smile, as he added, “Don’t worry. I promise you. We’ll get them on Friday, God willing!”

I tried to speak, but no words came out. I wanted to tell him that if it were not for Miss Suad’s stupid obstinacy I would have given him no more worries. I wanted to apologize for ever having nagged him to buy me little treats in the past, to tell him that I loved him and thank him with all my heart and say I was sorry for all the grief we were causing him. When Friday arrived, I put my prettiest clothes on. I always loved going out alone with my father. I loved holding his hand and walking alongside him in the street. It gave me a sense of security and pride to be protected by my father, and, in turn, I was proud of him. This time, my feelings were a little different. I felt sorry for him, and embarrassed, but at the same time, I was worried about what could happen to me if I did not buy the ballet shoes. The thing I feared most was being made fun of by my classmates when they learned that my father was too poor to buy ballet shoes.

We started looking at the shops on Soliman Pasha Street. Most of them had the right shoes. I looked at my father, and the moment I saw him hesitating in front of a shop window, I said, “This shopkeeper is a thief. Miss Suad told us that the shoes should cost much less than that!”

Miss Suad had mentioned nothing of the sort, but I was trying to save my father from feeling embarrassed. For this purpose, I lied freely without feeling any guilt. I just could not bear to see him admit that he couldn’t afford the shoes. We went into every shop in the street, but the shoes were a fortune in every one. Finally, I said, “These shopkeepers are all thieves. I don’t think you should buy anything from them. I know you could afford to pay double what they cost, but why should we let ourselves be robbed?”

But my father only became more agitated, and I regretted speaking so thoughtlessly. He took my hand and said, “Come on. Let’s go to Sayyida Zeinab. They have the same goods at half the price!”

We went to a shop in front of the mosque and then to another after that, but there were no ballet shoes to be found. At last my father found some blue shoes that looked similar, and he asked me to try them on. I hesitated a little, but when I got them on and they fit, he got up to pay. I did not have the heart to mention that I was supposed to get white ones. He walked over carrying the shoes with a smile, “I know you were supposed to get white shoes, but don’t worry. We’ll fix them!”

I could hardly object. Anything I said at that moment would have shattered him. When we got home, my mother was waiting. Her kind voice had some worry in it when she asked, “Did you get them, then?”

I was carrying the bag with the shoebox. My father boomed, “Thank God! It’s all sorted out now!”

I thanked him again and said I was going to my bedroom. I lay awake for a long time but then fell into a worried, listless sleep. When I woke up with a dreadful headache, my mother handed me the ballet shoes, which had been dyed white.

“Your father, bless him, dyed them after you went to bed. After all, you’ll only be using them for one lesson a week.”

I did not say a word. I tried the dyed shoes on. They looked awful and misshapen. They screamed, “Can’t afford the real thing.” On Saturday, I changed into my gym clothes and tried again to disappear among the other girls. I tried as hard as I could to keep my feet out of sight and thanked God that none of my classmates had noticed them, but just as I was drawing a breath of relief, Miss Suad swooped down like a vulture, “Saleha! Get over here!”

I moved a little toward her, but she gestured for me to come closer. Looking down at my shoes, she said, “Are those ballet shoes dyed?”

At ten o’clock in the morning, when the staff arrived at the Club, there would be a clamor of shouts, greetings and guffaws. It was joviality itself, perhaps because they were starting a new day or because they were simply relaxed before having to deal with their supervisors and the club members. They would go up to the changing room on the roof and get into their work clothes — old galabiyyas whose hem they hitched up and tucked in at the waist, showing their long underwear and their undershirts. Then they would fan out through the Club carrying the tools of their trade: brooms, floor rags, dusters and various cleaning liquids. They would start from the top of the building, working their way down, floor by floor. They worked together so efficiently and rhythmically that they might have been doing a Nubian dance. One would call out a snatch of song, or someone else might tell a joke in a loud voice, and they would all burst out in laughter, working without interruption all the while. They emptied all the cigarette and cigar butts into rubbish bags and removed scores of stains from the seats, the tables, the floor and the walls. Each kind of stain had its own specified treatment. Those on the rugs could be removed with cleaning fluid. The dirty tablecloths were gathered together and sent off to the laundry, but those with burn marks from cigarettes were thrown away. Sometimes they would find bits of vomit from a customer who had had too much to drink. They would cover it with a thick layer of sawdust, give it a good brushing and wash the spot with carbolic soap. They scoured the place like a team of expert mine sweepers, and they often found something valuable a drinker had left behind: a gold lighter or a diamond earring or sometimes a full wallet. They would hand over any item immediately to the office of the general manager, Mr. Wright. This was not so much out of a sense of moral duty but out of fear. Many of them, if they could have got away with pocketing something, would not have hesitated for an instant.