Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

Everything this man did was infused with elegance. He did not walk back over to his desk until I started looking at the photographs, as that would have been improper. As he took an image out of the developing bath, he worked out where the crop marks should be and then trimmed it down with a paper cutter. I carried on viewing the photographs on the wall. I noticed that most of them were portraits of women, peasants and lower-class people as well as foreigners wearing hats. I was transfixed by their faces. They all showed strong individuality.

As I stood there contemplating a photograph of a lower-class woman in an abaya and a sequined scarf wrapped around her hair, I became aware of the prince laughing. He was standing behind me and asked me affably, “Do you like this woman?”

I turned around and noticed that he had removed his gloves.

“I like the portrait,” I answered.

“And why is that?”

“It has authenticity. It has a particular Egyptian seductiveness about it. Does Your Royal Highness know the work of an artist called Mahmud Said?”

“He’s a friend of mine. I see him a lot in Alexandria. Where have you seen his work?”

“At an exhibition in the French Cultural Center last summer.”

“And what makes you think of the work of Mahmud Said?”

“I think that Your Royal Highness expresses with the camera what he does with the brush.”

“What a wonderful thought,” he laughed. “I wish all the critics would adopt that! How wonderful that you follow the arts.”

The prince’s face turned serious and he continued, “I also try to learn by means of photographs, you know. I photograph faces in order to try to understand them. Photography is a wonderful way of recording life. The camera captures a particular moment in time. Our myriad expressions over the course of a single day are all fleeting. They evanesce and we can never bring them back. The camera alone can record them and preserve them for posterity.”

“I notice that all the portraits are of women.”

“Women are the essence of everything,” he said warmly. “They are the starting point. Women are life.”

For the first time, I noticed a bottle of whiskey and a glass on the small table next to the desk and realized that his exuberance was aided by alcohol. He gestured for me to wait. “I want to show you something I hope you’ll like.”

He brought out two photographs, both the same size. I noticed that they were of the same subject — a pretty woman of approximately forty with black hair and wearing a leather jacket. He laid the two photographs side by side on the desk and laughed, saying, “Kamel, you’re a poet. I’m sure you’ll understand what I’m driving at. I took these two photographs of the same woman, two hours apart. Can you see any difference? Take your time before you answer.”

The woman had the same pose and the same smile in both photographs.

“The details are the same in both images,” I said.

“I don’t mean the details. Concentrate a little. Don’t you think that her facial expression is different?”

I carried on examining the photographs. The prince continued in a serious tone of voice, “If we hypothesize that the woman’s psychological state is different in the photographs, in which one, would you say, does she appear more contented?”

I pointed to one of the photographs, and he cried out, “Well done! And do you know why she seems happier?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then come with me,” he said with a jovial gesture for me to follow him. We went out onto the balcony. There were plants and flowers everywhere. He went over to a flower pot and said, “This is a thirsty rose. Take a good look at it. Engrave its features in your mind.”

I gazed at the rose as the prince darted off and then came back with a watering can. I’ll admit that his behavior seemed a little odd to me. Might he have some psychological problem or a slight mental imbalance? I put the thought out of my mind immediately and continued watching him water the rose. He smiled. “I want you to observe the rose now that I have watered it. Don’t you see that it is satisfied? The tension has gone. It is at ease.”

I nodded in agreement.

“If you go and look at the two photographs now, you’ll see the same difference. I photographed the woman before and after lovemaking. I took a picture of her the moment she arrived at the studio. Then I made love to her and took another photograph.”

I felt embarrassed. But he wore a mischievous grin as he said, “I should add that I am quite good at it…”

He chuckled at that, and I couldn’t help laughing too. I spent two hours with him. As we ate, he drank his way through a bottle of wine, and then we went back onto the balcony. We spoke of everything, art, love and poetry. I told him about my family and my dreams.

Suddenly he blurted out, “Do you know, Kamel, I am not actually Egyptian. My father is Turkish and my mother’s Spanish. I was born in Italy in a city called San Remo. I came to Egypt when I was two. Despite that, I feel as Egyptian as you are. I often ask myself what has made me love Egypt so much, and, believe me, I can’t come up with a specific answer. Everything in Europe is on a higher level than in Egypt. The streets there are cleaner, and everything is elegant and shiny. But Egypt exerts its ineffable pull. The best thing about Egypt is its soul, and that’s something you can’t put your finger on.”

“The Egypt you love,” I said ruefully, “is occupied and humiliated.”

“That won’t last forever. It will pass. This is a country that has given civilization to the world for thousands of years. Egypt will be victorious, and she will regain her independence.”

“But how can we bring down the empire upon which the sun never sets?”

“History teaches that the strongest empires are brought down by the powerless.”

“Sometimes I feel that those words are just theoretical.”

“No, Kamel. That’s the truth. The will of the people cannot be resisted forever. Thanks to what you and your colleagues are doing, the English will soon discover that their occupation of Egypt is costing them more than they can afford, and they will have to leave eventually.”

That last sentence shocked me. How did the prince know what I was up to? We sat in silence for a while, and then he added, “I should like you to visit me from time to time.”

“That would be a great honor, sir.”

That was the signal that our visit had come to an end. I got up and told the prince that I should be going. He shook my hand at the studio door and with a warm smile told me, “Listen, Kamel. From now on, consider me your friend.”

“I am honored by that, sir.”

As I turned to leave, he suddenly added, “I forgot to tell you. There’s an English girl who needs lessons to improve her Arabic. Do you have any time to help her?”

“I have never taught anyone before.”

“But you are a poet, and your Arabic is good. She needs only a few hours’ help a week.”

I said nothing. He put his hand on my shoulder, and still smiling, asked, “Do you agree then?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Bravo! Tomorrow at nine a.m. go and see Mr. Wright. The student you’ll be teaching is his daughter, Mitsy. I have arranged everything with him.”

As they carried out the corpse of Abd el-Aziz Gaafar, his wife, Umm Said, and his daughter, Saleha, sobbed. Their neighbor Aisha, Ali Hamama’s wife, let out piercing wails that reverberated throughout the building and reached the ears of the people in the street. Then she rushed over and threw herself onto the coffin. When the other mourners pulled her away, she started slapping her cheeks so violently that the women had to restrain her before she hurt herself. It was in this, and in other ways, that Aisha showed her sympathy for the family of the deceased. She had offered her flat to the scores of mourners who had turned up from Cairo and Upper Egypt. Throughout the mourning period, she never once left the family of the deceased even for a day. She cooked for them every day in her flat, sending her daughter, Fayeqa, over with the food, instructing her to give Umm Said any help she needed. In fact, Fayeqa did much of their housework, doing the wash and hanging it out to dry, sweeping and mopping the floor, scouring the water jars, before refilling them, adding a few drops of rosewater and lining them up to cool on the window ledge. She aired the cushions, sheets and bedspreads in the sunshine. And after all that, she even fed the chickens, which Umm Said kept on the roof, cleaning the coop every Friday. But was Aisha’s great sympathy for the family of the bereaved devoid of an ulterior motive?