Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

After Kamel had shut the door behind him, Said went over to his mother, kissed her head and hands and sat down beside her to lay out his case. He told her that he would rather die than displease his mother. He promised that he would always be her faithful son who sat at her feet waiting for her blessing. But, for the life of him, he could not understand what had made her so angry? He had not committed any sin or broken the civil or religious law. He just wanted to get married. Marriage in itself was not a crime or an offense to the religion, and he was twenty-three. Wasn’t that a good age for marriage? Did not the most noble of all beings (here Umm Said mumbled praise on the Prophet) himself say in words that are recorded to this day, “He among you who is capable should marry”? In Islam you are encouraged to marry young, and thank God we are Muslims. Anyway, in a few days’ time, he would graduate from the vocational school with a diploma. He had already agreed to take a job in Tanta, please God, and thus he would be able to support his own household and not cost the family a penny. Did his darling mother want him to live alone in a strange town, without a wife to look after him? He explained that it was not as if, God forbid, he was trying to foist a stranger upon the family.

“It’s Fayeqa, daughter of Ali Hamama, the neighbors who are almost family to us already. It’s Fayeqa,” he told his mother, “who has been as distraught over our loss as we children are. It’s Fayeqa, who has not left your side for a day, who has served you like a daughter. After everything she has done for us, doesn’t she deserve something? After all, Mother, you are an Upper Egyptian, brought up to want things correct and proper. You don’t like things to be off-kilter. Is it right for Fayeqa to come in and out of our flat when, according to religious law, Kamel and Mahmud and I should not be in the same room with her? Wouldn’t it be more proper if I were to marry her under the law of God and his Prophet before the wagging tongues, which you know there are in our street, start wagging? Is that such a problem, Mother?”

Umm Said was lying on the sofa and had stopped crying. When she gave no response, Said plucked up his courage and continued enthusiastically, “I know what the problem is, Mother. You feel that my marriage before a year has passed is wrong because it is against the conventions of mourning. But marriage in itself, Mother, is not a form of rejoicing. It is at the party after the wedding where the rejoicing takes place, but I can marry Fayeqa without a party. Neither Fayeqa nor I nor her family want to violate the period of mourning for our father. I will marry her quietly, Mother. No party, no ululations, no tambourines and no belly dancer. God forbid, I should have anything like that! All I want is for the fatiha to be read now and in a week or two for us to sign the marriage contract so that we can go be together in an apartment I’m going to rent in Tanta.”

Said continued this refrain until his mother finally conceded. The following day, at dawn, Aisha was surprised by a visit from Umm Said. After kissing and hugging each other, drinking coffee and exchanging some chitchat, Umm Said gave Aisha a serious look and said, “Tell me, sister. Your daughter, Fayeqa. Has anyone been asking after her in marriage?”

“She’s still young, Umm Said.”

“Wonderful. I want her for my son Said.”

Before Aisha could react to the surprise, Umm Said went on, “But there is one condition. And remember the proverb, ‘Without a proviso, no happy ending.’ ”

“Proviso?” asked Aisha, bemused, looking with cautious curiosity at Umm Said, who was sitting back in her chair.

“If it is Said’s fate to have Fayeqa, you need to know our circumstances. Our sorrow over Abd el-Aziz will never end. Not in a hundred years. Our tradition is to stay in mourning for a year, and in Upper Egypt we consider any celebration during the mourning period scandalous and shocking.”

Aisha was surprised, and perhaps to give herself a little more time to think, she sighed and said, “God have mercy upon Hagg Abd el-Aziz, the best of all men.”

This formula startled Umm Said somewhat. “If it is to happen,” she continued, “it will be without any celebrations. No ululations, no guests and no white dress.”

Umm Said was certain that Aisha would refuse this condition. Every mother in the world wants to celebrate on her daughter’s wedding day, so how could Aisha agree to marry off her only daughter with no fuss or fanfare? Umm Said looked at Aisha expectantly and slightly defiant. “So what do you say?”

Aisha wiped the palms of her hand across her face, a reflex of hers when she was worked up about something. Then she looked back at Umm Said, who was still seated, and uttered the following words, enunciating slowly, “Let us pray for him who intercedes on your behalf, Umm Said.”

“Prayers and greetings upon the Prophet Muhammad.”

“Listen, Umm Said. I’ll tell you something you will never forget.”

James Wright was sitting in his office going over the Club budget. He was completely immersed in the numbers in the large ledger that lay open in front of him, when he suddenly became aware of the voice of Khalil the office clerk.

“Alku is outside and he wants to come in and see you, sir.”

Wright looked at him in disbelief. “Why hasn’t he made an appointment?”

“He says that the matter cannot wait.”

Wright thought a little and then gestured at Khalil to show him in. In a matter of seconds, there was Alku standing in the middle of the office in all his full height. “I’m so sorry to have come without an appointment, but it’s rather pressing.”

“Has a new world war broken out?” Wright asked him.

Alku ignored the sarcasm and continued with the same urgency, “Mr. Wright, I am not leaving here until you have taken a decision to restore order.”

“You’ve come to tell me what I have to do?”

Alku bowed. “I’m so sorry,” he said submissively, “but something rather serious is going on.”

“Good Lord!”

“Abdoun is inciting the staff against the Club management.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have eyes everywhere.”

Wright cleared his throat and, to give himself some time to think, started cleaning his pipe. He then packed it with tobacco and lit it, and after a long while, he said calmly, “Every day you concoct new problems to get me to fire Abdoun. You have to understand that I will not fire him.”

“Mr. Wright,” Alku responded in his most ingratiating tone, “Abdoun has said some things that are unacceptable.”

“Such as?”

“He claims that we killed Abd el-Aziz Gaafar just because we gave him a slapping and that he died from the humiliation. He said that we treat the staff like dogs and urged them to complain to me about their treatment.”

“And has anyone come to see you?”

“None of them would dare.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Alku looked at him with incredulity. Then he pulled himself together, saying, “Abdoun needs to be punished for what he said.”

“I shall not punish anyone for having whispered something to his colleagues.”

“I can provide ten witnesses to what he said.”

“And Abdoun would produce ten saying the contrary, and then there would be no time for work because we’d be investigating every scurrilous rumor. I don’t see the profit of that.”

“If we don’t punish Abdoun immediately, all the staff will turn against us.”

Wright sighed, evidently at the end of his tether. He looked at Alku and said, “Listen. You are the head of the staff. You should be above all these trivial matters. Pay no attention to the chatter that goes on behind your back. If someone says to your face something you don’t like, then punish him, but as to all the whispering that goes on among the servants…spare yourself.”