Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

One day he was grumbling about how difficult the headmaster was at the school where he was working. “Do you know what, Fayeqa?” he said anxiously. “My whole future is in his hands. One word from him can make or ruin my career.”

Fayeqa gave him a considered look as she pondered the situation. Then she suggested that he invite the headmaster to dinner and find out what he liked to eat.

Said appeared a little hesitant. “The headmaster is on a different level than me. How can I ask him what he likes to eat?”

Fayeqa smiled sympathetically, like a mother suffering her child’s stupidity. She placed her palm on his face, moved closer to him and planted a long, slow kiss on his lips, which made his whole body tingle.

“You can do it, darling,” she said.

The following day, when Said came home, he had an astonished smile on his face.

“Imagine that!” he told her breathlessly. “The headmaster has accepted the invitation. He’s coming with his wife on Friday.”

“Did you ask him what he likes to eat?”

Said could not help laughing. “He told me his favorite is pigeon stuffed with cracked wheat.”

It was time to get to work! Fayeqa got the doorman’s wife to come and help her clean and rearrange the apartment to look its best. Then she took some money from their savings and spent two whole days peeling and chopping away in the kitchen to produce a truly splendid feast. Fayeqa’s pigeon stuffed with crushed wheat was so good that the headmaster not only devoured four whole birds, but, notwithstanding withering looks from his wife, he let out sighs and groans of pleasure that were completely undignified and unbecoming of his position.

Needless to say, the dinner was a rousing success; Fayeqa even managed to strike up a firm friendship with the headmaster’s wife. When the headmaster mentioned his daughter’s high marks in her final examinations, Said’s wife seized the chance and asked him to pass on to her a piece of 21-carat gold jewelry with a Quranic inscription on it by way of congratulations. It was only natural that Said should then receive glowing praise in the headmaster’s reports. Fayeqa’s virtues, then, gave the lie to all those negative images of a dominant wife. On the contrary, many times a controlling wife manages to keep her family strong and the children’s future rosy. There are some husbands who need an energetic wife just as a naughty child needs a strict mother. And there are husbands who would go to the bad without a wife’s supervision, and others who, if they enjoyed too much independence, would end up falling into debauchery, causing grief for themselves and their family. Fayeqa controlled her husband for his own good. She could satisfy his baser instincts by providing what was his to take as a husband, all the while running his life like clockwork, keeping house for him and making his boss so happy that he had given him a pay rise and put his name forward for exceptional promotion.

Fayeqa even set very careful limits on his relationship with his family. On their first visit as a married couple to the old apartment, Said asked his mother expansively if she needed any money. “Thank God, no,” she replied. “We have enough to keep going.” Then she thanked him and showered blessings upon him. She sounded calm and happy, though it was a lie. She was in desperate need but wouldn’t dare ask him in front of his wife, and even had Said insisted, she would have given the same answer. So he took her at her word and changed the subject. The matter was left at that, but on the way back to Tanta, Said noticed Fayeqa looking uneasy beside him in the train carriage. She was sighing, giving only curt responses to him and looking out of the window as if she could not bear to look at him.

“What’s the matter, Fufu?” he asked apprehensively.

That was the pet name he used for her whenever she was upset and he was trying to soothe her, but Fufu did not reply. She sighed, tears glistening in her eyes as she reached for her handkerchief. At that point, Said’s concern turned to anxiety, and he put his hand on her shoulder. She brushed it away.

“Fufu. My darling!” he whispered intently. “By the Prophet, tell me what the matter is?”

When she gave no answer, he repeated the question. Suddenly her face changed and her eyes shot daggers at him. “You!” she said in a voice quivering with anger. “Do you want to spend all your salary on your mother and brothers and sister?”

Said was taken by surprise and answered in a shaky voice, “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

“You offered to give your mother as much money as she needed.”

“It’s my duty to ask her.”

“As the proverb goes, what you need at home you don’t give to the mosque. Your mother, thank God, has got two men supporting her, your brothers, Mahmud and Kamel. I have no one apart from you.”

“Darling, I only asked her if she needed anything. It was just a question.”

“Then I’m glad I’m married to such a paragon of generosity!” she sneered. She turned her back on him and went back to staring out of the window. The gesture expressed anger with a hint of coquettishness. Said tried to calm his wife, cajoling her and making small talk. But Fayeqa only smiled a little and mumbled a few words in response, the look of disgruntlement frozen on her beautiful face.

That night, when the couple went to bed, Fayeqa came out from her usual nightly hot shower with her rosy flesh and her black hair let down. Her red nightdress was completely open at the top and so short that he could see her thighs. As she stood primping in front of the mirror, the silent desire filling the bedroom was so heavy that Said’s vision almost blurred, and he feared his heart would stop. Unable to wait for his wife to finish preening, he got up and embraced her from behind, feeling the smooth flesh of her breasts in his hands. Then he started kissing her all over. Fayeqa gave in to his caresses, moaning and holding him back a little, finally letting herself be led toward the bed. But at the last moment, just as he thought she was about to lie down in front of him, she jumped up as if she had just remembered something and slipped out of his embrace, leaving the overwrought Said panting like a wild bull. Keeping a little distance between their two bodies, Fayeqa leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, “Said, my dearest. I am your darling wife. Every penny you earn should be for us.”

In his state of overwhelming desire, Said could not get a word out, and to drive the point home and elicit his agreement, Fayeqa whispered again, “Promise me that you won’t spend a single piastre outside our home.”

Said nodded in agreement. Then Fayeqa let him do whatever he wanted with her body as she did everything she could to satisfy him, writhing and working him up to the point of supreme ecstasy twice without stopping.

Thereafter Said made no further offers of help to his mother. Not satisfied with this important achievement, Fayeqa instituted a new regime for visits to her in-laws. At the start she made sure that she and Said went to see them every week, but she gradually reduced the number of visits, telephoning them instead, until their visits to Said’s family took place only when there was a particular event or reason. After these consecutive victories, Fayeqa started behaving like any brilliant military leader developing new strategies. She would advise Said to tell his mother about their visits a few days in advance, the ostensible reason being, of course, that they should not just impose themselves out of the blue on Umm Said. But the real reason was to make the visits serve some useful purpose, in particular that Fayeqa and her husband could take back with them all the provisions that Umm Said would start preparing the moment she knew they were coming. During their visits, Fayeqa would complain about how hard it was to make ends meet in Tanta, where the cost of living was high and Said’s salary meager. She would go on about it so much that Umm Said would end up giving them a box full of ghee, sugar, flour, meat and chicken. Fayeqa, of course, would refuse to take it at first, but Umm Said would insist. Fayeqa would then grudgingly give in and hand the box to her husband while thanking Umm Said in a slightly offhand way so that she would not think her donations were indispensable. Of course Umm Said was not unaware of Fayeqa’s maneuvering and scheming. Deep down, she almost admired her wiliness and wondered where the girl had learned all her tricks. As for Said, she knew that he was too selfish to be depended on, but, as with all mothers, she was prepared to overlook her son’s shortcomings in order to keep his affection and to be able to see him, if only occasionally.