Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

“I want people to like me,” she said softly.

Mahmud said nothing.

She looked at him and continued, “I need people, Mahmud. Do you understand? God did not give me children. I really wanted to have a child. And the only man I loved, the man for whom I left England and came to Egypt, he died and left me alone.”

The conversation was progressing at such a speed that it confused Mahmud. He thought Madame Khashab was, to some extent, like those drinkers whom Suleyman would help out to their cars at the end of the night.

“Do you know,” she asked him, “what is the worst thing in the world?”

He was incapable of giving an answer. At that moment he was preoccupied with trying to drink the last drops of the chocolate. It was wonderful.

“The worst thing in the world,” she continued, “is to be left alone. Look, I’ve got everything I need, a nice apartment in Zamalek and one in Alexandria near the sea. I’m well off, but I’m alone. Do you understand? Completely alone.”

“But don’t you have friends, Madame?”

“I do. But I always feel that I need them more than they need me. All my women friends have children and grandchildren. But I’m alone.”

Mahmud was moved by her words, but he made no comment.

“Do you know, Mahmud?” she whispered as if speaking to herself, “I am afraid sometimes that I’ll die all alone in the apartment, and no one will know.”

“God forbid, Madame!”

“If one day I don’t feel well, I have to tell the doorman in case something happens to me during the night, and he needs to call the doctor. Imagine, Mahmud, that you are so alone that the doorman is the only living soul who can help you in an emergency. It’s so depressing.”

“May God grant you good health,” Mahmud said with feeling.

“I’m not very well, Mahmud,” Madame Khashab sighed. “I have lots of problems. Drinking relaxes me. After I’ve had two glasses, I can sleep and not think about everything.”

Mahmud finished his glass of chocolate and wiped his mouth with the handkerchief that his mother had carefully put in his right pocket. He took a sip of ice water to rinse the chocolate flavor from his mouth.

“Thank you, Madame,” he said. “The chocolate was delicious.”

“Shall I make you another one?”

He hesitated a moment and then smiled and replied, “Oh, that would be lovely.”

Madame Khashab went back to the kitchen, and a few minutes later Mahmud was savoring a second glass.

“And are you happy,” she asked him, “in your job at the Automobile Club?”

“Yes, thank God!”

“Do you earn enough?”

“I hand my salary over to my mother.”

“All of it?”

“She gives me a little pocket money from it.”

“Congratulations. You’re a decent man. If I had had a son, I’d like him to have turned out like you.”

As Mahmud was taking the last sip from his second glass of chocolate, Madame Khashab commented, “You really do like chocolate!”

“I love it!”

She got up and went over to the sideboard next to the dining table. She bent over, opened one of the drawers and then went over to Mahmud, holding out her hand.

“Please take it, Mahmud,” she said gently. “It’s white chocolate from Switzerland.”

“White chocolate?”

“Taste it,” she laughed. “I’m sure you’ll like it.”

Mahmud took the chocolate as carefully as a jewel and put it in his pocket. Then he stood up.

“I’ll be off now. Thank you so much, Madame Khashab.”

“I’d be happy if you would visit me again.”

“Please God.”

She walked him to the door, and he felt delighted that everything had turned out so well. She was no longer upset with him, and they were friends again. Moreover, he could hardly wait to rip open the white chocolate and taste it.

“Mahmud,” she said at the door as he was about to go. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything!”

“Please stop calling me Madame Khashab.”

“Then what should I call you, Madame?”

“And don’t say Madame either! My name is Rosa. Call me Rosa.”

“Rosa…,” he repeated slowly.

“Give my best wishes to your mother,” she said with a laugh. “Okay? Tell her that Rosa loves you just as she does.”

Mahmud nodded, and Rosa drew near to give him a kiss. She had already kissed him on the cheek two or three times in the past, and just behind the smell of whiskey on her breath, he could recognize her delicate perfume, reminding him of the perfumed soap and the aroma of clean clothes that lingered on his mother. He let Rosa kiss him on the cheeks, but she suddenly put her arms around him. Then he felt her hot breath searing his face.

His Majesty looked bewildered. He started at Mitsy and asked her anxiously, “Are you really ill?”

“Three doctors,” she told him softly, “have concurred in the diagnosis.”

“Isn’t there a treatment for it?”

“I’m taking some tablets and slowly getting better. But they have all confirmed that the microbes in my throat will be contagious for quite some time.”

The king looked at her with incredulity, as if to say, “Why didn’t you tell me about this from the start?”

After a short period of silence, the king stood up, followed by Mitsy. He held out his hand and, as if afraid of catching something, shook Mitsy’s hand by the tip of her fingers. Before leaving, he ordered Alku to have her driven home. The moment she reached her bedroom, she got undressed and ran into the bathroom to take a shower. She was a little tipsy from the wine, and as the hot water ran down over her naked body, she closed her eyes and relished the moment. She was pleased with herself. She had created a moment of truth. This was her greatest delight: to uncover lies and show scheming for what it was. She had made a fool of the king of Egypt and the Sudan, treating him as he deserved. She had accepted his invitation and led him on to within a stone’s throw of his bed. He had been salivating at the thought of ravishing her, almost snorting like a bull in rut, as she was being cornered. Then, out of the blue, she had this brilliant inspiration and started weaving a skillful lie. When she thought back to how confused the king had looked, she could not help laughing out loud as she stood under the shower.

“Oh, your great Majesty, how I would have loved to have the honor of going to bed with Your Majesty, but I am so afraid that you will catch the bacteria ravaging my throat. What is the matter, Your Majesty? Why do you shudder? Didn’t you want me just a moment ago? Were you not just standing there like a ravenous animal? Why have you turned and fled as one possessed?”

Mitsy came out of the bathroom wonderfully relaxed. She slept well, going to university the next morning and getting on with her life. She thought that any question of her involvement with the king was now at an end.

That evening, her father sat silently at the dining table. When she got up and went to her bedroom, she was surprised to find him following her across the hallway. She stopped and turned to face him.

“Mitsy,” he asked her. “Come to my study. We need to have a talk.”

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“No, now,” he said resolutely and stepped aside to let her pass. Mitsy walked ahead of him into his study. The light was on. She sank down into the leather armchair, and Wright sat at his desk, leaning forward on his elbows.

“How did you get on with the king?”

“I think you know.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

Mitsy sat up straight and answered, “The king wanted to go to bed with me, but I told him that I have a contagious disease.”

“Did you have to lie?”