Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

Now I found myself pushed in another direction. The word “bride” kept echoing in my head. “Saleha, the bride.” For the first time, I felt myself a seriously, and respectably, desired woman. It was different from what I felt when men gave me lascivious looks. In spite of dressing modestly, it sometimes seemed that they could see right through my clothes, and I felt cheapened by that. Now I was happy at the thought of being a bride, quite apart from the idea of marriage itself. That a man should ask for my hand meant that he had chosen me above all other girls and was willing to spend hundreds of pounds to make me his wife and the mother of his children. That thought alone made me happy and stirred my imagination. I took out a pile of magazines I had borrowed from Kamel, The Illustrated, The Studio and The World of Art. I spread them out on the bed and looked at the photographs of the actresses, imagining that I was as beautiful as they were, that I was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress or a white silk outfit and an elegant black hat with a veil over my face. I could see myself wearing all those fashions, with a handsome young man who looked like the actor Anwar Wagdi or the singer Farid al-Atrash drawing close to me, bending over to kiss my hand and ask for a dance. Everyone would stop to watch us and the other dancers making way and forming a circle around us. At the end of the night, the young man would ask me to spend my life with him in a small house with a garden on top of a small hill, undisturbed by anyone. As I gave myself over to such daydreams, I knew that even if I were to turn down the offer from Abd el-Barr I would always be grateful for his expression of such admiration and respect in asking for me to be his wife and bear his children according to our religion and customs.

The morning call to prayer sounded as I lay in bed. I heard my mother going to the bathroom, making her ablutions and whispering her prayers. After a little while, she came into my bedroom. She gave me an anxious look and asked, “Are you awake?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

She sat down on the bed and looked at me. Then with a sigh she asked, “Have you thought about Abd el-Barr? Said is nagging me, and I just don’t know what to do.”

“Mother,” I answered in a state, “we have to listen to what Kamel says because he has our best interests at heart. Said is only out for himself.”

My mother seemed about to object but she did not.

“All right,” she said as she got off the bed. “Try to get forty winks before you have to get up for school.”

After she left the room, I had a worrying thought. Why was Said bringing his pregnant wife from Tanta specifically to plead on behalf of a suitor? Why was he pressuring my mother for a speedy decision? Had he suddenly become so interested in my future? Perhaps it was merely that he could not bear it that his younger sister was going to university when he had not even got his school certificate.

When I saw Kamel, he looked at me and said solemnly, “Saleha, the worst thing you could do would be to give up school to get married. You have to finish your studies.”

I nodded. He smiled and continued, “I am certain that you will make the right decision.”

The next Friday, Said and Fayeqa arrived for their visit. This time Said was taciturn and brooding as if spoiling for a fight. Fayeqa, on the other hand, was as sweet as could be, which only increased my suspicions. After lunch Said went out to do an errand, leaving Fayeqa at home with my mother. They sat together on the balcony for around an hour, during which time they could not stop whispering.

In the evening Said and his wife went back to Tanta, and my mother came into my bedroom and sat down next to me, hugged me and asked me, “Do you want to hear some good news?”

“Of course!”

“Your intended, Abd el-Barr, is going into business with Said, a textile factory. Abd el-Barr will provide the funding, and Said will manage it in return for half of the profits.”

“So Said wants me to marry him for that reason. I knew he was only out for himself.”

“If Said didn’t believe that Abd el-Barr was a decent man, he wouldn’t go into partnership with him.”

“A man with money can find scores of people like Said, but it would be difficult for Said to find someone to fund a factory for him.”

“You speak about your brother as if you really dislike him.”

“I resent his behavior.”

“Anyway, have you thought about the marriage proposal?”

“I have decided to finish my studies.”

“Oh, Saleha, you’re a girl. However much you study, your fate is to get married, and Abd el-Barr is a respectable man who can offer you a comfortable life.”

“It seems that Fayeqa has managed to win you over.”

My mother seemed troubled, and her voice shook as she spoke.

“I wish she had won me over. I’m tired of all this thinking. I’m afraid of giving my agreement and wronging you, but I’m also afraid of turning him down and then having regrets.”

“I won’t have any.”

My mother said nothing for a while, as if not wanting to quarrel with me.

“In any case, I agreed with Said that we will invite Abd el-Barr for lunch next Friday. Let’s at least see what he’s like before we make a decision.”

When Mahmud got home, he seemed a little out of sorts. He greeted his mother and kissed her hand.

“Should I get your dinner?” she asked him.

“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten with some friends. Good night.”

As he walked down the hallway, he had the same feeling he had as a child when his father took him to the cinema for the first time. A feeling of sheer astonishment at a dazzling world full of animation and color that he had never even imagined. In the heavy silence of his bedroom, he undressed, put his pajamas on and threw himself on his bed, where he lay looking at the ceiling and thinking about how baffling it had all been. That was the last thing he would have expected. Good Lord. Had it really happened?

Madame Khashab, whom he now called Rosa, had been going about her business quite normally, in a motherly way. She had kissed him good-bye on his cheeks, as she had often done before, but suddenly she pressed herself against him and kissed him on the mouth. Mahmud was not completely devoid of experience, having kissed a fair number of girls in the gloom of Cinema al-Sharq, but the way Rosa kissed was different. She pressed her lips and tongue against his and lingered, sliding around in his arms and letting him feel the heat of her body. Then she shut the front door of the apartment with one hand as she pushed him inside. He tried to resist, but she started groping him, getting him more excited than he had ever been in his life. She had not given him the chance to say no. She pulled him into the bedroom, gently pushed him down onto the bed and started kissing him ravenously, stroking his arms and shoulders and massaging the thick thatch of hair on his chest.

“You’re so beautiful, Mahmud,” was all she could whisper, her breathing become shallow. “So beautiful.”

At some point, Mahmud’s vision had become blurry, and he could no longer make anything out. Rosa had led him along the tender paths of delight, swimming in deep waters familiar to her but which he was entering for the first time. She whispered instructions into his ear and apparently climaxed three times before he did. The two of them lay there naked, subsumed in the deep silence, that existential, visceral and postcoital mystery. Mahmud was like a man bewitched, unable to decide if it had all really happened. How had Madame Khashab gone from the decent lady whom he treated like his mother into a naked woman who could excite him as much as the women in the blue magazines he used to swap secretly with his school friends? He was also perplexed by the intensity of the sexual experience, which had been so searing and explosive, nothing at all like the frenetic orgasms he had while fumbling with girls in the gloom of the cinema. Rosa lay there next to him, and after a while she opened her blue eyes and seemed to be looking at him with pure gratitude. Her face was blushed as she whispered, “Can I hold you?”