Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

“How will I be able to stand before God when I have been so sinful?”

One time when he was particularly encumbered with such feelings and wanted to get things off his chest, he went to see to his best friend, Fawzy (the only one to whom he ever told his innermost secrets). Aisha told him that Fawzy was up on the roof, and there Mahmud found him sitting in the dark, in a white galabiyya, rolling hashish cigarettes at a small table, of which Fawzy handed him one as he gestured at him to take a seat. Mahmud tried to refuse, but Fawzy pressed the cigarette on him. He lit it for him, and as it glowed, it started to give off the telltale aroma.

“Listen, mate,” he said, “hashish is a panacea. May God never let it dry up!”

Fawzy took a drag on the fat spliff and held it in, allowing it to have a strong effect. Then he coughed and looked at Mahmud with bloodshot eyes.

“What’s up, chump?”

They were sitting by the wall of the roof terrace with the hustle and bustle of Tram Street stretching out in front of them. Mahmud opened his mouth to say something, but his dark face suddenly grimaced.

“Fawzy!” he said, his voice quivering as if he were on the verge of tears. “I’m fornicating with Rosa. It’s a cardinal sin, and I’m afraid of God’s punishment.”

“You,” said Fawzy, pursing his lips and shaking his head, “are a complete idiot.”

“Why’s that?”

Fazwi placed his hand on Mahmud’s shoulder and then, as if explaining something to a child, said, “Why look a gift horse in the mouth? Rosa is an English lady who likes you and looks after you. Or would you rather run after those putrid girls and have to fork out a fortune on them?”

“It’s wrong, what I’m doing with Rosa.”

“So you’ve turned into a shaykh? And didn’t you kiss those girls too?”

“The sin of kissing is different from the sin of fornication. Uncle Darawi, the shaykh at the mosque, said in his sermon on Friday that fornication is one of the cardinal sins.”

Fawzy thought it over for a moment.

“All right, then,” he said. “Go and marry Rosa.”

“Marry someone my mother’s age?”

“Do a traditional oral marriage.”

Mahmud did not seem to understand. Fawzy heaved a sigh and explained gently, “In the old days, Mahmud, do you think they had officials and documents? No way. In the old days, people got married just by saying they were in front of two witnesses. No need for papers. So get married like they used to do way back then. I’ll go with you, and we’ll find as a third guy someone from the triangle. You just tell her, ‘I take you as my wife,’ and she tells you, ‘I take you as my husband,’ and we say, ‘We have witnessed the marriage.’ That way everything will be perfectly aboveboard.”

Mahmud shook his head. “I can’t do that,” he said decisively.

“So you don’t like the idea of fornicating, but you don’t like the idea of getting married either?”

“I’ve never heard of a marriage without papers or a contract. That would be a total sham.”

Fawzy took a deep drag on his spliff and, after another fit of coughing, continued, “All right. Forget it. Do you want to hear another idea?”

“Go on.”

“Listen up. Years ago, when the Muslims fought against Europe, didn’t the victorious army take the women of the defeated as concubines? After every war there would be concubines left on both sides, Muslim concubines for the Franks and Frankish concubines for the Muslims. We learned that in history at school, don’t you remember?”

“I was never any good at history.”

“Think, Mahmud. Had you lived in those days and been in a war and taken a woman from the enemy army, you would have been entitled to use her as a concubine and sleep with her without having to get married, and it would have been perfectly permissible according to our religion.”

“So what’s that got to do with me?”

“Just imagine that you lived five or six centuries ago and that you have waged war against the Franks, defeated them and taken Rosa as your concubine. It would be well within your rights to sleep with her.”

“First, I am alive today and not five hundred years ago. Second, I haven’t fought the Franks. And third, I don’t want any concubines, and even if I did, I would never take one who is sixty years old. What’s all this shit about concubines and Franks? You’re just stoned and spouting garbage.”

“Actually, I am stoned,” replied Fawzy calmly, rolling another spliff. “But I am speaking sense. Listen, Mahmud. However tormented you might feel, don’t leave Rosa. She has taken the bait, and now you have to reel her in and find the fortune.”

“You’re speaking in riddles.”

“It’s your brain that isn’t working.”

“Just leave me alone.”

Fawzy moved over to him. “I know what will make you happy again,” he told him as if imparting a dangerous secret. “And I’ll tell you, on condition that you do exactly what I say without further discussion.”

On Friday morning, Abd el-Barr sent some of his staff over with enough presents for an army — meat, vegetables and cakes. Said went with him to say Friday prayers in the Sayyida Zeinab mosque and then brought him to the apartment. I was in my bedroom having Aisha put the finishing touches to my face. I had taken in my new blue dress a little to accentuate my curves and had put polish on my fingernails and toenails. I had put makeup on and done my hair in ringlets with a kiss curl on my forehead. In the mirror I thought I looked quite good.

“May the name of the Prophet protect you,” Aisha said, laughing. “By the Prophet, you look stunning!”

We made our way to the sitting room, Aisha and my mother and me walking between them. Mahmud had been waiting in the hallway to join us.

Aisha raised a finger to her mouth, threw back her head and let out a resounding ululation, but a withering look from my mother silenced her. I felt breathless with excitement and almost lost my balance a few times as I tried to walk in my high heels.

I will never forget the moment I entered the sitting room. It was a very bright day, and the sun was flooding in. Abd el-Barr, who was seated between Kamel and Said, jumped up to greet us. At that moment I felt terror turn into astonishment. I had a fixed image of Abd el-Barr in my mind as a fat camel merchant in a galabiyya and a turban, speaking volubly as he spat on the ground, a great big wallet stuffed with banknotes sticking out of his pocket. That was how I had imagined him, but instead I saw a decent-looking, polite man in a smart blue suit, a white shirt and red necktie. He was olive-skinned and handsome. Abd el-Barr ate lunch with us and stayed until just before dinner. We sat and chatted. He made such a good impression on us all that even Kamel, the one most against the marriage, could not say a word against him. Had Abd el-Barr looked or behaved badly, it would have been much easier to refuse him, but his successful visit just made the situation more complicated, and the discussions about him raged on. After he left, Aisha, Fayeqa and Said pressed me hard, with my mother remaining neutral and Kamel trying to make me turn him down.

“Our late father,” he kept telling everyone, “dreamed of seeing Saleha as a university teacher.”

“If he were still alive,” Said retorted, “and saw Abd el-Barr, he’d be the first to commend him.”

“How do you know?”

“Can you deny that Abd el-Barr is a really fine guy?”

“I have nothing against him, but I’m against Saleha getting married at this time. She is working so hard and doing so well. It would be criminal for her to give up school and become a housewife.”