Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

“Do you have any whiskey, please?” he asked.

Looking a little cross, she asked him, “Shall I pour you a glass?”

“Just bring the bottle.”

She was about to refuse, but something crossed her mind, and she got up and fetched a bottle of Red Label and a bowl of ice cubes.

“Do you know, Mahmud”—she cleared her throat—“it’s not good to drink too much whiskey.”

Mahmud nodded in agreement as he poured himself a large glass and slugged it down neat. He closed his eyes as he felt the burning sensation in his throat.

“I’m sorry, Madame,” he said with a smile. “Please give me a little more time.”

Dagmar made no response. She kept her gaze fixed on him, her heavy makeup giving her the look of a worn-out old actress in a touring troupe. Mahmud poured himself another large whiskey and drank it the same way. Then he sat back and breathed deeply. She made an attempt to cozy up to him, but he held out his hand to stop her from going any further. Dagmar muttered some words in German that he could not understand, and then she looked away sullenly. Mahmud just sat there with his legs stretched out on the sofa. A few minutes passed in silence. He could feel the whiskey taking effect and gave a sigh of relief as he realized that he was now up to the job in hand. He turned to Dagmar, holding his arms out, and she threw herself into them. Under normal circumstances, he could not have found her attractive, but the alcohol had taken him into the stratosphere. He held Dagmar in his strong arms and then started to kiss her long and slow as he had learned from Rosa, and as he ran his coarse lips up and down her body, his mind was empty. He went on kissing her slowly, moving from spot to spot, until he became aware of her body writhing at his touch. Dagmar was moaning loudly. Then Mahmud stood up, still holding her. She weighed nothing as he carried her over his shoulder into the bedroom, and she groaned as he laid her down on the bed. Mahmud helped her out of her nightdress, and then, when she was stark naked, he threw himself on top of her.

His lovemaking with Dagmar was completely mechanical and consisted of a succession of movements, like the steps of a dance or calisthenics. There was no intimacy or affection, such as he felt with Rosa. What possible sort of relationship could he have with this miserable, raddled old German woman? A straightforward working relationship, according to Fawzy. Mahmud treated Dagmar’s body like a machine, but one that he knew how to operate efficiently. As Mahmud pounded away at Dagmar, she screamed and shouted in German, and her face took on varying expressions of utter joy and astonishment, wide-eyed disbelief and helplessness. Sex for the first time in years was driving her mad. Madame Dagmar arrived in seventh heaven quite a few times, then she lay back and closed her eyes, savoring the postcoital bliss. Mahmud got up and went to the bathroom. He stood under the hot water, scrubbing himself as if trying to wash off any trace of what had just happened. He got dressed and found Dagmar in the sitting room waiting for him in her blue silk robe. She looked calm and relaxed and gave him a hug.

“Mahmud,” she whispered, “you’ve got to keep visiting me.”

“I’d like my money.”

He uttered the words with an ease that astounded him. That was what Fawzy had told him to do, but he had spent the day hesitating over it. Now he had just blurted it out, and he felt ashamed. Dagmar smiled at him gratefully, as if to say, “After everything you’ve done, you deserve it.” She went into the bedroom and came back with a pound, which Mahmud put into his pocket, thanking her quietly. She went with him to the front door, planted a kiss on his cheek, asking him matter-of-factly, “When can you come again?”

“Saturday.”

That was the day that Rosa met her friends at the Turf Club.

He carried on visiting Dagmar. He could not bring himself to touch her until he was so drunk that everything became a blur. When he was done, he would ask himself how he could go to bed with such a scraggly old woman, but time after time he managed to give her a good servicing. Following Fawzy’s advice, he only sold love four days a week. Two nights with Dagmar and two with Rosa, and the remaining days he would get off work and either go home to eat and have a long sleep if he felt tired or sit up late smoking hashish with Fawzy on the roof.

With Dagmar, he never developed the friendly feelings he had toward Rosa; he was just selling a commodity. Pleasure for money. And Dagmar treated him like a masseur or a tennis instructor. She told him what she wanted without a hint of shame. During sex, she would whisper an order to him to do this or that. When it was over and he went into the bathroom, she would often call out to him in an emotionless voice, “Take a shower and come back. I want you to do it again.”

Her direct way of going about things freed him from having to pretend. At the same time, he felt a little demeaned by it. Not only that, but when he was not having sex with her, he found her off-putting. He could kiss Dagmar, stroke her all over, carry her in his arms, lay her down on the bed and drill her without mercy, but the moment the sex was over and he had taken a shower and got dressed, she became no more than an old woman with whom he did not feel comfortable. He kept wondering why he felt comfortable with Rosa, whereas whenever he asked Dagmar for anything, he was hesitant and apologetic. When asking her for dinner, for example, he would say, “Excuse me, Madame Dagmar. Sorry to trouble you, but I’m hungry.”

Dagmar would give the knowing nod of someone who understands the terms of commerce. She would go into the kitchen and come back with a tray of food. The quantities were much smaller than at Rosa’s, where a broad spread was always on offer. Dagmar’s dinners were carefully rationed: half a chicken with a small plate of rice or a small portion of macaroni cheese, which in Mahmud’s terms was about two mouthfuls. Dagmar was stingy. She was mean with her food, and if Mahmud wanted more, he had to ask for it. She never refused, but she never looked happy about it. Mahmud came to learn that after sex she became gentler and more obliging. He put up with her frowning and her muttering in German during the act, and then, when she lay there in contentment afterward, he would make his requests. Mahmud followed his sex schedule almost religiously. He was now giving his whole salary from the Club to his mother and sharing what he earned from Rosa and Dagmar with Fawzy. The latter amount he considered ill-gotten money, which could sully his mother and sister if he gave it to them. He explained his concerns to Fawzy.

“All right,” said Fawzy. “If that money is what you call ‘ill-gotten,’ we’ll have to spend it on hashish and women. Illicit things are what you spend illicit money on!”

This exegesis seemed to calm Mahmud. If he forgot his religious worries, his life seemed quite acceptable, stable and even happy. But his sexual adventures had changed his opinion of women. He was no longer awed by their beauty. They had lost their mysterious seductiveness. He felt as if he had dissected a rose and could no longer see its beauty but only the constituent parts. He now looked at women the way a driver might check over a car for its good and bad parts, knowing that, whatever the model or make, he would be able to drive it. The paintwork and accessories were no longer of interest; he just wanted to know how the engine would purr. No matter how beautiful, elegant, refined, haughty or vain a woman might appear, Mahmud could not help wondering what she would be like in bed. He would think of himself stroking her to make her open like a flower and let the honey flow. In spite of his apparent good manners, Mahmud now treated all women, except for his mother, his sister and Rosa, with a sort of latent disdain. He talked to them condescendingly, with a look one might give to a child spouting nonsense. He had an inner dialogue: “Stop pretending to be preoccupied with this or that. All this glamorous flirting doesn’t fool me, because I know that at some point you will drop the pretense and beg to be pleasured, like all other women.”