Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It happens to lots of girls.”

Saleha looked straight ahead as if mulling it over, and then she burst into tears. I kissed her head and tried to soothe her. A little while later, the three of us sat down to dinner. I tried to distract Saleha with a few funny anecdotes. That night when I went to my bedroom, I tried to study but could not. I lay down fully clothed and smoked a cigarette. I thought of my father and how much I missed him. How much he had put up with for our sake. Now that I was shouldering the burden, it seemed like catastrophes were occurring in swift succession. “May God have mercy upon your soul, Father!” I thought. “You kept all your troubles from us. You never complained.” Then I got up, did my ablutions, said the fatiha for my father’s soul and prostrated myself on the ground for longer than necessary. I prayed to God to have mercy upon him and to let him enter paradise. When I went to bed, I felt better. Prayer afforded me a real sense of calm. It made me wish that I prayed more regularly, but I was always getting distracted or giving in to laziness. I felt guilty at my religious laxity, even though I thought that it was not God who needed our prayers, but we were the ones who needed to pray in order to become better people. I believed in God’s justice and mercy. I believed that he would forgive us our religious shortcomings. I was going to try hard to be useful and to work in order to support my family, as well as study and do my duty for my country.

Once I made these resolutions, I felt better and found the will to get out of bed and continue studying. I had been asked to translate an article about Egypt from The Times and give it to Hasan Mu’min the next day. It took me about two hours. The author had written at great length about the king’s depraved behavior and his nocturnal antics. I made myself a glass of mint tea and sat down; it was three in the morning before I went to bed. I was so preoccupied with Saleha’s misfortunes that I almost forgot about the mission that the prince had tasked me with.

The next morning, I arrived at the Club before ten o’clock. I had hidden the glass orb in my briefcase, which usually carried my textbooks. The staff were at that moment cleaning the building from top to bottom. I looked behind me to make sure that no one could see me. Instead of making my way to the storeroom, I went up the stairs into the casino and locked the door behind me. I knew that I had only a few minutes. The room was gloomy and reeked of smoke from the night before. I found the wooden stepladder leaning against the wall just as the prince had described. I picked it up and was dismayed to find it so heavy, as I could not just drag it along the floor in case it made a noise. With great difficulty, I carried it to the middle of the room and positioned it gently underneath the chandelier. I gingerly climbed up a few steps until my shoulders were level with the crystals. There was a small metal rung in the chandelier into which the glass orb fitted perfectly. I checked to see that it was firmly fixed in place before climbing back down. Suddenly, I heard shouting outside. It was part of the plan for Abdoun to pick a fight with one of the staff on the roof in order to divert their attention. I put the stepladder back where I found it, opened the door cautiously and slipped out undetected, tiptoeing down the stairs. By the time I reached the entrance hall, I was certain that my mission had been successful. Suddenly, I saw Labib the telephone operator standing in front of me.

“All hell’s broken loose on the roof,” I spluttered, trying to act natural. “I want to go up and see what’s happening, but if I do, Monsieur Comanus might turn up and find the storeroom still locked.”

“Don’t worry,” Labib said. “Go and open up. I’ll go and see what it’s all about.”

“Let me know that they’re all all right, Uncle Labib. I don’t want to sit downstairs worrying.”

I opened the storeroom door and turned on the light. Then I lit a cigarette. After the first drag, I told myself, “You’ve done it, lad!” I found the danger strangely exciting. I was still proud of myself for having distributed the pamphlets in Sayyida Zeinab and fooling the English soldiers. This time, I had carried out my mission even with so much on my mind, lacking sleep and distraught over Saleha. Thank God, I hadn’t slipped up and given myself away. I made a pot of Turkish coffee and smoked another cigarette. Then Comanus turned up, and I greeted him, asking him what he wanted me to do. I thought it best to behave naturally because at some point they could question Comanus if they discovered the orb. I lugged a few things to the restaurant and then asked permission to sit and study.

After a while, Comanus came and sat down next to me. He had a warm smile on his face. “How are you getting on with your studies, Kamel?” he asked.

“Thank God, I’m doing fine. And how are you, sir?”

Comanus took off his spectacles and wiped them with his handkerchief as he always did when feeling pensive. Then he put them back on and said, “By God, I have to say, Kamel, that things at the Club have been a little odd lately.”

“What is it?”

“I’m worried about the staff. They’ve been to see Alku, and they asked him to end the beatings he gives them.”

“They’re right.”

“I know that it’s a sensitive subject for you because of your father, Hagg Abd el-Aziz, may God have mercy on him.”

“Not just because he was my father; it’s inhuman to have someone beaten.”

“But it surprises me. The staff have put up with it for twenty years. What suddenly made them object?”

“Everyone has his limits.”

“But the strangest thing is that Alku has agreed.”

“Well, that sounds all right to me.”

Comanus said nothing for a few moments. Then he gave me a worried look and said, “You don’t know Alku. He’s evil and unpredictable. There’s no way that he has suddenly turned into a kind person. God help us. I think that the Automobile Club has got some dark days ahead of it.”

Mahmud did not know what to think. In his heart of hearts, he knew that Rosa loved him, and he felt bad that she had been so upset by his relationship with Dagmar, but at the same time he was angry that she had humiliated him by pulling on his shirt. Mahmud recounted all of this to Fawzy, who smoked a whole spliff as he listened to his friend, appearing to weigh the matter over carefully. Stubbing out the spliff on the roof terrace wall, he said with a cough, “Rosa has got no right to be angry. If you back down, she’ll be no end of trouble in the future.”

Mahmud nodded. “I’m never going to see Rosa again,” he said.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Fawzy said.

“After what she did?”

“Give it a little time, Mahmud,” Fawzy said with a wink. “Some good may come out of it. Your difficulties with Rosa might yet work in your favor.”

“How’s that?”

Fawzy laid out the plan, and Mahmud executed it perfectly. He refrained from going to see Rosa for two whole weeks. He primed Labib the telephone operator to tell her that he had not been to work and that no one knew why. Mahmud disappeared completely from sight. When Rosa telephoned to order food from the Club, Mahmud would hand the package to Mustafa the driver.

“Please,” he said to Mustafa. “Take the package up, and I’ll wait here. If Madame Khashab asks after me, tell her I’ve left the job.”

Mustafa would smile gently and take the package up to her. The last time, Mahmud was waiting as usual in the car while Mustafa went up with the fruit tart that Rosa had ordered. After a while, he came back, sat behind the wheel and clapped his hands with a belly laugh.