Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

My wife finally understood that I needed some time on my own…

I left her the big car and the driver so that she would be able to get around with the kids. I drove the smaller car to our chalet on the north coast, a three-hour drive alone with my thoughts and the voice of Umm Kulthum streaming from the cassette deck. At the gate, the security man checked my papers. In winter the resort management stepped up their security to prevent burglaries. A cool, refreshing breeze blew in from the sea. The place was completely empty and had the air of a fairy-tale town whose inhabitants had fled. All the chalets were locked and the streets deserted except for the lampposts. I drove past the main square and then turned up the street leading to our chalet. A new Japanese car suddenly appeared, driven by a man in his fifties and with a beautiful woman somewhat younger in the passenger seat. As they overtook me, I looked over at them…they must be lovers, come to the resort to get away from prying eyes. That had to be it. For such blushing languor and loving serenity are not typical of married life. The door of the chalet squeaked as I opened it. I followed my wife’s instructions to the letter. I started by opening the windows, plugging in the fridge and removing the covers from the furniture. Then I took a hot shower and went into the bedroom to unpack and hang up my clothes. I prepared my seat in the sitting room next to the balcony. I telephoned to order food from the only place open in winter, and perhaps owing to the sea air wolfed down the food and nodded off. By the time I woke up, night had already fallen. I looked out from the balcony at the empty resort. It was dark except for the strip of lampposts. I felt a little strange and then a worry came to my mind:

I was now completely alone and hundreds of kilometers from Cairo. What if something were to happen? If I had a heart attack, for example, or if armed robbers set upon me, would I be able to cope with any of those situations we read about in the newspapers?

My death would make a sensational headline: “Well-Known Novelist Murdered in Mysterious Circumstances!” I made an effort to pull myself together. Three kilometers away there was a new, well-equipped hospital I could get to if I suddenly fell ill, and there was no chance of a burglary with the security having been heightened at all the entry gates and even by the sea. The guards, all local Arabs familiar with the coastal region, patrolled twenty-four hours a day. But what if the guards got themselves together and started burgling? I decided that only happens in cheap detective novels. I took another shower. That was how I usually got rid of unwanted thoughts or feelings. Whenever I stood under the tap and felt the hot water pouring over me, I could calm myself down and clear my mind. Thus refreshed, I made myself a cup of coffee and set to work.

I connected my laptop to the printer and loaded a whole ream of paper. I had already proofread the novel a few times, but I resolved to go through it a final time. It would take me three hours, and I would end up not changing a single word, perhaps a comma or a period here and there. I closed the file on the laptop and went out onto the balcony, lit a cigarette and stared out at the empty street. I knew it would be hard to bring myself to print out the novel, that I would put off that singular moment as long as I could, but then, with a click, my novel would be born; it would come out into the light, suddenly transformed from the hypothetical text composed in my imagination into a finished, tangible thing with a real and independent existence. The moment of clicking on the print button always gave rise to strange and powerful ambivalence — a combination of self-satisfaction, gloom and anxiety. Self-satisfaction for having finished writing the book. Gloom because taking my leave of the characters has the same effect on me as when a group of friends have to depart. And anxiety, perhaps because I am on the verge of delivering up into other people’s hands something that I treasure. It will be the same with my daughter — for as happy as I shall be at her wedding, the thought that I am no longer her everything, as I deliver her into another man’s hands, will rip me apart.

I got up to make another cup of coffee, but no sooner had I stepped into the kitchen than, lo, another surprise. I could hear footsteps. I could not believe my ears. I ignored the sound and busied myself with the coffee, but the sound was getting clearer and louder. I cocked my head to focus my hearing, and I was sure of it. I was not dreaming. They were the footsteps of more than one person. I was glued to the spot. No one knew I was here, so who could these people be, and what might they want? The footsteps came closer and closer, and then the doorbell rang. They were outside, standing in front of the door. There was nothing to do but deal with the situation. I quietly opened the kitchen drawers one after the other until I found a long sharp knife and then laid it on the shelf opposite the door, within easy reach. I turned on the outside lamp and looked through the peephole. I could see a man and a woman, but I could not make out their features in the weak light. I opened the door slowly, and before they could utter a word, I said, “Everything okay?”

The woman answered in a cheerful voice, “Good evening, sir.”

I kept looking at them. The man then spoke in the tone of someone addressing an old friend, “We are very sorry to bother you. But we have come to see you on a serious matter.”

“I don’t know you.”

“Actually, you know us very well.”

She smiled as she said this. I noted the confidence in her voice and responded, “Excuse me. I think there is some mistake.”

“There is no mistake,” she said, laughing. “You know us well.”

The situation became even more curious. The man smiled and said, “Don’t tell me you don’t remember seeing us before?”

I started to feel afraid. I was having an odd sense of déjà vu. The man and woman did in fact look familiar, as if I had seen and spoken to them before, as if my previous meeting with them had lain buried in my memory and then suddenly resurfaced. In a loud voice, I said, “I don’t have time for riddles. Who are you and what do you want?”

With disarming calm, the man answered, “Are you going to leave us standing at the door like this? Let us in and then we’ll speak.”

The strange thing is that I obliged. I stood aside and let them in as if I had suddenly lost control of my own actions. I could hear what I was saying and see what I was doing, as if I were another person. They came in slowly, walking around as if familiar with the place. They sat next to each other on the sofa, and I could finally see them in the light. The man was in his late twenties. Large but not flabby. Olive-skinned. Handsome. The woman was just over twenty, beautiful, winningly lithe of figure with fine facial features to match, glowing brown skin and beautiful green eyes. Her elegant outfit was straight out of the forties. The man was wearing a lightweight white sharkskin suit, a white shirt with a starched collar, a tightly knotted blue tie and spats. The woman was wearing a tailored blue outfit with a white collar and buttons and white hair clips and a straw hat on her plaited hair. They exuded a sort of vintage aura, as if they had just stepped out of an old photograph album or a black-and-white film. I had no idea what to think. I could not take in what was happening and thought that I must be hallucinating, no longer sure that the man and woman sitting in front of me were real.