Yitzhak Goren - Alexandrian Summer

“Come have lunch,” she told Victor and was immediately relieved. For Emilie, just like for Robby’s grandmother, food was a cure-all. Her eyes lit up and she went to the kitchen.

Victor stayed in place, looking at Robby triumphantly. Without further ado, he pounced on him with fists pumping. The two boys rolled around on the rug for a while, and Robby could feel Victor’s sharp bones pushing against his body. Suddenly he felt his friend’s erect penis knocking persistently against his body. Chills of shame shook his entire being, and he tried to pull away from this embrace. His heart whispered to him that this was a new thing, entirely new. He’d never known such a feeling, not even when Thérèse and Juliette hugged him. Finally, he pulled out of Victor’s grasp. The two of them stood before each other, silent and breathing heavily.

Sunday, the day of the beginning of racing season, would be a very busy day at the apartment on 24 Rue Delta. Apart from the race, which was scheduled for four in the afternoon, and from which children were banned, Robby planned a big party that evening. The program was full: Thérèse would play a piece on the antique German piano, maybe La danse du feu , as well as background music for the dance of Nefertiti, to be performed by no other than Robby himself. Endless debates were held in an attempt to re-create the sounds of ancient Egyptian music. Juliette would recite two fables by the beloved La Fontaine. Even Marcel, Robby’s cousin, who could play Monti’s Csárdás on the violin as fast as an express train, would do his part. And finally, Raphael, Robby’s other cousin, would close the program with songs in Spanish, and would be the star of the evening, because, unlike the other performers, Raphael was a grownup, and performed regularly at the Auberge Bleue.

After the entertainment, the drinking would commence, arak or liquor for the grownups, Pepsi or Coke for the kids, in celebration of David’s victory (no one even considered the possibility of a loss).

The morning was spent in preparation. Thérèse and Juliette hung up colorful garlands and Chinese lanterns. Robby and his mother joined forces to prepare his Nefertiti costume. Robby’s grandmother and Emilie supervised the kitchen, where the servants were hard at work, preparing a range of Balkan refreshments, passed from Jewish mothers to their daughters for generations: the square boyos and the triangular burekitas , the donut shaped bisco-chicos and even baklava . The kunafah , that sweet, thin-asa-wisp kadaif delicacy, would be bought from the vendor on the street corner.

Only Victor seemed to purposefully avoid participating, walking around the house with his underwear hanging over his sunken gut, looking at everybody with derision and not lifting a finger. He didn’t hand the scissors to Thérèse who stood on the chair, hanging garlands from the curtain rods to the chandelier, and didn’t help Robby tie Nefertiti’s upside-down bucket crown around his head, and refused to even go downstairs to buy some string at Hamis’s store for the decorations. Everyone was cross with him at first, but they quickly learned to ignore him.

The house was full of hustle and bustle and the radio played and the sun was shining. A festive feeling was in the air. Tino Rossi swept everyone up with his Tar-antelle Belle-belle , and the two Coptic sisters laughed happily after whispering among themselves. Robby was in high spirits. Suddenly, Victor called him over and he followed. Victor signaled to him to keep quiet and pulled him into one of the back rooms of the apartment, where the ruckus from the hall sounded like a strange, distant hum. Victor chuckled and pointed at the heavy wine-colored velvet curtain. There was nothing in that old curtain to justify Victor’s glee. Not a cigarette hole or a bug or a gecko. Victor nudged him toward the window and pushed the curtain slightly open. A thin blade of golden dust cleaved the darkness of the room in two, and Robby brought his eye closer to the crack. At first he saw nothing. The sun’s reflection on the window across the way blinded him. It was the window of the Abarbanell apartment, where Louis Abarbanell, Robby’s best friend, lived. His eyes gradually adjusted to the blinding beams of the scorching glass. Suddenly he could see clearly: by the window stood a woman of middle age, naked from the waist up. The woman lifted her left breast to examine some pink mark that had formed there. She then picked up a satchel and sprinkled some talcum powder on the aroused skin. Robby wished to escape. “That’s … That’s Dora Abarbanell, Louis’s mother …” He was as hurt as if his own mother had been standing there, prey to Victor Hamdi-Ali’s covetous eyes. But Victor’s heavy, hot breath weighed down the back of his neck like a stifling burden, and his hard member knocked on the doors of his body, trying to push in. Cold sweat covered his face. The sight of the large breasts growing before his eyes like a pair of balloons, and the sensation of the persistent force, striving restlessly to invade him, enveloped him with breathless confusion. The two giant nipples twinkled at him lecherously from their pink halo. Suddenly he imagined Michel Abarbanell, Dora’s ex-husband, whom she divorced years ago, when Louis was just a baby; a shrunken man, his gray face resembling that of the pharaoh mummies in the museum in Cairo, and his hair, also done-up in Golden Age Egyptian style, combed back carefully and treated with brilliantine. He always wore a pressed suit, and did not look like a divorced man who’d spent the past eight years without the care of a woman. When Robby saw the hidden treasures of the ex-wife’s breasts, he pitied him, this Michel, who was so small and shriveled in comparison to the full, udder-like flesh that filled the window frame. The lump in his throat grew. Suddenly he was scared that Dora might raise her eyes and look at him accusingly. A false fear, of course, since he was standing in the darkness, protected by the heavy curtain. After what felt like an eternity he managed to free himself of Victor’s grip and escape to the hall, where no one had even noticed his absence.

Grandma’s friends started to arrive. Grandma demanded that the center of the hall be cleared for the card table.

“Robby, come show the ladies your Nefertiti costume!”

“But it’s a surprise for tonight.”

“Yes, but we won’t be here tonight,” said Madame Marika, and added with an offended air, “We weren’t invited.”

“You … you’re invited,” Robby mumbled, not even trying to sound sincere.

“But there’s an entrance fee,” Grandma warned them. “This is no regular party. There are going to be live shows.”

“A fee!” the ladies exclaimed. “How much? How much is it, Robby?”

“One piaster per person.”

“With one piaster you can buy two portions of falafel in pita,” Madame Marika protested loudly and immediately burst into a thousand shreds of laughter.

“Or take the tram to Place Muhammad-Ali,” Madame Geena added, laughing as well.

“No, that’s too rich for my taste. If I spend this piaster, Isidore, my husband, will kill me!” Alice called, and now the women who hadn’t been laughing joined in on the merriment; they despised Isidore for his objecting to Alice’s card playing. A man like Isidore was a risk for all of them, since other husbands might decide to follow suit and question the women over their addiction to the seductions of the joker. Alice herself was glad to have elicited her friends’ sympathies, and saw their laughter as support in her brave battle against the tyrant.

Robby stood before them and thought, They’re speaking to me like I’m a baby. This kind of fake seriousness is used with babies. They don’t even see how ridiculous they are. They also have a pair of hanging breasts, just like Dora Abarbanell’s, so what have they got to be so happy about?