Morning and Evening Talk (7 page)

“Oh darling daughter, your luck is dreadful!” Radia cried in anguish.

Habiba lived with her mother-in-law on the proceeds of shops in al-Mugharbilin and dedicated her life to her son—a widow though not yet twenty. She loved Nadir as any mother loves her child, but she loved him too with a heart that seemed created to love. When Nadir came to the end of Qur’an school at the beginning of the 1930s, Mahmud Bey Ata wanted to marry her to a village mayor in Beni Suef. The family welcomed the idea, but she would have to surrender Nadir to her uncle. She categorically refused. She would not give up her son and did not want to leave the quarter.

“You’re mad. You don’t know what you’re doing!” said her brother Hamid.

“On the contrary. I know exactly what I’m doing,” she replied.

Amr tried and Radia tried, but she would not change her mind.

Nadir graduated from business school during the Second World War and was appointed to the tax office. But he was known for his ambition from the start. He began studying English at a private institute. His mother worried about how engrossed he was in work at the office and the institute. “Why do you put yourself to all this trouble?” she asked him. But he had charted his course and nothing could stand in his way. Habiba’s arid life was capped by middle age, then she withered and looked ill. She watched her son’s ascent with pleasure but, though he begrudged her none of his money, she refused to leave Darb al-Ahmar for a new villa of his. When he left and moved to his marital home she plunged into a fearful loneliness from whose grasp she did not escape until death.

“It’s what we raise them to do. You should be glad and praise God,” Radia told her.

“I’ve sacrificed so much for him!” she said broken-hearted.

“It’s like that for every mother. Visit Sidi Yahya ibn Uqab,” Radia replied.

She was the last of Amr’s family to pass away. She wept for everyone with renowned passion until her tears dried up. However, when it was her turn there was no one left to weep.

He grew up in comfort in the grand mansion on Khayrat Square and on the farm in Beni Suef. It was as though Nazli Hanem was brought into the Murakibi family to improve its pedigree, which showed in the male descendants, including Hasan, who was known for his height, good looks, and sturdy build. The customs of the day and Cairo’s magnanimity at the time meant not a week went by without exchange visits between Khayrat Square and Bayt al-Qadi Square. Mahmud Bey wanted his first son to
study agriculture, which would benefit him later on, but, like his cousin Hamid, his approach to study was lax so the man had them both enrolled at the police academy. The 1919 Revolution flooded Hasan with powerful emotions, but he did not expose himself to the kind of harm Hamid suffered and it did not take long for him to join the rest of his family in its stance with regard to the revolution’s leader and allegiance to the Crown. This also better suited his job at the interior ministry as it meant he was not, like Hamid, divided between Wafdism in private and the government in public. Thanks to his father’s influence he never knew the hardship of working in the provinces. He did not defer to his father’s wish and marry early. Instead, he lived a licentious life, capitalizing on the fascination occasioned by his colorful uniform, the abundant money brought by his rank, and the gifts bestowed on him by his mother. However, he yielded in the end and married a girl called Zubayda from his mother’s family. She was wedded to him in an apartment in Garden City, where he enjoyed a standard of living that even the interior minister himself envied.

During the period of political turmoil he became famous for his violence in dispersing demonstrations. He weathered successive attacks in the Wafdist newspapers, which damaged his public reputation to an extent, but raised his credibility at the mansion and with the English and granted him exceptional promotions.

“You entered the academy in the same year but he’s made the rank of captain and you’re still a second lieutenant,” Amr Effendi remarked to his son Hamid.

“He’s a traitor. The son of a pantofle-seller,” Surur, who was with them at the lunch table, said viciously. But Hasan and Hamid were friends as well as relatives and they became even closer when the latter married Shakira. Hasan was nearly killed during Sidqi’s time when bricks hit his head and neck. He spent an entire month in hospital. He was the most aggressive of his
siblings toward his uncle Ahmad’s family when the disagreement divided the two brothers. Indeed, he came to blows with Adnan and beat him up at the mansion—a sad day in the history of the family. Hasan produced three sons, Mahmud, Sharif, and Omar; all of them fine specimens of good looks and intelligence. By the July Revolution he was a general and very rich, owing to his and his wife’s inheritances, but the revolution pensioned him off as part of a police purge. He exited on the same list as Hamid, though their friendship had broken down after Shakira’s divorce.

“We should sell our land. Fortune has turned on landowners,” he said to Zubayda.

The losses he suffered with the revolution did not compare with those of others in his class, including his cousin Adnan, but he still found himself in the opposite camp. He began acting like a supporter of the new revolution. He started selling off his and Zubayda’s land in bursts and used the money to set up a business on Sharif Street. He managed it himself and his wealth flourished. His sons, Mahmud, Sharif, and Omar, were educated in schools of the revolution. They were saturated with its philosophy and filled with the heroism of its leader. Hasan did not mind; rather, his sons and two brothers, Abduh and Mahir, provided a protection against the hurricanes of the day. His brothers were probably the reason his business escaped nationalization in 1961. When the disastrous event of June 5 took place, Mahmud, Sharif, and Omar had graduated as doctors and worked in government hospitals. The Setback that shook Nasser’s generation and dispersed it with the winds of loss and despair overtook them. Thus, the leader had barely died and Sadat taken over before Mahmud and Sharif emigrated to the United States to launch successful careers in medicine while Omar secured a contract to work in Saudi Arabia. Hasan found purpose and consolation for past defeats in Sadat and his infitah policy. He buckled down to work and illusory wealth. He built a mansion in
Mohandiseen for himself and his wife and lived the life of a king, dreaming his sons would one day return and inherit the millions he had accumulated for them. His life ended in an accident in the 1980s: he was driving his Mercedes along Pyramids Road when it flipped and caught fire. They extracted his body from it, blackened, stripped of the world and its millions.

He was Hazim and Samiha’s first child. He had a sporty build, a handsome face, and a brilliant mind. He grew up in comfort in the villa in Dokki and graduated as an engineer in 1976. Like his brother, he encountered no problems in life and did not know the worry of party affiliations, and, like his father, he proceeded down the path of fortune and success in his father’s office. Samiha tried to control him, as she did his father, but found him insubordinate. Like her, he would get worked up over the smallest things. She perceived a dangerous unruliness in him so was keen to arrange his marriage, but he told her clearly, “It’s nothing to do with you.”

“But you’re just a child,” she said angrily.

He laughed loudly and looked toward his father, who avoided his eyes.

“It’s my life,” he said.

“You don’t know anything about a good marriage.”

“What’s a ‘good marriage’?” he inquired sardonically.

“Roots and money. They’re synonymous!” she shouted back.

“Thanks, then I don’t need a fiancée!” he continued in his sardonic tone.

He fell in love with a dancer called Agiba from one of the Pyramid nightclubs and, as his feelings were more than a passing whim, suggested they get married.

“If it wasn’t love I’d never accept the shackles of marriage,” she said.

He was overjoyed, but she made it a condition that he allow her to continue her art, which he contemplated worriedly before saying, “Let’s remain as we are in that case.”

“No. Then we can both go our own ways,” she snapped back.

He acquiesced in spite of himself and married her. His brother, Adham, was the first to know, his father the second. When the news reached Samiha she raised a storm that brought the servants running and prompted inquiries from the neighbors. Husni moved to an apartment his wife owned on Pyramids Road.

“I haven’t given up my art because the cinema has started to take notice of me,” she said to him.

However, it became clear that the path to recognition was not easy and required him to set up a production company for his wife’s genius. He knew his father no longer had the confidence in him that he used to, so asked for his share of the business capital to dedicate to the new venture. His father granted the wish, saying, “Keep it between you and me.” With this, Husni cut himself off from his mother, and indeed the whole family. He produced two films for Agiba, neither of which brought her fame. Reports of a suspicious relationship between her and a supporting actor called Rashad al-Gamil reached his ears. He watched the two until he caught them in a furnished apartment in Agouza. He beat her to death and was charged and sentenced to fifteen years. Relatives learned his news from the newspapers and, before that, from gossip. More than one of them exclaimed, “Lord have pity! Son of Hazim, the son of Surur Effendi, God have mercy on him.”

Anyone who looked into his wide brown eyes was dazzled by their beautiful shape and bright shine, and his large head and
thick hair lent him dignity. He was the third child of Amr Effendi’s daughter Samira and her husband, Hussein Qabil, the antique dealer in Khan al-Khalili. Ibn Khaldun Street, where his family lived in an apartment block, was the amphitheater of his childhood and youth, al-Zahir Baybars Garden his playground. As well as being intelligent and a high achiever, he was fond of gambling from an early age, starting with dominoes and backgammon and later gravitating to poker and rummy. He was known for his close friendship with one of the neighbors. They were together through primary and secondary school, then Hakim went to the faculty of commerce, the other to the war college. Hakim knew all his mother’s relatives—the families of Amr, Surur, al-Murakibi, and Dawud—just as he did his father’s. His uncles Amer and Hamid were baffled by his political stance, which rejected, or seemed to reject, the situation in its entirety.

“I think the treaty is a great achievement for the Wafd!” Hamid said to him.

“It has several negatives. I don’t believe in political parties,” he replied.

“The Muslim Brothers buy and sell religion and Misr al-Fatah are Fascist agents!”

“Not all of them.”

“So what do you believe in?”

“Nothing.”

Amer gave a light-hearted laugh. “A dissonant chord in the family,” said Hamid.

Hakim graduated during the Second World War, not long after his father died, and was appointed to the tax office. It was not long before he fell in love with a colleague called Saniya Karam, married her, and moved with her to an apartment in West Abbasiya. She gave birth to Hussein and Amr and life looked set to follow the familiar routine from start to finish. Then came the July Revolution and his best friend was one of its
star players. The future hatched new dimensions no one would have imagined. At an opportune moment he was appointed manager of the distributions office at one of the major newspapers and his salary leaped from the tens to the hundreds with a stroke of the pen. His position sent ripples through the family tree from bottom to top. Samira’s family cried for joy and Amr’s family were pleased in spite of their shattered Wafdist dreams. As for the antagonists in the Murakibi and Dawud families, they remarked sarcastically, “Corruption used to be humble. Now it’s greedy.”

Because of his connection to his close friend he was revered, even by ministers, and flattered by friends and enemies alike. Within a short time, he moved to a new apartment in East Abbasiya, purchased a car, and became a true man of the times. He was loyal to family and friends and extended a helping hand to his uncle Hamid and cousin Nadir. It was thanks to him that his younger brother, Salim, was dealt with humanely when he was interrogated prior to his incarceration. Likewise, he was the intermediary in the appointment of many of his friends as guards after members of the family were placed under supervision. He remained close to his friend even after the man ranked with the new leaders. Not a week went by without a domestic visit to his mansion, where they would discuss romance and memories in confidence. On one such occasion he asked his friend casually, “Isn’t it about time you nominated me as a minister?”

“What’s the value in being a minister? Your income would be cut in half,” the man said.

“But.…”

The other laughed. “I’m telling you I already tried…,” he said and gazed at Hakim with a meaningful smile.

“I promise I’ll give up gambling,” he said.

“It’s your brother Salim too,” said the friend dejectedly.

Hakim gave up the idea of becoming a minister, but his star
continued to soar and he was elected a member of the national assembly. His light went on shining until June 5, when his friend was among those swallowed by darkness. Hakim’s influence thus disappeared in one blow, though he managed to keep his job. The fall was a personal as well as public defeat; he tasted the bitterness of ignominy after the sweetness of glory and found the many snubs he suffered—including from those he had loyally rescued from insignificance—unbearable. His only comforts in the world were his two sons, Hussein and Amr, who had become officers in the cavalry. Around this time, he began to show symptoms of high blood pressure and to suffer the effects. Then came the calamity he had often had nightmares about: Amr was martyred in the War of Attrition. Unlike Saniya, Hakim tried to maintain his self-control and appear brave and accepting of fate, leaving his sorrow to congeal deep inside him like sediment in a vessel. He carried on as one leader died and the next took over. He lived through October 6 and was shaken by a delirium he had not felt since the happy days before June 5. But the blaze was soon extinguished when he received news that his remaining son, Hussein, had been martyred on the battlefield. The tension mounted and exploded without self-control, a show of bravery, or acceptance of fate, and killed him. These events took place as Radia hovered at the summit of her old age. The angels chuckled in the old house.