The Map of Love (56 page)
Authors: Ahdaf Soueif
‘Right,’ says Layla, ‘and what does that mean?’
Anna shakes her head. Layla points at the large mirror on the left wal
. ‘Mirror?’
‘Yes,’ Layla nods.
‘But why are the two words so close?’ Anna asks. ‘ “Woman” and “mirror”?’
‘Well, “mirror” must be from “ra
a”: to see. But I don’t know where “woman” comes in — oh, wait — mar’ is “person” so marah is the feminine. Can it be that marhas to do with being visible?’ She turns to her mother. ‘What do you think, Mama? Marfrom being visible?’
‘Is it just people who are visible, child? Animals and trees and all the created world is visible.’
‘Perhaps it is only people who see themselves —’
‘Some see with their eyes, some see with their hearts. The name of the Prophet preserve you and guard you.’ Mabrouka presents a cup of coffee to Zeinab Hanim.
‘We’ll have to look it up,’ says Layla. ‘Or ask Abeih.’
‘Do you think “mirror” came from “mir’ah”?’ Anna says.
‘I don’t know,’ Layla says. ‘Who had mirrors first?’
‘If it comes from a root in Arabic,’ says Anna, ‘it must have originated in the language.’
‘You’ll
have to look that one up,’ says Layla.
‘But what about this book?’ Anna says. ‘And why did you say they were talking about us?’
‘The author —’ Layla points at his name on the book — ‘is down there, with Abeih. This is his second book. When the first came out there was such a fuss he was even banned from the Palace. He says women shouldn’t have to wear the veil and girls should be educated just like boys — Isn’t that so, Mama?’ She says it again in Arabic.
‘Not wear the veil? We live and we see!’ Mabrouka exclaims.
‘The veil is a Turkish thing, ya Mabrouka, not Arab or Egyptian. The women in the countryside, the fallaheen, do they go veiled?’
‘They have their ways and we have ours. No respectable woman would go out of her house without the veil.’
‘Anyway, he’s not saying to abolish it. He’s saying they shouldn’t
have
to. They can choose —’
‘And what does he do with his hareem? He lets them choose?’
‘Sheikh Muhammad
Abdu agrees with him.’
‘The Mufti?’
‘Yes. So will you know better than the Mufti?’
‘By God, if they give me the wealth of Qaroon, I wouldn’t go out with my face uncovered.’
‘And who do you think is going to look at you?’ Layla laughs.
‘Even so. A woman is a woman. Isn’t that so, ya Sett Zeinab?’
‘Ya Mabrouka, has anyone asked you to unveil?’
‘Even so. Are women going to walk in the street with their faces showing?’
‘Ya Setti, it’s their time. For you and me it’s over, we can’t change. Let the young people decide what they want.’
‘All your life you’ve been too good —’
‘Anyway —’ Layla turns back to Anna — ‘everybody’s been talking about this, and the press is full of it.
Al-Liwa
is against the book: Mustafa Kamel is for education, but wants to keep the veil. Talat Harb wants everything to stay as it is. They’re both down there now, and the author and Sheikh MuhammadAbdu. So of course they’re talking about this.’
‘Sheikh MuhammadAbdu is a great man,’ Zeinab Hanim murmurs, her eyes on her ledger. ‘May God preserve him for his country.’
Mabrouka murmurs ‘Ameen’ as she does for all her mistress’s prayers large and small.
‘What do women think?’ Anna asks.
‘They’re divided too,’ Layla says, ‘as you see,’ tilting her head at Mabrouka with a smile. ‘Shall we go and listen?’
‘We shouldn’t, should we?’ asks Anna.
‘Of course we should. Mama, come with us, let’s go and listen.’
‘Leave the men alone, ya Sett Layla,’ Mabrouka warns. ‘Don’t be afraid, I’ll only look at my husband. Mama, come with us.’
Layla goes over and takes the pen from her mother’s hand, lays it on the ledger and pulls her up. She turns to Mabrouka mischievously: ‘Are you coming?’
‘No, ya Setti, I’ll stay here with Si Ahmad. He’s man enough for me.’
‘Get something and cover him,’ Zeinab Hanim says, ‘the boy will catch cold. I don’t know why you won’t just let him go to bed and you can have him in the morning,’ she says to Layla, who is already holding aside the heavy partition curtains to let them pass.
And now they are in what feels to Anna like a box in the opera. Behind them, the dark curtains have fallen silently closed. In front of them the mashrabiyya that looks down into the salamlek. Layla puts a finger to her lips in warning, rests her knee on the narrow wooden bench that runs below the latticework, and carefully pulls open the thick glass panes. Immediately the sound of coffee cups rattling in their saucers comes to their ears. In the dark Anna and Zeinab Hanim move quietly forward to join Layla. The three women kneel on the cushioned bench, their faces pressed against the wooden screen.
The effect of being in one of these enclosures is most haunting. When I first went in it reminded me of nothing as much as the box in the opera I sat in with Madame Hussein Rushdi: the heavy velvet curtains closing behind us, the screen in front, the darkness, the anticipation of the action to take place there, beyond the screen, framed, on the lighted stage. But then the
effect of kneeling on the banquette — its cushion harder than any I have encountered here in Egypt — brought a certain awe into my heart and I realised it was like being in church. And when I saw Layla’s face pressed against the wooden grille, illuminated in patches by the light from the room below, why, my head was filled with the notion that here was the perfect painting of a beautiful woman at the confessional in some Italian church. In the real confessional there would be no light, but the light in the painting would be the light of His all-encompassing Forgiveness and Grace
.
Sharif Basha has given his traditional place to his older friend Sheikh MuhammadAbdu. The Grand Imam of Egypt sits on the central diwan, his fierce eyes and brow rendered mellow by the thick, carefully trimmed beard and moustache, now almost completely white except for a graceful V under his lower lip. His gibba is of white striped silk and his quftan of dark brown. On his head the white wound turban. The other men are ranged on diwans and easy chairs. Sheikh Rashid Rida is also in gibba and quftan; the other men are all in suits.