The Map of Love (73 page)
Authors: Ahdaf Soueif
‘It’s OK, Honey. Honey, Honey,’ Isabel croons as she opens the door. She cannot bend easily now, but she crouches, and allows the dog’s wet muzzle to settle into her hand.
‘Breakfast, breakfast,’ she whispers as she scratches his ears and pulls his head back. They stare into each other’s eyes.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘yes, I miss him too.’
Scattered on the table behind her are seven love letters.
Tawasi, One hour later
‘I needed to talk to you,’ she said.
‘I’m here.’
‘ I got the last of my mother’s papers, the ones that were in the bank.’
‘Yes?’
‘His letters are here. I’ve read them.’
‘Whose letters?’ I ask, even as I see him seated across the table from me in Zephyrion, hear him say ‘Imploring and arguing, you know the kind of thing …’
Omar’s letters. To my mother.’
‘Oh …’
‘He was in love with her.’
‘Isabel. You knew that.’
‘I know.’ She sounds dull, flat.
‘Well then?’ I sound practical, brisk.
‘It’s different. When you actually read the letters.’
‘They were written thirty-five years ago.’
‘She kept them. She was talking about him before she died.’
Thank goodness he had told her, I am thinking. He could have not told her. And then she would have got the letters —
‘It feels spooky being in this place,
his
place, without him. And with these letters.’
‘Leave. There’s no need for you to be there. What’s the time with you now? Heavens! It’s five o’clock in the morning. What are you doing up?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I got them yesterday afternoon.’
‘Isabel, this isn’t right. You’re pregnant. You need your rest.’
‘I know, I know. Listen. How are things with you?’
‘Arwa Salih is dead.’ I say it before I can stop myself.
‘What?’
‘Arwa Salih,’ I say. ‘Do you remember?’
‘Yes. The beautiful woman who we met at the Atelier. She’s dead?’
‘She killed herself. She published a little book about how hopeless everything was. Then she killed herself.’
I am still stunned by the news. By the violence and decisiveness of her act. She had gone up to the roof of her
building and thrown herself down to the pavement, the parked cars, below.
‘That is so terrible,’ she says.
We are silent and I hear her dollars ticking away.
‘Yes,’ I say. Then I say, ‘I’ve been thinking, maybe if she’d had children —’
‘Yes,’ Isabel says.
Abu Qir, August 1910
We are become children again. We take no newspapers, we discuss no politics. The only question that occupies us is whether we should return to Cairo in time for the Ramadan fast, or wait until close to the Eid. We swim and build sandcastles, we collect shells and polished stones. We chase balls and play cards. Mahrous proves an excellent hand at Gin Rummy, and Nur can now play Snap passably well and is particularly enamoured of the Seven of Diamonds, being so transported with happiness when it is dealt to her that we contrive to slip it among her cards for the pleasure of hearing her triumphant laugh
.
Baroudi Bey would not be moved and he became so distressed when Hasna tried to pack my loom that I told her to leave it where it stood. Perhaps he thinks if the loom stays there it is a guarantee of our return. The School of Art is two years opened and I am halfway done with the third panel of my tapestry
.
Layla and Zeinab Hanim take it in turns to come to Abu Qir and Husni Bey comes when he can, but Ahmad stays with us all the while. We have had a small piano installed for him and when Layla is here we have exquisite music, my husband turning out (I discover after five years of marriage) to be possessed of a rich baritone and a love of the dramatic which he disguises by pretending he only mocks
.
We read novels and linger over the sunsets and later, with the house asleep and our casement windows open to the sea air, we spend the sweetest hours of these wonderful days together. And in the daytime, when I watch him climb out of the sea under the blazing sun, with Nur on his shoulders and Ahmad and
Mahrous on either side, the love I feel for each inch of his body is an exquisite ache in my heart
.
Tawasi, March 1998
Tareq
Atiyya appears on my doorstep.
‘I was wrong,’ he says. ‘You
can
hide in Tawasi for ever. But don’t, ya Amal. It’s a waste.’
‘Itfaddal,’ I say. ‘Come in.’ I hope I don’t show how pleased I am to see him.
‘You’re reading the newspapers on the computer! How civilised Tawasi has become,’ he says.
I give him a look. ‘Tawasi has always been civilised,’ I say.
‘I’m joking,’ he says, ‘joking.’ He looks at the screen, scrolls down. ‘So you know everything that’s been happening? There’s a revolution against the American ambassador.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘he’s asked for it. The first thing he says when he gets here is that the trade restrictions can take effect against our medicines without waiting for the grace period —’
‘That wasn’t exactly —’
‘Then he meets with the Islamists while his Congress is accusing us of discriminating against the Copts and his administration is planning to bomb Iraq again —’
‘Why are you so embattled?’ he asks.
Khadra comes in with the tea tray. She throws the edge of her tarha over her hand before she shakes Tareq’s hand.
‘Marhab ya Basha. You’ve brought light to the village.’
‘It’s lit by its people, ya sett Khadra. And how are you and how are all the people?’
‘El-hamdu-l-Illah, they kiss your hands and pray for you.’
‘Nobody’s bothering you?’
She laughs. ‘Nobody dares come near us.’
‘And how’s the school?’
‘Working. And your young men are correct to the limits of correctness.’
‘And the kids are studying?’
‘They’re studying, ya Basha.’
‘Good. Tell them to get smart. The country needs people to develop it.’
‘We’ll tell them, ya Basha,’ she laughs. ‘Do you want anything else?’
‘No, thank you,’ I say, ‘but I’ll need you in a little while.’
‘I’m staying,’ she says.
‘So,’ Tareq says when she’s out of the room and I am pouring his tea, ‘tell me. How long are you going to stay here? Seriously.’
‘I’ll stay till I’ve finished my — finished what I’m doing.’
‘Those papers of your grandmother’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it a good story?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘How long?’
‘I don’t know. I like it here. I’m comfortable here.’
‘Why particularly?’
I look at him. ‘In Cairo, I’m in my flat. And all this big stuff is happening and I feel I should do something about it but I can’t. Here it’s manageable. So tell me I’m naive.’
‘A small oasis. A stable island in a sea of change. Is that what you think?’ He sits back and smiles at me.
‘Have you been to your place?’ I ask.
‘Yes.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘I’m still thinking.’
‘Tareq, would you turn people off the land?’
‘Yes, and burn their crops too.’
‘Are you serious?’
He sits up, annoyed. ‘No, I’m not. But you take everything so much to heart. If land is to be viable, it has to pay.’
‘Yes, but can’t it pay just a little? Why does it have to keep paying more and more? I don’t understand all this growth business — surely growth can’t be infinite, can it?’
‘Look,’ he says, ‘I’ll make you a deal. I won’t hire our cousins if you’ll come to Greece with me for a week.’
‘What?’
He looks at me.
‘You can stuff your land,’ I say. ‘Tie it up with ribbon and hand it over to the Israelis for free if you like.’
‘You are beautiful,’ he says.
‘Stop it,’ I say.
‘No, truly. Look I haven’t come here to quarrel with you. I won’t hire them if it means that much to you. I’ll find someone else. Amal?’ His eyes are gentle. ‘I came to see how you were, and if you needed anything. And because I missed you.’ He leans forward and puts out his hand. ‘So can we be friends?’ When I hesitate he says, ‘It’s all right. I know Khadra is in the kitchen.’
Cairo
1 October 1910
Dear Sir Charles
,
We are returned from Abu Qir very brown and healthy and quite renewed. It is such a beautiful place with white sands and the water so clear you can see the lines that separate each shade of colour, from the palest green by the sand to the profound blue of the far distance
.
We spent the entire month of Ramadan there and it was quite beautiful to sit down to our simple iftar just as the sun completed its descent into the sea. I was put in mind of that journey I made — so many years ago — into the Sinai, living so close to Nature that everything you do is determined by her and each passing minute is felt rather than made use of
.
I thought of you often, for it seemed to me that the peace and wholesomeness of the air could not but be of benefit to you. I still wish you could be persuaded —
How often, I think, has Anna wished to bring everyone she loves together under one roof? For almost ten years now she has thrown herself into her Egyptian life, but in several early letters to Caroline Bourke she has repeated her invitation to come to Cairo, and in her letters to Sir Charles that invitation is almost a constant refrain. Here in Tawasi, I reflect on my
English life and I find myself wondering if there is some sense in which this, Anna’s Egyptian life, will only be fully real to her once it has been linked with her older one, witnessed by someone she has known and cared for from her earliest days? She never says this, or even hints at it, in letters or in her journal. In Egypt she met a man she could love and married him, she had his child, she found a place within his family. She also found a cause. But she cannot speak her own language, cannot see her own people — and they cannot, or will not, see her. Does this cast a doubt over her life — make it seem provisional? And is this part of the reason why she adopts Egypt’s cause with a more and more relentless fervour?
Cairo
16 November 1910
Dear James
,
Mr Rothstein’s book — which we have just received — is excellent and shows a complete understanding of how matters stand here in Egypt. His discussion of the land of the Delta being ruined by overwatering should give pause to the most fulsome in praise of Cromer’s Public Works. We shall have it translated into Arabic, and even if it contains nothing that is new to the Egyptians, it should serve to remind them that not all Englishmen are their enemies. Keir Hardie’s declaration for ‘Evacuation and Revolution’ at the Brussels Congress has given us much heart — but it remains to be seen whether he takes up Egypt’s cause in the House
.
Shukri Bey al-Asali is involved in a great campaign in Palestine to prevent some 2400 acres of prime land adjacent to his estates in Nazareth and Jenin being sold to the Palestine Land Development Company. The vendor, Elias Sursuq, a Syrian Christian, is a great friend of the Mutasarrif of Beirut, who has jurisdiction over the entire district, and Shukri Bey has therefore had the Police raiding his house more than once
.
Police raids are an experience that I have been spared, thank God. As my husband has chosen not to take up membership of al-Hizb al-Watani, we are not subject to the raids and arrests
that beleaguer our friends who are Members. Any action against our house would of necessity be a specific one, and since Sharif Basha is meticulous in doing everything according to Law — and Law still rules in Egypt — we are, I believe, safe on that front
.
Dear James, I read my letter and for a moment I wonder at myself and at the distance I have travelled since those quiet years in England. I wonder, what if Edward had not gone to the Soudan? What if Sir Charles had not come to Egypt in ‘82 and so impressed me with his stories? How much is our life governed by the lives and past actions of others? But I shall not tire you with these thoughts. They are more suited to a fireside chat, and that is something we are not likely to enjoy for some time -although I do yet hope that all my husband’s and others’ work should not go unrewarded and that by doubling and redoubling our efforts we shall indeed see the day when we all breathe a freer air —
As Anna lifts her eyes from the letter, I see Mabrouka come into the haramlek.
‘You will make yourself blind with all this writing,’ Mabrouka scolds. ‘Blind,’ she repeats, shaking an admonishing finger. ‘May evil stay outside and far away. What’s all this learning useful for? You and Sett Layla, always writing, writing. Does anyone eat this writing or drink it? Does it bring up the children or plant joy in any heart?’
AT THE SAME TIME OUR
concern was growing for the situation in the Holy Land. The victory of Japan over Russia in
‘05
— a victory in which Egypt, or the Arab countries in general, rejoiced as showing that an Oriental nation could repulse the attack of a European one — that victory, or rather the Russian defeat and the persecution that followed it, had caused a great new wave of some
100,000
Russian Jews to descend on Palestine. And although half of them left again, the remaining
50,000
needed land to settle. After Herzl’s death the new leadership of the Zionists was younger and more aggressive.
Weizmann declared that although it was necessary for the Zionists to keep their case before the world, the Charter they sought would be worth nothing unless they had already settled large portions of the land. Their policy would be immigration, colonisation, and the education of their own people in their ideals. Our friends and family in Palestine were living in the midst of this. They fought each instance of land transfer, but the decision was always in the hands of the Government in Istanbul, and the Turks needed money.
Towards the end of
1910
, when the people of the Hauran rose up against the Turks, complaining of the Capitulations and of the failure of the Government to protect them in the face of the Zionists’ activities, and the Turkish Government sent Sami Pasha al-Faruqi to quell them, our cousin Shukri Bey al-Asali wrote an Open Letter to Sami Pasha describing how the Palestine Office targets prime land and organises its purchase by the Land Development Company on behalf of the Settlers, the funds being loaned at
1
per cent by the Anglo-Levantine Banking Company. How a condition of the purchase is that the land can never be sold or rented to a Muslim or a Christian. How the Settlers never mix with the Nationals or buy goods from them, but in each village and colony they set up their own central committee and school. He wrote that they fly their own flag and have their own anthem and their own postal service. They do not become Ottoman subjects but turn to their own Consuls for all their affairs. They teach their children martial arts and fill their houses with weapons and Martini rifles. Is it any wonder that the villagers are fearful and the notables disturbed?
This letter, and my brother’s introduction to it, I translated into French and Anna into English, and we sent it to Mr James Barrington to use his good offices to get it published in the West.