In Their Father's Country Read online

  Claire barely managed to stop herself from blurting out, ‘But that is not my Letitia Graziano; it must be another Letitia Graziano,’ for even in the state of confusion in which the young man’s statement had thrown her, she gathered that it was her Letitia Graziano, and that she now held the key to the mystery of the obituary that had so puzzled her at the time of her father’s death. A trite and obvious mystery: Letitia Graziano was not Selim Sahli’s wife, or their marriage had been irregular in some way.

  The first page in the file confirmed to Claire that this Letitia Graziano was her mother: same birth date and same parents.

  Claire abruptly closed the thick file and got up.

  ‘You’re not going to look at it?’ the young man asked, disappointed.

  ‘Not today’, she said, ‘I really am in a hurry. But I’ll come back. I’ll definitely come back to look at it, now that I know it’s here.’

  ‘The other employee who works here might be reluctant to show it to you. She can be difficult.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Claire said. ‘I’ll be back.’

  After she was gone, whistling a sentimental tune, the young man decided that it was unusual for such an attractive woman to be so low-key.

  Claire walked home slowly, thinking that she had done the right thing not to pry more deeply into her mother’s life. There would have been something unsavory about it while her mother lay in bed, ill. Maybe later, but not now. The possibility that she and Gabrielle might be Roberto Goldini’s daughters – and not Selim Sahli’s – crossed her mind; it left her more curious than upset. Should she be telling Gabrielle about her discovery? Probably not, she concluded. Gabrielle would take it hard.

  What Claire could not fathom was why her mother had not made up some story about her past – any story – as opposed to keeping mum about it, as she had all those years. She found this blanket of silence inexplicable.

  Surely her father would have known that there was something murky about her mother’s past for why else had he accepted – perhaps even encouraged – her being so silent about it? Had he actually known about Roberto Goldoni’s existence?

  Probably out of respect for their older brother, family solidarity and to protect her and Gabrielle, whatever her uncles and aunt knew, they had kept to themselves. And yet, in a memorable scene, when she was considering leaving Alexandre, her Uncle Yussef had seemed on the verge of revealing something to her, saying that, if she was so willing to flout social conventions, maybe he should be telling her a story he was not sure she would want to hear. Shaken, she had nevertheless replied that she would not be bullied. On her way out of his office, she had wondered whether he had been about to tell her that her parents were not married. It all came back to her now: the scene, her uncle’s threat and her speculation. She had entertained that possibility, but rejected it in favor of the hypothesis that they had married after Gabrielle’s birth. That Gabrielle’s baptism was a few days after her fourth birthday – unusually late – seemed to her, at the time, to support the hypothesis.

  Still walking slowly, Claire recalled the few summers her mother had agreed to accompany her father on his trips to Europe, taking her and Gabrielle along. Her mother was never satisfied with the hotels, no matter how good. She seemed content when they first set foot in their rooms, but the next day or the day after, she would begin finding fault with the hotel: the restaurant was too noisy, the rooms too drafty or too hot, the cleaning staff not conscientious enough. It would not take long before she suggested trying another hotel. So the trips meant to give them pleasure – her father loved traveling and his enthusiasm was contagious – would end up being stressful for the four of them.

  One summer, they were in Venice at the Hotel Danieli. The day after their arrival, her mother had observed over dinner that the staff were not so friendly, causing her father to lose his legendary calm and nearly shout, ‘But Letitia, of what importance is this? We’re in Italy! In Venice! Isn’t this what counts?’ Her mother had said, apologetically, ‘I’m sorry Selim, but you know me, I’m only comfortable between my own walls. I’m nervous when I travel. I cannot seem to help it.’ And he had said, his tone back to normal, ‘When I’m in Italy, I feel especially close to you.’ Claire still vividly remembered that exchange and feeling equally sorry for both.

  It was during that summer that her mother had bought herself, in Paris, a dress for Yussef Sahli’s wedding. The wedding promised to be the social event of the season in Cairo. Her father had been eager for all four of them to search for something in the city’s leading fashion houses. The one dress that immediately took Letitia’s fancy – empire-style yet with a modest décolleté – was two-layered and made of blue gauze and beige lace. To wear it well a woman had to be as delicate as her. ‘With this dress, hardly any jewelry is needed,’ Letitia had remarked when trying it on, in front of her admiring family.

  ‘Surely, a little something though,’ Selim had suggested.

  ‘It has to be little or else it will detract from the dress,’ she had said, causing them both to laugh. Then, she, normally quite restrained, had pirouetted across the room.

  At the wedding, eleven-year-old Gabrielle would stand proudly by her mother’s side, basking in the compliments attracted by the dress. All excited, she had asked her mother, ‘At your wedding, Mother, what sort of dresses did women wear?’ Instead of answering, Letitia had drawn Gabrielle’s and Claire’s attention to the bride’s sister. ‘What do you think of her dress?’ she had asked them. ‘I like yours better,’ Gabrielle had said, in the best of dispositions towards her mother. This scene too, Claire remembered well. To wear with the dress, her father had given her mother a diamond pendant bearing the inscription, ‘More than yesterday, less than tomorrow.’

  Passing again by the newspaper vendor, Claire nodded for the second time to his wife now suckling her baby. ‘But Yasmine,’ she heard the husband protest, ‘that baby has had more than enough! Does he really need to be fed every half hour?’ So the woman’s name was Yasmine. Claire felt something akin to embarrassment that this woman, with whom she had exchanged greetings over the course of much of their lives, had been for her a face without a name.

  Further down the midan, around the barracks, there was no sign of demonstrations.

  As she approached the marble fountain at the entrance of her building, Claire was greeted effusively by one of the doormen. Because her Uncle Yussef owned the building, the doormen tended to be overzealous in her presence.

  The doorman opened the elevator for Claire. A young man followed her.

  ‘Where to, God willing?’ the doorman growled at the young man.

  Claire picked up some hesitation in the man’s voice when he answered, ‘The eighth floor.’

  ‘To see whom?’ the doorman shouted.

  ‘My cousin Magdi,’ the young man said, this time with more self-assurance.

  The doorman closed the elevator door, mumbling, ‘Which Magdi? There are several Magdis in the building.’

  Claire lived on the fourth floor. The elevator was slow. By the time it reached the first floor, the young man had unbuttoned his fly and exposed himself.

  Not a word, he said.

  Not a word, she said.

  Turning sideways, she pretended to look at herself in the mirror. Revulsion – not fear – was what she felt. She could have yelled for the doorman who would have heard her. She did not yell. All she did was keep her eyes fixed on the mirror.

  When the elevator stopped on the fourth floor, the young man opened the elevator door and held it for Claire. She presumed that he had re-buttoned his fly. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  The absurdity of her ‘Thank you’ struck her only once she was out of the elevator.

  Her mother was dozing by the time she was back home.

  ‘She has been humming in her sleep,’ Om Batta told Claire.

  Om Batta gone, Claire got a shoebox down from the top of a large armoire in her bedroom. Upon moving in with her, her mother had
entrusted her with it saying, ‘I give it to you and not to Gabrielle because she believes in getting rid of things, anything that causes clutter. You like to hang on to things.’

  Later that day, before going to bed, Claire took a small stack of letters out of the shoebox. The letters, from her father to her mother, were written while he was in Europe for treatment. She had glanced at them a while back, though without particular interest. Now she meant to look for some mention of, or allusion to, her mother’s life with Roberto Goldoni. She did have some qualms about reading their correspondence – the same sort that had kept her from looking at the file at the consulate. But this time her curiosity prevailed.

  She read each letter – seventeen in all. Nothing in them pointed to the existence of a Roberto Goldoni.

  In the letters, her father addressed her mother as ‘Darling Letitia’, or as ‘My sweet little wife’, ‘My darling wife’, or ‘My very cherished wife’. He referred to her and Gabrielle as ‘our darling daughters’, ‘our precious ones’, or ‘our devilish little ones!’ He often ended his letters by signing ‘Your loving husband.’

  Might he have been using these terms in a broad sense, wanting to reassure his partner that, to him, they were husband and wife, no matter what? Was this how she was to interpret, for example, a letter sent from Vittel in August 1913, in which he was chiding Letitia for having concealed from him that Gabrielle was sick? He wrote in that letter:

  My darling Letitia,

  You are not a child; I am not one either. You and I have reached an age where subterfuges are quite unnecessary. Furthermore, husband and wife should hide nothing from each other, particularly where their children are concerned. An hour before the boat left, when it would have been very easy for me to disembark, I received a telegram from you assuring me that Gabrielle was doing well. That telegram accomplished its purpose: when the ship sailed, my mind was at rest. Then Zaki arrived in Vittel. He informed me that Gabrielle was still running a high fever when he left and the doctor had been seeing her every day. You imagine my state! I then received a letter from Naum confirming what Zaki said. So I sent you the two telegrams to which you responded by trying to reassure me, but are you giving me the whole picture? I come back to what I said at the beginning of this letter. We are neither children nor strangers to each other. You should have let me know, the morning of my departure, that our child was still sick. I would have returned home. I would have wanted to! Now tell me the truth, has Gabrielle fully recovered? If there is any doubt, send me a telegram.

  I fear you don’t fully appreciate how much each one of you means to me though you ought to. You ought to know you occupy a pre-eminent place in your husband’s heart. How could you not after our twelve years of living side by side, tasting the bitterness and sweetness of life ...

  Please, do tell me the truth – by telegram if need be. I beg you to.

  Zaki said the doctor recommends you go to Alexandria for a few days with the children. I see no reason for you not to go, although, knowing you, you might find the choice of a hotel daunting. If you decide to go, I can tell Yussef to book hotel rooms, if that’s what you would like.

  I hate being so cut off from you and the children. I feel lonely no matter how many people I meet and how pleasant their company is.

  Your loving but worried

  Selim

  Claire read that letter several times, looking for some hidden meaning. None jumped at her.

  At the bottom of the shoebox she found a passport of her mother’s, which she had missed last time she looked. The passport, issued in Constantinople in October 1901, was valid for three years and was provided for the purpose of allowing Letitia – who was twenty-two at the time – to travel to Piraeus. Stamped in the passport was a visa for Cairo, issued in May 1902.

  Claire had no idea that her mother had spent time in Constantinople. Written in 1913, her father’s letter from Vittel had him and her mother already living together in 1901 since he referred to their having lived together for twelve years. Yet, according to Letitia’s passport, she was in Constantinople in 1901. Was it there then – and not in Venice – that she met Selim? It could not have been in Egypt, her visa for Cairo having been issued in 1902. Did Selim make a mistake about the number of years they had been living together? He was a very precise man though.

  Claire gave up trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The sequence of events did suggest, however, that she and Gabrielle were Selim Sahli’s daughters since Selim and Letitia had apparently been living together long before Gabrielle was born.

  Claire’s other finds in the shoebox were two photos: one of her mother’s father signed ‘To my darling daughter, Letitia.’ The photo showed a man with a graying beard but a youthful and lively expression, wearing a military uniform and a cap on which a red cross was sewn, from which Claire deduced that he might have been a medical officer. The other photo was of an adolescent boy, around fifteen or sixteen, in a stylish suit. Fair and blue-eyed, the boy looked quite formal; he was wearing a cravat and the corner of a white handkerchief showed from the pocket of his suit jacket. Her mother’s brother? Roberto Goldoni?

  She was studying that picture when Alexandre, just back from another late meeting with her Uncle Yussef barged into her room, looking worried. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘your mother seems to be having difficulties breathing. I was going to the kitchen to get myself a drink of water when I heard her breathing hard. You ought to call the doctor first thing in the morning.’

  Letitia’s breathing was irregular; she seemed to be gasping for breath. Claire pulled an armchair close to the couch and sat up with her all night long.

  Early on in the night, Letitia asked Claire whether Osta Osman had sent them dried dates from Nubia, as had become his custom in the early fall. Then, much later, she murmured twice, ‘What a complicated life.’

  As the night progressed, Claire would relive the moments she and Gabrielle had spent with their father the day he died. And though she loved her mother, she was beset with the same thought that had so troubled her in the wake of her father’s death: if a choice had to be made, he was the one who should have lived. Twenty-two years later, Claire reached that same conclusion, with more sadness, yet, in a way, more detachment, than she had as a young girl.

  Dawn came; her mother’s breathing was still labored and she was sweating.

  ‘Mother,’ Claire said softly, ‘what would you think of spending a few days in the hospital? They would check you out thoroughly.’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I won’t go to the hospital. Please, Claire, keep me here.’ Then, she said, ‘When the time comes – very soon I hope – I want no obituary notice.’

  Letitia went downhill fast.

  The two doctors were called again. They seemed perplexed. ‘It could be pneumonia,’ each said in a tone that failed to inspire Claire with confidence.

  A bone specialist sent by Bella’s husband came. He looked preoccupied after examining Letitia. Out in the hallway, he said to Claire and Gabrielle, ‘You should have called me earlier, although I’m not sure that it would have made much difference.’

  ‘But what happened, doctor? She wasn’t well, but she wasn’t so bad either,’ Gabrielle asked. The specialist gave her a look that put her on the defensive. ‘She really wasn’t so bad,’ Gabrielle repeated.

  Gazing at her, the specialist stated, ‘I’m not a believer in putting on kid gloves to talk to the families of my patients. It’s a cancer that has metastasized.’

  Flustered, Gabrielle said, ‘We had no idea, doctor! No idea! The doctors who have been seeing her never mentioned that possibility.’

  Shaking his head, the specialist said, ‘Mistakes are made. A diagnosis is never a sure thing. I may be wrong. The next few days will be telling. At this stage, the important thing is to minimize her discomfort. I suggest strong sedatives.’

  ‘Even though she’s so frail?’ Gabrielle exclaimed, her question more a protest than a quer
y.

  ‘I don’t want her to suffer. I am all for strong sedatives,’ Claire said, ignoring her sister’s objections.

  ‘Strong sedatives might kill her,’ Gabrielle bellowed and stormed out of the hallway.

  Shifting from cold and impersonal to warm, the specialist adopted a fatherly tone. ‘It will take a little while for your sister to digest what’s happening. Her reaction is not uncommon.’

  After he was gone, Claire found Gabrielle on the balcony.

  ‘I should have been more vigilant. I blame myself for not having done more,’ Claire told her sister.

  ‘I’ll spend the night here. We can take turns sitting up with her,’ Gabrielle stated in an unusually subdued voice. She suggested, ‘Tomorrow we should try to find a nurse. I’ll call the French and Italian hospitals. They might know of someone willing to do night shifts.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Claire said.

  ‘Do you want Nicolas to fetch Simone from Constance’s place? She could spend a few nights at our place. Aida has been clamoring for her.’

  ‘It would upset Constance,’ Claire said. ‘You know how much she loves to have Simone and Aida spend time at her place.’

  Gabrielle shrugged. ‘You’re far too accommodating of Constance,’ she said.

  ‘Constance does not have an easy life. If she gets some pleasure out of looking after Simone, I see no reason to deny her that pleasure.’

  ‘Except that it gives her reasons to meddle in affairs that are not hers.’

  ‘It’s not so bad, really,’ Claire stated.

  ‘As you please, then!’ Gabrielle said curtly.

  Within a few hours of the specialist’s visit, Letitia stopped talking altogether. She seemed lucid, responded to questions, nodding and shaking her head for ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ but she would not speak. She was awake much of the time. Claire gave her some sedatives, though less than the dose prescribed. When she asked whether she was in much discomfort, Letitia gestured with her hand, ‘so-so.’