In Their Father's Country Page 9

  Gabrielle loved him. He had no doubts about that. But she was neither tender nor nurturing. Even with their daughter Aida, she had few tender impulses. He was more the mother, the one eager to nurse Aida whenever she was ill, leaving work early to check on how she was doing and sitting by her bed late into the night.

  Over the course of their eight years of married life, not only had Nicolas come to accept Gabrielle as she was, he had grown profoundly attached to her. She was stormy but, at the same time, solid and predictable, ‘made all of a piece,’ as Alexandre had observed soon after getting to know the two sisters. There were no uncertainties, no vacillations, no equivocations. Nicolas liked the fact that her face was an open book: you knew where you stood.

  Within a couple of weeks of him taking her out to a dance, a bit on a whim but also because she had the reputation of being an exceptional dancer – that was a good ten years after Alexandre and Claire had eloped – she would make it clear to him that she wanted him for keeps, yet would tolerate no hard drinking, womanizing or even occasional gambling.

  Initially, he had given her no grounds to believe that he would yield to her charm offensive, trumpeting his reluctance to settle down and give up his bachelor lifestyle. But she had pursued him with dogged determination, standing by his convertible, almost every morning, for him to give her a ride to work, then calling him, late at night, to ask him how he had spent his evening. It was her persistence that had, in the end, seduced him. She had made him feel enormously desired. He had realized that, underneath her independent, imperious exterior, she wanted an anchor, a man to lean on, and that realization would gradually awaken in him the desire to provide her with that anchor. At the age of forty-two, shortly before his internment during the war, he had proposed to her when she least expected it: just after she had reproached him with having paid too much attention to a mutual friend at a picnic.

  Ready to relinquish his bachelor freedom, Nicolas dove into married life the way a pearl diver would into turbulent seas: with absolute faith and no hesitation. It was not in his nature to second-guess himself. And he had managed all right. They had managed all right. More than all right, he would say. Their strong physical attraction to one another did not dwindle. Marriage cemented it.

  Like Gabrielle, Nicolas was stubborn and possessive though not mercurial. He kept his cool. He had squarish features and a strong jaw, was tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, swarthy without being suave. One imagined him to be most in his element outdoors. And so he was. He enjoyed hiking, shooting, sailing, cross-country motorcycling, playing a hard game of squash and pitching a tent. He had a practical bent of mind. He sang and danced beautifully, but spoke sparingly. Words were not his thing – neither words nor conversation, that was his brother Alexandre’s domain. Eleven years apart, the two brothers shared only one characteristic: their height. Both were six feet. Fair and wiry, Alexandre had angular features. At ease in a salon, a café or a library, he was lost in front of any mechanical device and, though a great walker, not otherwise athletic. Even in their bad habits, the two brothers differed. Nicolas drank; Alexandre smoked.

  Though so different in character and in their interests, the two brothers were loyal to one another and protective of each other. During Nicolas’s hard-drinking days, Alexandre would tell his brother to drink less, but would silence similar criticism from anyone else. Whenever the subject of Alexandre’s spendthrift ways cropped up, Nicolas would defend his brother, arguing that he spent more on others than on himself, his weakness was his generosity.

  The loyalty between the two brothers would survive Nicolas’s marriage to Gabrielle, by then an unrelenting critic of Alexandre. On the eve of the wedding, she had told Nicolas she had no patience for men like Alexandre, who were unable to provide their wives with material security and had pretensions exceeding what they could deliver.

  Rather than argue with her, Nicolas had simply stated that he could not bear to hear his brother, of whom he was very fond, portrayed in such negative terms, that it hurt him, so could she please keep these thoughts to herself.

  That Gabrielle harbored such negative feelings about his brother did not surprise Nicolas. She had worked hard from a young age, teaching science while studying law at the French School of Law with the view to plead before the mixed courts; her rudimentary Arabic ruled out her arguing cases before the native courts. In 1937, the Montreux Treaty provided for the dissolution of the mixed courts, making her recently acquired degree worthless. The practice of law slipping through her fingers, she carried on teaching and acquired the reputation of being formidably strict and industrious. It was inevitable that Alexandre’s checkered work history and volatile employer relations would irritate Gabrielle, who had worked steadily and conscientiously, doing something she had little passion for. Still, the vehemence of her remarks had disconcerted Nicolas. But he knew her to be extreme in her reactions, so he had put it down to her character.

  Some years later, when, in a fit of exasperation, Alexandre had stomped out of Yussef Sahli’s office, banging the door behind him, and the two men had fallen out for good, Nicolas would have grounds to question whether there was more to Gabrielle’s hostility towards Alexandre. Upon hearing of the row, she had defended her uncle, saying, in Constance’s presence, that Alexandre was quite impossible.

  ‘Well Gabrielle, there was a time – it’s true, a long time ago –when you did not find as many faults with Alexandre as you do now, or else I wouldn’t have caught you once sitting on his lap,’ Constance had interjected angrily, then had left the room just as Gabrielle was stammering, ‘But ... but what ... what exactly are you implying?’

  Nicolas had sought no clarifications, neither from Constance nor from Gabrielle. It was possible, he had silently concluded, that, early on in Alexandre’s and Claire’s marriage, Gabrielle had flirted with Alexandre. Possible too that their flirtation had ended on a rancorous note. Had Claire ever suspected her sister of flirting – perhaps even more than flirting – with her husband? If she had, Nicolas was certain that, in keeping with her character, Claire would have said nothing.

  Like most men, Nicolas admired Claire’s looks. He found her beautiful but also unfathomable and too introspective for his liking. So quite apart from the fact that he had always seen her as his brother’s wife and thus definitely off limits, he was not really touched by her beauty. He reckoned that a man would always be in a state of emotional uncertainty with a woman like her – a state in which he personally would loathe to be. He was the sort of man who, no matter the stakes, would rather lose than be confronted with an equivocal outcome.

  Claire herself had few affinities with Nicolas. She judged him to be dull and too much of a man’s man. But she did think well of him – not least because he was undaunted by Gabrielle. She might have grown to appreciate him more, had she got to know him better. However, the moment she had sensed that her sister was interested in him, knowing how possessive Gabrielle was, she had kept her distance. The last thing she wanted was to become Gabrielle’s rival.

  Told of Nicolas’s health problems (‘Only a bit of an ulcer,’ he had said, omitting to add that the doctor was concerned), Constance and Alexandre immediately began worrying, while Gabrielle appeared almost indifferent, insisting that Nicolas was indestructible.

  For a year or so, except for eliminating spices and liquor from his diet, Nicolas had gone about his life as usual. During that year, Constance would arrive at least twice a week at his place with special dishes she had prepared for him, leading Gabrielle to grumble that all this attention was bound to invite sickness.

  At a party thrown by friends to usher in ’52, Nicolas had sat for much of the evening, dancing only twice and only upon Gabrielle’s insistence. That was unusual for him. At the party-goers’ request, he sung an aria from Aida, at the end of which, heavily pregnant Claire, who had come without Alexandre, thought he seemed exhausted. She had gone up to him to ask him if he was all right. Sounding grateful that she should be inqu
iring, he assured her he was. ‘Ah, there’s Gabrielle dancing’, he had observed wearily. While watching her sister swirl in the arms of one of Nicolas’s friends, Claire found herself thinking a most unpleasant thought: should something happen to Nicolas, she would bear the brunt of her sister’s sorrow. That thought – clear and frightening – had made her tell Nicolas, impulsively and in an intimate tone he was not accustomed to hearing her use, ‘Please do look after yourself. You must!’

  Nodding, he said, ‘You too must look after yourself and you should start thinking of names for the baby. You hesitated so much over Djenane’s name.’ Two years after Yves’s death, Claire had given birth to a baby girl and for two and a half weeks kept changing her mind about the baby’s name. She started out naming her Ada, then decided she liked Ariane better, and eventually settled on Djenane.

  ‘I have been thinking of names,’ Claire said. ‘A lot in fact, but that doesn’t mean I’ll find the decision any easier to make.’ Nicolas smiled at her kindly.

  Neither Claire nor Gabrielle was expecting Yussef Sahli to show up at the French hospital in Abbassiya where Nicolas had been rushed that morning.

  It was a Monday afternoon. Cairenes were still shaken by the preceding week’s events starting Friday in the city of Ismailiya. Suspecting it of collaborating in raids on their garrisons, British soldiers surrounded the Egyptian police force and enjoined the colonel in charge to lay down arms. The Wafdist Minister of Interior ordered his men to resist, so the British opened fire, slaughtering the police force. That night, the Egyptian government would break off diplomatic relations with Britain. The next morning, demonstrators, including policemen, students, Muslim Brothers and communists, would march to the Cabinet offices, demanding arms to fight the British in the Suez Canal. By around noon, a restless group of men had set fire to a cabaret in the heart of Cairo, their anger apparently ignited by the sight of a police officer drinking in the company of a dancer. Around the same time, the Rivoli, a nearby cinema, had gone up in flames; next, it was the Metro cinema; next, the Turf Club; next, Groppi’s, and the Shepheard’s Hotel, and Barclay’s and the French Art Gallery, and Chrysler’s, and large department stores but also smaller businesses as well as buildings on Suleiman Pasha, Kasr al-Nil, Malika Farida and Fuad Streets. By the end of the day, several hundred buildings had been destroyed or damaged. An unspecified number of people had died, including, in the Turf Club fire, the estranged British husband of one of Claire’s friends.

  After these tumultuous days, two questions were on everybody’s mind: who was behind the burning of Cairo, and why had the army been sent to restore order in the city only late in the afternoon on Saturday?

  Yussef Sahli was lucky. None of the buildings he owned was damaged. Saturday morning, on edge because of a business deal he was about to conclude, he had arrived at his office on Suleiman Pasha Street at 7:30 a.m., earlier than usual. News of the trouble in the streets had reached him around midday. From then on, he would remain glued to the telephone, trying to ascertain whether it was safe for him to return to his home in Garden City.

  Despite their dramatic falling out a couple of months earlier, he had called Alexandre, asking him, without so much as a ‘hello,’ to call immediately his close friend Maher, the son of an ex-prime minister, to find out what was going on.

  Semi-flattered that Yussef Sahli should have thought of getting in touch with him, yet taking umbrage at his imperious tone, Alexandre had replied tersely that Maher was in fact about to pick him up as they were going to visit Nicolas who was feeling poorly; if there was any noteworthy news, he would try to call him back but not to count on it, for he had other things on his mind.

  ‘And what’s wrong with Nicolas?’ Yussef had asked in a surly way.

  ‘Surely you know that he has been suffering from ulcers,’ Alexandre said, not hiding his indignation.

  ‘A day like today would give ulcers to anybody,’ Yussef shouted before hanging up.

  Gathered in Nicolas’s room, Gabrielle, Constance and Alexandre were waiting for the surgeon scheduled to operate on Nicolas the next day. Her lips pursed, her eyebrows arched, Constance sat on the edge of her chair. Alexandre and Gabrielle moved restlessly around the room. Claire alternated standing with sitting as her back was sore. The most relaxed-looking was Nicolas, though his olive complexion had a grayish tinge and his eyes were dim.

  ‘Well, the good news is that the bank has not been damaged,’ Claire was saying just as her uncle opened the door. Nicolas was a senior accountant at that bank.

  ‘I admire you for trying to find some good news. Egypt’s reputation is in shambles. Absolute shambles. We’ll all pay a price, even those of us who have not suffered immediate losses.’ Yussef growled while walking towards Nicolas’s bedside.

  As he passed Claire, he patted her cheek, ‘You’re huge,’ he remarked, ‘could it be twins?’

  Standing by the bed, he asked Nicolas, ‘And how is our patient?’ then, turning towards Gabrielle, he said, grinning, ‘I’m sure he can count on you not to overreact,’ then, to Constance, he declared, ‘Your brother is in good hands. The hospital has an excellent reputation.’

  To Alexandre, he said nothing.

  Yussef Sahli was, by that stage, a man in his late sixties, round, bald, almost always flustered, and made yet more frenetic and overbearing by the knowledge that stared him every day, right in the face, that he was on the downward slope of his business career, well past its pinnacle.

  ‘So Gabrielle’, he almost screamed, ‘are you going to defend the rabble, as you did in ’46 when they surrounded the British barracks?’

  The regard in which Gabrielle held her uncle had not faded over the years. Her instinct was to avoid crossing swords with him. Still, on that subject, she was not willing to recant. She challenged him but tried not to sound antagonistic, ‘But Uncle, in ’46, the demonstrators were simply asking for their country’s independence and were killed for that. They did not burn, they did not loot. You cannot compare the two situations.’

  Yussef shrugged. For the first time since walking into the room, he looked at Alexandre, whom he asked brusquely, ‘So what does your friend Maher have to say about this crazy business? Who was behind it? What does his father have to say? You never called me back.’

  Alexandre took his time to answer before saying nonchalantly, ‘Oh, his father is old and ailing and is no longer in the loop.’

  ‘He was prime minister.’ Yussef was exasperated.

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ Alexandre said.

  ‘Well, what does Maher think?’ Yussef shouted.

  ‘Maher merely reported the rumors that the king and the British may have had something to do with what happened.’

  Both Claire and Gabrielle quickly looked at Alexandre. Claire wondered whether he was trying to provoke her uncle, or whether he actually lent some credence to those rumors. Gabrielle, who was quite anti-British, wished Alexandre would say more but did not want to make that apparent; she never wanted to show too much interest in anything he had to say.

  Yussef Sahli was neither for, nor against the British; neither for, nor against the king. He did not particularly mind the Muslim Brothers, perhaps because he did not take them seriously. Anti-communist, however, he definitely was. ‘Nonsense,’ he cried out. ‘Unruly mobs manipulated by a bunch of opportunists. Communists I bet.’

  Nicolas smiled.

  Alexandre chuckled then said, ‘Perhaps. Mind you, events like those have a way of turning people like us into ardent anti-nationalists, all to the benefit of the British and the king! Besides, there’s no doubt that the Wafd has been enormously hurt by the turn of events. They’re the main losers. They’re out of power, and now the king thinks that he has the upper hand.’

  ‘Leave the poor king out of that,’ Constance told her brother. She felt allegiance to the royal family as the king’s mother had been a neighbor of theirs when they were children.

  ‘Your friend Maher is circulating the stupidest o
f rumors,’ Yussef said. ‘What would he know anyway? He paints but what else does he do? Absolutely nothing! I heard that he was planning on having an exhibition at the French Gallery. He was damn lucky that his paintings were not there when the gallery went up in flames.’

  ‘First, he is not circulating rumors, merely reporting them,’ Alexandre said. ‘Besides, is it such a far-fetched theory? After all, it’s very possible that the Greenshirts were behind what happened on Saturday. You must have heard that their top man, Ahmad Hussein, was seen downtown around noon on Saturday. It’s common knowledge that he has been cozying up to the palace, getting money to stir the people against the Wafd. We cannot rule out the palace being behind some of this.’

  Yussef shook his head and said with scorn, ‘I’m sorry if I cannot understand the difference between circulating rumors and reporting them.’ Then he looked at Claire and asked her, ‘And you, what do you think? Or are you too pregnant to think?’

  Alexandre frowned.

  ‘On that score, you’re right, Uncle. I am far too tired to think about anything,’ Claire said.

  ‘I think that we may be tiring Nicolas,’ Constance said. ‘Perhaps some of us ought to go to the visitors’ room.’

  ‘No need to,’ Nicolas said, ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I think that the British ...’ Gabrielle began saying only to be interrupted by her uncle.

  ‘Thoughts. Thoughts. Thoughts. It’s facts we need, not thoughts,’ Yussef said dismissively.

  Gabrielle fell silent.

  ‘Why don’t you explain the events to us then?’ Alexandre said.

  ‘Uncle Yussef is right. All this speculation leads nowhere,’ Gabrielle countered.

  Vexed, Alexandre threw at her, ‘But you yourself were about to offer us some theory.’