“Are you worried about me, mon cher frèrot?” she asked and hugged him. She smelled of perfume mixed with tobacco from Ramzi’s pipe. Suddenly she said, “The Arab was practically drunk with victory. His face shone with sweat, and you know what he did? He rode all the way to the English consul’s loge, to pay respects to his lady, like some Ivanhoe in a knights’ tournament. Then he started doing acrobatics on horseback, like a circus performer — he rode standing up, got off and on the horse while it galloped, and the crowd went mad with excitement, especially the other Arabs. Some of them even started shouting, ‘Maut al yahud! Death to the Jews!’ We were a little scared, but thank God, the voices were few, just a handful of hotheaded young guys, maybe some students from the Muslim Brotherhood. They were shut down immediately. The Chief of Police, Nawas, you know him, the guy who plays belotte with Papa at Café Zisis, stood up and said, ‘Shut your mouths, you dogs sons of dogs, or you’ll get to spend a few weeks in the can!’ They turned quiet right away, like good little boys. Then I saw Nawas go up to Mom, and from his gestures I could tell he was apologizing to her …”
“What? You didn’t sit with Mama and Papa?”
“No. No one knows I was at the race, and neither do you. And just you wait and see what happens if you tell anybody. We got out of there fast and Ramzi drove me home in his car.”
“Ramzi!” called Robby.
“Ramzi is just a chubby guy with a heart of gold. He’s crazy about me. That’s all. He’s no more important to me than David Hamdi-Ali, or any other guy for that matter.” She hugged him to her chest and he blushed.
“So David lost. Lost,” Robby lamented.
“Because I wasn’t serving as his good luck charm,” she said and took off her slip while walking to the bathroom. She grabbed a bathrobe on her way, and her laughter echoed through the long, dark hallway.
24. BABA AU RHUM
By the time the gang arrived it was already dark. Robby’s parents didn’t come with them. They were invited, along with Grandma, to the house of Officer Nawas, for some coffee. The Hamdi-Alis and Murads returned to the house on Rue Delta. A silence of mourning. Joseph sat on one of the chairs in the hall and mumbled to himself, “What humiliation … how dare he? All that wheeling and dealing … he was putting on a show! A show! A masquerade. Shaming my son in front of everybody.” This excitement did not fit the old man’s general calm spirits. His small frame shrank further and he was curled up in his chair like a fetus, trembling in spite of the heavy heat. “I could kill him … kill him …” Suddenly he stood up and took hold of his son’s shoulders. “How could you let him win, ya ibni? How could you let him? Didn’t you think of your father?”
“What’s it got to do with you?” David said, almost choking on the insolence of his own words.
“What’s it got to do with me?” Joseph mumbled, and began tittering nervously, until his titters piled up to form one loud, hoarse peel of laughter.
“Joseph, you aren’t feeling well!” Emilie called out with alarm.
“I feel great, Emilie. I’m as healthy as a horse. I just want to die.” Then he laughed again.
David recuperated from his own words, and was ready to defend himself, but then that jinn, that demon, overtook him again, and he lashed out at his father once more: “I don’t understand why you see it this way, ya baba! It isn’t the end of the world. It’s only sport, a race …” And he turned his back on the man with the ecstasy of revolt.
“Sport. A race,” Joseph repeated with a gloomy whisper. Then he raised his voice, “And life — is life not a game? It’s because of these thoughts of yours, because of this disrespect of yours, that you lost! Because you saw it as a game, not a mission. Your enemy — he was on a mission. He was going on jihad. Jihad. That’s why they were yelling, ‘Maut al yahud!’ The entire thing has become a war of religion, a war of nations. Islam versus Judaism. They were yelling, ‘Death to the Jews.’ What if they decided to slaughter the Jews, what would you say then, David? Would you call that a game too? What would you say? What would you say?”
David was barely listening. He was still recovering from the shock of his own brash words, spoken to his father, and especially by the way the old man seemed to perceive them as legitimate and understandable, and accepted them without consternation, without astonishment, without violence. Suddenly David realized that a new world had opened up to him, and he was intoxicated. Through the twilight of ecstasy he heard himself speak in a different voice, a new voice: “What do you care? You’re not even Jewish!”
“I … I’m not Jewish?” the old man said meekly, pleadingly.
“I love you Mademoiselle Emilie, I love you with all my heart and soul!”—“My parents would never have it, Yusef. Never!”—“But why?”—“Because you aren’t Jewish, Yusef my darling …”
“Come on, what’s the point in pretending?” David was deep in the fever of the stride, bouncing on the saddle, unable to stop. “Everybody knows you’re a Muslim!” he spat, his cheeks flushed with rebellion.
“Besides, we’re leaving Turkey for Alexandria!”—“I’ll follow you wherever you go, my Emilie. We’ll find a rabbi in Alexandria”—“A rabbi?”—“A rabbi, a rabbi to convert me and let’s be done with it!”—“You’re willing to… for me? Oh, Yusef, Yusef!”
“David!” cried Emilie.
Joseph chuckled to himself. So this is what it’s come to — his delicate wife has to defend him against his own son. In the past, Joseph would have beaten his son to a pulp for much smaller offenses. This time he stayed seated, almost laughing, luxuriating in his own impotence.
“Nobody would have slaughtered you, ya baba. You would have yelled ‘Allahu akbar’ and they’d leave you be.”
“This is how you treat us, Yusef my son? Your father, your mother, leaving the religion of your ancestors for a woman? Allah will punish you! Don’t you fear Allah?”—“No, Papa.”—“If you do so you are not my son anymore, Yusef, go. Go to your Jewish woman, and never come back …”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Joseph mumbled in a far-off voice, as if asking with detached curiosity, as if this were an argument for the sake of argument.
“Allah will punish you!”
“Because I’m sick of it! I’m sick of dieting and being afraid. I want to eat, you hear me? I want to eat!” he screamed, and turned to the servant who rushed in at the sound of shouting. “Salem, go to the bakery and bring me half a dozen cakes!”
“Allah will punish you! Allah will punish you!”
“What kind of cakes, ya sidi?” Salem asked quietly and politely, as if not noticing the storm he’d just stepped into.
“Baba au rhum,” spoke the ridiculing voice of Robby’s sister. She appeared in a bathrobe, a towel wrapped around her head like a turban, fresh, her cheeks blushing.
“Baba au rhum, ya sidi?” Salem awaited David’s confirmation.
“No, don’t go, Salem. No! I don’t want cakes. No …” He turned to his father and dropped to his knees, put his head in the man’s lap and called, “Papa, I’m sorry. I’ll stick to a strict diet, I’ll train and next Sunday, I’ll win. I promise you, I’ll win!”
“You have to, ya ibni. You have to win. And you will win! We’ll work on it together, you and I, together, and you’ll be victorious hazben ‘annu! In spite of it all! I’m so tired.” He chuckled with some vindication. “Tired.” Then he got up and went to his room. His eyes reflected an exhaustion beyond words and deeds, and a sort of yearning. You aren’t Jewish. His son said these words to him, clear as day. And what did he do? He laughed. You aren’t Jewish …