And indeed, the sun’s rays filtered down among the buildings along the street, slowly scattering golden dust on the face of the deceased. For a moment, it mischievously played upon the smile on the bluing lips. Joseph Hamdi-Ali had found peace.
43. OO HALASNA! AND THAT’S THAT!
Until the results of the autopsy were known, Emilie told whoever would listen that her husband had a heart of steel, that he never complained of pain, and that she couldn’t understand how he, of all people, ended up having a heart attack on the sidewalk in the middle of the night.
The autopsy threw everything into upheaval. The doctors concluded that Joseph Hamdi-Ali fell onto the sidewalk from a height.
“Fell or jumped?”
It’s difficult to recall who asked this question first. At any rate, in the next day’s papers, the possibility of suicide was stated instead as fact.
Hakham Ferrera visited the widow and tried to console her as best he could. There were other esteemed visitors there, among them the Arab officer Nawas, friend of Robby’s family. The rabbi sang Joseph’s praises, calling him a better Jew than many who were born into the faith (suddenly everyone spoke freely of Joseph’s conversion!), sighed and said that the community’s poor would surely feel the absence of Hamdi-Ali. At this assertion, David quickly volunteered to continue in his father’s footsteps and donate two pounds a month. Rabbi Ferrera went on and on but never mentioned the burial. How could he explain such a thing to the family? But then he couldn’t ignore the feelings of an entire community either. Jewish law is unequivocal on this matter — not the matter of conversion, God forbid, but the matter of suicide.
Finally, David raised the subject, asking for the rabbi’s advice about interment. “Papa … will be released today from the …” he swallowed, “morgue.”
There was no getting around it. He had to say something. A man who sentenced himself to death cannot have a Jewish burial. Only outside the cemetery walls. But how to explain this?
The rabbi began speaking at length about burial laws and the needs of the deceased, talking in circles and exhausting his listeners, quoting technicalities from the scriptures, and while he fumbled and avoided any clear statements, it occurred to him to try to persuade the family to bury the man in Cairo. This way, responsibility would be transferred to the local Cairo rabbi, and he would be freed from this difficult decision. But David explained to the rabbi that his father had always wished to be buried in Alexandria. This is where he came when he left Turkey, this is where he converted to Judaism, this is where he married and this is where he wanted to be laid to his final rest.
The rabbi cleared his throat. The wishes of the deceased! What could one say against the explicit wishes of the deceased? Well, let it be, he thought and gathered his courage, and was about to ask the family members to speak with him privately when Emilie suddenly said, “Did you see him when he was found?”
The rabbi was slightly confused. No, he hadn’t seen him.
“He looked like an angel of the Lord,” said Emilie.
The comparison made the wise man uneasy, but this was no time for chastising.
“Isn’t it a miracle, mon cher Hakham, that Joseph’s body remained intact after falling seven stories?”
“Intact?”
“It was as if he’d only lay down to rest for a moment before going on his way.” She burst into tears once more. “God sent the angel Gabriel to help him get there …” This is what Joseph himself had said once, after Leila, in her first, wild days with him, almost threw him off her back.
“Like a parachute,” Victor said, not meaning to be funny, but nevertheless receiving a cruel blow from David.
“Leave the little orphan alone,” Emilie cried, protecting her young son. She clung to him and yelled in Arabic, “Abuk mat, abuk rakh!” Your father’s dead, your father’s gone. Mother and son wept in each other’s arms.
True, Hamdi-Ali’s body did appear whole. The autopsy later revealed that only the skin was untouched. Inside his body, the organs had turned to mush. The doctors were unable to explain it.
Officer Nawas asked again what the police had already inquired about that morning: Had the deceased left a note?
Emilie had found nothing, and neither had David or Victor.
“Suicide victims tend to explain their motives,” Nawas said. “A man doesn’t just jump off the seventh floor out of boredom, having not found a better way to amuse himself. He does this to prove something. Without a note, what is the point of the whole thing?”
“The officer’s right,” said the Hakham, standing up. Why hadn’t he thought of that himself? This gentile, with his mustache and uniform, solved in an instant the riddle that had been preoccupying him. Yosef Ben-Abraham could rest for eternity in a Jewish grave. “Joseph didn’t kill himself, Emilie, I’m sure of it. He went up to the roof to get some fresh air … got dizzy … and … Adonai gives, and Adonai takes away, blessed is the name of the Lord. If he had planned on jumping, would he not leave a note?” He sat down, satisfied and turned to the officer. “Mush keda, ya sidi? Isn’t it so, sir?”
Nawas confirmed the matter with a wide smile, glad to have his version accepted. His friend who was investigating the case would be happy to close the dossier.
“Can the officer make sure that the investigator in charge of this case sends an appropriate message to the press, especially the European press?” asked the rabbi. If even a tiny statement appeared in Le Progrès Egyptien, the paper read by his community, no one would be able to say he’d made an exception for his precious convert. It was a tragic accident, Oo halasna, and that’s that!
Emilie almost smiled with relief.
44. RAIN
The tiny Topolino curled up, asleep, along the sidewalk. The royal family stood beside it. The entire household was bent over in sadness. Four had come there, but only three would leave. The little car would no longer be so cheerfully crowded as it raced down the Cairo-Alexandria road. There would be no more expectation tickling in their fingertips, the expectation of early summer. The sky was cloudy, leaning heavily on the flat roofs of the buildings. It was as if the city had been plagued with the early onset of old age, and a gray murkiness poured over its face. Emilie Hamdi-Ali, a former queen, was plopped over her son’s arm like a tired old sack, hunched over, her life devoid of meaning. Few women in Egypt had a life of their own. Most of them lived the hopes and dreams of their husbands. They’d been trained since childhood to be trusty companions, shadows.
In the gray clouds, the sun looked like an exhausted, pale blotch, too tired to sketch shadows on the sidewalk. Objects seemed scattered pointlessly, with no forethought, like a collage in an illustrated magazine.
The preparations were carried out calmly, in utter silence. Salem carried suitcases and bundles with his usual lassitude, and Badri the doorman and his son did not make too much of an effort, since the young Hawaga Hamdi-Ali was not known to be very generous.
What surprise they all felt then, when at the end of the loading process, David gave each of the three men a whole rial. Salem thought: the Hawaga David is confused with grief. The doorman’s son could not contain his pride. He’d never held such a sum of money in his hand. Twenty piasters! But his joy was short-lived. His father snatched away his reward, and when the child tried to protest, Badri slapped the back of his neck fiercely, and he fell to the sidewalk and burst out crying. Salem pitied the pathetic soul and fished one mil from his pocket to give to the child. He was proud to be able to give, like a true Hawaga. That Salem … he was a special boy. Alert, clever, not too industrious and not too lazy either. Incredibly talented at picking up languages by ear (French, a bit of English and even Ladino), and most of all — self-sufficient, with a world of his own which no one else could enter. Had he been born in a different class, in a different time, he might have made it far. And perhaps he had made it after all? Maybe Salem was one of those whose horizons had been suddenly opened by the Officers’ Revolution? For years, Robby wondered what became of the boy who grew up in his home with him.