That entire time the children, elsewhere, exchange impressions and experiences from the schools they go to during the dreary winter months. Suddenly they each become vehement patriots of their schools. From here the road carries directly to the eternal question: Which city is neater, Cairo or Alexandria? To Victor’s argument that Cairo is the capital, Robby quips that Alexandria is the second largest port in the Mediterranean and the largest in the Middle East. And if, as Victor says, Cairo is larger and has more inhabitants, “Alex,” Robby claims, “is more cultured!”
Victor protests bitterly, this is completely baseless, but Robby insists: “Besides, Alexandria has the sea, and what does Cairo have? Desert!”
“Pyramids! One of the seven wonders of the world!”
“And we have the lighthouse on Pharos Island, that’s also one of the seven wonders!”
“But the lighthouse was destroyed and drowned!”
“If you have it so good, why do you spend the summer here? Who asked you to come?”
This cuts Victor’s arguments short and he answers hypocritically, “It is really silly, but what can I do? My parents make me come here.”
Robby looks at him with disbelief and sets him up, “Then let’s run to the beach!”
“Let’s!” Victor responds with an enthusiasm that negates his fabricated indifference toward Alexandria’s charms. They step out of their pants and run around in their underwear, looking for bathing suits. On the way they are submerged by a deluge of rebukes from the grownups, and Victor collects a dry slap to the back of the head, but what dam can ever stop the raging Nile during the high tide of June?
At the doorway, Robby says, “See? If we were in Cairo we could only dream of the sea right now!”
They slam the door on the morality of grownups, who claim that it isn’t nice to run down the street bare-foot, in their bathing suits, and that their feet are going to burn on the scalding asphalt, and that they shouldn’t stay in the sun too long because they’ll get overheated, and that they shouldn’t go in the water right after eating because they’ll have cramps, and that they should wipe themselves dry when they come out of the water, and that they shouldn’t drink cold water or soda with ice cubes when they’re sweating, and that, and that, and that … They roll down the stairs, pushing each other, and their laughter echoes all through the building. Now that the threat of his brother is removed, Victor goes wild. Robby still behaves in a civilized manner. But when the doorman greets them with saccharine politeness, they stick out their tongue at him. The doorman’s son quickly comes out to defend his father’s honor, spitting an Arabic curse word at them, something to do with their mothers. Only after some time, in Israel, where this curse involving one’s mother’s reproductive organs would be integrated into Hebrew slang, Robby would be able to figure out the first part of the expression, as well. But they are too busy to mind some little Abdu, too preoccupied to try and punch him. Onward to the boardwalk, towels flapping and bare feet skipping over the scorching asphalt.
Robby thinks, how good it would be if I had a brother my age, like this Victor!
8. KUDJOOCOME
Siesta in Alexandria. An hour of siesta in the midst of an Alexandrian summer, a Mediterranean summer, a summer of the early 1950s. An hour in which everybody floats above ground, in which every word is uttered as a whisper, so as not to desecrate the serenity of the moment. Only the antique grandfather clock in the darkened hall keeps swinging its pendulum patiently, and every fifteen minutes it erupts in sounds from a faraway world, laden with yearning: doyng-doyng-doyng!
“Finally!” says Robby, who is not among the sleepers. Meaning, finally, it’s three o’clock. “Kudjoocome! Kudjoocome!” the voice echoes throughout the apartment.
“Kudjoocome”—a mispronunciation of “Could you come?” and in Robby’s family, a sacred ceremony not to be missed, an hour of pure happiness, caressed by the afternoon sun.
They emerge from every corner of the house and convene in the parents’ bedroom, around the wide bed with its rumpled summer comforters. A ceremony of familial privacy. No guest shall dare enter this holy place. Once, Victor Hamdi-Ali tried to sneak into the room, and was immediately pushed out shamefully by Grandma and Robby.
Robby’s father is already sitting on the bed, reclined against an abundance of pillows, leisurely and distractedly flipping through an Émile Zola novel. It’s a 1925 edition, and the pages are already yellowing, their edges crumbling.
Robby’s mother is in the room too, wearing a robe over her nightgown, her straight black hair running along her pure ivory face, tainted only by its rosy cheeks.
Robby puts away his coin collection, inherited from his brothers who migrated to Israel a year ago, and runs into the room, bouncing on the bed and wrapping his arms around his father’s neck to get a kiss that smells of cologne and Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes. Robby immediately spots the aforementioned surprise: a long envelope, no doubt a letter from his brothers. The letter, indeed, is from Israel, but the envelope and the stamps are from France. Three weeks ago, maybe a month, his brothers wrote to their parents in Alexandria, but sent the letter to the town of Périgueux in France, to the house of Suzette Charnière. They met Suzette a year prior, during a training session run by the Jewish Agency on a farm in France. The training was meant to prepare the young men for agricultural life in Israel, but was mostly spent running around with local girls. Suzette fell head over heels for Robby’s middle brother, and even after he left her all by her lonesome and went to Israel, she still hoped he would return and marry her. Whether out of practical calculations or pure altruism, she agreed to mediate between her beloved and his relatives, and never even asked Robby’s brother to pay for the postage. At first, Robby’s brother added to the Alexandrian letter a long letter for Suzette herself. Later on, the letters addressed to her grew shorter, and their passion dwindled, and finally the letters to the parents arrived on their own. Suzette swallowed the insult and continued to serve her role dutifully, as was fitting of a true Christian.
Robby yearns to rip the stamps off the envelope, but, seeing his father’s stern expression, holds his horses. Order must be maintained in the Kudjoocome ritual.
Grandma joins the meeting, commenting on the hope-lessly slow servants: “Haraganos primos, first-class bums.”
Silence. Robby watches the daggers of sunlight invading between the shutters. In a moment, Salem will enter, pushing out the shutters to the expanses of air and light. The sun will burst inside with a lighthearted frivolity, and the ceremony will begin. This is all contingent on Robby’s sister joining them on time.
“Where’s Miss Anabella?” Father asks, using his nickname for Robby’s sister.
“She’s always late!” Robby tries to incite his father.
“It takes her forever to grace us with her presence, esta cocona!” Grandma adds her own fuel to the fire.
Steps approach. They all exhale, prepared to torment the tardy party with their righteous rebukes, and Grandma already begins spewing her share, but they are disappointed when it is only Salem the servant who enters the room. He carries a tray of small cups of Greek coffee and glasses of ice water with pearls of condensation. Finding his masters laughing, he joins the hoopla, not knowing what it is about, but trusting his heart that playing along will win him his masters’ favors. He hands out coffee and water by way of a little dance, while Grandma tells him off, saying that his twirls will cause the coffee to lose its kaimak, that layer of brown foam, without which the beverage can barely be called coffee. He immediately puts on an expression of grave servitude, continuing his waiter’s ballet in moderato.