Hajj Abdel ’Alim asks: “Did you read Fikry Abaza? He’s demanding a tax increase on the rich, limits on the monarchy, redistribution of land, and a war on inflation.”
Sheikh Fadhl comments: “Calling for limits on land ownership is sacrilegious. Verily, the Sheikh of Al Azhar himself issued a fatwa saying so.” The neighborhood sheikh cuts him off: “Let’s get off politics, please. Have you heard the latest joke? It goes that the Heliopolis tram has two lines. One stops at Manshiyat al Bakry terminal and the other at Manshiyat al Boozem terminal. One day a girl with huge breasts gets on and asks the ticket collector if it stops at Manshiyat al Bakry. He stares at her breasts and says: ‘No, we go to Manshiyat al Boozem and we stop there.’ ”
Everyone laughs except for father. He pushes to his feet and excuses himself, then walks out. I ask him when we get to our quarter what the joke meant and why everyone laughed. He doesn’t answer. I ask him: “What does the neighborhood sheikh do?”
“He sits for an hour every day at the police station notarizing witness statements and personal papers for the people of the quarter.”
“What’s his salary for doing that?”
“He doesn’t get a salary. He takes tips from the people. It comes to a tidy sum.”
I ask as we go into our house: “How old is mama?”
He answers me sharply: “Twenty-six.”
~ ~ ~
We get off tram number three at its last stop at Abbassiya Square. We take the white tram that goes toward Heliopolis. We head out alongside the English army barracks. Trees line the way on either side. Daylight is about to disappear. A military hospitaclass="underline" wooden balconies along a two-story building.
We exit the tram at the last station in Al-Ismailiya Square. A coffeehouse surrounded by glass. An old Armenian man pushes around a cart with a pianola. A skating rink. The dark street is lined by houses with walled-in gardens. The scent of jasmine. A closed metal door has a chain and padlock hanging down. We go in from a side door. A passage paved with colored tiles. We walk up wide marble steps. The door at the top of the stairs is closed. It is only used in the summer. We knock on the door next to it. Saadiya, the wife of the doorman, opens. Her body is thin and her face pale. We are greeted by Uncle Fahmi, my sister’s husband: “Welcome! Welcome! You’re brightening up the place.” He is tall and broad and wears a thick, checkered woolen robe. His cigarette is in his hand. He works as an accountant in a foreign company. He is full of energy as he leads us to the terrace room on the east side. It has a wooden floor. Father takes off his overcoat. Uncle Fahmi takes it from him. We sit down on a couch facing the door. There is a metal table in front of us with a closed backgammon set on top of it.
Nabila comes to join us. She’s my half-sister. Her body is thin like mine with long smooth hair. She wears a flannel robe and a pair of pink house slippers with embroidered cloth flowers on their tops. Thick white socks show inside them. She is holding a pair of fingernail clippers. She kisses father on the cheek and he answers with a noisy kiss. She screams with laughter: “Your moustache is prickly.” She sits next to him on the other side and continues clipping her nails. She is short-sighted and has to bend her head over.
Father asks after Showqi and Shareen. My sister says that they are at Samira’s. Her husband sits in the chair in front of us. He lifts the cover of the backgammon set. My sister says to him: “Let him catch his breath first.” He smiles carefully and looks at father with narrowed eyes. He passes his hand over his short moustache, then takes out a metal cigarette case from the pocket of his robe. It’s the Three Fives brand. He opens it and takes out a cigarette. He lights it with a flat lighter. His fingers are thick with round and carefully trimmed nails and yellow, nicotine-stained tips.
Father asks: “Is that a new lighter?”
“A Ronson. Press it once and it lights, then goes out by itself.”
He reaches his right arm across the side of the chair carefully and flicks his cigarette ash. My sister notices what he does and says sharply: “Where’s the ashtray?” He gets up in a rush without losing his fixed smile: “Yes, madam. As you say, madam.” He grabs an ashtray from on top of a small table with thin gilded legs. He sets it next to the backgammon set. He looks at himself in a round mirror on the opposite wall. He straightens the patch of hair on his head with his left hand. My sister puts down her nail clippers and takes up a comb, then drags it through her long smooth hair.
Uncle Fahmi takes a careful sideways look at my sister: “White or black, Khalil Bey?” Father adjusts himself in his seat, lights his black cigarette, takes a puff on it, and sets it down on the edge of the ashtray. He throws the dice. He leans forward to see what he has. He keeps me back with his arm as he says: “Black, just like my luck.”
Saadiya brings a tray of green tea. Uncle Fahmi offers us a square box made of tin. I take a piece of chocolate out of it that is about the size of a key lime. I unwrap its silver foil. I unfold the paper strip inside that tells your fortune and read: “O you night owl.” Father wads up his paper and throws it in the ashtray. I take it and unfold it: “Certain success in what you are planning.”
My sister flips through Al Ahram. She says she wants to see Vivian Leigh in the movie Lady Hamilton.
I steal away to the door leading out of the room. To the right, a wall separates the kitchen from the parlor. The sounds of Saadiya’s movements come from the other side of it. To the left there’s a door leading to the living room. A dining table between two huge sideboards with a rectangular mirror hanging over it. A large Grundig radio. I walk around the table to the guest room. Its door is closed. I peek through the keyhole. In the darkness, the frame of the doorway leading to the veranda appears. I go around to the bedroom. I open the door and go in. A wide dresser has a headboard made up of three linked mirrors. Next to it is a wooden coat rack covered with clean white cloth. A bed with brass legs. Its bedspread has a lace cover like the one we had in our old house. I head for the mirror next to it. There’s a shelf at the bottom of it filled with perfume bottles and jars of cream: Chanel Nº5, Cologne, Atkinson, Max Factor, and a blue bottle like the one my mother had. I touch the bottles and smell their caps.
I go out and close the door softly. I move on to the children’s room. I open the door. Two beds facing each other with a small desk next to each. On both there is a colored pen case with a sliding cover and a container holding pens, erasers, and pencil sharpeners. A wide dresser. Everything is organized and clean. A colored cardboard box sits on top of the dresser. Sister Nabila brings it down and sets it on the rug. She takes several metal sticks out of it. She sets them one after the other to form a circle. She puts the train carriages on top of it. A warning light, two dips in the track, then the station. A staircase with small steps. All the parts are made of shiny colors. There’s not a scratch on it. She winds its spring and the train fires out and makes its way around the track while blowing out steam. No touching allowed. The spring is wound again. After two or three rounds, she says: “Enough.” She puts everything back into the box and hides it away above the dresser.