Places where homosexuals meet are like hashish cafes and gambling dens in that their patrons belong to all social levels and are of varying ages. You find among them skilled workers and professionals, young people and old, all united by their homosexuality. By the same token, homosexuals, like burglars, pickpockets, and all other groups outside the laws and norms of society, have created for themselves a special language that enables them to understand one another when among strangers. Thus, they call a passive homosexual a “kudyana” and give him a girl’s name by which he is known among them, such as Souad, Angie, Fatma, and so on. They call an active homosexual a “barghal,” and if he is ignorant and simple, they call him a “rough barghal.” They call male-to-male sex a “hook-up.” They make themselves known to one another and hold secret conversations by means of hand movements. Thus, if one of them takes the other’s hand and strokes his wrist with his finger while shaking it, that means that he desires him, and if a man brings two fingers together and moves them while talking to someone, this means that he is inviting his interlocutor to have sex, and if he points to his heart with one finger, it means that his lover has sole possession of his heart, and so on.
Just as Aziz the Englishman looks out for the comfort and good cheer of the Chez Nous patrons, so by the same token he permits them no indecent behavior. As the night and the patrons’ indulgence in drink progress, their voices grow louder, rise in pitch, and interrupt one another, for the desire to talk takes possession of them, as happens in all bars. The drunkards at Chez Nous, however, fall prey to a combination of lust and intoxication, exchanging endearments and dirty jokes, and one of them will sometimes stretch out his fingers to caress his friend’s body — at which point, Aziz the Englishman intervenes at once, using every means to re-impose order, starting with a polite whisper and ending with a threat to throw the delinquent customer out of the bar. Often the Englishman gets so excited that his face turns red while he berates the homosexual whose lust has been aroused, saying, “Listen. As long as you’re at my place, behave yourself. If you fancy your friend that much, get up and go off with him, but don’t you lay a hand on him in this bar!”
The Englishman’s sternness here does not stem from any concern for morality of course but from calculations of profit and loss, since plainclothes officers often visit the bar. True, they satisfy themselves with a quick glance from a distance and don’t disturb the patrons at all (thanks to the large bribes they receive), but if they were to witness any scandalous act there, they would make a huge fuss, since that would be their opportunity to blackmail the Englishman into paying even more.
A little before midnight, the door of the bar opened and Hatim Rasheed appeared with a dark-complexioned young man in his twenties wearing inexpensive clothes, his hair cropped like a soldier’s. The people in the bar were drunk, shouting and singing loudly. All the same, as soon as Hatim entered, their racket diminished and they took to observing him with curiosity and a certain awe. They knew that he was a kudyana, but a forbidding natural reserve prevented them from acting familiarly with him and even the most impudent and obscene of the customers could do no other than treat him with respect.
There were a number of reasons for this. Hatim Rasheed is a well-known journalist and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Le Caire , which comes out in Cairo in French. He is an aristocrat of ancient lineage whose mother was French and whose father was Dr. Hassan Rasheed, the famous jurist and dean of the College of Law in the 1950s. In addition, Hatim Rasheed is a conservative homosexual, if that is the right expression: he does not sacrifice his dignity, put powder on his face, or stoop to using provocative ways as do many kudyanas. In appearance and behavior he always chooses a skillful compromise between elegance and femininity. Tonight, for instance, he is wearing a dark wine-red suit and has knotted around his slender neck a yellow scarf, most of which he has tucked under his pink, natural-silk shirt, the two ends of the latter’s broad collar flopping over the front of his jacket. With his smart clothes, svelte figure, and fine French features, he would look like a scintillating movie star were it not for the wrinkles that his riotous life has left on his face and that sad, mysterious, gloomy look that often haunts the faces of homosexuals.
Aziz the Englishman went toward him to welcome him and Hatim shook his hand affectionately, gesturing gracefully toward his young friend and saying, “My friend Abd Rabbuh, who’s doing his military service in Central Security.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Aziz, smiling and looking the strong, muscular young man over. Then he led his two guests to a quiet table at the end of the bar and took their orders — gin and tonic for Hatim, an imported beer for Abd Rabbuh, and some hot hors d’œuvres. Gradually, the customers lost interest in them and resumed their talk and raucous laughter.
The two friends appeared to be engrossed in a long and wearisome argument, Hatim speaking in a low voice and looking at his friend as though trying to convince him of something, Abd Rabbuh listening unmoved and then replying vehemently. Hatim would remain silent for a moment, his head bowed, then resume the attempt. The conversation went on this way for almost half an hour, during which the two companions drank two bottles of beer and three glasses of gin, and at the end of which Hatim leaned his back once more against the back of the seat and directed a penetrating glance at Abduh.
“That’s your last word?”
Abduh replied in a loud voice, the alcohol having gone quickly to his head, “Yes!”
“Abduh, come with me tonight and we’ll work things out in the morning.”
“No.”
“Please, Abduh.”
“No.”
“Very well. Can we work things out quietly? None of that quick temper of yours!” whispered Hatim winningly, touching with his fingers his friend’s huge hand as it lay on the table. This insistence seemed to exasperate Abduh who let out his breath in annoyance and said, “I told you I can’t stay with you tonight. I was late three times last week because of you. The officer will refer me for disciplining.”
“Don’t worry! I’ve found someone who can put in a good word for you with the officer.”
“Ouff!” screamed Abduh with annoyance, pushing the beer glass with his hand so that it fell over with a ringing crash. Then he got up, directed an angry look at Hatim, and rushed to the exit. Hatim pulled some notes out of his wallet, threw them on the table, and hurried after his friend. For a few moments, silence reigned in the bar. Then the drunken comments rang out:
“A barghal with attitude, me boys!”
“Pity the one who loves and can’t get no satisfaction!”
“What to do, Honey, now you done used up all my money?”
The men laughed uproariously and burst enthusiastically and with resonant voices into a round of indecent songs, so that Aziz the Englishman was obliged to intervene to restore order.
Like most Egyptians from the countryside, Muhammad el Sayed, cook’s assistant at the Automobile Club, had suffered from bilharzia, which he contracted early on in life and which had led to inflammation and failure of the liver by the time he reached fifty. Busayna, his eldest daughter, remembers well the day in Ramadan when, after the family had eaten its breakfast meal in their small apartment with its two rooms and a latrine on the roof of the Yacoubian Building and her father had gone to perform the evening prayer, they suddenly heard the sound of some thing heavy falling to the ground. Busayna remembers too her mother’s agonized scream, “Go help your father!” They all ran to him — Busayna, Sawsan, Fatin, and little Mustafa. Their father was lying on the bed in his white gallabiya, his body completely still and his face a dull blue. Once they had called the ambulance and the raw young doctor had made a quick examination and announced the sad news, the girls let out piercing screams and their mother started slapping hard at her face, keeping it up till she fell to the floor.