5

MY FATHER, HIS WIFE, AND I were invited to dinner at the Mena House with some family friends.

I saw him there, having dinner with a family we knew. He was sitting next to the family’s daughter, a girl around my age, blond like me, though she was less beautiful.

He wasn’t young. He was, as I came to know later, thirty-six, three or four years younger than my father. Unlike my father, his skin was brown, the color of medium-rare steak. His hair was black and wavy, and he didn’t pay much attention to brushing it. The most notable parts of his face were his eyes and lips. His small eyes emitted a razor-like intelligence. Because they were so sharp, they almost hid the goodness of his heart and could give someone who didn’t know him the impression that he was dangerous. His lips were sensual. I couldn’t look at them for long without thinking about kissing them!

I knew who he was. At any rate, I knew his name. I’d seen him before, on Sidi Bishr beach in Alexandria. He’d spend all day under an umbrella reading a book, lifting his eyes every page or two to glance at the flocks of girls, and then going back to his book. He’d then get up from under the umbrella and wander around to his friends’ cabins. Every cabin welcomed him, since he was well known. He was from an important family, rich, seductive . . . and a bachelor.

We girls were walking in groups, each one almost blocking the promenade along the row of cabins. We knew the spot of every young man on the beach. We knew that it was so-and-so’s cabin after two steps and someone else’s cabin after another three steps. We’d cross the entire beach until we passed all the young men, every girl with us making sure to pass by the young man she’d chosen for herself.

We didn’t look directly at anyone. But we knew young men—I mean the interesting young men—by the sound of their footsteps behind us. We knew that this was Ali’s cabin, this was Mohamed’s, and that Samir’s. We felt the looks directed at us without needing to turn toward them. Each of us had a sixth sense we’d use to pick up their footsteps and looks without us letting on.

None of us young girls tried to pick up Mustafa’s steps or looks. He was a distant hope for us, and none of us dared dream of him as our own.

Despite that, Mustafa once gave me a look. Just one, he didn’t repeat it, as if he’d had his fill of me with that single look, or as if I didn’t deserve more than one.

This look remained suspended in my imagination for a number of days. Then I forgot about it.

Until I saw him sitting having dinner at the Mena House with this family, next to that girl.

He talked to her for so long that I thought their conversation would never end. She kept laughing as if he were tickling her heart. Here and there, he let out shaky laughs with her as if he were a young child whose lungs weren’t strong enough to bear much laughing.

He then got up to dance with her.

I noticed his arm around her back, rising until his palm fell on her shoulder. I noticed that he was pressing her to him until her chest disappeared in his, his nose plunged into the folds of her hair. He then moved her in slow, short, gentle steps as if he were swimming with her in the air.

My blood boiled.

I was furious.

I asked my father to get up to dance with me. I directed my father so we got near them. I looked at him. I looked at him with all of my eyes. I looked at him as if I were calling to him.

He lifted his head and gave me a single look from behind her back. Then he plunged his nose back into the folds of her hair.

Just one look.

As if he still could get his fill of me with a single look, or as if I still wasn’t worth more than one.

I was even more irate.

I started staring at the girl. What did she have that I didn’t? If she was beautiful, I was more so. If I was so young that I didn’t deserve more than this look from him, she was around my age, maybe even younger.

I found myself making a decision.

I decided I’d take him from her.

I decided I’d take him for myself.

We got up to go. We passed by his table on our way out. I looked at him again. I stared right at him. But he didn’t turn to look at me, or even notice me. Instead, he just kept on talking with her, while everyone was saying goodbye to me, some looking at me with glances of desire and some with sorrow.

I became more insistent on my decision.

I’ll take him no matter the price.

I’ll punish him for ignoring me.

I found myself pursing my lips as if collecting my resolve, as if finalizing the decision that I’d made with an official seal.

When I went to bed, I didn’t sleep. But I didn’t try to eavesdrop on the whispers of my father and his wife next door. It was the first night in six months that I didn’t go out in bare feet to steal something that wasn’t mine. I stayed in bed with my eyes wide open, searching my mind for the details of the plan by which I’d reach him. I kept going until I pictured myself with him. I saw him bow down at my feet. I saw myself point to him. He got closer to me, kissed my cheek and lips, and enveloped me in his arms, whispering in my ear the same words that my father whispered to his wife.

I looked at the phonebook. I started flipping through it impatiently until I found his name and number.

I hesitated a little before dialing.

I didn’t know exactly what I’d say or how I’d start talking with him—my first real conversation with a man.

I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut as if collecting my strength. I then took the receiver and spun the dial. I heard the sound of the phone ringing like light knocks on my heart. A rough voice answered.

“Is Mustafa there?” I asked, making my voice as sweet as possible.

“He’s sleeping,” the rough voice replied curtly.

“Merci,” I said quickly.

I dropped the receiver as if I were tossing something burning, like someone who’d been shocked with electricity.

I looked at the clock.

It was still eight in the morning.

I smiled. He had the right to sleep until eight, especially after his night out yesterday. I got up to wander around the house, doing nothing special. I didn’t pay attention to the things I normally noticed every morning. I wasn’t preoccupied by my father’s happiness or his singing in the shower. The activity of my father’s wife didn’t annoy me. I didn’t notice her at all. What filled my head and body was the new world whose door I was trying to knock on, a world whose throne Mustafa was sitting on . . . and I was sitting next to him on the same throne.

It was nine o’clock when I spun the dial again, as if I were turning years of my life.

The same rough voice responded.

“Is Mustafa awake?” I asked.

“He’s in the shower,” the voice responded curtly. “Who do I tell him is calling?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, disappointment dripping from my words. “I’ll call back.”

I hung up.

At ten o’clock, I picked up the receiver and called again.

“He’s gone out,” the same rough voice responded curtly.

I slammed the receiver down so hard that I almost smashed it. I felt I’d been insulted and my dignity ripped to shreds.

How could he not wait for me? How could he go out before I talked with him?

But he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know that I want to talk to him.

I was able to convince myself to calm down.

I spent the morning waiting for lunchtime, when I tried calling him again, thinking I’d find him at home then. But he wasn’t there. I was confused, unable to do anything except stare at the telephone as if I were trying to talk to it. I couldn’t eat lunch and I refused to leave the house. I holed myself up in my room with the phone on my bed, spinning the dial every hour or so.

Finally, at seven in the evening, I heard his voice.

He didn’t even say hello.

“Yes?” he said in a lazy voice, as if the strings of his voice were all tenor.

“Mustafa?” I asked, getting control of my nerves so the trembling of my heart didn’t come through in my voice.

“Yes.”

“I’m someone . . .” I fell silent, as if waiting for him to take over the conversation. But he didn’t say a word. He was quiet for a long time.

“Who?” he asked finally, in a voice even lazier.

“Someone,” I said, making my voice more delicate. “You don’t want to talk to someone?”

“No.”

“But I’m sure you’d like to talk to me!” I said flirtatiously.

“Why?” he said, throwing the burden of conversation back onto me.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” I said provocatively.

“Fine,” he said coldly. “Call me soon enough.”

I stiffened at his coldness.

“No,” I said sharply. “I’ll talk to you now, whether you like it or not!”

“No,” he said, still colder than ice. “I don’t like it.”

“But I want to talk to you now!” I said like a little girl stamping her foot on the ground, insisting on what she wants.

“Go ahead, talk,” he said.

I was silent. I didn’t know what to say.

He kept quiet for a bit. Then he asked, “Is someone forcing you?”

This opened a door for conversation.

“Like who?” I asked awkwardly.

“How would I know?”

“Of course, you know a lot of women, and any one of them could push me to you.”

“Not a lot . . .”

“Yesterday, for example, who were you with?”

“Yesterday? I wasn’t with anyone.”

“Liar! Who you were dancing with yesterday at the Mena House?”

“Who do you mean?” he asked innocently.

“Nagla,” I said, as if revealing his secret.

He let out a broken chuckle like that of a child whose lungs aren’t strong enough to give a full laugh.

“My dear, shame on you. She’s like my daughter!”

“You do all that with your daughter? You dance with her like that?”

“I swear to you, I always dance like that.” he said, still laughing.

“And you’re swearing to me too?” I joked.

“To everyone dear to me. All of them, I swear. But please tell me, who are you?”

“I’m someone who likes you.”

“So, you saw me and you know who I am?” he asked, trying to persuade me to reveal myself.

“Yes.”

“And it’s not shameful for you to talk to someone you know but who doesn’t know you? That’s selfish.”

“Why selfish? You’re talking to me just like I’m talking to you.”

“The difference is that you’re talking to someone you know—someone you can picture before you as you’re holding the phone. But I’m talking to a voice in thin air—a voice without a body. The whole time I’m talking with you, I’m asking myself who you are. Are you beautiful or not? Who made you call me? This is crazy.”

I was almost persuaded to tell him who I was, but I held back.

“Bear with me a little.” .

“For who?” he said nervously. “For the air that’s talking to me?”

“I’m not air. I’m someone who won’t regret the day she met you.”

“So you won’t tell me who you are?”

“Later. After I’m reassured.”

“About what?”

“That you deserve me.”

“Empty words, my dear,” he said sharply. “Someone’s sitting in his house peacefully and a girl comes like a voice in thin air to test him, to see if he deserves her or not! Has anyone told you that I’m lacking women, my dear? Did I ask you to call me?”

“I want it like this,” I cut him off coldly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said mockingly. “I’m at your command. But I just got home. Let me go change and wash up. That way I can be sure that I’m chic and more presentable so I deserve you.”

“I don’t like chic men,” I said, still cold.

“Okay, let me go and dishevel myself a bit.”

“Fine. Au revoir,” I said, laughing. “When do you want me to call back?”

“Whenever you want.”

“So, when?”

“Half an hour.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I put the receiver down gently. I felt that I was flying into the new world I’d imagined. I was walking with my arm in Mustafa’s toward the throne we’d sit on together. I didn’t pay attention to the triviality of our conversation in which I appeared like a child who hadn’t talked with a man before. The feeling of the adventure that I’d embarked on and that filled my entire being was enough for me to open the door for him.

Exactly half an hour later, I lifted the receiver and turned the dial. The rough voice that I hated responded.

“Who do I say is calling, miss?” he said with dry politesse.

“Tell him someone . . .”

“He’s not here, miss.”

I slammed the receiver down as all my dreams collapsed.

I was furious, my blood boiled. But instead of seeking to preserve my dignity and changing my plan, my fire was transformed into stubbornness.

This was the first time that I felt there was a man who didn’t want me and was fleeing from me. But I tried to convince myself: he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know how much he wants me.

I started calling back. I dialed his number dozens of times. Every hour, day and night. Sometimes I’d sneak out of my room at three in the morning and tiptoe over to the phone to call. But I didn’t get through. The servant always answered, asked me my name, and when I told him “someone” or “he knows,” he’d say he wasn’t there.

I started giving myself fake names. I said I was Mervat or Suad or Fatima, but the servant would always make me wait for a moment.

“One minute while I see if he’s here,” he’d say.

Then he’d come back like a torturer to carry out the harsh judgment.

“I’m afraid he’s just gone out.”

I almost went crazy.

There was no other way to get in touch with him besides the phone. But he was driving me crazy. I started calling him more than fifty times a day.

And after five days, I finally got him.

He responded himself—maybe by mistake—and recognized my voice.

“You’ve totally worn me out, my dear,” he said, as if pleading with me. “You’ve worn out my butler too. The whole house. Stop calling, please!”

“You’ve worn me out too, Mustafa,” I said. “Why are you doing that?”

“For heaven’s sake!” he said, as if pulling out his hair. “My dear, did I do something to you? You must be crazy!”

“I’m not crazy, Mustafa,” I said, keeping calm. “If I were crazy, I would have told you who I was the first day.”

I said his name informally as if I’d known him for a long time.

“Okay, listen, sane lady,” he said as if giving me a lesson, “this story of the telephone stopped a long time ago. The world’s changed. Now there are parties, clubs, and social circles for people to get to know each other. It doesn’t make any sense that a girl who shows half her body on the beach hides her name on the phone. People don’t have time for all this hypocrisy anymore. The whole thing doesn’t take more than a few words: ‘I’m so and so, hello! Where are you going today? Such and such place! Okay, I’ll see you there. Great!’”

“So you wanted me to pounce on you at the Mena House?” I asked as if resisting my conviction. “I just say to you, ‘Come and love me’?”

He laughed. “You love me?”

“I don’t know,” I said, fixing my mistake. “That’s not what I meant, but—”

“Since it’s gotten to that point, perhaps you could tell me who you are.”

“No, not today,” I said stubbornly. “I still don’t know if you deserve me.”

“I’ll count to three, and if you don’t tell me who you are, I’ll hang up.”

I was quiet for a bit.

“One.”

“I won’t say.”

“Two.”

“I still won’t say.”

“Three.”

I kept quiet.

He was quiet for a second, and then hung up.

I was terrified. I immediately dialed the number again, like I was drowning, clutching a life jacket.

“Yes!” I heard him scream as if he’d gone crazy.

“I’m Nadia Lutfi,” I said hurriedly. “My father is Ahmed Lutfi. I live in Dokki. I’m tall, beautiful, and blonde. You’ve seen me before and you liked me. Happy now?”

“And when will I see you?” he asked calmly, like he’d gotten an official report that he was sure would arrive.

“Not right now, Mustafa,” I said, as if pleading with him. “Wait a little.”

“I beg you, Nadia,” he said confidently. “If we must meet each other, today is better than tomorrow.”

It was the first time I’d heard him say my name. It felt like the first time I heard my name pronounced from a man’s heart.

“Tomorrow,” I said submissively. “Tomorrow at four thirty.”

“Where?” he asked without showing any happiness.

I thought a little.

“In front of the Furousiya Club,” I said.

“Make it five,” he said.

“No, four thirty,” I said stubbornly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. I could picture a mocking smile of victory on his lips.

“Au revoir,” I said, worn out from my defeat.

“Au revoir,” he said, without trying to prolong the conversation.

He left me to my thoughts.

There weren’t any thoughts, just a thick white cloud through which I could only see blurry images of me and Mustafa in a single frame.

Hours passed as I tried to interpret those images.

Had I made a mistake?

Was I embarking on a new crime?

I didn’t know.

I no longer knew anything about what was going on around me except that I was confused, lost, with an unknown hand pushing me to an unknown fate. I felt that I wanted someone next to me. I wanted someone to guide me, to take my hand and show me the path of protection . . . someone to whom I could confess my confusion, my torture. I couldn’t ask my father for advice, or his wife or my mother, who was oblivious to me. I didn’t have a friend I could entrust my secret to.

I felt lonelier than ever.

I felt that I was alone with Mustafa. But I didn’t know Mustafa or what he could do to me.

I was scared.

I was scared because I felt he was stronger than me, older than me, more experienced, because he was the first person who could destroy a plan I’d made.

My ploy was to let him chase after me, to stir him up so much that I’d divert him from his world. Then I’d decide what I wanted to do with him.

But he had upended the plan, and I had become the one chasing after him. I was the one diverted from my world. He was able to impose his will on me and drag me to meet him after only the second time I spoke to him on the phone. And I didn’t know what he wanted to do to me after that.

I spent the night thinking about breaking my meeting with him.

But I didn’t.

I felt like I wanted to flee from something that I knew was torturing me to something that I didn’t know was torturing me.

I went to meet him with the white fog still filling my head and heart. All I did to get ready was tie my hair up and put on lipstick so I looked older than I was.

I didn’t find him in front of the Furousiya Club.

I purposely went five minutes late but I didn’t find him there.

I decided to leave. I walked away slowly, as if my feet were sticking to the ground.

Then I heard the sound of a car following me. Turning, I saw him in the driver’s seat.

He stopped his car next to me and smiled.

I hated his smile. He was smiling as if he were victorious over me, or maybe I hated myself at that moment since I was the one defeated by him.

He didn’t say anything.

Neither did I.

I went around the front of the car. He opened the door for me and I got in next to him.

“Please drive quickly,” I said as he drove over Galaa Bridge. “Everyone knows me here!”

I lowered my head so none of the Dokki kids would see me.

“Watch out,” he said, looking at me and smiling. “Everyone in the bus next to us can see you trying to hide.”

That was the first thing I heard from him in our first meeting.

What he said made sense, so I sat up without discussion, as if he’d given me an order I couldn’t refuse.

After that, he got me used to thinking that what he said always made sense. He had a smooth, clear logic that you could not help being convinced by. He turned to me as we drove out on Haram Street.

“I’ve seen you before,” he said, looking at me with his dark, narrow eyes that hid the goodness of his heart. “But I didn’t realize you were so young.”

“I’m not young,” I said defensively. “I’m eighteen.” At the time, I was still sixteen.

“How old do you think I am?” he asked, smiling.

“Twenty-five,” I said, hypocrisy dripping from my words.

“I wish,” he said, laughing in self-pity. “I’m thirty-six. Double your age!”

“So what?” I said, trying to make him feel better. “Didn’t our Lord say that man was double woman?”

He let out his high, broken laugh. “Our Lord said, ‘To the man, a portion of two women,’” he said. “That means when I’m thirty-six, I have to go out with two girls, each of them eighteen!”

I laughed with him, and then my laugh trailed off. “So, for example, you’d like to bring Nagla along with me?” I asked bitterly.

“I told you that Nagla is like my daughter,” he snapped. “Her father is my friend. Please believe me.”

I pretended to believe him. But there was always something in my heart that left room for doubt. We reached al-Naziliya.

Throughout the drive, I kept to myself in the corner of the front seat, far from him, near the door, as if I were ready to jump out at any moment. I was looking out the window as I was talking with him, only turning to him now and then as if stealing a glimpse at him. I was afraid. No, not afraid . . . I was frightened of the adventure and I had little confidence in myself. I didn’t know exactly what I’d do. Despite that, I felt I was being driven on a path paved with happiness—a happiness making me forget myself and the evil operating inside me.

He stopped the car on a calm street in al-Naziliya. Then he turned toward me and set his eyes on me.

I didn’t find anything in his look to embarrass me or make me feel ashamed. There wasn’t any desire or sin in his eyes. He didn’t move his eyes to my chest or my thighs. He was only looking at my face. He was looking at it like an artist examining a painting or the face of a model to transfer it to his canvas.

I felt calm before his gaze. I even moved my head so he could see my face from different angles.

“I wish you’d let your hair down,” he said without taking his eyes off me.

I smiled, then raised my hand to my head and pulled out the pins holding my hair so the two braids fell across my chest.

I didn’t say a word, but I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, turning them red—as if I was going to extremes to please him, as if I was a slave girl showing her beauty to the sultan.

His eyes widened.

“My God!” he sighed.

He reached out and stroked my braids, exactly like my father did. I lowered my head, not saying a word.

“Do you see your cheek bones?” I heard him say. “It’s what all the great artists spend their lives looking for and trying to paint.”

This was a new kind of praise that I hadn’t heard before. Maybe I didn’t understand him, but I understood that he was praising my beauty.

“Merci,” I said shyly.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said, moving his eyes away from me.

I turned to him as if it were my turn to sate myself with his face. I thought he seemed young for his age. I thought we were about the same age.

“You tell me about yourself,” I said. “All I know about you are things to be afraid of.”

He laughed the laugh I loved.

“Look, my dear,” he said, “I . . .”

He didn’t finish, as a group of construction workers had come up to the car. They lingered and started tossing obnoxious comments at us, mixing them with laughs and whistles.

“Do you like that?” he asked with a mocking smile.

“What do these boors have to do with us?” I said.

“It’s not their fault,” he said, as if giving me a lesson. “If people walk by someone beautiful, it’s their right to stand and look at her. If people see a man and a woman sitting in a car parked on the street, it’s their right to stand and look at what they’re doing. The street isn’t yours or mine. It belongs to everyone. Everyone has the right to watch what happens here.”

“Yes,” I said as if convinced, though I wasn’t at all.

“If we don’t want someone to look at us,” Mustafa continued, “we shouldn’t be parked in the street.”

I didn’t respond.

He didn’t continue. Instead, he turned on the ignition and drove away.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked as we got back on Haram Street.

“I think I have to go home. I’m very late,” I lied.

And he believed me.

He drove toward my house slowly, exactly like my father. He was talking so slowly that I felt as if my heart were yearning after every word for another. We didn’t talk about any one thing. As soon as we started talking about something, we found ourselves talking about something else. As if we wanted to jam the conversation of a whole life into a single hour.

He stopped on a side street in Dokki near my house.

“If I call you, will you pick up?” I asked, reaching out to him. “Or will it still be the butler?”

He took my hand gently. “Give it a try,” he said, looking at me like he had the first time, with the look of an artist examining an amazing painting. He turned my hand in his, leaned over, and kissed my palm.

I felt his kiss flow through my veins, reaching every part of my body.

It was the first time a stranger’s mouth had touched any part of me.

I pulled my hand from his as if I were pulling it out of a hot oven. I opened the car door and got out, forgetting to say goodbye. I walked to my house nervously, not daring to turn back. I thought his eyes were following me like the headlamps of a car shining a bright light on my back.

I walked a bit slower when I turned onto the side street leading to my house. A delicious, beautiful feeling started filling my chest. I felt like I was a different person, like I’d grown taller, like I’d become an experienced woman. I now had my own secret, like all the other women with secrets.

I met my father’s wife in the parlor. I looked at her as if I were looking down on her. I felt we’d become equals. She had a man, and now so did I.

“How are you?” I asked, giving her a confident smile as if I’d lifted the formality between us.

“Bonsoir,” she said, noticing the change that happened to me. “Why are you so happy? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s good,” I said with a wide smile.

I didn’t say anything else. I headed toward my room and stopped to open the door to my father’s room.

“Bonsoir, Daddy!” I said happily, trilling in joy.

My father looked at me. He responded to my greeting with his eyes, a smile on his lips. He then went back to reading his book. The smile dropped from my lips at the thought of breaking the news to him that I now had another man.

That evening, I talked to Mustafa on the phone.

I talked with him the next morning, then every morning and every evening. There was nothing in my head, heart, or world except him. My father and his wife didn’t interest me anymore. I didn’t care anymore what he said or what she said, or where they went or when they came back. I was living each day to talk with Mustafa.

I knew exactly when he’d be home. He always answered the phone himself. Whenever we began talking about something, we always found ourselves talking about something else, but we didn’t talk for long. We didn’t talk for hours. Our conversations didn’t last for more than ten minutes. Then I’d feel that I had to hurry to end it. I lived for those ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the evening.

Three days passed without him asking to meet me. I started craving him. My craving began to cross through clouds of doubt. Maybe he didn’t like me. Maybe he thought I was too young. Maybe there was another girl.

“You know, Mustafa,” I said on the fourth day, “Daddy and his wife went out alone yesterday. I could have seen you. I called but I didn’t get you.”

I was lying. I could have concocted a way to meet him, whether my father and his wife went out or not.

“When are they going out again?” he asked in his lazy voice.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” I said impatiently.

“Okay, let’s meet tomorrow,” he said, much more patiently than I.

“Where?”

“I’ll give you the address.”

“Address of what?” I asked, alarmed.

“Of the apartment.”

“No, Mustafa,” I said as if chasing away a ghost. “Impossible. Never.”

“Why?” he asked calmly. “If you want to meet me outside, we could only meet at a café, because a café is the only place where people can sit together outside.”

“No. Impossible. We can meet at the aquarium garden.”

“I’m too old for that, Nadia.”

I was silent. He was reminding me that I was young. “If you like fish,” he said, laughing, “I can buy a couple of pounds and bring them to the apartment for you.”

I didn’t laugh. “But Mustafa,” I said finally, as if throwing myself into the sea.

“But what?”

“Promise you won’t do anything that upsets me,” I said, almost hearing the pounding of my heart.

“I promise.”

The address he gave me wasn’t where he lived.