Chapter Twenty-four

At her desk, Layla rested her head in her palms. Her eyes were bright, gazing into the distance; her ribs could barely contain that astonishing fire that, so long absent, she had thought would never return. She had been pacing the room, pacing, pacing, yet the flames still burned, the embers glowed, still called her to cry, laugh, scream, jump; to kiss someone, anyone, to talk with someone, with anyone and everyone she could find.

She heard a murmur that grew until it was like the crashing of waves at the shore. She ran to the window and flung it wide open. She longed to be part of one of these human waves that passed below, rejoicing and triumphant, along the boulevard. She began pacing the room again, not knowing what to do with the tumultuous fire burning in her chest. She turned back to her desk and took out a piece of paper and a pen. Without stopping to reflect on what she would say, she started writing to her brother.

 

Dear Mahmud,

For a long time, a very long time, I have not felt what I felt tonight as I listened to Gamal Abd al-Nasser’s speech. I felt strong, I felt as if I could do anything, anything at all. Do you understand me? And the feelings of pride that had left me—had forgotten me—have come back, and a sense of belonging, too. Mahmud, I’m not alone any more. In that moment I felt I was right there, with the thousands rejoicing in Alexandria, and with you, and Sanaa, and with . . . .

Even my father seems no longer a stranger. He almost hugged me as we listened to the speech. Can you imagine that? All of us—even my father—all of us have nationalized the Canal. And the pride that abandoned me—I have it back again, and the feeling of wonder, because there is still strength deep inside me, alive, even if it has been imprisoned for so long.

 

Layla stopped for a moment, tears blocking her vision.

 

Is this the miracle you promised me? The miracle that would shake all of us, would make us shake off our shrouds and rise, free and strong? Tell me that it is that miracle, please, Mahmud, please tell me that . . . .

 

No, this was not the miracle. In Mahmud’s view, “the miracle will happen when we can protect the Canal, when we can preserve all the gains we have made as a nation. When we rid ourselves of our passivity, and stand firm together until death—firm against imperialism.”

That was out of the question, maintained Ramzi. Nationalizing the Canal had rallied all the forces of imperialism against Egypt, at a time when Egypt was too weak to confront them. The balance of power is not in our favor. We could have waited. We could have waited until things were set up more propitiously, we should not have been in such a hurry. Only a very fine line separates courage from stupidity.

“But we’re not standing alone,” said Layla. “All the free peoples in the world are standing with us, and the balance of power—” Ramzi cut her off roughly. It had been a long time since she had opened her mouth to voice an opinion that challenged his. And here she was now, talking confidently, brashly, as if she understood world issues better than he did. Layla bit on her lower lip and was silent. Ramzi exchanged a few words with her father. She seized the opportunity afforded by the pause in conversation, leaning toward Ramzi as she spoke.

“If people live their whole life scared, measuring every step, thinking about the consequences, civilization would never have been built, nothing would have ever been invented, and people would not have demanded their freedom and taken it. Nothing good would have been achieved, ever.”

Ramzi’s face tightened, and then returned to its usual grim set. He spoke sarcastically after settling back. “Such eloquence—why didn’t you pass with high honors?”

That caught Layla unprepared; her face flushed with anger. She had not anticipated that Ramzi would resort to such low tricks to avoid the discussion. But he had, so that he would win. There was nothing he would not do to win! Even in a simple conversation.

He was upset, riled not because she had passed ‘acceptably’ but because Sanaa had passed with a final mark of ‘very good’—Sanaa, whose failure he had predicted, swearing in the crudest way that she would not succeed. Now, Ramzi shot Layla an angry look. He had given her everything a man could give a woman—his name, his position, his property. He had given her the respect of others; she had been a nobody, but everyone now respected her on the grounds that she was his future wife. He had given her an organized, secure life, free of anxiety; and he had given her his books, his advice, his instructions and guidance. Everything, everything a man could give to a woman, and a professor to his student! And despite it all she had let a smutty girl like Sanaa surpass her.

“I don’t understand what you didn’t have,” he said maliciously. “You had all the help in the world. Everything to make it easier. Everything.”

Layla bent toward him, her face rosy, her eyes dancing, as if she were about to jump off a high diving board and the adventurousness of it bewitched and frightened her at the same time.

“Would you like to know what it is I didn’t have?”

But her father intervened hurriedly in the conversation and spoiled her sudden exuberance. He wanted to know what influence one’s final evaluation had on appointment to a teaching position. Would it mean trouble in finding a place for Layla in one of Cairo’s secondary schools?

Yes, trouble was a real possibility. In fact, getting Layla a post in Cairo would have been close to impossible were it not that Ramzi—and praise be to God—had a lot of influence in the Ministry of Education. He knew all the deputies personally, and they all yearned for an opportunity to be at his service. He could even get an appointment to see the minister at any time. He really did not like to use his influence. He had always made his own way, cut his own path; he had always prevailed over others by means of his natural superiority. But in this case there was no help for it.

Ramzi took Layla to meet the General Inspector for Social Studies, who had jurisdiction over the government’s girls’ schools. Layla found herself in a vast office. Behind the huge desk in the center of the room sat a woman, probably in her fifties, her silver hair pulled back to reveal a lofty, pale forehead tinged by the wrinkles of age. Layla sat on the edge of the settee that faced the desk at a distance. Ramzi leaned back and threw one leg over the other as he explained the purpose of their visit.

The inspector listened without looking at Ramzi, a light smile on her handsome face, as if her mind were on an entirely different subject that had nothing to do with the man sitting before her—one leg flung over the other as if he were in his own home—nothing to do with the subject that so passionately engaged him. Without a word she gazed at Layla and held out a folded piece of paper. A bit embarrassed, Layla jumped up and walked over to the inspector. As she stopped across from the woman at the desk, the inspector smiled at her as if she had just recognized her and spoke gently. She had a very sympathetic look. “Write out the request, Layla.” She waved at a table at the other end of the room, still smiling.

With a firm hand Layla took the request form, as if that confident, serene smile had lent her a measure of its own assured calmness. With firm steps she went over to the table and sat to write the requested information, far from Ramzi.

Name, address, diploma, final mark, requested position, location.

Ramzi did not stop talking. Cairo, it was absolutely necessary that Layla be posted in Cairo. No, he could not be satisfied with a mere attempt. He must have a clear promise from the inspector. If that were not forthcoming he would be obliged to fall back on his influence. The ministry’s deputies were all anxious to be of help. The minister personally would not fail to grant such a request, promptly, and . . . Layla stopped at the line where she was to write a location: her first choice, her second choice. Ramzi was still talking. Cairo, it had to be Cairo. Cairo was where his work was located, and thus it must be where his future wife was appointed. The inspector must promise him that Layla would be appointed in Cairo. There was no alternative to Cairo.

The inspector was smiling her light smile, gazing at nothing, as if she were thinking about a completely different subject that had no link to this man who threatened and cajoled. A pleasant subject.

Layla bent over the request and where she was to stipulate her first choice she wrote ‘Port Said.’ Under second choice she wrote ‘Port Said.’ She folded the paper and jumped up, and at the same moment Ramzi got to his feet. Layla strode over to the inspector’s desk. Ramzi met her halfway, blocking her path to the desk. A tremor of fear swept through Layla, and she almost capitulated to Ramzi’s outstretched hand. But she looked at the serene smile that seemed to wrap her in its warmth. She gave the request to the inspector and let out her breath.

Ramzi addressed the inspector, barely suppressing his irritation. “Allow me to see the request, to check whether it is completely filled out or not.” Layla’s heart dropped and she closed her eyes. When she opened them the inspector was still smiling and gazing again into the distance. She drummed her fingers on the request that sat on the desk. She turned to Layla and asked quietly, “Is the request completely filled
out, Layla?”

Layla was incapable of speech; she simply nodded. The inspector pulled open a drawer and tossed the request in, closed the drawer softly, and stood up.

“Fine. That is all we need, Layla. God willing, we will try to comply with your wishes. So long. Goodbye, Doctor.”

When Layla reached the door she turned, smiling, her eyes blurry with tears as she met the inspector’s eyes for the last time.

Ramzi remained indignant at the treatment they had met from the inspector, for he could not ignore the manner in which she had deliberately overlooked him. His dissatisfaction erupted into open hostility when Layla received her letter of appointment from the Ministry of Education.

He put the letter in his pocket and tried to calm the angry father’s fears. He promised to set everything right. “Before twenty-four hours pass, Layla will have been appointed to a post in Cairo. Her Excellency the Inspector will get orders from above. You know, there are people like that—like dogs, they have to be commanded from above.”

“Port Said?” her father shrieked as soon as Ramzi had left to go to the ministry. “Out of the question! Port Said in particular—out of the question.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at Layla. “You—it was you. You asked for Port Said.”

Layla turned her palms up innocently. “I asked for Cairo. Sir, you can even ask Ramzi when he comes back.”

Ramzi did not return at midday as he had promised. He came after the late-afternoon prayer time to say that he had straightened everything out. He had gotten a clear promise from the deputy minister that Layla would be transferred to Cairo two weeks after taking up her job in Port Said. It was just a matter of formalities, and sometimes it was not such a bad idea to bow to formalities. But her father made his unhappiness clear at this resolution. He would prefer, he said, that his daughter refuse the appointment to letting her travel on her own to Port Said.

“And then who can be sure that she’ll really be transferred after two weeks there?”

Ramzi was infuriated; he tried to make the father understand the extent of his influence in the ministry. He described how upset the deputy minister had become at learning of the inspector’s error, and how he had promised to teach her a lesson she would never forget; he repeated that Layla’s transferral from Port Said after two weeks at work was one hundred percent guaranteed. Ramzi grew calmer as he explained how Layla’s rejection of the appointment would mean she would have to wait for the next graduating class—in other words, she would lose a whole year. This deal that they had made, with which he felt entirely comfortable, did not go against their plans in the slightest. Layla would start her work on the first of September; thus, she would be in Cairo by mid-September, two weeks ahead of the date they had set for the wedding.

Ramzi insisted, too, that the issue of where Layla would live in Port Said was not a problem. Luckily, the secondary school had accommodations for teachers who were from outside the city. From every perspective, then, they could feel reassured. Having run through all of the points he needed to make, Ramzi turned to the older man and asked, “What do you think?”

“I’ll give it some thought.” He left the situation dangling.

As the first of September drew very near, he was still giving it thought. When he summoned Layla to his room, she knew that he would open the subject. She tried to prepare herself as well as she could.

“Do you want this job?”

Layla wanted to scream from her innermost depths, “Yes! Please, please Papa!” But she kept control of herself and said, shrugging as if it really mattered very little, “As you wish, sir.”

He turned his back to her. “And the . . . folks there, you’ll mix with them?”

Layla was not sure how she ought to respond to this question. She said, stupidly, “As you wish, sir.” He turned to face her, his face drained of color, and said with a murderous calmness, “You know what I wish. You know very well.”

She said nothing. Her father began to pace the room. He stopped. “You will be staying in the school. Mahmud can visit you, it doesn’t matter. The woman, no. No visits to them in their home. No going outside the school.” He stared right into Layla’s eyes and said sharply, “Understand?”

“Yes.”

The father’s grey eyes narrowed and his lips trembled with his next sentence, a clear tone of threat in his voice. “Do you know what will happen if I hear that you’ve been to their home, or spent time with them?”

Layla shut her eyes and nodded without a word.

“Fine. That’s all.”

Layla stood up but remained motionless. Irritably, her father said, “That’s all. We’re done. Go get ready.”

Layla left the room, hardly able to believe that her father had given her permission to travel to Port Said.

Layla packed her suitcases, although whenever she heard her father’s footsteps in the front hall she got so nervous that she would start shaking. She was so afraid that something might happen at the last minute to prevent her from making the journey. Even standing at the train window, Ramzi on the platform, the fear did not leave her. She stole quick glances at her watch. The hands were not moving; something had gone wrong. Her face tense, she gazed round as if searching for something she had lost. Raising her eyes to the station clock, she took a deep breath. Praise be to God. It was noon.

It was noon. But no bell sounded; the train did not move.

“Don’t be afraid, Layla,” said Ramzi. “It is only two weeks, and you’ll be coming right back.” The clock chimed, but still the train did not move. Maybe something was not working properly, and it would not move. It would never move.

The train moved. Layla’s face glowed. She called out joyfully without looking at anyone or addressing anyone in particular, as if she were singing. “I’m not afraid! Not afraid!”

She sat down, still murmuring, “I’m not afraid. Not afraid.” Then she jumped to her feet again as if she had forgotten to do something. She closed the window, and Ramzi and the platform were no longer visible. The train moved forward slowly and then picked up speed.

Layla’s reassignment was not the easy matter Ramzi had imagined. Instead of two weeks, Layla stayed in Port Said for months. And on October 29, 1956, the Israelis attacked Sinai. On October 31, Great Britain and France joined in the aggression against Egypt, and military operations against Egyptian positions began.