Authors: André Aciman
Out of Egypt (33 page)
As in previous years, Easter and Passover coincided with Ramadan. But this year the atmosphere was grim, and there were no arguments between Abdou and Madame Marie, and no
one complained about my manners. My great-grandmother had had an accident after our small family seder at Sporting. She had woken in the middle of the night and reached for her ginger cookies in the drawer of her bedside table, only to find them missing. Aunt Elsa had removed them, knowing that her mother would not want to eat leavened biscuits during Passover. But the old woman had forgotten about matzoh, and, not finding her favorite snack in its usual place, got out of bed, and on her way to the kitchen tripped on an old stool. She immediately started to bleed from the head, and Uncle Nessim, Aunt Elsa, and my grandmother made several attempts to staunch the flow. One of them put ground coffee on the wound. Dr. Zakour, the new family doctor, was called, and he did what he could, but the old woman never regained consciousness. They had not even called an ambulance.
one complained about my manners. My great-grandmother had had an accident after our small family seder at Sporting. She had woken in the middle of the night and reached for her ginger cookies in the drawer of her bedside table, only to find them missing. Aunt Elsa had removed them, knowing that her mother would not want to eat leavened biscuits during Passover. But the old woman had forgotten about matzoh, and, not finding her favorite snack in its usual place, got out of bed, and on her way to the kitchen tripped on an old stool. She immediately started to bleed from the head, and Uncle Nessim, Aunt Elsa, and my grandmother made several attempts to staunch the flow. One of them put ground coffee on the wound. Dr. Zakour, the new family doctor, was called, and he did what he could, but the old woman never regained consciousness. They had not even called an ambulance.
Later that morning, with everyone milling outside her bedroom, Uncle Nessim finally opened the glass door and closed it behind him, saying, “She's left us.” Soon after, they covered her up in a shroud, and in a matter of hours she was gone. Madame Marie complained that this wasn't how it was done among Christians, that Christians doted on you awhile before taking you away. Then she remembered she owed the
aguzah,
the old one, three pounds. To ward off misfortune, she immediately went downstairs, purchased three loaves of sugared bread, and on her way from the bakery gave them to the first three beggars she found.
aguzah,
the old one, three pounds. To ward off misfortune, she immediately went downstairs, purchased three loaves of sugared bread, and on her way from the bakery gave them to the first three beggars she found.
We spent a rainy afternoon in the smaller living room. No one cried, no one even said they remembered this or that about her. Abdou came in to ask for the afternoon off, and then someone suggested that the best thing for us was to go to the movies, which we did, all seven of us, including Madame Marie.
Three days afterward, Madame Marie was taken to the hospital
to have her gallbladder removed. When she returned weeks later, she had lost a lot of weight, looked old, and complained of eczema on both hands. She watched me eat lunch, asked how I was faring at school, and said she was disappointed to hear that, instead of studying
normal
religion, I was now in Islam class, as Monsieur al-Malek had recommended. “Have you become Moslem?” she asked. I shook my head. “But what did you tell them when they asked why you wanted to study the Koran?” I said that I had told them my family was thinking of converting to Islam. When I finished my lunch, Madame Marie did not stand up to clear my dishes, as was her habit. Nor did she say anything about washing my hands. Nor did she urge me to begin doing my homework or avoid going into the kitchen to speak to the other servants. She promised to take me to St. Katherine's one day. Then she drank her coffee, thanked Abdou, and left.
to have her gallbladder removed. When she returned weeks later, she had lost a lot of weight, looked old, and complained of eczema on both hands. She watched me eat lunch, asked how I was faring at school, and said she was disappointed to hear that, instead of studying
normal
religion, I was now in Islam class, as Monsieur al-Malek had recommended. “Have you become Moslem?” she asked. I shook my head. “But what did you tell them when they asked why you wanted to study the Koran?” I said that I had told them my family was thinking of converting to Islam. When I finished my lunch, Madame Marie did not stand up to clear my dishes, as was her habit. Nor did she say anything about washing my hands. Nor did she urge me to begin doing my homework or avoid going into the kitchen to speak to the other servants. She promised to take me to St. Katherine's one day. Then she drank her coffee, thanked Abdou, and left.
A week later, after Madame Marie called to apologize, saying she had found less strenuous, part-time work in a Greek home for the elderly, my parents decided to hire a governess named Roxane, a Persian girl who had studied dance in Spain and who, through a series of misadventures, had landed in Alexandria living with a British journalist who wrote for one of the domestic English-language newspapers. She was young, sprightly, dark-haired, extraordinarily beautiful, and, unlike Madame Marie, who sat in the shade with other nannies while I went bathing in the sea, would hop in and swim faster than anyone. When she came out of the water, she would run to our umbrella and almost bury herself in her towel, with only part of her face and goose-pimpled legs showing. Then she combed her long hennaed hair and lit a cigarette. Her skin beamed in the sunlight, and in the evening at Mandara she
would sit on the veranda with my parents, wearing a dark-blue summer frock with white polka dots, the odor of suntan lotion still on her skin as she waited for Joey to come pick her up in his Anglia. She took few things seriously, and everything she said or heard you say seemed to have an unintended edge which never failed to amuse her and which often made me think that I was far more clever than I had ever imaginedâwhich, in my own heady way, was exactly what I needed in order to be frank with someone who seemed to understand not only who I was but who I always wanted to be.
would sit on the veranda with my parents, wearing a dark-blue summer frock with white polka dots, the odor of suntan lotion still on her skin as she waited for Joey to come pick her up in his Anglia. She took few things seriously, and everything she said or heard you say seemed to have an unintended edge which never failed to amuse her and which often made me think that I was far more clever than I had ever imaginedâwhich, in my own heady way, was exactly what I needed in order to be frank with someone who seemed to understand not only who I was but who I always wanted to be.
Roxane broke all bounds, came late, took off, and yet offended no one, and with her unflagging mirth and good cheer managed to make me do things and eat things I would never have thought possible. When she was at home I no longer hung out in the kitchen, and when she told me that her brother was called Darius and her father Cambyses, I knew that life could rise above the ordinary and become legendary. In the morning she greeted me with a wily smile, which always made it seem we had said things we were agreed never to repeat to anyone. In the evening we would read Plutarch together. And at night she insisted on reading me a few verses by Hafiz, to ensure a good day on the morrow. She would read the verses in Persian first, translate the meaning, give an interpretation that was invariably farfetched but happy, and then kiss me good night.
The one who fell for her hardest was Signor Dall'Abaco, my Italian tutor, a former aspiring diplomat who had escaped his native Siena during Mussolini's regime and whom Signor Ugo had dug up for us from the Alexandrian private-lessons circuit, saying the Sienese gentleman spoke the best Italian there was. Signor Dall'Abaco had read every book as well as every magazine. He would borrow magazines from the main Italian bookstore in the city and return them in perfect condition
after having read them up and down the tramway line on his way to his various private pupils. Like Monsieur al-Malek, whose displeasure he did not wish to incur and around whose hours he was compelled to work his schedule, he enjoyed tea and cocktails after tutorial, always managing to have himself invited into the living room, because he loved company and because his lonely bachelor's life gave him so little opportunity to talk about the two things he loved most: literature and opera. He arrived that April and remained my tutor for five years.
after having read them up and down the tramway line on his way to his various private pupils. Like Monsieur al-Malek, whose displeasure he did not wish to incur and around whose hours he was compelled to work his schedule, he enjoyed tea and cocktails after tutorial, always managing to have himself invited into the living room, because he loved company and because his lonely bachelor's life gave him so little opportunity to talk about the two things he loved most: literature and opera. He arrived that April and remained my tutor for five years.
When Signor Dall'Abaco began teaching me Dante, he was particularly gratified when my father knocked at the dining room door to ask if he might sit at the end of the table and listen in. Uninvited, Roxane would do the same. Her presence when he spoke about Farinata, Count Ugolino, and Ser Brunetto, or when he told the story of Paolo and Francesca, must have sent his old Sienese blue blood coursing through his veins, for the Persian girl, who could speak Italian only by corrupting her Spanish, seemed to understand the exiled Guelf and the displaced Sienese gentleman as well as she understood Hafiz, Joey, me, and all the men in the world. She understood what it meant to have lost everything and eat salted bread when all your life you'd had the unsalted Tuscan kind. And she understood what it was to rely on others for income, small income.
Tu proverai si come sa di sale
lo pane altrui, e come e duro calle
lo scendere e'l salir per l'altrui scale.
lo pane altrui, e come e duro calle
lo scendere e'l salir per l'altrui scale.
[
You will know how salty is the taste
of another's bread, and how hard the path
to descend and come up another man's stairs.
]
You will know how salty is the taste
of another's bread, and how hard the path
to descend and come up another man's stairs.
]
Signor Dall'Abaco was speaking to her, to me, to himself, to Dante.
“If you learn a canto a day,” he would say, “within three months, from now until August, you will know the entire
Commedia
by heart.” But he may have been speaking to Roxane.
Commedia
by heart.” But he may have been speaking to Roxane.
He went on to tell her that when the British had interned all Italian males living in Egypt, he had spent his prison term like Silvio Pellico, the nineteenth-century Italian patriot, memorizing a canto a day. “You, in prison, Signor Dall'Abaco! I cannot picture you behind bars.” The Sienese was moved.
She had said this as we sat in the car on our way to Mandara one Friday morning in early June. Signor Dall'Abaco had come for the day and would later be driven back to the Sidi Bishr station, from where he would take the tram to the city.
As we drove, all of us crammed together with the windows open, Signor Dall'Abaco explained
Tosca,
and after going over some of the more obvious harmonies, began to sing Cavaradossi's last aria, and repeated it several times, asking me to sing it, then my friend Cordahi, who had come to stay the night, thenâdistracted man that he wasâmy mother, and finally Roxane. Everyone giggled, including Hassan the driver who, to prove he was no fool, sang a few bars himself, unintentionally Arabizing the aria as he sang. Signor Dall'Abaco liked this Middle Eastern touch, and after teaching us the famous choral air from
Nabucco,
asked Hassan how he would go about singing it. The driver obliged, and there was great mirth in the car, with Roxane mimicking the Egyptian's treatment of Verdi. Signor Dall'Abaco explained to us the history of the Mohammed Ali Theater in Alexandria and of the big opera house in Cairo, for which the Egyptian khedive had commissioned
Aïda.
“Verdi came to Egypt?” I exclaimed in total disbelief. “In Egypt and how,” he replied, sounding as patriotic as Miss Sharif.
Tosca,
and after going over some of the more obvious harmonies, began to sing Cavaradossi's last aria, and repeated it several times, asking me to sing it, then my friend Cordahi, who had come to stay the night, thenâdistracted man that he wasâmy mother, and finally Roxane. Everyone giggled, including Hassan the driver who, to prove he was no fool, sang a few bars himself, unintentionally Arabizing the aria as he sang. Signor Dall'Abaco liked this Middle Eastern touch, and after teaching us the famous choral air from
Nabucco,
asked Hassan how he would go about singing it. The driver obliged, and there was great mirth in the car, with Roxane mimicking the Egyptian's treatment of Verdi. Signor Dall'Abaco explained to us the history of the Mohammed Ali Theater in Alexandria and of the big opera house in Cairo, for which the Egyptian khedive had commissioned
Aïda.
“Verdi came to Egypt?” I exclaimed in total disbelief. “In Egypt and how,” he replied, sounding as patriotic as Miss Sharif.
On our way to Mandara, we came upon my father's carter, Abou Ali, driving the factory's carriage on its lopsided wheels. He was headed for Mandara as well, lugging all of our belongingsâsummer gear, equipment, utensils, toys, even a new ice box, and the giant Grundig that had weathered all of Madame Marie's sorrows and which my father had replaced with a newer model but never had the heart to part with. Everything was sloppily piled together and swathed in old carter's cord; the carriage with its cannibalized British tank wheels and its tottering horse, who could hardly canter, looked more like a Gypsy van escaping famine and invaders than a vacation load on its way to a summer home. Hassan waved at the old
arbaghi,
and Abou Ali waved back with his whip.
arbaghi,
and Abou Ali waved back with his whip.
Joey was driving his car behind ours, carrying as passengers my grandmother, Aunt Flora, and Uncle Nessim. Aunt Elsa, who was mourning for her mother, had consented to come at the last minute so as not to be left alone at home. But she sulked throughout the trip, thinking, as she never ceased to remind us, that our speeding to Mandara during a period of mourning made us look like avid peasants who had never seen the beach before.
To prove her right, as soon as we arrived, my friend Cordahi and I, along with Roxane and my mother, immediately changed into our bathing suits and were already hastening to go swimming, while Signor Dall'Abaco made himself comfortable on the veranda overlooking the sea, explaining that he had not brought his bathing suit. Perhaps he deliberately tried to look comfortable to discourage us from insisting he go to the beach with us. Or perhaps he felt he had sufficiently overcome his natural shyness by accepting my mother's lemonade on the veranda and did not wish to pass another test of endurance by complying with complicated beach rituals that were totally foreign to him.
I, however, was only too pleased to practice these ritualsâ
picking up beach paddles exactly where I had left them in September; balancing the weight of the umbrella on my shoulders; finding the same folded beach blanket, sun-tan lotion, or old tennis balls that never seemed to die; remembering to take a second bathing suit in case I wished to change; and packing the old bottle of benzineâand the cotton that went with itâto wipe off the tar which inevitably washed up on the beach and blackened our feet.
picking up beach paddles exactly where I had left them in September; balancing the weight of the umbrella on my shoulders; finding the same folded beach blanket, sun-tan lotion, or old tennis balls that never seemed to die; remembering to take a second bathing suit in case I wished to change; and packing the old bottle of benzineâand the cotton that went with itâto wipe off the tar which inevitably washed up on the beach and blackened our feet.
The house itself was in full bustle as the servants busily unloaded the cars. Some had arrived the previous evening and had already set up much of the place.
Signor Dall'Abaco's quiet corner on the veranda seemed the ideal place for a man who was born to stay out of everyone's way.
I sympathized with his reluctance to go swimming, not just because I had experienced it myself at VC, but because I had seen many of our guests at Mandara, particularly my father's employees, pretend an irrational fear of the beach when all they were afraid of was us and of getting in our way. Some chose to stay behind while everyone else went swimming simply because they didn't dare ask us for towels. “Did you have a good swim?” they would ask when we came back from the beach.
My mother told Signor Dall'Abaco he could borrow a bathing suit from a closet filled with suits of all sizes. But he continued to dawdle about the house, whose stuffy and musty air betrayed the closed-up winter months. He even showed an interest in the Spanish furniture and asked whether we ever used the house in the winter. “Sometimes at Christmas,” said my mother.
“Hurry,” Roxane shouted when she caught sight of Joey's car on the driveway. “We're going to the beach.”
“You go, I'll join you later,” he shouted back.
“
Allora
, Signor Dall'Abaco, are you going to change, yes or no?” asked Roxane.
Allora
, Signor Dall'Abaco, are you going to change, yes or no?” asked Roxane.
“All right, but I'm not sure I'll swim.”
She affected impatience, as though he had been put under her charge as well. Signor Dall'Abaco looked at Joey, who was helping the servants take down the new
hassira
from the roof rack. He envied the young reporter, probably hated him, and would have given everything to be in his place.
hassira
from the roof rack. He envied the young reporter, probably hated him, and would have given everything to be in his place.
“Maybe the water's not warm yetâ” he had begun to say.
“You must put on a bathing suit,” she insisted, ushering him into one of the bedrooms. The tentative man entered meekly. He waited for me and Cordahi to leave the room and then closed the door behind him, slowly, almost reluctantly, and softly turned the key. We waited almost five minutes. When Roxane knocked at the door urging him to hurry, his nervous voice was heard apologizing, saying that of all the bathing suits he had tried inside, none seemed to fit someone as skinny as he.
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