Butterfly Wings: An Egyptian Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (12 page)

That day he decided to challenge his father’s silence. He would tell him he was going to look for his mother; going to find the truth that he had concealed from him.

On his way home, Ayman stopped at the kiosk at the end of the street and called Salwa on her cell phone. He said, “Don’t worry, my darling, I won’t be at college tomorrow. I’ve got an important trip to make. I’ll tell you about it when I see you.” She told him to take care of himself and blew him a kiss over the phone.

At home, Ayman found his father alone in the house. He was sitting on the backless divan in the living room watching TV. “What’s wrong?” asked Father.

“Nothing,” replied Ayman, “but I want to talk to you.” Ayman sat next to his father on the divan, the same one he had been sitting on the day he heard his mother’s name for the first time; the name he had since learned by heart.

Years had passed, and now Ayman sat on the same couch to tell his father that he had found his mother. He did not tell him how he had learned her address, but he gave him all the details he had. He told him he was going to see her the next day.

Father shook with anger. He punched one of the cushions between them and shouted, “I forbid you to do that! How can you rebel against me after all this time? Have you no gratitude?”

Ayman answered, “I’m thankful for everything you’ve done for me. But it’s my right to know my mother, and you didn’t tell me anything about her. Why didn’t you say that my mother was alive?”

“How am I supposed to know whether she’s alive or not?”

“In that case, let me go and look for her. She’s my mother and it’s my right to see her.”

Father did not know what to do to shield his son from this experience, which he did not want him to go through with. He was still only twenty years old and might not be strong enough to deal with what awaited him on his quest. What if it turned out that the woman was not his mother? Would he be strong enough to cope with the situation, or would he suffer crushing disappointment? What if she was his mother, but rejected him to save her new life? Would he be able to bear the shock? Father wished he could go with his son and not leave him on his own. The journey to the truth is the hardest journey in life. The boy was still young, so how could he abandon him to this journey, not knowing how he would return? Life was so hard, stopping him from accompanying his son on that fateful journey that he must make alone.

“I didn’t have to tell you all of this,” Ayman said to his father. “I didn’t have to let you know that tomorrow I’m going to find my mother. But I didn’t want to hide anything from you in the way you hid everything from us.”

“You don’t know anything,” said Father. He went quiet for a minute, then continued calmly, “There’ll be a day when you understand everything, just wait a little.”

“Wait for what? Wait for my heart to break or to have a nervous breakdown? I can’t bear to wait any longer. I don’t know how I’m going spend the night until tomorrow when I find out the truth you hid from me all these years.”

A momentary silence fell between Ayman and his father, which was broken by the cat meowing in the stairwell. Father lifted the armrest between them and put his hand on Ayman’s shoulder. He said, “Listen, my son, I’m not disputing that it’s your right to look for your mother and find out if she’s still alive. All I’m saying is wait a little. You’re in your final year at college and I’m worried that any shock will have a bad effect on you.”

Ayman responded quickly, “Waiting will kill me, Baba. I have to look for my mother. I have to look for myself. I don’t know who I am.”

Father gave in to Ayman’s wishes. His young son’s desire to find himself, to fulfill himself, was stronger than his father’s fears for him.

Father took some money out of the breast pocket of his gal-labiya. He gave it to his son, saying, “Here’s some money for the trip.” There was a knock at the door and Abdel Samad came in. He said hello to them and went into his room. Ayman thanked his father and kissed him. He told him he was tired and wanted to sleep before the next day’s journey.

It was midnight and Ayman had still not fallen asleep. Neither had his brother in the bed next to his. The light had been off since they had gone to bed more than two hours ago, but neither had been able to sleep.

Ayman sensed his brother’s tossing and turning in bed and said, “Are you still awake?”

He replied, “Yeah. And you?”

Ayman turned on the lamp by his bed and said, “I don’t think I’m going to sleep a wink tonight.”

“Me neither.”

As if lifting a heavy burden off his chest, Ayman said, “Tomorrow is a fateful day in my life.”

“In mine too,” replied Abdel Samad immediately.

Ayman could not keep the secret any longer and briefly told his brother that the next day he would go to Tanta to find their mother. He explained that he did not want to burden him with the details and cause him more anxiety when he was about to start his new life.

His brother said, “My new life starts tomorrow.” In response to Ayman’s questions, he said, “Tomorrow, I’m going to meet Hagg Abdel Mu‛ti, who’s arranged the employment contract in Kuwait. I’ll give him the five thousand pounds, and he’ll give me the contract and the plane ticket.”

“Where and when are you meeting him?” asked Ayman.

“At ten-thirty in the morning at an office downtown. Why do you ask?”

“I would have liked to go with you so you’re not alone. But by ten-thirty I might already be in Tanta. I’m leaving very early.”

“Don’t worry about your brother. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Ayman responded, “But you’re going to go out with all that money.”

“Don’t worry. I went to the bank yesterday and changed the whole amount into two-hundred-pound notes. I’ve put them in an envelope, and if anyone notices it, it will look like an ordinary letter.”

Ayman questioned him again: “This Hagg Abdel Mu‛ti, do you know him?”

His brother sighed, as if he had heard or thought about all these questions before. “I’m not interested in knowing him,” he said. “I know where his office is. Anyway, he’s only an intermediary between me and the Sheikha. If he doesn’t give me the contract and the ticket, she’s sure to deal with him.”

“Can’t you put the meeting off for a day until I come back from Tanta? Then I can come with you, along with a few friends?”

His brother yelled at him, “Are you crazy? Do you want me to go at the head of a procession? What’s gotten into you? Do you want to ruin everything for me?”

Ayman kept trying to persuade his brother, but without success. In the end he said to him, “I’ve been waiting a long time for the day when I sort out the issue of my mother. But I’m willing to postpone it till the day after tomorrow and come with you on my own, without any friends.”

Abdel Samad refused outright, saying, “Have you forgotten that I’m the older brother? I don’t need protection. Plus, it has to seem to the Sheikha’s agent that this money doesn’t mean anything to me. Otherwise the Sheikha might think I’m after her money. Let me deal with my business rationally and not emotionally. You go to Tanta, and may God grant you success.”

Ayman wanted to talk to his brother again about their mother. He wanted to talk about the weight on his chest. But he felt that Abdel Samad had relaxed a little after talking about what awaited him the next day. So Ayman just said, “May God grant success to us all.”

18 Palermo

T
he opening of the NGO conference in Palermo was really impressive. More than seven hundred of the world’s most important NGOs and not less than one thousand political activists from five continents were there. After the opening session, the conference participants decamped en masse to the city’s main square, the Piazza Politeama. Local residents looked on from the streets and waved from balconies.

The following day, after a rousing welcome from the audience, Dr. Ashraf al-Zayni gave his speech. He spoke of ruling parties’ monopolization of political life in the third world, and explained how civil society in Egypt was working hard to bring about change. It was demanding political reform by establishing the rotation of power—the basis of democratic practice—and by amending the constitution, which had been written by the ruling party to ensure its sole control of political life in the country.

Doha, sitting in the auditorium, felt that Dr. Ashraf was looking at her when he spoke. Civil society was a new arrival in Egypt, he said, but its influence was steadily growing. It
was just like a butterfly. With a beat of its wings, that seemingly defenseless and fragile creature could influence the global weather system and, according to Lorenz’s well-known theory, might even cause a hurricane. He concluded by saying that the movement for change would triumph on the banks of the Nile, restoring Egypt to her former greatness. The Nile, creator of the greatest civilization, would then revert to its natural course.

Doha smiled when she heard the words that Dr. Ashraf had confided to her before they were in Palermo. After his speech, members of the audience crowded around to congratulate him. His picture appeared in the following day’s papers, and one had the headline, “Will the beat of a butterfly’s wing set the Nile back on course?”

That evening, the chairman of the conference invited some of his friends among the participants to dinner. Among them were the Egyptian delegate, Dr. Ashraf al-Zayni, and Doha al-Kenani—everyone thought she was a political activist who had come to the conference with him from Egypt. The meal was in an ordinary local restaurant that served what southern Italy was renowned for: pizza and the songs of Naples.

Doha al-Kenani had gone to Italy to take part in a fashion show, but here she was participating in a political conference. She had intended to spend her time in Milan in the north, but found herself heading to Palermo in the south. If Mabrouka, the fortune-teller who used to read her mother’s coffee grounds, had told her this before she set off, Doha would have said that the woman must have gone senile. Yet Doha had not been pushed into anything. It had all been as a result of her own free will, without influence or pressure.

All the barriers between Doha and Dr. Ashraf had gone. She saw in him everything she had been looking for. She had found
the means to save her country from political tyranny, and had discovered why she hated politics. She hated and despised the politicians she knew through her husband, but she esteemed and respected Dr. Ashraf. He was the ideal type of a man who loves his country and works faithfully to improve conditions. He believed in his cause. Politics, for him, was not a means to personal gain. He gained nothing from his political positions. On the contrary, he lost a great deal as a result of the attentions of the security agencies that blocked his opportunities for professional advancement. If the committee overseeing the campus building had not been an independent one formed by the project contractors, his design, which was adopted unanimously, would never have been chosen.

Nevertheless, Doha realized there was still a barrier between her and Dr. Ashraf. Admittedly, it was a flimsy barrier, but Dr. Ashraf did not know that. What could she say to him to make him drop the reserve toward her that she sensed? He treated her genuinely and naturally, but her feelings toward him were more than friendship. Should she tell him that her marriage to Medhat al-Safti was a façade? Should she say she was actually not married, or a widow or divorced? Should she tell him about the marital problem that prevented a proper relationship between her and her husband? Should she tell him he had to take on her cause, and the cause of the many wives whose husbands suffered the same problem as Medhat al-Safti? The reform of society and women’s rights that Dr. Ashraf believed in—did they not mean that husbands should be fit and healthy, just as men demanded that their wives should be virgins? Women got married to men who seemed normal with no shortcomings, but after the wedding they discovered that the truth was different. If Medhat had been totally impotent, perhaps her family would have stood by her; sharia law would have supported her and the law would have treated her
fairly. But when it came to premature ejaculation, our male-dominated society considered a woman who complained about such a situation, to say nothing of one who asked for a divorce, as sex-mad and immoral, her only concern being getting more sexual pleasure than her husband provided. Medhat was right when he accused her of being frigid. But subsequently she knew that he had made her frigid. Her coldness was only toward her husband; with herself, she was a burning flame that no one could put out.

More than once, she thought that the feelings she had started to harbor for Dr. Ashraf and her trust in him would drive her to tell him the secret she had kept hidden from everyone. But she held off for two reasons. First, it would be like trying to implore him to love her out of pity. Second, she had kept her husband’s secret all the years of their marriage, and she would lose her self-respect if she told another man the most intimate details about her husband.

Such was her state of confusion that she did not know what she ought to do. For the first time she felt how much she missed not having Talaat around. She felt she really needed to talk to him about her psychological, emotional, and marital crises. But she was afraid that he might say the same things her mother would have said were she still alive: divorce might be allowed but it is odious; good girls don’t get divorced; her dissatisfaction could be dealt with—or at least made slightly better—in some way or another, but not by bringing disgrace on herself and her family by divorcing. To this her mother would have added that Doha should remember that she was the wife of one of the most important men in Egypt and that thousands of women longed to be in her position.

No, she would not discuss the matter with Talaat or reveal her secret to Dr. Ashraf. She would continue battling on her
own until she burst a blood vessel in her brain and ended up paralyzed or dead.

These were Doha’s thoughts as she lay alone in bed in her hotel. Then her phone rang. The number did not appear and she knew it was her husband. She felt no desire to talk to him and left the phone ringing. It stopped, then rang again. “I might be able to ignore it now,” thought Doha, “but what will I do tomorrow or the day after, or when I go back to Cairo? In the end, I’ll have to reply to him. It’s my fate and I can’t escape it.” She pressed the answer key.