Out of Egypt (25 page)
Authors: André Aciman
Then we walked across the street to visit the Saint. She looked tired and sad, said she had not slept in over a week. The government had just frozen all of their assets; their son and his family, who were French nationals, had already received their expulsion notices. Her turn was sure to come soon. Meanwhile, she just hoped her husband had a way of finding money, because otherwise there wouldn't be any left to buy food or pay the servants.
“But I did not know you were French,” interrupted the Princess.
“We're as French as you are Italian, Madame Esther. A lot of good that does us!”
“At least Italian Jews are allowed to remain,” answered the Princess. I had heard her say to Uncle Nessim, “Thank God we're Italian.”
The Saint was beside herself; she might never see her son or granddaughters again. Whoever wanted to go to France? Why couldn't they stay in Egypt, even as paupers?
The two ladies bid each other a happy Chanukah.
That evening before dinner, Cousin Arnaut welcomed the possibility of expulsion from Egypt, saying that we should all move to an equally large apartment in Paris and, from there, “start again.” No one had died, no one was hurt, and no one was too old to start anew, he said, as though enumerating the positives. Uncle Nessim stared at his mother and at my grandmother, saying nothing. Nor would anyone be allowed to starve in France, continued Cousin Arnaut. After all, everyone knew someone who was somebody in Paris, and if we didn't, we had the looks and the talents to aspire to any circle of our choosing.
But this was a counterfeit Vili speaking. Elsa and Nessim had determined they weren't budging for the moment. My father, too, refused to go. Business couldn't be better, he said. His now ranked among the best textile mills in Egypt. He was thinking of building another factory in Cairo. “Build one on Mount Etna too,” said my great-grandmother.
A totally unexpected event occurred during dinner. A siren suddenly started to wail. Everyone froze on the spot. “This time it's an atomic war, I know it,” whimpered Aunt Marta, bursting into tears as she buried her head in her son's chest. No sooner was the siren heard than the lights began to go out in clusters all over Sporting. People were running down the street screaming “
Taffi al-nur! Taffi al-nur!
” all over again. “But the war's been over for weeks now,” protested Dr. Alcabès, who was visiting that evening. “It's a hoax, keep the lights on, I say.”
Taffi al-nur! Taffi al-nur!
” all over again. “But the war's been over for weeks now,” protested Dr. Alcabès, who was visiting that evening. “It's a hoax, keep the lights on, I say.”
“Ben, we don't want troubleâlet's turn off the lights,” said my grandmother.
“It's a hoax all the same. They're doing something under cover of darkness and they don't want anyone to know.”
Out came the kerosene light. Aunt Elsa pulled the curtains over the windows of the living room, shut all the doors, and thanked her frugal good instincts for not removing the sheets of blue paper that had lined our windows only a week or two earlier.
Presently, we began to hear a strange rumble, not of distant antiaircraft guns, as I suspected at first, but of armored vehicles and many, many trucks being mysteriously convoyed through Alexandria. At one point our house began to tremble under the loud jolts of tanks thudding and whining their way past Rue Delta onto Avenue Ambroise Rally.
“What did I tell you,” said Dr. Alcabès, who was peeking through the opening between the curtains. “This has nothing
to do with air raids. They're redeploying men elsewhere and they don't want anyone to know it. I bet you these trucks are filled with prisoners and wounded soldiers whom the Israelis have just released, and now they're being ferried back home under cover of darkness.”
to do with air raids. They're redeploying men elsewhere and they don't want anyone to know it. I bet you these trucks are filled with prisoners and wounded soldiers whom the Israelis have just released, and now they're being ferried back home under cover of darkness.”
I noticed it was growing progressively darker in the dining room as the pungent odor of burning oil rose from the everfeeble wick in the kerosene lamp. My father had noticed the same thing, for he said, “Elsa, next time, please, a bit more oil in the lamps, at least to tide us over an entire meal.”
I knew then that as soon as the pounding noise of engines receded, we would hear the all clear, and everyone in the neighborhood and everyone in the room would heave a sigh of relief and finally turn on the lights. If only we could have five, ten more minutes in the dark together. I didn't even mind not seeing well, and I suspected that no one, including my father, would have cared much if we went on with our meal in the dark, now that our eyes had gotten used to it.
I would miss these nights, I thought, not the war itself but the blackout, not my uncles or my aunts but the velvety hush of their voices when we turned off the lights and drew closer to the radio, almost whispering our thoughts in the dark, as though the enemy were listening in on us as well. It was the blackout that spelled our evenings together, lengthening our dinners because it was so dark in the dining room we could hardly see what we were eating and were forced to eat slowly. The blackout interrupted tea, cards, conversations, quarrels, crying, visits, only to confer upon our lives a ceremonial, almost liturgical air sanctified by the smell of kerosene and burning oil which hovered over our evenings like incense.
“Latifa!” called my great-grandmother. She wanted more biscuits.
“Poor Latifa is gone,” said my grandmother.
“But where could she have gone to at this time of the night?” she asked.
A week later, several members of the family were expelled from Egypt.
Three months after that, four more left voluntarily.
Followed almost immediately by six others. Everyone settled in France.
Eighteen months later, the Saint and her husband left for France as well.
By then only eight of us remained: Aunt Elsa, Aunt Flora, the Princess, Uncle Nessim, my great-grandmother, and us.
“Poor Latifa would have laughed,” said Aunt Elsa. The muchvaunted apartment in Paris on which Cousin Arnaut had pinned so much hope turned out to be a studio on the fifth floor of an elaborate fin-de-siècle building on Avenue Georges Mandelâa glorified maid's room. There was no elevator in the building, and the stairway got narrower and steeper with each floor, the marble steps turning to stone after the fourth, and from stone to squeaking, sunken wood planks after the sixth. Here, I had come from America one Christmas morning in the early seventies to visit my grandmother and Aunt Elsa. We ate lunch in a makeshift dining room separated from what was to be my cot for the night by a fuchsia Art Deco folding screen.
A dense gray sky lowered over an empty Paris, presaging more rain. It might even snow, said my aunt. Not a sound along the avenue, the unmistakable silence of Parisian Sunday afternoons settling everywhere upon the neighborhood. I heard a Peugeot roar to a stop outside. I looked down. A couple stepped out of a taxi carrying wrapped boxes. Long Christmas luncheons, I thought.
After eating, we moved to what they had nicknamed the
petit salon,
another part of the same room, separated by a wood partition. Aunt Elsa offered me an English cigarette from a green tin box, then a cup of Turkish coffee, and we crossed our legs as we sat and spoke, mostly about America. “Man is like a bird, one day he's here, another there,” said my grandmother, invoking a familiar Turkish parable concerning a certain very lazy sultan who after years spent sitting on one end of his sofa suddenly decides to move to the other end. It meant that despite appearances, people seldom migrate very far, that things hardly change, that life always comes to the same.
petit salon,
another part of the same room, separated by a wood partition. Aunt Elsa offered me an English cigarette from a green tin box, then a cup of Turkish coffee, and we crossed our legs as we sat and spoke, mostly about America. “Man is like a bird, one day he's here, another there,” said my grandmother, invoking a familiar Turkish parable concerning a certain very lazy sultan who after years spent sitting on one end of his sofa suddenly decides to move to the other end. It meant that despite appearances, people seldom migrate very far, that things hardly change, that life always comes to the same.
We sat awhile after coffee, until they remembered I was jetlagged. I said it didn't matter. They offered to let me nap on the sofa, saying they had to mend a dress of Aunt Elsa's and that I could use the time to doze off awhile. I leaned back on the sofa, and they began to whisper, and I thought I heard someone remove my ashtray and my cup of coffee, and soon I made out the discreet and ever-distant patter of a hand-cranked sewing machine smuggling hurried stitches in between long pauses followed by querulous little-old-lady whispers in a language I had not heard in years and whose hushed, spiteful hisses, punctuated by the sputtering old Singer, took me back to the winter of 1956, when all the women in the household, fearing they might have to leave Egypt on a day's notice, massed around the only sewing machine at Sporting, taking grudging turns to make or mend clothes for their families.
When I awoke it was almost evening. We went for a walk on Avenue Henri Martin, past Lamartine's fountain, reaching the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. Did I want to cross the street into the Bois, lovely toward sunset, asked my aunt as she scanned the gray, sodden landscape whose bare trees made me think of cold Corot winters in La Ville d'Avray. Maybe on our next walk, I answered. I had never seen Paris so empty. Christmas, they explained.
When we reached the corner of the street, on a whim, I
touched the outstretched hand of Rodin's statue of Victor Hugo. “Never loved Hugo,” said Aunt Elsa, looking at the bearded poet. Then she started to talk of old Signor Ugo, who had become an Egyptian citizen in the hope of spending his remaining years in Egypt. “Even became a Moslem, calls himself Hag Gabalzahri,” said Aunt Elsa. “He teaches yoga to officers of the Egyptian army.” “But what a survivor.” “Not a survivor, a chameleon.” “An opportunist.” “A madman,” they agreed.
touched the outstretched hand of Rodin's statue of Victor Hugo. “Never loved Hugo,” said Aunt Elsa, looking at the bearded poet. Then she started to talk of old Signor Ugo, who had become an Egyptian citizen in the hope of spending his remaining years in Egypt. “Even became a Moslem, calls himself Hag Gabalzahri,” said Aunt Elsa. “He teaches yoga to officers of the Egyptian army.” “But what a survivor.” “Not a survivor, a chameleon.” “An opportunist.” “A madman,” they agreed.
As it got dark, we walked back by way of Avenue Victor Hugo and stopped in a café. It was mostly empty, and as soon as they saw the old ladies they brought us tea. My grandmother ordered an almond pastry, which she insisted was for me. “You used to like these so much,” she said. I replied I would eat only half, but as we talked, I ended up eating the whole thing. There was something warm and snug about the empty café on Christmas Day, and, looking at the two old women, who had finally managed to take off their thick wool coats without my help, I wanted to hold their hands and promise them many, many things.
Soon, the place began to fill and more voices could be heard around us, many speaking Spanish or Portugueseâservants in the Seizième Arrondissement.
Across the street, families were already standing in line outside the Cinema Victor Hugo. A group came and sat next to our table and ordered Ricards.
“Do you want to go to the movies tonight?” suggested Aunt Elsa.
I shook my head. They said they went once a week, pour
se dégourdir,
to brighten up a bit.
se dégourdir,
to brighten up a bit.
When it was time to pay, Aunt Elsa said she would pay for her shareâroughly a third of the check. Outraged, my grandmother told her she didn't need her third, or her fourth, or
her sixteenth! She would pay for the whole thing herself. Aunt Elsa would have none of it, and opened her purse, seizing coins of various sizes, which she counted awkwardly with wrinkled, arthritic fingers.
her sixteenth! She would pay for the whole thing herself. Aunt Elsa would have none of it, and opened her purse, seizing coins of various sizes, which she counted awkwardly with wrinkled, arthritic fingers.
“I don't want your centimes, keep them for your heirs,” barked my grandmother to her sister, who had never had children.
As each struggled furiously to put on her coat and be the first to leave the establishment, the venom between the two nonagenarians reached such a peak that my grandmother lost her patience and told her sister she could no longer live with her. She was tired of eating as though they might starve the next dayâespecially since they had so very few days left in the first place. “Speak for yourself,” snapped Elsa, reminding her sister that she was fully aware I had brought her a dozen Oral B toothbrushes from America and not one of them had she offered to give her. “You may say you're going to die soon, but when it comes to giving me a toothbrush, you act as though you're going to outlive ten sets of dentures.”
So saying, Aunt Elsa crossed the empty street and began walking home on the opposite sidewalk of Rue Longchamps. I shuttled between them, but they refused to make up, each saying it was up to the other to apologize. When I delivered the negative report from one sister to the other, each had only one thing to add: “Let her croak.”
We returned home in time for their television show. They made up when Aunt Elsa tripped against the foot of a chair. “She's almost blind,” whispered my grandmother. “You ask why I won't leave her. She's got no one.” We had yogurt, jam, and cheese,
à l'américaineâ
that is, in front of the television.
à l'américaineâ
that is, in front of the television.
I looked out the window and followed a long, revolving beam traveling above the city and lighting up a smokey, pinkish trail in the sky. “The Eiffel Tower,” said Aunt Elsa who
had come up to the window and was leaning against me. “She's beginning to forget,” she whispered. “She thinks I haven't noticed. She's got no one, either.”
had come up to the window and was leaning against me. “She's beginning to forget,” she whispered. “She thinks I haven't noticed. She's got no one, either.”
Later that evening, both sisters made me promise not to do anything lavish or elaborate
when the time came
. Feeling awkward, I smiled and promised and was trying to brush off the subject until I realized that what they meant was centennials. “Those days are long gone. Small visits are all we ask.”
when the time came
. Feeling awkward, I smiled and promised and was trying to brush off the subject until I realized that what they meant was centennials. “Those days are long gone. Small visits are all we ask.”
When I returned twenty years later, with my wife, the city had hardly changed. I still remembered the station names; the café on Avenue Victor Hugo was the same; and the shop on the Faubourg Saint Honoré where my grandmother had bought me a tie was still there, except much bigger and filled with Japanese tourists. The Victor Hugo movie theater had disappeared. In the old café around the corner, we ordered a
café crême
and a ham sandwich each.
café crême
and a ham sandwich each.
Avenue Georges Mandel was quiet in the early evening. As we neared the corner where Aunt Elsa had lived, her building suddenly came into view.
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