Out of Egypt (40 page)
Authors: André Aciman
By half past ten I was indeed proud of myself. One more errand was left, and then Signor Rosenthal. Franco Molkho, the agent in charge of bribing customs officials, was himself a notorious crook who took advantage of everyone precisely by protesting that he was not cunning enough to do so. “I'm
always up front about what I do, madame.” He was rude and gruff, and if he saw something in your home that struck his fancy, he would grab and pocket it in front of you. If you took it away from him and placed it back where it belongedâwhich is what my mother didâthen he would steal it later at the customs shed, again before your very eyes. Franco Molkho lived in a kind of disemboweled garage, with a makeshift cot, a tattered sink, and a litter of grimy gear boxes strewn about the floor. He wanted to negotiate. I did not know how to negotiate. I told him my father's instructions. “You Jews,” he snickered, “it's impossible to beat you at this game.” I blushed. Once outside, I wanted to spit out the tea he had offered me.
always up front about what I do, madame.” He was rude and gruff, and if he saw something in your home that struck his fancy, he would grab and pocket it in front of you. If you took it away from him and placed it back where it belongedâwhich is what my mother didâthen he would steal it later at the customs shed, again before your very eyes. Franco Molkho lived in a kind of disemboweled garage, with a makeshift cot, a tattered sink, and a litter of grimy gear boxes strewn about the floor. He wanted to negotiate. I did not know how to negotiate. I told him my father's instructions. “You Jews,” he snickered, “it's impossible to beat you at this game.” I blushed. Once outside, I wanted to spit out the tea he had offered me.
Still, I thought of myself as the rescuer of my entire family. Intricate scenarios raced through my mind, scenarios in which I pounded the desk of the chief of police and threatened all sorts of abominable reprisals unless my father was released instantly. “Instantly! Now! Immediately!” I yelled, slapping my palm on the inspector's desk. According to Aunt Elsa, the more you treated such people like your servants, the more they behaved accordingly. “And bring me a glass of water, I'm hot.” I was busily scheming all sorts of arcane missions when I heard someone call my name. It was my father.
He was returning from the barber and was ambling at a leisurely pace, headed for his favorite café near the stock exchange building. “Why aren't you in jail?” I asked, scarcely concealing my disappointment. “Jail!” he exclaimed, as if to say, “Whoever gave you such a silly notion?” “All they wanted was to ask me a few questions. Denunciations, always these false denunciations. Did you do everything I told you?” “All except Signor Rosenthal.” “Very good. Leave the rest to me. By the way, did Molkho agree?” I told him he did. “Wonderful.” Then he remembered. “Do you have the money?” “Yes.” “Come, then. I'll buy you coffee. You do drink coffee,
don't you? Remember to give it to me under the table.” A young woman passed in front of us and father turned. “See? Those are what I call perfect ankles.”
don't you? Remember to give it to me under the table.” A young woman passed in front of us and father turned. “See? Those are what I call perfect ankles.”
At the café, my father introduced me to everyone. They were all businessmen, bankers, and industrialists who would meet at around eleven in the morning. All of them had either lost everything they owned or were about to. “He's even read all of
Plutarch's Lives
,” boasted my father. “Wonderful,” said one of them, who, by his accent, was Greek. “Then surely you remember Themistocles.” “Of course he does,” said my father, seeing I was blushing. “Let me explain to you, then, how Themistocles won the battle at Salamis, because, that, my dear, they won't teach you in school.” Monsieur Panos took out a Parker pen and proceeded to draw naval formations on the corner of his newspaper. “And do you know who taught me all this?” he asked, with a self-satisfied glint flickering in his glazed eyes, his hand pawing my hair all the while. “Do you know who? Me,” he said, “I did, all by myself. Because I wanted to be an admiral in the Greek navy. Then I discovered there was no Greek navy, so I joined the Red Cross at Alamein.”
Plutarch's Lives
,” boasted my father. “Wonderful,” said one of them, who, by his accent, was Greek. “Then surely you remember Themistocles.” “Of course he does,” said my father, seeing I was blushing. “Let me explain to you, then, how Themistocles won the battle at Salamis, because, that, my dear, they won't teach you in school.” Monsieur Panos took out a Parker pen and proceeded to draw naval formations on the corner of his newspaper. “And do you know who taught me all this?” he asked, with a self-satisfied glint flickering in his glazed eyes, his hand pawing my hair all the while. “Do you know who? Me,” he said, “I did, all by myself. Because I wanted to be an admiral in the Greek navy. Then I discovered there was no Greek navy, so I joined the Red Cross at Alamein.”
Everyone burst out laughing, and Monsieur Panos, who probably did not understand why, joined them. “I still have the Luger a dying German soldier gave me. It had three bullets left, and now I know who they're for: one for President Nasser. One for my wife, because, God knows, she deserves it. And one for me.
Jamais deux sans trois
.” Again a burst of laughter. “Not so loud,” the Greek interrupted. But I continued to laugh heartily. While I was wiping my eyes, I caught one of the men nudging my father's arm. I was not supposed to see the gesture, but I watched as my father turned and looked uneasily at a table behind him. It was the woman with the beautiful ankles. “Weren't you going to tell me something?” asked my father,
tapping me on the knee under the table. “Only about going to the swimming pool this morning.” “By all means,” he said, taking the money I was secretly passing to him. “Why don't you go now?”
Jamais deux sans trois
.” Again a burst of laughter. “Not so loud,” the Greek interrupted. But I continued to laugh heartily. While I was wiping my eyes, I caught one of the men nudging my father's arm. I was not supposed to see the gesture, but I watched as my father turned and looked uneasily at a table behind him. It was the woman with the beautiful ankles. “Weren't you going to tell me something?” asked my father,
tapping me on the knee under the table. “Only about going to the swimming pool this morning.” “By all means,” he said, taking the money I was secretly passing to him. “Why don't you go now?”
Two days later the third blow fell.
My father telephoned in the morning. “They don't want us anymore,” he said in English. I didn't understand him. “They don't want us in Egypt.” But we had always known that, I thought. Then he blurted it out: we had been officially expelled and had a week to get our things together. “Abattoir?” I asked. “Abattoir,” he replied.
The first thing one did when
abattoir
came was to get vaccinated. No country would allow us across its border without papers certifying we had been properly immunized against a slew of Third World diseases.
abattoir
came was to get vaccinated. No country would allow us across its border without papers certifying we had been properly immunized against a slew of Third World diseases.
My father had asked me to take my grandmother to the government vaccine office. The office was near the harbor. She hated the thought of being vaccinated by an Egyptian orderlyâ“Not even a doctor,” she said. I told her we would stop and have tea and pastries afterward at Athinéos. “Don't hurt me,” she told the balding woman who held her arm. “But I'm not hurting you,” protested the woman in Arabic. “You're not hurting me? You
are
hurting me!” The woman ordered her to keep still. Then came my turn. She reminded me of Miss Badawi when she scraped my scalp with her fingernails looking for lice. Would they really ask us to undress at the customs desk when the time came and search us to our shame?
are
hurting me!” The woman ordered her to keep still. Then came my turn. She reminded me of Miss Badawi when she scraped my scalp with her fingernails looking for lice. Would they really ask us to undress at the customs desk when the time came and search us to our shame?
After the ordeal, my grandmother was still grumbling as we came down the stairs of the government building, her voice echoing loudly as I tried to hush her. She said she wanted to buy me ties.
Outside the building, I immediately hailed a hansom, helped my grandmother up, and then heard her give an obscure address on Place Mohammed Ali. As soon as we were seated, she removed a small vial of alcohol and, like her Marrano ancestors who wiped off all traces of baptismal water as soon as they had left the church, she sprinkled the alcohol on the site of the injectionâto
kill
the vaccine, she said, and all the germs that came with it!
kill
the vaccine, she said, and all the germs that came with it!
It was a glorious day, and as we rode along my grandmother suddenly tapped me on the leg as she had done years earlier on our way to Rouchdy and said, “Definitely a beach day.” I took off my sweater and began to feel that uncomfortable, palling touch of wool flannel against my thighs. Time for shorts. The mere thought of light cotton made the wool unbearable. We cut through a dark street, then a square, got on the Corniche, and, in less than ten minutes, came face-to-face with the statue of Mohammed Ali, the Albanian founder of Egypt's last ruling dynasty.
We proceeded past a series of old, decrepit stores that looked like improvised warehouses and workshops until we reached one tiny, extremely cluttered shop. “Sidi Daoud,” shouted my grandmother. No answer. She took out a coin and used it to knock on the glass door several times. “Sidi Daoud is here,” a tired figure finally uttered, emerging from the dark. He recognized her immediately, calling her his “favorite
mazmazelle
.”
mazmazelle
.”
Sidi Daoud was a one-eyed, portly Egyptian who dressed in traditional garbâa white
galabiya
and on top of it a grossly oversized, gray, double-breasted jacket. My grandmother, speaking to him in Arabic, said she wanted to buy me some good ties. “Ties? I have ties,” he said, pointing to a huge old closet whose doors had been completely removed; it was stuffed with paper bags and dirty cardboard boxes. “What sort of ties?” “Show me,” she said. “Show me, she says,” he muttered as he paced about, “so I'll show her.”
galabiya
and on top of it a grossly oversized, gray, double-breasted jacket. My grandmother, speaking to him in Arabic, said she wanted to buy me some good ties. “Ties? I have ties,” he said, pointing to a huge old closet whose doors had been completely removed; it was stuffed with paper bags and dirty cardboard boxes. “What sort of ties?” “Show me,” she said. “Show me, she says,” he muttered as he paced about, “so I'll show her.”
He brought a stool, climbed up with a series of groans and cringes, reached up to the top of the closet, and brought down a cardboard box whose corners were reinforced with rusted metal. “These are the best,” he said as he took out tie after tie. “You'll never find these for sale anywhere in the city, or in Cairo, or anywhere else in Egypt.” He removed a tie from a long sheath. It was dark blue with intricate light-blue and pale-orange patterns. He took it in his hands and brought it close to the entrance of the store that I might see it better in the sunlight, holding it out to me with both hands the way a cook might display a poached fish on a salver before serving it. “Let me see,” said my grandmother as though she were about to lift and examine its gills. I recognized the tie immediately: it had the sheen of Signor Ugo's ties.
This was a stupendous piece of work. My grandmother looked at the loop and the brand name on the rear apron and remarked that it was not a bad make. “I'll show you another,” he said, not even waiting for me to pass judgment on the first. The second was a light-burgundy, bearing an identical pattern to the first. “Take it to the door,” he told me, “I'm too old to come and go all day.” This one was lovelier than the first, I thought, as I studied both together. A moment later, my grandmother joined me at the door and held the burgundy one in her hands and examined it, tilting her head left and right, as though looking for concealed blemishes which she was almost sure to catch if she looked hard enough. Then, placing the fabric between thumb and forefinger, she rubbed them together to test the quality of the silk, peeving the salesman. “Show me better.” “Better than this?” he replied. “
Mafish,
there isn't!” He showed us other ties, but none compared to the first. I said I was happy with the dark-blue one; it would go with my new blazer. “Don't match your clothes like a pauper,” said my grandmother. The Egyptian unsheathed two more ties from a different box. One with a green background,
the other light blue. “Do you like them?” she asked. I liked them all, I said. “He likes them all,” she repeated with indulgent irony in her voice.
Mafish,
there isn't!” He showed us other ties, but none compared to the first. I said I was happy with the dark-blue one; it would go with my new blazer. “Don't match your clothes like a pauper,” said my grandmother. The Egyptian unsheathed two more ties from a different box. One with a green background,
the other light blue. “Do you like them?” she asked. I liked them all, I said. “He likes them all,” she repeated with indulgent irony in her voice.
“This is the black market,” she said to me as soon as we left the store, the precious package clutched in my hand, as I squinted in the sunlight, scanning the crowded Place Mohammed Ali for another horse-drawn carriage. We had spent half an hour in Sidi Daoud's store and had probably looked at a hundred ties before choosing these four. No shop I ever saw, before or sinceânot even the shop in the Faubourg Saint Honoré where my grandmother took me years laterâhad as many ties as Sidi Daoud's little hovel. I spotted an empty hansom and shouted to the driver from across the square. The
arbaghi,
who heard me and immediately stood up in the driver's box, signaled he would have to turn around the square, motioning us to wait for him.
arbaghi,
who heard me and immediately stood up in the driver's box, signaled he would have to turn around the square, motioning us to wait for him.
Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at Athinéos. The old Spaniard was gone. Instead, a surly Greek doing a weak impersonation of a well-mannered waiter took our order. We were seated in a very quiet corner, next to a window with thick white linen drapes, and spoke about the French plays due to open in a few days. “Such a pity,” she said. “Things are beginning to improve just when we are leaving.” The Comédie Française had finally returned to Egypt after an absence of at least ten years. La Scala was also due to come again and open in Cairo's old opera house with a production of Otello. Madame Darwish, our seamstress, had told my grandmother of a young actor from the Comédie who had knocked at her door saying this was where he had lived as a boy; she let him in, offered him coffee, and the young man burst out crying, then said goodbye. “Could all this talk of expulsion be mere bluffing?” my grandmother mused aloud, only to respond, “I don't think so.”
After a second round of mango ice cream, she said, “And now we'll buy you a good book and then we might stop a while at the museum.” By “good book” she meant either difficult to come by or one she approved of. It was to be my fourteenth-birthday present. We left the restaurant and were about to hail another carriage when my grandmother told me to make a quick left turn. “We'll pretend we're going to eat a pastry at Flückiger's.” I didn't realize why we were pretending until much later in the day when I heard my father yell at my grandmother. “We could all go to jail for what you did, thinking you're so clever!” Indeed, she had succeeded in losing the man who had been tailing us afterâand probably beforeâwe entered Athinéos. I knew nothing about it when we were inside the secondhand bookstore. On one of the stacks I had found exactly what I wanted. “Are you sure you're going to read all this?” she asked.
She paid for the books absentmindedly and did not return the salesman's greeting. She had suddenly realized that a second agent might have been following us all along. “Let's leave now,” she said, trying to be polite. “Why?” “Because.” We hopped in a taxi and told the driver to take us to Ramleh station. On our way we passed a series of familiar shops and restaurants, a stretch of saplings leaning against a sunny wall, and, beyond the buildings, an angular view of the afternoon sea.
As soon as we arrived at Sporting, I told my grandmother I was going straight to the Corniche. “No, you're coming home with me.” I was about to argue. “Do as I tell you, please. There could be trouble.” Standing on the platform was our familiar tail. As soon as I heard the word
trouble,
I must have frozen on the spot, because she immediately added, “Now don't go about looking so frightened!”
trouble,
I must have frozen on the spot, because she immediately added, “Now don't go about looking so frightened!”
My grandmother, it turned out, had been smuggling money
out of the country for years and had done so on that very day. I will never know whether her contact was Sidi Daoud, or the owner of the secondhand bookstore, or maybe one of the many coachmen we hired that day. When I asked her in Paris many years later, all she volunteered was, “One needed nerves of steel.”
out of the country for years and had done so on that very day. I will never know whether her contact was Sidi Daoud, or the owner of the secondhand bookstore, or maybe one of the many coachmen we hired that day. When I asked her in Paris many years later, all she volunteered was, “One needed nerves of steel.”
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