The Map of Love (60 page)

There is nothing for us to do, however, but continue with the works we are engaged in. I work on
L’Egyptienne
with the other ladies. We have set up a fund to start a hospital. My husband and his uncle have established a school in Tawasi and we have high hopes of the School of Art, and Mustafa Basha Kamel has already started campaigning for a national University. My husband, having resigned from the Legislative Council in protest at their approving the latest Budget without a murmur (indeed, they thanked the Government for the efforts of all the ministries — another effect of the Entente), is working more with Mustafa Kamel now and together with Ya
qub Artin Basha, Hussein Rushdi Basha and some other Notables they have started a campaign for a Graduate Club as a paving of the way for the University
.

It is a shame that you have never seen the new Museum, it houses objects of such amazing beauty that alone it would make a visit to Egypt worthwhile. I remember when I first came to Egypt how you spoke to me of the ancient monuments and your regret that the most choice among them had found their way to Europe. I have since found out that your feelings, not surprisingly, are shared by many educated Egyptians, who see in the trade their past being stolen as surely as their present is. It is a source of some sad satisfaction that the French have insisted on the Entente stating that they retain control of the Department of Antiquities, for today the British and the Americans are the gravest threat to the monuments
.

Dear James; I have some news that I think will make you happy. I did not tell you of this before, ‘but when you were leaving and were so anxious to secure positions for your staff before your departure, I — knowing of your regard for Sabir and also sensible myself of an affection for him due to his loyalty on that occasion which was to have such far-reaching consequences for me — I asked my husband whether we might not take him on. He refused and I did not press the point, particularly as you then
succeeded in placing him in an English household. However, it appears that he was unhappy there. He moved to another, with no better results. A short while ago he presented himself at my husband’s offices, and Sharif Basha consented to see him. He has since then entered my husband’s employ — in the offices, not in the house — where he is being taught to read and write and some use is being made of his knowledge of English, and it seems everyone is well pleased with the arrangement. My husband commends his intelligence and zeal, and Sabir is happy, for I took occasion, when he once delivered some papers to the house, to go down and see him and he told me so himself He ended with his hand on his heart and the wonderful phrase: ‘Ya Sett Hanim, my neck is for you and the Basha. ‘ And I do believe he means it
.

I send you two books: the collection of poems compiled by the late Mahmoud Sami Basha, God rest his soul. And the book which everyone here is reading: Muhammad al-Muweilhi’s
Hadith
Isa ibn Hisham. I
hope you enjoy them. At the least they will serve to polish up your Arabic —

WHEN LORD CROMER TOURED THE
provinces in triumph in January of 1905, one month after the death of my uncle Mahmoud Sami Basha, it seemed that our cup of bitterness was full to the brim. Many Notables, seeing that there was no present hope of getting rid of the British, vied to host Cromer on his progress through Egypt. And there were those who came to my brother to advise him to abandon a stance that was sentenced to failure, and to say that were he to be in Minya at the appropriate moment so that the Lord might drink tea in his house, it would be well for him and would be counted in the balance for him against his history, his known views and his marriage. My brother remained in Cairo and Mustapha Bey el-Gham-rawi also removed to Cairo for the duration of the Lord’s Progress. And so it was that Tawasi remained unvisited, as did the lands of al-Minshawi Basha and other of the more steadfast Notables.

Al-Minshawi Basha had personal reasons, besides the public ones, that precluded his offering hospitality to Cromer; for it was the Lord’s policy of combating any nascent national industry that led directly to the bankruptcy of the Basha’s textile factory. Other friends, who had invested in the tobacco and sugar industries, were in similar difficulties, but we were fortunate in that our material fortunes could not be touched by the Occupation and our household was — within the confines of our domestic life — a happy one. Our one concern, in those months, was for Anna and although she made it clear that she lacked no reason for happiness, our sensibilities constantly urged us to compensate her for the absence of a mother or a sister who would naturally have been with her at this time.

21 May 1905

The midwife comes to see me often now, and every time Zeinab Hanim or Layla or my husband set eyes upon me it is ‘let us walk around the garden’ or ‘let us go sit on the roof, so that I have never walked so much nor climbed so many stairs in my life as I do now. Zeinab Hanim shows me exercises that are reputed to ease the birth, Hasna rubs me all over with sweet-smelling oil each day and Mabrouka is scarcely to be seen but she is murmuring incantations and swinging her incense-burner. One of the guestrooms has been prepared as a birthing chamber and the huge birthing chair — which shares certain features with a commode — has been earned into it. There is a bed there too and it will be there that I sleep after my confinement until I may rejoin my husband after forty days
.

He looks at me as though unsure what I am making of all this. He tries to ascertain how strange it is to me and whether there is anything that might be done to make it more familiar and more comforting. But in truth it is so strange — strange to such an extreme degree — that it does not matter any more. For my condition itself is strange and wonderful to me. And as I have
had no experience of childbirth — either my own or anyone else’s — I am content to let Zeinab Hanim and Layla take charge and count myself in good hands
.

It is as well that this impending baby keeps us happily busy, for so many things have converged upon us in the last few weeks. Our friend Sheikh Muhammad Abdu grows more ill and there is talk that he should go abroad for treatment. The students from the School of Engineering have gone on strike and are marching about the streets in their military uniforms, and we fear it will not be too long before a confrontation takes place between them and the Army. We have just had word that Shukri Bey and other Notables in Jaffa, Nazareth and Jerusalem have been put under house arrest by the authorities for possession of Naguib Azoury’s pamphlet
Les Pays arabes aux Arabes.
And through it all we hold on to our love and the expectation of the child. At times it seems to me that my baby is being placed in the balance against all the ills of the world. But so far the magic has not failed and my husband smiles to see me grown so big and makes great play of no longer being able to get his arms around me —

Cairo
3 June 1905

My dear Sir Charles
,

I am awaiting my confinement daily and although I am in excellent health and spirits and am marvellously well looked after, I have such a sense of imminence that you must forgive me if I show somewhat less reserve than is generally considered proper and write to you today of what is in my heart
.

My happiness here is such that every day I am grateful to be alive. And yet, I am greedy. For of all that I have had to leave behind, the loss I am not reconciled with is yours. We cannot come to visit you — will you not come to visit us?

Dear Sir Charles, you were a dear and loving father to me for so many years and you were also my guide in ways which perhaps at the time we were neither of us aware of. Whatever ideas I have of Truth or Justice I first learned from you. Not by
direct teaching but from observing the positions you adopted on matters both private and public. My interest in Egypt was first awakened by you and, indeed, I still have the white shawl and the silver-cased coffee cup you brought back in ‘82
.

The Entente has been a heavy blow indeed. Many of the Nationalists had counted France as their ally against the British Occupation. And although my husband has never been one of those who put their trust in France, he sees this new Entente as heralding an age where Britain can do what she will in Egypt with no thought for the opinion of the world
.

Now there is nowhere to turn but to British Public Opinion. I have been thinking of Ireland and of how whatever progress the Irish Question was vouchsafed, it only came about because there were people in England prepared to state Ireland’s case. It was their good fortune that they were able to state it in English and that there were those among our rulers whom they could count as their friends. This is not how things stand for Egypt, for — besides yourself and Mr Blunt — there is no one to state Egypt’s case. (I had, I confess, expected Mr Kennel Rodd to do something.) However, I have come to believe that the fact that it falls to Englishmen to speak for Egypt is in itself perceived as a weakness; for how can the Egyptians govern themselves, people ask, when they cannot even speak for themselves? They cannot speak because there is no platform for them to speak from and because of the difficulties with language. By that I mean not just the ability to translate Arabic speech into English but to speak as the English themselves would speak, for only then will the justice of what they say — divested of its disguising cloak of foreign idiom — be truly apparent to those who hear it
.

Well, what if there were someone, an Egyptian, who could address British public opinion in a way that it would understand? Someone who could use the right phrases, employ the apt image or quotation, strike the right note and so reach the hearts and minds of the British people? And what if a platform were secured for such a person? Is it not worth a try?

I know that the case of Ireland is different from that of Egypt. But there are aspects of that difference which are in Egypt’s favour;
for surely the interests of Britain in Egypt are not yet so entangled that they might not be gently pulled apart without harm? There are no British settlers who have lived for years upon the land. The number of British officials here-although certainly too large in the view of the Egyptians — is not so large that their dislodging would constitute a serious problem. It is merely a matter of removing the Army of Occupation. And no Egyptian whom I know is not in favour of economic reform or of paying off Egypt’s debts. Indeed they would be more willing to be guided by Britain in economic and financial matters if the guidance were that of an elected Friend rather than an imposed Guardian
.

Dear Sir Charles, will you help me?

Oh, if you could see the fields, tall with sugar cane, or purple and blue with the flower of the kittan. If you could see the children, making kangaroo-pockets of their galabiyyas to gather in them the new-plucked cotton. If you could see the ancient willow trees trailing their hair in the running canals and see Nestorian monks heading back to their monastery while the call of the muezzin unfurls its banner in the reddening sky! This is a land where God is unceasingly manifest
.

Forgive me. I ramble and am grown overwrought. Our beloved friend Sheikh Muhammad Abdu is gravely ill and we fear for him. Come and visit us when I am safely delivered, for I long to place my child in your arms —

ANNA WAS DELIVERED SAFELY OF
her baby and we named the child Nur al-Hayah, for she did truly bring light into all our lives.

When my brother’s most beloved friend, Sheikh Muhammad
Abdu, died three weeks after the birth, Nur al-Hayah was the one most able to give her father solace. He carried the baby in his arms, he walked her up and down when she cried, he attended her bath and wrapped her tenderly in her soft white towels. From the day she was born, Nur al-Hayah was beautiful. She had her mother’s fair colouring and her violet eyes, and she had my brother’s dark hair. He would sit and gaze into her face and
bend to kiss the tiny foot. And although Mabrouka did her duty and secretly placed the baby’s first nail clippings into Abeih’s waistcoat pocket to ensure his constant love, it was clear that he had lost his heart to her without the aid of magic. In fact, my father, Husni and Ahmad all fell in love with little Nur immediately, and when I think of her now I see a smiling infant, surrounded on all sides by our love and attention.