The Automobile Club of Egypt

10

Some things in life seem so natural that it is difficult to imagine when they began. Such was the intense friendship between the two strapping young men, Mahmud, son of Hagg Abd el-Aziz Gaafar, and Fawzy, son of Ali Hamama the grocer. But in fact there was every reason why they should get on with each other: their age — Mahmud was just a few months older than Fawzy; they lived in the same building in al-Sadd al-Gawany Street; and they were both in their third year at the Abd el-Latif college. Beyond all that, they had an identical outlook on life. Fawzy and Mahmud were both convinced that studying was a waste of time.

Fawzy would ask his friend, “Can you tell me what use are all those trivial facts that they try to cram into our brains?”

“Yeah. It’s just a load of old nonsense.”

Fawzy, the more excitable, would work himself into a lather and ask, “Take calculus. If all those complicated equations don’t help us with simple calculations, then why do we have to study it at all?”

At this point, Mahmud assumed a look of forbearance and mused calmly, “Anyway, calculus is a piece of cake compared to geography, with all those tedious maps and crops and precipitations. God alone knows why we should have to know the varieties of crops grown on Sumatra! We live in Egypt and we’re never even going there!”

According to the boys’ way of looking at things, school was simply a place set up to torment you. Whoever said that success in life depends on success in school? There were lots of wealthy and successful men who had never gone to school, whereas some spent long years studying and then could not find a job. In addition to their dislike of studying, the boys shared four hobbies. First, cutting class — they had thought up many tricks for getting out of school, from jumping over the wall to bribing the doorman, old Shazli, with cigarettes to unlock the gate for them after the first lesson. Second, playing soccer on the “triangle,” a patch of empty ground in front of the Rimali Mill in Sayyida Zeinab. Third, chatting up girls, going out with them and trying to snatch a cuddle or a kiss. Fourth: weight lifting, on which they spent all their free time trying to bulk up their bodies.

That life was secret, their real life, far from the stupidity and boredom of school. Fawzy could still remember how they’d become friends. One day, he had cut class as usual and gone to play soccer on the triangle. Having left his books on the pavement, he was dribbling a bit on his own to warm up for the game. Then the ebony-skinned, svelte and muscular Mahmud suddenly appeared. In that first time the two played football together, as a result of some well-judged passes from Fawzy, Mahmud scored two out of their side’s four goals. At their victory celebrations, everyone stood around drinking iced soda paid for by the losers. As Mahmud was happily sipping his bottle of Sinalco Orange, with a satisfied and grateful look that said, “I wish that I could drink it all the time,” Fawzy walked over and introduced himself. They exchanged a hearty handshake and eyed each other slowly up and down like a pair of animals sniffing each other. Then Fawzy cried out, “Well done, Captain Mahmud! A great match. You were great on the attack. And those killer strikes!”

“May God keep you, Captain Fawzy. Thanks!”

Fawzy took a step closer to Mahmud and said, “Looks like you do a lot of lifting.”

“As much as I can.”

Fawzy reached out and felt his musculature, commenting admiringly, “Great shoulders and traps!”

“Well, I’ve been working on them a lot. God knows!”

“I’ve been trying forever but with no results. I just end up tired and then I stop.”

A serious look came over Mahmud’s face, and he offered to help Fawzy. That same day, Fawzy visited Mahmud at home for the first time. He greeted Mahmud’s mother, Umm Said, and kissed her hand, and then Mahmud took him off to his bedroom at the far end of the large apartment for his first lesson in how to put on some muscle. Mahmud pulled two- and five-kilo dumbbells out from under his bed, with which he demonstrated a few exercises that Fawzy tried. Next, Mahmud lay flat on the floor and disappeared under the bed, and when he reappeared he was dragging something Fawzy had never seen before: one of those big sturdy wooden poles like the one peasants used for stirring the laundry; at either end were attached two identical cans labeled “Authentic Sultan Ghee.”

Fawzy looked astonished, but Mahmud chuckled and said, “Well, real metal weights are expensive. I made these myself.”

“How?”

“Simple. Just get a heavy wash pole and two empty cans full of cement when it sets. You’ll have a perfect set of barbells. Just watch!”

Mahmud dipped his hands into the round tin of talcum powder under the bed and got himself into position. With his feet together and his back straight, he took a few deep breaths and then gracefully leaned over, gripping the pole with both hands. He stayed in that position for a few seconds as he focused himself, before letting out a loud cry, “By the strength of God, let me do it, O mother of miracles!” In one movement he snatched the weights and held them above his head for a few seconds as his face reddened and his arms and neck bulged. Fawzy clapped and cheered, “Bravo, Mahmud. You’re really something!”

Mahmud lowered the weights to the ground and let out such a loud roar of victory that Umm Said came rushing in to see what the matter was, but Mahmud simply asked her if she would bring them some mint tea with lots of qaraqeesh and cheese. Mahmud promised to give Fawzy a training session at least twice a week, and soon the results of organized and proper weight lifting started to show. Fawzy’s biceps got bigger and his abdominals became tighter. After that, the two lads became inseparable, doing everything together. They would meet in front of the school gate in the morning, then slip away to a café far enough from school to be safe, and they would sip tea with milk and smoke a nargileh, trying to decide whether they should see a film, take the tram to the zoo and try to chat up some schoolgirls or just play some soccer on the triangle. They even tried to convince their respective families to let them do their homework together. Aisha agreed immediately, but Umm Said said she would not allow it.

“Listen, son. You are supposed to study with clever people so that you can learn from them. So why on earth would you study with that Fawzy? You’re both terrible students!”

Mahmud, however, would not relent, and he whittled away at his mother’s resistance. The two boys started doing their homework together every evening, preparing for their sessions as if for a party or the opera. First a long, hot bath, followed by a careful shave. Then they would slather moisturizing lotion on their bodies. With the aid of hair cream, they would comb their hair into a neat part, before dressing and dousing themselves with cologne. Naturally, all these preparations took quite a while. At whoever’s flat they met in, they would greet each other as if he were returning from a long trip. Then they would prepare the theater of their drama. First they would check that the floor was spotless, sweeping it if they found even a speck of dust. Removing the clean, ironed cloth from the table, they would check the glass top underneath it for any spots.

One might ask at this point why bother over a few flecks of dust on the floor or a small spot smudged on the tabletop that was covered anyway? What had any of it to do with their homework? In truth, it went against their meticulous nature to overlook these minutiae over which they might spend a whole hour. Then they would sit down facing each other, open their books and get on with their homework. It would generally only take a few minutes for Mahmud to mutter in disgust, “Oh God, my pencil has gone all scratchy!”

At this, Fawzy would stop reading and take the pencil from his friend to check the extent of the problem. Then he would smile and say, “Don’t worry, boss! I’ll sharpen it for you.”

Some might think it is a piece of cake to sharpen a lead pencil, but they could not be more mistaken. Sharpening a lead pencil to get the point just right is a fine art requiring concentration and expertise. Proof of this is the fact that Fawzy Hamama, for all his sharpening powers, often gave the pencil one twist too many in the sharpener, and the worst would happen: the slight cracking sound of the point breaking off. Fawzy would start all over again, while Mahmud sharpened another pencil. The boys would sit there working away until they had a good supply of finely sharpened pencils. After completing this task, which naturally took a good a bit of time, they would set about their homework again, but then, no matter whose apartment they were in, the host felt it his duty to ask the guest whether he would like to eat or drink anything. These were the inviolable rules of etiquette. The requests were usually manifold and very specific: a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich, a plate of mashed fava beans served with spices or fried eggs with pepper and cumin. That would be followed by cups of mint, delicious salep or fenugreek tea, which is known the world over for its excellent nutritional value. The host would go and prepare the food himself, but as a matter of form, the guest would go with him to keep him entertained. And so between sharpening pencils, polishing the glass tabletop, making food and wolfing it down, not to mention trying to come up with yet another new exercise for their shoulders and thighs, evenings spent doing homework passed this way. It should have come as no surprise when they got their marks at year’s end that both of them had to repeat that year for the second time in a row. They were not particularly bothered by this, though they resented it when their parents cut off their pocket money for a few weeks as punishment. Fortunately, they had already put some aside for emergencies and survived on it until the sentence was served.

That winter, as the two friends were sitting the same classes for the third time, they hatched a brilliant new plan. They would meet in the early morning and each down a glass of buttermilk, before a hearty breakfast: plate after plate of fava beans, fried liver and eggs, this in order to gain the necessary energy. Afterward, they would go down onto the street in the cold, in short sleeves with the top buttons open. They would head for the Huda Shaarawy Girls School, where — as they stood with their bulging muscles and open-necked shirts showing off their thick tufts of chest chair, another blessing that God had granted them — the sight of them would arouse the curiosity of the girls, who, wrapped up in their pullovers against the cold, would chirrup excitedly and flock around them.

One of the girls would call out, “Look at that! They’re wearing short sleeves in the middle of winter!”

Fawzy would turn to her and shrug, “What of it?”

“What of it? It’s freezing out here.”

At that point, Fawzy would puff himself up like a bird and say, “Fortunately, God made us tough.”

During these morning struts, they got to know two pretty girls in particular: Nawal and Soraya. They even managed some snogging with them in the back row of the upper circle during the morning show at Cinema al-Sharq. It was typical that the two friends passed their days in utter contentment. In fact, they were simply confirming the old adage which says that a man’s happiness comes from within. They took things as they came, unperturbed by what might bother other people. They were totally at ease, precisely because their priorities in life were different from those of the rest of mankind. A muscle that did not respond to training, a girl that turned up late for a date at the cinema, a soccer match lost on the triangle or even a zit one might get on his face — such were the matters that occupied their minds, whereas other benighted souls thought about getting good marks at school.

One week, Fawzy, the brains of the duo, asked his friend, “Mahmud! Have you forgotten our kushari bet?”

From time to time they would wager to see who could eat more kushari—a dish of rice, lentils, onions and tomato sauce. They would go to the kushari café in Tram Street and gobble their way through plate after plate until one of them gave up. A winner would be declared, and the loser, as per their bet, had to pay the bill.

Mahmud smiled and said, “Of course I haven’t forgotten. It’s always such fun!”

“Do you know that guy Sidqi al-Zalbani?”

“Yeah. I know him.”

Al-Zalbani had been a classmate of theirs at the Ali Abd el-Latif School, but he had managed to move ahead and get a place at the Ibrahimiya Secondary School. Fawzy continued, “I’ve set a date with Sidqi al-Zalbani. Next Friday, please God, after prayers. The three of us are going to the kushari café to see who can eat the most. The loser will pay not only for the lot, but he’ll have to give a pound to each of the others. Don’t you think it’s a great idea?”

The torrent of information overwhelmed Mahmud, who could only take things in slowly. A platitudinous smile froze on his dark face as he looked inquiringly at Fawzy, who went over the plan again more slowly this time: Sidqi was the son of Muhammad al-Zalbani, owner of the famous Zalbani Sweet Factory, who had heaps of money. The two friends would easily beat Sidqi in the kushari competition, not only getting to eat a huge amount free of charge but getting paid a pound each to do it.

Mahmud finally caught on, and his face relaxed. “Great thinking, boss!”

Friday arrived. The three contestants said their prayers in the Sayyida Zeinab mosque and then headed for the kushari café owned by Hagg Subhi, who, according to terms prearranged with Fawzy, had kept a table for them in the far corner, out of sight of the other customers. At the last moment, Sidqi al-Zalbani became hesitant and whispered anxiously, “Let’s forget the bet. Why don’t we just go to the cinema instead?”

“You’re speaking like a child!” Fawzy barked back at him. “We’ve already agreed, so let’s get on with it, or are you so afraid of losing?”

The last remark hardened Sidqi’s resolve, and the three cavaliers took up their positions around the table. Fawzy asked the waiter to stay near them, “Listen, brother! We three champions have got colossal appetites. The moment you see an empty plate, clear it away and bring another one. And make sure that you don’t keep us waiting!”

“At your service, Master Fawzy,” the waiter answered politely, Fawzy sneering back at him, “God protect you! You look healthy enough, but by the Prophet, I’m sure that you’ll trip over your long legs when serving us. Anyway, in the name of God, just keep bringing us the kushari, will you!”

“Would you three young sirs like medium or large portions?”

Fawzy snorted indignantly and snapped back, “Since when do big cheeses like us eat medium size? What a stupid question.”

The waiter apologized for his blunder and rushed off to the kitchen, returning quickly with three large plates of kushari. The boys shoveled them down in a trice, whereupon Fawzy called out, “Next one!”

The second round was followed by a third and then a fourth. By the fifth round, Fawzy had expected Sidqi to throw in the towel or at least show signs of slowing down, but he was going full steam ahead as he finished off the fifth plate. In the sixth round, Fawzy managed to finish his plate with some difficulty, and he noticed the color ebbing from Mahmud’s face. When he noticed Sidqi still eating like there was no tomorrow, Fawzy realized that the contest would not be a pushover.

The three sat eating in grim silence. Fawzy, hoping to get his breath, ordered a jug of water. He was about to drink it slowly in order to settle his stomach, when Sidqi poured a whole glass down his throat in one go and gave a huge belch before calling out to the waiter, “What’s the matter with you? Have you gone to sleep? We’re waiting for the seventh round!”

With the first spoonfuls, Fawzy and Mahmud started having obvious problems. They were chewing slowly and finding it difficult to swallow. Sidqi, on the other hand, was sending spoonful after spoonful down his gullet, in a state of complete insouciance. The sight of him shook Fawzy’s morale; he felt dizzy and breathless, not to mention that ache in his distended stomach.

“This is a catastrophe!” he thought. “That Sidqi’s a ringer. But if I lose, it will be even worse. I’ve only got ten piastres on me.”