The Automobile Club of Egypt

KAMEL

I pieced together the details of what had happened that day.

Hameed called over Labib the telephonist and Idris the waiter. The two held my father to still him as Hameed slapped him across the face, shouting, “You have no right to do that. You have no right to do that.”

Witnesses to the incident confirmed to me that Hameed slapped my father until his nose bled. After Alku and Hameed had left, my father’s colleagues gathered around him. They sat him down and wiped the blood from his face with a damp cloth. Idris and Labib tried to console him. They felt guilty for having held him to receive the slaps.

Idris said weakly, “Don’t worry, Uncle Abd el-Aziz. We have all been through it. Alku beats the stuffing out of all of us.”

My father nodded but said nothing. Idris put his arms around him and whispered, “By the Prophet, please don’t be upset with me. I had no choice.”

Labib then declaimed, “Sometimes Alku is harsh with us, but he has a good heart and he looks after us like a father.”

He added that sentence as a precaution. If Alku came to hear about them consoling my father, then Labib would at least be able to provide a defense for himself. My father just mumbled a few platitudes about not being angry with his colleagues. He shook their hands as he got up and seemed to be in a hurry to leave the Club.

According to my mother, he arrived home at around two in the morning. He got changed, made his ablutions and said his prayers before sitting down to eat his dinner. My mother noticed that he appeared downcast, but when she asked him about it, he just said he was tired out and wanted to go to bed. My mother went into the kitchen to make him a glass of lemon juice with mint, but when she returned to the sitting room, she found him at the table, the tray of food in front of him untouched and his head lolling backward. She walked over to him, shook him gently and called his name, but he just gave a weak groan. His eyes were half open. My mother screamed and rushed outside to ask our neighbors to come and help. Aisha came immediately. She poured some ammonia onto a cloth and held it under his nose. Then she dripped some sugar water into his mouth. The ambulance arrived about half an hour later. After examining him carefully, the doctor said that there was no hope. My father died before his fifty-second birthday. He just gave up the ghost. He had struggled along with honor and pride until he was delivered a mortal blow.

I went through a period of denial, as if the news of my father’s death was patently a fabrication with no basis in reality. It was a joke for him to have died like that. It went against all the rules. It was a sudden unilateral breach of trust. It was not fair that you could build your whole life around the presence of one person and then without forewarning have to face his sudden and senseless disappearance. I could not cry for my father until some months after his death. I felt a sadness greater than anything I could express. And I was caught in a slough of inaction. It takes us some time to absorb the great tragedies that hit us like thunderbolts, and it might take you years to grasp what it means when your father dies. Your father’s death means that you are left alone and naked, unprotected and insignificant, with no buffer against the vicissitudes of life. You feel like a victim of a fate, which, like some enormous mythological bird, has cast its shadow over you, making you realize that death comes to one and all, sometimes sooner rather than later. It is disorientating to have spoken to your father in the morning, to have chatted and laughed with him, only to come home in the evening and find that he is a corpse for you to lower into the earth the following day. It is astonishing to find that your father, that robust being who has always been the mainstay of your life, has suddenly turned into a memory and that every time you mention his name, you have to add, “May God have mercy on his soul.”

During my father’s funeral, I experienced a strange froideur, as if I were observing everything from behind a thick glass screen. I made a point of walking with the coffin all the way to the cemetery, deliberately trying to make myself feel as much pain as possible. When I saw the gloom of his prepared grave, I was taken aback, unable to take my eyes off the dark and dank hole in the earth. This was the end of the line, the last station. This whole fierce and violent struggle into which our lives plunge us ends up here in this hole. Here, everything is equal. Happiness and misery. Poverty and wealth. Beauty and ugliness. We can only bear to live our lives to the extent that we can avoid thinking about death. If death were constantly in our thoughts, if we were constantly aware it could come at any moment, we would not be able to live a single day.

With my father’s death, a chapter in our family life came to a close, and a new one began. Apart from Said, who was always in his own world, we all changed. We were fractured. We were orphaned. Is orphanhood the loss of a parent, or is it a feeling, an expression, a type of behavior, or is it all those things?

For the first few days, my mother cried unceasingly and continued talking as if she could see him, “Why have you left us on our own, Abduh?”

There was reproach in her voice, as if she was angry at him for having made his mind up to die. Gradually, my mother exhausted all her tears and became a little calmer, but her whole manner changed. She became cold and brusque. She turned from wife into widow. The loving glances she used to give us, with a twinkle in her eye, whenever she was happy, had now disappeared forever. Her beautiful brown face took on the dejected and frightened expression of someone dealt a hard blow and who was not about to let it happen again.

I came home from university that evening, and she told me, “Be ready tomorrow. We’re going to the Automobile Club to claim what they owe your late father.”

The next day, I went with my mother to the office of Mr. James Wright, the general manager of the Club. Our appearance elicited sincere expressions of sorrow among the staff, and I shook hands with them one by one. They all came to express their condolences: the doormen, the waiters, Monsieur Comanus, Maître Shakir, Yusuf Tarboosh. Even Rikabi the chef rushed over to us in his white uniform and toque, shaking my mother’s hand and putting his arms around me. The staff’s welcome and sympathy could not, however, hide the fact of tension in the air. There was something that they were not saying, but it was apparent on their faces. The most honest was Bahr the barman, who, as he pressed my hand, said, “May God have mercy upon your father. His passing is a huge loss for us. He was a true man. May God punish those who wronged him.”

Mr. Wright received us in his office with calculated civility. He bowed and shook my mother’s hand in condolence, then gestured to us to take a seat. He spoke slowly, articulating carefully to help us understand his poor Arabic. From the outset I felt his courtesy was mere formality. He seemed entirely without feeling, operating within his officious parameters. It was apparent that he had decided to act within some very limited parameters.

My chair was a little way from him, whereas my mother was sitting right next to him and came straight to the point: “We have come to ask you for what my late husband was entitled to.”

As if expecting the question, he answered without hesitation, “You are entitled to his end-of-service payment. I will have it sent to your home within the next two days at the latest.”

My mother pursed her lips and looked straight at him. “And what about my late husband’s pension?”

“Unfortunately, there is no pension.”

As Mr. Wright uttered that sentence, his blue eyes shot us an admonitory look. We were testing his limits.

“My late husband worked at the Club for more than five years. How can you leave his children without a pension?”

“We will pay everything we owe you.”

“The end-of-service payment, however much that is, will keep us going for a few days or months. Our security depends on his pension, to which we are entitled.”

It surprised me that my mother neither pleaded nor begged but rather declared her rights with her head held high. Mr. Wright’s face flushed, and in a tone of growing impatience, he replied, “I would like to be able to help you, but my hands are tied by the rules and bylaws of the Club, which make no provision for a pension.”

“Then the rules and bylaws are unjust.”

“Well, that’s as it may be, but we cannot go against them.”

My mother smiled derisively. “Did they just fall down from the sky?”

Wright gave her an uneasy look. He held up a finger in warning. “I beg your pardon!”

My mother paid no heed and continued angrily, “When you die, will the Club not pay your pension to your children?”

Wright was surprised by that question, but he took it in stride. He had a harsh look and was relishing the condescension of his considered reply, “Yes. There will be a pension for my family when I die. However, in your case, there is no pension. You are entitled to his end-of-service lump sum and that is all.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because the Automobile Club has no pension plan for Egyptians. Only for Europeans.”

“Aren’t Egyptians flesh and blood like Europeans? Don’t their children need support like the children of the Europeans, of the khawagas?”

“What you are saying may be correct, but it was Europeans who invented the automobile and introduced it to Egypt. It was Europeans who founded the Automobile Club and who manage it whereas Egyptians only work here as menials. Egyptians and Europeans cannot possibly enjoy the same rights.”

There was a moment’s silence in which I felt nothing but loathing for Mr. Wright. My mother stood up and, her voice quivering with emotion, said, “I shall get my husband’s pension. You will see for yourself.”

“I wish you good luck.”

“We will get what we are entitled to, even if it means going to court, Mr. Wright.”

At that moment, Mr. Wright decided she had gone too far, and he shouted back, “Is that a threat?”

“It is not a threat. I am simply telling you what I am going to do.”

My mother stormed out of the office with me behind her. In the entrance of the club, some of the staff were waiting for us. My mother told them what had happened, and they all commiserated. Some said that the management of the Automobile Club always treated Egyptians worse than foreigners. In spite of their obvious sympathy for us, however, I noticed that they spoke cautiously, some even lowering their voices and glancing around.

As well as being furious with Mr. Wright, I was in awe of my mother. I had the same feeling that used to come over me as a child when I went with her to the market and, terrified by the clamor, clutched the hem of her robe for protection. I saw her differently now — as an Upper Egyptian woman, who, under her abundant tenderness, had a core of steel and was ready to fight, heedless of the odds or the consequences. In the days following our visit, my mother carried on as usual, but it was clear from her face that she was obsessed with purpose. She seemed to be working up a plan.

A few days later, she took me to see a distant relative who was a lawyer and asked him to take on our case against the Automobile Club. I had to miss some morning classes in order to go with her to get various official forms and seals. For some reason, I felt certain that my mother would win.

Approximately a month after our meeting with Mr. Wright, she was surprised to receive a telephone call from Mr. Comanus. He said he wanted to come see her regarding an important matter. She fixed a time with him for the following day at five o’ clock. We all waited for him, my mother, Said, Saleha and I. Even Mahmud put on his best clothes and waited with us in the sitting room. At the appointed hour, the doorbell rang.