The Automobile Club of Egypt

24

The door opened, and Madame Khashab appeared. The moment she saw Mahmud her face froze.

“Is everything all right? Do you want something?” she asked warily.

Mahmud was bewildered and confused by her tone, but then he pulled himself together and stuttered, “I’m sorry, Madame.”

She turned her face away and asked him coldly, “Sorry for what?”

“I’m sorry for upsetting you,” he said quickly with some warmth in his voice. “By God Almighty, I’m so angry that my mother made me return your present. Please forgive me.”

Madame Khashab was about to say something, but she stopped herself. Mahmud then took a step toward her and held out the flowers.

“I have brought you these,” he said imploringly, “to apologize.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Mahmud continued, “Please accept the flowers. By the life of the Prophet, don’t embarrass me, Madame.”

After a little hesitation, Madame Khashab took the bouquet. “Thank you, Mahmud,” she said and smiled.

“Are you still angry with me?”

When she did not answer, Mahmud continued. “Madame,” he said in a voice full of sincerity, “you told me that you have a good heart and that you like to forgive.”

Madame Khashab started examining the flowers, held them up so she could smell them and then said, “The flowers are beautiful. I love carnations.”

Mahmud smiled, showing his glistening teeth, as if to say that was the least he could do.

“So have you forgiven me?” he asked again.

She nodded and looked at him affectionately.

“Mahmud,” she said. “I consider you my son. I could never be angry with you. When you returned the present, I was upset because I had just been trying to be helpful.”

“Thank you, Madame.”

Madame Khashab’s smile broadened. She pushed the door open wide with her hand and took a step backward.

“Come in, Mahmud.”

“Thank you.”

“You can’t stand there at the door. Come and have something to drink.”

Mahmud let himself be invited in as three thoughts occurred to him: first, that Mustafa had been completely right about the effect of flowers on the temperament of foreigners; second, that this was his day off and he could stay there a little; and third, that he had to be careful not to upset Madame Khashab again.

The three thoughts preoccupied Mahmud’s brain, making him incapable of resisting when Madame Khashab held out her hand and led him to the sitting room. Then she took the paper off the flowers and arranged them in a vase on the table by the window. She admired the flowers and sat down on the sofa. Mahmud, for the first time, noticed a bottle of whiskey, a glass and an ice bucket on the table and realized that she had been drinking. She reached out for her glass and with a sudden laugh said, “So how are you, Mahmud?”

“Thank God, I’m fine.”

He continued watching as she emptied her glass in one go and then leaned over to pour herself another. Mahmud sat there with his hands on his knees, not knowing what to say, when Madame Khashab asked him affectionately, “Should I pour you a glass of whiskey?”

“No, thank you.”

“Just one glass.”

“Madame, I am a Muslim. We’re not allowed alcohol.”

Madame Khashab laughed and took a sip of her whiskey.

“Do you pray?” she asked.

“Not regularly, unfortunately. Sometimes I forget and sometimes I don’t get around to it.”

She seemed to be thinking of something, to be looking for the right words.

“How old are you Mahmud?” she asked him.

“Nineteen.”

“All right. And don’t you know more now than when you were ten?”

“Of course I do.”

“Good. And as a person gets a little older, he understands more about the world, doesn’t he?”

“Of course.”

“Good. And it is God who created the whole world and everyone in it, so he must understand more than all of us.”

“Naturally.”

“And if God knows more than all of us, then he must forgive us?”

“Does he forgive us even if we do stupid things?” he asked naively.

“God has to punish us for big sins,” she said laughing. “He punishes us if we hurt people. If we lie or steal or murder. But if we drink a glass or two to drown our sorrows, I don’t think God would punish us for such a small thing.”

That was rather complicated logic for Mahmud, who nodded, a smile frozen on his face.

“So what do you say?” Madame Khashab asked him again. “Shall I pour you a glass?”

“No, thank you.”

“All right, as you like. Would you like a glass of chocolate milk?”

He hesitated a little and then answered quietly, “That would be lovely.”

“How much sugar?”

“Four teaspoons.”

Madame Khashab laughed as she started to understand his character. She nodded, finished off her glass in one gulp and went to the kitchen. Mahmud sat there, looking around. To his left in the sitting room, he could see a large wooden radio set and an aquarium, illuminated from the inside, with colored fish swimming around. In front of him was the dining room with its balcony overlooking the Zamalek corniche. On the wall hung a wedding portrait of Madame Khashab and her handsome husband, Sami Khashab. There was also a large photograph of him some years later, his hair now white, hanging with pride of place in the sitting room, a black ribbon draped down the side. A few moments later, Madame Khashab came back and placed the glass of chocolate milk in front of him and then poured herself another whiskey.

“Do you know what, Mahmud? Your mother was both right and wrong to refuse the gift. She was right because you have to keep your dignity, but she was wrong because I love you like a son.”

Mahmud felt uncomfortable, because she had brought the conversation back to the problem which he thought had been solved. The drink was making Madame Khashab maudlin. She sat back in her armchair and stretched out her legs, taking another sip of whiskey.

“I want people to like me,” she said softly.

Mahmud said nothing.

She looked at him and continued, “I need people, Mahmud. Do you understand? God did not give me children. I really wanted to have a child. And the only man I loved, the man for whom I left England and came to Egypt, he died and left me alone.”

The conversation was progressing at such a speed that it confused Mahmud. He thought Madame Khashab was, to some extent, like those drinkers whom Suleyman would help out to their cars at the end of the night.

“Do you know,” she asked him, “what is the worst thing in the world?”

He was incapable of giving an answer. At that moment he was preoccupied with trying to drink the last drops of the chocolate. It was wonderful.

“The worst thing in the world,” she continued, “is to be left alone. Look, I’ve got everything I need, a nice apartment in Zamalek and one in Alexandria near the sea. I’m well off, but I’m alone. Do you understand? Completely alone.”

“But don’t you have friends, Madame?”

“I do. But I always feel that I need them more than they need me. All my women friends have children and grandchildren. But I’m alone.”

Mahmud was moved by her words, but he made no comment.

“Do you know, Mahmud?” she whispered as if speaking to herself, “I am afraid sometimes that I’ll die all alone in the apartment, and no one will know.”

“God forbid, Madame!”

“If one day I don’t feel well, I have to tell the doorman in case something happens to me during the night, and he needs to call the doctor. Imagine, Mahmud, that you are so alone that the doorman is the only living soul who can help you in an emergency. It’s so depressing.”

“May God grant you good health,” Mahmud said with feeling.

“I’m not very well, Mahmud,” Madame Khashab sighed. “I have lots of problems. Drinking relaxes me. After I’ve had two glasses, I can sleep and not think about everything.”

Mahmud finished his glass of chocolate and wiped his mouth with the handkerchief that his mother had carefully put in his right pocket. He took a sip of ice water to rinse the chocolate flavor from his mouth.

“Thank you, Madame,” he said. “The chocolate was delicious.”

“Shall I make you another one?”

He hesitated a moment and then smiled and replied, “Oh, that would be lovely.”

Madame Khashab went back to the kitchen, and a few minutes later Mahmud was savoring a second glass.

“And are you happy,” she asked him, “in your job at the Automobile Club?”

“Yes, thank God!”

“Do you earn enough?”

“I hand my salary over to my mother.”

“All of it?”

“She gives me a little pocket money from it.”

“Congratulations. You’re a decent man. If I had had a son, I’d like him to have turned out like you.”

As Mahmud was taking the last sip from his second glass of chocolate, Madame Khashab commented, “You really do like chocolate!”

“I love it!”

She got up and went over to the sideboard next to the dining table. She bent over, opened one of the drawers and then went over to Mahmud, holding out her hand.

“Please take it, Mahmud,” she said gently. “It’s white chocolate from Switzerland.”

“White chocolate?”

“Taste it,” she laughed. “I’m sure you’ll like it.”

Mahmud took the chocolate as carefully as a jewel and put it in his pocket. Then he stood up.

“I’ll be off now. Thank you so much, Madame Khashab.”

“I’d be happy if you would visit me again.”

“Please God.”

She walked him to the door, and he felt delighted that everything had turned out so well. She was no longer upset with him, and they were friends again. Moreover, he could hardly wait to rip open the white chocolate and taste it.

“Mahmud,” she said at the door as he was about to go. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything!”

“Please stop calling me Madame Khashab.”

“Then what should I call you, Madame?”

“And don’t say Madame either! My name is Rosa. Call me Rosa.”

“Rosa…,” he repeated slowly.

“Give my best wishes to your mother,” she said with a laugh. “Okay? Tell her that Rosa loves you just as she does.”

Mahmud nodded, and Rosa drew near to give him a kiss. She had already kissed him on the cheek two or three times in the past, and just behind the smell of whiskey on her breath, he could recognize her delicate perfume, reminding him of the perfumed soap and the aroma of clean clothes that lingered on his mother. He let Rosa kiss him on the cheeks, but she suddenly put her arms around him. Then he felt her hot breath searing his face.