The Automobile Club of Egypt

35

Fawzy primped for the evening. He combed his hair meticulously and plastered it with hair cream. He dabbed half a bottle of eau de cologne all over his body and squeezed the bulging muscles of his chest and arms into a tight T-shirt that made him look like a pale-skinned giant walking alongside the black giant who was Mahmud Gaafar. They took the Lambretta, Fawzy in front and Mahmud riding pillion, all the way to the sugar factory in Garden City. It was seven in the evening, and the street was quiet and almost empty. Fawzy seemed as self-assured as if he’d done this quite often, but Mahmud was typically uneasy and distracted. He had been of more than two minds about coming along, but Fawzy had nagged him to come. Now, he was afraid. This was different from his times with Rosa and Dagmar. Madame Tafida al-Sarsawy had asked him bluntly to sleep with her.

“I’ll pay you what Dagmar does,” she had said.

He could not understand how these women knew about his activities. They must get together somewhere and exchange secrets. When he telephoned Tafida to tell her that he was coming over, she was overjoyed. He’d also told her that he would be bringing Fawzy along. At that, she fell silent for a moment and then said, “He’s most welcome. He can come with you, but then he must make his excuses and leave us.”

Mahmud, feeling embarrassed, said, “Fawzy is a friend of mine, and he would like to spend time with you, madame.”

“Well, he’s most welcome,” she answered quickly. “What matters is that you and I do what we talked about.”

Mahmud was again taken aback by her forthrightness. What a dreadful woman! The closer they came to her building, the greater his anxiety. There was no telling how she’d react to Fawzy. Whenever he tried to imagine the situation, he just became more unnerved. Before they went into the building, Mahmud suddenly stopped and implored Fawzy, “For my sake, let’s skip this. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

Fawzy snorted in disbelief.

“It’s child’s play,” he said. “Get a grip on yourself, man!”

Mahmud knitted his brow and held his hands up.

“How am I going to tell her that you’ll be filling in for me?”

Fawzy grabbed Mahmud by his enormous arm and dragged him forward, telling him, “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”

“Fawzy! The woman’s old and looks terrible, like a bad dream!”

“Listen, I told you I can do it. What’s your problem?”

Mahmud gave in. As the two of them went into the entrance, the doorman stopped them. This shook Mahmud, but Fawzy took the matter in hand. He cleared his throat and said, “We are here to see Madame Tafida al-Sarsawy.”

Fawzy discerned the suspicion in the doorman’s eyes, and he said brazenly, “Well, why are you just standing there? I said we have an appointment with Madame Tafida.”

The doorman looked at them for a moment and then stepped back to clear the way.

“Madame Tafida,” he said, “is apartment seventeen on the fourth floor.”

Mahmud almost told him that he knew which apartment she lived in but chose to remain silent. They got in the lift, but at the door of the apartment, Mahmud was still hesitant. Fawzy reached out and pressed the doorbell. A few moments later, the door opened. It is difficult to give a faithful description of Madame Tafida. She was scrawny and wrinkled, and her skin was covered in liver spots. Her wide eyes were rimmed with eyeliner, and she had drawn on thin eyebrows. She had angular features and thin, red-painted lips, which gave the impression of a febrile personality. Although her face seemed to be fixed in a frown, from time to time it would break into a supercilious smile with a hint of bitterness. Tafida observed everything suspiciously as if looking for the hidden lie or plot behind it all. All who knew her found her to be disconcerting, an arrogant, argumentative cynic who never stopped causing problems. On top of all that, she had a certain bygone-days quality to her, as if she had just stepped out of a time machine or a black-and-white movie, the sort of look you find in a photograph from an old album.

“Good evening, Madame,” Mahmud said.

“Nice to see you, Mahmud,” Madame Tafida said and then gestured at Fawzy and asked brusquely, “Who’s that guy?”

“Have you forgotten, Madame?” Mahmud answered quickly. “He’s my friend Fawzy. The one I told you about.”

She nodded and fixed a suspicious look on him. She still had not invited them in. Mahmud just stood there while Fawzy boldly took a step toward her.

“Good evening, Madame Tafida,” he said. “I asked Mahmud to bring me along. When I heard what a lovely person you are, I wanted to meet you. I already had a picture of you in my mind, but now that I have seen you, you are lovelier than I imagined.”

The words sounded odd, and Fawzy looked at Tafida with complete insolence. Tafida’s face turned the colors of the rainbow. Her facial expressions changed. She looked a little anxious, but then she gave a startled blink as if she had just had a thought, and she took two steps backward, “Please come in.”

The two boys went into the high-ceilinged and spacious sitting room. Madame Tafida lived alone in a twenties-era six-bedroom apartment with two bathrooms. She sat down on the sofa and looked at them as they sat on armchairs next to each other. The whole situation was weird, and Mahmud kept wondering how she could receive them in her apartment without having uttered a single word of welcome.

Someone had to make the first move, so Mahmud mumbled, “How are you, Madame Tafida? Please God you are well.”

Tafida did not answer. She looked carefully at him, as if she could see through his words. Then she looked at Fawzy, and now for the first time, in the light of the lamp, she could see his svelte body and his brawny muscles. Fawzy picked up on this and smiled.

“My name is Fawzy, and I’m at your service, Madame. Anything you want from Mahmud…I can do it for you.”

Tafida seemed frozen. She stared at them as if unable to take in the strange turn of events, but then her gaze lost its harshness, and she said, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Red wine,” Fawzy called out.

She got up and went toward the kitchen, but Fawzy called after her, “Of course, we can’t drink on an empty stomach.”

As Tafida turned to look at him, he added, “Get us something nice to eat. We have to eat properly if we are going to have some energy.”

Mahmud was embarrassed by Fawzy’s cheek and looked at the ground saying nothing. He sat there with his hands on his thighs like someone at a funeral. Tafida stood there as if confused about what she should do, but then she turned, went out into the hall and disappeared somewhere in the apartment. Mahmud glanced across the hall, and having assured himself that she had gone off to the kitchen, he looked daggers at his friend.

“What the hell!” he said. “You’re going to get us both into deep shit.”

“Don’t worry,” Fawzy said disdainfully, laughing. “You’ve got to treat these rancid old birds harshly from the word go.”

“You’re overdoing it.”

“Listen, sunshine, didn’t she ask you to sleep with her?”

“She wanted to sleep with me, not with you,” he spat out. “And even if she did ask for sex, you have to treat her with some respect. She’s an old lady from a good family, and you’re treating her like some tart.”

“But she is a tart.”

“Just be careful, because if Madame Tafida gets upset with us she could cause us loads of trouble.”

Fawzy gave him a look of exasperation.

“Shut up, Mahmud. Stop spouting garbage. I know what I’m doing.”

They had to break off their conversation because Tafida appeared slowly wheeling a trolley upon which she had arranged a bottle of red wine, already opened with the cork resting on the side, three wineglasses and a number of small plates of snacks: white cheese, olives, pickled cucumbers and a roast chicken cut into four pieces. There were also three silver forks and a wicker breadbasket covered with a white napkin.

Mahmud’s nerves had taken away his appetite, so he just had a glass of wine and a piece of chicken, but Fawzy ate with gusto, downing a few glasses of wine as he chatted away about nothing with Tafida like an old friend, and then he suddenly asked her, “Do you own the Sarsawy gold shop in the jewelry district?”

“The shop belonged to my father, may God have mercy upon his soul. My sister and I inherited it.”

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

Tafida appeared to resent this question, and she hesitated a little before conceding an answer, “I have one brother and one sister.”

She was about to say “younger than me” but stopped herself. Fawzy finished eating, heaved himself out of his chair and went to the bathroom. When he came back, he headed straight for Tafida and sat down next to her on the sofa. He put his hand on her shoulder and whispered into her ear, “Do you know how lovely you are?”

It was a strange word to use for Tafida’s tired, wrinkled and over-made-up face. For the first time, she used a formal tone of voice, “Thank you for the compliment.”

Fawzy suddenly felt he was being toyed with. “Don’t get all coy and innocent with me,” he said to himself. The wine had emboldened him, and he leaned over and pressed his nose against Tafida’s neck and stroked her lower back with his hand.

“I’m not giving you a compliment,” he said in a shaky voice. “You really are lovely. You are all woman.”

Tafida squirmed, but Fawzy moved even closer to her.

“Please,” she tried to object. “Don’t do that.”

Since Fawzy was sure he was going about things in the right way, he took her display of coyness as a sign of acquiescence. She neither stood up nor moved away, and despite her apparent reticence, her face betrayed a different emotion. Fawzy snuggled up to her even more, putting his arms around her and kissing her neck as he whispered, “You’re so lovely.”

Tafida tried to push him away coquettishly.

“Stop it, Fawzy. You’ve gone mad!”

“I can’t. You’re as lovely as the full moon.”

Mahmud observed the scene, stunned into silence. Why was Fawzy behaving like that with her, and why was she giving in to him? He could not fathom it. He had not gone in for all this malarkey with the two old ladies he had befriended. In fact, the opposite had happened. It was the women who had done the sweet-talking. Even Tafida, the first time he saw her, had been the one who initiated it. It was not his style, all those sweet nothings. He had to admit that Fawzy was much more forward than he was. As Mahmud sat immersed in his thoughts, the scene was moving on quickly. The old lady had given in and was moaning and giggling softly as she sat there with her legs open, looking like a circus animal responding to its trainer. Fawzy was kissing her passionately on the mouth as she uttered stifled whimpers. Then he nibbled her ear as his hand strayed over her flat chest. Mahmud could not take it anymore and jumped to his feet.

“I’ll be going, Fawzy. Good-bye, Madame.”

The formality of the phrases sounded odd under the circumstances. Fawzy pushed Tafida aside and tried to gather his thoughts. Then he got up and dragged Mahmud aside, whispering sharply, “Don’t you dare go.”

“What should I do, just sit there?”

“We came together and we’re leaving together.”

“Look, you’re getting on with it, and there’s no point in me sitting here. Besides, it’s not a pretty sight.”

“I’ve told you, you’re not going.”

Fawzy’s tone was resolute, and Mahmud gave in. Fawzy went back to Tafida and grabbed her by the hand. She sprang to her feet as if she had been anticipating this sign from him. He put his arms around her, and the two of them made their way across the hall into the bedroom.