The Automobile Club of Egypt

SALEHA

I woke up late and took a hot shower, emerging refreshed. I brushed my hair, put on my housedress and went to the kitchen, but my mother was not there. As I looked for her, I noticed that the sitting room door was open, which was unusual. Walking over to it, I beheld a strange sight: my mother was sitting there with a foreign girl. The moment my mother saw me, she rushed over and pulled me by the hand back into the hallway.

“The daughter of a foreigner, the general manager of the Automobile Club, is staying with us,” she said softly.

“What does she want?”

“She’s had an argument with her father and left home.”

“What’s it got to do with us?”

“Kamel brought her here. He wants her to stay with us until she can find her own place,” my mother said, smiling meaningfully. The mere mention of Kamel’s name was enough to make me accept anything.

“If that’s what Kamel wants, it’s all right with me.”

“She’ll be sleeping in your bedroom. I’ll make up a bed next to yours.”

I was immediately taken with what seemed like an exciting adventure.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Mitsy. Come along. I’ll introduce you.”

Mitsy jumped up and smiled.

“Are you Saleha? Lovely to meet you. Kamel has told me so much about you.”

“And you speak Arabic!”

“Your brother has been teaching me.”

The way she pronounced the consonants was childish and sweet. We had some tea and ate breakfast. Mitsy insisted on helping my mother and me in the kitchen. I lent her one of my galabiyyas, and she looked so funny wearing an Egyptian housedress, holding the ladle and listening as I explained how to stir the okra stew. When Kamel appeared, the four of us sat down to eat. We all chatted during the meal, but I felt a sort of silent understanding between Kamel and Mitsy. After lunch, my mother went with Kamel and Mitsy into the sitting room. I tried to call her away so that they could be alone, but she insisted on staying until Kamel went off to study in his bedroom. By the end of the day, I felt completely delighted with what had happened. I told myself that God had sent Mitsy to bring me out of my misery. I sat with her and my mother, who was explaining our circumstances. Mitsy spoke of her love for theater and how much Kamel’s lessons had helped her. She spoke of Kamel with enthusiasm and admiration. At the end of our chat, my mother kissed her and said, “I want you to feel at home here, among your family.”

She looked at us, my mother and me, and said with some emotion, “Thank you! I shall never forget what you are doing for me.”

“It’s nothing,” my mother answered quickly. “We are really happy to have you with us.”

Just before midnight, my mother called Kamel from his bedroom and took him to the roof. After a while, Kamel came down carrying the parts of a fold-up metal bed on his shoulder and spent the better part of an hour putting it together. He then brought down a mattress and pillows, which my mother covered with a sheet and two clean pillowcases. Finally, Kamel threw himself onto the bed to check its stability and gave a satisfied smile. Mitsy laughed.

“If it collapses while I’m sleeping,” she said, “you’re the one responsible!”

“I’m also responsible for you,” he replied.

No one said anything, but I felt that she was moved by his response and that, had I not been there, she would have thrown her arms around him. I felt some sympathy for her feelings, which I could now discern clearly. I was always entranced by love stories, and because I loved Kamel, I loved anyone he loved. As the days passed, I grew closer to Mitsy. Every night, we would sit up in my bedroom talking until we heard the dawn call to prayer. After a few days, she told me of her problem with her father. I felt for her but was careful not to express a strong opinion about her father’s behavior. As angry as she was with him, she might still be upset to hear someone else criticize him.

“Now I’m looking for work,” Mitsy said.

“I’m sure you’ll find something. You speak Arabic and English, and you’re pretty and clever.”

She thanked me but looked a little embarrassed. I was astonished to hear myself telling her all my life without feeling embarrassed. I felt that she understood me completely. When I had finished, she stretched out on the bed looking at the ceiling. Then she smiled and said, “Saleha, you have also made a brave and honest decision. You must never go back on it.”

“Abd el-Barr is refusing to divorce me.”

“Forget about finalizing a divorce. The most important thing is for you to start studying again.”

“I feel like a failure.”

“How can you be a failure when you haven’t started your life yet? You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s your family who made a mistake.”

“They didn’t pressure me.”

“How could you have married a man you didn’t know?”

“I told myself that I’d get to know him after marriage.”

“Marriage isn’t a means of getting to know someone. You have to know the man and be in love with him, and then, at a certain moment, you both decide to spend the rest of your lives together. Then marriage makes sense.”

“Lots of girls get married before getting to know their husbands.”

“Marriage without love is a contract for the sale of a woman’s body, whatever religious or legal face we put on it. If you get married without love, then you’re just a piece of merchandise.”

I had never thought of it that way. If that was the crux of marriage, then all that merriment and celebration was just to prettify a commercial transaction.

“I disagree. I can’t deny that I agreed too hastily to marry Abd al-Barr, but I have never been a piece of merchandise.”

She jumped up from the bed and came over to me.

“I’m so sorry, Saleha,” she said. “I always get carried away with my opinions. I’m always upsetting my friends without meaning to.”

I gave her a kiss on the cheek. Her hair smelled lovely. I got up, went to do my ablutions and said my prayers as Mitsy watched. When I finished, I took off my headscarf, and Mitsy said, “You look so beautiful when you’re praying.”

That night, we did not end up going to bed until after the dawn prayer. When I woke up at noon, I looked over and noticed that her bed was empty. After a while, I heard a light knocking on the door. Mitsy came in smiling and said, “I waited until you woke up…”

I noticed that she was carrying a heavy linen bag. She threw it down onto the bed and took out a pile of books.

“These are the books for the baccalaureate,” she said excitedly. “Kamel brought them while you were sleeping.”