Butterfly Wings: An Egyptian Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (16 page)

“I would have recognized you, Mama,” he said. “I searched for you everywhere: in the faces of women in the street and in my imagination.”

Mother broke down sobbing as she embraced her son again. She looked at her daughter and said, “Marwa, why don’t you make a glass of lemonade for your brother?” The girl got up in silence, still in shock, and bolted out of the room.

Mother cried bitterly as she told her son how she had felt bereft for years, how she had tried in vain to find out his and his brother’s school so she could see them, even if from a distance,
without their father’s knowledge. She said that deep inside she knew she would meet her two boys. But she never imagined that she would open her front door and see her son standing there and with her own ears hear him calling her Mama.

“Where’s Abdel Samad, Ayman?” asked Mother. “How is he?”

“He’s fine, Mama.”

“Why didn’t he come with you?”

“He’s getting ready to leave for Kuwait in a few days. Plus, I wasn’t sure I would find you here.”

“I’d love to see him before he leaves. He wasn’t even five, but he understood everything. He talked just like a grown-up. He must remember me.”

After a slight hesitation, Ayman said, “Yes.”

On the wall across from him, there was a large photograph of his mother with her new husband. She looked in her twenties. There was a slight smile on her lips, but her face reflected a suppressed sadness only visible to someone who studied the picture as closely as Ayman did. The man standing next to her was quite thin and wore a suit that looked too big for him, as if he had borrowed it especially.

His mother really had been beautiful. He looked at her face and saw her beauty had not faded, although she had a few fine wrinkles around her eyes. Her hair was still glossy and black, apart from some white at the crown of her head—now uncovered since her scarf had slipped off when she fell.

Yet it was her eyes, so full of tenderness, that most captivated him. At that instant he felt how much he had missed them. This was the first time he was aware of seeing them, but he felt he knew them, as if he had seen them before, when he was a child perhaps, and his subconscious had preserved their sad look for all these years.

Mother pulled out a small locket on a chain round her neck. It was circular and about the size of a coin. On one side, there was a picture of Ayman as a baby and, on the other, a picture of his brother Abdel Samad. They both cried again as they looked at the photos.

Marwa came back with the lemonade and put it on the table in front of the couch without saying anything. Mother felt she ought to reassure her daughter, who had only just found out that her mother had been married before in Cairo and had two boys. “Take a look at your sister, Ayman. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? She’s ready to marry, as you can see, and suitors come every day.”

The girl blushed in embarrassment before Ayman, who was still a stranger to her, and got up to leave. Her brother held out his hand to her and said, “I hope God grants her a good husband. She deserves the best.” Marwa shook his hand in silence and sat down again. Why had her mother not told her any of this? Why had she hidden her past, which concerned her as much as her mother?

“Didn’t your father say anything about me?” asked Mother.

“No,” said Ayman, “he didn’t say anything. As children we thought his wife was our mother. Once we learned the truth, he said only that you were dead. Abdel Samad believed him, but I always felt that you were alive and I would find you one day.”

They looked at each other and Mother said, “I’m so happy I’ve found you again, Ayman. I was living without spirit. Today you’ve restored my soul.”

“And because of finding you, I’ve found myself.”

24 The Dream

I
n her sleep, Doha dreamed of Ashraf; wide awake, Ashraf dreamed of Doha. She dreamed that life was beautiful. The ugliness that marred everything around her was gone. No more ugly politics, no more ugly personal life. In Doha’s dream, the streets, houses, and shops once again rivaled the world’s great capital cities in beauty. The country was once again how she remembered it as a child, when there had been justice for people. Her personal life was wonderful. Dr. Ashraf stood beside her, her partner in private and public life. She had achieved personal happiness, something she had been deprived of since marrying Medhat al-Safti.

Ashraf al-Zayni was detained in solitary confinement. He might have been deprived of his freedom, but he had found a priceless jewel. It had been quite a shock when he saw Doha at the demonstration. From a distance he had thought it was her, but ruled out the possibility: going to demonstrations was just not part of her life. Yes, when he met her, he sensed she loved her country, but that was abroad. Back home in Egypt, her old life would take over. It was not so easy to change the direction of your life, especially by 180 degrees.

Because of this, Ashraf did not want to get too close to her. He recognized that their nascent relationship, be it close or distant, sprang from the unforeseen circumstances of their trip. Those circumstances would disappear soon enough, and everything would go back to the way it had been. He knew he was attracted to her. He thought more than once that for a woman like Doha he could embrace married life. He was also well aware that Doha was attracted to him. But surely that was only a passing fancy that he should neither encourage nor take too seriously. It was an Italian caprice, like the Tchaikovsky they had listened to together at the hotel restaurant in Milan. Beautiful, yes, but transient, like any piece of music. So he was careful to keep their relationship—a brief encounter—within limits. It would all end at the end of the journey.

Dr. Ashraf allowed his head to rule him, even though his heart took him in another direction. His thoughts were confirmed once he got back to Cairo, for the relationship did not continue. He began to feel he had been right not to allow things to develop. Besides, Doha was not for him—she belonged to another, after all.

All of that changed when he saw Doha at the demonstration. Her presence proved she had been genuine in Italy. She had been telling the truth when she said she did not belong to the ruling party. Her decision to attend the NGO conference in Palermo had been genuine. But more than that, her presence at the demonstration meant that she did not really belong to another man, whatever her ties to him.

These thoughts made him go over to her at the demonstration. He wanted to make sure that the woman he had spied in the distance really was Doha al-Kenani, the woman with whom he had spent some of the most beautiful days of his life, in Rome,
Milan, and Palermo, and for whom his heart had pounded by the Lovers’ Fountain as it had never pounded for a woman before.

He had just confirmed it was her when the swaggering officer threatened to assault her. That had made him intervene, and he had been arrested. Still, he knew that such a step would not be a spur-of-the-moment decision. There must have been orders given in advance, otherwise the officer would not have detained him. Being arrested was something he had known could happen at any time; it was no surprise.

None of that mattered. In the squalid cell where they had flung him, all that mattered was that he had found what he had been looking for. He felt that his personal life was nearing fulfillment. Together, he and Doha would be able to realize their shared hopes.

Doha’s dream was more passionate. She felt Ashraf’s presence in bed with her. His scent, which had announced his presence when they first met and had lingered in her mind as if he had infused her body with it, flooded her. It was like the scent a male animal uses to mark its territory, defying any other creature to approach. Now she understood why she had found the scent so off-putting to begin with, and why it had become the invisible thread joining their two bodies in the embrace that she had refused on the plane, come to long for in Italy, and was now experiencing in her dreams.

This was Doha’s first complete sexual experience. There were no barriers or blocks preventing fulfillment as there had been with Medhat al-Safti. For the first time, she felt herself reaching orgasm simultaneously with Ashraf.
He
had no complaints that she was frigid.

Doha decided that she was entirely Ashraf al-Zayni’s. Ashraf al-Zayni decided to fight every battle to win Doha al-Kenani,
who had been usurped just as the country had been usurped from its rightful owners.

Doha awoke from her dreams filled with a strange ethereal feeling. She remained lying in bed for a while, unwilling to leave it and lose the rare moment she had experienced in her dream. Eventually she got up and found herself alone in her brother’s house. Her phone rang a few times. She did not answer. She had no desire to communicate with anyone as she luxuriated in her unfamiliar joy.

At that moment of clarity, the new and long-sought designs for her clothes filled her head. She sat at the dining table sketching new lines with her colored pencils. This time, her designs were for working women who needed clothing that was simple and practical as well as beautiful. They were nothing like the designs for her old friends, politicians’ wives that she no longer wanted to have anything to do with. Her inspiration came from the Egyptian tiger butterfly, with its beautiful colors and bitter black body that poisoned any creature that tried to eat it.

The drawings flowed from her fingers easily and rapidly. Her phone rang again. She did not answer it. The doorbell rang. She ignored it. The doorbell rang insistently, so Doha felt she ought to answer. Perhaps it was something important for her brother or his wife.

She left the paper and pencils on the table and went to the door, hoping that whoever it was had gotten tired of waiting and left, so she could get back to her drawings. She opened the door and two men were standing there. One asked, “Madame Doha al-Kenani?”

“Yes.”

“Can you come with us, please?”

“Where to?”

“We want you to answer a few questions.”

She felt it might be connected with Dr. Ashraf and asked to fetch her handbag from inside.

When she came back, Doha saw two other men standing next to them. They looked like mukhbirs, police informants. She asked the man who had originally spoken to her, “Have you got a warrant, officer?”

The man did not deny he was an officer. He just said, “A warrant for what?”

“To arrest me,” said Doha.

“You’re not being arrested. You’ll be home again in fifteen minutes.”

25 Qasr al-Nil Jungle

I
n the evening, Abdel Samad came in without saying a word and went straight to his room. Ayman was lying on his bed looking at the ceiling. Abdel Samad did not say hello. Ayman was longing to tell him what had happened. He had to tell someone or his heart would burst, unable to contain the life that had opened up before him that day. The two brothers had not talked about their mother for many years, but today Ayman had to tell his brother everything. As soon as Abdel Samad entered the room, Ayman got up from his bed. “Abdel Samad,” he said in a loud voice, “today was everything I ever hoped for.” Abdel Samad did not reply. Ayman looked carefully at him as he said, “What’s wrong? You look as though you’re going to a funeral.”

“Today I’ve lost everything,” he said. He sat down heavily on the bed, put his head in his hands, and burst into tears. It was the first time he had cried that day, and the first time in years. It felt strange to be crying—he was not used to it. When was the last time? He did not remember. He could not stop crying. It was involuntary and he had no idea where it was coming from.
It was though he had kept it in since the morning and was waiting to meet his brother before letting it out.

Ayman sat down next to his brother and put his arms around his shoulders. Without even knowing the reason for his tears he tried to comfort him. He guessed it must be to do with his departure—that was the only thing that mattered to Abdel Samad. “What’s happened?” he asked. “Aren’t you going to Kuwait?”

Abdel Samad threw off his brother’s arms and sat down on the other bed. “No, I’m not going,” he said.

“How come? What happened?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened. I’ve been tricked and all the money I borrowed has gone.”

“What! The five thousand pounds?” cried Ayman.

Abdel Samad had stopped crying and calmed down. He said, “Yeah, the five thousand pounds. There’s not one pound left.”

“Were you robbed?” cried Ayman.

“Yeah, I was robbed. And I handed the money over myself.”

Abdel Samad told Ayman what had happened. He said that Hagg Abdel Mu‛ti had vanished as soon as he had taken the money. He was like a genie who had been summoned and then vanished. Abdel Samad had tried to call him, but his phone was off, and of course it would never be turned on again. He had probably thrown it in the Nile. Then he had tried to find the office, but the address was not real. He had tried to contact Sheikha Ruqaya, but her email address, which he had used for months, did not exist. It had gone as if it had never existed.

Ayman said excitedly, “It’s a gang. Let’s call the police. They must have form. I’ll go to the police station with you.”

Abdel Samad was once again his usual self, the big brother who knew it all, and said, “Who are we going to make a complaint about? Invisible ghosts? I don’t know Hagg Abdel Mu‛ti’s
full name, and now I doubt that’s his name in any case. I bet the Sheikha isn’t Kuwaiti and her email address isn’t in Kuwait.”

“Didn’t you say you’d spoken to her on the phone in Kuwait?” asked Ayman.

“But she called
me
every time and her number never appeared.”

Abdel Samad started crying again, and Ayman did not know what to do. He sat down next to him and held him in his arms in silence. Painful seconds passed during which neither of them uttered a word. Ayman eventually spoke. “You haven’t lost anything,” he said. “What you never had, you can’t lose. It just wasn’t destined to be.”

“But I’ve lost so much,” said Abdel Samad. “I’ve lost the five thousand pounds. How am I going to repay the people I owe?”