The Map of Love (37 page)

In the bedroom he lights a cigarette, pushes aside the curtains and stands out on the balcony. The moon is in its last quarter. A few more days and when you look at the sky you will see no moon at all, only darkness. But now, if he looks hard enough, Sharif Basha can make out the shape of the whole moon, the dark bulk made visible by the shining crescent. If his mother were here now perhaps he would speak with her. Ask her what she thought. She has met her, he knows that. And Layla has told her the whole story, what she knows of it — possibly what she guesses as well. The sycamore closest to the house rustles with sudden movement. He wonders if the gardener has cut the figs — a delicate incision to allow the fruit to breathe and grow. He will remind him tomorrow. Perhaps he should speak with his mother anyway. She knows him well enough to judge.

On the train back from Minya he had been mostly silent.
Because he felt bad about her — as he always does — but particularly when he has to take her home after she has spent time in the country. The bustle of her brother’s house. Her nieces’ children coming and going. And this time Shukri’s visit. God has blessed Shukri with acceptance. He lights up any room he enters and he is comfortable instantly with whatever new person he meets. Sharif Basha has promised to introduce him to Muhammad
Abdu and the owners of the major newspapers and anybody else he wishes to meet. Cromer he will have to do for himself and get from him what help he can. He had not even commented on Shukri’s wish to see Cromer, although he could see his mother expected him to make some unpleasant remark and she had hurried to change the subject. Walking with her in the garden later he had said, ‘I have no problem with Shukri seeing Cromer. It would be good if he could get his help.’

She had glanced up anxiously. ‘I don’t want you falling out with your cousin. Who do we have except each other?’

‘Why are you so worried? Who have I fallen out with?’

‘Your father.’

‘My father is not even there to fall out with.’

To be locked up in a house with a husband who has turned into a magzub. Sharif Basha throws the cigarette butt on the floor and grinds it with the heel of his slipper. When his father went into hiding in the shrine they thought it would be a few weeks, at most a month or two, and then he would come out. But the months went by. Mahmoud Sami,
Urabi and the other six had been exiled. Sulayman Basha Sami had been hanged and his father — probably in shame at having hidden in the first place, although he never said so — held fast to his shrine. There was no shame in it, they had told him;
Abdallah al-Nadim had gone to ground and he was no coward. But he would not even talk about it — ‘When God permits’ was all he would say. Eventually Tewfiq had summoned him, Sharif, to an audience and said, in front of Riyadh and Malet, ‘We know about your father. Tell him he can come out of hiding. As long as he stays silent, no harm will befall him. And as for
you, your youth and the bad example set by your uncle intercede for you. But we shall be watching you — so take care.’ And all he had been able to do was to draw himself up and say, ‘I am proud to call Mahmoud Sami Basha my uncle. And I would be happier following him into exile than living in my country under foreign rule.’ And the Khedive had merely dismissed him with a wave of his hand and a repeated ‘We shall be watching you’. He still smarts at the memory of that interview — now, when Tewfiq is dead and almost twenty years have passed. He had reported this to his mother, with tears of anger and shame burning in his eyes, and she had said, ‘Well, since they know where he is, there is no harm now in us moving to the old house until we can persuade him to come back.’ But he had refused to go. Despite her tears and her entreaties, he had refused to go. He had wished, oh, how he had wished then that he had not been the son of that father! And she had left next day, taking Layla with her and leaving him with that poor young woman who was meant to be his wife and who was forever visiting her mother and returning to sit silently in the house with clear traces of weeping on her face and starting in fright every time he entered a room so that in the end he could not come near her at all. Well, he had set her free and she had been happy to go and what was he doing now thinking of starting again after the best of his life had gone by? Ah, but
she
would not be like that. If it had been her he was married to he would lay odds she would have stayed by his side, perhaps more so because it was her country that — supposing he had been married to a Sudanese woman, say, and a battalion of Egyptian soldiers had attacked her village and burned it down. Would that not have made him hold her even closer to his heart?

Sharif Basha paces to the end of his balcony and back. Did she have to be English, this woman who has made him think once again of love? She steals up on him at unguarded moments, looking up, her candid face ready to break into a smile across the breakfast table. What would it be like to leave her, knowing she would be there when he returned, at
home in his home and happy? What would it be like if she was standing close beside him now, if they looked out at the dark garden together while he told her about Yusuf Kamal’s school of art? She would throw herself into that — she who had come to Egypt because of a painting. And how would he explain today’s events? Tell her about the letter? How much explaining would that take? That you should need a religious fatwa to open a school of fine art? It would sound medieval. Could he trust her to understand?

Sharif Basha feels in his pocket, then goes back into the bedroom for his cigarettes. And there is the high, carved, curtained edifice of his bed. The bed he has shared with no one for twenty years. He has his arrangements — abroad. But here, in his own house, to make love to her with no corner of his heart knowing he is doing wrong, to watch her eyes cloud with desire, to hope for a child, to be tender with her as she grows big — he turns away. How much of this is simple lust? If he had met her in Italy, in France, would they have had an affair and thought no more of it? He thinks not. There is a seriousness and a depth to her. See how she spoke of her dead husband, her fool of a husband who had everything a man could desire — who had her and lived a free life in a free and powerful country, governed by a parliament he had elected, who rode through streets policed by his own people — who could have done anything he wished, and who chose to go and fight half a world away so that Kitchener might have the Sudan and grow cotton there to make the Manchester manufacturers wealthier than they were already. Had he even asked himself why Britain should conquer the Sudan? Had he asked himself, what of his old father? What of his young wife? To be fair, he probably had not planned on letting it kill him — just thought he would go and see some action and teach the heathens a lesson and come back to cut a fine figure and tell tales of his exploits at his London club. In any case, he, Sharif al-Baroudi, ought to be glad Captain Winterbourne was dead. Will it trouble him that she had been married to another man? He would wipe him out — burn him out of her body and her
mind. No, it will not trouble him. He will not allow it to trouble him. What does he have left? Ten, fifteen years maybe — just enough time to make something of a life if he keeps it in focus, keeps it simple. And yet, how can it be simple? An Englishwoman. Sharif Basha turns abruptly from the garden. There will be no sleep for him tonight.

20 April 1901

‘Enfin, what is the problem if you are inventing her? We all invent each other to an extent.’ Ya
qub Artin Basha bends forward offering a cigar. His plump, compact body is wrapped in a silk robe de chambre with a brown, red and green paisley design. A deep green silk cravat is at his neck. Under the black trousers his Moroccan slippers are of green chamois. Sharif Basha selects a cigar and sits back, rolling it between his fingers before he reaches for the cutter.

‘Our poet here will tell you that.’ Ya
qub Artin gestures towards Isma
il Sabri. The three friends are sitting in deep easy chairs in Ya
qub Artin’s library. A low marble-topped table between them carries tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, cheeses, cold meats and bread. The french windows are open to the terrace.