Sunset Over Cairo

"Well? What is it? What's going on?" Edith's tone was sharp as Frances regained her seat. Frances took a breath and smiled brightly at her.

"They're short staffed in the kitchen tonight, Edith. The head chef has been taken ill, and they're a little behind."

"But it's Bertie's birthday! I booked dinner for eight o'clock! It's damn near a quarter to nine! When is it supposed to be ready? Where's Mahmoud? Mahmoud! Mahmoud!"

"They'll bring it as soon as they can, Edith. It'll be alright. Bertie's happy enough."

Georg and Margrit exchanged silent glances and both took a good swallow of their drinks. Florence Agnew smiled at them, uncertainly.

Frances could not be heard over Edith's roaring, which even Major Campbell couldn't outdo as he bellowed for his drink. By the time Mahmoud arrived, bearing a large whiskey and soda as a peace offering, Edith was ready for battle.

"What is the meaning of this? Where is our dinner? I had this table booked for eight o'clock!"

"I am very sorry. Our chef is indisposed. We will have your food very shortly."

"It's not good enough!"

"I am sorry."

"I'll have your job for this! You won't find work in the whole of Cairo! My husband is on the committee; don't think I won't do it! You're finished, young man! Eight o'clock!"

Major Campell was not about to be outdone by a woman. "Damn gyypy! Who do you think you are? Can't run a mess hall, and you think you can run the damn country! Hah!"

"I am very sorry."

Frances took one look at the cringing waiter and slowly rose to her feet. She was shaking, but her voice was calm.

"Mahmoud, there are other tables where your assistance would be more appreciated. Thank you for your patience." Mahmoud needed no further encouragement to run.

"Major Campbell, you're a bigot, and a drunk." Frances' voice rang out across the hushed dining room as she hit her stride. "You're worthless compared to that man! You're not fit to clean his shoes!"

"Now, hold on a minute…"

"And you, Mrs. Parker Jones. You! God help me, I don't have the words for you. Has there been one moment in your self-important little life when you cared about anyone other than yourself? Do you know what would happen to that man's family if you put him out of work? You neither know nor care, do you? Do you know why? Because you're a pathetic bully, Mrs. Parker Jones! I'm done with you, I'm done with your kind, and I'm done with your precious club! You disgust me, all of you! You can all go to hell! Goodnight."

The room was silent. Eyes stared and mouths hung open all around her as Frances left with as much dignity as she could on her wobbling legs. She heard the muted, buzzing excitement behind her as she walked towards the club's entrance.

A tanned hand came from behind and pushed open the heavy swing door; she turned and stared uncomprehendingly at the man standing next to her. It was Nicolas.

"Are you alright?"

"No. I'm shaking like a leaf."

He grinned, swung through the door, and pulled her outside. "Walk it off with me."

The club's wide, luxuriant gardens stretched down to the island's perimeter road, the Shari al-Gezira; the dense Cairo Nile Gardens stretched invitingly along the river on the other side. Nicolas and Frances walked quickly through the club grounds to the river bank, where they eventually slowed their pace along the gardens' long, gravel path.

"Feeling better?"

Frances dragged off her hat, threw her golden head back, and shouted, "I feel wonderful!" into the night air.

But then her laughing face grew somber suddenly, and she turned to face him. "Nicolas, thank you."

"Not at all! I enjoy a good fight."

"There's a bench over there; will you sit with me? Please?" Nicolas pulled a hand out of his trouser pocket and took hers as they strolled along the bush-lined path to the bench. The night was mild and fresh; a light breeze was blowing off the gently lapping Nile. Frances had left her coat in the club, but she was too exhilarated to care.

"I'm glad you were there tonight; but that's not what I'm thanking you for."

"Oh?"

"No."

She chose her words carefully, as she watched the lamplight dancing on the dark water.

"I behaved terribly that day, Nicolas. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted; besides, you did me no harm."

He pulled a lighter and a silver case from his jacket and offered her a cigarette. She pulled one delicately from the case, puffed lightly at the proffered flame, and watched his dark head lower as he lit his own. The smoke wafted gently away from the two glowing ends.

"You did me a lot of good; though I'm not sure I appreciated it at the time. I've been thinking about what you said."

He took a long draw on the Turkish tobacco and blew a stream of blue smoke; waiting, listening.

"You said I was a child, that I didn't take responsibility for myself. You were right. I never have. I made everyone else responsible for me, while I did the things I wanted. Or not. That way, if it didn't work out, it wouldn't be my fault."

He blew another stream of smoke. In the quiet night, cicadas trilled unseen around them; a ring spread outward across the water from a darkly splashing tail.

"I thought everyone's expectations were unreasonable, but I never looked at my own. And if someone did something I didn't expect, I never asked why. I didn't want to know. If you don't understand the reasons for something, then you can accept it or reject it based on anything you like. You don't actually have to respond. That's what it is, isn't it? Responsibility. The ability to respond. The truth is, I've never been smart enough to be responsible."

Nicolas crushed his cigarette underfoot, turned to face her, and laid his arm along the back of the bench.

"I think you're smart enough. You've been sheltered, that's all. Half of understanding is practice; that, and empathy. You have what it takes; I've seen it."

Frances smiled and worked her cigarette end into the path gravel. "Well, I want to practice right now. There's something you did that I don't understand. May I ask you a question?"

"Ask away!"

"Why did you press me against you at the ball? When you were aroused?"

Nicolas' glossy black hair flew back as he laughed up to the stars. "You don't know?"

"No! Don't laugh! No one ever did that to me before, and I didn't know what it meant. I still don't."

"It meant, 'I want you'. Do you know what you told me?"

Frances held her bottom lip between her teeth and shook her head.

"You said, 'I know'. You said it with those dark blue eyes, and that pounding heart." He trailed a finger lightly along her temple and the curve of her sleek, bobbed hair.

"I almost didn't go to the Old City with you, when I found out you're married. I was afraid of what you wanted."

"I would never take what you could not offer."

"I know that, now."

"Was that all you were afraid of?"

"No."

The nearby lamppost drew dark glints from Nicolas' eyes as she studied his face.

"I was afraid of what I wanted. I thought if I admitted I had feelings for you, I'd be taking a lion by the ear. Does that make sense?"

"Yes. Why don't you come over here; let me hold you."

She leaned her head back into his shoulder as he cradled her, and smiled as he planted a soft kiss on the top of her head.

"When you told the entire club to go to hell, do you know what I saw?"

"What did you see?"

"Passion. The passion of pure, unbridled anger."

"I could have killed her. Threatening Mahmoud like that."

Another kiss. "That's the lion, Frances. You own it now."

She sat up and looked at him incredulously, wide-eyed as she remembered the joy her stand had unleashed in her.

He smiled at her wonder. "I want to see it again. Will you come to Masr al-Qadima with me on Monday? Show me all you have told me tonight? Make it real for me, Frances. Make it real for you."

She reached her arms around him and held his dark head tenderly as she pressed her lips to his full, open mouth. She felt his sigh as he crushed her to him, and held her eyes wide open as she gave him her sure and certain, unequivocal response.

*******

His eyes were tender as she dropped onto the carriage seat beside him. In greeting he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. He held it lightly and did not let go as he urged the driver onward.

"Yellabina!"

She had remembered her jacket this time. Long and unstructured, it hung loosely from her shoulders in slim panels of white, under which she wore a button-through, square neck blouse of fine, white cotton. Her skirt was mid-calf and straight, with a slight flare beneath the knee. She would walk on the street again today. No skirt that straight would open enough to permit a donkey ride.

Nicolas gently lifted a front of her jacket and gazed beneath it for a long moment. Like many women of her day, she eschewed the long, hot girdles with their bulky suspenders and wore only a net-lined lace bandeau for a bra. His full lips were heavy as his eyes traced the darkened areola of a breast. As he let the jacket fall, he eased back into the seat; his eyes and body became languid with the swaying motion of the carriage. No words passed between them for the first few miles of the journey southward; his dark eyes held hers entranced as they passed through the unheeded neighborhoods.

"How are things at home?" he asked, eventually.

"Saturday night, I was in bed asleep before Allan got home. He got up late yesterday morning and then Margrit called in the afternoon. She wanted to make sure I was alright, I think."

"And were you?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Allan sensed something had happened but we glossed over it. He won't catch on until he realizes I've becomede trop at the club."

"That will hurt him."

"An uncontrollable wife? Oh yes! He'll expect me to apologize to Edith."

"Will you?"

"The day after she apologizes to Mahmoud."

Nicolas' smile faded as he considered the repercussions. "How much money do you have, Frances?"

She knew where he was going. "Enough for passage back to England."

She looked down at the fine dark hairs on the back of his hand, and her pink fingertips curled around them, and then looked away to the passing river. Though the day was young, she had the sense that time was passing quickly.

At the depot entrance to Masr al-Qadima, Frances surprised both Nicolas and the driver with a softly spoken 'thank you'.

"Shukran."

The driver's lined and tired face burst into a brilliant smile and he gave her a jubilant, "Ashufakik ba'dayn!" as he drove away.

Frances laughed at Nicolas' quizzical stare. "Our gardener has been teaching me. He said, "see you later", right?"

Nicolas was beaming. "Right! How much more do you know?"

"A little; Shaadi doesn't speak much English so I don't always know what he's telling me. He's picking it up though. I ordered some books; we'll both make more progress when they arrive."

"Are you going to talk to the donkey boys? I dare you!"

"You talk to them! I have some old friends to take care of; here, take these."

He cupped his hands quickly as Frances poured hardboiled English candies from her bag; a yelling swarm of children had descended on them. Passing Egyptians stopped and pointed at them, smiling at the flurry of hands and flying candy as they tried to make sure everyone got their share. After all the candy was gone, Nicolas grabbed her hand and they made a run for the street entrance.

This time Nicolas had Frances walk before him, to watch her thread her way through the pressing bodies and the quick, appraising eyes. Her confused and graceless stumbling was gone; she moved in an easy, walking dance. Her shoulders turned to slip past the obvious approaches; the more subtle caresses did not deter her. Her face was shining as she turned back to look at him; she laughed, and shook her head at his knowing smile.

"Where are we going?"

"Turn left at the next corner."

The thinly populated alley was wide enough for two adults and maybe a thin donkey, and ended blindly in a sheer brick wall. Nicolas walked closely behind her as they passed a stable of goats, a blacksmith's workshop, and a grocery shop, all huddled beneath the crumbling apartments stacked above them. Halfway down the alley, a few men in galabeyah sat on narrow wooden chairs, talking quietly and sipping tea at small iron tables topped with plain brass trays. Chickens clucked around the table legs. As Frances approached the group, Nicolas ducked into a doorway and pulled her into theahwa, the local neighborhood café.

"Sabah el-khair, Nic!"

"Sabah el-khair, Sadeek! Mumkin aglis hunaa?"

The beaming portly proprietor nodded and gestured towards the small, round, empty table Nicolas had indicated, who then made a great show of pulling back a chair for Frances to sit. The proprietor nodded happily, and then asked Nicolas who he had brought with him.

"Nic, min mahak?"

"Ana maha sahbatii."

The proprietor raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes at Frances as Nicolas ordered for them both, and then bustled away to a side door behind which, Frances assumed, was the kitchen.

"What did you tell him?"

"I said I was with my girlfriend. Half of Cairo now knows."

"Well, the other half aren't likely to listen to him."

"We can be ourselves here. Relax."

Behind Frances, shelves of glassnarghile, water pipes, were arranged along the side wall. Along all the other walls in the softly lit ahwa, lean faces regarded Nicolas and Frances somberly. Some watched alone, openly assessing Frances as they drew light smoke through the brightly colored hoses of their pipes. Some looked sideways as they discussed the new arrivals and other local gossip. The room was filled with the murmur of quiet conversation, and the gentle gurgling of pipes. A patron unhurriedly knocked the ash off his few burning coals with small, teethed tongs, repositioned them, and then sat back in his creaking chair to resume his enjoyment of the fair skinned woman sitting poised and quiet across the room. A blue haze hung like an ephemeral tent canopy in the close air and coated the thickly painted, yellowing walls.

The proprietor brought dark mint tea for Frances in a battered enamel teapot with a bowl of sugar, sprigs of fresh mint, and a small glass. For Nicolas, there wasahwa mahaweka, Turkish coffee spiced with cardamom.

"They know you here?"

"Yes. My family deals in cash crops, from production to shipping; cotton, wheat, sugar and maize, mostly. It takes extensive arrangements between rural peasants, interior merchants, city buyers and the export agents in Cairo and Alexandria. And then there's the politicians. There isn't a level of society I don't touch, at one point or another, and they can all be found in the ahwas. I come to this one when there are people I don't want to see."

"They don't get many women in here, do they?"

Nicolas smiled at her over the rim of his thick, muddy coffee. "You're probably the first."

"They seem alright with it."

"I wouldn't take you anywhere you couldn't go. They've seen everything; maybe not as fair as you. Show them your hair, Frances. Take off your hat."

As Frances removed her sunhat, the proprietor appeared at their table and set a freshly cleaned narghile on the floor beside Nicolas. A small boy carrying a pot of hot coals and tongs followed him and, under his father's watchful eye, carefully placed a few coals on the wadded mixture of tobacco and molasses on the pipe's clay bowl. Nicolas drew smoke down through the water from the smoldering, damp mix, and thanked the somber looking boy.

Nicolas contentedly added his haze to the atmosphere, Frances sipped her tea, and they watched each other as the patrons watched them.

Frances fluffed out her hair as the heat prickled the back of her neck, and quickly looked around the room. Even the ones chatting with their friends had moved their chairs around to watch her as they talked. Nicolas propped an ankle on one knee and puffed, studying her speculatively.

"Warm?"

"Somewhat."

The pipe gurgled.

"Take it off."

He blew a stream of water-cooled white haze to the ceiling as she lightly grasped the edges of her jacket. As she pulled it open she leaned forward slightly, and let her jacket fall slowly down her back. The patrons seemed to stop breathing as a quiet hush spread around the walls. Nicolas' eyes, and ten other pairs of eyes, dropped to her breasts, lingered, and moved slowly up to her slender shoulders and long neck.

She kept her eyes on Nicolas as she lowered her bare arms and slipped them from the puddled jacket sleeves. There was an almost audible sigh around the ahwa walls as finally she sat, smiling quietly and triumphant, with her jacket draped across the chair seat behind her.

They enjoyed more tea and coffee through the hour it took for Nicolas' tobacco to burn. The watching patrons made no approaches, and no one left while she was there. Their liquid eyes moved smoothly over her body, drinking in her femininity with their smoke, tea, and coffee. Through that gentle hour, Frances sat in quiet acceptance of their frank appreciation, sharing a smile occasionally with the dark eyes across her table.

Frances saw a dozen expressions cross Nicolas' face that morning. His body spoke of rapture; there were moments of longing, lust, and simple joy in his eyes. She mirrored them all, walking with him through the range of his unspoken thoughts. His voice was a whisper, when he finally spoke.

"How do you feel?"

"I feel beautiful. I feel adored, accepted. I love their eyes on me; I love how you're looking at me. Do you remember the first time I saw you? How I had to turn away?"

He smiled. "I remember a child playing grown up in a make believe world."

Nicolas' eyes suddenly snapped into focus. "What are you going to do, Frances? Where do you go from here?"

"I don't know. I thought if I could learn the language, I might teach children English."

"At your home?"

"I could do that. But then my students would be the children of the elite, and they're not the ones that need help. There are Egyptian schools, of course, but Allan wouldn't allow it and I don't want to fight with him. He's just doing what he's been raised to do. I don't blame him for anything, anymore."

"There are Greek-run schools in Alexandria. They could use your help."

"Could they pay me enough to live? Allan would support me if I went back to England, to keep up appearances; but if I went to Alexandria… my family would disown me. I let the side down once. They won't tolerate a second time."

"You wouldn't be alone, Frances."

"You would help me?"

His gaze took in the quietly watching audience, moved slowly over her cool, long limbed body and finally rested, fondly, on her face. Time hung suspended in the ahwa. He saw her as she had first appeared to him, on a palm-decked terrace, questioning the inevitability of her prescribed life. He saw her as she had run, instinctively, across a hotel lobby to the only escape that she could see. He saw her stumble in the streets of the city, and rise again to roar with the power of a life that could not be contained. And he saw her, finally, striding confidently, free and clear, in the streets of Alexandria.

Nicolas Phillipides was gifted with an acute grasp of measurement. But even he could not fathom the depths of her joy as he asked her, gently, "When have I not?"

*******

On the outskirts of Masr al-Qadima, at Amr Ibn al-Aas, the oldest mosque on Egypt's ancient land, a clear-eyed muadhdhin prepares to climb the winding stairs of a minaret. The golden sun leans heavily on the far horizon, as the veiled rose haze of its dying light spreads over the waters of the Nile. To the west, the shadows deepen on the great plain of Gizeh as a black kite throws its keening cry over the empty, barren land. The black kite plunges, and a tiny shriek of death goes unnoticed on the plain.