A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore Read online

  After several days, Julia herself conducted her to the main building. This morning the first floor was alive with activity, crowded with employees and visitors. Julia led her up by a back staircase directly to the second floor. They ascended gleaming white marble stairs and proceeded down a long hallway filled with a great many paintings, which hung upon the walls—scenes from India, Greece, and Egypt—the same traditional arrangement that was to be found throughout the house.

  Lady Katherine was sitting on a balcony looking directly onto the Nile. She held a fan, with which she was dully fanning her face. Aware of their entrance, she did not turn, but said loudly, “This place is unbearable. Everything smells—the streets, the people, the food—even the stench of this river is intolerable.”

  Julia stepped forward. “My Lady,” she said.

  Her Ladyship turned then, and Aisha saw that her belly, white and exposed, was distended. She looked at Aisha and said, “Who are you, then?”

  Julia tried to explain to her, but she didn’t know why this Egyptian peasant girl was here, either. Bored, Lady Katherine waved her fan. Then, all at once, she remembered. “Ouf,” she said. “Go away.”

  Aisha turned to go, and Julia smiled maliciously. But then her Ladyship said, pointing with the fan, “No one ever understands my orders. You go. You stay.”

  Julia turned and left quickly. Lady Katherine gestured for Aisha to sit on a mat on the floor, close to her feet. Aisha gazed at the Lady’s belly—her delicate skin stretched to the point where the traceries of veins were clearly visible. She was petite and beautiful, much smaller than the powerful Lord Cromer. The Pasha had informed Aisha that this was the second wife, whom Cromer had married a few years after the death of his first wife, Lady Ethel, who had suffered a long battle with kidney disease. Lord Cromer had loved her devotedly—but men so quickly forget.

  The silence was broken when her Ladyship spoke peevishly. “This strange Turkish princess is coming,” she said. “She never stops prattling away in Turkish and Arabic—even French—but never a single word of English. Ouf! If it were up to me we would not receive her. How can one find anything to say to such people?”

  Aisha kept silent, and Lady Katherine turned to her, saying, “You can translate, can you not?”

  Aisha nodded, pleased—only now did she understand her role. She wasn’t a servant—she would have nothing to do with cleaning or serving food. Her Ladyship fanned herself rapidly in hopes of a cool breeze. Then she spoke again. “Don’t let her give me a headache. Just translate the essential parts. My God, I wish I could go somewhere far away from here!”

  Aisha listened in silence, scarcely breathing, holding as still as possible. She was afraid this world-weary lady would send her away on her first day. There they sat, her Ladyship complaining all the while, Aisha listening, until they heard a knock at the door. Lady Katherine covered her stomach and gestured to Aisha to open the door.

  The visitor was an Englishman, rather young, but stern-faced. “Inform her Ladyship,” he said, “that Mr. Harry Buell, secretary of the Orient, wishes to see her.”

  Before Aisha could stir from her place, Lady Katherine cried, “Come in, Harry, and for God’s sake let us have no more of these irritating formalities.”

  Harry took a few steps into the room, and inclined his head as he stood before her. She gave him her hand, but he didn’t kiss it. He retained his somber expression, as if performing the most irksome of tasks. “Princess Nazli Fazil has arrived,” he said. “She is downstairs.”

  Her Ladyship groaned, expressing her reluctance. He seemed to have been expecting this. “She is a woman of some importance to us,” he continued. “After all, she is the khedive Ismaïl’s niece, and practically the aunt of the present ruler, Khedive Abbas. She is the link between us and those Turks who run this country. His Excellency the Lord Cromer wishes you to be patient, and lend her your ear for a little while.”

  Moving the fan back and forth in front of her nose, Lady Katherine said, “Has she put on that oil of cloves? I can’t abide the smell of it. It would nauseate even a child.”

  “Please, your Ladyship, she is waiting. We’ll open all the windows on the ground floor.”

  Was he in earnest, or were his words tinged with sarcasm at her Ladyship’s excessive affectations? The man left; Aisha remained, standing on tiptoe, watching Lady Katherine as, grumbling all the while, she slowly prepared to go down to her guest. From moment to moment she would stop, irresolute, as if about to change her mind, but at last she left the room and, with exaggerated caution, descended the staircase.

  Princess Nazli was seated in a corner of the spacious salon, and indeed she did give off the scent of cloves. She rose when she saw Lady Katherine coming. She was a statuesque figure, draped in a green silk abaya stitched with pearls. She also wore a gauzy Turkish veil, but she lifted it when Lady Katherine approached, revealing a few strands of hair the color of roasted coffee beans. She stood, and each reticently touched the fingertips of the other. They sat down facing each other, her Ladyship fanning her nose all the while as if to fend off the smell of cloves. The princess cast a questioning glance toward Aisha, but Lady Katherine saw no reason to introduce her. Her Ladyship’s face looked childish and vulnerable.

  “Princess,” she said, “what is it? Why did you so urgently wish to see me?”

  Aisha began translating. The princess’s features relaxed, once she recognized the position of the new girl, and knew that at last every word she spoke would be understood. She pulled the filmy veil off her face altogether. All ten of her fingers were bedecked with rings. When she adjusted her robe, the smell of cloves intensified, and Lady Katherine’s face grew pink.

  “Respected lady,” said the princess in Arabic, “you know that I am among the greatest supporters of the British presence in our country. You have brought civilization across the sea, introducing electricity. At every council meeting I sing your praises—yours and his Lordship’s.”

  Lady Katherine endeavored to conceal a yawn behind the edge of her fan. The princess now turned to Aisha, who perhaps would manage to convey the import of her words. She waited a few moments, then resumed. “This is what has induced me to come to you with the request I hope you will communicate to his Lordship.”

  All at once Lady Katherine spoke, making no attempt to conceal her irritation. “Why don’t you petition his Lordship directly?”

  “I did consider it,” said the princess, “and might have done so were it not that there is a humanitarian consideration, which is perhaps more readily grasped by a woman than by a man. I’ve come on behalf of the Orabiites. They’ve been punished, they’ve paid their penalty—the suffering they’ve endured in exile is enough!”

  Aisha translated her words carefully, and saw Lady Katherine’s eyes grow wide, shock registering on her face. “What do you mean, ‘Orabiites’?” she said.

  “Orabi and the officers who followed him. Orabi has become an old man, and is powerless now.”

  Lady Katherine sat up, suddenly attentive. “The leader of the insurgents!” she cried. “How dare you bring up this subject?” She rose to her feet and nervously agitated the fan.

  “It’s hot,” she said, “and the smell is unbearable. Ouf! Wasn’t Orabi the man who tried to bring down that relative of yours . . . I don’t know his name . . .? Since when do you take the part of the peasantry? You hold them in greater contempt than we do—of that I’m certain!”

  The princess turned to Aisha as if appealing for help from her. Then she said, half in supplication, “All that is in the past, your Ladyship.”

  Thoroughly worked up now, Lady Katherine said, “This country is full of graves. And yet nothing here ever dies.”

  At this moment Lord Cromer appeared. The light was coming from behind him, so his face looked dark, his features obscure, but his tone was sharp. “What is going on here?” he exclaimed. “What is all this noise?”

  Lady Katherine turned, breathing hard, her face flushed, as if she
was about to burst a vein. “The smell of cloves is unendurable, and likewise the demands of this princess.”

  Lord Cromer turned and cast a harsh glance upon them all, fixing his gaze upon Aisha more than the rest, because she hadn’t managed to protect his wife. He didn’t approach the princess or greet her. He did no more than cautiously incline his head, saying, “I beg your pardon. We have an important appointment with the doctor, and I must accompany my wife there. Please make yourself at home.”

  He gave his hand to Lady Katherine, who took his arm and away they went, out the door of the salon. The princess stood rooted in place. Then she sank once more onto her seat. She seemed pitiable, stripped of power. She had built great hopes upon the granting of her request. She looked at Aisha, who also stood there, head bowed. She was sorry for the insult that the princess had received—she could see how unhappy it made her.

  In a low voice, the princess said, “Perhaps you find it strange that I came here to defend the enemies of my family—how absurd that I believe in them to such an extent. I thought Orabi and his partisans could change everything, even the color of my skin and eyes, but they failed me. They were routed by those English.

  “The Orabiites were a passing dream, a brief moment out of the vastness of time, during which the peasantry could breach the wall of their isolation and find the voice that had been struck dumb. They had been confined within their narrow valley, behind mud-brick walls and a maze of canals and ditches. They suffered the curse of a silence that had lasted thousands of years, during which they had forgotten the vocabulary of grievance and the cadences of protest. They had given themselves up to a state of abasement, battered by every class above them, the world over—all those who lorded it over them and consigned them to the lowest caste, who utterly humiliated them, never giving them a chance to pick up a sword or fire a shot. They could possess no more than an axe with which to till the ungiving earth beyond the reach of the replenishing flood of the Nile, and a plow behind which to toil. They were remembered only when wars broke out and demanded a price the upper classes were unwilling to pay. At such times the bodies of the peasantry would be transformed into kindling with which to feed a conflagration that could never be sated. The moment it was over, they were relieved of any spoils they had gained, stripped of all badges of honor, and sent back to their villages of silence to dig the great canals and waterways that would connect one continent to another. This is what the khedive Ismaïl did when there were too many wars in which he had to be involved—in Greece, in Africa, and Mexico. He summoned them from their villages and thrust them into the furnace of war. Those who must die died, those who must be lost were lost, but some of them stayed in the army, carrying weapons rather than plowshares. From the living flesh of those peasants rose the Orabiites. They stood up to the khedive and cried in a voice of outrage, ‘When did you take it upon yourself to enslave people who were born free?’ This was the voice of their leader, Ahmed Orabi, a rare example of eloquence among the peasantry—he had acquired his fluency after prolonged silence, humiliation, and oppression. But scarcely had he raised his clarion call before it was silenced, drowned out by the roar of British cannon fire with the treacherous collusion of the khedive. They destroyed the Orabiites’ forts in Alexandria and slaughtered their peasant fighters at Tel al-Kabir. The villagers shook their heads sadly, saying, ‘Wolseley has beaten Orabi.’ And with that they lapsed once more into silence.”

  Aisha did not know what to say. She simply stood there before her, wishing she would get up and go away, and this scene would end. The princess, however, remained seated. She rummaged in her bag and brought out a piece of paper, which she spread in front of her to reveal lines of writing in black ink. The Arabic letters were elongated, as if they had been written by a professional calligrapher.

  “This,” she said, “is a poem one of them sent me, from exile, far away in the Indian Ocean. His name was el-Baroudy . . . Mahmoud Sami el-Baroudy. He was Circassian but, like me, he had believed in them, and so had joined them and been defeated with them. From exile, he wrote this poem for me. It’s not a love poem—it’s full of misery. Although he didn’t say so outright, I know he was suffering terribly. How sad that they banish poets to such brutal places.”

  Aisha didn’t know exactly what the princess was talking about. It seemed she ought to say something to soothe her distress. The scent of cloves had dissipated and been replaced by an air of sorrow. “Perhaps he’ll return . . .”

  The princess stood up at last, with a sigh. “It’s the second defeat for me,” she said. “I won’t dare come back here again—I’ve tried everything in my power with the English: I repeated their words, and rationalized the things they did, even after the incident at Dinshaway, all in order to win their favor, so that I might bring forward this one request. And all my efforts are gone to waste.”

  She folded up the poem carefully and put it back into her bag. She turned toward the door, but she had gone only a few steps before she stopped and turned once more to Aisha. “What is your name, girl?” she asked.

  Forgetting her borrowed name, she said, “Aisha.”

  “I’ve always liked the names of the peasantry.”

  She went her way, vanishing from Aisha’s sight, but something of the melancholy scent of cloves remained behind.

  Aisha’s days working at the governor’s mansion blended one into another. At first, she didn’t know the meaning of any of what went on in front of her. She walked in Lady Katherine’s shadow, observing her belly, which continued to expand. In spite of this, her Ladyship went on attending parties and receptions. She got into the habit of repairing to a corner, where she could watch everyone without being seen, awaiting an opportunity for Aisha to make her way unobtrusively in among the guests. Lady Katherine would attach herself to Aisha and whisper her demand that she translate for her everything that was said about her behind her back. Aisha was unhappy with this role.

  She realized gradually that the governor’s mansion was the axis upon which the world turned: everyone hoped to gain admittance through its gates and to stay, even if for only a few moments, beneath its roof. First thing every morning it was packed with swaggering British soldiers, elegantly dressed consuls, princes, Pashas—perhaps even the khedive himself came in disguise. At noon would come village administrators and mayors, sheikhs in turbans, those seeking mediation, and those with illusory projects in mind. All these Lord Cromer greeted with penetrating looks combining arrogance and disdain, including Aisha herself. Familiarity and habituation to her presence did not change this look of his—it was of a piece with the particularities of his job—perhaps it was the greatest and most important qualification by which the empire chose its staff.

  By what unfathomable means had this lord—who hadn’t been a lord to begin with—ascended to his exalted rank? He had been a lazy, refractory, and dull-witted boy, who didn’t do well in any regular school. Only military schools cared to accept him, since they demanded less intelligence, and more obedience to all the mindless orders. Their only condition was that their students be scions of the aristocracy, distinguished by cruelty, coldness, and love of fox hunting. Graduates of these schools assumed posts serving the empire overseas, and continued to advance through the ranks according to a rigid hierarchical system by which such assignments were completely beyond the reach of the lower classes.

  As a result, the lazy student—who continued to detest scholarship throughout his life—found before him a vast and open swath of land, from the sunny islands of the Mediterranean all the way to the mysterious heart of Asia. He ascended the venerable ladder of the empire, whose weak spots no one had yet discovered. He went to the Greek island of Corfu, where he produced an illegitimate daughter, and contracted an advantageous marriage with a child of the aristocracy, who was the reason he qualified for a grander post in India. In that country’s steamy, humid climes he lived, witnessing its bouts of terrible famine with a cold heart, while merchant vessels dumped shipments of r
ice into the Ganges to keep the price from dropping.

  When he went to Egypt as high commissioner, he thought he was a prophet, a reformer, and an emissary for Western civilization amid the subhuman peasants and Muslims. He believed that the occupation of Egypt must be permanent: how could such a country be left to itself—a country located at the center of the world, having jurisdiction over a crucial artery connecting the seas to one another, and commanding a fortune in cotton that bloomed brilliantly, resplendently white? When he listened to the Egyptians’ wishes for better education and independent rule, his contempt only increased. “What odd ideas these people have,” he would mutter to those around him. “Isn’t it enough that I safeguarded them against thirst and drowning when I built the dam for them at Aswan?”

  In spite of everything, it was necessary for a certain closeness to develop between Aisha and gravid Lady Katherine, who suffered from persistent feelings of loneliness and alienation. The two of them would cautiously descend the marble staircases that led to the Nile, where they would board a felucca to take them to Dahab Island. Sometimes they would ride in the horse-drawn wagon, and cross the Kasr al-Nil Bridge to the Gezira Club. Members of Cairo’s high society became accustomed to seeing them together: the white lady and the wheat-brown girl who tagged along behind her. Despite the heaviness of her Ladyship’s movements, she was very active, and when Lord Cromer traveled on one of his missions she did not see fit to keep to the house.