Butterfly Wings: An Egyptian Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) Page 6

  Doha carried on saying thank you and fending off her successive offers of hospitality. In the face of her insistence and that of the ambassador, who in turn expressed the need for her to come and stay at the embassy, Doha finally agreed to attend the dinner. But she said that she wanted to spend her days in Rome downtown, where the shops she wanted to visit were. The ambassador suggested that his wife accompany her every day to the clothing stores. Doha said that they could talk about it in the evening when they met. When the conversation ended, Doha turned off her phone to stop any more calls. The two she had already received had stretched her nerves and made her feel she was still in Egypt.

  On her way back to the hotel, Doha stopped at a large bookstore with a foreign-language section. On the shelves among the English books, she came across a book with a color photograph of a beautiful butterfly on the cover. The book was called The Butterflies of Egypt. Her mind went straight back to Ashraf al-Zayni. The book was full of stunning photos. Could all of these butterflies be Egyptian?

  In a corner of the bookshop there were some comfortable chairs for people to sit and browse. Doha took the book and sat down on one of the chairs to look through it. What a discovery!

  She found herself compelled to read the book. Perhaps the reason was her interest in butterflies and the words of the Chinese philosopher on the relationship between man and butterfly that Gabriella had told her. Perhaps it was Ashraf al-Zayni’s asking her whether her clothes had an Egyptian character. She had believed that butterflies were found all over the world and were global creatures without a particular homeland. But the title of this book implied that there were Egyptian butterflies. And what butterflies they were!

  She was totally engrossed in reading:

  More than three thousand years ago in Thebes, an Egyptian artist sat with his painting utensils before him. Some flowers and plants, insects and fishes that he had collected were also in front of him. He was going to paint them as part of the wall reliefs for the tomb of an important member of the royal court.

  The artist had completed the painting of the tomb’s owner, who was seated on the solar bark that would transport him to eternity and was surrounded by a large number of servants and members of his retinue. Now the artist had to paint the rest of the scene.

  Plants and flowers gave him the most pleasure. Painting human figures meant obeying strict norms, especially if the tomb was for a powerful person who had to be represented in idealized form. If he failed to follow the rules, the priests would be angry with the artist and not entrust him with work again. Painting nature, he could give free rein to his imagination. He might paint a fish smaller or larger, from the side or from the top. The papyrus reeds bent to his own artistic standards and not the strict rules for painting kings or nobles.

  The artist looked at the things he had collected on the table. He was arrested by one of the butterflies, which had captivating colors. It was the tiger butterfly. Its body was jet black with white spots; its wings were orange-brown, with a border of black with white spots that echoed the colors of the body. What a wonderful butterfly! The artist would always see it in the fields and gardens, but he had not scrutinized it so closely before. Would he be able to capture the beauty of the butterfly and its strange colors?

  After this opening, the book went on to say that, in his beautiful depiction of the tiger butterfly, an unknown Egyptian artist had left us the oldest known image of a butterfly. This indigenous Egyptian butterfly, with the Latin name Danaus chrysippus, was a contemporary of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs and still flies around in modern Egypt. It is the largest and most beautiful of all the species of Egyptian butterfly.

  Doha raced through the book. Images of brilliantly colored butterflies came one after another, a flight of butterflies all in a line. She decided to buy the book and closed it with care, as if closing the door of a secret treasure house she had discovered and wished to preserve.

  10 Abdel Samad

  Abdel Samad never spoke about his private life. Like their father, Ayman knew that his brother worked at a realtor’s office, but where it was or what his salary amounted to, no one knew. When he started working there, his father asked him how much he was being paid. Abdel Samad told him, and his father set his contribution to the household. But two years had passed since then, and his salary must have risen. Ayman and Abdel Samad shared a room, but that was the only part of their lives in common. Ayman knew next to nothing about his big brother’s life.

  Thus it came as quite a surprise to Ayman when Abdel Samad said to him one day, “I want to talk to you about something, but I want you to promise that you’ll keep it secret.” Ayman promised, and Abdel Samad told him that for some time he had been trying to travel abroad. Over the Internet, he had become acquainted with an older woman in Kuwait who was going to help him. They had formed a bond over the past weeks, and exchanged photographs online. Then they spoke on the phone, and now that she trusted him, she called him every day from Kuwait.

  Ayman asked a few relevant questions about this surprising development. Abdel Samad explained that Sheikha Ruqaya was a widow whose dead husband had left her quite a lot of money. She loved Abdel Samad’s apparent decency and willingness to take care of her money, and they had agreed to get married. He continued, saying that she had made arrangements in Egypt for him to obtain a nominal work contract with a freight company in Kuwait so that his papers would be in order. The person who had arranged the contract was asking for five thousand pounds. This was all Abdel Samad would have to pay to start a new life outside of Egypt, where he would enjoy the things he had been dreaming of his whole life long.

  Ayman kept questioning him. What if he met her and found her to be ugly, or married her and discovered she had a bad character? What if he did not like his new, untested life in Kuwait? Abdel Samad interrupted him: “None of that matters. What does matter is that I am getting out of here and starting a new life. Are you content with our life? Any other life would be better.”

  Ayman said, “But I’m worried for you about things you might not even know about now.”

  Abdel Samad interrupted him again, saying, “Listen, I’ve looked into it carefully. I went through all those questions before they occurred to you. I’m not talking to you so we can discuss things or for you to give me advice. I’ve examined it from every angle and reached a decision. I’m going to leave next week.”

  This was a shock to Ayman. He had imagined that his brother was asking his opinion. It had not occurred to him that he might have made up his mind, that the conversation was simply him saying goodbye before leaving. The shock increased when Abdel Samad said, “The reason I’m talking to you is that I need your help. I’ve spent all my savings on getting a passport; plus I’ve spent a lot on the Internet. Out of the five thousand pounds, I’ve got two and a half thousand after borrowing money from everyone I know and selling my watch and cell phone. Now I need the same amount again. Couldn’t one of your friends lend me the money that will let me make the move I’ve wanted to make for ages? That money will open the door to paradise. I’ll return it as soon as I arrive in Kuwait, where I’ll have plenty of money. The Sheikha trusts me blindly.”

  “If it’s like that,” asked Ayman, “why doesn’t the Sheikha pay?”

  “You don’t understand. I had to make myself appear well-off, so she didn’t think I was after her money. All I’ll have to pay is this five thousand pounds, and then I’ll have hundreds of thousands.”

  “Haven’t you told our father?”

  His response was fast. “I haven’t told anyone at all. It’s my life and no one else’s business. Don’t go spreading the news in the neighborhood like a kid. Either you help me or you don’t. And in either case, don’t mention it to anyone.”

  Ayman offered his brother his cell phone and said, “All I’m worried about is that it should all get lost for nothing.”

  “I haven’t lost anything in my life, and this is an unmissable opportunity,” Abdel Samad said. He took
the phone and began looking it over. Then he said, “If I sold this phone, I wouldn’t get more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty pounds, and I need two and a half thousand.”

  Ayman was perplexed. He did not know what to do. He told his brother that the phone was all he had. Abdel Samad asked, “Your friends, doesn’t one of them fancy making an investment? Tell them that they’ll get twice their money back.”

  “All my friends are students who live on the spending money they get from their parents.”

  Ayman wanted to tell his brother about the new burst of hope he had been given by Hagga Hikmet. He knew that the subject of their mother was not of much interest to Abdel Samad once he had learned that she was dead. But he wanted to tell him that there was hope that she was still alive.

  Abdel Samad opened Ayman’s phone and removed the battery. He turned it over in his hands, then put it back and closed the phone, which he put under his pillow. “Good night,” he said to Ayman.

  11 Nariman’s Room

  Dinner at the ambassador’s residence was as dull as Doha had anticipated. The ambassador’s wife greeted her in exaggerated fashion, which embarrassed Doha in front of the other guests. Then, in front of everyone, she repeated how Doha just had to come and stay at the embassy. She took her by the hand and led her around the various rooms and halls, saying, “It is a large house. We don’t just have rooms; we have thousands of them.”

  The Egyptian embassy, with its luxuriant gardens, occupied a beautiful palace known as the Villa Savoia. It had belonged to the last king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, a member of the House of Savoy, who had been exiled to Egypt during the reign of King Farouk. When he returned to Italy after the Second World War, he decided to gift the palace to Egypt, and the government turned it into the Egyptian embassy.

  The ambassador’s wife led Doha into a spacious bedroom furnished predominantly in pink. She said, “This is the room I’ve chosen for you.” Then she lowered her voice as if telling her a secret she did not want the other guests to hear, even though they were not present. “It’s the room of the last queen of Egypt, Queen Nariman, who was sent to Italy as part of a special delegation to learn regal etiquette in preparation for her marriage to King Farouk. This was her room during her whole stay in Rome.”

  Doha had been very impressed by the palace from the first time she had seen it many years before. It combined the authentic architecture of the Renaissance with a human scale. It was more like a large domestic residence than a sprawling palace that might cause its residents to feel overwhelmed. During this tour of inspection the ambassador’s wife kept up a tradition favored by ambassadors’ wives; she pointed out again and again that she had had a room repainted in such and such a color, that she had had such and such a piece of antique furniture restored, that she had had these old paintings taken out of the storeroom.

  Doha acted impressed by it all, as though this were her first time in the palace. Then she thanked the ambassador’s wife for everything and made her apologies for everything, in the secret hope that the evening that had interrupted a few hours of the few days she would spend in Rome would come to an end.

  Accompanied by the ambassador’s wife, Doha came down the grand staircase into the central hall where the guests were gathered. Ashraf al-Zayni appeared in front of her. He was talking to the ambassador and a group of guests. The ambassador immediately started introducing her to Dr. Ashraf and the others. He did this in a way that made it impossible for either Doha or Ashraf to hint at their previous acquaintance. “Allow me,” said the ambassador to Dr. Ashraf, “to introduce you to tonight’s guest of honor, Madame Doha al-Kenani, the wife of one of the most important leaders of the ruling party, by whom I mean Medhat Bey al-Safti, of course.” A chorus of clear and mumbled greetings went up, causing Doha to blush in embarrassment. The ambassador continued saying to Doha, “Dr. Ashraf al-Zayni is taking part in a very important international conference being held this year in Palermo.”

  She took his hand and said, “Pleased to meet you.”

  After dinner Doha took the opportunity to go up to Dr. Ashraf. In a low voice she said to him, “I’ve found an inspiration for my designs that I think you’ll approve of.” He did not understand what she meant. “I’ve discovered that there’s a really wonderful indigenous Egyptian butterfly even more beautiful than the foreign butterflies that inspired me.” He smiled without comment and she continued, “It’s the Egyptian tiger butterfly, with its colorful markings in brown, orange, and yellow, which goes back to pharaonic times. I feel this Egyptian butterfly will change my life.” She was lost in thought for a few seconds, then said, “I really would have loved to show the audience in Milan clothes inspired by Egypt’s natural environment or history.”

  To tease her, he said, “Like the pyramids, palm trees, and camels?”

  She replied, “When I said that, I didn’t appreciate what you meant.”

  “I didn’t mean anything. I was simply relaying what my Italian friends had said. Anyway, I shall see your clothes for myself two days from now in Milan. Then I’ll give you my honest opinion.”

  Doha gasped and said, “How come?”

  “Professor Giovanni’s son has invited me to the show and suggested that I be a guest at the Salon for two days. Seeing as we will have finished our discussions at the university, it seemed like a good opportunity to spend a couple of days in Milan and see the fashions before traveling to Palermo.”

  Doha felt extremely embarrassed. It was as if a stranger had announced he was coming into her bedroom. She did not want him to see the clothes she had brought with her from Cairo. Since she had bought the book, or perhaps since she had met Dr. Ashraf, she had started to feel there was nothing Egyptian about them. How could she stop it happening? How could she close the door and keep him out of her bedroom?

  A few other guests came over to where she was standing with Dr. Ashraf. Conversation moved on to other things and Doha stepped away.

  When she got back to her hotel that evening, she felt a mysterious happiness she could not account for. Even so, she also felt somewhat anxious at the prospect of Dr. Ashraf attending the Milan fashion show.

  She tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. She remembered that she had not been by the airline office. No matter. The things must have arrived. She switched the light on again and started flicking through the book she had bought in the morning. As she looked at the pictures of the various Egyptian butterflies, she immediately envisioned the designs she could produce that were inspired by each one of them.

  As she fell asleep, Doha turned the book over onto her chest. She clutched it as though it were a man lying on top of her. Her mind went blank as she stared up at the ceiling. She stared into space as a gentle night breeze came in through the window, making her body shiver.

  She thought about the coldness of her marriage. There was no warmth of attachment between her and her husband. From the first night of their marriage, their sex life had been a failure. Medhat had been embarrassed and she was too. He dithered a long time before beginning what he had to do. Doha had read that a wife should help her husband on their wedding night and not be a passive body, placid and frigid, that left everything to him. She wanted to help him. She plucked up courage and stretched out her hand to touch him in the hope that she would help him become aroused. But as soon as she touched him, a goopy fluid splattered her hand and stained her clothes, which she had still not fully removed.

  Medhat flew into a rage and told her harshly that she should not have done what she did; that she had ruined everything. She apologized, saying that she did not know what she should have done; that she had only being trying to help him.

  That night, which she never managed to erase from her memory, left her with painful, guilty feelings about what her hand had unintentionally caused.

  A few days went by without him touching her, as if he was punishing her for what she had done. She clammed up and was unable to broach the subject with him or anyone else. The f
ollowing week, Medhat decided to try again. She handed herself over to him and ventured no movement. But the same thing happened; it was all over before it had even begun. He accused her of being frigid and said that her sexual passivity made him finish quickly in spite of himself. She did not understand what he meant, but did not discuss it with him because she did not know what to say. A thick wall of silence about sex arose between them.

  He finally took her virginity after more than ten days of marriage. She did not know that that day he had taken some sedative drugs to help him last longer. The time did extend to minutes, which at last enabled him to penetrate her. But as soon as he was inside, just like before, it was all over.

  These attempts were repeated during their honeymoon tour in Europe, which she longed to be over, until she became fed up with sex entirely. It was a hateful physical operation in which emotions played no part. The wall that had gone up between them grew thicker and higher with every new attempt. On every occasion he left her at the peak of arousal, and she would only climax afterward when washing in the bathroom on her own.

  The honeymoon caused her anguish. It was possibly the worst time in her life. She felt she was the reason for the failure of her marriage. Should her mother have told her what she had to do? Was having no experience her mistake? She tried many times to talk to her mother and complain to her, or at least ask her how she could correct her mistake. But at the last moment, she could not do it. Her mother would not understand, or rather she would understand but not deem it important.