Other Cairo Musings

Cufflinked

The men were mainly dressed in dark suits; akin to funeral attire and their collars were a little tight at the back of their necks so that their skin was reddened and pushed outwards a little. Those who took their jackets off revealed crisp cotton shirts, the type that cost real money and underneath one could see their vests. They had polished shoes, and undoubtedly the best shoes were worn by the ambassador – Italian leather most probably with handmade soles and craftsmanship. Perhaps a fine Milanese artisan working from a family run shop or a craftsman in some obscure Flemish town banging shoes into shape and wiping his sweaty hands on his apron. The eminent doctor, so named as this is how he was referred to, made an extreme outward and exact movement with his left hand in order to read the time on his watch. He swung his arm out so it was extended to his side then brought the wrist back into view, read the time, then put the arm down again. I looked at all of these men and imagined them taking their coffee, eating their dinners – each beverage, each meal prepared just as they liked it. For years. Attended to. They were so used to having authority they saw it as their right, the way things should be, the order of things. Of course they had all taken a wife (more of the wives soon) who fulfilled the needs of the marriage. She could run a household, make social talk at important events, be seen, know when to turn a blind eye, be a bag to hold their glasses' case, a diary to remind them of schedules, an accessory, a social necessity, and of course perform her wifely duties such as occasional sexual acts and bear children (the first role becoming less after the second role and of lesser importance as each man established their mistress or other outlet for 'that'). The ambassador sat between his wife to his left and his personal assistant to his right. The wife was capable – everything about her said that – and she was also provided for. The personal assistant was not so young but not so old that her skin had lost its allure and her hair had lost its sheen, and her legs were fresher and her heels a little higher and he turned to her maybe four times and passed anecdotal chat in her ear, chat she laughed at in a small, stylish, warm way. He did not turn to his wife once. She did not look at where he was looking. She knew where not to look.

The women.. the women were all as if out of a magazine for European management trainers – they all either wore slightly above the knee skirts and bare legs or they wore linen trousers and flouncy blouses. They had sensibly squared heeled shoes in greens and beige and their jewellery was big and clunky but in natural materials. They looked like no nonsense ladies, ladies that could be depended upon and organise their husband's lives until the very end.

The entire scene made me wonder how any of that happens and thankful that it never happened to me. The respectable coupledom cufflinked and without a modicom of charm.

 

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The October Day 
 

A morning tea with two interesting older ladies, sat in a sumptuous Zamalek residence with the most beautiful classic furniture in woods such as yew, walnut and oak - shipped from England many years ago, a portrait of a time when men wore suits and women wore hats and gloves and people sent letters by post. An apartment offering many gifts to those sipping their drinks, handing them a stunning view of the Nile in all her grandeur and uplifting spirit, the green life of trees and the wild climbing roses abounding the balcony. Eating delicate orange scented morsels hand made by a graceful Japanese girl and drinking the most fecund mango juice in the world proudly created by Mr Ahmed at the juice bar and brought to us by the maid.

A walk through streets of cats, dirt and cars and a meeting with a vegetarian friend new to this carnivorous place– we go to the roof bar and our eyes drink the river whilst we peruse the Chinese menu and are served by the waiter that looks like Gael García Berna and has changed from a shy and quiet young man looking at the floor in April to one who is proudly speaking in English and doing everything to serve us as well as he can in October. We share our stories, eat our noodles and muse on the opportunities of life then part for other compass points.

The taxi home drives past a street lady who once danced by the Dokki metro, an old lady then in a flimsy dress, swaying to an inner music. A precious bird with a brave yet beating heart. Today she is wearing a bright galabeya and an exotically wrapped head dress. And she is laughing, thank god she is laughing. The young taxi driver is speaking to his girlfriend and by his talking I can deduce that she is asking him how much money he has made and where he is and where he is going and I wonder if he is telling her the truth but then I drift off and start to look up at the leaves of the tree against the sky and how fragile they look, how graceful, how beautiful, how unpart of the this mess of a city they are, this glorious insane mess, this Cairo.

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The Coffee

His laugh was sharp. Angular with agreement yet betraying in its high fakery. But what did he care? He had his good watch, the car outside, the girls around him. He had the WhatsApp msgs coming in and no commitment going out. He had the future wife in place in his knowledge, in its surety – that was no issue. Yet his vocal tone outed certain levels of anxiety. Perhaps it was because even with the TV channels routed to propaganda it wasn't so easy anymore to completely screen out the realities; his bank balance was like his laugh; falsely confident. And whilst he did everything he could to feed his schisms he was finding himself bored by the hair and the make up and the demands of his many girls, yet since he had so little within himself he wasn't capable of an honest relationship with a person who had much more to give – and yet – sometimes in some tiny part of himself – he ached for it. But then the iced mocha arrived and he got a msg from Mona to say she had just picked up a cologne for him from Duty Free – and he relaxed, checked the time on his Omega and smiled.

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Car Ride

The perfect winter sun shone upon the poverty, the dirt, the dog running along the highway, the fuul carts stood in pitiful places of black mud and trash, the roadside chaos. By the tiny kushks men stood huddled, feet upon cardboard whilst the street unwound a bracelet of qahwas, broken plastic chairs and worn out faces sucking on shisha. That winter sun shone upon the miracle of life force, at its yearning to stay alive at any cost, the amputated trees along the corniche serenading the Nile whilst by old concrete walls stood worn out horses and vegetables displayed in carts. And there upon the cracked pavement a man suddenly drew a gun, standing splayed in a star shape, his right hand bringing the revolver up, the look on his face, of someone dazed, in another place, somewhere far from here. The endless traffic went on, passing the banners of the martyrs, the grafitti now all in honour of the army, the microbuses touting for their misery rides, the gangsters, the women in black abeyas, in colourful galabeyas, in cheap western clothes trying to look as good as they can in the midst of everything and all along the cats with matted sickness crying to the day.

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The Hunger Games

The cold had stripped the streets and anything left upon them was framed by the absence of other. It was early; early enough to see the isolated dull hardships of each body under sodden, dirty blankets upon the street. Their few possessions gathered near. If they were lucky, plastic sheets or cardboard under them. Otherwise just the concrete eating their souls. These bodies perhaps had more human allowances before, or perhaps they had been born into such circumstance; children of poverty. Most of us will not know for we will not stop to enquire, our own souls impoverished through knowledge of daily tragedies; each one numbing us further. The pain breaks us all and pushes us aside, splinters our hearts and silences our tongues, prevents us from putting out our hand.

The taxi moved on and I watched young boys harassing young girls that they did not know, passers by on the street, splashing them with cold dirty water and trying to surround them. I saw an adult man alone hungry for something, moving towards one woman by the park who was talking with a couple then seeing the young girls who escaped the boys he began to move towards them instead.

We drove past security guards outside embassies, standing weakly, cold and damp, clutching at the lead of the guard dog that itself was shivering. The automatic rifle was the only sleek strength; power over, always power over.

And I considered the irony of a night out to see the film Hunger Games when down on the street the real hunger gnaws.