The Yacoubian Building Read online

  They had prepared themselves for this meeting and talked it over between themselves for a period of months till there was nothing left to discuss. Thus, they proceeded in silence, though Abaskharon started to mutter prayers to the Virgin and Christ the Savior to grant them success in their mission. Malak, on the other hand, was racking his brains for the most effective words with which to open the conversation with Fikri Bey. He had spent the last weeks gathering information about him and was now aware that the man would do anything for money and that he liked drink and women. He had been to meet him at his office on Kasr el Nil Street and presented him with a gift of a bottle of fine Old Parr whisky before opening the subject of the iron room at the entrance to the roof that had been left empty by the death of Atiya, the newspaper seller, who had lived and died unmarried, his room thus reverting to the owner. Malak had been dreaming of opening this room as a shirt shop ever since he had turned thirty and found himself still a journeyman, moving from store to store as circumstances required. When he broached the topic, Fikri Bey asked for time to think and after much pressure from Malak and his brother had agreed to give it to them in return for the sum of six thousand pounds and not a penny less, and had given them an appointment at the Automobile Club, where he was accustomed to take lunch every Sunday. When the brothers reached the club, Abaskharon felt overwhelmed at the grandness of the place and stared at the real marble that covered the walls and the floor and the luxurious red carpet that extended up to the elevator. Malak seemed to sense this and pressed his arm in encouragement, then advanced and warmly shook hands with the doorman of the club, asking him for Fikri Abd el Shaheed. In preparation for this day, Malak had got to know the workers at the Automobile Club over the past two weeks and gained their friendship with kind, flattering words and a few white gallabiyas that he had presented them as gifts. The waiters and workers hastened therefore to welcome the brothers and led them to the restaurant on the second floor where Fikri Bey was taking lunch with a fat white lady friend of his. Naturally, it wouldn’t do for the brothers to interrupt the Bey, so they sent someone to him to inform him of their presence and waited for him in a side room.

  Only a few minutes passed before Fikri Abd el Shaheed appeared, with his corpulent body, his large bald patch, and his face ruddy and white as a foreigner’s; it became immediately obvious from the redness of his eyes and the slight slur in his speech that he had drunk a lot. After the greetings and compliments Abaskharon launched into a long interlude in praise of the Bey, his kind-heartedness, and his similarity in all his doings to Christ. He went on to tell (his brother Malak listening attentively and with affected admiration) how the Bey would exempt many of his clients from the costs of cases if he was sure that they had been wronged and were poor and unable to pay.

  “Do you know, Malak, what Fikri Bey says to a poor client if he tries to pay?” Having posed the question, Abaskharon quickly answered it himself. “He says, ‘Go and prostrate yourself in thanks to the Lord Jesus, for He has paid me the fees for your case in full!’” Malak sucked his lips, folded his hands over his protruding stomach, looked at the ground as though completely overcome, and said, “There you see a true Christian!”

  Fikri Bey, however, though drunk, was attentive to the way the conversation was going and did not much like its drift; so to bring matters to a head he said in a no-nonsense tone, “Did you bring the money as agreed?”

  “Of course, Your Honor,” cried Abaskharon, as he handed him two pieces of paper. “Here’s the contract as agreed with Your Honor, and God bless you.”

  Then he thrust his hand into his vest to pull out the money. He had brought the agreed-upon six thousand, but had distributed the notes about his person in order to leave himself room for maneuver. He started by pulling out four thousand pounds and held out his hand with these in it to the Bey, who cried out angrily, “What’s that? Where’s the rest?” At this, the brothers burst out with one voice, as though singing an aria, into a joint plea—Abaskharon in his hoarse, phlegmy, panting tones and Malak in his sharp, high-pitched, loud ones, their words overlapping until they became incomprehensible, though taken as a whole they were intended to awaken the Bey’s sympathy by speaking of their poverty and noting that they had, by the Living Christ, gone into debt to get the money and that in all honesty they were unable to pay more than that. Fikri Bey didn’t relent for a second. Indeed he got angrier and saying, “This is how children behave! This is no use to me!” he turned around to go back into the restaurant. Abaskharon, however, who had been expecting this move, threw himself so forcefully toward the Bey that he stumbled and was about to fall but with a lightning movement pulled another bundle of notes, worth a thousand pounds, out of the pocket of his gallabiya and thrust it with the other bundles into the pocket of the Bey, who displayed no serious resistance and allowed this to happen. At this Abaskharon was obliged to launch into another interlude of pleading during which he attempted to kiss the Bey’s hand more than once and finally brought his ardent importunities to a close with a special move that he kept in reserve for emergencies, suddenly bending his torso backward and pulling his worn, dirty gallabiya upward with both hands so that his truncated leg, attached to the depressingly dark-colored prosthesis, was displayed. In a hoarse, disjointed, voice designed to evoke pity he shouted, “I’m a cripple, sir, and my leg’s gone! A cripple with a parcel of children to look after, and Malak has four children and their mother to support! If you love the Lord Christ, sir, don’t turn me away brokenhearted!”

  This was more than Fikri Bey could withstand and a little while later the three of them were sitting and signing the contract—Fikri Bey, who was furious at what he afterward called, as he recounted what had happened to his lady friend, “moral blackmail,” Malak, who was thinking about the first steps he would take in his new room on the roof and Abaskharon, who kept in place on his face his final, affecting expression (a sad, broken look, as though he had been vanquished and subjected to unbearable burdens); inside, however, he was happy both because the rental contract had been signed and because he had managed with his skill to save a one-thousand-pound bundle, whose delicious warmth he could feel in the right-hand pocket of his gallabiya.

  Downtown remained, for at least a hundred years, the commercial and social center of Cairo, where were situated the biggest banks, the foreign companies, the stores, the clinics and the offices of famous doctors and lawyers, the cinemas, and the luxury restaurants. Egypt’s former élite had built the downtown area to be Cairo’s European quarter, to the degree that you would find streets that looked the same as those to be found in any of the capitals of Europe, with the same style of architecture and the same venerable historic veneer. Until the beginning of the 1960s, Downtown retained its pure European stamp and old-timers doubtless can still remember that elegance. It was considered quite inappropriate for natives to wander around in Downtown in their gallabiyas and impossible for them to be allowed in this same traditional dress into restaurants such as Groppi’s, À l’Américaine, and the Odéon, or even the Metro, Saint James, and Radio cinemas, and other places that required their patrons to wear, for men, suits, and, for the ladies, evening dresses. The stores all shut their doors on Sundays, and on the Catholic Christian holidays, such as Christmas and New Year’s, Downtown was decorated all over, as though it were in a foreign capital. The glass frontages scintillated with holiday greetings in French and English, Christmas trees, and figures representing Father Christmas, and the restaurants and bars overflowed with foreigners and aristocrats who celebrated with drinking, singing, and dancing.

  Downtown had always been full of small bars where people could take a few glasses and tasty dishes of hors d’œuvres in their free time and on weekends at a reasonable price. In the thirties and forties, some bars offered in addition to the drinks small entertainments by a Greek or Italian musician or a troupe of foreign Jewish women dancers. Up to the end of the 1960s, there were on Suleiman Basha alone almost ten small bars. Then came the 1970
s, and the downtown area started gradually to lose its importance, the heart of Cairo moving to where the new élite lived, in El Mohandiseen and Medinet Nasr. An inexorable wave of religiosity swept Egyptian society and it became no longer socially acceptable to drink alcohol. Successive Egyptian governments bowed to the religious pressure (and perhaps attempted to outbid politically the opposition Islamist current) by restricting the sale of alcohol to the major hotels and restaurants and stopped issuing licenses for new bars; if the owner of a bar (usually a foreigner) died, the government would cancel the bar’s license and require the heirs to change the nature of their business. On top of all this there were constant police raids on bars, during which the officers would frisk the patrons, inspect their identity cards, and sometimes accompany them to the police station for interrogation.

  Thus it was that as the 1980s dawned, there remained in the whole of Downtown only a few, scattered, small bars, whose owners had been able to hang on in the face of the rising tide of religion and government persecution. This they had been able to do by one of two methods—concealment or bribery. There was not one bar downtown that advertised its presence. Indeed, the very word “Bar” on the signs was changed to “Restaurant” or “Coffee Shop,” and the owners of bars and wine stores deliberately painted the windows of their establishments a dark color so that what went on inside could not be seen, or would place in their display windows paper napkins or any other items that would not betray their actual business. It was no longer permitted for a customer to drink on the sidewalk in front of the bar or even in front of an open window that looked on to the street, and stringent precautions had to be taken following the burning of a number of liquor stores at the hands of youths belonging to the Islamist movement.

  At the same time, it was required of the few remaining bar owners that they pay large regular bribes to the plainclothes police officers to whose districts they belonged and to governorate officials in order for these to allow them to continue. Sometimes the sale of cheap locally produced alcohol would not realize enough income for them to pay the fine, so that the bar owners found themselves obliged to find “other ways” of adding to their income. Some of them turned to facilitating prostitution by using fallen women to serve the alcohol, as was the case with the Cairo Bar in El Tawfikiya, and the Mido and the Pussycat on Emad el Din Street. Others turned to manufacturing alcohol in primitive laboratories instead of buying it, so as to increase profits, as at the Halegian Bar on Antikkhana Street and the Jamaica on Sherif Street. These disgusting industrially produced drinks led to a number of unfortunate accidents, the most celebrated of which befell a young artist who lost his sight after drinking bad brandy at the Halegian Bar. The public prosecutor’s office ordered the bar closed, but its owner was able to reopen later, using the usual methods.

  Consequently, the small remaining downtown bars were no longer cheap, clean places for recreation as they had been before. Instead, they had turned into badly lit, poorly ventilated dens frequented mostly by hooligans and criminal types, though there were a few exceptions to this rule, such as Maxim’s in the passage between Kasr el Nil and Suleiman Basha streets, and the Chez Nous, located beneath the Yacoubian Building.

  The Chez Nous is a few steps below street level, and thanks to the thick curtains the lighting is dim and shadowy even during the day. The large bar is to the left and the tables are benches of natural wood painted a dark color. The old lanterns of Viennese design, the works of art sculpted from wood or bronze and hung on the wall, the Latin-script writing on the paper tablecloths, and the huge beer glasses—all these things give the bar the appearance of an English “pub.” In summer, as soon as you penetrate the Chez Nous, leaving behind you Suleiman Basha with its noise, heat, and crowds, and seat yourself to drink an ice-cold beer in the midst of the quiet, the powerful air conditioning, and the low, relaxing lighting, you feel as though you had gone into hiding from daily life in some way. This feeling of privacy is the great distinguishing feature of Chez Nous, which made its name basically as a meeting place for homosexuals (and which has made its way into more than one Western tourist guide under this rubric).

  The owner of the bar is called Aziz. He is nicknamed “the Englishman” (because, with his white complexion, yellow hair, and blue eyes, he resembles one) and he is a victim of that same condition. They say he took up with the old Greek who used to own the bar and that the latter fell in love with him and made him a present of the establishment before his death. They whisper too that he organizes outrageous parties at which he introduces homosexuals to Arab tourists and that homosexual prostitution brings him in huge profits with which he pays the bribes that have made his place into a safe haven from the annoying attentions of the security forces. He is blessed with a strong presence and savoir-faire, and under his supervision and care homosexuals meet at Chez Nous and form friendships there, released from the social pressures that prevent them from advertising their tendencies.

  Places where homosexuals meet are like hashish cafés and gambling dens in that their patrons belong to all social levels and are of varying ages. You find among them skilled workers and professionals, young people and old, all united by their homosexuality. By the same token, homosexuals, like burglars, pickpockets, and all other groups outside the laws and norms of society, have created for themselves a special language that enables them to understand one another when among strangers. Thus, they call a passive homosexual a “kudyana” and give him a girl’s name by which he is known among them, such as Souad, Angie, Fatma, and so on. They call an active homosexual a “barghal,” and if he is ignorant and simple, they call him a “rough barghal.” They call male-to-male sex a “hook-up.” They make themselves known to one another and hold secret conversations by means of hand movements. Thus, if one of them takes the other’s hand and strokes his wrist with his finger while shaking it, that means that he desires him, and if a man brings two fingers together and moves them while talking to someone, this means that he is inviting his interlocutor to have sex, and if he points to his heart with one finger, it means that his lover has sole possession of his heart, and so on.

  Just as Aziz the Englishman looks out for the comfort and good cheer of the Chez Nous patrons, so by the same token he permits them no indecent behavior. As the night and the patrons’ indulgence in drink progress, their voices grow louder, rise in pitch, and interrupt one another, for the desire to talk takes possession of them, as happens in all bars. The drunkards at Chez Nous, however, fall prey to a combination of lust and intoxication, exchanging endearments and dirty jokes, and one of them will sometimes stretch out his fingers to caress his friend’s body—at which point, Aziz the Englishman intervenes at once, using every means to re-impose order, starting with a polite whisper and ending with a threat to throw the delinquent customer out of the bar. Often the Englishman gets so excited that his face turns red while he berates the homosexual whose lust has been aroused, saying, “Listen. As long as you’re at my place, behave yourself. If you fancy your friend that much, get up and go off with him, but don’t you lay a hand on him in this bar!”

  The Englishman’s sternness here does not stem from any concern for morality of course but from calculations of profit and loss, since plainclothes officers often visit the bar. True, they satisfy themselves with a quick glance from a distance and don’t disturb the patrons at all (thanks to the large bribes they receive), but if they were to witness any scandalous act there, they would make a huge fuss, since that would be their opportunity to blackmail the Englishman into paying even more.

  A little before midnight, the door of the bar opened and Hatim Rasheed appeared with a dark-complexioned young man in his twenties wearing inexpensive clothes, his hair cropped like a soldier’s. The people in the bar were drunk, shouting and singing loudly. All the same, as soon as Hatim entered, their racket diminished and they took to observing him with curiosity and a certain awe. They knew that he was a kudyana, but a forbidding natural reserve prevented them fr
om acting familiarly with him and even the most impudent and obscene of the customers could do no other than treat him with respect.

  There were a number of reasons for this. Hatim Rasheed is a well-known journalist and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Le Caire, which comes out in Cairo in French. He is an aristocrat of ancient lineage whose mother was French and whose father was Dr. Hassan Rasheed, the famous jurist and dean of the College of Law in the 1950s. In addition, Hatim Rasheed is a conservative homosexual, if that is the right expression: he does not sacrifice his dignity, put powder on his face, or stoop to using provocative ways as do many kudyanas. In appearance and behavior he always chooses a skillful compromise between elegance and femininity. Tonight, for instance, he is wearing a dark wine-red suit and has knotted around his slender neck a yellow scarf, most of which he has tucked under his pink, natural-silk shirt, the two ends of the latter’s broad collar flopping over the front of his jacket. With his smart clothes, svelte figure, and fine French features, he would look like a scintillating movie star were it not for the wrinkles that his riotous life has left on his face and that sad, mysterious, gloomy look that often haunts the faces of homosexuals.