The Villa of Zamalek (‘My Mohamed’s Different’)

He took the brown wrapped parcel for the English wife he had left a year ago. Walked out of his hotel along the tree-lined streets of Zamalek scattered with embassies and nineteenth century apartment blocks exuding the Western ambience and night life he abhorred. Then he reached her villa. It had one of those rusty gold mail slots with a hinge that squeaked when he pushed the parcel through. It landed with a soft thud in the sand of her garden. No point ringing the bell. She’d be out celebrating her fiftieth birthday. Somewhere glitzy, expensive. Somewhere safe. He hoped. He remembered her past birthdays when they’d dined simply on the local boats decorated with lights and drifted down the Nile.

He’d taken just two steps back to the street when the gate rattled. Then a staccato rhythm of unlocking. Then he saw her. She wore a burgundy chiffon dress and multi-strapped heels. Her face shone under the moonbeam light.

‘What the hell..’ she said.

‘Hello Hannah.’

‘Why are you here, David?’

‘They sent me back. To cover the Morsi protests.’

Her eyes rolled. He’d bored her already.

‘And I wanted to give my wife something for her big day. Something to remember me by.’

She bent to pick up the parcel, strained under its weight. He turned towards the 1920s villa. ‘Their’ villa. The one they’d restored together. Purple balls of Bougainvillea now hung from its freshly painted yellow walls. The catkin-like flowers of the Casuarina trees dripped into the pool. The lawn glowed fluorescent green. She’d have gone over their quota of fresh Nile Water, he thought. He’d be fined, again.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

‘I’m having a do later,’ she said. I don’t have much time.’

Inside he sat on the soft cushioned sofa while a breeze blew in through the French patio doors. He closed his eyes, inhaled lamb prune Tagine stewing on a fire. A warmth nudged his buttocks. Pepsi, her Staffordshire Bull Terrier, curled up beside him. He stroked the dog’s stiff brown fur, looked around. Everything was tidier than he’d remembered, apart from that nothing had changed. Except in place of the yucca plant now stood a shiny shisha pipe that couldn’t have been hers.

He pulled the coffee table towards him, peered into an ash tray full of Marlboro butts. A smaller tray, half full of Cleopatras, sat at the other end of the table. He placed the unwrapped present between the two then turned the sound up on the television. Images of tanks entering Rabaa Square flickered across the screen.

‘Damn the military. And damn you, David,’ she said returning from the kitchen with two large Gin and Tonics. She grabbed the remote, pressed mute, sat down on the other side of Pepsi. ‘It’s my birthday for God’s sake.’

She lit a long thin Cleopatra. He reached for a packet of Camels from his jean pocket. She poured more gin into her glass and shook a bottle of nail polish. Then she began painting her fingernails Egyptian Blue. A ritual he’d watched her perform before every party they’d once hosted together.

‘I didn’t know you’ve now got a thing going with Ayman Nabil,’ he said.

‘Oh, I thought everyone would’ve known about that by now.’

He gulped down his drink. ‘So, where is he?’

‘Visiting his children for Eid al-Adha of course,’ she said. ‘You ‘know’ it’s Eid, David. And you know damn well that Egyptian men have no choice but to visit their families for the feast. And at Ramadan. AND at Eid al-fitr, which, incidentally, was the last time you turned up.’

‘So he’s with his wife then.’

‘No, he’s not ‘with’ his wife.’ She sighed. ‘Why are you here, David?’

He wondered. Was it only because he’d heard about her and Ayman? Ayman, the fastidious hotel manager they’d met and befriended at a party five years ago. Or was it because of her birthday?

The wind picked up, the surface water in the pool rippled. A flicker blew in through the open windows and caught his eye.

‘I have to pee,’ he said.

Upstairs in the bedroom he opened her pale-oak wardrobe. On the clothes rail her many dresses had been hung in order of length. The rail began at one end with her longest dress and ended at the other with the shortest. He watched as the hems of the dresses swayed in a diagonal line. He had never seen them like this before. On the bottom of the wardrobe her shoes had been ordered in a line determined by the height of their heels. A pair of pink flip-flops lay in the right hand-corner. But she never wore flip-flops. He laughed out loud. Of course, Ayman must have bought them. He’d have needed a pair of ‘flats’ to complete another perfectly straight slanting line.

He thought of Ayman. Ayman and his OCD. It was his saving grace. His fastidiousness and attention to detail was quite legendary.

He wandered into the en-suite bathroom, stared at the historic black and white photographs now hanging on the walls. The Maadi Sporting Club’s Nympheas Pond, its 1952 tennis team; the 1953 Lycée Français, today a mosque; a submerged bridge pictured in the flash flood of 1945. Then he unzipped his fly, reached for the larger of two toothbrushes from a crystal glass, held it under his stream as he urinated. And then rubbed it around the toilet bowl.

He walked back down the long winding staircase that looked onto the pool. She was crouched down running her fingers around the rim, just above the surface of the pristine blue water.

‘You should get your prostate examined,’ she said as he stood beside her. ‘And you look tired. You should have retired from that stupid newspaper long ago.’

She retrieved her dripping hand from the pool, held it up to the light, inspected her painted nails.

‘What protests exactly did they send you over to cover this time?’ she asked.

‘Rabaa.’

‘What?’

‘The Muslim Brotherhood protestors in Rabaa Square. It’s not that far from here. You should take care.’

‘But why are they protesting?’

‘They’re angry. The military ousted their president.’

‘The military are crazy in this country,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘So ‘why’ did they get rid of the president?’

‘The military said the people asked them to. The people who were protesting in Tahrir square.’

‘Those tanks on TV. Are they in Rabaa?’ she asked.

‘Yes’

‘But why if they’ve already got rid of the president?’

He sighed, exasperated.

‘Because, Hannah, the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, of the president, are now angry they took him down and they are the ones protesting outside the mosque in Rabaa.’ He sighed. ‘For God’s sake. It’s been world-wide news, Hannah. You should know all this by now.’

‘It’s confusing, David. To me.’

He said nothing. His eyes softened. A little.

‘Anyway so

why are the tanks needed in Rabaa,’ she said.

‘To bulldoze the dead.’

She got up, straightened her dress, strutted back inside. By the time he joined her he noticed her toenails were Egyptian Blue too. He lit another Camel, stared into her blank canvas of a face. Then he moved his eyes towards the shisha pipe which gleamed with fresh polish. He imagined water bubbling as a melon vapour ran up its flexible hose.

‘Why is Ayman living here?’ he asked. ‘You’ve never let any of them do this before.’

Her body stiffened. He reached for the Gin. Took a swig right out the bottle.

‘One day you will get Mohamed-ed,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Haven’t you heard of My Mohamed’s Different? MMD?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Oh come on? Every Western woman believes her Mohamed loves her; will never hurt her; no longer sleeps with his wife. But he does. And even his wife knows he’s a gigolo milking the cows.’

He stubbed his Camel out into the ash tray full of Marlboros.

‘Actually, your Mohammed is an Ayman. So that would make your MMD a MAD. A mad. Hahahaha.’

She grimaced. ‘Leave David. Leave now. Please.’

                   ***

After she heard the gate slam, she turned the sound back up on the television. A reporter in a flack jacket huddled in Rabaa Square. He said there were 800 dead. Killed by the military. Rabaa Adawiyya Mosque was now a morgue.

Tomorrow she would visit Rabaa. She’d see for herself this slaughter. It couldn’t be that bad. Not as bad as Eid. Oh she’d never forget seeing those poor lambs downtown. Queuing up on the street to have their throats slit. So much blood. The stench. How could Ayman let his children witness such horrors? It sickened her. Truly.

What was Ayman doing now, she wondered. Wasn’t Eid celebrated to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son? At least before God put his butt in and offered him a lamb instead. She couldn’t imagine Ayman sacrificing anything. He even managed to put on weight during Ramadan by eating gorging on??? during the moonlit hours. It would keep him going right through the sunlit ones.

She remembered the parcel. Where was it? She went into the garden, salivated as she passed the lamb Tagine. On the surface of the pool bits of wrapping paper danced like butterflies. An empty chewed up cardboard box lay on the patio. She picked it up, peered into it, took a deep breath. Then she puckered her lips to whistle but she could produce no sound. So she called out into the night: ‘Pepsi. Pepsi Cola. Come here. Now. Pepsi? Please!’

**

He caught a taxi and asked to be driven through the lushly landscaped avenues of southern Cairo. He thought of his city. How it’d been shaped by the water of the Nile. How the cisterns of the hundreds of Sabils, the drinking fountains in the squares, were filled with it. The water was carried to them from the river in leather bags. He thought of the bridges and the boats, and how the Nile was the city’s greatest escape.

A Cairo Story by Tina Bexson

She’d been in the city for four days, photographing his film crew at work. From the Pyramids to Downtown’s delights, and the Nile’s exclusive floating restaurants. So, what if it was the height of summer, pollution at its peak, sweat clouding her vision, dripping into the viewfinder at times? In the end she’d got what HE wanted. An ego-boosting record of him and his young crew out filming what this ‘oh so wonderful’ country had to offer. Not just the tourist hotspots, but the ‘real’ Egypt too, its fetid underbelly. At least that was how he liked to describe it.

BUT, right now, she squatted in the shower, clothed in a sarong and vest. Her hands covering her head, fingers tangled up in her tight black curls. 

Thirty minutes earlier she’d been using those hands along with their forearms to fight back. She’d been in the living room then. Fearless. In control. Even telling him she’d call the police if he hurt her again. Even laughing at him. Well, almost.

But he’d just lunged for her phone on the table, thrown it at her, and told ‘her’ to call them. Told her that if she did, they’d do nothing and if needed, he’d just pay them off.

“Wasta, wasta, wasta”, he’d taunted. “Remember what I always told you about that word, ‘Wasta’?”

Then he’d lunged for ‘her’, dragged her off the sofa while forcing his Birkenstock sandal, right ‘boat’ of a foot into her stomach. That had shut her up. Then he’d dragged her into the shower room.

So, again, right now, here she is trapped in this tiny shower cubicle, inside this tiny windowless bathroom. Cowering as he hit her in her face, ear, head, neck, body. Again, and again, and again.

It was when he paused, finally, to catch his breath, that she found herself able to speak.

“If I don’t get to a hospital soon you may kill me,” she said. Calmly.

It was the first time she’d spoken since she’d cockily threatened him with the police almost an hour earlier. Slightly shocked by witnessing her own voice resonating. Now it was so flat, so calm, and so distant, she could barely hear it.

 “You have to clean up this mess first,” he snarled.

Then he yanked the shower handle from its holder. Forced it into one of her hands. Turned the water on. Cold water.

“Now clean up YOUR fucking mess.”

He hovered over her. A colossus of a man, sweating beer, spirits, tobacco, and paranoia, his eyes raging with fury and confusion. She’d never seen him like this. After all the months they’d known each other, after all their time discussing this or that project, this or that topic. After all their time socialising with their mutual friends’ they’d been no hint of derangement. Not one iota of it. How had she missed it? Or had there been, and she’d simply filtered it out?  Of course, the must have been.

Still, he just may take her to the hospital. Oh, please, ‘God’.

She looked down at the mess. ‘Her’ mess.

Wobbling around on a thin layer of red water, lay four large Portbello mushrooms of thick viscous spongy blood. Were these what she’d felt slide from her tiny left ear?

“Don’t just stare at it. Clean. Clean. Clean. And don’t forget the walls. You got your filthy blood on those too.”

She glanced up. Yes, he was right. Blood ran down the pristine white tiles.

Her eyes blinked away a trail of it originating from a gash in her head. That must be where the blood running down the tiles had come from. But it was the thick bobbling large scarlet Portobello Mushrooms that concerned her. Could they really have come from her ear?

“Get to it. Clean up your fuckin’ mess. And don’t say another word.”

She crept upwards. Her hands reached for the shower’s thick silver pipe. Then she slid back down to the floor.

“Get me to a hospital, Rafi.”

“Forget it. You’re going no-where.  Maybe the desert later. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, I can arrange that too. Or just Dump you on the desert Highway. Like they did with Giulio Regeni. Ha! Regeni! Another one of your fuckin’ obsessions here. Well, now you can find out how ‘he’ felt.”

She said nothing and did nothing.

“Well, that shut you up.”

Another punch. Then a slap. Though both felt weaker than before. Was he getting tired, or was she just getting numb?

Something clicked. Robotically she began to move the shower head across the tiles using her other hand as a cloth to help remove the blood.

She looked down. The mushrooms were floating in a red pool on the shower floor. So, she stamped on them with her little bare feet. Broke them into pieces that resembled freshly cut raw liver. Stamped more until they were small enough to enter the drain.

“Don’t bother.” He muttered.

“It will all be clean soon,” she promised.

“I said, don’t bother. I’m already going to be jailed for what I’ve done to you now. But I want to be put away for something bigger than this. I want to be jailed for murder. At least then I’ll have a title. ‘Murder-RER’.” 

A knuckle hit her eye, or was it a ring on a finger? She dropped the shower head. Then watched it spin around, spurting water across the bathroom floor that eased into a small stream around his fat feet fastened tightly inside those annoying fashion-statement sandals.

“Stupid bitch. You stupid fuckin’ bitch.”

Whack. Punch. Whack.

She sunk. Again. No, not more damn blood. Her eyes shot for the door. He turned, following her gaze.

As he did, he lost his balance on the now slippery floor and fell. A look of abject surprise fanned across his expansive face. Weeks later she would praise the failure of his Birkenstocks’ so-called ‘non-slip soles’.

Her body sprang, leapt over him, toes feet gripping the sodden tiles. Within a second, she was through the door of that rabbit hole of a bathroom, that ceramic padded pure white cell. Free. Maybe.

Splat splat splat… a trail of blood as she sprinted along the hallway, across the Turkish carpeted living room floor for the front door. Couldn’t risk grabbing her phone, or purse on the way.

A few seconds later she was on the stairwell, five floors up. Too risky to wait for the lift. Too risky to wait for a neighbour to answer their door. It was the dead of night anyway. Or was 4 am the dead of the morning? But she still knocked at each door on every landing as she belted down to the ground. No one bothered to answer. Her Bare feet bouncing off every filthy stone stair. Her blood following her. The cleaner would have a nightmare tomorrow, poor love.

The street was empty. Of course, it was. Perhaps they’d be someone at the nearest crossroads. Nope. Oh, but a figure hovered outside the Seoudi supermarket. Security? Maybe, but he wore a Djellaba. A Bawab, perhaps.

“Min-fud-luk … please!”

No reply. But he heard. He saw. He just stared. Blank faced. Then he looked away. Indifferent. Nothing stirred in his eyes. Nothing stirred, not even in his body. She approached him. Worried she had nothing to cover her arms or head. She gestured. Mimicked putting a veil over her head.

No response.

Why doesn’t he respond? He can see I need to be covered. I WANT to be covered.

So, she ran. But within seconds felt faint. She’d lie on the side of the road until a car came.

Hard to tell how long it took. Ten or thirty minutes, or anything in between. Then one came. He wasn’t going to stop. So, she pushed herself into the middle of the road. He’d have to, or she’d be run over.

He stopped. And he spoke English. Oh ‘God’, thank you.

But he refused to take her to a hospital.

“No, I must call the police first,” he said, dialling into his phone.

She realised she could barely hear properly. Her left ear was blocked.

“Sorry? Did you say you need to call the police?”

He nodded.

“No. No police. PLEASE. No police.”

“They have to be told first. Ambulance second.”

“No!”

“Why not? What ‘are’ you so afraid of?”

She said nothing. Watched him dial into his phone and collapsed back onto the road.

(End of the first section – to be continued)