Anatomy of a Disappearance Read online

  She moved in with us, in the Zamalek apartment Mother had picked for its intimate view of the Nile. During those first few days I almost forgot our time at the Magda Marina. Every morning Father took his car to some appointment or meeting and Abdu drove me to school. Mona, more comfortable in the world than Mother had ever been, spent most of her time at the Gezira Club, where she played polo and tennis and drank tea with people Father and I were never introduced to. She had that English quality of placing the people she knew in compartments, as if fearing they would contaminate one another. Before long she had formed a wide circle of friends. Eventually, it would become necessary to resent her.

  But then in November, under the excuse of celebrating my thirteenth birthday, we took a boat up the Nile to Luxor, and the fire was reignited. The same sad hunger, only darker and harder to bear.

  The boat was moving soundlessly. I could see through the small window in my cabin the waters parting behind us, the discrete ripples running wide like pressed skin, gathering pace then collapsing gently against the soft grassy banks of the river. This was our first morning aboard the Isis, clamorous Cairo far behind now. The capital’s fat river had withered to a provincial waterway. Its banks pressed close and so seemed more reticent somehow. We were traveling upstream, south into the continent. Already the skin of the boys who occasionally ran along with our speed—waving, sticking out tongues, revealing buttocks—was a shade darker, as dark as Naima’s. Another four days and we would reach the pale waters of Luxor, where, the captain had told us when we boarded, the waters are so clear you can see right to the bottom of the ancient river. Will we see jewels and ruins and things down there? I had thought to ask. But from where I was standing on the narrow lacquered deck behind Mona and Father and their two giant suitcases, speaking seemed impossible.

  That night I could not sleep. The fluid motion of the boat combined with the muffled happy voices from the cabin next door kept me awake most of the night. The newlyweds did not fall asleep until the water’s surface had turned silver: giggling, shushing, then a breathless silence, then sudden laughter. At one point, delirious with exhaustion and jealousy, I thought, They mean to do this; they mean to torment me.

  Now that we were farther south, the sun had become braver. I lay uncovered, unready for morning, which came thick with heat. My T-shirt and trunks were sticky against my skin, my jaw slack on the pillow, when Mona walked in without knocking. I held my eyes shut, but she was not convinced.

  “I have tried everything. It’s past nine and he still won’t wake.”

  She walked into the bathroom, leaving the door open. Without needing to move I could see part of her thigh. I heard the sound of her pee pouring into water—closer to a small stream than a fountain—then the scrape of paper. She washed her hands, splashed her face, gasping against the cold water. She sat on the bed. I turned and faced the wood paneling, reading the lines and twirls of the grain. She placed a hand on my back.

  CHAPTER 12

  What I then took for adoration was Mona’s fancy to be adored. I imagine she found the torment and slow discovery of a boy-admirer all at once entertaining, flattering and pathetic. I think this now as I recall what happened next.

  The three of us were taking turns diving into the passing river, then hurrying to catch up with the steamer. The other two would cheer as the swimmer chased after the ladder. The pace of the boat was gentle, but our excitement feigned danger. Every time the swimmer grabbed hold of the first tread, the other two would clap. Mona put her thumb and index finger in her mouth and whistled loudly. I wished I could do that. And ever since I have looked up to people who can as a kind of elite. At one point Father lifted her in his arms and kissed her. We had caused a spectacle. Clothed passengers stood leaning on the rail, watching us. They clapped as we climbed up onto the deck. Children looked at me. It was a performance, and we knew it. Our strangeness urged us on to act more, and we relished the questions we imagined our appearances and accents, our tongues that switched comfortably from Arabic to English to French, provoked in others.

  “Ça, c’était vraiment rafraîchissant,” Father called out from the deck.

  And knowing full well his purpose, I replied, “Ah oui, c’était superbe.”

  Father plonked himself down into a deck chair, his chest heaving with effort, and I watched the dark wood beneath him darken further still. The captain stood nearby, looking at him. Father often elicited such admiration in men. The two began talking in that way men do when silence is unbearable.

  Mona and I went to our rooms. She walked ahead of me, water pearls clinging to the small of her back, and when we entered the narrow corridor lined with numbered doors, her skin seemed luminous and green, the color of polished jade, until my eyes adjusted to the electric light. This moment is precious, I thought; soon it will pass, and I will be obliged to sit with them as they sip their aperitifs—which they did every day before dinner.

  “See you on deck,” she said, unlocking her door, smiling.

  What makes those lips glisten, I wondered, and why does her blood rush to them like that?

  I entered my room with the intention of showering, but when I realized I was out of shampoo I went to her. She was already under the shower. I remembered the excitement I had felt when I sneaked into her room that first time at the Magda Marina. How magical it was to find myself in the same situation again. I stood by the dressing table, looking at her bottles and jewelry. I held the necklace and one by one let drop the pearls into the cup of my hand. I brought them to my nose. Her scent made a place in my chest ache. I buried my face into the silk scarf and felt myself grow thirsty. These were the objects that held her. When I heard the water stop, my heart quickened and I thought, I must leave before she sees me. I returned the objects, each to its place. The pearls made the soft sound of dominoes falling.

  “Darling,” she said. “I never thought swimming in a river could be so much fun.”

  It was peculiar to be mistaken for my father. There was nothing confidential about what she had said, but the tone of it surprised me. How bottomless it seemed.

  “I’ll never forget how you looked,” she went on. “Those fantastic dives. Your chest.”

  After a short silence in which I did not know whether to speak or escape, she appeared with just a towel wrapped round her waist. The sight of her bare breasts caused me to turn around.

  “I need some shampoo.”

  “You don’t have to face the wall; I am old enough to be your mother.”

  She was sitting on the foot of the bed, holding a hairbrush. Her breasts were paler than the rest of her and seemed to deepen the pink in her cheeks. She left the brush beside her and gave me her back.

  “Brush my hair.”

  I stood on my knees on the bed.

  When I started brushing, she said, “No, start from the bottom.”

  I combed in silence, and whenever the brush met a knot I took my time.

  “It’s not true,” I said, and as if knowing what I meant she did not respond. “You are not old enough to be my mother. You were only fourteen when I was born.”

  And again she did not speak, but this time it was a protective and knowing silence, a silence like the screen a doctor pulls across before he comes to inspect you.

  Then Father entered the room. He quickly shut the door behind him and stood for a moment watching us. I felt an itch burn my skin and dared not meet his eyes. I focused on her hair, brushing diligently, as if it were homework. Without a word he went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. I thought of asking him to pass the shampoo; I thought this would explain why I was there. But I continued brushing. He turned on the shower. I studied her back, down where the towel held her, tightening and loosening with every breath. And although I had chased all the tangles out and the brush was passing smoothly now, she did not ask me to stop. When I heard Father turn off the water I handed her the brush and left.

  Back in my room I placed my ear against the wall. I could
not make out the words. Father was speaking in that distant, unyielding tone of his, a thick silence separating each sentence.

  For the rest of the trip, Father would address me only when Mona was present. Whenever we were alone, he would look into the distance or pick up a book. But a few months after we had returned to Cairo, as spring was setting in, he called me into his study.

  “Close the door.”

  I sat down opposite him.

  “What do you think of studying in England?”

  I shrugged.

  “You remember London?”

  I said nothing.

  “You liked London. You will like England. And by now your English is strong enough. Both Mona and I think it a very good idea.”

  I could not bear crying in front of him.

  “Is that all?” I said, then cleared my throat so as to explain away the cracked voice.

  And it was with such merciless efficiency that Father moved me out of the way. The decision had been made: he had already enrolled me in Daleswick, a boarding school in northern England, and there was nothing I could do about it. Apparently, Mona had chosen the school.

  “One of the oldest, no? Kings studied there, right?” he said that evening over dinner, looking at Mona.

  “It certainly is one of the best,” she confirmed, her face hardening with that self-congratulatory somberness that overtakes the English whenever they hear praise for one of their institutions.

  But I would not be fooled; I refused to be impressed.

  “Mama,” I said, the word seeming to catch Father unawares. “Mama always told me that you moved us to Cairo so I could grow up in an Arab country.” But then, louder than intended, I added, “What happened to that?” and ran to my room, where I had to wait a long time, until they finished eating and the table was cleared, for Naima.

  The suitcase lay open on the floor. Naima sat cross-legged beside it. Every garment I handed her she folded in her lap, then pressed tenderly into place. She, like me, seemed sick with silence. Mona was the only one who spoke.

  “Isn’t this exciting? You will make lots of friends, people you will know for the rest of your life.”

  Then out of the blue she asked Naima to go and make tea. And when we were alone she held my wrist and asked me to look her in the eyes.

  “Believe me, if it were up to me, I would prefer you to stay here. It’s your father; he wants you to grow up quickly. But I know, from how bravely you are taking this, that you are not a boy anymore.”

  CHAPTER 13

  A week before I was due to start at Daleswick, the three of us flew to London. My throat tightened as we approached Cairo Airport early in the morning. Why must all horrible things take place early in the morning? I wondered. They treated me then with the sort of focused tenderness you show a grieving person. I was not allowed to carry my bag, and if my eyes lingered on an article in a magazine, Father would ask me about it.

  We stayed a couple of nights at Claridge’s in London before heading to school. Knowing how much I liked room service, Father telephoned my room just as I was falling asleep the night we arrived and insisted I call and order a hot chocolate. We spent most of the time walking around the West End. Whenever the two of them went into a shop I waited outside. We wandered around galleries and in and out of museums. We were at the National Gallery, standing in front of Turner’s Calais Pier, when, in a rare expression of sympathy, Father mentioned Mother. Not being in the habit of stopping in front of a painting for longer than a few seconds, Mona was already in the next room. I was still taking in the picture—the frothing, unbrushed curls of the waves, the peopled and tilting ships, the pregnant sails, clouds gathering like vultures, the chill of the whole thing—when Father said, softly, almost absentmindedly, “Your mother would have liked this.” Then he moved on to the next picture, another Turner. I was startled by what he said. Anger was sudden. If it were not for its surprising and perplexing speed, I might have been able to express it more nakedly. Where I had repeatedly failed, an old painting succeeded. It was as if my father was not really talking to me at all. It was so rare for him to talk about my mother in this way. I did not know what to say. I wanted to ask so many things about her, particularly about what she was like before I was born. And I felt a window had opened, that Father was unconsciously allowing me to glimpse a part of her, if only for a moment. I made as if I was moving along to the next painting and came beside him.

  “Baba, Baba,” I repeated until I heard him hum. “Why that picture?”

  “She liked this painter.” He bent toward the text. “Turner. She very much liked this Turner. I don’t know what it was about him.” Then he put his arm around me, smiling, signaling the start of a private recollection. “One time, when we were on a boat somewhere—”

  “Where?”

  I realized I had spoken louder than I should have, particularly in an art gallery where people, for reasons I have never understood, are silent as they would be at a funeral.

  He looked about us. I wondered if I had upset him, if he would ever finish the story, if my keenness had caused another long silence to begin.

  “Ischia,” he finally whispered.

  “It sounds like a sneeze,” I said.

  “It’s an island. In Italy. The Tyrrhenian Sea was high. Rough waters. She began to shiver. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. She nodded, still looking away from me, out of the window. Waves were crashing against the glass. Then I heard her whisper, ‘How beautiful.’ A strong heart, your mother had.” He gave a small laugh then looked at me. “A strong heart.”

  I do not remember now why they did not accompany me all the way to the new school, and many times since I have wondered whether it was because Father could not bear abandoning me there, that his strength stopped at seeing me off at St. Pancras station.

  I stood inside the carriage door, the small window pushed down. I gripped tightly the twenty-pound note Father had just handed me for a cab.

  “Your housemaster, Mr. Galebraith, will be waiting on the platform,” he said, looking up. “But in case you don’t find him, there will be a taxi rank outside.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mona told him. “Nuri is responsible.”

  Then came the loud whistle of the conductor.

  Father tested me one last time, asking me to recite the school address.

  The train jerked into motion, its long, sad weight yielding.

  “Call as soon as you arrive,” Father said again.

  Mona waved energetically. He remained still, his face solemn. Then—they must have thought I could no longer see them—she looked at him and he looked away.

  Seeing me struggle off the train with the suitcase, Mr. Galebraith wandered over to me. He smiled when we shook hands. Forgetting that it was mainly an Arab custom, I started to employ my left hand, but it landed not on the hand I was shaking but on his arm, round the bristly sleeve of his tweed jacket.

  “Your father asked that we call as soon as you arrived,” he said, leading me to a telephone box.

  “Yes, Mr. el-Alfi, he is here, safe and sound.”

  But Father wanted to hear my voice, or that was how Mr. Galebraith had put it: “He wants to hear your voice,” he said, handing me the receiver, now warmed a little by his ear. I could smell his breath: a sharp metallic smell. It might have been the breath of the callers before him, but somehow it left me feeling that there was something cold and hard about Mr. Galebraith.

  Two weeks later, without warning, they turned up. The head porter came into maths class.

  “El-Alfi, you have guests.”

  Everyone at Daleswick, even the students, called one another by their last name.

  “Ooh,” the boys cooed.

  “Better bring your things,” the head porter said.

  I collected my books, blushing the whole time, feeling embarrassed that I was having “guests” so soon after arriving.

  I found them standing beside the rented car. Mona opened her arms. Father shook my hand, but
then pulled me into an awkward embrace, kissing my cheek with too much force.

  I showed them around, took them to the house where I boarded and brought them all the way up to my room. Father stood in his coat between the two narrow beds that were placed on either side of the square window, his head nearly touching the sloping eaves. The floorboards seemed to creak more loudly beneath his polished leather shoes. His eyes landed on the alarm clock he had given me.

  “Is this your bed?” he asked, then sank a hand into the mattress. The bedsprings sang horribly. “Very poor quality,” he whispered to Mona.

  “That’s what these schools are like,” she said defensively.

  “But for the money?”

  I pretended I had not heard this exchange. The room embarrassed me; you want the people you love to desire your places. But as she was following him out of the room, Mona looked back at me and winked. I moved quickly to the front and continued the tour. I told them about the rituals of the place, and it pleased me then whenever someone greeted me by my last name.

  “Here are the showers. And this is where on the weekends I make breakfast.”

  “You learned how to cook?” Father asked.

  “Yes, my roommate Alexei taught me how to make an omelette,” I said, hoping we would not encounter Alexei, as he was the only person on earth to whom I had confided my feelings for Mona.

  After I was done showing them around, I could not wait for them to leave. And when we sat for lunch in the musty atmosphere of a pub in a nearby village, I felt impatient for the meal to end. Having them there was nowhere, neither the home I longed for nor the school I dreaded.

  When they were leaving I overheard her say, “See, didn’t I tell you? He has already got used to it.”