The Open Door Page 15

  “The wedding dress arrived,” she said, breathlessly happy. “And what a dress, Layla! What a dress!”

  Layla disengaged her hand. “Just a minute, Gamila. Mahmud’s arrived, and I want to tell Isam to go down and see him.”

  “How can you?” said Gamila, her enthusiasm suddenly flagging. “Aren’t you going to see my dress first?” Then she smiled. “So, how is Mahmud?”

  “Fine. Where’s Isam?”

  “In the study. Anyway, it’s better this way. I’ll be putting on the dress so when you come back you can see it on me.”

  Isam was sitting at the desk, a book open before him. Sayyida, the maid, was kneeling on the floor, wiping traces of coffee off the carpet with a damp rag. The offending coffee cup was still lying overturned at the edge of the desk. Isam got up, an embarrassed smile on his face.

  “Hello, Layla.”

  “Mahmud’s come.” Layla was still standing near the door.

  “Really?” Isam’s voice carried no enthusiasm. Layla walked further into the room.

  “Aren’t you going to come down to see him, Isam?”

  “Right now?”

  Layla stopped right in front of him. “Yes, right now. Unless you’re busy.”

  Isam shrugged and smiled. “No, I’m not busy at all.” He turned to take his jacket from the armchair next to his desk chair, and as he walked forward he passed Sayyida. She raised her eyes, large and round like those of a cow, as she went on striking the carpet with the edge of the wet cloth.

  “I want to tell you something before you go down, Isam.”

  Isam was putting on his jacket. “What is it, Layla?”

  Layla pressed her lips together and nodded slightly in Sayyida’s direction, trying to tell Isam with the set of her face that she would not talk in front of Sayyida. They stood waiting for her to finish what she was doing. There was no sign of the coffee on the carpet now, but Sayyida was still kneeling in her place, hitting at the floor with one end of the rag.

  “Aren’t you finished, Sayyida?” Layla asked gently. Sayyida raised her puffy face to Layla and pressed her full lips together without saying a word. She went on hitting the carpet. The repeated movements bothered Isam, and he shouted warningly.

  “Hurry up, that’s enough.”

  Once again Sayyida raised her eyes, giving him a bold look but staying crouched on the floor. Then, slackly, she got to her feet.

  “Yoo, Si Isam, you mean I should leave the carpet dirty?”

  Layla took a relieved breath when Sayyida was nearly out the door, but then she came back in, her large body moving indolently, taking the cup slowly from the desk, and then leaving the room again, letting her full hips sway slowly, heavily, a half-smile on her lips that was not directed at anyone, as if she were smiling at something that had just come into her mind—a secret, something very private and significant, something that gave her a sense of importance.

  “Isam,” Layla started. Isam walked quickly toward her, took her hand, and bent over to kiss it gently, quick little kisses she could hardly feel, as if he were trying to placate her, to make something up to her after hurting her in some way.

  “Isam, for my sake, be nice when you are with Mahmud. Just be really nice.” She looked away. “He’s changed, Mahmud is different, completely different, Isam.”

  “I know he is sensitive, more so than he should be.”

  Layla placed her hand on his shoulder. “That’s exactly it, Isam.”

  “Do you remember how much he suffered during the ’46 demonstrations? But you were small then, so small, my love.”

  Retrieving those days in her mind, Layla whispered. “But I do remember, Isam. I remember it all, as if it had just happened this morning.” She seized his hand and they walked together toward the outside door.

  “I won’t go down with you, it’s better that way,” she said. “I’ll go see Gamila. I don’t want Mahmud to think that I got you to come down.” Layla pressed Isam’s hand, smiling, then released it, turned toward Gamila’s room, and opened the door.

  Gamila’s back was to the door. Layla stopped short in the doorway and sucked in her breath. Wasn’t this her own white dress—the same chiffon, the same accumulating folds like a white bird’s unfolding wings? As Gamila straightened and turned to face her, Layla gave her head a shake, bemused by her foolish thought. Gamila’s dress was entirely different. The white chiffon was not actually part of it, but rather a flowing veil that cascaded down the back of the dress. The gown itself was of white satin, embroidered with artificial pearls, sequins, and beads.

  “What do you think?” asked Gamila triumphantly.

  “Marvelous—it’s beautiful, really gorgeous! Fit for a princess, and you look better than the best.” But she felt some sort of inner strain, as if Gamila had taken something from her, something that belonged specially to her. Her white dress, her lovely white dress.

  Gamila walked toward the mirror. “Wait—this isn’t the whole effect. Right now you can’t properly see its fit. The zipper’s still open.”

  Layla sat down, across from the mirror. “That Sayyida of yours is really annoying. There I was wanting to talk to Isam about Mahmud, and she was standing there, just hanging around. We even told her to leave and she still stayed.”

  Gamila was zipping up the dress. “That’s because she has a crush on Isam. She’s his girlfriend, ya sitti!” The zipper closed with a harsh sound.

  “His girlfriend? What on earth do you mean?”

  Gamila gave Layla a sidelong glance and put her hand down to straighten the bodice of her dress. She gave it a sharp tug downward. “Layla, you are so naïve! Any fellow his age, and not married—you know—he has to do that. If he doesn’t, he isn’t much of a man.”

  Gamila’s hands went up to her hair. She gathered it in back and piled it on top of her head. She turned her head to one side and tilted it, studying the effect, and then turned to Layla.

  “What do you think of this hairstyle, Layla?” But when she saw Layla’s bewildered face, her mouth open stupidly, she broke out laughing.

  “You know something, Layla? You know what you just made me think of? The night I saw them in the kitchen. That was the night of my engagement party. I got up in the middle of the night because I had an awful stomachache. I went into the kitchen to fill a hot-water bottle. When I turned on the light, I had to flick it off right away. And I was as stupid-faced as you are right now. I stayed that way for two whole days, too. Until Mama explained everything to me.”

  Gamila sat down next to Layla, a sad look in her eyes. Layla wiped her face and stood up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Downstairs.” Layla’s voice was carefully level.

  “Shame on you, Layla!” Gamila’s voice was disapproving. “Obviously the dress doesn’t please you. Why not, Layla? It’s so stylish—the skirt alone took seven meters. Look.”

  She jumped to the middle of the room, threw her head back proudly, steadied the heels of her shoes and swirled around. The dress flared, the skirts forming a widening circle. The room whirled before Layla’s eyes—the ceiling was the floor, and the walls were leaning in toward each other. Gamila came to a stop, breathless.

  “Now what do you think? Really, have you ever seen a dress like this? Even in the cinema?”

  Layla muttered something without even a glance at the dress.

  “Stark naked. Completely exposed.”

  “The chest, you mean?”

  “All . . . exposed.”

  Gamila reached for the bolero that was the dress’s finishing touch and put it on. She turned around, smiling lightly.

  “Does that satisfy you, ya sitti al-shaykha, my fine cleric?”

  Layla shook her head despondently. Her voice was almost a whisper. “It’s no use. Exposed, bared—and from within. Exposed, Gamila, stripped completely naked.”

  Now Gamila stared at her—and shrieked, for Layla’s face was ashen, her pale lips trembling, her eyes unfocused as if she were in
a coma. She could not still her hands—clutching the neckline of her dress as if to force it closed, dropping to grasp the hem, yanking it as if she wanted it to stretch down to cover her toes, then rising again to clutch at the throat of her dress.

  “Layla, what’s the matter?”

  Layla gave her head a bewildered shake and collapsed onto the nearest chair.

  “Layla, what’s wrong? What is it? Tell me!”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ll call Mama.”

  “No!” whispered Layla. “Don’t call anyone, because . . . because I have a stomachache.”

  “Can I make you tea?”

  Layla nodded. Gamila left the room. Layla heard her order Sayyida to make tea, and then she could hear her cousin’s footsteps moving in the direction of her mother’s room. She jumped to her feet and tiptoed cautiously to the door. The lost look in her eyes once again, she strained her ears and moved forward, crossing the front hall to open the outer door.

  She pressed her hand to the wall for support and made her way to the stairs. She froze in place as the whine of the elevator forced itself into her ears and head; her whole body seemed to vibrate with it. The elevator passed her on its way down; she saw its cable straining slowly downward. She stretched her head forward over the wall that separated the stairwell from the elevator shaft, her eyes clinging to the cable as it was pulled downward. She hung her torso into the emptiness that the elevator had left behind, and stared at that cable, letting herself be dragged by the eyes. She steadied her hands and lifted more of her body away from the floor until she lay stretched along the top of the low elevator wall. The cable was pulling her downward, downward. Her grip on the wall grew slack, and the cable pulled her on.

  “Layla!” It was Gamila, shrieking. A hand shot out to grab her. Pulled off the wall, Layla turned and found herself on the stairs face to face with Gamila.

  “Layla, what are you doing? You’re crazy!”

  Layla stood motionless, the same expression of empty loss in her eyes. Now a terror cold as ice swept over her body as it suddenly struck her: she had just barely been pulled from her death.

  “Gamila, come downstairs with me.” Her voice was choked. She stumbled down the stairs, Gamila close behind her. She kept going, passing the door to their apartment, not realizing it until Gamila said something. She turned and retraced her way, up the staircase, her steps sluggish. Her room? No—not even her room. Down—she wanted to go down, down, where she would feel nothing, where she would not even be able to think.

  She went in, shuddering as she noticed the open sitting-room door. Isam. Isam was there, with Mahmud. She headed directly to her room, swiftly, as if someone were giving chase. But as she reached her door the urgency in Mahmud’s voice, calling her name, stopped her. Gamila, she realized, was tugging at her. Her cousin pulled her into the sitting room, as if she’d been stripped of the will to move her own body. She came to a dead stop in front of Mahmud, who sat not far from the door, as if she did not even see anyone else in the room. At the sight of his sister, Isam jumped to his feet, waving at her dress. “What on earth are you wearing?”

  “The city’s burning,” Mahmud said to Layla. She echoed him, a flat statement of fact, no reaction on her face. “Yes, burning. Burning.” But another face gazed into hers, smiling broadly—a true, sincere smile, unrestrained by any caution. A strange face, the face of a stranger. Suddenly Layla yelped as if only in this moment she had regained consciousness and realized what Mahmud had said. “Burning? What d’you mean, burning?”

  Mahmud noticed that Husayn was standing next to them, a smile on his face. “Oh—this is my sister Layla, and—” His gaze turned to Gamila, encased in her white dress, he paused, and finished his sentence in wonder. “And—my cousin. Gamila.”

  Husayn’s hand hung in the air for a moment before Gamila’s met it firmly. She turned and whispered something into Isam’s ear, and, his face solemn, he immediately returned to the settee opposite Mahmud, Gamila close behind. Layla’s eyes remained fixed on Mahmud. She mumbled, her lips trembling. “What, Mahmud? What do you mean?”

  Mahmud’s face grew stony as he gazed into the distance. His voice seemed to catch on something, to have difficulty leaving his throat. “People. People burned the cinemas, and Fuad Street. The whole city is on fire, it is all flame and smoke.”

  “People burning the city?” Layla wailed. “Why? Why would we burn our own city?”

  Mahmud, biting his lower lip, said nothing. He shut his eyes; he left her alone; a stranger. Layla’s eyes wandered. Gamila was perching gingerly on the edge of the settee so she would not crush her dress. Isam was huddled at the other end. Her eyes came to rest on Husayn, who responded with his customary, broad smile.

  “The truth is, the people have been wronged. Folks went out to protest the Ismailiya massacre, and then the Palace and reactionary elements took advantage of the situation in order to discredit the nationalist movement.”

  With a shaking hand Mahmud took out a cigarette. “The betrayal didn’t start today, you know. It’s been there since the beginning, and now we’re seeing the upshot of it all. The end. This fire, it’s the end—the end of the battle for the Canal.”

  Layla flopped onto a chair; she could see herself in the grand mirror that crowned the sitting room, despite the tears that blurred her vision. Across the mirror’s blank face broke the late-afternoon sun’s tapering rays, imprinting a blaze of redness on the glass. Layla tried to bring the flaming mirror into focus: before her blurring eyes tongues of fire slid across the sheet of glass, fusing her to its surface as if an act of sorcery lured her there. A painful droning drummed into her ears, as if thousands of old kerosene burners had all been lit at once.

  “For a country boasting heroes like the soldiers of Ismailiya,” exclaimed Husayn, “this can’t possibly be the end. They were cut off, isolated—more important, they knew full well that the entire country had washed its hands of them. Sure, they could’ve surrendered—they knew that. They could’ve raised a white shirt, waved a white handkerchief, anything. But they didn’t. No, they died in their boots instead.”

  Mahmud mopped his face slowly, heavily. “So, what’s the use? What’s the use, then? All that blood—it went in vain.”

  Layla’s hand went up to her collar; she tugged it away from her neck, her eyes still held captive by the mirror. Blood and fire! She staggered between them. Blood and fire—she was hit, and now she was trying to save herself. Blood surrounded her on every side, and the flames rose. But there sat Gamila, impassive, a cold stone statue in her pure-white dress. The word “betrayal” torched through Layla’s ears. Fire—it enveloped the city, choked the city! Fire, choking her! She jumped to her feet and tore from the room, from the apartment, out, onto the stairs—up, up to the fire. She must see that fire; she must witness the flames gripping the city, the crimson cloud that choked Cairo. She must see it all. As she climbed furiously she could hear her cousin. Gamila had leapt from her serene pose, shouting hysterically. “The stairs! The stairs!” But it was some moments before she could regain enough control of herself to make them understand Layla’s alarming state of mind. Mahmud took off at a run toward the stairs, Isam pressing forward after him and Gamila behind them both. Husayn, pausing on the threshold, noticed the elevator’s slow ascent and stopped it.

  On and on hurtled Layla, bounding up the stairs, propelled by a curious strength that pushed her, dragged her, urged her on toward the fire. She did not see Husayn as she burst onto the roof, not even slowing down until she came right to the edge of the low encircling wall that ringed the roof and toppled onto it. By now the fire had subsided to the point where it was visible only as scattered points of light, its feeble remains nearly vanquished. But the smoke stubbornly held out, crouching in the sky, enormous, stupefying, appalling masses of blackness everywhere—in the air, on the ground, a crushing weight on her chest.

  When Husayn touched Layla’s arm gently, she started and stared at him in fear. H
e stood beside her, his back to the wall, his hands bracing him, his broad smile full in her face. Her features relaxed as she turned her gaze back to the masses of smoke.

  “What’s the matter?” His voice, too, was gentle. She raised her eyes, staring dully at him for a few seconds before she returned her gaze to the viscid black smoke.

  “What’s wrong, Layla?” His voice was even softer this time. She sighed deeply, her eyes still on the acrid smoke as she spoke. “Why does everything good always turn out badly in the end?”

  Husayn perched on the wall edge and bent his head toward her. “This is not the end, Layla. We determine the end; we make it—me, you, Mahmud, everyone who loves Egypt.”

  Layla gave a short, hard laugh that came out more like a howl as she gestured toward herself. “Me?” Her face changed completely, taking on a look of contempt as if she was speaking of a mortal foe. She stood up and walked heavily toward the door that gave onto the rooftop. Husayn caught up to her and put out his hand to pat her shoulder. His voice shook with feeling. “This isn’t the end. Don’t believe Mahmud. Believe me.” He turned her toward him and looked hard at her, his expression one of sympathy and entreaty. “Believe me.” He seemed to pour his entire being into the attempt to persuade her. As their eyes connected she found a confidence there, in that frank, direct, gaze that spoke of goodness and an acute understanding. That gaze seemed to promise her a more pleasing tomorrow, and her tense face softened. But she tipped her head forward suddenly to listen as footsteps and voices approached the roof: Isam’s voice, calling to her. She studied Husayn for a moment.

  “I don’t believe anyone,” she said flatly. She turned again to walk toward the door, but stopped dead as Isam burst through the doorway, followed by Mahmud and Gamila. Isam ran toward her, his arms extended, his hands reaching to touch her, moving rapidly and with mad desperation from her face to her shoulders, all the while whispering her name. Layla felt as if something had died inside of her. She put out her hands calmly, pushed him away, and marched right up to Mahmud, who had stopped cold, bewildered by Isam’s behavior.