Butterfly Wings: An Egyptian Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (11 page)

After a few minutes, she felt calm and serene. She had made up her mind. She had taken the hard decision that she had been anticipating her whole life, but that everything about her life had stopped her taking. She decided to exert her will, which she had so often left to others who pushed her in any direction they wished. From now on, nobody would push her around.
She would no longer be a caterpillar confined to its chrysalis. She would take control of her life, like the god of the sea next to whom she had stayed in Rome, and to the sound of whose waters she had listened night after night.

There was a gentle smile on Doha’s face when she said to the assistant, “I want to see the director of Fashion Week.”

In his office, the director was surrounded by an array of assistants and representatives of the fashion houses. She said, “I’m sorry to burst in on you at such a busy time, but it’s something important. Could I please have a word with you on your own?” The director pointed her toward a side room and followed her in, closing the door behind him.

As soon as he sat down opposite her at the large conference table, she said, “This should only take a few minutes. I hope you will understand. In short, I can’t show my designs this year.” The man’s eyes widened in surprise. “The clothes I brought from Egypt do not meet my requirements,” she said, “and do not portray me in the way I want. So I would prefer not to show them.”

The man was stunned. “Was there some mistake in Egypt?” he asked. “Did they send the wrong clothes?”

“No, they’re my clothes. But they’re not what I want to show.”

“It’s not possible to find some solution?”

“Don’t let it concern you. The mistake is entirely mine. I just want to ensure that this will not cause any problem to your program.”

“There isn’t much time to change the program, and unfortunately we will not be able to refund the entry fees. I know that is quite a sum, but it cannot be returned.”

“I totally understand and would like to thank you anyway for accepting me to begin with.”

“We’re willing to have you back next year.”

Doha left the director’s office and went out into the wide street. She could not go back to the hotel. She had grown beautiful wings in colors she had never seen the likes of before. She kept walking faster and faster, like a bird about to take off, and felt for the first time in her life that she was flying through the air.

16 Dinner with Tchaikovsky

A
shraf al-Zayni was upset when he heard that Doha al-Kenani’s show had been canceled. His first reaction was to assume that something terrible had happened. He looked for her in the main lobby of the hotel and in the restaurant, but did not find her. He asked after her at the reception and was told she was in her room. After a momentary hesitation he called her. “I apologize for calling you in your room, but I was surprised just now to hear that your show has been canceled and I want to make sure you’re fine. We were together only yesterday and everyone was hopeful that your show would be a hit. Please forgive me for being so presumptuous as to disturb you in your room. I am only calling because you are someone I’ve been honored to meet and feel obliged to assist if there is any problem.”

The smile on Doha’s lips came through in her voice as she thanked him for being such a gentleman, and reassured him, saying, “There are no problems. Canceling the show was what I wanted.”

He longed to ask her why she had asked to cancel the show, but did not want to pry too much, so he contented himself with the question, “Are you happy with your decision?”

“Completely,” she said calmly.

“Forgive my saying it, but that’s a total transformation.”

“It’s the transformation from the stage of the caterpillar into a butterfly with wings to soar.”

“Sorry?”

Doha laughed as she said, “I’ll explain when I see you.”

Right away he said, “When?”

“When you come back from the show.”

“I’m not going to the show. I’ve apologized to my friends.”

“Let’s have dinner then.”

That evening, when the guests had headed off to the catwalks, Doha was sitting in the hotel restaurant with Dr. Ashraf. The sadness he had seen in her eyes that morning had gone, and her face was once again radiant. Doha needed to talk to someone about her decision, and Ashraf was eager to know what had happened. She looked at the piece of butter that the waiter had carefully placed with the bread on her side plate. Then she said, “There was no need for you not to go to the show. What’s happened doesn’t merit all of that.”

He was telling the truth when he said, “What prompted me to accept my friend’s invitation was the presence of an Egyptian show at the Salon. Besides, their son’s show is also tomorrow, not tonight.” He fell silent for a moment, then continued, “Actually, I was interested to see your designs, and also keen to know how the audience would react to a show coming from Egypt.”

Because most of the hotel guests had left for the opening reception, the restaurant was nearly empty. Small wall lamps bathed the room in a low light. Each lamp had a pink shade, which cast a romantic glow.

Doha tried to cut a piece of butter with her knife, but it was still hard, almost frozen. She carefully put the knife
down again. In the background, a beautiful piece of music started to play.

Ashraf ventured a comment: “What lovely music!”

Doha replied, “It’s the
Capriccio Italien
by Tchaikovsky.”

They listened in silence for a while, then Doha asked him, “Why were you so keen to see my designs, seeing as you’re a politician?”

“I’m very interested in anything related to our image abroad: how we appear to the world and how people view us. The show would have given me a chance to get to know a section of public opinion completely new to me.”

That was what he said to Doha, but there was another reason that he did not think it appropriate to mention and that he kept to himself. He had started to have feelings for Doha and anything to do with her. He found himself eager to attend her show and become acquainted with her work. But he did not tell her this. He said, “So when the Egyptian show was can-celled, I felt very disappointed and lost interest in seeing the cut of other people’s fashion designs.”

“But on the phone you sounded a little anxious.”

“I was afraid there was some problem.”

“Are you reassured now?”

“In that respect, yes. I just hope you didn’t cancel the show because you were afraid of the audience’s reaction.”

“Not in the least. This might have been my first show at Milan Fashion Week, but that didn’t worry me.” Doha cut easily into the butter, spread some on a piece of bread, and sprinkled it with salt.

He asked her, “So what happened?”

Chewing the bread, she said, “I’ve come out of my chrysalis, that’s all. As a result, my view of life has changed. My horizons have expanded, and the clothes I designed from
inside the chrysalis don’t satisfy me any more and don’t express my vision in life.”

“I see you’re still in the world of the butterflies.”

“No, I’ve just entered it for the first time. It’s a rich world, not much different from the world of the ants and bees. But I only ever saw it from the outside. I was dazzled by their colors, but then I learned that there was so much more to them than that. For example, I discovered that there are native Egyptian butterflies with a history that goes back thousands of years. Did you know that one Egyptian butterfly can spend years in its chrysalis in the desert, waiting for rain? And when it rains it emerges as a butterfly despite all the years that have passed. I also discovered that the butterfly isn’t just a small insect with nothing special about it except its colored wings. No, it’s also a creature with a history. It has staved off extinction for thousands of years during which other creatures became extinct. That’s because it’s able to transform from a soft and helpless caterpillar into a free butterfly with beautiful wings to fly among the plants and flowers.”

Ashraf continued listening to her speak as Tchaikovsky’s beautiful melodies flowed in the background. The waiter came with the food, and there were a few moments of silence between them. It was as if their words should not be spoken before anyone else, even if that person did not speak their language.

Doha swayed silently with the music and Ashraf said, “The music is so full of joy.”

“I haven’t heard it for years,” said Doha. “Tchaikovsky composed it during a trip to Italy. He was inspired by the folk tunes he heard in the streets of Rome. He said they filled him with life after the frozen wastes of Russia.”

“He really managed to capture the delightful atmosphere of
Italy and the warm emotions of the Italians. Just as you’ve managed to capture the essence of the butterfly.”

She said, smiling, “I never imagined that a conversation with a politician would revolve around the world of the butterflies, and that he would seem interested.”

“Does that seem strange to you? What would you say if I told you that the subject of my speech at the Palermo Conference is the butterfly?”

“I would say, ‘This man of politics is making fun of me.’”

“No, I swear. To be more precise, let me say that in my speech I refer to the butterfly effect.”

Doha displayed interest as she continued eating. He said, “It’s a theory by the famous meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz, which says that every butterfly, however small, has an effect on the world’s weather. If a butterfly flutters its wings on one side of the globe, it affects the wind in some way on the other side. That is, any natural phenomenon is actually the result of the accumulation of small steps that might seem unimportant or irrelevant but have far-reaching effects.”

She looked amazed and said, “I’ve not heard of that theory before.”

“Lorenz proposed the theory for the first time in a famous lecture he gave in 1973 entitled, ‘Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?’”

“I wish I’d known about it before.”

“The butterfly effect shows that every living being, no matter how small, can affect the world.”

“It’s a brilliant theory. How do you use it in your speech?”

“I use it to give a scientific proof that the seemingly powerless individual can cause a whirlwind and have an effect on the state of the world. That’s the power of civil society.”

“When are you traveling to Palermo?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“I’ll come with you.”

He said nothing and started to fiddle with his beard. She realized that he was caught between embarrassment at welcoming her company and the rudeness of refusing.

Hoping he was wrong, Ashraf asked her, “Is it an Italian caprice?”

“Absolutely not,” she replied at once. There was another silence as Tchaikovsky’s music continued playing. Then she said, “I’ve visited most regions of Italy, but I’ve never been to Sicily. Now that I’ve decided not to take part in the Salon, I have nothing to do in Milan.”

He did not reply.

Doha finished her meal and neatly placed her knife and fork next to each other on the empty plate. She said, “Besides, I’m actually interested in observing this conference of yours. I still remember the NGO conference in Durban years ago. It was the talk of the world at the time.”

He smiled his genuine smile, which Doha had started to grow fond of, and said playfully, “I thought you said you didn’t like politics.”

“I really don’t like politics,” she said at once, “but I follow political news. Don’t think I’m a complete fool. Also, the Durban thing would have been hard for anyone to avoid. News of it was on every channel. At the time I was happy that there were organizations that represented ordinary citizens and were able to stand up to the world’s official governments and give people a powerful voice.”

This time Ashraf laughed as he said, “You’re a first-rate political activist, or at least a prospective activist.”

“I hope I won’t become that. I hate politics and politicians more than you can imagine.”

He looked at her with questions in his eyes. She looked at what was left of the butter on her side plate. It had all melted during their conversation.

17 Father

A
yman left Hassan’s house having resolved to go to Tanta in the morning. There he would find the woman whose name he had heard his father dictating to Abdel Samad more than six years before. A name that Ayman had repeated to himself every now and again over the years to make sure he did not forget it. His trip to Tanta would be the resolution to the story. Whenever he told it to his friends at college, they were dismissive, saying, “What film did you get that story from? You must have a really fertile imagination.” Just a few days before, his classmate Medhat had said, “Won’t you tell us the end of the never-ending saga?”

By making this trip, Ayman would know whether his mother was really still alive or whether this woman living in Tanta and married to another man, not his father, just had the same name.

He would have to go to Tanta first thing next morning. He could not wait in anticipation any longer. In his confusion, every second that passed played with his nerves, and they could not take it any more. His friends at college called it a black-and-white movie, and Ayman wanted to know the ending before
they did. Did he have a mother who was still alive, or had his mother died years before as his father claimed?

Ayman’s relationship with his father had become quite cold. Whenever he was tormented by his confusion, he blamed his father, who had hidden the truth from him for all those years and who still refused to reveal any details about his mother or his life with her. There were periods when, for days on end, Ayman would exchange no more than a brief hello with his father in the morning or in the evening when he came home. And when he did come home, he would go to his room and stay there so he did not have to sit with his father in the living room.

Ayman was not happy about this situation, which was getting worse over time. Yet he did not have the resources to do anything about it. He loved his father, but his anguish had created a wall between them that he could not break through.