Beer in the Snooker Club Page 3

  These thoughts on the one hand and on the other the pleasure in sitting in Groppi’s and drinking whisky without having to pay for it, or of coming to the snooker club and sitting within reach of the bottles. Thinking of this, I reached out and swung the Martell bottle to my lips. Life was good.

  Font came back, the Bass having lowered his eyebrows somewhat. He asked me if I had seen Didi Nackla since London.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I saw Edna and Levy yesterday,’ he began. ‘They are coming to my place tonight. You come too.’

  Levy and Edna … and Font. I wish they would all leave the country and leave me alone. Levy and Edna, especially Edna. I turned round and was going to have another swig at the bottle when he stopped me.

  ‘Don’t be such a bloody coward,’ he said.

  I sighed and drank my beer instead.

  ‘I haven’t seen Edna for such a long time.’

  ‘You can see her tonight.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Well, don’t come then.’

  ‘You know very well I’m coming,’ I said.

  He smiled.

  ‘I hope we’re all chucked in jail,’ I said. ‘Somewhere on the Red Sea. The four of us. Then you’ll really have something to be angry about. I can just see your eyebrows raised to the back of your head in amazement.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘Why should we be chucked in jail?’ His eyebrows started rising again. ‘Are you involved in something …?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Ram …’

  ‘I’ve told you a hundred times, no.’

  I longed to see Edna again. Her long, auburn hair and large, brown eyes. We’d both sit on the floor, myself behind her, Arab fashion, combing her hair. One long stroke after another, then a parting and two long plaits with a bit of string tied to the end of each plait.

  ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ I said. ‘Let’s have another Bass.’ I shared the remaining Bass and watched his eyebrows go up before he spoke.

  ‘Did you read what he did?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gaitskell.’

  ‘Gaitskell. Gaitskell! For God’s sake, Font, do you think I’m going to worry about …’ and then I saw the lonely look on Font’s face. ‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘What do you expect? So many years being a politician, you end up by being a politician.’

  ‘It’s not true,’ he shouted, ‘look at Konni Zilliacus, look at Fenner Brockway …’

  ‘Stop shouting, Font.’ Three men had just come in and were looking at us. ‘Go,’ I said. ‘Go and fix them some balls.’ He took some keys from behind the bar and went unsteadily towards them. I was getting drunk. I took another mouthful of Martell and lit a cigarette.

  The ludicrous position of an Egyptian sitting in Cairo and being furious because of Gaitskell’s stand on the manufacture of nuclear weapons in England doesn’t strike Font. Admittedly he began by being furious about Egyptian internal politics as well, but that too was ludicrous, like a Lucky Jim would have been in England during Dickens’s time. It was like trying to ice a cake while it was still in the oven. Font knows how to trim the cake, and frost it, and garnish it with the latest decorations, but he doesn’t know how to bake the cake. So he has to wait for Nasser to bake it for him before he can add his own refinements – and he’s not too sure that he will be allowed to do that, even later on. In the meantime he sits and judges all the cooked cakes and hopes that the Egyptian, or Arab, cake, is going to come out the correct shape.

  I have this silly habit of suddenly laughing. I actually saw the cake in my imagination, and it was not as flat and smooth on the surface as I would have wished. I saw myself nibbling at it here and there. Of course by then I was drunk and this cake business was very funny, especially the nibbling. I laughed out loud.

  ‘Hoy, professor,’ shouted Arevian, ‘are we amusing your loftiness?’

  ‘Did you ever meet Gaitskell, Arevian?’ I shouted back.

  ‘Of course,’ he answered, pocketing a ball, ‘Gaitskellian the great Armenian.’

  ‘And Dr Summerskillian and Lord Stansgatian and Kingsley Martinian; do you know them all?’

  ‘Played snooker with them all,’ he said.

  I left the snooker club without looking at Font. I was drunk again and wanted to find something to do before I became depressed. I took a bus home.

  We have a pretty flat overlooking the Nile at Zamalek. It is strange, but I have never asked my mother how much money she has. We have this pretty flat and we seem to be eating as well as ever.

  ‘Tu as essayé de t’ employer?’ she asked.

  ‘Penses-tu.’ Of course she spoke French, and t’employer she said, not chercher du travail.

  I am not working. I haven’t been working since I came back from Europe. Don’t think I have any money, though; I haven’t, nor do I have a father to support me. In fact to possess a father in Egypt is an uncommon luxury. Our mothers are legally married and all that, but their husbands die young, the average age being thirty-five or thereabouts. My mother took me to live with her parents when I was four. By the time I was seven, there were three widowed aunts and eight orphans living with Grandfather and Grandmother (people like my grandparents raise the average age somewhat). The fact that my aunts were very rich but not my mother, never occurred to me. I drifted on that rich tide. I was as well dressed as the other orphans and went to the same school. Each orphan was expensively equipped and was sent to England, France or Switzerland as soon as he matriculated. When my turn came, however, I was rather coldly eyed by one aunt after another and I had to realize that the tide had dissipated and that I didn’t possess locomotion of my own. So now I am drifting on the tide of my school friends. Why, they themselves wouldn’t have it otherwise. Honestly, this word ‘sponging’ is as disgusting to me as it is to Font. If you want the truth, when I came back I thought that Nasser had finally blown a magic air and that all tides had vanished. I would have worked then if I could have got as much money as my friends. As it is, if I work I would have to leave my rich friends, and I like my friends.

  I rang up Assam the Turk. His sister answered.

  ‘Hello, Zouzou; is Assam there?’

  ‘No,’ she answered, ‘I suppose you’re looking for a game?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Zouzou; you know I don’t gamble any more.’ My mother heard the word ‘gamble’ and came running to hear the conversation.

  ‘Well, he isn’t here,’ Zouzou said, ‘but I’ll tell you where he is if you promise me something.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Tell him to take me to the ball at the Semiramis next Saturday.’

  ‘Why don’t you go with your friends?’

  ‘You know what we Turks are like,’ she said, ‘I’m lucky they let me go at all.’

  ‘I thought you Turks were modernized forty years ago. You’re all American now and members of NATO.’

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, I was only joking. Yes, I promise to tell him. Where is he?’

  ‘He’s at Nackla Pasha’s.’

  ‘Thanks, Zouzou.’

  ‘Listen.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s baccarat they’re playing, not poker.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He borrowed a hundred pounds from me, that’s how I know.’

  ‘Thanks, Zouzou; good-bye.’ My mother waited for me to explain.

  ‘So it’s baccarat they play now,’ she said. ‘Well, well. Assam will take all their money. He has wonderful luck, that boy.’

  ‘I have better luck,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, your luck’s not too bad either. Of course there is no question of you gambling any more.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Where are they playing?’

  ‘At the Nacklas.’

  ‘Pas possible! … has it come to that? Le Nackla playing with boys of your age?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘unfortunately i
t hasn’t come to that yet, although it is time it did. No,’ I said, the alcohol making me angry, ‘this is only a little aperitif for le Nackla. Just a few hundred pounds to amuse the young with. Later on in the evening the real thing will come.’

  ‘But what are you getting angry at?’ my mother asked.

  ‘You’re sweet, Mummy, but you don’t understand. Le Nackla has no right to have all that money.’

  ‘But it is like that all over the world,’ she said.

  ‘No, Mummy, it isn’t. It isn’t like that in …’ I was going to say Russia or China, but if I did, my mother would be terrified to think I was a communist. Not that communism alarms her – she doesn’t know what it is – but she has heard that communists are imprisoned and tortured, and my aunt tells her they are murderers … with a hint that I am one of them.

  ‘Not like that where?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘In Luxemburg,’ I said. ‘Come, Mummy, let’s have a cold beer and eat. I’m very hungry.’

  She asked me whether I had seen Font lately; ‘ce brave garçon’, what had happened to him? wasn’t it tragic, going mad like that all of a sudden? But really I must tell her what happened during those four years in London. Didn’t I feel responsible? After all it was I who talked him into going with me. How we ever managed to do it without a penny between us is a mystery of course. Is it true what people said? That we worked as ordinary labourers there? Of course she had never believed it … her own son …

  London came back to me, those four years with Font, and I really became miserable. I drank more beer; it was ice-cold and all of a sudden I felt so fed up with everything that I picked up my beer glass and smashed it and we went over the same old scene again: go back to London if you’re not happy here, I’ll find the money somehow … perhaps your aunt … what is it really? Did I love a girl there? and so on and so on. It wasn’t the first time.

  ‘Go,’ she said, ‘go to the Nacklas and gamble.’

  I would have gone; but it meant seeing Didi Nackla. The last time I had seen her was in London and since my return I have evaded seeing her. I don’t know why. She probably thinks I am still abroad.

  ‘No,’ I said, and apologized for smashing the glass.

  I slept till five in the afternoon.

  ‘Try and find something to do, dear,’ my mother said. ‘Public relations or something like that would just suit you.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy.’

  ‘After all,’ she said, ‘we don’t even have a car; aren’t you ashamed to see your own mother ride the trams?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said..

  I kissed her then went to Groppi’s. I walked because I didn’t have the bus fare. Ragab the barman poured me a whisky as soon as he saw me.

  ‘They were all here and said they’ll be back at seven,’ he told me. It was six, which meant I had to wait until someone came to pay for my whisky … or many whiskies, if I were to wait for an hour. There were three or four people sitting at the bar. One was a young man of my age reading a magazine. It had a glossy coloured cover which meant it was American. From the way he was reading it, absorbed and keen, I knew what it was. The one thing Font and I still have in common is our vehement phobia towards Egyptians who read the American Time Magazine. We call them Dullesian, which we consider the ultimate insult. They are well-dressed, the Time readers, and are called ‘educated’ by the American colony and journalists. They make me sick.

  I had another whisky and began to feel well again. I was worrying about seeing Edna later on. No, not Worrying, but afraid. No, not really afraid, but ashamed. Yes, ashamed is right. Ragab’s shift behind the bar was ending and he collected the money from his customers. He didn’t look at me, but whispered to his colleague and I saw him place my bill in a glass behind the bar. So even Ragab was in the secret conspiracy to keep my worklessness respectable; or had my friends told him to keep my bills for them? I didn’t know. I didn’t care either.

  I caught the new barman’s eye. He immediately started pouring me another whisky. I took my glass and sat on a cushioned bamboo armchair, having idiotically put out my tongue at the Time reader who looked at me as I moved. Groppi’s was by then packed with people, all well-dressed and magnanimous with their orders. I was annoyed that all these people hadn’t been dealt a heavy blow by the revolution. Why did they continue speaking in French? They all moan of not having enough money now, but they still live in the style they were accustomed to.

  Jameel and Yehia came. The only striking thing about Jameel is his hair; not the hair itself, but the way he wears it. He has a parting in the middle. This helps keep his face characterless and benign.

  ‘We were at the club,’ he said. ‘Two beautiful ones arrived today. German and Norwegian.’

  The club is the Gezira Sporting Club, and the ‘ones’ are nurses or governesses or whatever you want to call them. ‘Top’ Egyptians still have foreign governesses for their children, although nowadays the governesses are pretty girls in their twenties who come for a year or so and have an expensive time with – although I hate the word – the ‘bloods’.

  ‘Yehia,’ I asked, ‘do you know that chap sitting behind me at the bar reading a magazine?’

  ‘That’s Coco, don’t you know him? He works at General Motors. His father is …’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said.

  ‘What are you having?’ Jameel asked.

  ‘I’ve already had three whiskies.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ He waved his hand nonchalantly and went to the bar.

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ Yehia asked.

  ‘I’m going to Font’s.’

  ‘So you won’t be using the …’

  ‘No,’ I answered. Six of us share a flat in town with nothing but beds in it, and dirty sheets. I say ‘share’ although I have never paid anything towards it.

  ‘Are you using your car tonight, Yehia?’

  ‘No, we’re taking Jameel’s. You can have mine.’ He gave me the keys as Jameel came with three whiskies. Someday, I thought, one of them is going to refuse to pay for my drinks or to lend me his car or something like that, and I shall never see them again.

  ‘What’s the matter, Jameel?’ He was nervous and started to speak to me twice but changed his mind.

  ‘Nothing important, really.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Font was drunk today.’ There was silence for a while.

  ‘Why don’t you throw him out?’

  ‘I can’t do that, Ram. We’re all fond of him.’

  ‘Anyway, what’s it got to do with me?’

  Yehia started smiling. ‘Do you know what he did? He hit Arevian with a snooker stick. I never laughed so much. They kept running round the tables and every now and then whizz, the stick came down on Arevian’s back. Arevian was screaming at the top of his voice and kept shouting brand-new Armenian words. Doromian was encouraging Font and nearly died laughing.’

  Jameel started laughing too, and now they were both roaring. They stopped laughing after a while and told me what had happened. Doromian had spent ten minutes thinking of a way to pocket a ball from an impossible position. Of course Arevian was full of sarcasm; ‘you couldn’t pocket that ball in a well’, and ‘even if you picked it up with your fat hands it would be difficult’. Everyone, including Font, was watching. Finally Arevian said he’d burn a ten-pound note if the ball was pocketed from that position. By an amazing fluke the ball trickled into a pocket, whereupon Arevian took a ten-pound note from his wallet, lit a match and started burning the note. This enraged Font who took a snooker stick and started beating him.

  I laughed. ‘Frankly, Jameel,’ I said, ‘if you want to complain about Font don’t come to me.’

  ‘No, really, I’m not complaining. If he could only … I mean he should be a little …’ and he tapered off into nothing.

  Font has two rooms behind the Citadel in old Cairo. His neighbours are barrow-keepers, servants, and sometimes beggars. It is the prettiest and most colourful part of Cair
o and anywhere else the arties would have flocked to it, but not in Cairo. The Cairo arties, if not slumming in Europe, are driving their Jaguars in Zamalek. I would like to live in that part of Cairo; I genuinely would prefer to live there. But with me it would be gimmicky. There is a touch of gimmick in whatever I do.

  I was feeling relaxed and cheerful as I drove to Font’s. Four whiskies drunk in the space of an hour and a half have that effect on me. What am I worrying about? Edna and all that? How silly. I’m free to do whatever I want. Au fond I don’t see why I put up with Font’s sneers and jeers. I won’t get angry of course, but I’ll … well, tell him to stop it. As for putting out my tongue at Time readers and such, it’s too childish. It’s time I pulled myself together. I’ll even talk to my cousin Mounir and he’ll manage to squeeze me into Shell or Canadian Insurance or something like that. Yes, I’ll give up that other business. I’ll get caught one day and have my nails pulled out. Yes, I’ve had a long holiday and sowed my wild Quaker oats and Fabian rubbish and now it’s time for maturity, etc, etc. No, there is no reason to go to Font’s and meet them with any feeling of guilt. Guilt? Guilt for what? For not letting Edna rule my life?

  I drove away from Font’s address, back to it and away again. It is nice to drive with a little whisky in me. When I haven’t been smoking for an hour or so, and I have been drinking and then smoke, the cigarette suddenly depresses me. (It’s the same with hangovers. No matter how much I’ve been drinking the night before, I wake up in the best of spirits, but as soon as I smoke, I am all depressed.) I stopped the car and lit a cigarette.

  … For not letting Edna rule my life? What life, for heaven’s sake? Call this a life? Call this a man?

  I took more time than necessary to park the car in front of the house where Font lives; half of it on the pavement, otherwise there would be no room for other cars to pass. I put the radio on to listen to the news and finish my cigarette before going upstairs. A little boy watched me lock the car.

  ‘I’ll look after it for you,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘I’ll polish it too,’ he promised.

  ‘All right,’ I said and started going upstairs. Then I returned to the car and told him he could sit inside if he wished. I unlocked it and showed him how to work the radio. He was thrilled; his bare feet contracted with shyness.