I Think of You Read online

  Milou might have married Philippe, but that was long ago. Now, all day Milou watches the frayed red velvet curtains screening the entrance to the restaurant. She knows all her customers, though she never smiles and only nods sternly to the oldest and the most regular. The young tourists who stray in and park their backpacks by the door puzzle over this large, grim woman with the red hennaed hair who never leaves her seat. Yet despite the slight frown that Milou’s features settle into when her thoughts wander, her customers find her a benign presence—and they come back.

  To her left and slightly to her rear, so that she cannot see him unless she turns around, old Monsieur Vasilakis sits in a corner of the restaurant. He sits at a round table with a small black-and-white television flickering soundlessly on a cutlery cabinet in front of him and a carafe of red wine always at his elbow. Monsieur Vasilakis is nearing ninety, and almost all the friends who used to occupy the other chair at his table, share his wine, and stare companionably at his flickering TV have passed away. Milou usually knows exactly what he is doing even though her gaze is fixed in front of her. Today, it is Monsieur Vasilakis who is aware of his daughter’s corner; the cash desk has been extended by a table with a white cloth, and a chair has been placed beside Milou’s.

  Milou observes the red curtains with particular purpose; she is expecting a friend. Well, Farah is too young to be quite a friend; her mother, Latifa, is really Milou’s friend, and since their friendship dates from Latifa’s wedding night, Milou has known Farah since she was born. Latifa’s wedding night. Milou does not actually shudder or indeed feel anything much at all. But she remembers. She remembers the shame and the misery which for years that phrase had evoked in her; the shiver moving up her back into her shoulders and arms until her fingers tingled with it, the cold weight in her stomach that she had had to rub and press into something she could bear. Latifa’s wedding night: when Milou had fled down the dark servants’ staircase into Ismail Morsi’s apartment to find his daughter, the bride, in the bathroom pulling off her veil and demolishing the elaborate chignon her hair had been pinned into. “I hate this,” Latifa was muttering into the mirror, “and so does he. We’ll wear the stupid clothes and sit on the platform to be stared at like monkeys, but I don’t feel like me with this thing on my head and I am not having it.” Then she had turned and seen Milou. She drew her in and bolted the door. She sat her down on the edge of the bathtub and made her drink some water and Milou told her everything. How strange that then it had seemed that she must die, that tomorrow could not happen. And now it was as though the whole thing were a film she had seen. A film that had moved her for a while.

  Milou had first seen Philippe amid the ululations and the clash of cymbals at a friend’s wedding in the Greek Orthodox cathedral on Shari el-Malika Street. Milou was twenty then. She was tall and well built and handsome. Her father, Khawaga

  Vasilakis, sitting over his wine after their last customer had gone—watching her as she strode through the darkened restaurant folding up white tablecloths to take home for Fa-heema to wash—her father would often tell her then that she had her mother’s shapely legs and her exuberant auburn hair. He always made this observation sadly. Then he would shake his head and bite the ends of his drooping gray mustache as he stared into his glass. Milou knew that her mother was French, had been a dancer, and had been beautiful—maybe still was. She had abandoned her husband and the one-year-old Milou for, of all things, a Turkish soldier: a black-eyed, whiskered brigand who had swaggered off his ship and into the Allied restaurant in Alexandria one fine day in ’27to wreck Theo Vasilakis’s life. After three years of alternately swearing to smash the whore’s face if she dared show it in the Allied and vowing that everything would be forgiven if only she would come back, for after all she was the mother of his child, Theo could bear Alexandria no longer. He sold the restaurant and took Milou and Faheema, the black maid who looked after them, to Cairo. He never saw his wife again and withstood all pressure to remarry. He opened Chez Milou (instantly “Shameelu” to the locals) on the rue Abd-el-Khaleq Sarwat and looked forward to the day when his daughter would be a partner and an adornment in the restaurant. Now that Milou was both, her father watched her constantly and lived in terror of the swashbuckler who would lure her away and ruin her father’s patched-up life for the second and final time. For a swashbuckler it would have to be. You only had to look at the girl—the long, strong legs; the lean waist; the straight back; the broad forehead, wide-set eyes, and brilliant hair—to see the swarthy, muscled, sweating, tobacco-spitting son of a bitch who would claim her. Khawaga Vasilakis’s paunch trembled with apprehension and distaste and he chewed on his mustache.

  But Milou saw Philippe amid the incense and the burning candles in the Greek Orthodox cathedral and thought he looked like an angel: the boy—he could hardly be called a man—was so fair and so still. He sat at the far end of the pew on the other side of the aisle, the bridegroom’s side. He was so separate that he appeared to belong more to the shining Byzantine icons on the walls than to the mass of breathing, moving people around him. Milou could see only his head in a three-quarter profile. His face was pale and fine-featured. Gleaming black hair rose smoothly from a white brow. His nose was chiseled; his mouth wide, his lips narrow and ascetic. She could not make out the color of his unmoving eyes. But it was a quality of serenity, a combination of his utter stillness and the way his head shone like an illumination in the dim cathedral, that so captured Milou.

  Having no mother to do this work for her, Milou managed to find out who he was and—despite her dismay at confirming that he was indeed only seventeen and still at school with the Jesuits, the Frères—she contrived an introduction. Milou found that Philippe stood a few centimeters taller than her. She found that his eyes were green-gray and that his voice was mellow. His French was chic, more chic than her own, and his Arabic more broken. She found that even close up, his skin kept its luminous quality. She imagined that there was something extraordinary—extramortal, almost—about him, and longed to reach out and touch his face just on that fragile, contoured cheekbone and rest her fingertips in the shallow dips at the outer corners of his black-fringed eyes. She found out that he was the son of Yanni Panayotis, the grocer, and therefore that he was a neighbor of one of her father’s oldest friends: Ismail Morsi, who owned a furniture shop in the market in Ataba Square.

  Philippe bowed his head slightly, as though the better to hear anything she might say. He smiled, and his eyes said that something amazing had happened. Milou surprised herself; she had never before felt this rushing frailty, this tremulous energy, and it never occurred to her to wonder whether he had felt it too.

  The year was 1946and the victorious Allied soldiers were everywhere in the city. Khawaga Vasilakis thought his daughter showed remarkable acumen when she announced that since their business was doing well, it was foolish to go on buying provisions piecemeal from the neighboring shops. From now on, she declared, she would buy what they needed once a week, wholesale, from the market.

  Yanni Panayotis’s grocery was on the very outer fringe of the market—almost, in fact, in Shari el-Khaleeg, that wide road which until so recently would turn into a river in the season of the flood. Milou had never been that far from rue Sarwat before, and the first time she went, Faheema, who knew all the roads and the alleys of the city, went with her. They walked down King Fouad Street and stared in the windows of the grands magasins, then crossed Opera Square, through the very tip of the notorious Azbakiyyah District, across the busy swirl of Ataba Square and into the teeming, narrow Mouski. Faheema started to point out grocers’ shops in the alleys along the way, but Milou would have none of them. It had to be Yanni Panayotis’s store they went to, and his was the farthest one of all. Faheema, who was neither young nor green and whose breath was getting shorter as she hurried to keep up with her striding charge, began to grow suspicious. What would a grocery store have that would make a normally reasonable girl march ardently to the end of the world
for it like this? There was only one answer possible. Fa-heema pursed her lips, collected her melaya around her, and puffed after Milou.

  Yanni Panayotis was a big man with a great deal of shaggy black hair streaked with silver. He made up for his broadening forehead by growing a wild beard and mustache. He liked the looks of both women and sat them down in his dark, cool shop and offered them tea and chocolates. From then on, Milou always went to Shari el-Khaleeg on Sunday. She went one week and then the next, and the third time he was there. He was helping his father stack a delivery of large tins of white cheese. Milou sipped at her scalding tea and watched his broad back move under the fine white cotton shirt as he bent and straightened and lifted and reached. She glanced at the gray linen trousers shaping themselves around him as he squatted down in front of the cheese, but then she bit her lip and kept her eyes on the sawdust-strewn floor. When he had finished, Philippe took out a pressed white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. He was formal as he declined his father’s offer of a cold drink. “I will leave you to conduct your business.” He bowed over Milou’s hand. “Enchanté, mam’selle, a most happy opportunity.” He smiled into her eyes and left. Yanni turned to Milou, shrugging and spreading his hands wide, and saw at once her passion for his son in the girl’s high color and rigid posture. Ah, so that’s it, he thought. It is for this that it is Sunday, and always Sunday; the little Philippe has lit a fire.

  “And what a fire that will be,” he commented to his wife that night. “The girl is beautiful and her hair is in flames already.” Nina turned down the corners of her mouth and pouted at the husband who—after two married daughters and a son who could, if he wished, grow whiskers and a beard— could still sweet-talk her back into bed with him on a Monday morning when the shop was closed and the boy had gone to school and Nina was in her flowered silk dressing gown, belted to show off her still-tiny waist. She would glance up at the mahogany display cabinet hanging in the corner above their bed with her bridal veil and its crown of orange blossom inside it and remonstrate that it was unseemly to behave like a honeymoon couple and draw the blinds in the morning after twenty-five years of marriage—what would the neighbors think? Khawaga Yanni grunted affectionately as he nuzzled his mustache into his wife’s neck. “They will say, ‘The old fool is still crazy for her,’ and they will be right, no? Is that not so, little one? Ah, my little one …” and Nina would hold him gently and let him love her and think what a wonderful stew she would make for his lunch. Now she pouted and stared down at the petit point in her hand: the girl is too old; she is four years older than Philippe. Yanni should not be easygoing on such matters. A man can tire easily of a wife older than himself. Of course, on the other hand, she has no mother or brother to make trouble with, and when Monsieur Vasilakis— God grant him long life—goes, she will be the sole owner of a restaurant in a very good part of town.

  The discussions continued and Milou’s visits to the shop continued. Philippe left the Frères and joined the Faculty of Commerce and still every Sunday morning Milou would walk across town to the grocery store in Shari el-Khaleeg, take tea with Khawaga Panayotis, and hire a calèche to carry her and her provisions back to the rue Sarwat. Sometimes she began to despair, to lose heart, but then she would see him, and each time she was freshly convinced that he had “intentions;” their glance had met for a fraction longer, his smile had asked a question—a question she longed to answer. Until Latifa’s wedding night.

  Days before, Faheema, on the floor at Milou’s feet with her mouth full of pins and her hands full of shiny emerald green taffeta, Faheema had urged her to make a move. “You either get him out of your head or you sort him out. A woman has to manage, you know. Three years have passed and it’s ‘I’m sure I felt him press my hand,’ ‘Today he actually touched it with his lips.’ What is this dumb talk? Is this child’s play or what? Maybe he’s still young and doesn’t understand how things work. Or maybe he has nothing for women. Some of your men are like that, you Greeks. Except—look at his father: there’s a man for you, a man who fills his clothes. But you are not going to spend your whole life waiting. He doesn’t speak? You’ve got a tongue. Make a little skirmish. See what clay he’s formed of.”

  To get to the roof terrace where the wedding party was being held, guests had to go through Ismail Morsi’s flat, out of its back door, and up the wrought-iron, unlit servants’ staircase. The stairs had been freshly washed for the occasion and gleamed bright black in the darkness. The rubbish pails that normally stood on the landings had been kept indoors and the cats—who lived off the rubbish—stayed away. The large terrace was hung with lights and a marquee at one end provided a multicolored backdrop for the bridal dais. The drums beat out and the accordions wailed for all the neighborhood to hear and the hired, white-robed sofragis circled with silver trays of sherbet and chocolates and almond-filled sweets. Milou excused herself from the bride’s younger sister Soraya and slipped away. Later, she tried to determine what had made her choose that particular moment, but she never could. She just remembered how she had leaned over and whispered a few words to Soraya; then, exchanging a look with Faheema, cross-legged with the other women servants on the carpet at the floor of the bridal bower, she had picked the skirt of her gown off the floor and headed for the stairs.

  Milou turned a corner of the staircase and saw a man climbing out of the dark toward her. She stood still as Philippe, unaware, continued up the stairs. Then he must have heard a rustle or perhaps felt her breath, for he stopped. He looked up, and there it came again: the smile that barely touched his lips but shone through his eyes.

  “Bonsoir!”

  Never before and never again did Milou look as radiant as she did then: gathering her softly rustling dress, bare arms white against the green tulle of the bodice, her “Bonsoir” was the merest whisper. Philippe stood aside to let her pass, for of course he knew that it would be most improper to linger on the stairs. Milou lifted her skirt and stepped slowly down. The music pulsed down the stairwell. Milou drew level with Philippe. She turned as though to pass him sideways because of the narrowness of the stairs—and then she stopped. She was so close that she felt her breasts brush against him and her skirt fall around his legs. Milou lifted her face and his eyes looked into hers. She whispered his name and her hand let go of the crushed taffeta and rose to rest lightly against his cheek. Now, now he must surely … but Philippe, too well bred to step back, merely stood unmoving and Milou’s hand drew away, went to her face, her throat, then clutched at the skirt again as she whirled around, ran down the stairs and into the bathroom, where Latifa was tugging the grips out of her hair.

  Milou frowned at the red curtain opening to admit a very pretty young woman in a short-sleeved white cotton dress. She wore her sunglasses pushed to the top of her head and holding back her dark shoulder-length hair.

  “Chérie!” cried Milou, and held up her hands. Athène woke up and growled deep in her throat.

  “Tante Milou!” Farah said, bending to hug Milou’s shoulders and kiss her on both cheeks. Farah sat on the chair next to Milou, asked a passing waiter for some iced water, fanned herself with a magazine, tickled Athène’s ears, and began the ritual complaint about parking and the heat. “I’ve parked at the Opera and walked all the way up. But it is absolutely the only place and I’m going to see Tante Soraya later, so I guess it makes sense.”

  “She is still in your grandfather’s old flat—God have mercy on him?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s still in Ataba. That’s one thing that doesn’t change, thank goodness. It’s exactly the same as when my grandfather was alive. Even his bed is still there. Oh”— remembering—“shall I go and say hello to Monsieur Vasi-lakis? Or will I disturb him?”

  “Don’t bother,” said Milou. “He won’t know you anyway. He’s become even more vague since Faheema died. He was used to her.”

  “God grant him long life.”

  “Ah, well, He is certainly granting him that.” Milou nodded.

/>   “But … things must be difficult for you, Tante Milou?” Farah said uncertainly.

  Milou was silent, considering, her fingers on Athène’s back. She was not smiling.

  Farah stood up. “I’m going to go and greet him.”

  Milou did not look around as her guest bent over the old man and said his name gently. Watery, red-rimmed eyes shifted from the still-life of flowers on the television and looked up.

  “I’m Farah, m’sieur. Do you remember me?”

  Theo Vasilakis nodded several times and returned to the screen. Farah laid a tentative hand on his shoulder.

  “They haven’t changed this picture for three days,” he complained. “Between every two programs this is what we get. They do have other tableaux: some with trees and some with birds—swans, you know.” His hand moved in the air, wavering. “But they’ve been using this for three days. People can get bored. Eh. Well …” He watched the flowers resignedly. Sayim the Nubian paused.

  “It’s all right, Sitt Farah,” he said gently. “The khawaga is fine. You go and sit with Sitt Milou. See what you would like for lunch. The fatta is very good today—”

  “I’m going to eat fatta, ’Am Sayim?”

  “Yes, why not? Don’t talk to me about a régime; you’re as thin as a stick. You could do with some flesh on you. Go and sit and I’ll get you a good lunch. Leave it to me.”

  Farah went back to her chair. Athène was asleep again, or at least her eyes were closed. Milou looked up and smiled. “So. Tell me, chérie, how is maman?”

  “She’s all right.” Farah shrugged. “I guess she’s happy where she is, away from us all.”

  “C’est dommage ça, her staying away like this. And it can’t make things easier for you? Especially now?”

  “No. Sometimes I’d like to talk to her. And it’s harder living with my father when she’s not there. Although I suppose in a way it isn’t really, since they were getting on so badly. I don’t know. Tante Soraya helps a lot, though, with the practical things—like looking after Adam for me. And I go and stay with her sometimes—for a break from being with my father. I feel much more comfortable at my grandfather’s—at her place, really. You know, having grown up there and all that. But I can’t really talk to her.”