Free The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif

‘That’s to pop him on the fez if he steps out of line.’ I believe that was the first time I had laughed since Edward’s death.
    I am sure that Sir Charles’s opinions are well known here — indeed they must be, for, far from making a secret of them, he has published and declared them whenever possible — and I cannot
imagine they are regarded with any sympathy by this company. No one speaks of this in front of me of course, partly out of natural courtesy, and partly because of the consideration they feel is due to me for Edward’s sake. But I hear them mention Mr Blunt, who holds views identical to those of my beau-père, and whom they regard as a crank who chooses to live in the desert, and they use of him the phrase ‘gone over’ by which I assume they mean he sees matters from a different point of view. I own I am curious to see Mr Blunt but he does not come into Cairo Society and I cannot call on him unless I am invited by Lady Anne. Nothing, it seems to me, could be further from the spirit of the desert than life at the Agency — indeed, while you were there you would not know you were not in Cadogan Square with the Park a stone’s throw away instead of almost paddling in the waters of the Nile.
    It must be so hard to come to a country so different, a people so different, to take control and insist that everything be done your way. To believe that everything can
only
be done your way. I read Anna’s descriptions, and I read the memoirs and the accounts of these long-gone Englishmen, and I think of the officials of the American embassy and agencies today, driving through Cairo in their locked limousines with the smoked-glass windows, opening their doors only when they are safe inside their Marine-guarded compounds.
    Lord Cromer himself (or ‘el-Lord’ as I am told he is commonly known throughout the country — a title, they say here, that denotes both affection and respect) is a large, commanding man with sad, hooded eyes and thinning white hair. I cannot pretend to know him at all well, of course, but I have observed him at the head of the dinner table, where he sits and exudes a quiet strength. He is a man of very decided opinions, to which the conversation in his presence always defers. I suspect you would not be able to work with him for long if you did not subscribe wholeheartedly to his views. He is sunounded by his gentlemen, chief of whom is Mr Harry Boyle, the Oriental Secretary. He is
most interesting as a character (Mr Boyle) and I think makes something of a point of a certain eccentric untidiness or even shabbiness of dress and unruliness of moustache, but Mr Barrington tells me it is said that he has a very sound understanding of the native character and he does speak the language — although Mr Barrington stressed that his knowledge was only of the vernacular — and it is this understanding that has made him so useful to Lord Cromer and brought the two men so close that Mr Boyle has earned the nickname ‘Enoch’ (for walking with the Lord!). Lord Cromer himself speaks no Arabic at all — except for ‘imshi’, which is the first word everybody learns here and means ‘go away’, and of course ‘baksheesh’.
    I am hoping to learn a little more of native life here, although I must say I have no idea how to put that hope into actual form. But I feel it would be a little odd to come all the way to Egypt and learn nothing except more about your own compatriots. I believe if Sir Charles were here he would be able to show me things I cannot yet see on my own. In any case I am very sensible that I know very little of the country and must be content to try to educate myself until such time as I am equipped to form my own views.
    In that same issue of the
Illustrated London News
, there is what we call today ‘an artist’s impression’ of the Triumphal Entry into the Transvaal: lots of little people line a wide, dusty road. Some wave thin sticks fluttering with forked Union Jacks. In the