Out of Place: A Memoir by Edward W. Said Read Free Book Online

black American cars, each bigger than its predecessors: a Ford, then a deluxe Plymouth sedan, then in 1948 an enormous Chrysler limousine. He always employed drivers, two of whom, Faris and Aziz, I was allowed to chat with only when he was not there: he insisted on complete silence as he was being driven to and from his office. On the occasions I rode with him, he started the journey from home very much in a domestic mood, so to speak, relatively open to conversation, and would even vouchsafe me a smile, until we reached the Bulaq bridge that connected Zamalek to the mainland. Then he would gradually stiffen and grow silent, pulling out some papers from his briefcase and beginning to go over them. By the time we reached the Asa af and Mixed Courts intersection that bordered Cairo’s European business center, he was closed to me completely, and would not answer my questions or acknowledge my presence: he was transformed into the formidable boss of his business, a figure I came to dislike and fear because he seemed like a larger and more impersonal version of the man who supervised my life.
    At night and on holidays, without a driver he would take us on “the drives,” all chatter and jokes, all entertaining patriarchy, which I recognized half consciously as a liberation for him above all. Minus coat and tie, in summer shirtsleeves or winter sports jacket, he headed for one of a handful of designated fun destinations. On Sunday afternoons it was to Mena House for tea and a modest concert. Saturday afternoons it was the Barrages, a pocket-size British-constructed dam in the Delta. Surrounded by verdant parks crisscrossed by a simple trolley system whose mysterious purpose always stimulated my fantasies of escape (and the impossibility thereof), we might wander about where we wished, eating a sandwich here, an apple there, over a period of two and perhaps even three hours. On holidays we invariably trailed out past the Pyramids into the Western Desert, there to stop at an anonymous milepost, unfold our blankets, unpack an elaborate picnic lunch, throw stones at a target, skip rope, toss a ball. Just the five, six, or seven of us, as the family grew. Never, except for Mena House, at a public place like a café or restaurant. Never with anyone else. Never at any recognizable place—just a spot off the Desert Road. Holiday evenings we toured the streets south of Bab el Louk where most of the government buildings were located. Lit up with thousands of sandy yellow bulbs and bright-green neon lights, the buildings constituted “the illuminations,” as myfather called them, that we visited on the king’s birthday or the opening of Parliament.
    Beyond these boundaries of habit and minutely plotted excursions I felt that a whole world was held at bay, ready to tumble in, engulf us, perhaps even sweep us away, so protected and enclosed was I inside the little world my parents created. Cairo was a fairly crowded city in the early forties: during the World War II years thousands of Allied troops were stationed there, in addition to numerous expatriate communities of Italians, French, English, and the resident minorities of Jews, Armenians, Syro-Lebanese (the Shawam), and Greeks. Various unannounced parades and displays by the troops could be encountered by chance all over Cairo, and though my father talked occasionally of taking me to a jamboree—a scheduled parade—this never happened. In both Jerusalem and Cairo I saw British and ANZAC troops marching, their trumpets blaring and drums thumping inexorably, but I never understood why or for whom: I supposed that their purpose in life was much grander than mine, and therefore too significant for me to understand. I always noticed the facades of forbidden restaurants and cabarets decorated with signs like “All Ranks Welcome,” but did not understand their meaning, either. One such place, Sauld’s, in the Immobilia building downtown, happened to be near my uncle Asaad’s Arrow