A Present from the Past

I had heard wonderful things about A Present from the Past. So much so that I hesitated in going to see it, fearing disappointment.

The premise is universally relatable, even if the tale carries a touch of the extraordinary in the way it unfolds. A daughter buys her father, and herself, plane tickets to Italy from Egypt to celebrate his 75^th birthday. Having studied there in his youth, he returned to Egypt leaving behind an Italian woman who he promised to go back and marry. He never did, and the love of his youth coalesced into a romanticised story about the one who got away. Now the daughter, walking in her father’s footsteps as a filmmaker, suggests a trip to revisit the scene of a story she has grown up hearing, and maybe find the woman he hasn’t seen for 33 years.

Filming almost entirely surreptitiously on an iPhone, Kawthar has captured the flickers of detail that make up intimate knowledge of another person. She shows her father in lovingly prosaic attitudes: lying in bed with his feet next to the camera, crooning old love songs, vulnerable in sleep. Her tenderness towards him is striking from the first frame and she revels in the quirks of his character without ever offering an opportunity for him to be mocked. Careful crafting shows a character who pretends to shoot koshary sellers from a passing car, chuckling triumphantly, who hoards mangoes like a mischievous child, who claims that his eagerness to see Patrizia is mostly so that he not “disrespect all Egyptians”, by giving the impression that Egyptian men break women’s hearts without explanation.

So much more interesting than the Mokhtar-Patrizia relationship, which you suspect remains well confined to the past, is the film’s dusting of emotion over the fragility of old age and the importance of memory. Mokhtar battles contradictory impulses as he contemplates the probability that this long dreamed-of meeting will actually take place. He wants Patrizia to remember him as the “prince” she once saw him as, resplendent in the abaya he has resurrected for the occasion. The prospect of a meeting is full of romance and significance. He will understand, he tells his daughter, if she has been with other men in the years since they met. After all, he never contacted her.

Delicately, with deliberation, he examines his memories. A letter in which she referred to him as the man of the house is recalled with pride, the recollection that she never wore earrings disclosed as you would something infinitely precious and cherished. He will invite her to come to Egypt, he muses in his hotel room; she may be tired of life in Italy.

Woven throughout the narrative is the yearning of a man who is preoccupied with aging to remain relevant, to have something tangible to offer the world. He has devoted his life to children’s education and speaks dismissively of people who try to communicate with youth in a didactic or patronising way. Periodically he rails against his daughter for taking control of the trip and their itinerary. A palpable fear of redundancy is evident in his calls home to his capable wife, asking her if she is scared to be in the house without him.

Equal in stubbornness, father and daughter fight. And then sleep, heads on one another’s shoulders.

The film is multi-layered and an understated, moving testament to love in its different forms. Kawthar, fearing that she has raised her father’s hopes for nothing, pleads with a bemused Italian hotel worker to help her find a trace of Patrizia online. Gone is her habitual tone of impish teasing, gone too the simmering frustration you hear at other junctures; tearfully she explains that she just wants to stop his sadness, and she suddenly sounds very young.

Mokhtar’s paternal pride is exhibited less directly. It is transmitted through the prism of an Egyptian-Italian they meet and befriend on arrival in Rome, who shrewdly observes the alchemic potency of the trip, the way that Kawthar’s presence gives her father back his youth. It is evident as they check into their hotel, with his loud declaration “father and daughter!”

If the film is a reminder to cherish those we live side by side with, it is one that is issued in the gentlest way. Unlike the countless evolving intimacies of daily life, memory is shown to be both enduring and malleable. We may never know why a story ends, but the ending we give ourselves may not be that of the person who lived the story with us. When it has been all this time, how could I not have loved you? How many people must have asked this question in the middle of a one-sided imaginary conversation with no end.

We may never know how our lovers remember us.  

At the end of the film, like mirages stepping from the screen, father and daughter appeared to answer questions, so guilelessly like their film selves as to be almost disconcerting. Basking as the visible hero of a story now firmly embedded in the collective imagination of filmgoers within and beyond Egypt, Mokhtar looked younger than his film self.

Immortalised by his daughter, his legacy is enshrined in the love story of his youth. What a tremendous gift. 

On the awful sterility of things having to make sense

M has a particular look she gives me whenever I use the expression I don’t know if I did the right thing. We both realise that she doesn’t have to say a word for me to understand what this signifies. There is no right decision, only decisions. You will hurt people, and you have to get over it. Your boundaries are yours to choose and others may not understand them. It is intention that matters most.

Allowing space for my own complexities doesn’t come naturally. Letting go of the compulsion to explain, taking the risk of not being understood or being thought badly of, are gut-wrenching prospects.

But devoting time to things I don’t believe to be worthwhile is killing my compassion. And the awful backdrop of the Brave New World we find ourselves in today kindles defiance in me as much as it breathes melancholy. I feel that we are inclining more and more towards reductionism and its manifestations are everywhere.

I see it in myself at a personal level when I try to bridge divides that in truth are great chasms in understanding and viewpoint. When I pretend to myself that I can understand someone whose words or actions nevertheless trigger a sense of something deeply wrong, for the sake of being open-minded, for the sake of wanting the world around me to make sense.

Denying my need to let go when there are insurmountable barriers to understanding has created a rage that I have swept aside for so much of my life. Wanting to be likeable, warm-hearted, generous, I have pretended there wasn’t something much fiercer churning away inside me.  

But the only way I stand a chance of understanding anyone is by not trying to be understood by everyone. It seems that the stakes are so much higher these days, with what feels like a world spinning faster and faster out of control.

So I have made myself a promise, because I only have so much space and so much time. I will let go of what I have tried, and failed, to understand or connect with. I will allow myself to rage against injustice and lack of respect in all the forms I encounter them, and I will struggle against my own inclinations to be peaceable and accommodating to people who demonstrate them when I know I am doing it for the sake of social convention, or my belief that things have to be in order or make sense.

But I will keep looking for meaning, nuance and new ways to understand this world that overwhelms me with its complexity and its inconsistency. I will seek out art that disconcerts and unsettles me. I will see the beauty and the brutality in people, but I will not interact meaningfully with them out of a sense of obligation; the ones who get real space are those who spark joy or passion.

I will accept that I may hurt people and that the alternative to doing so is living in a world of bland sterility, where I am afraid to say what I believe to be true. I will stop expecting everything to make sense.

Airports

Always when I’m sitting in airports, I think about goodbyes.

I imagine us all as atoms – propelled like restless spirits in an endless dance of meeting and departure, scattering little pieces of our hearts.

The Taxi Driver Chronicles

Riding a taxi in Egypt. Given that this is an experience that I essentially undertake every day, it’s amazing how hit and miss it is as a process. So many variables affect whether your daily journey will be tolerable, even enjoyable, or whether it will make you want to tear out your own eyebrows, shout at the drivers of all other cars on the road and stamp your feet like a four year old.

It is the perfect metaphorical equivalent of Cairo’s traffic, where there is literally no way of predicting on any given day whether you will find yourself sailing triumphantly over the Nile with a feeling of soaring freedom or stuck, sweaty and miserable, in gridlocked traffic, the bus in front of you belching clouds of black smoke, and the taxi jolting you back and forth as it inches its way forward with desperate, painful slowness.  

One key variable amongst many is the friendliness and attitude of your taxi driver. I’m sure to some extent this is true of taxi drivers anywhere, but really never in any taxi I have taken anywhere else in the world has the driver been so much of a presence, his interests, musical taste, curiosity, mood, sense of humour creating a palpable atmosphere that stays with you long after your journey has ended. No London black taxi cabbies are these, affable and casually knowledgeable about their city. There is no sleek coolness, no stealthy silent manoeuvring across districts and down roads. Taxi drivers here are like the salt, herbs and spices of Egypt itself; they add distinct flavour.  

Recognising this, Egyptian author Khaled al-Khameesi wrote a book of short vignettes entitled Taxi, published just before I moved here. Each story recounts an experience with, or a tale told from the point of view of, a taxi driver – and if you want an insight into the social fabric of Egypt and the issues weaved throughout the country, I would highly recommend reading it.

My plan is not to poorly imitate what someone else has done so well, but really some of the taxi driver encounters I have are too good not to document here.

Take this morning. Personal information and the domains of the curious being generally regarded as public property in an environment where community is so important, there is nothing at all unusual in your taxi driver believing it is his right and his business to ask about your marital status, your plans for having children and whether you are seeking an Egyptian husband. It is one of many notable facets of a country in perpetual contradictory flux, where a taxi driver asks you why you aren’t married yet, but a male pharmacist gets flustered if you ask where the supply of Always is kept.

Anyway, all of this was covered within two minutes of me entering the taxi, along with the questions of my nationality and the length of my stay in Egypt to date. All standard questions that anyone living here will have encountered on a regular basis. Then things got interesting.

A little old lady asked to share the taxi and clambered, frail but animated, into the front seat. She immediately started asking the driver if I was annoyed at him accepting her as a passenger.

No no, he assures her, don’t worry. She’s British but dummha khafeefa (she’s easygoing). She’s been here seven years he adds, with the proprietorial authority of someone who has known me for a whole three minutes.  

Several iterations of this statement are needed on both sides before it is accepted as fact by both, during which time I keep quiet in the hope that the conversation will move on to other topics. No such luck.

Gliding through traffic, the taxi driver cranes his head to look backwards. Ya anissa, ya anissa, are there Muslims in Britain or only Christians?

We have many Muslims in Britain, I answer.

And you? Are you Muslim? You’re working here but not married. Did you come here because you’re Muslim?

I just came here because I’m interested in the country seemed like the best response to balance truth with brevity.  

Aha! His eyes sparkle. But would you think about becoming a Muslim?

Before I can even answer, the old lady jumps in, indignant and admonishing. What are you talking about? We’re all brothers and sisters in the eyes of God! Some of the best people I know are Christian. My doctor is Christian. My pharmacist is Christian. My neighbour is Christian. My grandson’s teacher is Christian. I have…two, four, six….at least six close friends who are Christian! She counts them on her fingers to give the statement an air of incontrovertible finality.

Yes, yes – we are all brothers, the taxi driver agrees hastily. But you know, when she has children… he adds in a low voice.

If she marries a Muslim man her children will be Muslim anyway, the woman counters, entirely without irony.

Yes, and she really should marry a good Muslim man! The taxi driver has regained his enthusiasm for the cause. She is respectful and beautiful…and not married yet!

The old lady pauses, perhaps to let the shock of this powerful statement sink in. I shuffle further down in my seat, intently looking at my phone, praying for light traffic and a speedy arrival at the office, trying to be invisible.

You know… the old lady muses, half-lost in thought, I do want my son to get married. He’s 35 and an engineer. He’s a good man and I do want to find him a wife.

Aywa! The taxi driver’s enthusiasm, unbelievably, still has room to grow. This is perfect! This girl is nice and respectful. She’s lived here seven years, so she obviously loves Egypt.

(Has it been only seven years? Surely this conversation and the taxi ride alone have lasted seven years.)

And look, she’s amoura (she’s lovely). Simultaneously, they both turn around to look at me. I wipe the back of a sweaty palm across my upper lip and try not to look too much like a cornered animal.

Yes yes, very nice, the woman allows. Well I have to think really. He’s an engineer, and a good boy.

Take her phone number! If I was younger, I’d marry her myself. He beams at me.

Hmmm, I suppose I could. The old lady is undecided.

Yalla – take her phone number, the taxi driver urges. You can call her up, arrange for her to speak to your son. Everything will be easy!

Is now the time to tell them I literally never answer my phone, I wonder. Do I finally risk causing offence by telling them I am simply not interested in being fixed up with the old lady’s son – or, indeed, anybody?

Finding myself having the most typically British of internal debates brought with it an irony that was not lost on me. Drenched in social awkwardness, the fear of offending these two very nice, well-meaning, solicitous people, as they busily and happily agreed on my future plans and prospects, blithely unaware of or unconcerned by my intense discomfort at the situation, outweighed said discomfort in a way that surely anyone but a Brit would have found completely ridiculous.

Fortunately, timing was on my side. Arriving at work, I was able to utter a quick goodbye before scuttling to the office like a crab competing for some kind of special Olympics. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought wryly of how we had all conformed so beautifully to national stereotype.

And within minutes of exiting the taxi, with the whole encounter having attained the crystallised sheen of something that has passed, I found myself recounting the story to colleagues, Egyptian and non-Egyptian. And we always laugh in such situations because they seem so improbable on paper, and yet they are an absolute part of many lives here. And though awkward and infuriating at the time, these are things I will one day miss.  

Blue is the colour

Of all colours none has been so recognized and celebrated throughout art and writing for its many depths and hues, its mysterious timbres, as blue.

This awareness forms the backdrop to the first of Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy: Blue. Throughout this sombre, lovely film, blue in its various shades accompanies the protagonist, a grieving Juliette Binoche, as would a latter-day Greek chorus, illuminating her actions, giving emphasis to moments of understated emotion or dramatic tension.

Images or ideas reverberate throughout the film. The flood of light permeating a family room bereft of all contents bar a lampshade made of exquisite blue glass is later echoed by the image of a sugar cube being slowly saturated by liquid as it is gradually lowered into a cup of coffee. The implications are hinted at, rather than spelled out. So does blood seep into clothes after a wound; so can sorrow subsume the human heart.  

Binoche’s emotions, as she tries to navigate a world she doesn’t want to engage with for fear of further pain and loss, play across her face like musical notes within a symphony – neither discordant nor quite harmonizing. The sensuality as she swims alone in a pool of almost electric colour forms an uncomfortable juxtaposition to the sight of the baby rats she cannot bring herself to kill, the sheen of blue only just visible on their translucent skin.

Throughout the film there is interplay between emotion and physical sensation, as gradual revelations of her husband’s secrets emerge, as she starts to rediscover the ability to connect with others. The friendship Binoche establishes with the prostitute who so revels in her work and her sexuality is characterized primarily by tenderness. The casual brutality she initially shows to the man who loves her, in a deliberate reduction of his feelings to mere lust, later gives way to the realization that he, unlike her much-lauded dead husband, wants nothing more deeply than for her talent to be fully acknowledged – paving the way for the possibility of a more profound connection growing between them.

It would be too simplistic to say that blue within this context represents melancholy; the film is both more subtle and more substantial than this. Rather it is interwoven in the narrative through images that are both light and visually arresting. A flash of blue jeans, the light of early morning; Kieslowski’s blue is by turns prosaic and diffident, vibrant and luminous. It is emblematic of having lost what you love, the depth of the loss being uncontainable because it is inescapable. Turn around at the wrong moment and an ordinary object sparks a memory.

But it is also a symbol of the shimmering, ever-changing nature of both love and grief, their encompassing of rage and jealousy, cruelty, kindness, desire and finally a weary, hopeful compassion.   

Ramadan

My mother forgets to feed her animals
because it's only fair.
She rushes to them when
she hears hoarse roosters crowing
and billy goats butting
over a last straw.

This month the moon becomes a princess.
The stars fan her,
Jupiter pours cups of wine,
Mars sings melancholy mawals.
Bearded men holding prayer beads
and yellow booklets stare at her
and point aching fingers at her waist.

In our house we break a fast
with dates from Huun
and glasses of buttermilk.
Then on to bowls of lamb soup
flavored with mint, trays
of stuffed grape leaves,
spiced fava beans drenched
in olive oil and lemon juice.
And that is only the beginning.

The spirits of Johnny Walker and gin
hide in the trunks of white Peugeots.
In the nightclubs of my city, waiters
serve only non-alcoholic beer
and belly dancers cover themselves.

Father of sixteen children, our neighbor
visits bringing two kilos of baklava.
He washes them down with a dozen
demitasses of sweet sage tea.
Before dawn he runs to one
of his two wives, both named Salma,
and loves her hurriedly,
his hands barely touching a breast.


Khaled Mattawa

My only weapon was the word

The beautiful short film Good Night Sarajevo explores the slices of an individual’s humanity that are jeopardised, but also that which is retained and preserved, in times of war and conflict. Woven through the story of one man’s life and wartime experience are both explicit and oblique questions of what it means to tell stories, as an affirmation of what is meaningful in life, rendering the whole film a paean to verbal communication.

Indeed, in one of the most memorable lines of the film, its protagonist, Boban Minic, reveals his creed with the solemnity of an incantation: mi única arma era la palabra.

My only weapon was the word.

Such weapons, it is clear in this context, seek not to wound but to heal. Minic’s relationship with the city he loved and eventually had to leave is threaded with stories of personal loss along with recollections of the social and cultural ties that bound together a place that he describes as having once been a bastion of diversity, replete with art and beauty. He risked his own health and safety to preserve a little of that through his radio program, where talk of the arts, an imagined future and news of estranged families floated on the air, throughout and beyond the city, even as snipers lurked high above its streets.

Director Edu Marín takes pains to emphasise that the story he wanted to tell was not the story of the Balkan wars in any definitive sense, repeating that such a story was not his to tell. Rather, this is the tale of the storyteller himself, of a man who has lived his life according to the maxim that giving a voice to humanity’s highest aspirations helps to free humans from the prisons of our own minds, especially in times of great cruelty and suffering.

Watching this film for the second time with a Serbian friend who lived through the wars, I was struck by her immediate response after it had finished. While Sarajevo as a physical space was completely unknown to her, so much in terms of the common language, songs playing in the background as people talked, short film clips, exerted a nostalgic pull over her senses.

And there is the essence of storytelling if it is done well. In hearing another’s story, we feel a tug at our own memories and perhaps, if we can allow ourselves, our own hopes. To imagine that we humans will ever forget all of the differences that proliferate to create such bitter disputes among us seems naïve, in this era more than ever.

But it is so good to be reminded that everyone has their story to tell.  

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The trailer for Good Night Sarajevo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82p7GXLFsYA