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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Footloose
By Fayza Hassan
Between 1962, when we married, and 1967, when we finally left for Australia, my husband and I gradually forfeited all our foreign friends as well as our lifestyle. As he battled with Egyptian bureaucracy to get our documents together for emigration, my husband took refuge in dreams of faraway lands. We would first tour Europe, he would say, poring over maps; we could stay in Paris, and maybe London for a while. One of his best friends and associates had settled recently in Milan. We could surprise him with a call and also go to Rome for a couple of days. The guests are trickling in at a fashionable Maadi garden party. From my vantage point on the terrace, I watch the women trip on the grass and puncture the lawn in their high-heels. Fashion has dealt them a cruel blow this year: platforms weighing a ton, or tight, long-nosed affairs featuring a spiky, metallic heel that slants dangerously inward or is strangely planted right under the arch -- this footwear is de rigueur. The lovely creatures in their summer finery look right and left anxiously, noticing with trepidation that the seating arrangement is minimalistic. The only way they can attend the function is in the upright position, their entire weight bearing on their uncomfortably clad extremities. They put on a nonchalant air and proceed courageously, greeting their co-sufferers effusively.
It is often said that Egypt's shoe shops have proliferated in the past decade or so because buying shoes is the luxury of the masses. Considering the brisk business these outlets do all year round, even at times of economic slump, one is tempted to give some credit to the cliché. I think that I have hit on another reason, however, a deeper, well-concealed secret that explains the popularity of the activity: for some unfathomable reason, most people I know are embarrassed to admit that their feet have been killing them for the best part of their lives; gnawed by the ache, they try on shoes interminably, dreaming of the magic pair that will soothe the excruciating pain and alleviate the crippling distortion of their toes. They may not have much hope, but they stumble on in search of the ideal shoe, as explorers lost in the desert seek an oasis.
I have always believed that shoe manufacturers were inspired by the devil: I like to imagine the evil glint in their eyes as they churn out heavy, chunky men footwear destined to convince the flat-footed, hunchbacked, shortsighted office employee whose unexercised calves are constantly plagued by cramps that he is making an important fashion statement. The average Egyptian urban woman is on the heavy side, with tiny, chubby feet, weak ankles and short, unassertive toes. What better way to torture her than by inciting her to buy long, narrow, high-heeled pumps, made of unyielding skin, into which her extremities are squeezed so hard that the blood stops flowing past the knees? "Very chic," says the salesman encouragingly, as his client hobbles painfully back to the chair in a pair of purple sandals that visibly cut deep into her flesh. "It is this year's latest fashion. We also have them in yellow, burgundy and pink, with handbags to match."
At one point when I was growing up, it was decided arbitrarily that I wore a size 36. "Shoes are supposed to hurt your feet when they are new," I was told. They did, even when they were no longer in their prime. "Large feet are unfeminine and unattractive," I was sternly informed when I begged for a slightly larger size.
In unbelievable pain, I minced my way around various dance floors, with only one fervent entreaty in my heart: "Let no one step on my foot, stabbing it out of the blessed numbness brought about when my circulation stopped."
I stopped ingesting any liquids hours before and during an evening out, in the mistaken belief that my feet would not swell like small balloons trying to burst out of their penitentiary. On many of my pictures from that time, the crooked smile on my pinched lips reminds me intensely of the agony of these soirées. How could one want to get intimate when one's only thoughts were concentrated somewhere below one's ankles? Who cared if my dancing partner was gorgeous? All I wanted was to be put out of my misery. It is no coincidence, I am sure, that I accepted my future husband's marriage proposal in Agami, where bare feet and flip-flops were in order.
On a couple of occasions, I made the fatal mistake of gingerly releasing the cruel grip by slipping the shoe half way off my foot under the table, stifling a moan as best I could. The impossibility of squeezing it back into its trap, and the panic that ensued, soon taught me never to seek this kind of passing solace. I remember relating wholeheartedly to a scene in one of Ismail Yassin's films, where, in a shoe shop, the comic complains loudly that every pair he tries on is too tight, finally sighing with unmitigated pleasure as an irate salesman slips his foot into an empty box.
As an adult, I decided one day that I had paid my dues and from now on was entitled to do as I pleased. Soon after, I became addicted to flat, sensible footwear. I took to wearing trousers to match my comfortable loafers and never looked back. I no longer count the minutes when I attend functions. My smile is back where it belongs, in the middle of my face -- and it has become an honest grin, because in my old age, at last I can truly enjoy myself.
