13 - 19 December 2001
Issue No.564
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 December 2001 Issue No.564 |
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When not to swallow a bargain
There is nothing obligatory about visiting Fatimid Cairo during the month of Ramadan. There is nothing obligatory about visiting the place at any time, though not to do so seldom appears to be anything other than an act of quite extraordinary churlishness.
It is perfectly possible to meet foreigners who have lived in Cairo for ever, and who admit, and always with a slight swagger, that they have never been to see the Pyramids. And this is something for which one can feel an inkling of sympathy: the pyramids are just too famous, have too predictable a profile and too little beyond the monumental to engage anyone's attention for long, unless, of course, your interest in them is professional. And besides, they have been there so long that you know, somehow, that they will always be there. There really is no need to rush.
But not to visit the Fatimid City? That is an omission with which it is harder to sympathise. And the place is, sadly, far more vulnerable than the pyramid plateau. It is home to a real community, the fragility of whose environment is irredeemably touching.
The people who tell you that they cannot set foot in the place -- you meet them occasionally over canapés at the kind of events that seem to procure the guest list courtesy of Rent-a-Crowd -- do so, to borrow a phrase from the diaries of Virginia Woolf, with an expression suggesting they have always just swallowed a bargain. These can become seriously unattractive encounters, unless they are quickly terminated. But there you are. Some people are born to exist exclusively in Mohandessin, or similar suburbs. A preference for the soulless really does exist, and sometimes it is easy to fall in to the trap of believing that its natural breeding ground are the shinier, newer suburbs. And old stones, when they are still inhabited, can operate as a talisman against such sterility.
And Ramadan really is a perfect time to meander through the streets. Immediately pre-Ramadan is fannous time, when the metal workshops that line the street that leads from Bab Zuwaila to Port Said Street replace their usual stock of aluminium barbecue trays, portable sandwich carts -- the street version of that ultimate seventies accessory, the hostess trolley -- and assorted pots and pans with extravagant displays of multi-coloured lanterns, this year, for some reason, bigger and more elaborate than ever, of even more complex construction: triangles of glass welded into the kind of multi-faceted constructions that might easily reduce school- children sitting geometry exams to tears.
If you are particularly fortunate, as I was two weeks ago, you come across something a little more substantial than the impromptu celebrations that lend an edge to the always festive Ramadan crowd.
Admittedly, it was initially a slightly confused affair. In restoring a particularly elaborate Ottoman sabil -- that of Tusun Pasha, 1820 -- the architect in charge had also undertaken the restoration of the small, local mosque that lay behind the monument and which had fallen into a state of disrepair bordering on dereliction. Funding had been secured, plans drawn up, the necessary work undertaken. And two weeks ago the mosque was opening.
One knew something was happening when, just past the Al-Ghuri complex, the pathway was blocked by a small group of musicians, following a horse bedecked with a startlingly coloured array of pompoms. A little further along, and the sense of anticipation became even more palpable. The sabil was covered in telltale awnings; the crowds were even thicker, chairs had been placed on a podium in front of the mosque, and in front of the cotton merchant opposite. And truth be told the people in the cotton merchants, who several years ago had spent the best part of an hour trying to convince me that at eight pounds a kilo their raw cotton was a bargain, and the only possible thing with which to stuff my cushions, were charming on this occasion. They did not remember the incident, of course, though it remains etched in my mind.
Even the metal wire strung between two poles, and obstructing traffic across the width of the street, provoked no shows of bad temper. Quite why it was there was something of a mystery, though my companion assured me that it would soon be supporting a tight rope walker. Not very credible, this, I argued, given how limply the rope was hanging. Nothing tight about this particular bit of metal.
And then it began. Two dervishes, whirling to the accompaniment of a small band of musicians. The sudden appearance of a man on stilts, in sequined, heliotrope waistcoat, and perhaps a little more satin than was entirely necessary. And a fire eater, in a shocking pink outfit that looked dangerously inflammable, regularly spewing clouds of flame from his mouth, and just as regularly swigging from a jerry can of petrol. And yes, a tightrope walker, though the rope was no tighter than when first erected, slumped between the two poles, and juggling with increasingly dangerous objects. It began innocuously enough, with balls, and ended with the dangerous flash of meat cleavers, which could well be a metaphor for something, and was on occasion less than reassuring.
By which point there was no question of passing along the street in either direction. By which point nobody minded a jot.
The whole event -- it lasted less than two hours -- may sound overly carnivalesque, and there are no doubt those who would have found the whole thing inauthentic, a little bit of local colour staged by locals intent on parodying themselves. There was nothing inauthentic, though, about the delight of this far from exclusive audience, who certainly had not been booked via the services of Rent-a-Crowd. Not a canape in sight, but a great deal more pleasure than is usually encountered over cocktails.
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