Plain talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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The writer I am presenting is of special importance, not only because of his world fame, but also because he was a good friend of mine. The first time I met Noel Barber was at the Savage Club in London, a club for writers and journalists. That was back in 1981 and it was then he told me he was writing a new novel with a Cairo background. A year later he came to Cairo and we went around the city together, looking at places, buildings and sites of buildings that were no more.

Three years later Noel Barber produced his masterpiece A Woman of Cairo, a saga of four generations of British and Egyptians, living in Egypt from 1919 to 1953. In a way it is a political novel, or rather a novel about two families living under the stress of politics. It is the story of the fate bound families of Sirry and Holt and what happened to them all through that stretch of time.

But first a word about the author. Noel Barber, who died recently, was an author of about thirty books, and chief foreign correspondent of The Daily Mail who lived in Cairo for a number of years. As foreign correspondent he had met King Farouk, then President Gamal Abdel Nasser and President Anwar El Sadat.

A Woman of Cairo is a chef d'oeuvre of narrative, told in a beautiful style, but what concerns me here is what Barber has to say about Cairo and its changing face, as he calls it. He starts his novel with a plan of the city as it was during the period covered by the book, until the 1952 altered most street names and introduced many other changes:

"A third bridge now connects Cairo with Gezira island; a huge new hotel stands on the site of the old British Cathedral. The British Embassy's gardens, now don't reach down to the Nile, for Nasser decided to build a motorway along the banks of the river so that those evening strolls no longer lead to the peaceful waters of the river but to the lines of cars tearing along one of the busiest streets," writes Barber

His story begins in 1919 and the author gives an authentic background of events of that important year in the history of Egypt. He explains the role of the Wafd or the delegation, and how the British, instead of allowing Saad Zaghloul to present Egypt's case in front of the League of Nations, had exiled him outside the country.

But while writing about that period Noel goes further back in history to the time of Khedive Ismail, sheding light on certain facts which many Egyptians do not know. For instance he explains how the Civil War in America had a direct influence on Egypt. Overnight, he says, supplies of American cotton, mostly exported to Europe, vanished in gunsmoke. In panic, says Barber, European cotton brokers turned to Egypt. The price of Egyptian cotton rose to astronomical heights and exports from Egypt shot up within two years from 16 million dollars in 1862 to 56 millions.

There are also some interesting, though less important revelations. A young man named Sam Shepherd who was employed as dishwasher at the seedy British Hotel, took over that same hotel and turned it into the most famous hotel in the Middle East, the Shepherd's.

Reading through the novel one cannot help but stop and wonder: facts are so mixed up with fiction that we often cannot distinguish one from the other. However, it is very clear that Noel Barber was really in the know. Possibly it was his job as a foreign correspondent which informed much of what he wrote about. For example, he traces the British/German battles, the panic in Cairo when Rommell was only at two hours reach from Alexandria, the turn of the tide and the British military victories, all with real names and ranks.

There is a great deal about the escapades of King Farouk, with all the rumours that went along with them. the famous incident of 1942 when the British Ambassador Sir Miles Lampson asked King Farouk to abdicate, with British tanks surrounding the Abdin palace. He describes the way that incident had fired the nationalism of young officers. He identifies these officers with Nasser, probably fiction, but he says: "Within a few days of the Abdin palace confrontation Nasser officially decided on the name Free Officers and so would-be revolutionary souls have been given a more compelling reason to join Nasser's movement 'Lampson gave us the chance on a silver platter,' he said, 'if, -- no not if, but when -- the Free Officers take over Egypt, we will have to offer a special prayer of thanks to your ambassador. For everyone in my country knows how he insulted our king -- and that means Egypt -- and it's provided just a spark we needed. Who knows', he said with a rare smile 'one day we might even get our Canal back -- thanks to Lampson, who gave us life because he was vindictive.'"

Again Barber gives a minute description, macabre though, of the fire of Cairo in 1952 few months before the July revolution led by Nasser. He follows the arsonists carrying canisters of petrol and molotove cocktails from street to street, as it were and paints the horrid sights of people burning alive and buildings collapsing under fire and the hooliganism that followed.

He also follows the 1952 revolution from the moment the free officers movement started until its success, airing even some of the differences among its members. He shows, for instance, how some of the young officers wanted to execute the King and how Nasser opposed vehemently any executions saying, and here I quote the writer "This is supposed to be a bloodless coup. If we kill Farouk the mob will murder at least three hundred of his entourage the following day. There will be no way to stop the flow of blood once it's started." To the last, says the author Nasser was determined that Farouk's departure should be dignified.