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The Arrogant Years
One Girl's Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn
By Lucette Lagnado
Ecco
Copyright © 2011 Lucette Lagnado
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061803673
Chapter One
The Secret of
the Pasha's Wife
Cairo was never as hopeful as at that moment when its
leading feminist, Hoda Shaarawi, stepped off a train
at the Ramses station on Malaka Nazli Street and
tore off her veil in a gesture of defiance. The year was 1923, King
Fouad was in power, and there was change in the air—this
ancient city was rapidly modernizing and nowhere was that more
apparent than in the women who were asserting their freedom and
independence for the first time ever in a Muslim culture. Hoda's
friends who came to greet her were stunned by her action, but then
they, too, yanked the veils from their faces and cast them aside in
solidarity and, voilà, a liberation movement was born among the
least liberated women in the world.
A few years later, a woman lifting her veil in Cairo once again
caused an enormous stir. This time, she was made of granite—a
tall formidable statue called Egypt's Awakening that depicted a
peasant girl removing the veil from her face even as her hand rested on
the head of the Sphinx.
The message was clear: The land of the pharaohs was forging a
brand-new destiny for itself.
That sense of energy and inexorable social change—of barriers
being torn down and age-old traditions being upended—was
felt throughout Cairo of the 1920s and 1930s, even in the popular
music. The crooner and matinee idol Mohamed Abdel Wahab
was attracting enormous audiences performing songs with a
distinctly Western influence. In a shocking departure from
traditional Middle Eastern music, Abdel Wahab included a piano and
even a saxophone in his orchestra. While King Fouad was firmly
in control, there was still open and vigorous political debate and
an outspoken opposition party. As yet another sign of how
liberal the culture had become, Jews and Muslims and Christians
mixed and mingled without paying much heed to religious
differences.
Jews, in particular, had never fared better in a society that in
many ways emblemized tolerance. They were rising to the top and
becoming not simply ministers but pashas and beys. In the pecking
order of titles conferred by the king, there were effendis, a
grand honor; beys, an even grander honor; and pashas, the grandest
honor of all. Influential Jews were now involved in shaping
every sector of society, from banking to agriculture, from
commerce to education.
At Fouad's court, a woman—a Jewish woman, at that—now
held more power than the queen herself and had emerged as a
favorite of the Muslim king, one of his most faithful and trusted
advisers.
Madame Alice Suarez Cattaui Pasha was officially la grande
dame d' honneur—chief lady-in-waiting to the court. But everyone
knew she was much more than that. Even while assisting Queen
Nazli, Madame Cattaui had become the confidante of the king, so
that she was in the unusual position of enjoying the ear of both of
Egypt's monarchs.
King Fouad depended on this elegant older woman for her
guidance and judgment. He let her decide which visiting dignitaries
he or Nazli should receive on a particular day as well as
those minor aristocrats who could be safely ignored. When there
were dinners at the palace, she was in charge of the complex seating
arrangements. Because she effectively controlled access to the
king, deciding who sat near him and who didn't, the pasha's wife
wielded unprecedented power in Egypt.
While the poor queen, who had a very testy relationship with
Fouad, was said to be virtually a prisoner of the palace, her chief
lady-in-waiting was attending glittering soirees all over Cairo.
Madame Cattaui was seen around town at ballets and galas and
premieres. Foreign diplomats and their wives knew to call on her
and woo her because she was the gatekeeper to the throne and
could help them wangle an invitation to the palace.
Fouad himself sent her effusive notes of gratitude in French. It
was the language of the aristocracy, and truth be told, the ruler of
Egypt, so European in his tastes and manners, and fluent in Italian
as well as French, could barely speak a word of Arabic.
Of course, it wasn't her skills alone that had originally propelled
her into this position. Alice Cattaui was born into the Suarez family,
one of the wealthiest in Egypt. Her husband, the pasha, was an
engineer by training who had made his own vast fortune running the
country's lucrative sugar-refining concern, Kom Ombo. Yussef
Cattaui Pasha was a founding board member of Banque Misr, the first
Egyptian bank in a country where all the financial institutions were
foreign owned. He was also president of the Jewish community, a
mission he took to heart as did his wife, because ministering to
Cairene Jews who were destitute was part of the Cattaui heritage, and
essential to the family's sense of noblesse oblige.
The neo-Gothic "Villa Cattaui" wasn't the largest mansion in
Garden City, but it was certainly the most exotic. In this dreamlike
corner of Cairo favored by the British, it stood out for its turrets
and vaulted arches and stained-glass windows, but what made it
unique was a library that housed more than sixty thousand volumes,
handpicked by their bibliophile owner. The library was the pasha's
great love, and he had designed it to be the most sumptuous part of
the villa. It had its own wing with rows and rows of intricately
designed wooden cases; behind glass were sets of leather-bound
volumes Yussef Cattaui had acquired throughout his life—rare first
editions of any and all subjects that interested him.
The pasha and his wife both entertained frequently. Madame
Cattaui was a striking figure, small with impeccable posture. Her
clothes were bought in Paris (though she did, of course, have
favored couturieres in Cairo), and she was rarely seen without her
multiple strands of pearls and the special Queen Nazli pin
encrusted with emeralds and diamonds and rubies that she wore like
a badge of honor. The brooch signified she had unfettered access
to all the royal palaces.
At home at Villa Cattaui, cooks and nannies and governesses
and housekeepers were there to attend to every need. When the
Cattauis' two grown sons, Aslan and René, got married, they had
their wives move in with them. Each brother took over a floor of
the mansion. That was the way you lived in Cairo, whether you
were in the humblest or the most elegant part of town. It was a
culture where families—affluent, poor, or that small percentage that
was middle class—stayed together. It wasn't unusual for multiple
generations to reside under one roof, though the roof was rarely as
luxurious as the one at 8 Ibrahim Pasha Street.
The pasha's wife was in perpetual motion. The court, the
galas, the state dinners, the pressures of attending to a difficult
and headstrong queen while fulfilling her duties to the king would
have been exhausting for most human beings, but Madame
Cattaui seemed unstoppable as she raced across Cairo on one royal
mission or another.
Friday afternoon was set aside for high tea, when she received
important women passing through—the princesses and other
members of European nobility who were visiting Egypt and craved an
audience with Queen Nazli.
Afterward, it was quiet at the Cattaui residence, as it was in
different parts of the city. Cairo was so respectful of its Jewish
population that even la bourse, the stock market, shut down in
observance of the Sabbath, as did many banks.
Sunday night, there was a festive meal at home with the family
and selected friends. Everyone dined on plates rimmed with gold,
featuring the distinctive Cattaui monogram. Guests couldn't help
noticing the grand piano in the main drawing room, which was
covered with pictures of the European aristocrats who had met
with the pasha's wife.
Madame Cattaui was completely at ease in Cairo's high society
and indeed dominated it. But she was equally committed to her
work in a very different part of Cairo, the older neighborhoods
where the Jewish communal institutions were situated. She took
a special interest in the schools the Cattaui family had founded
and were still bankrolling; her work there was as important as her
duties toward the king and the queen.
It was only a short car ride from Garden City to the heart of
Daher and Abbassiyah, yet it was a journey few residents of the
leafy villas made, at least not regularly, and that is why the pasha's
wife stood out.
She was a constant visitor to L'École Cattaui, the little Jewish
private school in Sakakini the family had founded, and which
prided itself on giving the finest and most rigorous education in
all of Cairo. She'd also go regularly—every Tuesday in fact—to
the Sebil, the massive communal Jewish school that catered to
children who lacked means.
The students at the Sebil lived for Tuesdays and the glimpse
they caught of the striking woman in silk and pearls. While she
was clearly a grande dame, she had a gentle air about her. If
children looked thin, or came to school in threadbare clothing, she
would go over to them and then gently quiz their teachers. Were
they in need? Could she possibly help?
Le Sebil guaranteed a free lunch to all its students. There were
many stories of children going hungry, whose parents couldn't
afford to give them so much as a sandwich to take to class. The
school made sure they ate, though it was deeply humble fare. Come
noon, in the large dining hall, hundreds of pupils sat at long tables
with wooden benches, and the kitchen staff would arrive carrying
big steaming pots with the day's offerings—a bowl of string beans
with rice, or stewed potatoes, perhaps some lentil soup.
That was the menu day after day—except Tuesday. On a typical
Tuesday morning, there'd already be a buzz about lunch. If the
children heard that meat was on the menu, they'd loudly exclaim,
"Madame Cattaui is coming."
The pasha's wife would arrive, usually with one other society
woman in tow. The two would stand in the large cafeteria, carefully
inspecting what was served. The school took extra pains to
prepare a special meal those days the VIP visitors were expected.
They were the ladies of Tuesday, and they made it a point never
to sit down. The children would see them walking up and down
the long tables making sure there was enough to eat and that the
dishes were clean. If a child wasn't eating, Madame Cattaui would
coax him to finish his meal.
Once lunch was over, the children would sing the traditional
after meal hymn. But there were times a child had lost a parent
or close relative. They were encouraged to recite the Kaddish, the
Hebrew prayer for the dead. The children noticed the pasha's wife
listening intently as they prayed, and it was as if she were praying
with them.
She'd return days later and head for the courtyard. Needy children
were pulled aside by their teachers—the students who wore
torn shoes and dirty clothes and whose families lived in the ancient
Haret-el-Yahood, the Jewish ghetto.
Madame Cattaui proceeded to give out des sandalettes—small,
inexpensive leather sandals. She also distributed packets of clothing,
usually the aprons children were required to wear as a
uniform—along with notebooks and pens and any other necessities
their parents couldn't afford to buy them.
There was a solemn, ceremonial quality to the affair; it was
supposed to be discreet, but everyone at school could see what was
going on in the courtyard and follow how she handed out the allotment
of sandalettes, and which children were lucky—or unlucky—
enough to receive them.
When she wasn't on official duty, Alice Cattaui was a
different person. The opulent clothes and couture hats and
jewels came off and were replaced by simple black dresses; that is
what she preferred to wear at home alone, or to the market to buy
vegetables and groceries.
Now that was a task that could have been handled by the
servants, yet the pasha's wife insisted on doing it herself.
She raised her children—then her grandchildren—with a
message of stoicism, self-discipline, and tough love.
"Never give in to despair," she told her granddaughter Nimet
again and again.
To her family, her behavior could be mystifying. She looked
like a woman in mourning, even on festive occasions. And that is
exactly what she was—a woman observing the death of a loved
one, except in this case the loved one had died decades earlier.
The rule at Villa Cattaui was never to talk about Indji, the only
daughter of the pasha and his wife. She was rarely mentioned by
name, yet she seemed to be everywhere, lurking in every corner
of 8 Ibrahim Pasha Street, so that the lives of all of its inhabitants
were affected by her, even the grandchildren who had never
known her.
Born in 1888, the oldest of the three Cattaui children, Indji was
doted on from the start. The photographs and portraits around the
house and in the albums attested to her privileged status—dozens
and dozens of images of a beautiful child taken from the time she
was an infant, and always, or almost always, dressed in white.
As she grew up, the outfits became ever more intricate and
luxuriant. One year, Indji posed in an Oriental costume, standing
next to a Chinese vase. A year later, she was pictured in a knee
length white dress, high-topped black shoes, and a wide-brimmed
hat, smiling mischievously.
Then came the portraits of Indji in her arrogant years. As she
grew up, her dresses became longer and more opulent and even as
a teenager, she still wore only white. In one photograph, she sat
on a throne like chair, her hair swept up in a pompadour. In 1905,
Indji Cattaui as a young girl in Cairo,
dressed as always in white.
As she turned eighteen, a French artist was commissioned to paint
her portrait. She posed standing against a ledge wearing a flowing
gown made entirely of white lace and muslin, holding in her
hand a single rose. She looked like the classic Edwardian beauty,
delicate and dreamy.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Arrogant Years by Lucette Lagnado Copyright © 2011 by Lucette Lagnado. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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