The Cairo House

For those who have more than one skin, there are places where the secret act of metamorphosis takes place, an imperceptible shading into a hint of a different g

For those who have more than one skin, there are places where the secret act of metamorphosis takes place, an imperceptible shading into a hint of a different gait, a softening or a crispening of an accent. For those whose past and present belong to different worlds, there are places and times that mark their passage from one to the other, a transitional limbo: like airports.

It’s a novel written in the first person and reads like a memoir so that one assumes the main character, Gihan—called “Gigi”, has much in common with the author. It reminded me at first of The House on Sugar Beach where an upper-class Liberian woman reflects on her privileged childhood and the aftermath of the palace coup that violently overthrew the governing class from which she came. Similarly in The Cairo House, Gigi is the daughter of a wealthy family whose seat is the Cairo House, where the Pasha—the current male head of the family—involves himself in government, business, and of course, the doings of all his relatives. With the coming of Nassr, though, comes “sequestration” where Gigi’s relatives are arrested, imprisioned and some left on “house arrest” for most of their lives. Property is confiscated, privileges are lost, and lives change drastically. Gigi, growing up in the 50ies, learns in school that in the past wealthy landlords oppressed the common people.

The position of women is highlighted, from Gigi’s first marriage, arranged by her relatives, though she was not forced to agree (she “did what was expected of her”) to her difficulties getting a divorce (a man can just say “I divorce you” to his wife; a woman must get her husband’s approval). She sees a very secular Egypt moving toward woman wearing veils and some of the more onerous regulations for females that she saw when she followed her husband briefly to Saudi Arabia.

I found the book compelling enough to read quickly, but at several points I didn’t really understand the character’s motivation so maybe the cultural transfer is incomplete. I particularly enjoyed the locales in Egypt that I’d visited—Zamalek where she lived, the Corniche along the Nile, Luxor and Hurghada where one went for holidays without leaving the country. The sense of place was not as strong outside Egypt, as when Gigi lived in London, Paris or in New Hampshire (presumably Hanover about which she seems impressed primarily by the snow).