Hotel Tiberias: A Tale of Two Grandfathers. Sebastian Hope

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       Chapter Eight

      Madame Wafa’a asked: ‘Why are you British so keen on sports?’ It was an unlikely question from the Cultural Secretary of the Gezira Sporting Club, which relied on the continuing keenness on sport of the Egyptian upper classes, and indeed she was an unlikely-looking employee. Her wimple-like headgear and all-covering robe proclaimed the orthodoxy of her Islamic observance, while at the swimming pool women, both married and not, stripped down to bikinis. Her humorous, almost flirtatious manner may have been at odds with her dress, but it was difficult to imagine where her own keenness on sport might lie. ‘Your British officers were crazy for sport, even during the war, even when the Germans were so close to Alexandria they were still playing polo here. Crazy!’ She had a point. Why were British officers so obsessed with sport? She had touched on a deep vein of socioeconomic ore that ran through the substrata of the British Empire: the quasi-feudal British class structure.

      The French in their imperial dealings viewed their overseas territories as an integral part of France, which is why the European Union has constituencies in the Pacific and the Caribbean. The British thought of their colonies as possessions separate from the Mother Country. Their peoples were to be kept at arm’s length, and British soldiers and civil servants were regarded with suspicion if they fraternized too much with the locals. To maintain their otherness the British recreated their own exclusive society wherever they went. Their priorities in this endeavour are discernible in Cairo. Very shortly after British forces arrived, their officers established the Gezira Sporting Club on land granted to the army by Tewfik, Mohammed Ali’s great-grandson, long before work began on All Saints Anglican Cathedral. Before the democratizing of warfare in the two world wars, British officers were drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the aristocracy and landed gentry. Second, third, fourth sons would become politicians, clergymen, soldiers and colonial administrators, creating a remarkably uniform social ethos within the Empire, based on the values instilled at public school. If success in such an institution was judged by one’s peers on sporting rather than academic criteria, so demonstrating too much professional zeal in one’s work in later life was in as bad taste as talking about money. The Empire was administered by gifted amateurs with a notion of fair play. What really mattered were the team games that had won the battle of Waterloo, allegedly, such country pursuits as the British landowner enjoyed, transposed in Egypt to shooting doves and quail and hunting jackals, and above all polo and racing.

      What colonized countries adopted from the British sporting heritage can be seen both in terms of political attitudes towards the colonizers and of class. Cricket is a useful indicator. In Ireland resistance to English rule extended to boycotting ‘barrack games’ like cricket, while in Southern Africa, Australasia and initially in the Caribbean it was the preserve of the white settlers. Where British rule lasted longest – in India – the game became a part of the indigenous culture, chiming with the way time passes on the subcontinent; where they came latest – Malaya – the game is hardly known. The fellow feeling that existed between the British officer class and the Indian warrior caste led to the mirroring of the British Army in India by the Indian Army and the creation of a truly Anglo-Indian game: polo. The Indian and Pakistani armies of today preserve more of the ethos of Empire than any British regiment.

      ‘People here never played cricket,’ Madame Wafa’a asserted, ‘and very few play polo today. Some members keep horses here for show-jumping. The racing, of course the racing still takes place. I have never been.’ Madame Wafa’a disapproved; there was betting: addictive, impoverishing and un-Islamic. Shan Hackett had certainly found it impoverishing; his mounting debt to Ladbroke’s is one of the reasons he gives for applying in 1937 for a secondment away from Cairo.

      ‘I am glad to meet an Englishman who wants to know about his past. If you know the past you can tell the future. We Egyptians know every moment of our past, but we do not like to talk about the time of the British. You do not want to hear my opinions. Do not make me start.’ The cooling sound of watering came through the window from the cottage garden that surrounded the old clubhouse with shade, a building of an Anglo-Indian type common to hill stations. Madame Wafa’a’s large assistant brought tea. She started anyway, her English slipping in her haste: ‘How do you think we feel, you come here and take our house? Share with me of course, live with me, why not, but to take only? It is because there is nothing left in European countries that they come to take from other places. And the Israelis, more Europeans who come to take. They think we have no feelings? They think we have no civilization? But they cannot take our thoughts, our heart, our soul. We have a religion too, and Jerusalem is holy for us too – I tell you Jerusalem is not a place; it is an idea. It is holy for everyone, let it belong to everyone. Israel has been there only fifty years. The British were here for seventy. We have been here for seven thousand years. We can wait. The British had to leave when we took the Canal back. The Israelis will either have to leave or live with us in peace – why not live with me? Share with me?’ It was encouraging to hear tolerance, albeit of a tough variety, being put forward by an orthodox Muslim as a solution to the perennial problem, but her assertions about Egypt’s Jews were disingenuous. ‘There were many Jews in Cairo who lived with us and shared with us. Why did they leave to become our enemies? There was no danger for them. Right now the main synagogue in Cairo is being guarded by Muslim soldiers. It has not been damaged.’ As is true of most stories, hers was one with two sides. Her view of the British was equally polarized. She had once visited England, she said, and her abiding memory was of a sign in a boarding-house window; ‘“No dogs. No cats. No children. No blacks,”’ she quoted. ‘The British never let any Egyptians into this club as members. Never.’ This was not true. In January 1952 when the club was ‘Egyptianized’, of the 2453-strong membership 1116 were Egyptians.

      For all her indignation at British exclusivity, the Egyptian members continue to discriminate against their fellow citizens without qualms; it is the nature of a club, after all, that the majority is excluded. Their list of those not welcome would read ‘No dogs. No cats. No poor masses.’ In the ‘new’ art deco clubhouse, built in 1935, the notice board for polo fixtures may be empty, but the terrace by the swimming pool retains the atmosphere of the Lido – rattan chairs and checked tablecloths below huge white parasols, liveried waiters, the whitewashed vaguely nautical wings extending from the main building that enclose the space. An old man in a grey cotton suit sat alone at a table reading the papers, a large jug of fresh lemonade in front of him. His ears stood out at right angles and from behind the lobes could be seen to wobble when he moved his head. In the pool two elderly couples stood and chatted at the shallow end. It would have been busy on the day of the races, but that week the meeting was being held at Nadi-l-Shams, another club near the airport.