Raksa Sharqiyah (Oriental Dance), Khaled El-Berry, Cairo: Dar El-Ein, 2010 On Google Earth, places are pointed out and can be zoomed into. And in his first novel, the UK-based Egyptian writer Khaled El-Berry with a cosmic view. It was in 1997, Berry tells the reader, that the world started paying attention to an element of clothing that had long been taken for granted: underwear. In fashion shows and in the mass media, underwear could now be explicitly referred to for the first time. And -- sure enough -- the novel opens with Hussein and Yasser -- two Egyptian young men -- making their choice of new underwear in London, where they have moved. For his part Ibrahim -- the third young man in the trio of protagonists -- is still in Egypt, and he has vowed never to wear a new pair so long as he is in his Upper Egyptian hometown of Beni Mur. Zooming in, Ibrahim, the narrator, exposes us to the world of Beni Mur, wheer people believe in ghosts and are fascinated by tall tales about their ancestors. In his adolescence, Ibrahim dreamt a fairy would sleep with him and take him to her world. As in epic memoirs, he addresses the reader directly, recounting anecdotes that relate to his grandparents, moving onto the eye patched barber took in and brought up Ahmed Sabry, a conscientious man beloved of the community. To Ibrahim, Ahmed Sabry is a hero. Born to a poor father in the service of the landowner Asem Bek, Ahmed Sabry shows such moral integrity that Asem Bek gives him his own daughter in marriage. He travels to the UK to obtain his PhD, a thing few in his country could possibly afford. In a superstitious country, Ahmed Sabry is deemed the best man to deal with ghosts. His success is unequalled. But like a celestial body that sparkles before falling, in his last days Ahmed Sabry goes downhill; his death is beset by rumours of suicide. Much later, in the 1990s, Ibrahim escapes the appalling economic conditions of Egypt by moving to England with an elderly woman he does not love. Pricks of conscience and flashbacks of his relatives who brand him an opportunist drive him to the task of answering the existential question of what could possibly have happened to Ahmed Sabry. Ahmed Sabry's accomplishments are so many and so impressive that he is hailed as an avatar of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the nationalist leader, who was also from Beni Mur. Nasser led the 1952 Revolution which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, promising social equality and stressing pan-Arab nationalism. Though Nasser brutally overthrew Mohamed Naguib -- the older army general who became the first president -- as early as 1956, he took political steps that would render him a hero to many Egyptians and Arabs: nationalizing the Suez Canal and aiding the anti-colonial struggle in the Arab world and Africa. Until 1967, when he was let down by his own army -- only to die mysteriously three years later -- Nasser appeared to lead Egypt into the light. Ahmed Sabry seems to be an avatar of Nasser indeed; Ibrahim compares the two characters, explaining how the three protagonists were to suffer as a result of Nasser's demise, with his own father -- working in Iraq -- bearing the brunt of both the Iraqi-Iranian war and the Iraqi-Kuwaiti war. Yasser was in a slightly better position since the relative wealth of his family enabled him to plan ahead, but though Ahmed Sabry's true heir, he too is eventually let down. Though he led Egypt to victory in 1973, eventually making peace with Israel, Nasser's successor President Anwar El Sadat -- it should be made clear at this point -- endorsed Islamist militants until they eventually killed him; he embraced the free market and aligned himself with US interests. Society was let down. In the late 1970s, Islamic groups in Egypt began to thrive for real. Chronologically, the novel starts in the early 1990s, by which time Yasser -- who, like the other two characters, is involved with Islamist groups -- is caught up in a moral conflict. He was sexually involved with his neighbor, a Christian girl whom he has had to subject to an abortion. After leaving her he is tormented by guilt. In a confessional letter to one of his "religious leaders", he questions the meaning of religiosity: "How could he convince him the relationship he had with her prevented him from committing a more serious crime, killing himself? How could he persuade him that God may forgive what he did with her, but would never forgive killing himself?" Religiosity is another of the novel's major themes, which takes on a comic dimension in the case of Hussein, who unlike the other two is from the Nile Delta province of Monoufeya. Hussein is attracted to pregnant women, something Ibrahim repeatedly stresses. He takes up first with Katia, a Lebanese woman aiming to be a belly dancer, and then with Heather, a British woman. Hussein is caught up in religious conflicts of his own: he gambles but never drinks. He also spies on mosque goers in London, and is partly responsible for Yasser's unjust imprisonment following the London bombings. The novel ends with Yasser and Ibrahim drowning in Venice, while Hussein leads the life he has always wanted. To quote Ibrahim's spirit: "All the events may seem unrelated for those who know only about yesterday, today and glimpses of tomorrow. But whoever knows what I now know will realise that the universe is harmoniously working to produce an event here or there: a fall on the stairs, a chance meeting, an achievement, a crime, an earthquake or a treasure. All are facets of the same thing: cosmic arrangements in which we are only tools". Reviewed by Shaimaa Zaher
