festival of the Prophet. His heart had risen as the handsome new aérostat had inflated before his eyes, an imposing balloon thirteen metres in diameter, decorated with the inscription The Battle of Rivoli, and ringed with a civic crown and laurel wreaths. Ah, but would it fly and would it be stable?
He had not hidden his misgivings when the commandant and the generals returned from the ceremony of the Nile flood; he had told them flatly that he could not vouch for the performance of the hot-air balloon.
‘Could we not send up a soldier or two in the basket?’ Bonaparte had inquired. ‘There will be no lack of volunteers, I am sure of it.’
‘I refuse to risk the life and limb of any man.’
‘My dear Conté! At least let us send up a sheep or other animal, as the Montgolfier brothers did with their first experiments?’
Thank God he had stuck to his guns, Nicolas thought now as he was ushered into the double gates of the Moorish-style house where they had been invited; the much-vaunted airship had come undone and descended ignominiously, much to the alarm of tout Caire, all assembled for the spectacle, agog and agape. No one could claim he had not warned Bonaparte, but he expected his reception by the commandant to be rather chilly all the same.
So he was considerably surprised, after he and his party had been greeted in the outer courtyards by a gauntlet of servant boys proffering rose-water, and then had penetrated into an inner courtyard where most of the guests were already assembled, to be hailed from a distance by an unexpectedly good-humoured Bonaparte.
‘Conté! Come join us!’ Bonaparte beckoned him over to the head table, where he sat with his host, the chief generals and two other clerics. ‘This is the man of the hour, Shaykh Bakri. Let me introduce you to our chief engineer. Citoyen Conté, this is our host.’ A pale, lean-faced man, black of beard and brow, inclined his head and brought a well-tended hand to the front of his crimson kaftan in a gesture of welcome. Nicolas was struck by the sardonic eyes under the black turban.
‘And these are Shaykh Sharkawi, the head of the diwan; Shaykh Jabarti, the eminent historian; and the judge,’ Bonaparte continued, presenting the other three clerics at table. ‘Sit down, Citoyen.’
Nicolas took a seat between General Menou and Ambassador Magallon. He looked around the banquet hall: the hundred or so guests were seated on low benches lined with carpet cushions, and enormous brass trays were brought in and set up on tripods to serve as low tables for each group of ten or twelve guests. Serving boys came around with pitchers of rose-water and basins in which the guests rinsed their hands.
Bonaparte attempted some badinage with his hosts through the translator, Venture du Paradis, but it was heavy going; the Egyptian clerics sat sober as judges under their enormous Kashmir turbans. That, and the absence of wine, made for a decided lack of ambience. Ambassador Magallon, noting Nicolas’ discomfiture, whispered: ‘This Ottoman gravity is so antithetical to our French gaiety, is it not, Citoyen? But it is the rule on formal occasions, I am afraid.’
Meanwhile a procession of servants laid the large brass trays with plates of salad vegetables and flat rounds of bread. Before the guests could do more than contemplate sampling these aperitifs, they were pre-empted by the rapid succession of courses brought in by the servers and laid before them: meats in unfamiliar sauces, vegetables, pastries, creams, all generously seasoned with a variety of exotic spices. Conversation was abandoned altogether in the attempt to do justice to this bewildering and disorganized abundance. Some of the Egyptian convives dispensed with cutlery, using pieces of bread to scoop up mouthfuls of the various dishes; others, like Shaykh Bakri, attempted to wield spoon and knife in the European manner, no doubt in honour of their guests.
In the pause that followed, as the guests leaned back against the pillows, Bonaparte attempted to engage the notable clerics at table on the marvels of science – somewhat inopportunely, Nicolas felt, given the miracle-manqué of that morning – and exhorted them to revive the study of the sciences as their ancestors had done in the days of the Caliphs.
Shaykh Sharkawi, the head of the diwan, replied – through Venture du Paradis – that the Koran encompassed all knowledge.
‘Ah, but does the Koran teach you to cast a cannon?’ Bonaparte retorted.
He looked disconcerted by the solemn nods in the affirmative from the shaykh and his confreres. But Nicolas was not at all sure that they were all as gullible as they would appear. Bakri gave the impression of a sharp and worldly man under his pious airs. As for Jabarti, Nicolas had seen his dour face nearly every day at the Institute, peering with ill-concealed avidity at French instruments and poring over the Arabic translations in the library for hours on end. During the preparations for the aérostat exhibition he had been a constant presence, even if he deigned to ask few questions.
‘You know so much about Islam and Muslims, Commandant,’ Shaykh Bakri remarked, through the translator. ‘You should become a Muslim.’
Bonaparte seemed to take this in good spirit. ‘My dear Bakri, were you to issue a fatwa dispensing me from circumcision, and allowing me to indulge in alcohol and pork, I would consider it!’
Nicolas shifted in his uncomfortable position on the low bench; he was developing a cramp in his left leg, and hoped the banquet was drawing to a close. But the pièce de resistance was still to come. To each table was brought, on an enormous platter carried by two servers, a whole spit-roast lamb on a mound of rice with nuts and raisins. Then each lamb was carved open to reveal, stuffed inside it, a whole goose, and that in turn was stuffed with a duck, and the duck was stuffed with a whole chicken, and the chicken was stuffed with pigeons, all cooked together. By then Nicolas, and he suspected the other French guests as well, had lost all appetite, but out of politesse they applauded this culinary tour de force extravagantly.
The barely touched stuffed lamb was no sooner removed from the table than a succession of sweet pastries was proffered, and that was followed by another ritual of finger rinsing. Throughout, only water had been offered to drink. Nicolas found the local water, drawn from some three hundred public fountains around the city, to be quite acceptable. Finally the excellent Yemeni coffee was served, strong and thick as syrup, along with the long water pipes that were ubiquitous in the country. Nicolas noticed that the Egyptians seemed to take little delight in the pleasures of the table but were addicted to their coffee and tobacco.
Nicolas shifted again in his seat and rubbed his cramped left leg discreetly; Magallon, noticing his discomfort, invited him to take a stroll on the terrace to admire the view over the shallow lake. By now the Nile water that had been released with the breaching of the dam in the morning had come rushing through the khalig, the main canal, and was beginning to fill the Ezbekiah esplanade.
‘A pretty sight, is it not,’ the Consul smiled.
‘Rather like Venice,’ Nicolas concurred. ‘The Ezbekiah esplanade must be easily three times the size of the Place de la Révolution in Paris, wouldn’t you say?’ He breathed in the scented air and identified the separate fragrances of carob, eucalyptus, sycamore and lemon. A few slender boats with gay paper lanterns languorously crisscrossed the water, steered by gondoliers. ‘It must be a good sign that the locals are in a festive mood.’
‘Ah, but exactly – this scene before you is far more subdued than would typically be the case on such an occasion. There are very few Muslim people of quality among the revellers, other than the members of the diwan who are more or less constrained to be here. And it was the same this morning at the ceremony of the breaching of the Nile dam; mostly Ottoman Greeks, Syrian Christians, Copts. Not many Muslims, other than the street mob. And out here on the Ezbekiah; on a summer night,
