The novel “A Gamble in Honor of Lady Mitsi” was published by novelist Ahmed Al Morsi in 2023 by Dawn Publishing House (Al Jazeera)

What brings a Bedouin boy, an English woman, a retired officer and a horse broker together in one place?

The answer to this question summarizes the lines of the novel “A Gamble in Honor of Lady Mitsi” (2023), and gives the reader a glimpse into its main characters, which were drawn by the young writer Ahmed Al-Morsi from the beginning and throughout the chapters with grace and simplicity, not delving into details, but revealing deep holes in the souls, starting from Those hidden human relationships; Simple and complex.

Death...the beginning of everything

“Those who do not achieve their wishes live their whole lives dragging them behind them, like someone to whom a corpse is tied.”

Starting from death, Al-Morsi began his novel, with the body of Fawzan Al-Tahawi; Who bid farewell to life alone, so that his departure remained hidden for long hours. From the scene of Fawzan’s death, we get to know his cousin, who came running, not out of love for the deceased, but in search of a lost inheritance and a long history of waiting for that moment in which the stolen inheritance would be recovered.

He takes us with him on his search for papers proving his property, to a picture of Fawzan, a child, riding “Shamaa” (the purebred Arabian mare), next to an English woman named “Mitsy,” the horse broker Mar’i, and the Egyptian officer Salim Haqqi who was dismissed from the service.

Thus, the picture transports us to the twenties of the last century, between events and ideas that are no longer familiar to us today, from horse races in that arena that brought them together, and ideas that oscillate between the revolution that the national leader Saad Zaghloul (1858 AD - 1927 AD) had kindled in the souls of the Egyptians, and the frustration that befell him. Officer Salim got some of it when the national upheaval took him to refuse to hit an Egyptian man while he was on his police job, only to later lose his job and live miserable in a world of poverty and destitution.

Between the banks of attachment and hope

“Are distant wishes worth all that risk? Does fragility do all that? Can a wish ruin a person’s life?”

There are many questions raised by the writer in his work, and we find that he makes his heroes talk to themselves and to others in an interrogative form about major concepts in the soul, trying to connect the past with the present.

If we want to find a thread that unites all the characters of this novel, other than the tragedies of its heroes linked to loneliness, fear, and attachment to the past, it is hope, that thin thread to which if we find attachment, life can continue, and by abandoning it, the person dies, even if he is alive and thriving.

The writer throws us between the shores of attachment and hope, from the English woman who left her country and traveled far to continue chasing the dream of winning a horse race, to the frustrated officer who lost everything in a moment of revolution, to an invisible distance that Marai Al-Masry lives between an extravagant life of “pashas and pashas” and a bitter reality. Between the squares and alleys of Cairo, he remains suspended between two contradictory worlds and the imagination of a beloved whose actions led him to a painful fate.

Historical or psychological novel?

Although the events take place in the past and carry within them important historical readings, the reader will find some of the tragedies of our world there depicted accurately in the novel. The writer may have chosen to place the time of the novel’s events in the past, but the feelings and psychological and human state that his heroes experienced are similar to what disturbs contemporary readers. Therefore, the novel is more psychological than historical, even if it touches on several ideas such as the foreign presence in Egypt and the revolution, but it is essentially a deeply human novel.

Al-Morsi maintained a calm pace in his narration and an enjoyable transition between its chapters without falling into the trap of boredom that may accompany historical novels. While he was interested in drawing characters in separate stages, he made us immerse ourselves with his heroes, live the moments of defeat and drink their taste with calm and deliberation befitting a contemplative novel. We review our disappointments with her and see Salim Effendi helpless and Fawzan oppressed and alone. We pity Marhi when he falls in love and we wish we could pat “Lady” Mitzi on the shoulder when she loses hope.

Deception of hope

“The only gift that reason can give to all who have lost hope is the ability to delude themselves with a new hope.”

The five also gathered in an image that reflects their diversity. The reality of their existence in an environment that did not resemble them brought them together, strangers, attracting wishes. Each of them leans on the other, despite their weakness, in an attempt to escape from a reality that is troubling them, but each of them has his own way. Sometimes they drown in the clutches of the past, and sometimes they cling to the lifeline. The novel raises an important question: Is hope alone sufficient to reach it, or must we cut off all ties of attachment before we reach it? Choose a wishful battle?

The language in the novel was simple, despite the presence of words and terms that are no longer common in Egypt today, but were in vogue a century ago. This is another point that adds to the strength of the novel. Despite being published in the year 2023, the writer seemed like an avid researcher, not for terms that had disappeared only decades ago. Rather, it is about the linguistic structures that were widespread at the time they occurred.

In addition to conveying the identity of that time from the gambles that characterized it, such as horse races and cockfights, and from there to the design of buildings and the smell of homes, but only the ideas that accompanied it from there to our world.

When you finish reading, you will feel a strong desire to discover the Baron's Palace and walk through the streets of Heliopolis, which is no longer like that, but still retains the same name. Perhaps your curiosity will lead you to discover Al-Tahawiyya Island to search for their purebred horses for yourself. You will inevitably look for cockfights and see Al-Ittihadiya Palace in a different way when you imagine it as a headquarters for horse races.

After you reach the last page, “Done,” you will return again to the first pages, searching for the beginning of the idea, which you may have missed due to your self-permeation with its characters. To discover that you knew the ending early, but you do not want to believe it. Rather, you wish it had been more joyful, and you wish that the heroes of the novel had been informed of their fates so that they could change them, even if only a little.

Source: Al Jazeera