EGYPT: Zouzou & Safsaf

In 1936 sloe-eyed Zeinab al Wakil, then 24, gazed into the walleyes of Mustafa Nahas, then 60 and fairly tingling with romance, and they were married. He called her Zouzou. she called him Safsaf.

Egypt’s diseased, half-hungry fellahin adored Safsaf, and with their support he became chief of the powerful Wafd Party and five times Premier of Egypt. Zouzou cashed in on the adoration. In the reign of Farouk the self-indulgent, she grew into a well-corseted, fur-and diamond-bearing woman of property.

But one day last February the young officers of Egypt’s revolution hailed Zouzou into court on charges of corruption, and she was stripped of all she had amassed save a stone palace in Cairo’s lovely Garden City, a black Cadillac—and Safsaf. Zouzou was put under house arrest with Safsaf, who is now 77. For pleasure-loving Zouzou, jail might have been better.

Last month Zouzou asked permission to quit hot Cairo for the Alexandria seashore.

She wanted to go alone. Impossible, the police guards said: Egypt could not afford two sets of guards for the Nahas family.

Riding Alone. Last week Zouzou tried again. She agreed to take her husband with her, but could she just make an advance trip to Alexandria to rent an apartment? Sure, the commandant said, but take along a soldier guard. “Send him in a jeep,” Zouzou said over the phone. “Can’t spare a jeep,” the officer replied. “Why can’t he ride up in front in the Cadillac with the chauffeur?” “Never,” said Zouzou. “I always ride in front with the chauffeur.” The commandant waited. O.K., said Zouzou, “if the government is so tightfisted, you can send him along in my station wagon.” “Madam forgets,” the officer said. “The government confiscated your station wagon.”

Zouzou slammed down the phone, swept furiously out of the palace, got into the Cadillac and sped toward Alexandria at 75 m.p.h. Behind her, startled MPs phoned check points and organized pursuit. At the Kilometer 10 checkpoint, a scared soldier halted Zouzou.

Zouzou stormed, swore, cried. A police captain, summoned, wrung his hands, rang his friends and knew not what to do. Safsaf got on the phone and asked to speak to his love. “Never,” cried Zouzou. “I won’t speak to him until he brings me my divorce. I’ll never go back to that bald, blind, unmanly man.”

Four hours later, somewhat subdued, Zouzou agreed to ride back to Cairo but only in a police jeep. “The Cadillac belongs to my husband,” she answered, “and I want no part of him.”

By the Pyramids. At police headquarters in Cairo, Zouzou announced that she wanted to be taken to the fashionable Semiramis Hotel. The cops shuddered: the Semiramis was full of tourists loaded with dollars who might not understand about Zouzou in her agitated state of mind. “Look, lady.” pleaded a top cop, “you can’t go to the Semiramis. Pick any place anywhere in Egypt, in the whole damn world for all we care. But please, please don’t say the Semiramis.” At 4 a.m. Zouzou capitulated; she would take a suite in a suburban hospital.

At midday the police phone rang. It was Zouzou; she didn’t like the hospital. With a groan, the police moved Zouzou to the Mena House, near the Pyramids, and installed her in room 35, the honeymooners’ favorite. “At least there are not so many foreigners around,” said one cop.

In his great stone mansion in Garden City, Safsaf was lonely. He asked to be helped into the Cadillac and driven to Mena House. There he rapped on Zouzou’s door, saying, “It’s me, Mustafa!” He rapped and rapped, but there was no answer. Sympathetic servants brought the old man a chair, and for another half hour Safsaf sat down and pounded in comfort.

At last Zouzou let him in; family, doctors and lawyers soon followed and a parley ensued. Brokenheartedly, Safsaf promised a divorce, whereupon Zouzou coldly agreed to go back to her gilded cage in Garden City.