Cairo Modern

In 1930s Cairo, Mahgub agrees to marry the mistress of a high government official in return for a job, discovering that his wife-to-be is Ihsan--his best friend's beautiful former girlfriend, a poor student whose life has been ruined by her seductiveness--and the newlyweds become partners in a precarious plot to make their way in Cairo's high society and outwit their ill fortune. Reprint.