Coptic or Muslim?

For some reason, I met him four times in a row this week.

I usually see t him once or twice a month around seven in the morning. He usually carries both a school bag and his worries and urges one of his daughters to hurry up. He has been doing this for twenty years, and it’s a new daughter every couple of years.

This time I met him in the afternoon as I was coming home from work. He was wearing one of his gallabeyyas that, to me, have all always looked brown, oversized, and shorter that should be. His shoes made the sound I never failed to recognize whenever he walked up or down the stairs. They were getting too big, probably because he has walked in them for long or because his feet have grown thinner with age and fatigue. He has looked the same to me over the years, even while being supposedly dressed up for Christmas Mass. I don’t know which daughter he was talking to; I have lost track of his kids since the one my age got married. He had always managed to have the time, energy, and place to make children somewhere in the five by seven meter room up on the roof of my building. I believe that my mom is one reason for the overpopulation of Amm Marzou’s family since she talked the landlord into renting him an extra room.

It was a hot summer’s day in Cairo; one of these days when you’d prefer the cool floor of your building’s entrance to your own bed. As I walked in, I saw a shadow resting at the first stair landing.
“Go ahead, Amm Marzou’. You first” I said.
“No, my daughter. You go. I’ll take my time.”
“It’s ok. I’m not in a hurry.”
“May God bless your time, keep you safe, and grant you peace of mind.”
“Amen, Amm Marzou’. Amen!”

What else would I ask in life more than what he prayed for me?

His prayers have always been the most sincere, heart-felt wishes I receive. There has been no instance in my entire life when I met him without hearing him pray for me. There has been no instance in my entire life when I doubted that his prayers were not one reason why God kept me from being harmed. I listen to him utter the words and see them go straight to Heaven. There was not a time when I thought that the God he asks to protect me is not the same as my God.

Sometimes I think that the “Are you Coptic or Muslim?” question is as silly as it could possibly sound. I wonder at it because my grandma has peacefully lived in her house in a neighborhood called Deir El Malak – The Monastery of the Angel. The name has never sounded foreign to my ears. On the contrary, it has always brought images I see from granny’s roof; images of crosses and crescents standing proudly side by side. I go visit her and hear her talk of Rose, her Coptic neighbor who is her lifelong best friend. Granny would go on and on telling me stories of how Rose used to come and help her bake cookies for the Feast after Ramadan. She would tell me of the day when my dad had a fight with Rose’s son and how she scolded my dad saying “How dare you fight with your brother?”

She reminds me of my childhood friendship with Marriane who lives in apartment nine on the same floor as mine. We used to play cards and read together when we were young and study all night long as we grew older. She made the best omelets ever.

It all reminds me of the wrinkles filling Amm Marzou’s face, which never kept him from making his voice warmly smile at me.