Back Back Then ...

On a hot afternoon, they stood shoulder to shoulder at the window nothing separating them except forty three years of age. They probably had nothing in common except a pure heart. They were lowering a basket for the keeper of the opposite grocery to put the two chilled Seven-Up bottles my mom had ordered earlier.

I was helping in the kitchen and whenever I walked back into the apartment, I heard them talking non-stop. Once about cars, another about Jamal Abdel Nasser, healthy dieting and weightlifting, football, religion, and who knows what else they managed to find of common interest. I have always been amazed at how easy it is for my father to talk to people of all backgrounds, ages, and mentalities. I do still envy him.

I looked at my dad and my young cousin standing by him and discovered how old my dad’s back has grown. His salt and pepper hair never told me he was getting old. It is his back. It has gladly carried the burdens and responsibilities of supporting a house throughout the years.. and it still does.

It is the same back I knew in my early childhood. Every weekend, as we left my granny’s house, we used to walk to the bus station for ten minutes which felt like ten hours. My dad would give me a piggy back and talk to me all the way to the station. It was a lot of fun seeing the same people who once seemed huge change into creatures shorter than me.

It was even more fun in the sea. I climbed this same back and felt as happy as a free dolphin. This is how I first loved the sea and later learned how to swim, .. hmmm .. or rather not to drown.

It is the same back that used to keep me warm and secure on cold winter nights and carry my school bag on chilling mornings.

It is the same back that I used to walk on. After a long day of working two jobs, my dad would ask me to walk on his back. Although I used to feel a bit shy, I enjoyed the game and giggled at the feeling of my small feet walking on moving muscles.

It was once the back of a sixty eight kilogram student at the institute of physical education, a field hokey player, a boxer, a physiotherapy specialist, a piano and violin player, an army officer during Sadat’s time, and a teacher at a high school.

It is the same back that still helps him get up early in the morning to ask me if I will take lunch to work or needed a blouse to be ironed.

More than forty years ago, these two men standing at the window would have probably competed over girls in the family. They would have compared whose back is wider than the other. I looked at them and wondered how old I look and feel. As I walked back to the kitchen, I tried hard not to even glance at my mom’s back.

Shower gella

It was seven in the evening and I would usually take a shower to change my mood. This time I decided to try something new: go to a cheap hairdresser's and have fun. Coiffeur Nancy for Ladies, the sign read. My brother once asked me why I go to those salons around our house and I was never able to tell him that the real reason was to sit and watch that style of Egyptian women talk and act. I usually say I am tired and do not want to drive in traffic all the way to my coiffeur. Well .. he is definitely right. Although he has never been inside one of them, he knew that at that sort of salons, you usually hear and sometimes see things you do not normally hear or see in your everyday life. Anyway.. I went to "OK, my heart" hairdresser's. That's how the owner addresses me. "What do you need today ya 'alby?", my heart. This, and other forms such as beauty, moon, honey, sugar, and sweetie, are the equivalent of miss or mademoiselle I usually hear elsewhere. So after being greeted by the owner, I walked into the female only section. I drew the curtain to see a strange creature attending to one of the poor customers who wanted to have her eyebrows trimmed. But the pain of unplucking was not the problem. Part of the problem was the hairdresser herself. I don't usually comment on people's appearance, but hers was really provoking.

She was tanned with hair dyed hazel brown with gold highlights, cut short and straightened. She was wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt that showed all details of her body and defined it into blocks unevenly distributed around her upper part. She was standing bare feet in the middle of dusty hair strands and curls they never sweep. Now you can picture how dirty her dark red nail polish looked on her toes.

The other and main part of the problem seemed more serious .. to me. As she was doing her job she was talking to the girl between her hands and laughing with her trying to 'win a customer'. In the middle of this, whenever she laughed she would put both her hands around the customer's neck. I thought to myself .. "Hmm! I'll be serious from the start and she would not dare touch me like that". She kept repeating this and with the loudest laugh she gave, she threw herself over the customer's chest. At this point, I jumped off my seat and started to leave. "Where are you going, beauty?" she asked. "The beauty is going to go run some errands and maybe come back later." I replied.

I left the salon with one regret of not having a hidden camera somewhere on me.

The second salon I went to made me regret not having a voice recorder. A camera would not have worked well there. You are first met and lastly bid farewell by a burning smell and intense smoke. You see no one but could only hear voices of all music notes talking at the same time in the four by six meter shop. There was one fan in the middle and it looked as dizzy as everyone else, which strengthens your belief that a gas bomb has just been thrown in.

I walked in carefully trying not to stumble into anything or anyone and finally saw a place to sit down and wait for my turn. I heard a voice asking me "What do you need 'ya asal'?", honey.

I sat at the far end of the room. I was sure that whoever walked in could not see me sitting there because I did not see them. Five minutes later I started to choke on the smell and was about to leave after advising them to open a whole in the wall rather that buy the air condition they were talking about. Suddenly, a lady walked in and I instantly recognized her voice. She lives in apartment 13 on number 29. I live in apartment 12, same building. Her children are my brother's age, married with children.

She happened to be a regular customer and everyone knew her. She seated herself by the door and started talking and everyone laughed non stop throwing comments back at her to keep her jokes going.

- I'd like to change my hair blond and have blue eyes.
Do you want blue lenzez? We don't have any. Plus didn't you have it dyed black two weeks ago?
- Some sisters told me that religion says black dye is forbidden.
To be honest, it's all wrong and change in the way God created you. So it's all forbidden.
- But doesn't religion ask us to take care of our husbands? I wanna spoil the guy.
Yes, that's because you don't know how to spoil him any other way.
- You know nothing, girl. He doesn't leave my arms.
Because he's stuck.
- No, because he can't resist me. He doesn't even leave home. He sits there to look at me.
Really? Good for him.
- And I don't let him go out that often. He looks like .. what's his name that movie star? .. Oh, Hussein Fahmy?
So your husband has straight blond, with blue eyes, and an Italian mother.
- No, his mother passed away so I can't lie about her. Do you want shower gella? I have very good brands.
My husband says it's a waste of money.
- Of course it's not. If you get him used to doing this, he'll never let you buy anything you like. And shower gella is very good and smells beautiful. My children once thought it was mango juice and drank it. Anyway, I have to get going or the man feels lonely.
Stay with us, woman. Give the poor guy a break from you.
- Well, you'd better take care of your own man and leave mine alone. It's not because I told you he was Hussein Fahmy you start roaming around him.
Shut up. My husband is THE man. Keep yours to yourself.

Everyone in the shop was laughing out loud at everything she said. I do not know if this was because they liked her, thought she was ridiculous, or knew that her husband had afro hair and a belly bigger than three watermelons put together.

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.

Alicia and Caramel Sundae

I was once doing an exercise with my students to practice comparatives and superlatives. A question on the list was "What do you think is the best invention ever?" TV, microscope, X-ray, telephone, even hair brushes were among the answers. I had never thought about it. Today, I realized that the best invention ever is the MP3 player.

I took a cab this afternoon to go downtown. I told the cabbie where to go and put on my earphones. I keep on fallin in love with you Sometimes I love ya Sometimes you make me blue I didn't hear him honking and swearing at his colleagues and their donkeys on the street. Wow, even the weather is great.

"Sometimes I feel good
At times I feel used
Loving you darling
Makes me so confused"

I left the cab at Tahrir square. I walked across the crazy streets - i.e. jaywalked, with more confidence than ever. I didn't even look in the eyes of motorists while crossing. This must be how people feel when they get stoned. And no, I didn't get killed. I don't believe I'll ever die of stupidity.

Alicia keys keeps singing to me, and me only.

"I keep on fallin in and out of love with you.
I never loved someone way that I loved you"

It's President Mubarak's birthday and there were rumors some people might go on a strike or demonstrate downtown. Abviously not because he's still alive, but because they might want to seize such a happy occasion to say that they had "enough" and would like to be able again to buy ten, instead of two, loaves of decent bread for one pound. Therefore, as usual, huge bullet-proof cars packed with national security soldiers were parked around the square and side streets.

"Oh,oh,oh I never felt this way
How do you give me so much pleasure
And cause me so much pain"


Since they weren't allowed to leave the cars, soldiers climbed over each other in order to catch a glance of the hot chicks coming in and out of the busy McDonald's on the corner.

I grabbed a Caramel Sundae Ice Cream. On my way out they said something I couldn't hear. I smiled at them.
Just when I think I've taken more than would a fool I start fallin back in love with you I keep on fallin in and out of love with you
Crossed the street. Okay, sorry. Alicia and I jaywalked across the street. Her voice and caramel taste just the same.

"I never loved someone way that I loved you(oh baby)
oh,oh,oh,oh,ooooh(yeahyeah)"

I walked in the library and everyone looked bright, smart and smiley. Alicia had stopped singing and an Arabic song played. People were still smiling and everything seemed perfect except the unbearable urge I had to start dancing on top of the circulation counter.

On my List

Things I’ve been planning to start trying the possibility of the idea that I could one day be able to do are to

1- say no more often and wear high heels more often
2- get less angry with traffic in Cairo
3- try move my #$%^ and go to the gym
4- be less observant of the way Egyptian women behave and talk
5- do things rather than spending the time listing them
6- reverse without drawing a zigzag on the asphalt
7- listen longer to my aunt when she talks about her daughters
8- start drinking coffee for its taste rather than its smell
9- enjoy being a woman and quit wishing I were a guy
10- remember names more easily
11- stop wondering why men hassle girls on the streets of Cairo
12- put 30 liters of gas instead of 15 because I’ll add 15 more the day after anyway
13- stop writing a blog entry every time I’m swamped with work or study
14- pretend I didn’t hear someone judge people
15- buy myself flowers when I want to
16- either stop rocking when I daydream or start enjoying it
17- stop smelling clothes before putting them on
18- never smile when I lie and remember the lie later
19- stop pretending to be a camel and get thirsty sometimes
20- start realizing that I am actually Egyptian

Coach Nour of the Gym

It’s past midnight on one of Cairo’s unbearably hot summer days. There is no hope of any breeze to shake the light chiffon curtains. Lights are off, door has been left ajar to allow the corridor light to sneak in, and the fan on the ceiling has decided to stop working so they turn their clothes into fans. The poor bed always lovingly accommodates at least four and at times seven girls. After a lot of pushing, pinching, and bullying, they usually manage to fit their different sizes and shapes of feminine bodies into a talkative, laughing jigsaw puzzle.

‘Which one of you pigs has forgotten to wash her feet?’ their eldest and the only Egyptian cousin among them said.
‘SARAAAH!!’ two others shout.
‘I swear to God I’ve already washed them,... twice,’ she says with an unseen smile. She decides to go wash them again after her big sister shoves her off the bed. ‘Okay, buffalo, I’m going,’ she mutters.

‘Hmm .. busy night for you Egyptians, no?’
‘Yeah, it’s Thursday night.’
‘What do you mean? Stop it.’
‘No , this is a fact that we all know.’
‘And who are ‘we’?’
‘We Arabs!’
‘Begad? And I’m not Arab? I’m Egyptian, silly! Am I speaking Chinese now?’
‘I mean people who are not Egyptians know this about Egyptians. We know that your men make love to their women only on Thursday nights.’

One Palestinian, two Jordanians and one Egyptian. All five young ladies crack laughing out loud and express their total agreement with the rumor/information.

‘But these things don’t go by schedule, you know,’ the Egyptian tries to defend.
‘That’s what we think, not you. We Palestinians…, hmm, you can ask about us the whole Arab population and you’ll learn about the reputation of our men.’
'No, it's us, Jordaninas.'
'Jordanians are Palestinians originally, so it's the same.'
‘Oh, how about Uncle Ali’s son, I think he’s not that ... ...’
‘Well, he’s good at other things, you know!’
‘No.. but I still have to admit that Captain Nour of the gym is an exceptional case. God, that guy is a lamppost not a man!’
A long ohhhooo and laughter shake the bed and a loud whistle goes off.
‘You’ll never know. He looks something, but still he’s an Egyptian.’

Sarah heard the noise and came running back from the bathroom. ‘What are you laughing at? What have I missed?’
‘It’s Captain Nour.’
She pretended to have faint and threw her tall body across the other four. ‘Oh, Nour, my love,’ she sighs.
‘But you know what? Although I don’t believe it’s true, I still think they have the right to do it only once a week.’
‘Are you crazy? What about their women?’
‘Do you know how long most of them work everyday? They leave home around 6.30 in the morning, they may or may not come back for lunch and a quick nap then leave for their second job and stay out until around 12 am. What do you think they will do when they get home? ’
‘Probably drop dead.’
‘Yeah, and you blame them for a Thursday only.’
‘Oh poor guys, it’s good then there’s a Thursday even.’
‘Nooo, but not all of them.’
‘Why do you care anyway?’
‘Of course I do… I’m planning to get Nour for myself.’
‘No, he’s mine.’ ‘No, mine!’ ‘No, he's mine. He likes me.’

And they start pillow fighting without even realizing that Captain Nour of the gym works a double shift on Thursdays.

...

The best time to see your family is when you don’t want to see them. You receive an invitation on a short notice and you know you’d rather be home relaxing. Yet, you decide to go and be with them, for how often do you phone them, visit them or talk to them? You are positive you’ll regret it by the end of the day and that doesn’t dissuade you.

A winter apartment overlooking Lake Timsaah, Suez Canal, Fayed Town. It’s not summer yet but the temperature reaches 85. In front of you is an amazing view of the lake that you can’t wish to enjoy with 20 adults, 5 teenagers and 4 kids around. Not a single moment of silence.

Not a single moment of being left alone. They might possibly leave you alone if you just got a divorce or broke up and they thought you had a good reason to take a walk on your own. Other than that they just don’t see why on earth you would rather be sitting alone enjoying the peacefulness.

The only girl in the gathering and the closest to my age was an 18-year-old Mayda who came with her mom and fiancé. It was the first time to see her after the engagement and I was happy to say congratulations and give her a big warm hug. She’s a sweetheart. Oops, she’s not smiling and not sitting next to him. Hmm. “What’s up, Doodo? Where’s your man, girl?” I said teasingly. “No man, no shit. I don’t want to sit with him or talk to him,” she replied with a big smile brightening up her face and tears gleaming in her eyes.

Now I know how the rest of the day will go: men drinking tea, cracking pistachios, and talking politics… women gossiping, supervising work in the kitchen, and trying to get Doodo out of her misery! Tips on ‘the best way to treat your fiancé’ kept flying around the poor girl for over an hour. 'You silly, go sit next to him!' 'Girl, go ask the man if he wants tea or coffee!' 'Oh, do you want him to feel neglected and open up for another woman?' 'You, loser, there are no men around no more!'

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I suggested. She nodded and followed me.

Finally! ... A quiet wooden pergola with white benches all around. We sat next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, eyes fixed ahead. The lake lay tranquil in front of us. Nothing in the horizon but a couple of cargo ships moving as slow as snails. A little pedal boat stood silently not disturbing the water. It all felt like a scene of our lives has been paused on purpose.

... silence.

“Do you love him?” I asked her ... Silence.

“No.”

“Do you miss him sometimes?”

“No. He visits us everyday.” ... Silence.

“What’s the best thing you like about him?” No reply. “Ok. What do you talk about?”

“Nothing. He is always around and already knows what I’m doing. What shall I talk to him about? What made you suddenly decide to take off your veil?”

“I don’t know!” I replied with as astonishing speed ... Longer silence. “Listen. You're saying that your mom likes him. Ok then, let her marry him. You don’t love him, you don’t miss him, you don’t talk to him. Are you going to have kids with him using a remote control? Think carefully, girl. You’re still young.”

She smiles shyly and tells me what we both knew. Her mom is afraid there weren’t many men around these days and just wanted her to get married. At that moment I was glad I gave her my sincere advice. She started telling me an endless list of things he’d said and done. I listened to her with my eyes fixed on the three men in the pedal boat I could see through the rusty bars in front of us. I heard more than what she was saying. I heard her confused soul screaming for help. I heard her helpless heart calling for the right man to come and rescue her. I heard the mobile ring… they were telling us to come have lunch.