by Leila Rafei
“Who’s that?”
“Shhhh.”
She slapped Ayah’s fingernails out of her mouth. Shhh? The girl had nerve.
Suad settled into the couch as the bespectacled man began to speak. Suddenly, he didn’t look so dignified. To her, at least. You are the owners of this revolution. Revolution? Somebody ought to shoot her dead right then. These hooligans in Tahrir couldn’t be trusted to tuck in their shirts, let alone lead a . . . a . . .
“In-sur-rection,” said Ayah, proud to use her word of the day.
What we have begun cannot go back.
Suad swallowed the lemon rind and felt it sink slowly down her throat, inch by inch, word by horrific word. Whoever this man was, he needed to shut his mouth before kids like Sami and Ayah heard. They were foolish, impressionable. Especially Sami, God protect him. He would follow his friends off a cliff if they thought there was so much as a Kinder Egg on the other side. The thought that she couldn’t reach him at all while there were people out there screaming rubbish into microphones in the same streets he walked in Cairo—well, it was too much to bear. Suad’s throat tightened as breaths struggled to get out. She took a sip of tea thinking it would help, but all it did was drown her, rushing into her throat like the river tide.
Tea could do nothing to calm Suad now. Nothing could. All those words of solace she’d always told herself—that everything would be fine—had proven to be false, zilch, meaningless. Everything was not fine. The realization filled her with a bitterness that no amount of sugar cubes could fix, though she tried, stirring a fourth helping into her tea.
*****
As the night marched onward, Suad heard the tut-tut of Nagwa’s cotton wheel starting up again. She slammed the window shut, making sure to be as loud as possible. Some things were perfectly normal tonight, and that was absurd.
As absurd as Mahmoud calling twice in one day.
She almost choked on her tea when his name appeared yet again on her screaming phone. She had to look twice to make sure she’d read it correctly. No, it wasn’t her uncle Ahmed, nor was it Yasser the trash man, who shouldn’t have her number, anyway, but she wouldn’t be surprised. Her hands shook around the phone, which vibrated to match. There he was, her husband, calling twice in one day. On the last ring, she took a deep breath and answered in a sweet, syrupy voice.
“What’s gotten into you, Mahmoud? Do you miss us here in Mahalla?” She stood up with the phone—it was the kind of call that demanded she be on her feet and at attention, ready for whatever bad news her husband had in store for her. Certainly not reclining on the couch.
“What, I can’t call my wife when I want to?”
There was violence in the laugh he delivered back to Suad. It enraged her. How dare he laugh. How dare he call her his wife. How dare he reveal that happy, rootless tone that could only mean one thing—he was mocking her in the presence of another woman. Maybe that woman was beside him at that very moment, wearing a silken nightgown, listening in and cracking jokes at his aged wife back in poor old Egypt. She was sure they had a nice, plush bed out there in Dammam, and a stable full of maids and hot water from the taps and cold air from vents in the walls. She asked him if he had her on speaker phone, but he said he did not, though the connection sounded off to her ears.
Mahmoud moved on quickly though, as he always did.
“Have you heard anything from Sami?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Why don’t you try calling him yourself? I’ve been calling all day. The phones are still out.”
“Look, ya Suad. I’ve been busy out here in Dammam. Barrel prices are through the roof and I’m losing a fortune each second I spend relaxing. I only have a minute to talk tonight and I chose to talk to you. I could have . . .”
“Could have what?”
“Never mind. Anyway, stay safe out there. Keep Ayah at home. Find Sami, please. I’m going to try to come next week.”
“Next week?” Suad was gripping the phone so hard there was sweat between her fingers.
“I need to be in Egypt right now.”
“How convenient, all of a sudden you need her and will get her.”
Mahmoud grumbled but didn’t change his plans. He requested a big plate of molokhiya ready for when he came home from the airport. She was also to buy a case of pomegranate soda and fresh tobacco for his pipe. Suad felt nauseated at just the thought of that pipe, and his foul, sullen mood when he smoked.
Feeling hot, she opened the window above the couch. A dog barked in the darkness outside. After hanging up, she returned to the couch and switched on MisrTV, which was much more reliable than whatever donkey dung Ayah had been watching.
Ayah snapped out of her daze. “Baba’s coming?”
Suad swatted at her but hit only air. “Shhh, the news.”
She fixed her eyes on the television screen, hoping to submerge the sour aftertaste of that phone call in the square jaws and smooth voices of late-night anchors. But all she could hear was Mahmoud, the audacity and violence of his cheerful tone. I need to be in Egypt now. Bah! How generous of him to bestow his presence upon them for the first time in what—a year? The one thing she had on him—the one thing that gave her a tinge of satisfaction—was that she was in Egypt, where this so-called revolution was taking place without him.
Suad turned up the volume, in search of any word at all from Cairo. But the news made no mention of the protests at all, which only worried her more. It must be really bad. “Ayah,” she said, uneasy with the sound of her voice as she asked, “have you heard anything from Tahrir?” She took another sip of tea to wash down the word, Tahrir—just uttering it made all the hysteria more real.
Ayah beckoned Suad to the computer. Cautious, she inched closer. As Suad watched over her daughter’s shoulder, she gasped, blinked, bit the inside of her lip. She tried to find something redeemable in the unrest, something to boast to her husband upon his return. But as expected, in Tahrir there were only hooligans, young men with too much time on their hands and too little money in their pockets. Instead of spending their Friday at the mosque, they chose to set cars on fire and run like wild animals through the streets, screaming in the faces of police officers who defended the city. The protesters almost looked foreign to her, Afghan perhaps, and she asked Ayah if they were indeed Egyptian.
“Can’t you hear them? Hold your head up, you are Egyptian.”
And the thought that these were locals was somehow even more disturbing. Egyptians, just like her Sami. Oh, if she could only get to Cairo. She felt her pockets for spare change, but she had none. All the banks had been closed for days. The only way to get there was by car. Suad didn’t know how to drive and had never particularly wanted to. Until now.
Ayah slid her fingernails into her mouth again, but this time Suad let her. As the girl sat entranced, Suad slipped out of the house in search of the old Peugeot. She could see its shadow in the dark, sitting in its decades-old spot under a pair of Siamese-twin banana trees, one dead and one flourishing. In her haste, she rammed her toe into the tire and set off the alarm. It rang out for a few torturous seconds until, with her good foot, she gave the old tin box a kick and it stopped.
The night settled back into its proper silence. Through the kitchen window, Suad could see Ayah right where she left her, the “revolution” too transfixing, apparently, to hear the alarm. Mashallah. If only she could apply that focus to her chores.
Mahmoud had left the car behind as a gesture of so-called goodwill, though if you asked Suad, she was the one with the goodwill for taking in his junk. That’s what it was, after all. The old thing broke down so often she gave up driving it years ago, and now the only one who ever sat behind its wheel was Ayah, who seemed to have better luck for some reason. She had always refused Ayah’s offers for help, thinking it pathetic to need a child’s aid to do a thing as silly as that. To drive?
Just put your foot on the pedal and turn the wheel! How hard could it be? But tonight, as Suad found her way into the front seat, she wished she had accepted the offer just once—if only to know which key would start the car.
Suad ticked off the keys she recognized as she fumbled before the ignition. There was the key to the house, the key to the grove’s gate, the key to Sami’s dorm room, the key to her parents’ house in Abu Radhi. Each dangled from its own trinket, keychains of the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and a calligraphic Allah. When she realized the key for the ignition was the same one that had unlocked the door, she let out a satisfied a-ha. She turned on the car, spirits soaring, on the road at last. But a loud beep struck her down. There wasn’t a drop of gas left in the tank.
Before returning inside she sat for a while in the front seat just to grip the steering wheel a bit longer. It was bigger than she’d imagined, and she had to strain to see over it. She wished more than anything to speed straight down to Cairo, queen of the road, over the river and into Zamalek where she could find her son safe and sound. And alone. Inshallah.
7
Jamila was elbow deep in dishwashing suds when she heard a phone ringing down the hall. Not again. She waited for the ringing to stop, but of course, it didn’t—Sami had stepped out, Rose was napping, and the mother on the other line was disturbingly persistent. When Jamila couldn’t take it anymore, she threw down the sponge and went looking for the phone. She shook her head as she picked it up off the bedroom floor.
The regime had finally restored service—calls only—but it seemed Sami didn’t care. The phone was never on him, never answered. She was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t an accident. One would think the service reconnection would make him cling to his mobile, never let it out of his sight, like she did with hers. One would think he wouldn’t leave the little thing on the floor like a dirty sock, letting it ring unattended while he was out running errands. Then again, what did thinking have to do with anything nowadays?
On the screen flashed the caller. Ummi. As expected, it was his mother again. It still felt like lying to watch the phone ring, over and over, and to not do a thing to answer. It was right in front of her. With just a click, Jamila could say hello, explain Sami’s whereabouts, and soothe his mother’s worries if at least for the time being. But it wasn’t any of her business. She set the phone on the dresser facedown, as if it made it less impolite to ignore, and got back to her chores in the kitchen.
Work was plentiful that day anyway. Crusty dishes and junk food wrappers peppered countertops, and black grime coated every nook—particularly by the windows, which Rose and Sami seemed to have left open during the protests, as if trying to let in the smoke. All the mess was the result of a week of canceled classes and nowhere to go. Nowhere but Tahrir, that is. But the only sign of any involvement on their part was a pair of soot-stained jeans in the laundry hamper. They were Sami’s. It was confusing. She could sooner picture Fifi Shafik in Tahrir, where at least she might find opportunity for photos, a dramatic new backdrop to tally up likes. But Sami? He looked particularly morose lately. There were more empty cartons of cigarettes in the trash, and the apartment stank even stronger of hashish. He barely seemed to muster enough energy to get off the couch, let alone march in the street.
Jamila almost yelped when Rose walked into the kitchen, behind her.
“I’m all cooped up,” she said, yawning. She placed an empty coffee cup in the sink and looked back at Jamila as if awaiting a response. But Jamila couldn’t even figure out if it was a complaint. Cooped up. To her, staying in was far preferable to getting outside these days, but she had no choice. There were seventy-eight other Nilofone shops to locate, and two other employers with houses in the same disheveled, restless state. There was no time to rest—and certainly not as much as Rose, who seemed to need even more of it the less she had to do. Jamila had never slept that much. Not even back home in Omdurman, where she and her siblings stayed up late to enjoy cool nights, and mornings rose early to the crowing of chickens. It must be because of the pregnancy. She stiffened at the memory of the little white stick in the trash as she swept the kitchen, the broom heavy, the floor like thick mud.
“I’m not sure if I told you,” said Rose, standing by the door. “On Thursday we’re going to the Sinai, so we’ll be out of town for a few days.”
Jamila stopped sweeping. For days, the woman hadn’t ventured outside for so much as a bottle of water and yet, she saw fit to go on vacation. In the middle of all this . . . this whatever-was-happening. Rose had already seemed detached from reality when she was complaining of rest. Now she seemed as reckless as a Molotov cocktail soaring across Ramses Street—the same street she would brave to travel to the one place more dangerous, Sinai, which had been lawless even before the protests, a deathtrap for many Sudanese who tried to cross the border for asylum, only to be held hostage for whatever petty ransom they could get. The rumors had traveled all the way back to Omdurman, but she never believed them until she got to Cairo, where such stories were commonplace in that narrow little intake room at St. Fatima’s.
Granted, Rose was white and not black, an expat and not a refugee. But the Sinai was still dangerous—far more than she understood. It wasn’t Jamila’s place to speak, but she felt that she must.
“It’s unsafe, dear.”
“Maybe. But it can’t be any worse than here, right?”
Jamila returned her attention to the floor to keep herself from shouting. Rose seemed to notice. From the corner of her eye, she could see Rose’s gaze drop to the tiles, following the broom strokes.
“Look, I get it. It’s not the smartest move in the world. But we booked this trip months ago. And you know, it’s my birthday. The protests are exciting and all, but it’s no way to celebrate.”
“I understand,” said Jamila, though she didn’t. There was no stopping Rose. She was a glass bottle heading straight for a concrete wall.
“You’re welcome to stay in the apartment while we’re gone.”
It took a second to process this strange, unwanted invitation. Stay there? As if she lived there? As if it were her key that fit the lock? She looked up to the ceiling, where ornate moldings swirled around a crystalline light fixture. The apartment was a palace compared to her cinderblock room in Kilo 4.5, but that wasn’t the point. Nobody wanted to sleep in somebody else’s bed—no matter how plush and comfortable it was compared to the flattened mat that awaited her tonight.
“Please, Jamila. It’s safer for you in this big building. You can chain the entrance shut, bolt the doors. Abu Ali is usually here, so long as the pharmacy is open. And you won’t have to travel as far to get to work. The other houses you clean are in Dokki and Zamalek, right? Practically a couple of skips across the river.” When Jamila still didn’t respond, Rose took a breath and continued. “It’s safer for us too. You know, you don’t want to leave your house empty with all these looters running around.”
Alright, Jamila nodded. Now that Rose had revealed the offer was more of a favor, she felt more appropriate accepting. There would be no debt to repay. Besides, Jamila was used to making herself uncomfortable in order to comfort others—it was part of her job. She watched a grin spread over Rose’s face, like daylight. It felt good to please her, to do as she wanted, because she sensed she was the only one doing so as of late.
“We leave the day after tomorrow,” Rose said, still smiling. “I’ll leave the keys under the doormat for you—and please, make yourself at home. My house is your house.”
Jamila thought they were done talking but Rose lingered in the kitchen, making herself a cup of coffee. Nescafe this time, no cardamom—they were out of the good stuff. While the water boiled, she could feel Rose’s eyes on her belly, a word screaming to leave the tip of her tongue. At last she spoke.
“Jamila.”
“Yes?” She set down the soapy dish in her hand and turned off the faucet, anticipating some
thing serious, judging from Rose’s uncharacteristic caution.
“When you read my coffee cup the other night . . .”
Jamila sighed, reaching for the faucet again.
“Did you see anything about a baby?”
This time she let the water run. “No,” she said, shaking her head with a touch too much vigor. No she did not—she’d seen nothing of the sort, not in the coffee cup, not in the trash.
“Like, not ever?”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Oh.”
As Rose reached for a mug from the cabinet, her T-shirt shifted to reveal a sliver of flat stomach. No sign of pregnancy yet. Soon it would be unavoidable, the question pointless. Hopefully by then she and Sami would be married, if only for the sake of appearances. Jamila hated the thought of Rose with a big belly and no ring on her finger. She didn’t know what came over her when she blurted, without thinking, as if it was any of her business, as if they were the friends Rose so badly wanted them to be, “Do you think you two will get married?”
Rose’s eyes fell into her coffee cup as she stirred in powdered creamer. She took a deep breath as if she were about to speak but cut herself off—as if her tongue cramped up in that moment, as if a gust of ashen air had caught her throat in a stranglehold. She looked like she wanted to run off to the bedroom, leaving Jamila in the kitchen unanswered, in equal need to disappear. But Rose would never do that. So she took a sip of coffee, licked the foam off her upper lip, and looked straight at her. “I don’t know,” she said. Her eyes, though, said otherwise.
*****
Jamila had thought it was foolish to venture out in search of food. She told Sami as such, in the best way she could, when he expressed his revolutionary idea to go grocery shopping after a week of subsisting on little else but canned fava beans. Now he thought of that? As if days of fire and carnage had spurred him, finally, to seek basic sustenance. As if somewhere in that ashen city, there existed an open shop, or at least a stray vegetable cart. Jamila certainly hadn’t seen one. When she peeked into Alfa Market that morning, there was nothing but a cracked jar of Président cheese rolling on the floor, unwanted by looters who’d wanted everything else: water and soda (fuel for protesters), bread and cookies (for the street children), even laundry detergents and broomsticks (items made irresistible by the free-for-all). So, she wasn’t optimistic about what Sami would find, especially with his phone left behind yet again. He had no idea how far he would have to journey to find a single loaf of bread. To her surprise, though, he came back hours later bearing groceries like gifts in his arms.