by Leila Rafei
So it could go either way. Either Fifi would help her find Yusuf, dead or alive—or she’d simply get dragged into jail as he had, leaving Jamila without her husband and now, without her pay.
But Jamila was already missing her pay. Fifi hadn’t paid her in weeks and she’d already spent the three hundred pounds that had come from Rose. Even in the throes of revolution, there were plenty of expenses. Rent, food, bus rides like these. She took out the last coin from her purse and held it in the palm of her hand, feeling the shape of King Tut’s face engraved in gilded metal. Now she was down to this final, sacred guinea. Parting wouldn’t be easy, but what choice did she have? It felt like gambling when she reached her stop, trudged to the front of the bus, and handed it to the driver. The only certainty was that the coin was now gone; uncertain was whether she’d return with the five hundred guinea she was owed.
All this time Jamila had been patient with Fifi, knowing her unreliability wasn’t malicious. It simply came with the territory of working for a fannana, an artist, as she fashioned herself. She was unlike anyone Jamila had ever known, and that was evident from the moment they met, when Fifi greeted her with a glee so extreme it seemed she might burst into tears the next second. Jamila knew, from a lifetime of ups and downs herself, that such feverish delight could only be felt by someone who knew its flipside. It was a bit, dare she say it, like the sunflower man of Kilo 4.5, who both loved and hated her with equal, simultaneous intensity. Neither emotion could exist without the other.
With her finger, she wiped a line through the film on the window, and in the sliver of clear glass she watched the city flit past—singed, ashen, upside down. Much had changed since Fifi came into her life, and much had not. The day they met seemed so long ago that it might as well be fictional, the memory too perfect, too neatly fortuitous to be true. What Jamila remembered, true or not, was that she met Fifi in an alley by El Fishawy, the same pace she met Yusuf—a place so thoroughly entwined with her fate that it must have appeared in her own coffee cups. Back then Jamila had just married, and her hands were covered in bridal henna from fingertips to elbows. Fifi grabbed her upon first sight. She remembered the warmth of her hand, the softness of weekly milk masks. Her nails were painted a cotton-candy pink. She wore a fur coat, which was obscene for more than one reason, and an old woman in opaque sunglasses hung on her arm. An aunt visiting from Dubai, she said, out looking for antiques in the old bazaar. Fifi ran her hot, clawed hand over Jamila’s cheek, marveling at her beauty—beauty that was black, she pointed out—and congratulated her on her marriage. As they talked, Jamila learned that Fifi’s grandmother was also Sudanese, the daughter of a camel trader who walked his herd to Beni Suef all the way from Khartoum. This woman in fur was really a simple girl from the banks of the Nile—and she seemed quite proud of it in the middle of the crowded bazaar, where she supposed it worked to her advantage in haggling cutlery.
Fifi was an odd woman, a very odd woman indeed. But when she invited Jamila for tea, she accepted. They shared the same Nile water in their blood, after all, and Jamila was in need of a mother-figure. What she found wasn’t quite that. She should have known better—it was all written in that overjoyed grin, held taut by surgically filled cheeks like a dam about to spill over.
*****
One afternoon tea turned into an invitation for work, and three years later, Jamila was entering the Shafik villa for the thousandth time. She left her shoes at the door and disrobed down to the braids on her head. Fifi always insisted she remove her hijab in her home. We’re all girls here, she said, sisters. She didn’t count her teenage son in the other room, though he was getting to the age that it was inappropriate.
Jamila had learned quickly that Fifi was more than just an aging eccentric—she was a big-time soap star. Faded portraits lined the walls documenting each serial’s theme. There was Fifi in Pharaonic headdress, Fifi in lace, Fifi in galabia, Fifi in black and white. Magazines bearing her image with headlines like: fifi shafik: belle of the nile, empress of afternoon soaps, 20th century cleopatra, oriental meryl streep. She was a megabeauty back in the day, with black hair running down to her famous, tireless rear-end. Now that hair was largely sewn onto her scalp, and the rump sagged but was still showcased in clingy ensembles. If Jamila didn’t know it was Fifi in those portraits, she would have never guessed—because for all the sequins and the hips, those kohl-rimmed eyes belonged to a different person. There was none of that gleam of insanity that she beamed nowadays, ever since her last divorce, when she—as she put it herself—cracked.
That morning, Jamila found the actress in one of her custom gowns—a long sheath of satin, bare at the shoulders, with two detached sleeves that hugged her arms like the intestinal casings of mombar mahshy. When she saw Jamila she slapped her hands on her face, nails purple now, and welcomed her with a mouth wide and bellowing, baring teeth streaked with lipstick.
“The internet is back, elhamdulilah.”
Thank God. This was important because Fifi had recently become famous online, rekindling the waning fame of her menopausal years. Each day she posted new pictures on social media, saying it was just business—fodder for her fans. But Jamila knew it had more to do with the divorce. Fifi was still recovering from an ex-husband who had left her for a friend from the Gezira Club. She couldn’t remember her name because Fifi only ever called her that woman. Mr. Shalaby was the third in a series of philandering husbands, but Fifi swore he was her soulmate, the one she loved most, the one she loved truly. The one who shook her bed like no other. He ate too much seafood, if you know what I mean. So, she gave him an ultimatum, either me or her, and when he didn’t exactly choose the first option (like most men, he wanted both), she delivered divorce papers the next day, making sure to wear her finest dress—a dress that had since been tossed out with their bedsheets. She cried all the way to her plastic surgeon, who plumped her face in some areas, pulled it taut in others. She spent the following weeks sleeping on Vicodin, dreaming of revenge. She would regale each dream to Jamila as she made the bed each morning, somehow with Fifi still in it. There was always a stage, there was always applause, and there was always Fifi, glittering in all her old glory. And Mr. Shalaby? He would eat shit. And then return to her.
When a friend said she spotted her son, Qandil, with a girl on the corniche, Fifi searched Facebook for evidence, excited at the prospect. Little Qandiloo was growing up. She hoped he picked a pretty one. But when she couldn’t log on—after trying every password she could think of, from his own name to that of the dog—she decided to just open her own account. It was easier than expected. What had she been waiting for? She typed in her name, Fifi Shafik, and added a photo of her prime, from a Ramadan serial called Bride of Kit Kat. Little Qandiloo blocked her swiftly, but she remained, finding more fun in it than mere snooping. Studios and producers could turn her down, critics could chuck paint at her image, but online, she could do whatever, whenever, and be the star she always was. She made her first post the day after Eid al-Fitr, and the response was so pleasing that she started posting weekly, and then daily, until she spent every minute thinking up her next. Each like felt like khat on her tongue, and the threshold of satisfaction grew higher until not even one hundred would please her. She never knew for sure if Mr. Shalaby was watching, but it was the off chance that he was that fueled her.
It wasn’t any of Jamila’s business, but at a certain point she had to step in—starting with the pills, which she replaced with Aspirin until Fifi grew so bored of the paltry effect that she forgot to take them altogether. She asked repeatedly for Jamila’s opinion until she warned her that this new hobby of hers wasn’t good for her. Fifi didn’t want to hear that, even though she was well aware that the reception of each posting would determine her mood for at least a day. If her fans liked it, she would beam and inform anybody she crossed of how many likes she’d received. One hundred, two hundred, five hundred—the numbers increased steadily, save for the occ
asional dud. Much of a photo’s popularity had to do with the dress she wore, and as such, the demand for new custom-made gowns grew unsated, and now she had so many they spilled into Qandil’s closet, which he accepted, helpless but for a roll of his eyes.
“What do you think, ya Jamila?”
Jamila looked up from her mop to find Fifi deliberating today’s post. She held an Egyptian flag before her, outstretched end to end as if she might use it as a prop. She was scrounging for ideas now that the revolution had stamped out any place for her posts—a problem she thought she might remedy by connecting herself to the news.
“Beautiful,” said Jamila, returning to mopping the floor.
Fifi knotted the flag around her bulbous hips and twirled before the mirror, stood up close and then backed away to the wall. Finally, she threw it off with a huff, still undecided. She switched on the television to satellite news—the only channel broadcasting from Tahrir—and said nothing but yalla to the youth amassed on screen.
Jamila wasn’t sure what Fifi thought about the protests. She seemed to thrive off the drama but wanted to get likes again. Yalla, she said, do your thing and leave, enough unrest. Yalla, there were clips to post, dinners to host. The studio had been closed for a whole week and she’d barely left the villa because of it. Fifi was so cut off that it didn’t even occur to her that she’d put Jamila in harm’s way by asking her to cross a city in mid-revolt to reach her, distended belly and all. But Jamila forgave her. Fifi just didn’t understand.
All she had really seen of the situation outside was that there were checkpoints at every intersection from one end of the island to the other. They terrified her. She said she had a phobia of guns due to a bad experience when she was younger, which set Jamila’s imagination reeling, though she didn’t ask for details and for once, Fifi didn’t offer any. It did occur to her that, for all the checkpoints, guns weren’t exactly new to the streets of Zamalek, where there were armed guards for each of the island’s fifty or so embassies. She suspected it was just Fifi’s excuse to avoid taking the dog out. She’d rather weather the odd indoor piss or shit than cross a single checkpoint.
Today Coco had spared her. In truth, Jamila looked forward to walking the dog. Even though Coco stank, and she preferred keeping contact to the absolute minimum—Jamila loved their outings, which not even a revolution could tarnish. She could walk the streets of Zamalek forever, all around the perimeter of the island and up and down its alleys, under the trees and along the Nile, well into oblivion until her legs gave out. But her legs couldn’t give out now. There was business to attend to—and walking Coco turned out to be the perfect cover.
Jamila clicked on Coco’s rhinestone-studded leash and took her to her favorite tree at the corner of Shagaret El Dor street. She let the dog take her time to sniff each piece of trash on the curb. Despite the litter, the air outside was delicious, smelling of leaves and not smoke. It felt like the first time she’d breathed in days. She even lifted her veil for a moment, as if she could taste the freshness on the tip of her tongue. The revolution was undetectable on that shady street, all its sound and smoke muffled by the thick canopies of trees. The only sign of it was the checkpoint at the end of the block, where a few men and boys sat around a dying bonfire. It was never not frightening to see armed men—even those wearing hair gel and house slippers, like these. Maybe Fifi’s fear of them was true after all.
Jamila tensed as they turned to look at her, and Coco must have felt it too, because she started to bark. She hushed the dog and waved at the men as if to excuse herself. To her relief the men waved back, never once rising from their posts.
She tugged Coco along in the direction of the corniche. She could have sworn she’d seen a Nilofone there once before. That side of the river was quiet, anyway, facing not Tahrir but Giza, where the peaks of the Pyramids hid behind clouds. Despite all the rusted billboards and the dilapidated slums in the distance, the water was so still and the city so silent that it looked like a painting. She and Coco passed the Nileside cafés where Fifi spent normal days lunching with better friends than the one who took Mr. Shalaby. Jamila wanted to climb over the fence and spend the day on a couch by the water. There was nobody there, after all. But not before she settled this Nilofone business. She decided she’d allow herself rest if she could get those phone records.
When at last Jamila found the Nilofone shop, she tied Coco to a bench and walked to the door. With each step, she tempered her hopes, telling herself there was no way and no reason it would be open. But to her surprise there was a light on inside and, as she got closer, an actual person hunched over the counter. He must have seen her glide up to the storefront, black swathes rippling in the breeze, but he kept his eyes on the inventory before him as if he hadn’t. Would she be better off removing the veil over her face? Those types of veils were unusual in that neighborhood, where women like Fifi Shafik walked the streets in high heels. Then again, showing her face would reveal her as a foreigner, and Sudanese at that. They’d never help her then.
She took deep breath and raised her fist to the glass, knocking softly until finally, the man looked up. He said something, but she couldn’t hear him through the glass. She got the message from his shaking head. No, sorry, we can’t help you, go home, give up. When she remained, he came to the door and opened it a crack, as if he were afraid she’d barge through.
The first thing he said wasn’t a word but a lengthy sigh, so furious it ruffled the tail of her veil. Then, the expected, “what do you want?”
And from her, the customary plea for help.
“Look, I’ve heard this story before. Your child is sick. He’s in the hospital. He needs a kidney transplant but you don’t have the money. If you don’t cough up fifty-thousand pounds for surgery then he will die. Die! And now it’s my fault that your son will die because there’s a cash register right in front of me, and in the middle of the revolution I could easily hand you the money and claim looters took it. But I won’t. You know why? Because I’ve heard these lies before. I won’t fall for your Sudanese tricks.”
Anger bubbled up from the pit of Jamila’s stomach, but she tried her best to quash it as she inched closer to the crack in the door. He needed to hear her—just hear her. She’d settle for just that. She took her phone out of her pocket and switched on the screen to show the Nilofone logo, blinking and bright.
“I don’t need money. I’m a customer, sir, and I need my records.”
“Why the hell do you need those?”
She didn’t know what to say. Should she explain everything right there, in the one-inch gap between the door and the wall? Where should she begin—Sudan? Yes, she fled as a refugee, settled in Cairo, was stalked by a sick man with sunflower seeds, changed her number, and filed for resettlement—only to find that it was that phone, and not the sunflower man, that would determine her fate. She didn’t know what came over her when she finally opened her mouth.
“I’m the widow of a martyr,” she said, cringing at the sound of her own words. “Please help me.”
The man huffed and took the phone, then he shook his head briskly. “Only headquarters can help you. You’ll need to go to Mohandeseen.”
“What?”
“I said Mohandeseen.” He stuck his skinny arm through the gap and pointed across the river, where the headquarters stood, ready and able to help her. Supposedly.
Jamila walked back to Coco, untethered her and made her way back to Fifi’s, no longer in the mood to take rest at that deserted café. Seventy-seven more to go.
*****
The house was unusually quiet when Jamila returned. No music, no Fifi. All she could hear was the television and the sound of frenetic tapping on videogame controllers coming from Qandil’s bedroom. She left the leash on the entryway console, where it joined a half-empty glass of wine, lips imprinted in pink gloss. On the floor there were two furry slippers—the presence of which, without
Fifi’s feet, seemed ominous. Jamila put them back in the closet, noticing how tiny they were. Fifi was just a mortal, a village girl after all.
She walked down the corridor, Coco trailing, until she reached the bedroom door. She pushed it open to find Fifi engulfed in white tulle and ribbon. As Jamila turned to greet her, she realized that it wasn’t just any dress, but her wedding dress, veil and all, tufts of white cascading to the floor like whipped cream.
“Jamila. People are getting married in the middle of Tahrir. Can you believe it?” She pointed to the TV, which showed marchers moving in waves swaying to and fro like the tide, banners held high, and in the center of it all—a bride and groom trading rings in the crowd. “Everyone loves a bride, don’t they, ya Jamila? And a dancing bride?” She twirled before the mirror, threw her hands in the air, and praised God in her own honor, mashallah. Just then, something ripped. She spun around, contorting her arms to reach the zipper of the dress.
Jamila approached cautiously, as if any slight movement might rip every ruffle to shreds. Time hadn’t been kind to Fifi’s physique—even her third and most recent wedding dress was not having it with her new shape, and the zipper gaped over the soft rolls of her back. She tugged lightly at the fabric, careful not to catch her skin, which was warm and dewy, about to break a sweat.
“Khalas, just cut it,” she said, fanning herself.
Slowly, as if waiting for her to change her mind or somehow wriggle free herself, Jamila took a pair of scissors and snipped away the caught fabric.
Fifi gave a long ahhhhhh as she released her belly to go where it pleased. She sank into the couch with a plop, tufts of gown rising all around her like petals in bloom. “God has spoken, ya Jamila. Jamila?”
“Yes, Miss Fifi,” she said, propping up her leg to sweep glitter off the floor.