A Pure Heart

by Rajia Hassib

  She could not believe how easily Fayrouz was giving all of this up, how easily she was leaping into a marriage that would inevitably take her away from her country.

  She could not believe how easily Fayrouz was giving her family up.

  Selfish of her, she knew, to mourn her loss instead of rejoicing in her sister’s gain, as she should be doing. Childish and foolish, considering how marred her relationship with Fayrouz already was. She and her sister weren’t best friends anymore anyway. That damage was done exactly two years and four months ago, when Gameela had put on the head scarf that magically, instantaneously transported her closer to God and away from her family, which was as fervently devoted to its secularism as any religious fundamentalist was to God. Suddenly she was not Gigi, who loved detective stories and pop music and spent hours whispering secrets to her sister at night—she was just Gameela: the Covered One; the Pious One; the One Who Is Judging All. The Other. That was how her family now saw her. That was a complication of her hijab that she had not foreseen.

  Crossing the Qasr El-Nil Bridge, she stopped halfway across the Nile and leaned against the wrought-iron railing, looking down at a floating restaurant anchored close by. She wished it were nighttime, so that she could enjoy the sight of the illuminated city and of the floating restaurants decorated with string lights. Cairo, at night, seemed cleaner. Less dusty. Cairo, at any time of the day, welcomed her with a much warmer embrace than anyone in her family did anymore, the city’s streets dotted with hijabis and women in tank tops, all cohabiting in a peace that her family still couldn’t find. A peace that Gameela now found only at Marwa’s.

  Slowly, Gameela made her way toward the streets of Garden City, taking her time so that she did not arrive at her friend’s apartment too early in the day for a visit. Once she arrived at the old neighborhood with its curvy roads, home to many foreign embassies, she continued walking in the shadow of the old villas and spacious apartment buildings and the newer, colossal office buildings that jutted in between them where other villas once stood. She arrived at Marwa’s street a few minutes before ten, and, convinced that a visit in the double digits was more appropriate, stood in the crevice of one of the building’s entryways, passing the time.

  Marwa’s apartment building, taking up almost an entire block, was beautiful. Balconies dotted its façade, their handrails supported by elegant marble balusters, their shapes echoed by Corinthian columns that, on some floors, surrounded the larger balconies, their crowns connected by delicately carved arches. The building dated back to the early twentieth century and boasted the typical high ceilings, a spacious, marble-tiled entryway, and stairways so wide that Gameela, Marwa, and Marwa’s younger brother, Mustafa, could all walk up the stairs side by side. The kitchen in the Tawfiks’ apartment opened to an atrium that in older, richer days used to be populated by servants walking up and down the metal stairs, hanging up clothes to dry on the various lines strung off the one continuous balcony that surrounded the enclosure, or chitchatting while they took out the garbage. When they were kids, she, Marwa, and Mustafa used to play hide and seek in that same atrium, much to Aunt Ameera’s alarm. She would chase after them, warning them of ill-maintained balconies eaten by rust, so decrepit that the kids risked plunging to their deaths if they didn’t get back in there right now! How Gameela loved that building—old and beautiful, despite the wrinkles that time carved onto it, with an air of bygone wealth that seemed exquisitely Egyptian.

  The entire building belonged to Ameera’s family, but, because of fixed rent laws that were set half a century ago and then never changed, the apartments that were rented out back in the 1960s had remained, stubbornly and irrevocably, in the possession of the families that had rented them. The owners of the building were not allowed to terminate the contracts or raise the rent, which meant that the current inhabitants of most of those apartments were the children or grandchildren of the original renters and paid a now nominal fee of twenty-two pounds per month for four-bedroom dwellings located in one of Cairo’s most coveted neighborhoods. Marwa and Mustafa often ranted about the injustice of those laws—if they could only raise the rent to the actual market value or, better yet, sell the entire building, they would be millionaires. Instead, they controlled only their apartment and their cousin’s, one story above, and could do nothing but glare at their neighbors, who, according to Marwa, were all thieving crooks, even if protected by the law.

  Glancing at her watch, Gameela started her slow walk up the stairs to Marwa’s apartment, rang the bell, and a moment later found herself violently pulled by the arm into the large foyer.

  “What took you so long?” Marwa asked, kicking the door shut.

  “It’s barely ten in the morning!”

  “You texted an hour ago and said you were coming over. I called three times! I thought the cabdriver kidnapped you.”

  “I had my phone on silent. And I walked.” Gameela smiled.

  “Putting your phone on silent negates the entire purpose of carrying a cell phone, doesn’t it?”

  “Not if your purpose is to reach people but not allow them to reach you!”

  Marwa rolled her eyes. “Mama!” she shouted. “Gameela is here.”

  Aunt Ameera’s head popped out of the hallway leading to the kitchen.

  “Gigi, habibti,” she said, blowing Gameela a kiss. “Welcome. Breakfast will be ready in a minute.”

  * * *

  —

  AN HOUR AND a hearty breakfast later, Gameela lay on Marwa’s bed, her back resting against the headboard, her friend sitting across from her, both knees hugged close to her chest.

  “So you were right. It’s actually happening,” Marwa said.

  Gameela nodded. “Official and with my parents’ blessings. They are getting married.”

  Marwa shrugged. “Good for her. If he converted, you can’t fault her.”

  “It’s not just that. How can she leave the country so easily?”

  “Are you kidding? Half of Egypt wants to leave the country.”

  “But what if this is part of his appeal? You know—a life in America.” Gameela pronounced “America” with an exaggerated, deep growl.

  “I’d take that, to be honest.” Marwa leaned over and grabbed a brush from the top of the dresser, running it through her long, thick, black hair, which she then weaved into a French braid as she spoke. “I’d marry him, go to the U.S., and live in a house on a cul-de-sac with a large fenced yard. Get two dogs and play yoga. And go out with my friends—who will all look like Jennifer Aniston—for lunch in New York while on break from my job in a shiny high-rise.”

  “You watch too many American movies.”

  “And you don’t, Miss I’m-Obsessed-with-Mystery-Series?” She tossed the brush back onto the dresser, where it landed with a clank. “But seriously, why is this upsetting you so?”

  Gameela looked down at her lap, wrapping the edge of her scarf around her finger and unwrapping it again. “I don’t know. I just hope she’s doing the right thing. I’m afraid she’s so swept up in the romance of it all that she is not considering it carefully enough.”

  “Talk to her about it, then.”

  “I tried. Yesterday. But all I could think of saying was to ask if he was a true Muslim or if he converted only to marry her, and she lashed out at me.”

  Marwa winced. “I would have, too.”

  “It’s a perfectly legitimate concern!”

  “Yes, but it’s one you cannot possibly test. Unless you are secretly in possession of a lie-detector machine, like Robert De Niro in Meet the Parents.” Marwa chuckled. “And what’s in his heart is none of your business anyway. As long as he says he is a Muslim, he is a Muslim. The rest is between him and God.”

  “I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. Sometimes I feel like I play into the role they all put me in just to spite them. The religious one and all.”

 
“You are religious, which is perfectly okay. And they don’t put you in any role. You’re just being too sensitive, Gigi.”

  Gameela glared at her friend. “My father calls me hajjah.” She was surprised to hear her voice crackling at the title given to women who perform the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. A title often used to address grandmothers in black shawls regardless of their level of religiousness. An honorary title when used to address older women; a sarcastic jab at her.

  “You know your father,” Marwa said softly. “He’s just teasing you.”

  Reaching over to the nightstand, Gameela grabbed a tissue, blew her nose. “Your father never calls me that. He was okay with my hijab, even though no woman in your family wears it.”

  “My father takes liberalism to the extreme.” Marwa stretched her arms, first to the right, then to the left, pulling at her wrist with her opposite hand. “He’d have the exact same reaction whether I walked out of the house in a bikini or covered head to toe in a black abaya. ‘The girl is free to dress any way she wants,’” she imitated her father, her voice low, soft, melodic.

  Gameela laughed.

  “And Fayrouz is free to do what she wants, too,” Marwa added, reaching over and placing her hand on Gameela’s. “You need to accept that, habibti.”

  * * *

  —

  ON HER WALK BACK HOME, Gameela chanted her friend’s advice, a mantra of tolerance: I need to accept my sister’s choices. I need to accept my sister’s choices. She was perfectly aware that she had not fully confided in Marwa, that she was embarrassed to admit how much of her reaction was rooted in her own needs. Absentmindedly, she lifted one hand and tucked a loose strand of hair back under the edge of her head scarf. So much of faith as she understood it lay in a constant struggle to improve oneself, in the true meaning of jihad as an ongoing striving to be better, to do better, to let go of egotistic, selfish notions, to strive to be the best person one can be, a truly good person, a kindhearted, pure person. But the harder she tried, the more aware she became of how elusive true goodness was. She had to do better than this. Crossing the bridge again on her way back home, she chanted a new mantra: Stop being childish and self-centered. Stop being childish and self-centered. Stop being childish and self-centered.

  At home, the apartment buzzed with life. Nora walked around puffing up throw pillows, dusting shelves and figurines, and picking up stray books and magazines. Fayrouz vacuumed the living room, and Ahmed sat out on the balcony, apparently trying to stay out of everyone’s way. Hosna, the elderly lady who had served Gameela’s family for the previous two decades as nanny, maid, and all-around helper, was in the kitchen, pots, pans, chopping blocks, and knives all clicking under her capable hands.

  “You’re back. Good,” Nora said when she heard the front door close. “Can you please set the table? Mark is coming over for dinner.”

  Gameela pulled a tablecloth out of the dining-room cabinet, then put it back in and dug deeper for the nice, hand-embroidered one that her mother had bought during her trip to India a few years earlier. The tablecloth, a delicate cream with miniature burgundy flowers that matched the dining-room walls, had been clumsily shoved in place after its last use, and rivers of creases ran through it. Gameela, determined to do her best—I need to accept my sister’s choices—carried it to her room, set the ironing board up, and carefully pressed it, maneuvering around the delicate flowers, spraying the creases and going over them again and again until the cloth relaxed in immaculate smoothness.

  She didn’t notice Fayrouz standing at the door, watching her.

  “It looks perfect, Gigi. Thank you.”

  Gameela looked up. The sound of her nickname pushed a lump up her throat, and she swallowed to clear it. “No problem, habibti.”

  “Here. Let me carry it with you so that it doesn’t get creased again on the way to the dining room.”

  Each sister holding two corners, they carefully lifted the tablecloth. Walking backward, Fayrouz stepped out of the room and down the narrow hallway toward the front of the apartment.

  “Mama is in full entertainment mode,” Fayrouz whispered. “She’s been ordering me around for the past two hours. She even called Hosna and had her run over here on a Friday, can you believe it? I kept telling her Mark is not expecting a meal, but she won’t have it.”

  “You know how Mama is. She just wants to make you proud.”

  Entering the dining room, Fayrouz walked around the table and held the cloth high. Gameela did the same, and for a moment the sisters looked at each other under the cloth.

  “You know what that reminds me of?” Fayrouz asked.

  “The bedsheet tent.” Gameela smiled. Fayrouz laughed, and they lowered the cloth down and over the table that, as kids, they used to cover with a bedsheet, turning the space below it into their supposedly secret hideout.

  They centered the tablecloth and together set the table, pulling the plates of fine china out of the cabinet, setting the silverware, the crystal glasses, the napkins folded in neat triangles. Once done, they stood at the door to the dining room, examining the finished product.

  “Looks okay to me,” Fayrouz said.

  Gameela nodded.

  They remained in place, not looking at each other, not moving.

  Gameela looked at her feet, waited, hoped that her sister would say something, that she would tell her how much she would miss her, once she was married, how much she wished she did not have to move away.

  “I think I’ll go see if Mama needs help in the kitchen,” Fayrouz said instead.

  Gameela, nodding, did not look up.

  Stop being childish and self-centered.

  Stop being childish and self-centered.

  Stop being childish and self-centered.

  * * *

  —

  AS SHE HAD EXPECTED, Mark was charming. A bunch of long-stemmed pink roses for the hostess; smiles and eye contact and a general air of oozing happiness; infatuated gazes at Fayrouz whenever she spoke; an awed hush in his voice as he officially asked Ahmed for his daughter’s hand in marriage, beaming at the acceptance that he knew was coming; a reverent look in his eyes as he looked down and recited al-Fatihah, the one-paragraph Qur’an chapter that was traditionally read to seal an engagement and which he did seem to know by heart (Gameela watched him, listened to him recite it); then, over dinner, immediate, witty comebacks to all her father’s jabs; even a trip to the kitchen after dinner and a heavily accented “El-akl momtaaz; shokran!”—Food was excellent; thank you!—directed at Hosna, who stood giggling like a child. By the time they all returned to the living room for tea and dessert, Gameela was reluctantly, unbelievably, starting to think that he just might be okay.

  In the yellowish light of the two tall table lamps on either side of the sofa where he sat next to Rose, Mark glowed, his whiteness and blondness emitting a golden sheen that obviously blinded her parents.

  That was the first thing that bothered Gameela: how nervous her parents were. How complimentary. How eager to please the American, who, rightfully, was also trying to please them and should not have been catered to with such overbearing civility.

  “So how can you handle all our spicy food? Rose tells me you love koshari! How come? Even I can’t handle the spices,” Nora said, her laugh a bit too shrill.

  “Oh, that doesn’t bother me at all. I’m used to the spices. I grew up eating spicy jerky and venison smothered in chili.” Mark laughed.

  “You eat deer?” Gameela, thinking of Bambi, shuddered at the thought.

  “Yes. West Virginia has an enormous deer population. One deer can feed an entire family for a pretty long time.”

  “They actually hunt them with bow and arrow—isn’t that interesting? Like Robin Hood,” Fayrouz said.

  “Fascinating!” Nora replied.

  “Sounds like a good sport,” Ahmed chimed in, leaning back in
his chair. He sounded inexplicably British. Gameela half expected him to pull out a pipe from the pocket of his blazer and start tapping it on the side table, even though he didn’t smoke.

  “It’s really quite environmentally friendly, if you think about it. People hunt their own deer, prepare it for storage, and freeze it, bypassing all the commercial meat-processing facilities.”

  “Wouldn’t it be great if people cared about the environment that much here, honey?” Nora asked Ahmed.

  “I’m sure they will once they can stop worrying about day-to-day survival,” Gameela said.

  “What are you talking about, Gameela?” her mother asked, smiling, tilting her head a bit to the side.

  “Poverty? Survival? It’s easy to be critical of people’s attitudes toward the environment here, but this is a poor country. Very few Egyptians are as lucky as we are,” Gameela said, waving a hand at their general surroundings. “You can’t think of the environment when you’re busy thinking about how you’re going to feed your kids tonight.”

  “Gameela is a champion of the poor and downtrodden,” Ahmed chimed in.

  “No, I’m not,” Gameela murmured. Her father’s tone reminded her of the way he pronounces his derisive nickname for her—hajjah Gameela.

  “It’s okay if you are, Gameela,” Fayrouz interjected. “Mark has written many articles about Egypt’s poor. He knows exactly what you are talking about.”

  “Does he?” Gameela asked.

  “I don’t pretend to know as much as you do, of course. I’ve only lived here for a few years. But I have been around many of Cairo’s neighborhoods. I’ve seen the contrast between wealth and poverty.”