by Rajia Hassib
“I’m sure Mark knows all you’re talking about, Gameela. Sometimes you see things better when you are not a native. Distance gives you a better perspective,” Nora said, smiling at Mark.
“I think it’s admirable, personally, that you can travel far away from home and care about people so different from you,” Ahmed said. “I’ve always found Americans to be so open to other cultures. Much more tolerant than Europeans. Don’t you think so, Nora?”
“Yes. I agree. It’s probably the exposure to all the immigrants.”
Gameela took a deep breath in, closed her eyes, and instead of saying what she was thinking (Seriously? How many Americans or Europeans do you even know?), she silently chanted a new mantra: Strive to be a better person. Strive to be a better person. Don’t be mean to your parents. She knew how obsessed most upper-class Egyptians were with the West; how deferential their attitude toward it was. How flattered her parents were that an American had chosen their daughter to be his wife, thereby indirectly complimenting them as equals, as desirable, as something better than the inferior Other that they felt they were, even though they would never admit it. Strive to be a better person, she reminded herself. Be tolerant of your parents’ shortcomings. Their entire generation is like that. Blame it on colonialism.
“I wish that were true,” Mark replied. “Not everyone in the U.S. is as tolerant as they should be, I’m afraid.”
“But that’s true of all cultures and all people,” Fayrouz said.
“Yes, of course,” Gameela acquiesced, thinking of her father’s nickname for her.
“Oh, I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” Nora smiled. “I’ve always dreamed of visiting America, you know. Such a fascinating country.”
“Well, now you’ll get to visit as often as you wish,” Fayrouz said, reaching over and patting her mother’s knee.
Nora wiped away a tear. “I’m happy for both of you, Rose. I really am. It’s hard thinking of you so far away, though.”
“Don’t be silly, Nora. She’s a grown woman. She’ll be fine.” Ahmed smiled at Fayrouz.
“And we’re not going anywhere anytime soon,” Mark said. “My contract here doesn’t expire for another ten months. And, by then, who knows? Maybe we’ll just stay here.”
“Would you really consider that?” Gameela asked. “Staying here for good?”
“Sure. I know at least one American journalist who’s been living in Cairo for fifteen years. I’ll probably stay for as long as the office here will keep me.”
“Unless I get accepted into a PhD program in the U.S.,” Fayrouz interjected.
“You’re applying to PhD programs?” Gameela asked, her voice hoarse.
“Yes.”
“That’s wonderful, habibti! Good for you,” Nora said, tearing up again.
“You’d want to leave even if Mark is willing to stay?” Gameela asked.
“This is still all premature, Gameela,” Ahmed said. “We’re just getting to know Mark today. I’m sure we’ll have time to discuss all of that later.”
“No. It’s not premature. Don’t you think it’s important to know which continent your daughter will end up living on?” Gameela snapped at her father.
“This is not the time to talk about this, Gameela,” Nora said.
“Then what is this the time for? Talk of hunting habits in West Virginia and the tolerance of Americans compared to all the Europeans you don’t know?” Gameela could feel her heart racing. Strive to be a better person, her inner voice repeated. Shut up, she replied. Just shut the hell up.
“As the youngest person here by far, you shouldn’t tell the rest of us what is an appropriate topic of conversation,” Ahmed said.
“I’m not a child! I’m twenty-one! Just because I’m the youngest person here doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.”
“We are all perfectly aware of how opinionated you are, hajjah Gameela.”
Gameela jumped. “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?” Ahmed seemed puzzled.
“Gameela, seriously. This is my life. I’ll decide what I want to do when the time comes,” Fayrouz said. Gameela looked at her sister’s pursed lips, at her furrowed forehead. “Why can’t you just be happy for me?” Fayrouz’s voice quivered.
“I’m trying,” Gameela replied, her eyes watering. “You have no idea how hard I’m trying.”
She hurried to her room, closed the door behind her, leaned against it. Stop being childish and self-centered, she reminded herself. Try to be a better person. Respect your parents. Respect your sister’s wishes. Be kind.
Her face was flushed crimson, emanating a heat that suffocated her. She grabbed her head scarf and tore it away, snatching at it as the pins keeping it in place caught on her hair, pulling it away with such might that it came off with a thin strand of hair attached to it, leaving her with a painfully tingling spot on her scalp. She tossed the scarf on the bed, paced the room, crying. She had to do better. She had to be happy for her sister, to accept Mark as the Muslim he claimed to be, to celebrate her sister’s career. Wasn’t it great that she wanted to pursue a PhD? What if America was part of Mark’s charm—what was wrong with that? And maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Fayrouz did love him regardless of the promise of the American Dream that came entangled with him.
What if her sister chose to immigrate? What if she did it because she wanted to, not because she had to? What was wrong with that? Why couldn’t she accept her sister’s choices?
How could Fayrouz willingly want to move so far away?
Gameela had been convinced that the previous two years were a mere hiccup in her relationship with her sister; that once enough time had passed, they would have become close again despite their age difference, despite Gameela’s head cover and Fayrouz’s fondness for tank tops. That one day they would each be married, live a few minutes apart, take their kids to soccer practice together, and meet on weekends for dinner with their parents.
Apparently, that was not going to happen. Never had she imagined that one could so painfully mourn a future that failed to materialize.
She let herself fall facedown on her bed, silently crying.
Why could she not stop thinking of herself and start thinking of her sister’s happiness? Why was it so hard to be a better person? Why did she keep failing at it?
How could she call herself religious if she couldn’t prefer her sister’s happiness to her own?
Outside, she heard the echoes of muffled laughter.
Again, she felt alone. Again, again, and again, all Gameela could feel was how utterly alone she was, how foreign in her own home.
◆ 7 ◆
They married. Moved to the U.S. just in time for Rose to start her PhD program at Columbia in the fall of 2010. Mark worked in the offices of The New York Times, occasionally traveling around the U.S. on writing assignments. They rented a studio in Queens for a year before moving to a one-bedroom in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where Rose walked to Polish delis for fresh bread, to produce stands for plums and peaches, to Starbucks for coffee, where she could hop on a train and be at the Columbia campus in just over half an hour. She decorated her small apartment with spare, clean-cut furniture—a glass-top breakfast table; a cream loveseat and two beige armchairs in the living room; a bed with an upholstered headboard, also cream, and mismatched nightstands that she bought at a flea market. Rose was happy.
She assumed Mark was, too. Thinking back, she could not remember a single instance when he gave her reason to think otherwise. Not until three years into their marriage, when dinner party chitchat led to a simple question.
“What was the fuss about this morning? Did you have it out with Elinor again?”
The one asking the question was Ted, Mark’s friend and coworker and Ingrid’s boyfriend. They were all done eating dinner but still sat at the table, the partially carved-out turkey in front of th
em, the light hanging above creating multiple shadows that disappeared into the glass top.
“Same old stuff. I pitched a story, she said it was great, then she suggested I work on another story that she probably had planned to assign to me before I even stepped into her office. She systematically rejects every second piece I pitch to her.”
“That means she agrees to every second one you pitch. That’s not bad at all.”
“It is, compared to what I was used to in the foreign office.”
“You’re not in a ten-person office anymore. You’re one peg in the massive New York Times. Welcome to the machine.”
“I hate the machine.”
“I know at least eight journalists who would kill to get your job.”
“I know. I’m honored and privileged and all that. But that doesn’t mean I have to love sitting in a cubicle and scribbling generic pieces that any other journalist could have churned out just as efficiently.” Then, after a sigh, “I just wish I were still in Egypt.”
“That’s new,” Rose said. She stole a glance at Ingrid and met her eyes.
“See, Rose? You learn something new every day,” Ted said, smiling and patting her on the hand.
Rose pulled her hand back. She got up to carry the turkey to the countertop and, after washing her hands, started pulling pieces of meat off its carcass.
“I’ll help,” Ingrid said, getting up. “Where do you keep your Tupperware? Or do you prefer a Ziploc bag?”
“A bag is fine. I’ll freeze it,” Rose said. She pointed with her head to a cabinet a few feet away. “They’re up there, all the way to the left.”
Ingrid walked up to the cabinet, stretched to reach the box of Ziploc bags. Rose saw Ted look at Ingrid’s behind and smile, then he turned toward her and, catching her looking at him, smiled at her, too. She looked away.
“Tell me why you miss Egypt,” Ted asked Mark.
Rose scooped up the turkey pieces and put them in the bag Ingrid was holding open for her.
“I’ll tell you what I missed in Egypt—I missed a fucking revolution.”
“You weren’t there in 2011?”
“Nope. We left the previous summer. After a seven-year stint in the Middle East, I missed covering a revolution by five months.”
“So why didn’t you go back?”
Mark got up and started clearing the table. Rose, finding nothing more to carve off the turkey, picked the carcass up and wrapped it in a shopping bag before throwing it away, then stood at the sink, washing her hands. She waited for Mark to answer Ted’s question, but he seemed intent on scraping leftover food from one plate to another.
“We had to stay because I had just started my PhD,” Rose finally said. She dried her hands on a kitchen towel and watched as Ingrid put the bag of meat in the freezer.
“Bad timing, huh?” Ted asked. He had stood up to clear some room for Mark, but did not offer to help.
Rose looked at him. “Would you please bring that bowl with the mashed potatoes over here, Ted? I need to wash it.”
Her voice was calm, delicate, as it always was. Her mom would have been proud.
Ted carried the bowl over and stood by Rose, watching her rinse it. “You still could have gone back, you know,” he said, turning to Mark, leaning next to Rose, one elbow resting on the counter. “Rose would have survived here on her own for a few months.”
“That’s exactly what I told him then,” Rose said. She scrubbed hard, attacking a strip of mashed potatoes that had already dried up and stuck to the bowl.
“Wouldn’t that have been dangerous, though?” Ingrid asked, taking the plates from Mark and rinsing them before putting them in the dishwasher. “I remember watching CNN and seeing Anderson Cooper stuck in an apartment while shots were fired outside. It was horrible. He and another reporter were whispering and had the shutters closed; you could tell they were afraid someone would barge in on them.”
“I remember that,” Rose said as she dried the bowl and put it in the cabinet. “I was so scared he would get hurt. Sounds awful, I know, considering how many Egyptians ended up dying during the revolution, but all I could think of was how bad that would make Egypt look, if Anderson Cooper got killed there.”
“But he didn’t get killed, did he?” Mark asked.
“No. But he could have. He got harassed on the streets a few days later. Many Western journalists did.”
“And they all survived to tell the tale,” Mark replied.
They were facing each other now, while Ted and Ingrid both watched them. Mark stood with his arms crossed, his feet apart. Rose knew they were not talking about Anderson Cooper.
“I was afraid you’d get hurt, Mark. I didn’t want you to go back because I was afraid you’d get hurt.”
“I’m not a child, Rose.”
“That’s not fair. It’s not like I forced you to stay. You agreed to stay.”
“Because you wanted me to.”
“And because it worked out this way!” Her voice was gaining an edge. Keenly aware of Ted and Ingrid’s presence, Rose felt her face warm up, hoped her dark skin would conceal her blushing. She and Mark rarely ever fought. Now they were gliding toward a fight in the presence of witnesses, of Mark’s friend and hers. Ted must now believe she was a manipulative wife who ruined her husband’s career.
“You had a job offer you would have had to turn down,” she went on, both to remind him and to explain to Ted and Ingrid. “No one knew how long the revolution would last. It could all have boiled down to nothing within two or three weeks. It’s not like we all knew Egypt would be a great source of journalistic material for the following three years!”
She tossed the towel on the countertop, looked at it as it hit the wall in a messy flop, then slowly picked it up and hung it on the towel ring. Straightened the towel’s edges. Made sure the decorative border was facing the correct way. Breathed.
“That makes perfect sense to me,” Ingrid said.
Rose looked up at Ingrid, flashed her the most grateful smile she remembered giving anyone.
“It’s easy enough to look back and realize you could have done things differently, but you really couldn’t have, at the time and based on what information you had available, could you?” Ingrid went on, addressing Mark using her calm, professorial voice. She lifted a finger and pushed her glasses back in place.
“I love it when you sound all academic, honey,” Ted said, winking at her.
“Ah, shush,” Ingrid said, smiling.
“I bet you do that at work all the time. Analyze everything and then quote a couple of peer-reviewed articles in support of your argument, too.”
Ingrid responded to his chuckle with a straight face. “He’s making fun of me for trying to dissuade him from going skydiving.”
“What’s wrong with skydiving?” Ted asked, raising both hands, the hand holding his wineglass toasting skydivers everywhere.
“What’s right with it? Who in his right mind choses to jump out of a plane?”
“You’re just too scared to do it.”
“I’m too wise.”
Ted rolled his eyes, and Ingrid looked at Rose and rolled her eyes. Rose glanced at Mark, who was slowly wiping the table, now cleared of plates, with a wet washcloth, his hand going from side to side, again and again, as if he were caressing the table to sleep.
“Wait till you see what I made for dessert!” Rose said. She headed to the fridge, pulled out a tray carrying bowls of homemade rice pudding sprinkled with crushed hazelnuts, and a tub of vanilla ice cream from the freezer. She walked up to the table and stood in place, tray in hand, and waited as Mark wiped the table with a dry cloth, now rubbing it in spots, scraping at it with his thumbnail, making sure every crumb was gone, every inch was glistening, until the table looked as if it had been carved out of ice.
* * *
—
ROSE SPENT THE rest of the evening trying to make up for the awkwardness her scuffle with Mark had created. She could feel its effect in the way Mark smiled a bit too widely, in the way Ted told nonstop jokes, in the way Ingrid stretched that story about the time she face-planted in front of a classroom of students. To counter the air of discomfort, Rose had tried so hard to appear okay that, in the middle of an overly exuberant laugh she burst into in response to one of Ted’s jokes, the word “chipper” hopped up in front of her. She saw it as a tiny bird that hovered right by Ted’s head. For a moment she stared up in the air, imagining the word/bird fluttering hysterically at her artificial laughter and then suddenly turning sideways and freezing in place, wings clasped by its side, exactly like the hieroglyphic symbol for the letter w, drawn as a quail chick. After that, she became silent, looking down at her bowl of half-finished rice pudding, trying to sort out her languages: American English versus British English (was “chipper” an American or a British word?), English versus Arabic, Arabic versus the German words Ingrid occasionally slipped in the middle of her sentences, German versus the hieroglyphs the Pharaohs used to depict their spoken language. One form of that ancient language still survived in the Coptic language that Egyptian Orthodox Christians used in their prayers, and Rose understood it. She was very proud of that knowledge, limited though it was. Now, sitting at a dinner table with her American husband and their American and German friends, thinking of a word and imagining a bird floating in the air, Rose was suddenly embarrassed to be here. Uncomfortable. As if she had just spent an hour speaking a foreign language, only to realize that she had been butchering the accent, mispronouncing words, and confidently stringing senseless sentences together.
For the rest of the evening, she remained subdued, speaking only when addressed.
When Ted and Ingrid got up to leave, Ingrid grasped Rose’s hand and pulled her aside.
“We’ll talk tomorrow at work, okay?” she whispered. “Just relax.”