“The nurse said I have a call!” I practically shout at the woman behind the desk, who doesn’t look much older than me. She nods and hands me the phone.
“Habibti?”
“Baba!”
“You okay?” Baba asks.
“How are you?” I ask.
“I’m fine. Just fine.” I’m not going to add to his worries. It’s so good to hear his voice.
“Alhamdulillah!”
“Someone’s learned some Arabic!”
“Shway shway.”
“Habibti! This is like music to my ears.”
“How’s Mom? She was pretty upset.”
“She’s doing better now, but we still can’t get a flight out,” Baba says. “Any news yet about Sittu?”
“Not yet,” I say. “It’s okay, Baba. Don’t worry.”
“I love you, Mariam.”
“Baba, I’m sorry about the way I treated you.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry. Sometimes loving too much can cause a person to be overprotective.”
“Well, I know that loving someone can make even the sanest person act a little nuts.”
Baba laughs. “You sound like your grandmother.”
“Baba, can I ask you a question?”
“You just did,” he replies, and I know he’s smiling like he always does when he says something he thinks is funny.
I look up and make eye contact with the nurse. I turn away for some privacy, cupping my hand over the phone so she can’t hear me.
“Habibti, are you still there?” my father asks.
“Baba, I hope you know how sorry I am for what I put you and Mom through that night I got arrested.”
“I know.”
“Baba, when you were arrested by the police, was it really bad?” They have Muhammad and I have to know. “Baba?”
There’s a long silence, and I can’t even hear Baba breathing, but I know he hasn’t hung up.
“Why are you asking me this?” he finally asks.
“Well, a friend I made here was picked up by the police.”
“‘A friend’?” Baba asks.
“A guy who was a big help to me yesterday.”
“Habibti.” He pauses.
“Yes, Baba?”
“I’m sure Sittu told you that she and my father made me leave Egypt because of what I experienced. They were fearful for my safety. But I was glad they made me go. I wanted to get away from Egypt, and when I left, I never wanted to go back.
“Mariam, what happened to me happened a long time ago. Maybe things will be different for him.”
We both know that things are not different now, maybe worse. I love him for still trying to protect me.
The nurse is giving me some sort of hand signal, which I’m sure means she needs me to get off the phone.
“I should go now. I love you, Baba.”
“I’m so very proud of you, Mariam,” Baba says. I start to hand the phone back to the woman behind the desk when I hear Baba say, “Habibti?”
I put the phone back to my ear. “Yes?”
“Happy birthday.” Then the line goes dead.
“Shukran,” I whisper, then hand the receiver back to the nurse.
“I’m sorry to rush you, but we only have one line and many families calling.”
“I understand,” I say.
“You’re from America?”
“New York.”
“I have a cousin in Queens,” she says.
“I’ve never been to Queens,” I say.
“Is it a big trip for you?”
“An hour maybe,” I say.
“You should go visit. Little Cairo has very good food.”
“There’s a Little Cairo in Queens?”
“Yes, there’s a very big Egyptian community there.”
“I’ll have to go there sometime.”
She smiles at me, and I smile back at her.
“Shukran,” I say as I leave.
“Afwan,” she replies.
I’m not ready to go back to the waiting room. I decide to go outside for a while. On my way to the elevator, I pass a room with the door wide open. I can’t help but look in. A very pregnant woman holds her back and paces as her husband walks beside her. She looks like she’s handling the situation fine, and when our eyes meet, she flashes me a smile. Then she says something in Arabic to her husband, and he closes the door.
I press the elevator button, and I pray for Sittu, Muhammad, my parents, and the baby who will share my birthday.
chapter
TWENTY-NINE
The elevator opens, and I go to step on, bumping into someone getting off. “Excuse me,” I apologize.
“Mariam! Are you okay?”
It’s Muhammad.
“Muhammad! You’re here.” I wrap my arms around him, afraid he’ll disappear if I let go. “I was so scared something had happened to you.”
When I step back, he looks startled. I can’t blame him. I just met him yesterday, and I’m hugging him like he’s been my boyfriend for years. Could I be any more of a dork?
“I’m sorry. Forgive me,” I say. “I didn’t mean to, you know, hug you like that. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Forgive? There’s nothing to forgive. I was just taken by surprise. It’s the first time I’ve ever been greeted at an elevator by a beautiful woman.” He smiles as he says this, and takes a step closer to me.
Beautiful woman. I step closer to him too. I scan his face for bruises and cuts, but he looks the same as he did the last time I saw him. I’m relieved until I remember that police will do things to parts of your body that aren’t usually exposed, that are private. I look down at his pants and I can feel my face get hot. Oh my God, I’m looking at the front of his pants! I quickly raise my gaze to meet his.
“It was never my intention to worry you,” he says, as he leans in. I know this is it: he’s going to kiss me—my first kiss.
I close my eyes, and his peppermint breath feels warm on my nose. I take a deep breath, and ding! The elevator doors slide open with a woosh. When I open my eyes, Muhammad has already moved away from me. Two men in white lab coats step off the second elevator. The hospital is only nine stories tall. Why couldn’t they take the stairs? Don’t they know it’s better for their health? I watch their backs as they walk down the hall.
We’re alone again, but the moment’s gone, and my first kiss a no-show.
Muhammad stares at the numbers above the elevator doors, watching the lights shift as the elevators move from floor to floor. He hasn’t pressed the up or down button, so I’m assuming he’s not planning to go anywhere. But I wish he’d say something—anything.
I want to ask him, Did they hurt you? But I don’t want to come off as too nosy or pushy. It’s bad enough I jumped him the second he got off the elevator—not that he seemed to mind.
“How is your sittu doing?” he finally asks.
“She’s in surgery now.”
“Surgery?” He sounds concerned.
“On her heart.”
“May God’s blessing be upon her. I didn’t realize.”
“It all happened so fast.” I turn to him. “After I got back yesterday—”
“Mariam.” He turns to me. “I’m so sorry I lost you in the square. I tried to find you.”
“I know. Hassan said you went to look for me.”
“I tried to call Hassan, but my mobile battery went dead, and then so much happened, so fast, as you said.”
“Your battery died?” Now I’m no longer embarrassed or shy—I’m pissed. “We thought you got arrested, that you were being tortured—and you’re telling me the reason you didn’t call was because your battery died?”
“You sound disappointed I wasn’t tortured,” he says.
>
Now I don’t want to kiss him. I want to punch him in the stomach.
I feel like the biggest fool in all of Egypt. How could I have ever thought he liked me? Sure, he called me beautiful, but isn’t that what they do here? Compliments are just this culture’s way of being polite.
“I don’t want to keep you,” I say, pressing the down button for him.
“Of course not,” he says. “I didn’t mean to take up your time.” Suddenly he’s acting very formal.
“Thanks for coming to check on my sittu.” The elevator door nearest me opens. Inside are an older woman and a man. Muhammad stands there until the man says something to us in Arabic. Then Muhammad walks past me and onto the elevator.
“It was good to see you,” he says, and instead of walking away like I know I should, I watch the door slowly close. It’s all I can do to keep from crying.
Muhammad’s hand shoots between the doors and they open wide again.
“Yes?” I ask. The old man standing behind him grumbles something, but Muhammad doesn’t respond.
“Do you want to tell me something?”
In an almost whisper, he says, “I hope all goes well with your sittu.”
“Thank you,” I say, pretending like my heart’s not breaking.
Muhammad pulls his hand back inside, and this time, the elevator door seals shut. As I watch the numbers go down—9, 8, 7—my heart feels like it’s plummeting. Before I even have a second to myself, the other elevator door opens. It’s Deanna.
“Mariam! I have great news. But first, any word about Sittu?”
I shake my head, not believing that Deanna could have any good news for me right now.
“Guess who we saw downstairs on our way to get food?”
“Muhammad,” I say.
“You told her,” Deanna says to Hassan.
“When? I’ve been with you the whole time.”
“Oh, right.”
“He was just here,” I tell them. “He stopped by to check on Sittu.”
“Really?!” She sounds so excited, you’d think I told her I’d seen Zac Efron.
“He left already?” Hassan asks.
“Yes, he left,” I say, not even trying to hide my anger.
Deanna and Hassan give each other confused, sideways glances.
“Mariam,” Hassan says, “Muhammad didn’t come here to see Sittu.”
“He came here to see you,” Deanna says with that why-are-you-so-clueless tone.
“It was nice of him,” I say.
“Mariam, don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“He’s really into you,” Deanna says.
“Sure he is,” I say, rolling my eyes.
Hassan says, “She’s right. With all the turmoil out there, do you think he’d come back here if he didn’t really want to see you?”
“Mar, I know about these things,” Deanna says. I look down at her shoes, which have been cleaned to look like new.
“Deanna, just stop it! Life is not a romance novel,” I tell her. “Well, at least my life isn’t.”
“What’s up your butt?” she asks.
I turn to Hassan. “Will you please tell your girlfriend that I’m not interested in any guy who worries me out of my mind and then tells me he didn’t call because his phone battery died? What, he couldn’t borrow someone else’s to call?”
“Mar,” Deanna says. “Muhammad was in jail.”
“For real?” I look to Hassan for confirmation.
“For real,” he says. “The only reason he’s even out is because one of his uncles is rich and, let’s say, he knows where to make donations.”
I think about what Ahmed said at the airport about knowing the right people.
“Why didn’t he tell me he was in jail?” I demand.
He takes a step closer to me. “What is it you want to hear, Mariam?” Hassan’s voice is cold now. “You want to hear how the police hit people so hard, they vomit on themselves? Or do you want to hear how, when they arrest you, they take turns beating on you while you listen to the screams coming from the next room, and the police tell you how lucky you and your friend are that you’re not the man in the next room, who is slowly being fried from his insides out, with volts of electricity surging through his body? Do you want to hear that as they bashed his back with a baton, he prayed his spine would just break so the pain would stop? And when he tried to block the stick from pounding on his friend, the bones in three of his fingers cracked?” Hassan is in my face, and I can see tears in his eyes.
I look away from him. Deanna reaches out and tries to take his hand, but he snaps it away. That’s when I see the scars across his knuckles, and I realize that he’s talking about himself.
“Mariam,” he says, backing away from me, “you don’t want to know.”
My chest aches. What was I thinking? I am just a stupid American girl who couldn’t get over herself long enough to see Muhammad’s truth, which is also Hassan’s truth, and Baba’s truth. I don’t deserve to call myself Egyptian.
I open my mouth to tell Hassan I’m sorry, but I can see he knows what’s going through my mind. “It’s not your fault,” he tells me. Then he reaches out and takes Deanna’s hand, and her whole body relaxes.
“Mar,” she says, “Muhammad will be back. I’m sure he will.”
“I hope you’re right, Deanna, but I doubt it. I messed up.” I sigh. “I’ll see you guys back in the waiting room.”
“We’re coming with you,” Deanna says.
I don’t bother telling her I’d rather be alone, because we’d both know it was a lie. As we begin to walk, Muhammad comes running up from behind.
“Muhammad?” the three of us say in unison.
“Where did you come from?” Hassan asks.
Muhammad’s too out of breath to answer. Instead, he grabs Hassan’s arm and leans over, gasping.
“Did you run up nine flights of stairs?” Deanna asks.
Muhammad nods.
“You okay, man?” Hassan asks, patting his friend on the back. “Is something wrong? Somebody hurt?”
Muhammad shakes his head, and Hassan’s face relaxes with relief.
“Why’d you take the stairs?” Deanna asks.
“The elevator,” he manages to get out before he huffs and puffs a bit more.
“Do you need a wheelchair?” Hassan says, and I can see now he’s trying not to laugh.
Muhammad straightens. “I’m okay,” he says. His breathing is still heavy, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out. “The elevators were taking too long.”
“Too long for what?” Deanna asks.
Muhammad says, “Could I have a minute alone with Mariam?”
Hassan says, “Of course, we’ll meet you in the waiting area.”
Deanna winks at me as they leave.
When it’s just Muhammad and me, he says, “Mariam, I know you don’t know me very well, but I hope to have the chance to show you that I’m a good person. We live worlds apart, but I really like—”
Before he says another word, I kiss him. And he kisses me back. I don’t know what I expected my first kiss to feel like, but I can’t imagine anyone in Cairo or New York or anywhere else having a more perfect first kiss.
But suddenly, Muhammad breaks away, grabs my hand, and, standing up straight, says, “Ahmed.”
I’m confused, until I hear someone clearing her throat behind me. Dr. Nassif is standing there with Ahmed, Deanna, and Hassan right behind her.
My heart leaps. Sittu must be out of surgery! “Can I see my sittu now?” I ask.
Dr. Nassif is silent for a moment, then says, “There were complications.”
chapter
THIRTY
Dr. Nassif is speaking, but I don’t register the words that s
he is saying.
“There were complications,” Dr. Nassif repeats.
“What does that mean?” Hassan asks.
“It’s something doctors say when they’ve screwed up.” Deanna’s choking back her tears.
“Believe me, the surgeons did everything they could.” Dr. Nassif sounds like she’s also holding back some anger. She turns to me. “I’m so very sorry. I know how hard this must be for you.”
I don’t feel anything—not sadness or anger or pain. None of this feels real to me. I’m standing in the hospital hallway, in a circle with these people, but it’s like everyone is talking through a wall. I can only vaguely hear them, and I have to struggle to make out the individual words.
Dr. Nassif’s pager goes off, and she looks down at it. “I have to go,” she says. “Do you know who will prepare the body for burial?”
I think she is speaking to me, but my head and heart and mouth won’t connect. Ahmed responds instead. “I don’t know,” he says. He’s clutching his prayer beads so tight, his knuckles have turned white.
“Prepare the body?” Deanna says. “Is there a funeral place we should call?”
“Deanna, in Islam, it’s the family or members of the community who prepare the body,” Muhammad explains.
“Sittu doesn’t have any other family here. Just me,” I say. “My father is trying to get a flight.”
“It should be a woman,” Hassan says.
“My mother will be coming too,” I tell him.
“Do you know when your parents are due to arrive?” Dr. Nassif asks.
“They still hadn’t found a flight when I spoke to them an hour ago,” I tell her.
“With everything that’s going on, that may be a while,” Muhammad says. He gives my hand a squeeze, and I squeeze back, grateful to have him close.
“There’s no embalming. We must bury her straight away,” Ahmed says.
“No embalming?” I ask. “I thought the Egyptians, like, invented—”
“Ancient Egyptians,” Hassan says. “Muslims don’t want to disturb the body, so we do as little to it as possible. We try to bury the dead within a day.”
“A day?” I repeat, barely able to comprehend it.
“Is there a close friend of the family you could call?” Dr. Nassif asks.
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