That Other Me

by Maha Gargash

We sit side by side, the sofa swallowing us as my father castigates us for our blatant disregard for his good name, our reckless and selfish behavior toward the family. He doesn’t need to shout or strike us. The sight of him is enough: all that blood filling his face, the thick purple veins on either side of his neck. “So, you’ve decided that you are special?” he growls. “I’ll tell you the truth, the both of you: you’re not. You’re as ordinary as they come!” He aims his fiery eyes at me. “But it’s not your fault. It’s mine, because I made the mistake of choosing your mother—if you can call her a mother, filling your head with such dreams, bringing you to this filthy place. Oh yes, it’s my fault. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stand by and let you ruin all that I’ve built!” Mama keeps her gaze fixed to her hands, shiny with cream, accepting all that he says without demur. When he commands us to drop everything and go back home, she nods her head in agreement. Crushed under an abrupt flood of thoughts that spell defeat, the best I can manage is to emit a tiny whimper. This is the end, the end of something that never quite began. I look away and sob quietly.

  And then, a pause. I suspect he’s gone quiet so he can hear my sniffles. Time ticks, and in the silence I imagine he’s gloating over my sorry state, my mother’s shaken haughtiness, the strength he still holds over the pair of us. When I finally look up, however, he is quite changed. His face has lost the color of moments ago. It’s ashen, as if gripped by shock. He frowns at the ground as he holds on to a chair with one hand and clenches his other hand repeatedly. Then he says his final words, and I find out that the force of earlier has not abated: “Heed my words, the two of you, or by God I promise you: there will be consequences.”

  With that, he turns and stomps out of the apartment. The neighborhood women are still lingering at the door, shifting on their toes and murmuring their curiosity at what ill wind has just blown in with this stranger from the Khaleej. Mama flings the door shut in their faces and starts pacing the apartment. “Go wash your face,” she says to me. “And make sure to fix that hair. We don’t want to be late for our meeting with Sherif bey’s sisters.”

  16

  MAJED

  The minutes crawl by. I only have to endure this dutiful-uncle act a little longer before I can drop Mariam back at the sakan. We are on the upper level of Casino Qasr Al-Nil. As always, this grande dame of casinos, featured in the movies of old, is brimming with Khaleeji tourists. Like most of the cafés by the riverbank, the seating is arranged as if on the deck of a large ship. The Nile runs just below us on one side, and on the other there’s a decorative wall of turquoise tiles.

  It’s chilly by the river. I wear a jacket over my winter kandora, dark gray and woolen, and shoes instead of my habitual sandals. I gaze at the water and feel my nerves finally settle after the encounter in Imbaba. I had been sitting in the backseat of the car, bewildered with disbelief that Zohra would live in such an appalling place and that she would drag my daughter there, too.

  She appeared just as my gaze had drifted up the facade, stopping at the fifth-floor balcony. I wasn’t used to seeing Dalal from this distance. I had stared at her, discomfited by the change in her. She no longer had that caricature face, the too-flat nose and wide-set eyes, the too-big head sitting atop the skinny frame. That little girl had looked like she was made up of the spare parts of different engines forced to lock into one another. And now she’d blossomed into someone wonderful to look at, shapely, with the glow of polished marble in her face. The observation passed quickly as I shifted in my seat, filled with disapproval at the sight of her in her bathrobe. Her hair was wet and dripping, like the sagging lines of laundry fixed to the ledges around her. I recall having muttered a curse aimed at Zohra for allowing her to appear on the balcony looking like that, for not raising her properly, and for dragging her all the way here toward a future that will lead to no good.

  The driver remained silent as I sat in the backseat, my eyes fixed to the sight of her. I was tempted to tell him to drive off, but, having grown fed up with Mustafa’s feeble reports, I’d decided it was crucial to fly out to Cairo and do something about those two. It was important that I be perceived as more than a bodiless threat. And with the necessity of taking charge, a tangible force that rumbled along the length of me, I was out of the car and marching toward the building, mildly aware of the driver hopping at my heels.

  The lively music from a passing Nile cruiser pulls me back to the moment, and I take a deep breath while attempting a fatherly smile at Mariam. Reaching for the wallet in the inner breast pocket of my jacket, I ask her if she needs anything. She shakes her head and says, “We don’t need any help here, Ammi Majed. The government scholarship program provides us with more than enough.” My gesture is rendered useless and I pull out my handkerchief instead, dabbing my forehead, even though the air is cool. Her refusal feels like she’s lowering my worth somehow, which is bizarre because even though the air between us is thick as always, there’s nothing I can hold against her. She addresses me with respect, her manner as cordial as always.

  The waiter delivers our order, and in the silence that follows I decide I must be imagining things, my perceptions still jittery because of all that took place two hours earlier at the apartment in Imbaba.

  Something happened in the middle of my confrontation with Dalal and her mother: a tingly sensation, as if a colony of ants were spewing out of my joints, accompanied by a cold sweat, which thankfully stayed hidden under my layers of clothes. I remember thinking it was a fleeting moment of agitation, most inconvenient. But then, more alarming was my pulse started racing, which got my head spinning. I’d clutched the chair for fear that my knees might buckle under my weight—what a catastrophe that would have been!—and gathered all my strength to make sure that did not happen. I’d overpowered them. I’d broken them and slashed their resolve. I was in a position of advantage over the pair, and I wasn’t about to let the whole encounter fizzle to nothing.

  While I wait for my mint tea to cool, I decide to test Mariam’s tone once more. “How are your studies?”

  “Fine.”

  “Tell me about your days at the university.”

  She stirs the juice in front of her until its many colors mix into a dull yellow, then pulls the straw out and takes her time running the length of it between her lips before answering, “There’s nothing to tell. It’s all fine.” This time there’s no mistaking the defiance in her tone. I narrow my eyes at her as she sticks the straw in her mouth and starts twirling it like a baton from side to side. It’s a taunt, and a very unladylike gesture indeed! This is something new, and I’m not sure where it’s coming from. I clear my throat and harden my eyebrows at her, frowning. This makes her stop, and I cross my arms and look away. I know she thinks I had no right to take over the company—she probably blames me for his death—but what does she know! In fact, she should be thankful I’ve provided for her all these years since her father’s death.

  Hareb treated me like a brother as far as the company was concerned, but he did not think to make me a partner. And yet, despite the sting of it I worked with unparalleled devotion and commitment. Mariam doesn’t realize that I made Green Acacia versatile, so that it became worth more than just tractors and mulch, landscaping and agricultural commissions. Its prominence as one of Dubai’s most successful companies is all because of me. I added land and property through both my sharp business sense and Saeed’s shrewd skills of persuasion as my broker. It was a side venture, and Saeed and I were cunning and aggressive, true innovators in our dealings. We would buy low using bank loans or company money and sell high, returning the profit to Green Acacia.

  I take a sip of my tea and contemplate what has come over all these young ones with their inflammatory behavior suddenly turning bullheaded with disrespect toward their elders. There’s Dalal, flouting the rules of conformity, and Khaled, who left the country and escaped his responsibilities at work. Last month I contacted him, demanding he return immediately from Bangkok. What does he do? He writes
me a letter brimming with self-pity. He was rejected by the woman he loved; so what! This was my thought as I crumpled the paper and hurled it at the wall. “Tfoo on you!” I had said out loud, mimicking the spit of disgust.

  Mariam makes a ghastly noise as she sucks the last of her juice through the straw. With her tall glass drained, there’s nothing else in front of her to rouse her newfound impudence.

  I mull over this change in her and wonder whether it’s wise to keep her here, so far from the family’s supervision. It must be this place—this Cairo—that is making her so. Mama Al-Ouda has always been adamant in her opinion of educating girls: “She learned to read and count in school. And that’s enough. Why would she need to go on and waste her youth by learning more instead of getting married and bringing us the blessing of children?” I watch Mariam chew the end of her straw to bits and think, It’s time that she got married and became someone else’s responsibility.

  17

  MARIAM

  Here it comes, breaking the silence in a spirited melody of flutes and tambourines on loudspeakers. Over the roaring propeller rise the rhythmic claps of the passengers, keen to get the most out of their twenty-minute excursion on the Nile. The music is cheerful and the motorboat is gaudily festooned with flashing lights and disco strobes.

  Here it comes, and I am thankful for the diversion, a distraction that will make the minutes tick faster until this pretense of family cohesion concludes. A massive eagle of flickering red neon is perched at the front. It looks as though it would have taken off had its wings not been too small for its body. The two dolphins, on the other hand, are of the correct proportions. Positioned on either side of the back of the boat, their bodies light up in different colors at different times.

  Just last Friday Adel and I had boarded one of these chugging crafts, squeezing among a group of Egyptian countryfolk who had come to the city for the day. Adel and I have been growing steadily closer ever since that evening at the Casino La Brincessa three weeks ago. There was fun and frolic on that boat trip, an afternoon of unabashed laughter and joy. My heart felt light and playful, a feather held in a breeze.

  Afterward, without intention or plan, I told him how my uncle had tricked me out of my rights and caused my father’s death. At first he seemed unable to concentrate, but this was not one of my tutoring sessions, and soon he was sitting still. I knew he was intrigued at hearing it all, the treachery and pathos of the tale. For the first time, my throat did not choke with rage as I described the shock stamped on my father’s face. My eyes did not mist when I told Adel about how my father couldn’t stop expressing his disbelief over how his brother could betray him, first to his friends, later to the lawyers who arrived at our house with thick files and long-winded explanations.

  During those black days, I kept away from my father as much as I possibly could. He’d turned unpredictable. He became so preoccupied with retrieving the company that he had no patience for me. He snapped at me if I as much as uttered a word. I’d retreat to my room with my homework or take refuge in the kitchen, helping the maids peel fruits or bake cakes. On the days I thought I might explode, I’d make the driver take me to Dalal’s house. And after my father’s death, I was horrified. He would not have had a stroke if not put under so much stress by my uncle. I was strangely methodical telling all this to Adel, as if opening locked drawers in a cupboard and emptying them one at a time.

  Adel did not speak until I was done. Then he asked, “Why do you have to bend to his rules? What can your uncle do to you, anyway?”

  “He is the head of the family,” I said. “He controls everything.”

  “No, he doesn’t. You have a government scholarship. So you don’t need him. Once you graduate, you’ll work and build your own future. You won’t need him then, either.”

  How simple and feasible, how painless it all sounded. “But he can just pull me out of college,” I said, “right this very moment if he wants to.”

  Adel had dismissed this. “Why would he? What would he gain from that? Listen,” he said, leaning forward. “You are your own person, Mariam. And it’s time you realized this.”

  Never mind that his attention had drifted again right after that. His words were what counted: the most commonsense argument I had ever heard. I nod at the memory and look up from my straw, the teeth marks indistinguishable from too much chewing, at Ammi Majed.

  I don’t need you!

  That’s the thought that flashes in my head as I lock my gaze on his in defiance. There is heat in his thick-lashed eyes. My heart thumps, but it’s a beat that’s filled with bravado. I don’t need you or your wife, your children or your mother, to look after me. I am my own person!

  My uncle shifts in his seat with obvious displeasure. Outright disrespect! That’s probably what is going on in my uncle’s mind this very instant. He busies himself by adjusting his red-checkered ghitra, even though it sits in perfect symmetry on his head. When he snaps his fingers for the bill, a sense of victory bursts in me. Through my quiet rebellion, I have shown him that I do not care to grant him what he sees as his rightful esteem. I will tell Adel about it—Dalal, too, the next time she joins us.

  We make a jolly group, the three of us. Adel always suggests that I call her, because he enjoys her spiced-up tales. His dark eyes glint like water at the bottom of a well as he listens to her. I watch him as he watches her, the way he cups his chin with an ear directed toward her so as to catch every piddling pun. This time, I’ll be the one with the exciting account. I know Dalal will enjoy hearing about the way I got under her father’s skin.

  I’m grinning by the time we’re in the car, my thoughts far away. It’s once the car makes a jerky halt that I snap back to the present. Ammi Majed orders me out before I have a chance to get my bearings, and he herds me past the secretary sitting in the foyer of the offices of the cultural attaché. My mind whirls as I struggle to understand his intentions.

  The cultural attaché half jumps up from his seat as we barge into his office. “You are making our girls turn defiant and discourteous!” Ammi Majed hurls the accusation at the young man.

  I can’t tell whether it’s fear or a foolish need to speak up that makes me attempt to defend him. “That’s not true, ammi.”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  My face feels like a lump of burning coal. I hug my arms and sense that I’ve lost control over my vision as my eyes zip across the floor and up the walls. I end up blinking at the ceiling for what feels like an eternity.

  “What is it that you’re teaching our well-mannered girls at the sakan? Did you know that you’re ruining them with your careless supervision?”

  “Please take a seat, ammi,” says the cultural attaché, who has hurried to the other side of his desk. He places a careful hand on my uncle’s arm and indicates the black leather couch. “It may be exactly as you say, ammi. We may be doing something wrong, but we can talk about it, find a solution.” Like a diplomatic shopkeeper intent on keeping a mad customer happy, he speaks with an apologetic, concerned tone. It does nothing to mollify my uncle.

  Whatever pent-up rage he had buried comes out. He starts raving like a common man, promising to complain to the embassy and the Ministry of Higher Education, even threatening to make a case against the poor young man. A cloud of dread keeps me frozen in place as I try to work out what all this means and where it will ultimately lead. And then he says it: “I’m pulling my niece out of your care. She can finish her studies back in Dubai.”

  I slap my mouth with both hands and shake my head. I collapse to the ground, my face inches from my uncle’s feet. The secretary yelps, and the cultural attaché hollers at her: “Water! Tea! Juice! Immediately!”

  18

  MARIAM

  “They’re both unmarried and they live together because no deserving suitor ever came by. And since that was their fate, their life’s mission became to pamper their brother. ‘The little one’—imagine! That’s what they call Sherif bey because he’s the youngest,
but not by much, I don’t think. A pair of fatties, those sisters are! Rice, stuffed pigeon, and macaroni with béchamel sauce—that’s what they eat every day, I can bet you.”

  We groan, and in mockery Adel puffs his cheeks and recedes his chin until it doubles. Dalal laughs, looking very fresh with her rosy cheeks and cozy in her puffy baby-pink jacket. Its collar of feathers plays around her chin. “So there they were,” she continues, “pretending they weren’t interested in finding out more about us. The younger sister, Sitt Faten, leafed through a magazine while the other one, Sitt Magda, pulled out her crocheting.”

  “She must have been trying to send a message,” I exclaim, raising my pitch so I duplicate some of the adventure in Dalal’s voice, “that you should take a woman with needles seriously.” It’s a fruitless attempt to pull Adel’s attention away from her. The only compelling tale that could cast Dalal’s account into shadow is the one I would rather forget. I can’t tell either of them about that!

  Two weeks later, and still I struggle to swallow the indignity of it. I had reacted exactly as my uncle had wanted, collapsing at his feet in desperation and begging him to let me stay in Cairo—so distraught so theatrical, so unlike me. Why couldn’t I have stayed aloof? I should have regarded the sight of him, red-faced and absurd, with contempt.

  My first assumption was that he knew about my attraction to Adel, and all our secret meetings. What if someone had seen me and reported back to him? But he would have confronted me eyeball-to-eyeball on such a matter.

  The cultural attaché had implored my uncle not to be hasty. “Mariam is an ideal student,” he said, “intelligent, with nothing less than top marks in her college.” My uncle had answered that that was not the issue. I knew I looked pathetic. In the back of my mind I knew that I should get up, but I couldn’t find the strength to do so. As I think back, I realize it must all have happened very quickly, but at the time it felt like I would never stop pleading with my uncle. My voice weakened to a hoarse warble and my tongue felt swollen in my mouth: too large, too dry, an overstuffed parcel of wretchedness no longer able to produce a word. It was a humiliation that clearly pleased my uncle, because he suddenly changed his mind and said I could stay. This set trains of alarming thoughts rumbling in opposite directions in my head. What did it all mean? But when I looked up at him, I understood.