That Other Me

by Maha Gargash

  Saif and Amal have had enough. They march out of the room; surprisingly, Aisha stays where she is, with her chin held high, glowering at her husband. This confuses him, and he starts fidgeting with the tubes attached to his nose and wrist. I don’t know where I get the courage, but I step closer to his side and smooth the pillow beneath his head. “Ammi, you’re not yourself,” I whisper. “Close your eyes and rest a little.”

  My uncle wraps an arm around my waist and says, “Sly little thing, aren’t you? Getting up to no good behind my back? I know everything.”

  “What are you talking about?” I stammer, trying and failing to pull away.

  “Yes, what are you saying?” Aisha asks.

  “She knows exactly what I’m referring to, don’t you, Mariam? You were spotted.”

  Aisha lets out a frustrated shriek and shakes her head roughly; her shayla tumbles to the floor. “Let go of her!” It must be the first time Aisha has ever raised her voice to her husband—certainly I have never witnessed it. He’s appalled. He flinches and shoves me away, as if I’d turned into a blazing coal. “Haven’t you done enough damage?” she continues. “When will you stop hurting people?”

  “Keep your voice down, woman,” he snarls. “They’ll think my wife is mad. You want the doctor to come and strap you down?”

  I inch toward the door. Perhaps Aisha’s newly found boldness—and where it might lead—frightens me.

  He spots me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Home.”

  “Stay!” They shout the order in one voice.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he says.

  “Yes, I am.” My voice is a squeak. I fiddle with the edges of my shayla. “College starts soon, and I have to pack.”

  “I said you’re not going anywhere. Not college, not Cairo, not ever.”

  What is he saying? I’m overwhelmed by panic, and I babble, trying to force words out of my flapping lips. Aisha taps my mouth and it stills. “What he means is that you’ll be going somewhere better. And by better I mean out of his house, so filled with misery.”

  “House of misery, is it?” my uncle retorts. “It must be because I give you too much money to buy the finest clothes, eat the best food, and travel to London to go shopping. Yes, I can see now how that would make you so unhappy.”

  “Look around you, Majed.” She props her fists on her hips. “Where are your children? You have chased them all away. Khaled will be back soon. He’ll take one look at you and walk straight back out and disappear again.”

  My uncle sits up straight, as if he might jump off the bed. “That weak, spoiled fool. He’s lost anyway.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Drugs, woman!” Spittle sprays out through his clenched teeth. “And not the soft kind, either. Heroin. Do you know what that is?”

  “You lie. Who told you that?”

  “I’ve known for some time now.”

  He has jarred Ammiti Aisha’s nerves. Two worry lines appear in the middle of her forehead. She looks like she is about to faint. I slide my hand into hers. “And you did nothing?” she says. My uncle eases back onto the pillow, looking smug. “You didn’t consider going out there and bringing him back so that we could get him treatment? You didn’t think to tell me?” Her knees buckle; I prop her up and lead her, staggering, to a chair.

  “Like I just told you, he’s a lost cause.” Ammi Majed lets out a growling sigh and narrows his eyes at Aisha. She hunches on the chair and covers her face with both hands. He waits. He frowns. He loses patience and flings his arms in the air. “And don’t think I’ve lost my strength because I’m lying on this bed. I can give you a lashing for all your impertinence, even from here. You hear me?”

  Aisha is on her feet like a bolt from the sky. My uncle is shocked silent by the suddenness of her move; he blinks with utter disbelief at this bold new version of his wife. She aims a reptilian glare at him. He folds his arms over his chest, as if afraid she’ll tear the drip out of his wrist. With one defiant move, she scoops her shayla off the floor and wraps it around her head. She extends her hand to me. And I take it.

  “Come back! I forbid you to leave!”

  The door slams shut behind us. We march down the corridor. Aisha is shorter than I am, but she takes long, stately strides that have me running to keep up. A gurney appears in front of us, sliding suddenly out of a room. Aisha dodges it, but I bump into the metal edge. “Sorry,” I whisper to no one in particular.

  It’s a busy time of day, smack in the middle of visiting hours. Phones ring incessantly at the nurses’ station, which is vacant because the nurses are busy wheeling trolleys stacked with evening meals. Visitors arrive in large groups. Ahead, what looks like a full tribe of old men and young boys—I reckon they must be Bedouins from Lahbab or Al-Madam, come to the big city to call on a sick relative—has spilled out into the corridor. A Filipino nurse points desperately at the waiting room just past the entrance of the ward, trying his best to explain to them in broken Arabic that they are not allowed to loiter in the corridor.

  They pay him no heed and instead remain, intent on consuming the cans of orange juice spread out in front of them. There are cans of tomato juice, too. These stay untouched; they were brought for the patient, since it’s a well-accepted belief that tomato juice increases the body’s blood.

  We skirt around the bunch; my mind is consumed with whether Ammi Majed found out about my meetings with Adel or if he was just trying to provoke me. And what horrific surprise has he concocted? Where do they plan to send me? I want to ask Ammiti Aisha, but she pulls me along as if I were made of straw. Houseboys hurry this way and that, hugging stainless-steel pots of cooked food and trays of chocolate, carrying coffeepots, dates, and fruits in plastic bags. I expect a collision, but Aisha is sure-footed; she dodges them all and doesn’t stop, even when we reach the hospital reception on the ground floor and someone calls my name. It’s my uncle’s friend Saeed, who has been dawdling by the coffee machine, waiting for us to leave so that he could visit my uncle. He cocks his head and scratches his chin. It’s obvious he’s puzzled to see us leaving earlier than expected, and with such urgent haste.

  Outside, the driver catches sight of us and runs off to fetch the car from the parking lot. The air is clotted with humidity. Under my abaya, a layer of heat fans out over my skin; sweat starts to collect in the dip of my collarbone, in the cracks of my elbows, and behind my knees.

  I fan my face frantically with both hands, warily watching this new and unpredictable Ammiti Aisha and wondering what she’ll do next. Sweat glistens on the surface of her skin. “I just want to know one thing,” she says to me. “Your uncle’s ramblings about you being spotted—do you know what he’s talking about?”

  “No! Don’t worry, ammiti, he wasn’t himself. He must be hallucinating.”

  “Or lying.” She sighs. “He probably made up all that rubbish about Khaled, too, just to get me riled up.” The worry lines between her brows remain, but she nods with relief at this possibility. Silently, we wait for the car.

  34

  MAJED

  Passing stroke, that’s how the doctor decided to explain it, after seeing the blank look on my face when he gave me the medical term. I repeat the first word in my head over and over. Passing: it has a consoling ring to it—it came, it went. But that other word generates a cavernous discomfort in the pit of my stomach. I try to blot it out of my mind.

  I’m fine now. I no longer feel the horror I’d felt the night I was wheeled into the hospital, when I overheard the ambulance men telling the doctor that I’d lost my memory. I believed them, and for days I felt odd. I spent every waking hour quietly reflecting, trying to digest how such a thing could happen to me, while my family watched me with bewilderment and pity in their eyes.

  But today has awakened an altogether different emotion: a bizarre yearning to act unreasonably, to shake off caution, to spot weakness and plow to its core. Yes, mine is a capricious mind, and
today it has been fueled with menace. Stuck in this room, I can’t chase it away, the insufferable irritation. It’s no wonder I have to find ways to amuse myself. And once I start picking at the scabs, it’s impossible to stop.

  When did Aisha become so impertinent, talking back to me? Who has been giving her false illusions of a woman’s place in the map of things? I curse Shamma under my breath for always scheming to get my wife to leave me. No doubt she is to blame for Aisha’s antagonistic turn. She should have sat back and listened to me speak without so much as a gasp. But instead she confronted me. What was it she said? I strain to recall her exact words and then decide not to waste time with the details. What is important is the fact that she crossed the line. In the days to come, I will show her that I am not a man to be trifled with.

  Mustafa was here; I kicked him out before he could so much as ask about my health. (Wasn’t he the one who gave me false assurances, promising me that Dalal’s efforts would lead to nothing?) Now I wish I had let him stay just so I could lash out at him.

  Saeed is here, though. He has given up on cajoling me into a good humor. He sits in the corner chair with one leg crossed over the other like a respectable businessman, flipping through a medical magazine as if it’s the most interesting thing he has seen all day. “What, suddenly you want to improve your mind?” He acts as if he hasn’t heard me, and I decide there’s no point continuing with sarcasm. He’s thick-skinned, immune to my provocations. So I complain instead.

  “This place is sickening.” I look around, and even though there is nothing I can pick on, I am filled with a gnawing bitterness. I’m sure it’s this room that has made me so. “They could at least have taken me to a private hospital.”

  Saeed looks up from his magazine but says nothing.

  “Well, it’s true. What am I doing here?”

  “You were brought in an ambulance. When it’s an emergency, they usually bring you to the closest hospital.”

  “Yes, but you know what these government hospitals are like. They can kill you. Now tell me truthfully, would you trust these doctors? I mean, what do they know.” I cross my arms and grumble. “I mean, how do I trust a doctor who can’t even speak English?” Just then, my doctor comes in to see how I’m doing. He is Syrian, with a cherubic face, large green eyes, and a patch of yellow peach fuzz on his chin, a sham beard he has obviously been nurturing for quite some time without success. I scratch the stubble on my face and, as he looks over my chart, say, “Tell me again, Dr. Wassef, exactly what happened?”

  Saeed intervenes. “The good doctor has told you a million times.”

  I stay focused on the doctor, smiling at him sweetly. “Well, I’d like to make that one million and one.”

  “A disruption to the blood flow. A transient ischemic attack.”

  I keep the smile in place. “Attack, huh? Sounds violent.”

  “Yes, that’s what it’s called.”

  “Small as an ant, though? It came, it passed, am I right?”

  Dr. Wassef nods and looks at me with sympathy.

  “So why is there a hose in my nose? Why am I connected to these machines?” I see Saeed pat the air, signaling to me to slow down, to compose myself before I get carried away. I ignore him. “Why all these tests?”

  “We are monitoring you. There are still risks.”

  “Oh, just admit it. You don’t know what you’re doing, so you keep me here.” I slam the mattress. “You want to make me feel like an invalid.”

  Dr. Wassef tries very hard to stay pleasant. “You are at risk for a full-blown stroke, Mr. Al-Naseemy. Do you understand that? Yes, the blockage was small. Yes, it passed. But that just means you are lucky that you got a warning.” Saeed shrugs an apology to the doctor, who tells him, “It’s all right. Fear makes patients react in all sorts of ways.”

  I don’t like what he says. I fidget on the bed, filled with bitterness and hatred and rage. “Yes, fear,” I say, my voice hardening. “You doctors are very good at scaring people, plugging them into beeping contraptions that might stop at any minute.”

  “The best thing you can do is keep calm, Mr. Al-Naseemy.”

  “Oh, I must keep calm, must I? Is this what it has come to, a grown man listening to a child who likes to play at being a doctor?”

  He looks hurt. “I am a doctor.”

  “Don’t mind him, Dr. Wassef.” Saeed hurries to his side and shoots a nasty look at me. “He just doesn’t like being confined like this.”

  “Tell me, little boy, is it hard?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Do you have to tug at those fine little hairs to get them to grow?”

  Dr. Wassef cups his chin. “It’s a medical condition, sir.”

  I grunt and mutter, “Keeping me here this long is ridiculous.”

  “Sir, you are free to leave at any time. I’ve finished with the testing, and your report is ready.”

  Suddenly I wonder whether it’s safe to leave. I wave my hands at him. “You expect me to go out all bandaged like this? What about the bleeding?”

  “There’s no more bleeding.” The doctor’s tone is not so accommodating anymore. He is rougher than he needs to be as he unfurls the gauze and tugs the bandages off. “See? I’ll get the nurse to dab on some disinfectant.” He points his chin out at me and sniffs. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other patients.”

  35

  DALAL

  It’s evening, and I awaken to the kind of noise that’s kept low so as not to disturb but still has the jarring effect of a school bell. I open my eyes but stay very still, keeping my face burrowed in the pillow. I hear the sounds of chickenhearted footsteps, careful rustles, and jittery breaths. It’s my mother pretending to be a mother.

  She switches on the small lamp by the door. I keep my back to her and wait, hoping she’ll go away. Judging from the soft swishing sounds, I figure she’s pulling clothes out of my suitcase, which I had left open in the middle of the room like a book, and arranging my clothes. When she finishes, she tiptoes closer to me, toward the dressing table. There’s the ruffle of pages, and this, too, is an action easily guessed. She’s opening the glossy copy of Sayidati magazine to the page in the arts section that contains my interview. There’s quiet now. She’s probably staring at my picture, which shows me with my lips slightly parted and a finger held lightly to my chin. There is a quote in bold letters: “My talent comes from my Egyptian blood.” I am sure it won me plenty of heartfelt cheer among Egyptians.

  Mama doesn’t pussyfoot around any longer. “Dalal, wake up. It’s seven o’clock.”

  I release the moan of someone struggling to come out of a deep sleep. “Did the hairdresser arrive? Azza here?” I turn and fix her with a groggy-eyed stare.

  “You missed something important yesterday,” says Mama, ignoring my questions. “Abdullah Al-Rowaished complimented you on Dubai Television. He said—and these were his exact words—‘Dalal’s voice is the most promising out there.’ Can you believe that? And there’s more.”

  I lie very still, anxious not to miss a word. “Well, I couldn’t very well leave the party to go watch the interview, could I?” I say, mocking her to mask my intense desire to hear the rest of what the great Kuwaiti singer had to say.

  “The presenter asked him, ‘Can you see yourself performing a duet with her?’ And do you know what he did?”

  “What, what?” There’s more air than sound in my voice.

  “He hummed the tune of your song.” She claps her hands like an excited little girl. “His thick mustache curled to one side in a grin—so cheeky, but sentimental, too. And then he said, ‘Only her, lonely her, all alone? We can’t leave her like that.’ ”

  To be endorsed by someone as important as Abdullah Al-Rowaished! It makes me giddy with delight. My pulse quickens, and I have to remind myself to feign indifference. If I do otherwise, Mama might see it as an invitation back into my life and career, the opening of a tunnel that would once more burrow deep into my head.

  Sh
e sits on the edge of my bed, hungry for a detailed account of my first big adventure: last week I went abroad (first class; all expenses paid). Madame Nivine and Azza, who is now my official stylist, joined me, but they had to sit separately because their plane tickets were in business class. First we flew to Saudi Arabia and then Qatar to perform at two weddings. The families were distinguished and treated me with warmth and admiration. They showered me with so many compliments, flowers, and chocolates, I thought I would cry with joy.

  Mama pats the sheet gently. “Tonight is important: the recording of your second hit, hopefully!” She certainly knows her business. My first hit, already inserted in an album of mediocre songs (to be released), must quickly be followed with a second hit, which will require another album of boring songs to be recorded. It’s the hit that guarantees the sale of the cassette. “You have to wake up so your voice has a chance to warm up.”

  Yawning and stretching, I whine, “Let me sleep.”

  She wanted to hear about the trip as soon as I returned to Cairo. I could have told her. Instead I went straight to sleep. And the next morning I went to my next booking, flying all the way to London (business class; still, all expenses were paid), where I performed at a party at the Royal Lancaster Hotel. I sang from 10:45 p.m. until midnight. It didn’t matter that I was the B star, the opener for a popular Saudi singer named Rabeh Saqer. The audience lapped up my performance at each and every event. I leaned over and sang, “You wanna go?” and they’d chanted in answer, “Go, go, go!” I got goose bumps every time I replied, “And stay away?” and they hollered back, “Oh no, no, no!” Mama cocks her head to one side, expectation on her face. Yes, she wants the full rundown of my week.

  There is a knock at the door, feeble and wary. I don’t have to guess who it is. “She up?” Sherif bey asks.