by Maha Gargash
“Don’t come in,” I cry out, sitting up straight. “This is not a room for men.” When Mama’s eyebrows furrow, I tell her, “Well, it’s true, isn’t it? He has no business walking in here, my bedroom, when I’m in my nightgown—or in any other dress, for that matter.”
“It’s okay,” she says softly. “Don’t get yourself worked up.”
I sniff and look away; she’s been working hard to win me over. The suitcase is shut and set against the wall. The clothes, ready to be laundered, sit in neat piles by the door, arranged according to color and type. I should be reveling in the attention. I scratch the sleep out of my eyes as if that would make me appreciate her efforts. Why am I not moved?
We live in Sherif bey’s apartment. He is now my stepfather. I would rather have stayed where I was, behind the newly painted red door of the apartment in Imbaba. But I had no money. Mama had wasted no time marrying him, and once the lease on the Imbaba apartment expired, I showed up here with doleful eyes, ready to give exaggerated apologies for all the grief I’d given her just so she would not turn me away. (Where would I have gone?) I had braced myself, expecting long and miserable hours when I would have to bear her needle-sharp taunts. But the taunts never came; she must have realized that I was just steps away from a bright future, one that she could be a part of if I’d let her.
I could almost see the gears twisting in her head as she calculated how she could best demonstrate her affection. She had cleared this room, which Sherif bey used for storage—it had held his oud and sheet music, cleaning products, and an ironing board—and declared it my bedroom. When I stood in the middle of the emptied room, my jaw dropped, and she said, “You must have a space where you are comfortable. I want this to be your sanctuary.”
She’d filled the room with new furniture in so many shades of pink, it makes me think of dripping strawberry ice cream. The dressing table has an oval mirror and drawers with brass pulls. The headboard is a giant rose, and there are painted grapevines crawling up the corners of the closet; at the top sit bunches of ripe, magenta grapes. She seemed to delight in buying me new clothes—“You must always look your best”—and I found out that she can cook more than the common egg—“You can only deal with difficulties if you have the right nourishment.”
There was the effort of pretend intimacy, too: the lame shoulder squeeze, the failed back rub, and now what looks like the beginning of what might turn out to be an awkward hug.
“Look at you, all upset.” She leans forward with her arms floating in front of her, and I wonder if what I’ve been waiting for my entire life will finally happen: I’ll receive a genuine loving embrace from my mother. But just as I expect, Mama has trouble completing the gesture, because it doesn’t come from the heart. Once she’s close enough to bite my nose, she pulls back like a tortoise into its shell. I feel nothing anymore. No warmth, no expectation, no hurt, no longing: a big, fat zero.
“He tries so hard with you,” she whispers. “Don’t forget, you’re living under his roof. He’s paying for your upkeep. So a little consideration is not too much to ask, don’t you think? All he wants is to be a part of your life, to protect you.”
“Does he want me to call him baba, too?”
“Don’t be silly, Dalal,” she says, keeping her voice soft. She then tells me about a visitor who came by the day I flew out to Saudi Arabia: my father’s employee-cum-fixer, Mustafa. “Big threats he brought with him, that one: warnings to stop embarrassing your father. Or else.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know,” says Mama, “but Mustafa was spitting dynamite. So angry and rude that Sherif bey had to run down and get the driver to kick him out of the apartment. See, this is why you need us around, to protect you. Not that fat manager who you put so much faith in, who smiles and robs you at the same time.” Her eyes blaze. “Real family!”
“Hmm.”
“It seems your father had a small stroke last month, and he blames you for it.” She narrows her eyes and waits for a reaction.
My face is a blank wall. I am in no mood to explain that I’d already heard this bit of news through Mariam, and I hadn’t bothered to tell her. “I want coffee.” She is taken aback by my indifference, but she doesn’t comment. As she gets up to prepare my coffee, I grab her wrist. “And if Mustafa comes again, you let him talk to me directly. Then I can tell him to go back to my father with the message that he can blame me all he wants—I. Don’t. Care.”
Alone, my thoughts are pulled back to when Mariam called me with this information. A week later, and she had phoned again with a sadder piece of news, so infuriating that when I heard it my stomach clamped into a fist: the abrupt termination of her education in favor of an arranged marriage to a stranger. She was breathless, distraught, rattled out of her senses, and choking on too many emotions—a side of her I’m sure she’s revealed to no one else.
As I spewed out a list of useless solutions—Stop eating! Run away!—that she did not hear, I paced the room. Without registering the senselessness of what I was doing, I pulled clothes out of my closet and threw them into a small bag. I didn’t want to waste any time getting to her. How dare they lead her like a goat whichever way they please? Her only wish is to study. But my father is so cruel that he would deny her even this small thing.
It was a quick phone call, a burst of muzzled hopelessness on her part and feverish outrage on mine. It was only once I’d zipped the bag and put a lock on it that a sense of overwhelming helplessness weighed me down. Here I was, dreaming of adoring fans and a spacious apartment (which will come much later, of course) overlooking the river in stylish Zamalek, but I couldn’t even travel to be with Mariam in her time of need. Frustrated, I’d flopped onto the bed. What could I do? I didn’t have the money to buy a plane ticket.
The blow-dryer whirrs as the hairdresser tames my curls into fine threads. Azza leafs through my wardrobe, looking for the right top. I had told her not to bother because this is simply a recording and not a concert or party, but she’d insisted and said she couldn’t have me walking out looking shabby. She added, “Besides, you never know which important artist might casually pop into the studio.”
She has a point. I have recently employed her as my stylist, even though it’s more for the company than her sense of fashion. She pulls out a striped silk blouse with a bow on the side of the collar. I refuse it. She tries another, powder blue, and I give her the okay signal.
My head sways gently under the heat. I gaze at my reflection, the left eye alert, the right with its lazy lid looking as though it might fall shut at any moment. I lose myself; it’s a precious moment when I can lean back and digest my success. Madame Nivine’s strategy has been to gain me fame and popularity through a hit single rather than a full album, though my album will be released a few months later, at the end of the year—“too many good tunes will just confuse the listener, habibchi!” It’s all part of her strategy of maximizing the hype. And how well that has worked! My first single has blazed through the airwaves like a wildfire, playing over and over on the radio stations, a triumph of the summer. Madame Nivine told me it’s the most requested song not just on Dubai FM but also on Bahrain FM, where the phones don’t stop ringing from Saudi listeners. It’s a station that attracts them because of its great selection of music.
It wasn’t just that the tune was catchy. By some massive stroke of luck, the song found its way onto a cassette called Nights of the Nile, a compilation of hit songs by famous singers. My name is housed in plastic along with Abdul Majeed Abdullah, Anoushka, and Monica Fayyadh.
There’s a little mall stocked with fake designer shoes and handbags at the Ramses Hilton hotel. It’s on the circuit for Khaleeji tourists; it’s popular because the shops sell traditional Egyptian goods like cotton sheets, towels, and galabias. I try to go there every few days because on the second floor there’s a square kiosk that sells cassettes. My poster is plastered to it. A pair of bulky speakers blares popular songs at the
entrance. The owner is obligated to mute them whenever the call to prayer sounds on the mall speakers—but only if someone complains.
Azza accompanies me; we start at the café on the ground floor, sipping our coffees slowly to give the roaming shoppers a chance to notice me. So far there have been feathers of recognition; it seems that people are unsure whether mine is the same face as that on the poster. It’s only once we stroll leisurely by the kiosk, pretending we are there to shop like everyone else, that they come.
There’s always a special light of acknowledgment in their eyes: smiling, nodding, and giggling, they’re shy at first. They linger even after they’ve gotten my autograph or posed for a photograph with me. It’s at this point, once there’s a cluster of fans around me, that the cassette-kiosk owner presses an abrupt end to whatever is blasting out of his speakers and replaces it with my song. Then I might as well be on a speeding carousel ride—that’s the kind of dizzying thrill I get.
My hair is as straight as reeds, as fashion would have it. Azza instructs the hairdresser to pin a large turquoise carnation to add a touch of glamour. Once it’s positioned just above my left ear, I move my head this way and that, inspecting the various angles with some skepticism.
“Look how it brings light to your face and matches your blouse,” says Azza. “From now on, you need to look creative for your fans, set a trend, you know—a flower here, a bandanna there, face glitter.”
I’m not convinced. I blow at the petals that droop like weeds over my cheek. “Isn’t it a little too much for going to a recording?”
“No, no,” she coos, frowning, obviously taking her role as fashion stylist seriously. “Look at you.” She places her hands on my shoulders and leans over so that our faces—mine striking, hers plain—are reflected side by side in the mirror. “You’re not just anyone anymore.”
She means well; I won’t break her spirit. Besides, I like what she says. I raise my head and beam a champion’s smile at the mirror. I’ll get rid of the carnation once I get to the studio.
At 10:15 p.m. Azza informs me that Madame Nivine is downstairs. She wishes me luck and leaves, along with the hairdresser. Mama makes a snide remark about “that fat crook,” which I ignore. Of course Madame Nivine won’t come up; Mama would waste no time spearing accusations at her, and that would lead to a heated quarrel.
As I rush about throwing my things into my handbag—keys, money, lipstick, lozenges—Mama and Sherif bey follow at my heels, calling out garbled instructions and opinions. It’s maddening. It makes me want to pull at my hair until the curls puff back up. They long to be involved. She wants to be asked to join me for the recording. He wants to give me his professional knowledge, and as the prospect of this happening shrinks, so too does his voice.
“Bas! Enough!” I yell.
Stunned into silence, they look at me with outrage.
“You’re driving me crazy.”
“Is this the way to talk to your mother?” Sherif bey says, rooting his fists into his bony hips.
“She thinks she’s so important now,” says Mama, “that she’s decided she doesn’t need me, her own mother.”
I could stand still and take it, or I could just walk out. I go with the second option.
“I want money!” That’s what I say to Madame Nivine as soon as I get into her kharteeta. (In Cairo, kharteeta, or “rhinoceros,” is the fond nickname given to any model of Mercedes that came out between 1980 and 1985.) It’s olive colored, with the usual minor dents and scratches. She stifles a laugh. Tapping her temple, she gives me a probing look, and I tell her to forget the flower for a moment. I calculate that I’ve made thirty thousand American dollars from the two weddings, the party in London, and the cassette sales of the single. I know there won’t be much left once the deductions for the recordings and Madame Nivine’s fees are made. Still, I persist. “Not this loose change you give me, but enough money to move out of that apartment.”
“And a good evening to you,” she says, sliding the car into the middle of the street without so much as a glance in the rearview mirror. “The good news is that there are two interviews booked for you for this coming week: one on a talk show on Egyptian television and the other as a guest in a segment on MBC. And then the world will start talking about you.”
“MBC? Really?” This makes me forget about the money for a moment. I imagine being on the London-based Saudi channel, which always looks glossier than the other satellite channels. Then I remember my empty pockets. “So what about my earnings?”
“You’ll have to be patient, Dalal. I’ve told you before, there are a lot of expenses. It’s a complicated business, and your rise at this early stage has to be handled carefully, delicately. You hear me, hayachi?” I watch her as she navigates out of the smaller residential streets. She looks cramped; her turban, a glittering green monstrosity, grazes the roof, and her bust brushes the steering wheel every time she leans forward to make a turn. “Don’t look at me that way. I don’t just pay for the recordings and the video cleeps. You don’t realize it, but not everyone in the press loves you. Wallahi, you won’t believe how many rumors are out there already: she’s not an Emirati; Al-Naseemy is not her real name; she worked at a nightclub on Al-Haram Road; she’s really nothing more than a backup singer—and everyone knows that for a female backup singer to make it she’d have to either bribe event organizers or find a rich old man with influence to get her to the top.”
Much as I’d like to argue with her, she makes sense. “Well, I haven’t heard anything about all this—stuff.”
“Of course you haven’t, because I have made sure it doesn’t get out. I’ve had to butter the reporters with, guess what . . .” She rubs her fingers. “Money.”
At a loss over how to respond, I make a hissing sound through my teeth.
She sighs. “Ya habibchi, ya Dalal. I’ve told them that you are special and exceptional, a unique blend—Egyptian, Emirati—like a fine tea. I tell the Egyptian press, ‘She’s our girl,’ and I do the same with the Khaleeji press. And for now, we are doing well. I must stress, though, that you have to be ready: there’s no stopping the stories, the lies that will come out. But it’s important that that happen later, when you are established. Right now you’re just starting, vulnerable. One wrong move and you could fall flat on your face.” She grunts. “And I won’t have it!”
There’s a burn of passion in that grunt; it suggests her faith in me. I silently mull this over. She knows I’ll reach the heights of stardom if I follow the straight path she is carving for me, a path broad enough to fit her buxom form, too.
Nearly there now: Madame Nivine follows a backstreet route as she heads toward the studio. We’re somewhere in the middle of a maze of small streets—strangely empty, even though it’s near the large and congested Arab League Boulevard—when out of the darkness, a car suddenly appears. It swerves and skids to a halt right in front of us.
Madame Nivine slams the brakes and we’re both thrown forward. There’s hardly any room for her bosom. It crushes the steering wheel and I cringe at the resulting earsplitting honk. The carnation has loosened, and it tumbles to the ground as I stare at her. Her turban has shifted to one side; it looks like a tall cake about to flop over. Equally befuddled, she stares back at me.
Our daze only lasts a few seconds. Three men with scarves tied around their faces jump out of the car that’s blocking us. Before we can think to do anything—curse, crank up the windows, or lock the doors—they are banging on our hood for attention. Madame Nivine shifts her turban back to vertical.
“Who are they?” I hiss, looking around and wondering when Cairo suddenly emptied. “What do they want?” I sink back into my seat as the men file by my window, glaring.
One of them has a hammer, which he waves in the air. “Leave this path you’re following, or we’ll break your head.” He’s shaped like a noodle and is promptly shoved to the side by a second hooligan, who reaches for me through the open window. My hands flutter; along with th
e quavering squeaks that come out of me, they are a weak defense. In one swoop of movement he has both my wrists squeezed in his grip.
He twists; I squeal.
“This time I’ll leave a thumbprint,” he warns, his voice gruff and full of menace. He stinks of stale cigarettes and libb. “Next time I’ll break your bones.”
“Yeah,” says the noodle, moving toward the front of the car. “You see this hammer?”
“And what do you plan to do with it?” Madame Nivine had gotten out of the car without my noticing, and she stands facing him, illuminated from below by the headlights and looking every bit like Aladdin’s genie.
The noodle turns into a jittery insect when she pounds him in the chest. “She broke my ribs, Yahya,” he calls out to the gang’s boss, who releases my wrists to deliver a crackling slap that sends the noodle flying to the side. “Don’t say my name!” He turns and snarls at Madame Nivine. “Ya sitt, whoever you are, just stay out of this. It has nothing to do with you.”
“You swerved in front of me and banged on my kharteeta,” she says. “As if it doesn’t get enough bashing on the streets every day. And then you tell me this has nothing to do with me?” Her voice starts out firm but turns wobbly almost immediately, and I climb into the backseat, thinking I might not be detected if I slip out through the back door.
Yahya spots her fear, too. Just as I slip my foot out and onto the road, he grabs the hammer and bashes the car’s hood. “And does this have anything to do with you? A last warning, you fat pig: keep out of it!”
I’m out and ready to tiptoe away. I desire nothing more than to vanish. But how can I leave her behind with these brutes? I cower by the taillights, unable to take my eyes off Yahya as he smashes Madame Nivine’s kharteeta twice more. Emboldened, the third thug—who had served as a lookout up until now—joins the other two, and they form a menacing circle around her, shoving her back and forth.
Poor Madame Nivine. She had gotten out to defend me. Instead, she became the victim of the assault. I twirl my wrists, stiff and sore, and a bubble of rage explodes in me. How can a father do this to his own daughter? Before I can think, I’m rushing into the double spotlight of headlights, striking blindly at the ruffians with all my force. They stumble back with shock, the hammer falling to the ground with a clunk. Every bit of me is alert, stretched like a taut string. When Yahya lunges at me I kick him smack in the groin. He doubles over, howling and cursing.