Live from Cairo

by Ian Bassingthwaighte

  Aos felt so uncomfortable that he had to laugh. He felt sick for laughing. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “I already called everyone I know,” Naguib said plaintively. “I’ve resorted to calling people I barely knew once, whom I’ve also offended. I have no excuse. The only thing I have is my son.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have the money. I won’t ever have it.”

  Desperation presented itself in the form of stilted breathing over the phone. Aos listened as long as he could bear the noise, but eventually had to hang up. In the dead air grew a strange feeling: this wasn’t the last time they’d speak.

  4

  Hana needed to get out of her apartment. Unfortunately, her plan—go somewhere!—was bedeviled by the day. Friday in Cairo was the same as Saturday in Dearborn. People fortunate enough to have salaries were out spending them. It was the weekend and Hana lacked both the authority and the key required to go to work. Where else could she go? Whom could she bother? If she wanted to ride around the city aimlessly for a few hours paying a man to make small talk, she could call Mustafa. That was pitiful, but was it too pitiful? He needed the money and she needed the . . . well, Hana didn’t know what to call it. The only thing she knew was that she couldn’t spend the whole day alone on her couch. She’d already spent the whole morning and most of the afternoon crying into her wineglass. Did that mean she’d actually drunk her own tears? Maybe so, but Hana had earned such abandon. This day, April Fools’, was not a joke. It was the day Leilah was born; also, and irrevocably, the day she was missed. Like their father, Leilah had perished when a bomb shredded her clothes milliseconds before the rest of her body. She’d died the way she came into the world. Naked and blinded by light.

  “I’m going outside,” Hana said to herself. Saying it aloud made it official. Two shoes sat by the door like dogs desperate to get out. Hana’s fingers shook as she laced them. Fear, rage, regret. Why hadn’t she begged Leilah the same way Ishtar had begged her? “Don’t go back to Baghdad! I don’t care if it’s for work! Quit if you have to! As your mother, the woman who made you and saved your life, I’m asking you . . . no, telling you! . . .” Suddenly Hana found herself in the hall punching the call button to the elevator. The apparatus was either broken or taking a break. Hana used the stairs. She flew down two at a time, risking a fall to her death. The wind of her downward movement made her feel like a bird diving into the sea. A brown pelican. An imperial shag. Hana liked the idea of being an imperial anything. By the time she reached the lobby, her mood had improved. Not a lot, but enough to keep her going. The hot stink of the city, pouring through the open door, offered what Hana’s air-conditioned apartment had not: the smell of life in its putrid beauty. She followed the smell outside. Then followed the sidewalk until her heart told her where to go. The Khan el-Khalili! The great market! She told herself to get lost in its size. She would sip tea. Or carrot juice, if she encountered a juice seller delicately balancing a tin tray of glasses full to their brims with deep orange liquid and pale orange froth. After the juice she would shop cautiously. She would avoid eye contact. She would scowl at boys who made kissing sounds with their lips or crude gestures with their hands. Kissing sounds, piled upon each other, blown rapidly from groups of boys, who seemed to troll the streets day and night, had done much to keep Hana inside. Not today, she thought. Today she would scowl and, if need be, shout or chase the boys until they fled crying. She laughed at the fear they’d once caused her and looked forward to causing them fear in return.

  Hana walked the long way to the Khan, in part because she couldn’t remember its exact location. The sun felt good on her face. Talaat Harb Street, starting by the statue of the famous banker; past the underwear shop, the movie theater, the watch sellers; left to Ramses, then right toward the High Court; right again on 26th of July Street to Attaba, a market district, almost a city within itself, akin to the Kahn but less touristy and harder to enjoy on account of feeling like an interloper; then Al-Azhar all the way to the Khan itself. In total, over four kilometers. Though made longer by the heat and the time spent waiting endlessly at intersections. Reaching her destination was most pleasing to her feet. Hana sat on a bench in the packed square by the Mosque of Sayyidna Al-Hussein. Her feet cramped immediately upon relieving them. Flexing her toes only made the cramping worse. “Ouch,” said Hana. The stranger sitting next to her proffered a weird look. Hana couldn’t tell whether the look conveyed sympathy or surprise. Or something worse, such as scorn. Maybe Hana wasn’t dressed properly. It was hard to know for sure. The opinions on dress were so strong and so varied. Hana thought none of them ought to apply to her shirt, but then again she was wearing her shirt in someone else’s country. By the time Hana decided how to respond—with a neutral but friendly look, like a Swiss diplomat—the stranger had abandoned the bench. The brusque departure pinched Hana, causing more bother than pain; she spread out so nobody else would sit next to her.

  The square was bordered on one side by a series of historic cafés that used to house Egypt’s most celebrated authors—among them Naguib Mahfouz, who haunted al-Fishawi for decades carrying his various depressions and an empty notebook to plant them in. He always sat in the interior treasure room beneath a giant Spanish mirror with lotus blossoms carved into the frame. He came for the mirror but stayed for the legendary customer service. Al-Fishawi’s claim to fame was that they’d operated twenty-four hours a day for 240 years straight. No customer had ever come seeking tea without receiving it. The doors didn’t even have locks. Mahfouz once expressed his gratitude in the guest register. Loving greetings I present to my beloved home, al-Fishawi. God grant it and its owners long life, fame, and happiness. Your loyal son, Naguib Mahfouz. 1982. Six years later, Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for the stories he wrote in their treasure room. Hana loved The Harafish more than his other books, even though it was less famous. She carried the first sentence in her chest like a gunshot wound: “In the passionate dark of dawn, on the path between death and life, within view of the watchful stars and within earshot of the beautiful, obscure anthems, a voice told of the trials and joys promised to our alley.” From her vantage on the bench, Hana could see into al-Fishawi. Waiters ran down a gauntlet of customers with admirable finesse, carrying glasses of Lipton through two rows of turned backs. The waiters never stopped or spilled tea. Orders were shouted at high volume over impenetrable conversations, arguments, tirades, and the sort of laughter reserved for people who’d just finished working long hours or were, more regrettably, about to start. Hana promised herself that one day she’d not only find an empty chair, but sit down and actually order something. The explicit goal would be to mingle with the ghost of an author. That was somehow less embarrassing than the implicit goal. To finally live in this city. As of yet, Hana had simply witnessed it. From a window. From a taxi. And now, from a bench.

  All of a sudden, an ice cream man on the corner rang his bell. That bell was the cold metal cart he whacked with his long metal spoon. Whack, whack. He shouted three flavors, but Hana couldn’t hear which three. She was mystified by the movement of the spoon and the taffylike quality of the ice cream swirling on the end. The metal spoon led to an arm, which led to a face; Hana squinted and, swear to God, saw Charlie. Hana figured the illusion was caused by heat bouncing off the sidewalk and her preoccupation with what Charlie had said the other day in her office. Maybe not what he’d said, but what he’d meant. That she lacked compassion. Or even a heart muscle. Hana feared that was true. A few seconds later, she realized what she really saw: Charlie’s face on Charlie’s body. He was standing behind the man selling ice cream, who’d leaned back to stretch. Hana, agog, marched over. Charlie looked surprised. Then almost frightened. He pretended to play with his phone.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Hana. “Are you following me?” It was, in her mind, an absurd question. Of course he was following her. There was no such thing as a Cairo Coincidence. The city was too big. There were too many people.

  Either C
harlie recognized that or he was too lazy to defend himself. He just wore a sorry look. “You walked past my office. Then walked past again a minute later going the other way. When does fate strike twice? That almost never happens.”

  Hana tried to remember a moment during her walk when she’d turned around. Had she accidentally gone left on Ramses only to realize she should’ve gone right? Had she crossed the wrong intersection and had to go back? Her path had been so winding it was only fair to assume Charlie was telling the truth.

  “Just, we have important things to discuss,” said Charlie. “When I saw you twice through the screen door, I figured only God could make that happen. I don’t even believe in God! That compelled me to chase after you and try to catch up. But you were too far up the street and moving too quickly. Part of the reason you’re so fast, by the way, is that you cross the street without looking. You almost died about . . . well, more than once. It’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

  The ice cream man whacked his cart again. Then told Charlie to choose his flavor or get out of line. There was no line, but that was beside his point. Charlie was blocking view of the cart; therefore, the wild show by a man who’d clearly spent years practicing the art of slinging ice cream on the world’s longest spoon. All that hard work was for naught with Charlie standing between him and potential customers. The ice cream man was losing a sale every time a child walked by. No child could see over Charlie’s shoulders.

  “You could’ve called,” said Hana. “I’ll be in the office next week. And the week after. And the week after that.”

  Charlie started to blather about fate again, but stopped short. “The truth is, there’s no time. Dalia is . . . well, heartbroken. But her damn husband has gone insane. Now, I respect the man. But he’s gone insane. He wants to trade his life in Boston for a much worse life in Cairo. He’s packing as we speak. Actually packing. I can’t live with that. I just can’t.”

  Charlie’s hyperbole had a troubling earnestness. As if he believed his heart would just stop. It caused Hana to feel what she felt some mornings after she couldn’t sleep. That her job was pointless and her purpose wasn’t to help people cross borders, but to impede the process. Normally she disturbed the feeling during the taxi ride to work by rolling down the window and letting the air slap her face. Now the air was not moving; the feeling would not hide. “I need a drink,” said Hana, more or less to herself. It sounded less desperate than she thought it would. “Do you know anywhere nearby that serves—”

  The ice cream man whacked his cart again. When that didn’t work, he whacked Charlie on the arm. The spoon made a duller sound against flesh than against metal. Charlie startled and finally backed away from the cart with a grimace. “Beer?” he said, side-eyeing the ice cream man’s evil spoon. “Please tell me you were going to say beer. Egyptians invented beer, by the way. Did you know that? Now they scorn their own invention. I say at their peril. Scorn beer, scorn God. That’s what I think. I think God bestowed beer as an apology for everything else he bestowed. Mortality, in-laws, peanut allergies.”

  The history of Egypt struck Hana as overwhelming, as if one might ask what the Egyptians didn’t invent and actually receive an answer. The cafés nearby had the same kind of illustrious history. Even the sidewalk seemed so old that the British Museum ought to have plundered it. “I was in the British Museum once,” said Hana, as if her thoughts had been spoken aloud. “I remember thinking it was an impressive testament to empire. I felt horrible for liking it.” Her reward for the peculiar digression was a baffled look on Charlie’s face. There was real pleasure in watching the bafflement spread to the rest of his body. He shifted his weight. He inspected his cuticles.

  “So, about the beer?”

  Hana considered her implied invitation before confirming it. Just in case she’d been impulsive before and had since changed her mind. But she’d not changed her mind. Going anywhere with Charlie still beat going home by herself. She asked if he knew a place.

  “Do you know El Horreya?”

  “No. Should I? Is it famous? Please tell me it’s not famous.”

  “It’s not famous, at all. Or even very clean. It’s not far. Not that far, anyway. We can—”

  Hana’s feet protested before Charlie could suggest they walk. “Oh, look,” said Hana. “A taxi.”

  * * *

  Hana and Charlie sat at a square table covered in bean casings. Several old men in suits and jellabiya played tawla while a few others played chess; entire packs of cigarettes disappeared effortlessly. Hana’s beer, which Charlie had summoned by raising his arm, was lukewarm but still satisfying. It satiated a more important want than thirst. “Today my sister was born,” said Hana. The idea was to start talking before Charlie had the opportunity to abscond with the conversation. Also to give Charlie a taste of his own medicine. He’d come into her office and implanted his sorrow; now she’d implant hers in return. “Almost forty years ago, today. Thirty-seven, to be exact.” Hana knew Leilah wouldn’t mind being used in this way. She’d always had a snotty and sarcastic side and, as a child, had loved vengeance.

  “Huh? I mean, what I came here to say . . .”

  Hana’s look told Charlie to shut up. It was her turn. “But the year that really matters, if I had to pick one, was 1980. That year my mother did two things for the first time. She buried my father and immediately fled Iraq, emigrating by plane from Baghdad to Munich to Michigan.” Ishtar had called it the “weird year.” Egypt established diplomatic relations with Israel. The United States severed relations with Iran. Saddam Hussein even donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Syriac Catholic churches in Detroit. That was where Ishtar had brought Leilah, who was four feet tall at the time, and Hana, who was still a bulge in Ishtar’s midriff—to the Motor City, where Ishtar pushed a pink screaming beast into a blue felt blanket. “The pink beast was me,” said Hana proudly. Time passed without declaring itself, so that it came and went. Hana learned to talk; Leilah attended school; Ishtar worked hard on her English. “She called it the No Fun Language to Learn,” said Hana, biting deeply into the memory of Ishtar falling asleep on a book. “The studying paid off. She got a job at Wayne State. The library, as it happened. Despite lacking the required degree, my mother advanced quickly to a staff position. She had the gumption to argue she was qualified and proved her point by doing the job better than everyone else.” But the intervening years and comparative financial security hadn’t made everything well. There was a hierarchy of suffering in the house. Hana, the only one who’d never met her father and had never been to Baghdad, came last on account of being least homesick. How could she miss a place she’d never seen except in photographs? Leilah, who was sad but elastic, came next. Young people just healed faster. Ishtar, however, contender for most damaged person on Earth, was prone to fits. She’d lost almost everything. Her true love, named Somar. Her true home, called Baghdad. Not only where she was born, but where she’d become herself. Baghdad was where she’d learned how to read. Baghdad was where she’d learned how to love. When Hana was very young, the fits consisted of crying on certain occasions. Such as Akitu, the Assyrian New Year, which Hana had never actually celebrated. “Apparently there’s poetry and a parade,” said Hana. Over time, Ishtar expressed her grief in an increasingly honest manner. On Hana’s fifteenth birthday, her mother’s gift was a detailed account of how Somar died. Not just the broad strokes—the war, the missile—which Hana had learned at an earlier age, but a visual description of the street, complete with blood and bits of paper flying around in the wind. Somar was decimated alongside a shop selling newspapers and pocket-sized copies of the Qur’an. The only thing Hana unwrapped that year was her mother’s bathrobe. “Leilah and I put her into the tub. I sat on the toilet. Leilah sat on the floor. I remember not feeling angry. Just worried that Ishtar would drown in the tub if we didn’t sit with her.”

  Ishtar had told more stories that night. Grander stories, thank God. Mostly about the Mesopotamians. She said Mesopota
mians invented not only the wheel, but also the world’s first vampire. Take that, Egyptians! Dimme, a female demon who hounded women during childbirth. Dimme couldn’t bear offspring of her own, so resorted to stealing and eating children from the human world. In addition to her crimes against newborns, Dimme disturbed sleep, delivered nightmares, carried sickness, ate men, and stomped newly planted crops to deliver the bad news that death was coming to Earth. To defend against such wickedness, Ishtar had carried around an amulet with Pazuzu’s image on it. Pazuzu was king of the demons of wind. Storms came every time he exhaled. Droughts coincided with his thirst. While he didn’t embody many virtues himself, he was Dimme’s rival in Mesopotamian lore. Ishtar thought Dimme wouldn’t enter a room Pazuzu already occupied.

  “My mother was such a fanatic,” said Hana with admiration and sadness and an intense desire to embrace the woman. “The night got better after my mother threw her robe on the floor and sat naked in the tepid water.” She envisioned her mother’s much-younger skin. “When she got tired, she asked Leilah to say what she remembered about our father. His name, Somar, hung on her lips. Leilah smiled. She said her memories of Father were called little glimpses. Father planting things in pots he kept in the window. Father rubbing his dirty hands on his shirt. Father saying one of his many beloved proverbs. ‘One never exits the hammam the same as one entered. I must take a bath!’ ”