That Other Me (22 page)

“Sing to the little birdies, Dalal. Let them learn the song.”

It's a strange request, but if she asked me to walk across the room in a handstand I'd agree. It's been just six weeks since I signed the contract, and already Madame Nivine has secured my first recording—a song called “Only Me, Lonely Me,” written especially for me—and we're heading to the studio as soon as she has finished getting ready. She's in the bedroom of her apartment in Mohandessin; I'm in the sitting room.

I saunter past a cabinet containing a collection of crystal animals and step out onto the glassed-in balcony, where she keeps her plants and parakeets. I turn to the birds—an identical pale-yellow pair—and start to sing. I add my own brand of color to the lyrics:

“It was love at first sight,

Now you wanna take a flight

Just know when you're on that plane

Your sweetheart is aflame

You wanna go?

Then go, go, go.

And stay away.

Oh no, no, no.

On my own . . . that's me . . . yes, me.

All alone . . . only me . . . only me . . . lonely me.”

It's not profound, like an Umm Kulthum song. It's bouncy, frisky, like the spring of a squirrel. Madame Nivine says this is necessary to get me noticed. (She assures me that the serious music will come later.) Apparently the public just wants something light and jolly.

“Sing from your heart,” she calls out, and I picture her unfurling the turban she has been wearing all day and selecting a shinier one for the evening. During the second round of the song the birds start to fidget, twisting their tiny heads this way and that.

Nivine Labeeb knows so much. Yesterday, the sting of Adel's comments still fresh, I asked her an important question: is it possible for a female singer to become famous and still keep her good name? “Of course she can,” she said without a blink of hesitation, “if she has someone like me to make sure no one takes advantage of her.” This made me feel warm inside, and I vowed to fling it at Adel if I ever saw him again.

She had then moved on to the subject of Sherif bey and why it was pointless to rely on him: all he could manage in his ripened old age were those tedious jingles for commercials. “He might have been great once, but not anymore. There's good money in jingles, mind you,” she added with a wink, “but do you want a career singing tunes that glorify Nido milk or Johnson's baby shampoo?”

“Of course not!”

She had listed all the talented singers, men and women, who had employed her. “I gave each and every one a good shove up that steep ladder to fame. Sadly, none managed to climb to the top. They've all hovered somewhere between the first and third steps.” Of course, she
had an explanation for this. “You see, habibchi, once they start rising, they think they can find a better representative. And they leave me. So they remain mediocre—or, worse, they dissolve like sugar in tea.” She held up her finger and wiggled her nose. Spellbound, I waited to hear more as she shut her eyes and released a colossal sneeze. “Oh yes,” she said, sniffing and dabbing her teary eyes with a handkerchief, “many of them flew off to Beirut to find a French-speaking Lebanese manager with a fancy name, like Bierre or Michel or Bascal—what happened to Arab unity and pride, I ask you!—and were taken in by their promises
t
o deliver the stars, and the moon, too. They only realized their folly when they noticed that whatever money they'd made was gone.” She pitched a sly glance at me. “You will do the same, too.”

“Never!”

She chuckled. “One thing you should know is that if you stay in the middle for too long, you'll only slip to the bottom. You see, you have to understand that people—the public and the fans—all have short memories. And if you don't keep releasing wonderful songs, if you don't put yourself, your very soul, out there, quite simply, they will forget you. So, hayachi, what I am saying is that it's all up to you—and me.”

“Nearly ready,” Madame Nivine calls now, and I smile with satisfaction. My manager works hard. She secures invitations to some of the classiest parties, the ones that take place in the beautiful old houses in Masr El-Gedida and the posh apartments in Zamalek. There are important people there: television managers and famous film directors, businessmen and influential government officials. As I set about charming them, Madame Nivine woos the oud player into strumming the music of the greats: Abdel Halim Hafez, Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Farid Al-Atrash. The other musicians follow his lead, and before they realize it I am in their midst and singing, to the delight of the guests.

I can't keep still; before I know it I'm once again belting out my song:

“While lovers around me are together,

I'm like a child without its mother.

Dejected, rejected, and all on my own,

My heart is melting. Your heart is stone.”

I bring my face close to the birdcage and sing to express my joy in my new partnership:

“I'm your love . . . that's me . . . yes, me.

On my own . . . all alone . . . only me . . . lonely me.”

At the studio Madame Nivine leans toward me and whispers, “You know these artistic types—they always want an audience and insist that you be part of the entire creative process.” She stifles a yawn. “This must be so boring for you, this waiting.”

She couldn't be further from the truth.

The room is dim and full of small lights—red, yellow, green. There are switches and levers, too: a smoky cockpit that's busier than the flight deck of a crashing airplane. My eyes burn, but I unblinkingly watch the sound engineer's fingers zip over the controls. Every now and then he kicks his rolling chair from one corner of the broad mixer to the other so that he can press a button, thread a tape, or plug in a wire. Of course he's showing off for me, the attractive new talent. The musicians wait their turn just outside the control room; they are called in one at a time to play their bit in the recording studio. Ooh, and all for me.

The sound engineer tilts his head back and releases a lungful of smoke, puckering his lips so that it forms a perfect line. I follow it until it hits the low ceiling and disperses into a cloud, and my mind wanders. I imagine my mother staring at the television, the way she does every night. But instead of watching old black-and-white films, it's me
she sees, right here, right now, in the midst of these giant machines and professional musicians. There's her face, a clammy knot of despair. I know what she's thinking; her mind churns like boiling water, and she clearly regrets all the times she put me down. Even with the smoke crowding my nostrils, I can still smell the decay of garbage at our door.

In my vision, she wishes she had been nice to me, that she had faked a mother's affection, no matter how insincere it might have been. Her eyes are dark, their light snuffed out, and her lips tremble. Her remorse is too great for tears, and I look at her and say, “You see how well I'm managing without you!” She kneels at my feet and kisses them, a solemn request for forgiveness. I raise an eyebrow and direct a cold stare her way—a copy of the one she used to give me—before crossing one leg over the other, my foot hooking her chin to knock her out of the way.
Hah!

Our composer, Amro Dahab (whom Madame Nivine also represents), is tireless; he bounds back and forth across the room as if his legs were filled with springs. He has a big head, which jerks every time a new idea flashes in his mind. He makes each musician play every pluck, strum, and tap repeatedly until he gets it “just so.” His energy is a sharp contrast to Sherif bey's dismal moods.

“Violinist! Call the violinist.” Amro Dahab looks around the control room. Not for the first time, his gaze flicks to me and he scowls. Obviously he is not enchanted by my beaming smile. I'm not sure why, but he doesn't seem to like me.

As soon as Amro has pulled the violinist into the recording room, the sound engineer swivels on his chair and grins at me. He slides a fader: “Y'see,
mazmezain
? One small move, and listen to what happens. Poof! No cymbals. And now . . .”—two more faders are slipped down—“. . . only the flute.”

I clasp my hands. “Magic,
wallahi
, it's magic!”

“Yes, that's it,” Madame Nivine mutters through the side of her lips. “Just act interested.” The tea boy enters the control room once
more, and she reaches for a black tea—her fourth in the three hours we've been here.

“And now . . .” The sound engineer turns up the microphone, and Amro Dahab's voice, shrill as a pipe as he tries to imitate the sound he wants from the violin, pierces my ears. I make a face and giggle, but Madame Nivine has lost patience.

She gets up in a huff and marches into the recording room. She informs Amro Dahab that he has exhausted the musicians with his needless repetition and that it's time to move on and record the talent—that's me—right away. “She's not an instrument, you know,” says Madame Nivine. “Her vocal cords will dry up with all the waiting, not to mention the smoke. And then how will you complete the recording?”

The violinist slouches back in his chair and smirks before digging in his ear for buried treasure. The sound engineer and I listen intently, expecting an argument to explode between an impatient Madame Nivine and Amro Dahab, who insists on getting his composition just right. But then he says, “You promised to get me a name, someone who has recorded at least a song or two.”

“I am bringing you fresh talent.”

“Two unknowns will not make a hit.”

“You may be the one creating the music, but I'm the professional when it comes to making sure your music spreads from one end of the Arab world to the other.” Madame Nivine balances her no-nonsense tone with a broad smile. “We've discussed this, and we agreed that you'd concentrate on making music while leaving the rest up to me.”

“I didn't agree.”

“Your silence indicated agreement.”

“You tricked me.” He crosses his arms and sulks. But there's more. “And I don't like this tune, anyway. It's frivolous. You know I can do much better. And you won't let me.”

Madame Nivine shakes her head. “Not for your first piece.”

“My first piece, and you get me an amateur? It will show in the recording!”

By this time, I am quite insulted. But more alarming is the doubt that floods me. What if there's truth to that? As two unknowns, are we set to fail from the very start?

“She's never stood behind a microphone,” says Amro Dahab. “I need to make sure the instruments sound perfect so I can cover her voice if it flies another way.”

“For God's sake, she's not a bird!” Madame Nivine shoots a dirty look at the sound engineer, and he understands immediately. The control room goes silent. Madame Nivine's face is not quite so jovial anymore; she's hissing something. It's enough to make Amro Dahab drop his head and fiddle with his fingers, like a schoolboy being punished. Even the violinist behaves. With a serious face, he abandons his excavation and waits for instructions.

The room feels cramped; my breath is shallow. I cannot stop thinking about the possibility of failure. I rush out of the room, pass the waiting musicians in the outer office, and make my way through to the empty corridor, where I gulp in air. Will I sound silly, like the presenter of a children's show, singing “Only Me, Lonely Me”?

In the quiet of the corridor, my heels click, as sharp as a knife on a chopping board. Another vision of my mother, one that makes me tremble: this time I'm the one crouched by her feet, a daughter begging forgiveness for having disobeyed her mother.

“Dalal? Ah, here you are.”

No sooner does Madame Nivine step over the threshold than I grab her wrists and yank her toward me. “Promise me I won't be a joke.” The desperation in my voice startles us both. “Promise me.”

She sucks in air through her teeth and wrestles her wrists out of my grip, shaking her head so forcefully that the turban shifts and a lock of hair, secured just above her left ear, drops out. “Easy, girl. You want to break my bones?”

“Sorry. I just want reassurance.”

“If you're going to act like this every time you hear something hurtful, I'll tell you right now: go home.” It's an order, and she points to the staircase.

“No, no, I promise I won't.”

“How many times do I have to tell you it's not all flowers and perfume? The music world is savage. There are people in the industry who will slander you, and there are singers who, if you succeed, will be jealous and hate you for it.” With that, she rubs her wrists. “You've left marks.”

“Sorry.” It's the first time she has scolded me. I shrink into a tight wad of regret.

“And then there are the reporters! They will hound you. They won't just write nonsense about the way you look and what you wear. No, that's not enough to fill the magazines and newspapers. They will actively dig for dirt. If they can't find enough, they will make up stories about you. And the more important you become, the worse it will get. So, I ask you, can you handle all that?”