That Other Me (34 page)

A bolt of lightning slashes the white sky. When a groan of thunder follows, the parrots perched in the massive tamarind tree by my window surrender their camouflaged positions. In a frenzy of screeches and flaps of bright-green wings, they launch the alarm for the impending storm. There's a downpour to look forward to, a rarity that will mark this November day a treasured one, a blessing. That's what will happen outside. Inside, it will remain as still as a grave.

With the mourning period over, the visitors have stopped coming. It's Khaled who died. I finally extracted the information from the maid. He died in Bangkok, I assume from a drug overdose. I'll never know for sure, because no doubt the family has concocted some other story of a natural, less shameful death.

Ammiti Aisha must be shattered. Khaled had a special place in her heart. He was the only one in the family who was open with his affection toward her. Her face always lit up whenever he held her hand or hugged her. Ammi Majed never commented, but it was clear that he abhorred such displays.

Why am I thinking of them? Nobody bothered to let me out for the three days of mourning. But then, why would they? How much longer will they keep me in here? Without the doctor and his pills I am alert, painfully so, and the need to go out is pressing. I've been in this room for ten days. It's enough, I decide.

I march to the door with a raised fist. But, not for the first time, I stop short and consider what would happen if I started pounding. Once more my courage fails me when I mull over the repercussions of my actions, the enormity of what I'll have to face out there. My thoughts turn to Dalal, whose injuries I pray are light. What would she do? I can't decide whether to thank her for saving me from a bleak future or blame her for having triggered one.

Outside, the wind blows, pushing layer over layer of clouds, turning the sky to pewter. Inside, the only sound is the clock ticking, steady, persistent. I back away and pad toward the closet, deciding to sift through my father's briefcase. I need some serenity of mind.

Opening the closet door, I frown at the empty base, where the four locked suitcases filled with bridal gifts once were. They were taken away during one of my deep sleeps. When they arrived, a week before the wedding, my cousins had been so excited. Impatient to discover what was inside, they settled around me in this very spot and insisted I open the suitcases straightaway.

In addition to gold jewelry in a traditional Emirati design, there were a couple of diamond watches, one in white gold and the other in yellow; perfumes, both European and the heavier lingering Arabian scents; and some thirty pieces of exquisite silk and brocade. Two of the suitcases were filled with handbags and shoes, along with four packets of oudh and six bottles, each weighing a
tola
, of the same in its essential oil. Quick to retrieve what I didn't want in the first place, the widow and her son had demanded the return of their extravagant gifts.

Bitterness mixes with helplessness. I pull up a chair and climb onto it. I reach for the briefcase and jump onto the bed, where I un
lock it. Snapping it open, I hold it upside down and shake it. As the contents tumble out, I notice something dislodge under a bunching of the frayed felt in the zippered sleeve. Puzzled, I peer into the pocket. Is it possible that I've missed some piece of my father's life? Two photographs had slipped into a tear in the fabric, one stuck on top of the other from the heat and humidity of many years.

I hold the top photo, its colors a faded pink hue, steady in front of my face. This is the first picture I've ever seen of my mother. I know it's her because she is pregnant. She is standing in front of the Gateway of India with my father, surrounded by a scattering of Bombay's pigeons. On their right is a man touting his wares, peanuts heaped on a wooden tray strapped around his neck. In the background is another vendor, dwarfed under an umbrella of balloons.

But it's my mother whom I scrutinize. I look for some clue of her hopes and aspirations, but it's impossible to make out her features behind her burka. She is taller than I imagined, stronger looking, too. It must have been a rare occasion out, and I imagine her in her precarious condition begging my father to take her for a breath of sea air, a request he succumbed to against the doctor's warnings.

I look up when a deafening rumble of thunder shakes the windowpane. And then the rain comes, just as I expected. It falls hard, filled with the whistle and hiss, the crack and roar of life. And all I can think of is my mother, and whether I was worth her giving up her life. My father had called me a miracle child, but how would either of them regard me in this defeated state? It's distressing, and I quickly turn to the bottom photo.

For a second I'm not sure who the little girl staring back at me is. There's nothing prim or proper about her: she leans forward with her arms spread wide over a table. She exudes assertiveness, her lips lifted to one side in a half smile and those translucent eyes staring directly at the camera. Her head is lowered as if she's about to butt someone.

It's a bizarre coincidence when from the other side of the locked door my grandmother approaches, reinforcing the guidelines I grew up ignoring: “Calmness and modesty make up the heart of all that is good in a woman. It must now become your mission and duty to make sure you adopt these noble and pleasing qualities.”

She's berating the girl in the picture, this me of so long ago, who is charged with pluck and daring. Ice cracks in my head, and my response is a cutting rejoinder: “Silence and acceptance, you mean!”

“Hold your tongue!”

“I've held it long enough.”

“No shame in your bony frame, no shame,” she mumbles, her voice brimming with shock and disapproval. “He's right, after all—you have gone completely mad!”

“Yes, mad,” I shout back. As she trudges away I watch the rain, a steady stream that sounds like thousands of tiny clapping hands. For a long time I stay that way, emotions surging through me. What have I become? What pathetic creature have I allowed myself to turn into? These questions bring me back to the photos, which I realize have been sandwiched between my palms for quite some time. When I loosen my grip, I am careful, as if the photos were delicate flowers that might lose their petals. My sweaty hand has left a smudge on the little girl's face. I wipe it off gently. And then I am up, changing into a pair of jeans and a thick sweatshirt.

I have to get away. I have to get as far from here as I can. That's the extent of the plan I muddle through as I fill a small duffel bag with essentials. Through the window, the tamarind tree quivers and shakes. It lacks the strong branches needed to support my weight. No matter! I drop the bag to the ground and slip one foot out, then the other, until I'm sitting squarely on the windowsill. I squint at the darkness, calculating the distance, judging the best way down.

I don't hear the door unlocking, but I do hear a gasp, emitted right as I plunge. I'd aimed at what looked like the most favorable part of the
tree, a thickening of branches just above the solid trunk. Now stuck to that tree and holding tight, I blink the rain out of my eyes, stunned at having made it. I have a few scratches, and some sharp bits of bark poke me in the calves, but nothing is broken.

I'm about to negotiate my way down when I see Ammiti Aisha at my window, chewing the edge of her shayla as she looks down at me with terror. “Come back! This isn't the way to do it.” She leans out the window and extends a hand. I shake my head. “Wait!” she cries out as I start sliding down the tree. My grip loosens, fingers like springs coming undone.

It's a bumpy descent; the bark is rough and pitted, and it scrapes off layers of skin even through my thick clothes. When I think it's safe, I jump to the ground. It's a miscalculation. I land flat on my feet but tumble forward with the force of the fall, knocking my head on the ground. Along with the rain, blood streams down my face. I could have taken a moment to nurse the gash, but the urgency of getting away runs deeper than mere blood.

The duffel is under a hedge; I have to crawl to reach it. When it is tucked safely under my arm, I shift back and rise on shock-struck legs, my knees wobbling so hard I have trouble taking the first few steps. That's when Ammiti Aisha grabs me by the arms. I fight back. She holds tight as I slap and kick blindly. “Leave me alone!”

I pull away but she still won't let go, her fingers like iron tongs boring right through to the bone. She insists that I listen to her, because she's arranged everything. “You won't be able to get away from him without my help! You have nowhere to go, to hide.” Having just lost her dearest son, she ought to have been filled with a quiet grief. Instead, she's brimming with a wildness that won't allow her eyes to stay still. “He'll find you and send you away. Do you know where?” She doesn't wait for me to guess. “He's arranged to send you to Bombay.”

We stare at each other, the rain still falling in sheets. I'm stunned, caught between believing her and not believing her. I think of my
mother and father in that photograph, standing in front of the Gateway of India. “Why would he do that?”

“He's decided you need help, professional help. So he's sending you to a clinic there.” I cock my head and blink, still unable to grasp what Ammiti Aisha is telling me. She must think I'm an utter idiot. “A mental institution,” she adds in the gentlest of tones, loosening her grip to pat the cut on my head with her sodden shayla. “So please, come with me.”

It's midnight, and I slide into the car waiting outside my apartment in upscale and trendy Zamalek. We head to the venue at Cairo's Semiramis Hotel for the last of 1998's big summer concerts. Each was planned and scheduled to coincide with the Khaleeji traveling circuit. I debuted in London at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, then performed at the InterContinental in Geneva, then at the Concorde La Fayette in Paris—a full house every time.

It's quiet in the car. Normally I would relish a moment of peace when I could empty my mind before stepping out into the lights, but not this time. I'm wound up as tight as the coiffed strands of hair that curve and twist like a hundred snakes on my head.

Mama Al-Ouda died yesterday in her sleep. But that's not the reason I'm tense. It was the first thing Mariam told me when I called her earlier in the afternoon in a panic, insisting that she come over to my apartment before the group arrived to get me ready. But she was packing, getting ready to travel to Dubai in the evening for the mourning
period. It will be the first time she's been back since her daring escape nearly three years ago.

I fell silent when she gave me the news and waited for something to happen—a lump in the throat, an ebbing spirit, some small piece of sympathy—just as I had felt two months earlier when I got that other news, about my father. I waited, a granddaughter who never knew her grandmother, and when nothing happened I tried to stir up some sad thoughts, hoping to draw tears. They came with a might that rattled me, but it wasn't because of Mama Al-Ouda's death.

“Did he hurt you?” That's what Mariam asked as soon as I bridled my hysteria long enough to tell her about last night's row.

How to tell her that he did? “No, no, that's not what happened,” I said, with too much ardor. How to explain that he doesn't think I'm good enough (worse, he called me trash!) without giving away the real nature of our relationship, the intimacy, the way I've let him possess me? I've sketched only a vague picture for Mariam: a scribble of a respectable suitor with honorable intentions. He can be crude and hurtful, but I can't tell her any of that, because I know what she'll say: “Leave him, Dalal. You deserve better.” And that's the one thing I can't bear to do.

“I'm not yet twenty-one. Why is this happening to me?” I said.

She asked, “So, what did he do?” And all I could manage was a hacking sigh that sounded as if it were my very last breath (or close to it) while I searched for the best way to describe my distress. I could tell that Mariam was losing patience as she waited for me to say something. I could hear her opening a closet and pulling out a suitcase.

I never thought it would be possible for me to be smitten to the point that my mind is always occupied with a man. He's hard to ignore, impossible to resist, an addiction, and I've racked my brains trying to figure out why.

I was introduced to him last summer at a restaurant in Geneva and immediately registered his age and status: thirty-three years old
and single, a successful Saudi businessman. In the middle of that big group, drunk on lighthearted humor and champagne, he had a way of seeing me without actually looking at me. He'd rub his chin, the sharp line of his close-trimmed beard, and seem to be focused on something in another world. But then he'd slide into the conversation, aiming his interest at me only, as if I were the only person burning my tongue on fondue in that restaurant.

The next few weeks were exhausting: I built up my worth by resisting him, a delicate game that involved keeping him interested at the same time. In addition to a few of my own tricks, I used all the ones I'd watched Mother perform with those lowly people in Imbaba (even though they'd brought her more trouble than good).

It was pointless—all of it. I might as well have been made of glass, because he saw right through me. Finally I stopped trying and just gave myself to him.

Not for the first time, Mariam said, “Well, at least tell me his real name,” and I had to tighten my lips against the temptation to reveal his real identity because of everything else that might just spill out: the nights—so numerous—spent with him at his penthouse in Garden City, the vacations on his yacht in Hurghada, and the trips to Europe.

In Cairo we never venture out together. In Europe he relaxes his guard somewhat. I know what is expected of me, and, wearing dark glasses that cover most of my face, I always make sure I'm a few steps behind him whenever we are out in public, just in case he bumps into someone he knows. We might be walking down the Champs-Élysées when suddenly that someone appears. And I'll quickly stop at a café or pause in front of a shopwindow or make an abrupt swerve to the back of the line at a cinema's ticket booth—whichever is nearest. Sometimes, once whoever it is moves away, he'll come back to find me surrounded by a cluster of passing admirers. With a forced smile, he'll watch the inevitable photos-with-the-star being snapped. I know he gets a thrill out of being in a secret relationship with the Arab world's
number-one singer. But there is jealousy, too, a mean-spirited silence and resentment that can go on for days.

Mariam will never understand that that's how it is with someone like him—so educated and worldly. He often says to me, “Dalal, habibti, do you realize how many enemies I have who would like nothing better than to take all that is beautiful in our relationship and rip it apart?” (Why do the men closest to me—first my father and now this man—insist on keeping me a secret?) I always nod, convinced that I must stay quiet just a little bit longer—until we get married. Then, last night, I finally asked him when that might be. He looked at me as if I'd committed a crime, and then belittled me with all those insults.

We cross 26 July Bridge and veer right, decelerating into a thickening sea of taillights on Corniche Al-Nil Street. My manager, Gino Ghazal, sits next to me in the backseat of the BMW, which heads our convoy of three cars. He dials the concert organizer, and as he informs him of our delay, I pull out a compact mirror to dredge up some enthusiasm over how glamorous I look. I've been prepared by the best; both the top hairstylist and the finest makeup artist were flown in from Beirut. I turn my head this way and that, catching bits of my face: the sleepy eye that has woken up for good, the smooth bridge of my nose—both improvements that my man pushed me to get—and my skin, a velvety sheen under layers of expertly blended makeup.

Outside, an old man, outfitted in traditional baggy trousers with a broad satin waistband, sways from side to side, singing praise for the cold licorice juice sloshing in a large copper container strapped to his chest. The night is alive. Cars honk; boat owners call out offers for late-night trips on the Nile to the stream of strolling couples and families who are either in the middle of lively conversation or busy chewing on libb. There's laughter all around. Music blares from a small radio somewhere. The noise of the street seeps through the windows of the BMW . . . and so does the smell, as we inch past a vendor fanning corn in one of the many mobile kitchens. I scowl at the
tirmis
seller farther
down, who keeps spraying his lupin beans to keep them moist. “It's past midnight,” I grumble. “Why can't all these people stay home and watch television?”

“End of the week,” says the driver. “No one stays home on a Thursday.”

I lash out at him. “It's good and proper for a star to arrive late: it shows she's in demand. But I want that delay to be of my making. I'm the one who has to be in control. You hear me?”

The driver and the bodyguard sitting next to him reply together, “Yes, Sitt Dalal.”

“Fools!” I mutter, and hold the compact mirror at arm's length to inspect my canary-yellow dress. It's an extravagant one-shoulder Zuhair Murad creation. The fitted top is studded with rhinestones and hugs me in all the right places. The bottom part is a gush of chiffon, fresh, alive with strips of yellow and lime green. Gino Ghazal squints at me with tiny green eyes that look like dried-up peas. My dazzle blinds him. For the third time this evening he says, “Spectacular!”

I indicate my agreement with a grunt and, wisely, he says no more—unlike Madame Nivine, who never knew when to shut her mouth. It's been a year since I replaced her—just as she'd predicted—with the Lebanese manager. The greedy, turbaned glutton uttered her final
habibchi
when I found out she'd been skimming money, cheating me out of my profits.

How is it possible that I actually looked up to her? I considered Madame Nivine a mentor, a protector, and even a replacement mother at one point. That other one is still trying her best to win me back. After my career took off, Mother waited to make sure that my fame was not a passing thing. Once she felt assured that her daughter was a star who would not fizzle out, she went ahead and divorced Sherif bey. (Why keep him?) I support her financially because that's what is expected of a good daughter, but there it ends. I have a new family now.

A new family: it's an attractive thought. I scrutinize my manager,
who has one long leg crossed over the other and is dabbing his clean-shaven face. He wears a gray suit and a pale-pink shirt without a tie. His thinning hair is gelled back in distinct rows of chestnut-colored strips that gather at the back of his business-minded head—no space in it for anything other than success and profit. Gino Ghazal is not someone I can embrace as family, I decide, and neither are all those other people—never less than seven or eight, all of them mirrors of Azza and Hannah—who surround me for no other reason than their own selfish desires. I take a fatigued breath and blow it out through lips colored a screaming fuchsia.

Gino Ghazal cocks his head to indicate his concern. Even though he has seen me distressed before, it's never been before a concert. Like all the others, my entourage and attendants, he knows something is seriously wrong. From the moment they filed into my apartment a few hours ago to get me ready, I've been in a sour mood. I accused the hairdresser of grazing my scalp with his pins and complained about the selection of colors the makeup artist had chosen, insisting they did nothing to brighten my features—anything to vent steam. They were apologetic, obviously used to the whims of a star. They were so accommodating it made me feel frivolous. So I turned my attention to Azza and Hannah. That good-for-nothing duo received the brunt of my cranky mood, and that still didn't satisfy me.

Mariam had kept pushing to find out his real identity. She said, “How did you come up with it, anyway—Ustad, this name you've contrived?”

To me, that's what he has been—an
ustad
, a professor, who has taught me so much: to dress well and eat well, to pose and speak like a lady. He cares that I look my best, and even arranged the appointments for the surgical improvement of my nose and sleepy eye. He's done so much for me. When a nasty reporter wrote in a review that my voice sounded strained and went so far as to call me “tone-deaf” (the ultimate insult!), Ustad arranged for the most famous music teacher in
Egypt, an old, retired Greek-Egyptian woman with blue-gray hair and a mustache, to give me voice lessons.

Mariam persisted. “Well?”

I almost told her that it came from my ignorance. There is heat in Ustad's eyes and strength in his face—and a nose that, early in our relationship, he described as Roman. He was amused when I told him that I'd never met any Romans, and he vowed right then to educate me, beginning with a series of lectures on that ancient empire that went on for way too long. The lessons on Rome were thorough; he even cited dates. The information floated into my head and stayed there for seconds before turning to vapor. But he couldn't tell. He didn't know me well enough to understand that I've mastered the art of looking interested when I'm not. At the end of it all I decided to call him
Ustad
, a code name he approved of. Yes, I was ready to tell her this little story. But Mariam scoffed at the name, and that made me feel protective of him. I snapped, “It suits him, and he likes it.”

“So,” Mariam said, after a short pause. “Will you cancel the concert?”

“Of course not,” I said. “Think how unprofessional it would be to let a fight with him affect my work. People have flown in to see me from all over the world. They've bought tickets!”

“No, I mean in light of our grandmother's passing away.”

“Hmm.” I'd forgotten about that. “
Allah yarhamha
, may God bestow his mercy upon her.”

“Right.”

For Mariam's sake, I closed my eyes tightly and tried to shape some thought of Mama Al-Ouda that might help me mourn her. The only image that popped into my head glowed in colors so bright I felt the onset of a headache: Mama Al-Ouda on the bridal stage, telling me to get off and sing. The old woman couldn't tell I was her granddaughter. “Anyway,” I said, “you know as well as I do that no one wants us there.”

She grew silent and I told her not to be like that, to understand that I had made a commitment to perform, signed a contract. She smiled then, or I like to think she did, because Mariam always could see the good in me.

I'm smiling. Gino Ghazal notices and tells me that it suits me. The driver and the bodyguard turn around briefly to nod their approval. I touch my mouth, a little shy, somewhat bewildered to find that I am indeed smiling. As the car halts at the back entrance of the hotel, I realize that something else has snuck up on me: a quickening of the pulse, vitality—yes, the familiar enthusiasm that always precedes a performance.

The doors of all three cars open at once and we shuffle through the back entrance, where the concert organizer, a short, round man with no neck, greets us as if we are long-lost family members. He looks set to cry, so great is his relief at our arrival.

He leads the way, raining compliments on me while half walking, half hopping to the service elevator. The elevator bell dings, and we step out on the top floor. As we walk down the corridor toward the suite, the concert organizer tells me that I have barely ten minutes for last-minute touch-ups, that he'd like to keep the evening going smoothly, with everything running on time. “When has that ever happened in Cairo?” I joke, and the whole group laughs heartily.