That Other Me (10 page)

Some of the girls at the sakan have asked me these same questions. They had already calculated the amount of money my family has, based on snippets of society's various estimates of the Naseemy fortune. In response, I would play down the importance of money and launch into a lecture on the significance of serving the community and repaying our generous government by getting educated and bringing home vital skills. It's a dull explanation, something you'd feed a reporter or a government official. But it served me well, because they'd stopped asking. To Adel I find myself uttering, “I need to feel self-worth.”

Adel flinches. There's a break in the steady, rhythmic bubbling of the shisha's water, and I look for something to focus on. There's the steel sugar bowl. Picking up the teaspoon, I chip at the hardened sugar crusting its sides. My mind roils with disbelief at what I've just said.

Adel puts the pipe on the table and leans forward. He wants me to open up, but how can I with all this self-blame, this guilt that runs as deep as the river to my side, as thick as the silt at the bottom. I was there. I watched it all. I said nothing. I let it happen.

The images rush through my head: the hospital bed where my father, propped up on a couple of cushions, was recovering from a fall after his stroke; the worry beads unmoving, as still as the hand that was holding them; the open mouth and teary eyes, so grateful to Allah for sparing his life, to his brother for caring so much; the paper in front of him and the court notary asking him, “Do you understand with your full sense what this means?”

I know we should leave in the next few minutes if I want to arrive at the sakan before nine, but a heaviness holds me down. My head drops to my chin and I avert my gaze. A mosquito fires its sharp drone somewhere around my forehead as the moody air turns still once more. It bites. I pay no heed to the itch. I dare not meet Adel's gaze.
One word, one look from him might slacken my tongue and cause all that is held back to gush out.

“So,” he says. “How is your cousin, what's her name? Dalal . . . yes, that's it, Dalal. Is she your best friend?”

I am so grateful for the shift in subject that I answer him immediately. “Yes, she is.”

“Were you close when you were growing up?”

“Oh, yes,” I say, and as he returns to his shisha, my mind drifts back in time and I think about how our unlikely friendship came to be. The first thing that struck me about Dalal was her impertinence. I was with Nouf in the school's playground when Dalal sought her out and told her that there was no escaping the fact that they were sisters. Dalal stood before us with her fists stuck to her hips and bragged about it. We were speechless with disbelief.

She was an odd-looking little girl who did not look like us at all. Her curls had expanded with the humidity and spilled out of the two pink hair clips on either side of her head. One of her eyes refused to open fully and her nose was so flat that, in the morning's glare, I could not make out the line; only two dots emerged in the middle of her milky face.

There was quite a commotion at Ammi Majed's house when Nouf later reported the incident, and this spiked my curiosity. Was she really my uncle's secret child? Where did she live? What made her suddenly want to slip into our lives?

Nouf called her an imposter and demanded that I never talk to her about it. I kept that promise, but that didn't mean I couldn't speak to Dalal directly. Our friendship developed slowly (we were so different), but flowered after my father had returned from his recuperation in Germany. It was a turbulent time in my home as my father tried to deal with his brother's betrayal. He had no time for me—and I ended up seeking out Dalal. We had united in our misery. We vented our anger and frustration on the man responsible for all our woes, my uncle, her father, vowing to get back at him one way or another.

This is how far back my thoughts have wandered when I become aware of Adel tapping the table with his water pipe, pulling me back to the moment. “I just asked you a question,” he says. “Three times!”

“Sorry. What is it?”

“Your cousin, Dalal, what is she doing here in Cairo, anyway?”

“She wants to be a singer.”

“A singer, huh?”

I nod. “She does have a beautiful voice.”

“Maybe we can get together with her sometime soon. And she can sing for us.”

“She would love to,” I say. “The problem is that once she starts, you won't be able to get her to stop.”

Adel chuckles and puts the pipe back into his mouth. He sucks in a deep breath, making the water explode into mighty bubbles. It is a happy sound that makes me think of a merry group of babbling women. The maître d' saunters back to our table. It seems the privacy gained from the baksheesh has expired. An order of two more teas satisfies him and he leaves us, while we settle back to chat about Dalal and her antics.

Through the showroom's glass walls, a tractor gleams. As I enter Green Acacia Ltd., the office boy picks up a rag and starts wiping its hood with urgent strokes. It is a demo utility tractor with a front loader, bright green with yellow tire hubs. Parked on the glaring white tiles at a slight angle, it faces a tomato-red chisel plow. On the right side of the showroom is a reception area where Mustafa usually sits and where, near closing time, I often join him and watch the passing cars outside on Airport Road. I catch sight of him by the stacks of plastic mulch and rolls of tubes used for drip irrigation; he is busy with a customer.

It is the same large showroom that Hareb bought soon after registering the company, but it never looked like this when he was alive. It used to be dim and dusty, the paint on the walls in uneven shades of beige, the flooring kept dull in its original cement base, the employees crowded behind metal desks that were fringed with towering masses of truck tires and heaps of spare parts. My brother placed little importance on modernizing or neatening Green Acacia.

When I took over, I rearranged the company. I separated the offices, installing them in the back for privacy. Now I pass a row of work spaces with glass partitions, filled with accountants—Egyptians and Indians—who straighten up when they become aware of my presence, looking up from their sheets, ledgers, and newly installed computers. Their starchy faces break into humble smiles of respect. I nod back my greeting and turn the other way, passing a large room we use for storage and pausing at the open doorway of the first office. Saif is slouched in his rotating chair with his back to me. The phone receiver is propped on his shoulder as he murmurs into the mouthpiece. He is talking to a woman, and it's not his wife. I can tell because his voice sounds amorous.

Ahmad is in the next office, engrossed in his newspaper, but he spots me and jumps to his feet like a soldier, with an expression that he's ready to accommodate my every wish, as he recites a list of the latest developments—a few queries from interested companies, a couple of updates on the various contracts we have going—that have taken place since he arrived at eight o'clock sharp. “Hasn't your brother gotten over his broken heart by now?” I ask, frowning at the other desk in their shared office, which has been vacant since a fortnight ago, when Khaled suddenly packed up and left for Bangkok without telling me. Ahmad shakes his head, sighing to show his empathy. When I grunt, he calls out to Saif, who rushes to our side, clutching a green file to his chest. As always, my sons have an idea they would like me to approve. I've already delayed the prospect of hearing out this latest one for too long. So I signal them to follow me, with one thought: to get it out of the way quickly so they will leave me in peace and I can search for that photograph.

My office, along with my secretary's, is at the end of the corridor. It has a seating area that looks sunken because it's so much lower than the imposing desk. Whenever I have visitors, I join them on the soft leather seats so I don't look down on them; that would be disrespectful. I don't bother to do this with my sons. No sooner am I settled
behind my desk than Saif pulls what looks like a thick contract out of the green folder. He hands it to me. It is typed and bound, and seems a most tiresome twenty-page read. “What's this?” I say, balancing it like a dead fish on the palm of my hand.

He clears his throat and says, “This is our proposal for taking this company higher, to the next level.”

“Oh? Closer to heaven, you mean?” I chortle at my pun. Ahmad smiles, but Saif just blinks, as always ambivalent toward that thing called humor.

“There's an analysis of the market,” Ahmad says, looking deep and thoughtful with his hands clasped loosely, the index fingers tapping each other. “You'll find some good ideas in there.”

“Really?” I put on my reading glasses.

Ahmad is about to continue—his buttery voice might have been able to hold my attention—but Saif, with his rampageous disposition, spoils it all. “Yes, Father, really,” he says, his voice gruff with impatience. “There are suggestions of what we should do to expand the business when the market is up and broaden our scope when it is down.” I don't appreciate his tone; it borders on impertinence. It sours my mood right away.

“That's easy. When it's up, we make money; when it's down, we hold firm.” I scoff as I flip through the pages. “Is this what they taught you in those business courses you took? You should have asked me instead of wasting time—the company's as well as mine—by making up this nonsense.”

“But this is all scientific. It's based on sound business principles. In it you'll find the market trends, and predictions, too.”

I laugh. “So now you can tell me what will happen a year from now?”

“Please, just read it!” It's a demand, not a request.

I settle on a random page filled with multicolored graphs showing the market analysis that Ahmad had mentioned. I flip two more pages
before slapping the proposal shut. “I can't look at this now,” I tell them, pulling off my reading glasses. “I have too much work. I have to review our transactions, for one thing: what we spend dirhams on and how much we save and what goes toward your salary, so that you can live well. That's what I am prepared to tire my eyes over: the money coming in and going out. Not this encyclopedia you've brought me.”

Saif's face darkens. He looks at his brother, who shakes his head in a
you-failed-horribly
sort of way. Some might say that I should give my sons more say in the company, but there's too much hunger in their eyes, two pairs of torchlights always shifting, always restless with greed. There is a knock, barely audible. I guess it's Mustafa, and when he peers through the doorway I wave him in. “Mustafa! The boys have ideas—again!” I slide the proposal to the edge of the desk and lean back in my chair. “Give it to Mustafa to look through,” I tell Saif. “He can tell me whether it's worth considering.” I glower at his baffled face. “Anything else?”

“No,” he mumbles.

Once my sons have left the room, Mustafa dawdles at my desk and says, “He's not happy with that joke you just made, bey.” With an edgy grin, he caresses his scalp in an east-to-west direction.

“It wasn't a joke. You will read what's in that file and tell me about it.”

“Yes, bey.” He plops down and is swallowed by the sofa, his legs and back folding into an awkward bend, and starts relating the latest goings-on in Cairo, as reported by the four young men he has assigned (working in shifts) to follow Zohra and Dalal. Mustafa opens a small notebook and reads the detailed notes he has jotted down. He tells me that the spies have confirmed that for the past nineteen days Zohra and Dalal have been seeing the same composer. “It's nights now,” he says with bulging eyes, “late nights.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

“I don't know, bey.” He leans back, looking defeated.

Lots of descriptions and no conclusion, I decide, considering whether it might be best if I traveled there to see for myself. I'm curious to find out what their living conditions are like. Zohra appreciates comfort. How is she managing in the middle of Imbaba's muck? I picture her dainty feet skirting piles of rubbish on the streets, her fine nose twisting every time a cloud of exhaust blows in her face. The images fill me with a cool glee. Yes, she probably regrets the day she left Dubai and the shaabia house in Al-Mankhool.

My shaabia was in the middle of a maze of narrow sandy paths, well trodden and hardened to a dirty gray, with an opening every so often—an empty plot of land where boys played football. The house was built too big for the plot, the courtyard no more than a tight square with a
ghaf
tree squeezed in the middle of its cement floor.

For many years my shaabia was rented to an old woman, a widow who couldn't afford to maintain it. It had peeling walls and leaking pipes, ant-strewn cracks in the floors and threadbare carpets, old air-conditioning units that roared but did not cool when the heat shot up in the summer. The widow passed away at a most convenient time: just as I decided to send Zohra to live there as punishment for what she'd done.

The best years with Zohra were the first few. After that she lost her sweet demeanor, replacing it with a haughty sarcasm that made me want to break her, the thankless creature she'd become with her unrelenting demands. It wasn't just that she wanted me to make our marriage public, which I'd always assured her that I would do at the appropriate time. She'd also started insisting that I leave Aisha and move in with her. The nerve! Then one day she announced that she was fed up of waiting and would announce our marriage herself. It was a threat I did not believe, but it was a threat all the same, and it had the effect of pushing me away. I turned cold. I stopped visiting her. And then she came.

It was the eve of Eid Al-Adha, the celebration of the Big Feast. I was watching Aisha as she arranged the sweets and nuts, pouring
them into bowls as part of her preparations for the stream of visitors that would fill the house for the next four days. The doorbell rang, and the maid went to open the door. I didn't recognize Zohra as she entered; she was wearing a burka and abaya. She must have thought that would add credibility to what she had to say. It was Dalal—around eight at the time, with her big head and wrists so skinny it looked as though one might snap in her mother's tight grip—who shook me into an awareness of the catastrophe that was about to take place.

Zohra hollered, “He's a coward! He's a drunk!”

Aisha had turned to me and asked, “Who is this woman?”

“This woman?” Zohra said, jerking Dalal forth. “You should ask him who this little girl is!”

And then something strange happened. Zohra's voice started to shake, the words falling out in a jumble. Perhaps she suddenly felt intimidated by the grandness of my house, or even by Aisha, who was staring at her in a disconcerted panic. “What's that?” she kept asking. “Who are you? What is it you're trying to say?”

There was no time to lose. I made a big noise; I waved my arms to intimidate her. I raised my voice so high that Aisha, in her distress and confusion, plugged her ears. I dragged Zohra and Dalal out of the house by force and ordered my staff to send them off in a taxi. I still can't comprehend how I was able to compose my features so quickly. I'd put the fury in me on hold and marched back into the house to face Aisha. “Madwoman,” I said to her. It was hard to judge how much she had absorbed, whether she believed what she'd heard, but I wasn't about to investigate. “Where do they come from, these beggars? Who lets them into this country?” I might have gotten away with that argument if fate had allowed it.

A week later, my daughter Nouf stormed into the house with the news that there was another girl at her private school going by the same family name. “She came right up to me and said we were sisters! Ask Mariam, she was with me. We'd never seen this girl before; she's
two classes below us.” Nouf was overwrought, choking on her words. “Sisters? How is that possible? She looks nothing like us and talks with an Egyptian accent.”

I hadn't realized they all went to the same all-girls school, and this time there was no escaping the connection. Aisha understood. I remember that her sister showed up at the house more often during that time, no doubt begging her to walk out on me. I kept expecting to come home and not find my wife. But Aisha stayed, quietly withdrawn, unapproachable with that blank face. It was hard to guess what was going on in her head.

Not so with my sons and daughters—four of them were older and married and therefore presumed that they had the right to make demands. Saif and Ahmad hardened their expressions and kept asking, “What now?” Mona and Amal, on the other hand, made a racket with their protestations and declarations of the hurt and anguish I'd caused. They dragged the other girls, Nadia and Nouf, into tears and hysterics, which I knew I could have ended if I confessed, admitted my mistake, shown some remorse, even lied to make up for the betrayal: “It happened in a moment of weakness. She was a seductress who lured me into a marriage I did not want. She must have used magic, blinded me with it. Then the child came—and that must have been planned, too, so that she could shackle me. And no, no one else knows about it. And yes, of course I'll divorce her.” That's what they were waiting for. That's what the whole family expected, but they should have known that I would never have allowed them to bully me and force a confession, real or made up.

At first, I really meant to divorce Zohra right away, but their reactions chased that resolution away. What business did they have judging me? I kept the whole lot of them guessing my intentions. And that included Zohra, who had to endure a long drawn-out torture until I finally severed our relationship. I think back on that time with cool satisfaction. After moving Zohra into the shaabia, I cut back her finances
slowly, a monthly reminder of how lucky she had been to have had me in her life. Ultimately, she couldn't afford to keep Dalal at the private school and had no choice but to move her to a government school. I prolonged my family's mental anguish simply to reinforce the fact that the decision was mine alone.

At the time, in the heat of the moment, I had thrown the blame back at them, accusing them of driving me away, and in the end they did the only thing they could: let it go. Normality returned a few weeks later. And nothing was ever mentioned again about that other wife and child.