That Other Me (29 page)

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 Ma
dame 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 the 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.

With their leader out of commission, the united front breaks down for a moment . . . until the noodle picks up the hammer. There's a crazed expression in his eyes. “He'll do it!” I yell, and together Madame Nivine and I start to run away. Suddenly the city comes to life in a burst of illumination.

One, two, three cars roll toward us, all in a row. Like a posse of night angels, they light the street.

“This is not over,” Yahya manages to holler, his voice high-pitched in agony. “We'll hunt you down, and next time . . .” We can't hear the rest over the honks and bellows of impatient drivers unable to pass because his car is blocking their way. The brutes are quick to depart, leaving behind the echo of their screeching wheels. Had they stayed longer, the people in the convoy would have gotten out of their cars to investigate—and then, as with any event involving a crowd in Cairo, there'd be the certainty of mayhem, with the deli
cious chance of their being beaten to a pulp. Such are my thoughts as we drive away.

I am elated by our escape, even though I can't stop trembling. Madame Nivine keeps gulping, making loud popping noises with her tongue. The atmosphere in the car is thick. I clap my hands to dissolve it and say, “Well, that's that: chased them away, didn't we.”

“Oh really,” Madame Nivine cries out. “You think that was smart of you, coming at them like that?”

“I was protecting you,” I say, slighted by her inability to appreciate my valiant rescue.

“Dalal the heroine.” She wiggles her neck in an elaborate, low-class display of scorn. “You think they won't come at you another time?” She shakes her head. “Look how they smashed my kharteeta. Look at all those holes in her hood.”

“You can fix the bastards. Call that connection you have in the security forces and pay him so that he can protect us.”

“My connection has a job, ya Dalal!” she yells, gesturing wildly. “He can't be everywhere. You saw how they appeared out of nowhere. We don't even know what they look like.” She sniffs, trying to calm down. “I can't have someone smashing your face in. That would be the end of your career, and I've worked too hard for a disappointment like that.”

Instinctively I pat my cheeks, distraught by the thought of my beautiful face all squashed and swollen under Yahya's fists. “What can we do?”

She answers me once she steers the kharteeta onto Arab League Boulevard. “It's time we got you some bodyguards.”

“It's half past ten. Ladies, tell me: the flower girls—where are they?”

“All set, in the foyer.”

“And the musicians?”

“Waiting for her entrance, too.”

Having gone through the checklist, the rambunctious widow, soon to be my mother-in-law, rubs her hands together with satisfaction. She's plump, with a receding chin that blends into her neck, a cushiony support for her large head. “Right, time for the bride to make her appearance.”

I stand up; immediately, my knees wobble and I drop back into the chair.

There's a gasp, then a giggle. It comes from the blur of women surrounding me. I'm being dressed and made up in a suite at the Hyatt Regency hotel. I hear the swirl of silk and the rasp of chiffon, and the women's every movement wafts the scents of rose, jasmine, musk, amber, and that most royal of essences, oudh. The smells shoot up my
nose and fog my head. “Come on, Mariam,” my cousin Amal jokes. “You're stronger than that dress. Don't let it pull you down.”

Ten kilos: that's the confirmed weight. Add another kilo for everything the hairdresser piled on my head, and I'm carrying about as much weight as a laborer hauling cement. These thoughts are about as far as can be from the romantic sentiments a bride should have, and appropriate for this humiliation of a wedding.

“She looks like she's going to faint!” the hairdresser says, and releases a cloud of hair spray that mists over my face. “Get her some crackers.”

“No crackers! We can't have crumbs sticking to her lips,” bosses the widow. She complains that she has to get back down to the ballroom, that she can't be in two places at the same time. She asks my cousins whether she can trust them to deliver me in the next ten minutes, and they promise they will. She narrows her eyes at me. They are set close over the generous bridge of her nose, which would have looked fine had her nose been a normal length. But it stops short—it makes me think of an unfinished road—and gives her face the appearance of being somewhat squished. The widow taps her ruddy cheeks and clicks her tongue at me. “Bride's nerves. Nothing to do about it, I suppose,” she mutters with a sigh, and clears out.

“Are you feeling weak?” Ammiti Aisha's voice sounds like it is coming from the end of a tunnel. She was not in the suite earlier, and I look around to locate her. Ever since we left the hospital, she has been more attentive toward me, especially since I took to spending long spells alone in my room. There have been days over these past months when I sank into a depression so deep I had trouble eating and sleeping. I mourned an education buried before it got a chance to sprout, a future diverted like an artificial stream, destined to dry up in hard earth.

All my female cousins—Mona, Amal, Nadia, Nouf—would saunter into my room and glower at me, accusing me of being spoiled
and ungrateful. (What girl would not desire such a match?) Only Ammiti Aisha showed me any sympathy, patting my hand with a wistful smile. Sometimes she would sigh and shake her head in what I was sure was apology, as if she regretted having actively worked to seal the union. Other times she would flit in and out of my bedroom like a noisy bee, trying to snap me out of my despair. I stopped blaming her after a while. How could she have done otherwise when my uncle assigned her this task? One day she said, “That's how it is for us women. We are often obligated to do things we don't want to. And the best lesson you can learn is to stifle the pain.” Not a spark of hope in such talk! And just as I thought that no one could possibly understand my desperation, she added, “They call us weak, but how can that be when we are able to bear so much.” That was the day Khaled was supposed to return but didn't. That was the day she found out that her husband had not lied: Khaled was a heroin addict, after all.

There she is. Through the gaps between the shifting limbs I spot her. Her burka hides her expression, but I watch her anyway. She sits on a corner chair, her back rigid as a tree stump, and leans forward as if rallying her strength.

A woman's bottom blocks my vision, and I shift so that I can keep my eyes on Aisha. I detect resolve in her position, I'm sure of it. What can it mean? Maybe she'll display an unexpected burst of courage, just like at the hospital. She might take a stand against this hounding army of relatives and busybodies. She might tell them that enough is enough. Her lips part, and I wait for her to object to this sham of a wedding.

She'd start a little awkwardly, her voice a sputtering, weak fountain. She'd probably say something like, “Maybe we should wait.” No one would hear her but me. She'd have to cough for attention as she gathered strength to speak out: “Mariam does not have to get married.” And that would unlock the pent-up frustrations and disappointments she has endured all these years with my uncle.

Someone lights the coals. Smoke curls out of the incense holder. I blink against it repeatedly. When I catch sight of the corner chair once more, it's empty. Ammiti Aisha has deserted me, left me with an absurd fantasy in the middle of this circle of eager faces and restless limbs.

A hand clasps my chin and twists my head back to face the mirror. The makeup artist has worked tirelessly, and has succeeded in making me look like someone else. Caked under layers of makeup, my face has been lightened to the tint of weak, milky tea. The makeup artist blows a hot, frustrated breath. “Rounder, softer, rounder,” she mutters, and makes a last attempt to transform my stubborn face. But there is no roundness or softness there. My cheekbones jut high and sharp.

My hands rest on my thighs, palms up, as if I'm holding an open book. An elaborate henna design adorns each palm. Masterfully drawn by the Indian henna lady, they are remarkable pieces of art, exquisite patterns of tightly packed petals. The broad paisley design thins into an elegant swooping curl that ends at the bottom of the middle finger; small vines travel the length of each finger. They twist and sprout dainty leaves along the way. Once they reach the tips, they blossom into peonies.

My bangs are pinned back to join the rest of my hair, which is piled and twisted into a nest of tube curls sitting on top of my head. The hairdresser crowns me with the final touch, a rhinestone tiara from which trails a soft veil.

“Come on, time is rushing,” a woman I've never met before says. The others close tighter around me and I sink under their hot and animated breaths. When I gasp in a lungful of air, it's so strained it sounds like a door hinge badly in need of oiling. Mona hears it, too, and for the first time she yells out something useful: “Give her room, ladies!” Then she makes a joke: “A bride is a delicate and nervous flower. Too much moisture, too much sun, too much of anything will cause her to wilt.”

The women cackle and fan out. I rise. My dress, embellished with hundreds of pearls, crystals, and sequins, is as heavy as sludge.
“Water,” I whisper, and before I can say it again, the hard rim of a glass is touching my lips. I take a sip, and right away the makeup artist is adding another layer of brilliant pink to my lips.

“Enough,” says Mona. “Any more color and she'll look like a clown.”

Here is a clown who's not laughing. One last glimpse at the mirror: I stare beyond the arty strokes of sea-green eye shadow and the industriously curled lashes, and focus on my eyes. Gone is the hope that once floated on them. Deadened is their soul.

“Move out of the way,” Mona commands. “It's time to go down.”