The Birds
My aunt’s apartment sat on a main street in Al-Haram, Cairo, where I could see the three tops of the pyramids jutting out above concrete buildings. It was never quiet around Al-Haram. The streets functioned on apprehensive order, disorder, and chance. Cars used the three-lane street as a four-lane. Donkeys stood adjacent to the taxis. People sat in the trunk, with the trunk door wide open, their feet dangling over the highway. The red light meant vehicles could go, and green lights were just a courtesy. Young boys were driving tuktuks, cigarettes hanging from their pursed lips.
It was the summer of 2010, a few months before the Arab Spring, and I was twelve. There was a strange tension among the people. Every cab driver, store owner, every waiter we encountered ranted about the country’s economy. There had always been disgruntled people, but that summer, it felt different. It was like holding a lighter above a pool of gas. Something was on the verge of rupture. On this particular day, the day after my mother and I landed in Cairo for the summer, the electricity and water were cut off for reasons we wouldn’t say aloud. I felt that the city was on top of me.
My mother and I caught a cab and went straight to Auntie Lena’s apartment. This is where all our relatives gathered, not because she was the midway point but because her cooking was to die for. That day she had made stuffed grape leaves, molokhiya, chicken, and rice—a tradition for the day I arrived in the city.
“You’ll eat your fingers after this food,” she said to me, a typical Egyptian saying, the kind of thing only really good cooks tell you. I loved her cooking, but I couldn’t stand the disorder of her home, as if it were an extension of the city. The living room seemed to function more as a storage closet than an actual place to live. In all the corners, I found miscellaneous things: large rugs, desks, chairs folded in on each other, an ironing board, a dusty bookshelf, books about World War II, Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, several copies of the Quran, a copy of the Bible, paint brushes. I ran into things often, stepping over this or that. In the bathroom, the toilet paper was hidden under piles of clothes.
The strangest thing about her apartment was that her fridge was in the living room. And on top of that fridge: three birds in a cage. They were robins, small and plump, with orange stomachs. They looked unbothered most of the time, and they were loud. I always wondered how she went to sleep with their chirping or sharp peeps that reminded me of an obnoxious laugh. Sometimes when I passed by the fridge, I also noticed that they emitted a smell.
Nobody seemed bothered by the status of the apartment except me. My cousins, aunts, and uncles sat around the square living room, elbow to elbow, exchanging hot air. Everyone talked over one another, told one story over the other, and sometimes interrupted the story with an unhappy comment about the heat. Uncle Basem told a story of the earthquake in 1992, when he left his wife and relatives in the building and went racing down the stairs in his boxers, clinging to his favorite cheeses. Laughter erupted around the room and calls of Forget the cheeses! Do you remember your boxers had Minnie on them?! Ya basha! When my family told stories, it was like watching theater. There were large gestures involved, usually hands moving in circles, in the shapes of little clouds, lots of pointing. I often watched and laughed, in appropriate places, of course, because I wanted to pretend that I understood every single word.
“That one—” Uncle Basem said to everyone in the living room, pointing at the larger robin in the cage, “looks at me the way my mother-in-law used to look at me.” He eyed the birds suspiciously. “I dream every day of just cooking them and eating them.” He was seeking understanding, but everyone just laughed. I politely smiled and nodded and imagined that the bird contained the soul of my uncle’s mother-in-law.
I would never admit this to anybody, but it thrilled me to think that birds were us in another form, that these birds listened to the nonstop stories and gossip in our living room and absorbed all of it. I went to sleep sometimes dreaming that they would become plump with all our gossip—and explode. I felt like the birds. I was better at listening than talking. I couldn’t storytell the way Uncle Basem did or tell jokes the way my relatives did. I could see the way that talking connected people, brought them to life. I just listened, absorbed. Perhaps I looked indifferent. Many people thought I was ignoring them. Others thought I was arrogant. Everyone thought I was too quiet for my own good.
Every summer since I was four, my mother took me to Cairo to her apartment in the city. By the time I was eight, we would argue back and forth before every trip. I was irritated that I had to leave my friends every time and miss out on all the fun things they would be doing, like swimming at the neighborhood pool or celebrating birthdays or bumping into boys at the ice cream shop a few blocks from my house. I was just starting to understand my place, finally, at this ripe age of twelve, understanding that it was possible to find my place among these friends who didn’t share the curls piled on my head or the dark skin. The important thing was that they accepted me, even though my mother had weird rules, like I couldn’t sleep over anybody’s house or have a boyfriend or speak anything but Arabic at home, even if my friends were over.
I had always imagined myself having an American life, despite my life at home. Yes, I would have a boyfriend one day like the rest. I would visit beaches and drink and go to college parties. Honestly, I couldn’t envision anything else than that sort of life, and even as I got older, the vision would mismatch the life I lived, the Arab culture that wouldn’t release me. And I would continue to wrestle with that sort of thing—like running up an escalator, I was chasing somewhere to belong to.
My mother believed that taking me to Cairo every summer would connect me to the culture. She wanted to embed the country in me so that it would stay in our family lineage, so that I would have kids who treated Cairo as a home, not a memory. I would learn to read the newspapers in Arabic. I would know all the names of my aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, and all their children. I would not be a stranger. And it bothered me that she didn’t understand what it was like, to be pulled into Egypt and then popped back into America like my place was saved.
One of the things that had always marked my childhood was Nada, Auntie Lena’s helper. Nada came to the house to clean the dishes and wash the floors. How she didn’t organize the rest of the mess was beyond me, but she did as she was told, and maybe Auntie Lena didn’t want the place organized, maybe she didn’t even notice. In a state of constant disorder, perhaps she had become numb.
Nada was only eight years older than me, which made her twenty. But she had children already and was pregnant again. She had a calming, respectful presence and spoke in short, polite phrases. I knew she was beautiful because I caught some of the men in my family checking her out. Whether they knew they were doing it or not, their eyes followed her as she left the room.
While Nada was almost family, there was an unspoken rule that she couldn’t eat dinner with us at the table. She could joke around with us, but she couldn’t sit on the couch. She could know our entire family, but we whispered our secrets to one another if she was in the room. Despite these rules, I’d always see her stand in the kitchen talking and cooking with Auntie Lena. They laughed with each other, leaned into each other like sisters. It was something my mother and Auntie Lena didn’t do. It occurred to me that Auntie Lena told Nada things that she didn’t tell the rest of us, perhaps because we were too close and judgmental.
The Monday that I came across the birdcage again, a few days after my arrival, Auntie Lena requested that I help clean out the fridge. Nada had become too pregnant and was wincing with every step. I sifted through all of Uncle Basem’s cheeses, separating the spoiled ones from the good ones. There were bags of dried bread and boxes of molokhiya leaking onto the shelves. I harshly judged everything in the fridge, especially the spoiled milk. I had heard my mother say once (to a friend): My sister is so disorganized, I’m surprised she’s still married. Thinking about these bits of gossip, I glanced at the birds. When I looked at them, they’d stop chirping. This became a little game between me and them. I’d look away—they’d chirp loudly to each other, the sound bouncing off the walls. Then I’d turn my head and it’d all stop, their beady eyes resting on me.
I set a chair next to the fridge and climbed it so that I could be at eye level with the cage. The bigger bird, who we called Mama, was in the corner of the cage, eying me, but calmer than the other two. The medium-sized one with no name hopped around singing to herself. The small one, who we called Zaytoona, pecked at the door’s latch. I spoke to them as if they would listen: I’m from America. How many secrets about my family do you know, like me? I craved to reach for the latch and release them.
I looked around and saw no one else in the room. I reached over with my finger and unhooked the latch of the cage. The bigger bird, Mama, opened its eyes. The birds became very quiet and still. They blinked at me, questioning my motives. It was a quiet Cairo afternoon. The heat was starting to set in and press against my body and face. As I reached over to close the latch again, the smallest bird, Zaytoona, wiggled out through the opening and flew directly for the open balcony door, as if it had been scheming to escape this entire time. The other two birds screeched in excitement.
I jumped off the chair, thrown off. The nameless medium-sized bird moved to the opening of the cage timidly and then was off, too, in the direction of Zaytoona. Mama bird sat there for a moment, cocking her head, considering what had just happened. I raised myself up to close the cage, but it was too late. She was also gone, disappearing into the city’s belly of car fumes and sunburned bodies.
The Cage
First Auntie Lena blamed my uncle for the disappearance of the birds.
“Me?” he said. “I wish I had gotten to them first.”
My mother declined ever being around the cage. The rest of our cousins and aunts plead innocent. I said: “What birds?”
The absence of the birds seemed to grip my aunt in such a way that it chilled the rest of us to silence. She stopped talking for a week. Every little thing irritated her. She cleaned anything that looked slightly smudged. She disappeared into the city more and more, this time returning with nothing except baggy, tired eyes.
The significance of the birds stretched back to the date that Auntie Lena discovered she could not have children. That year, both my grandparents passed away. Auntie Lena was three years into her marriage and planning for children, like the rest of her friends. The doctor, a sweet lady named Mai, sat her down and gently explained to her how her body would not produce children. There were other options becoming more popular, procedures and hormones she could take to possibly make children happen. Auntie Lena slouched in the chair.
I heard, through the tunnels of my relatives’ mouths, that Auntie Lena came home that very day with the robins. They declared: el bint sabet nafsaha. She lost herself.
I felt very guilty for the loss of the birds. The lie ate at me. So when Auntie Lena asked me to accompany her to downtown Cairo, I said yes, even though I hated the heat, the crowds, and the traffic.
The buildings of downtown Cairo mimicked European architecture but with Islamic styles. In the middle of downtown was Tahrir Square, where demonstrations would take place after I left that summer. We circled the square and then went shopping. The heat was eating at our faces. I could feel the sweat on my back, pulling the shirt to my body. Auntie Lena was quiet, only muttering small things to herself every once in a while. Sometimes she looked up as if she remembered I was there and she’d say, “Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you enjoying yourself?” She bought me sandwiches and chips at a corner store and let me buy whatever candy I wanted, as if trying to apologize for her absence.
There was nothing specific that Auntie Lena was looking for. We circled downtown in the heat until we forgot which streets we covered and which ones were still wide open. Sweat darkened on Auntie Lena’s back, and she pushed back her hijab until her hair was showing. I kept quiet and didn’t complain. I pretended that I was her shadow, moving this way and that. I felt a responsibility to be a comfort and not a burden, and occasionally I looked at the trees, as if the robins would appear there. As if I would point up and say Look! Look! There they are! You didn’t lose more things, I promise you. They’re still here! My imagination only disappointed me.
Eventually Auntie Lena stopped at a shop for baby clothes. She looked through the window and went in without saying anything to me. I followed.
Inside were boys and girls, clearly divided by the fact that the girls’ clothes were pink and had lots of flowers, while the boys’ clothes were strictly blue. Auntie Lena carefully sifted through the boys’ clothes. “Nada is having a boy,” she said, proudly, as if talking about one of her own. “Maybe I’ll get her this one. Or no, how about this?”
“Yes, I like that one,” I said, pointing randomly to a shirt, showing encouragement.
We sifted through more things, and it became entertaining. We found a baby-sized tuxedo, baby swimsuits, baby shoes. Auntie Lena didn’t know what I knew about her. Perhaps that is why she had chosen me to shop, because I knew nothing, and I wouldn’t treat her differently. The lie continued to suffocate me, the heat its fingers. Cairo, I felt, could be the city of God. And if this was the city of God and I had lied in it, then hell was approaching me.
Auntie Lena filled our arms with baby things. For Nada, she kept saying. This baby jumpsuit. For Nada. The pacifiers. For Nada. The baby books. For . . . Nada.
“This is a lot, Auntie Lena,” I remarked, wanting to leave. Wanting to go home, away from her face that triggered my guilt.
Auntie Lena ran her fingers past some notebooks, considering them. “I guess we have enough,” she said. She made an uff sound, fanning herself with her hand. “I’ve always wanted to be a mother.” She said it like that, the statement hovering in the air. I understood then that it was my place to step in, to comfort her.
“You did?” I said.
“Yes. But it’s not possible for me.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Auntie Lena looked at me for a moment and then waved her hand. “Too complicated for me to explain right now. Maybe later.”
I followed her through the store. “Maybe it’s best for you . . . maybe things happen for a reason.”
Auntie Lena grinned. “You sound like your mother.”
“Yes, and my mother is always stressed. I don’t think being a mother is a great job.”
Auntie Lena smiled. “No?”
“I think it gives you something to do when you’re bored.”
She tipped her head back and laughed.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I know nothing.” She paused. There was a long stretch of silence. Then: “I’m not very good at much.”
“You’re good at cooking . . . and collecting,” I said. I tried to think of more to say. I felt like holding her, and for some reason I felt that I was speaking to her as if she was a girl again.
She smiled at my encouragement. She picked up a notebook and added it to our purchases. As we exited the store, she handed me the notebook and some pens.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“So that you are good at many things,” she said. The heat had begun to diminish.
Cairo started—very rapidly—to change me. My voice became stronger. When relatives asked me things, I answered louder. I made clever remarks that made everyone erupt in laughter. I felt different from the passive girl I was in the States, who observed what people were doing and followed. I understood the nuances of Arabic, that sukarcould be used to describe sugar but also someone sweet. That calling someone duck is a sign of love. Egyptians doused their pain in humor. I allowed myself to be the butt of jokes. I once said, “Ana ba’raa” hoping it meant “I’m reading.” But I had added an extra syllable, saying instead that “I am a cow.” The room erupted with laughter, and Ihad caused it. I was thrilled. I began taking walks on my own during the day to absorb more of the language, to see if I could navigate.
I surprised my mother one day with my newfound confidence as the taxi driver dropped us off. He had taken a sharp turn to the right, one that flung me into my mother. “You shouldn’t be driving,” I said to him, in the most perfect Egyptian slang I could muster. “You’re in the business of killing people.” Then I exited the car. My mother paid him and followed me, stunned to silence.
“Good job,” she said, “but don’t be saying those things to people when you’re alone.”
“Well, why not?” I asked.
“The world is crazy.”
“First you want me louder, now you want to silence me,” I said. I realized a beat later that the sentence hurt her feelings. Her shoulders slumped.
“That is not what I mean to do,” she said. “You are my first and only child. I’ve never raised one before, certainly not a child in two countries. I am learning just as you are. I’m glad you’re feeling more at home here. I’m just telling you what I know. People can be crazy.” So as not to trigger her more, I said nothing.
In the notebook Auntie Lena had gifted me, I wrote about my mother. I wanted to remember these conversations when my trip was over. I wanted to make sense of everything.
The Latch
A few days before my departure from Cairo that summer, Nada had her baby and everything changed. Uncle Basem joked that his wife had glued Nada’s baby to her arm. When Auntie Lena was on the phone, she held the baby. When she was cooking, she held the baby. When she was watching TV or telling Nada what to do, she held the baby. All of a sudden, Auntie Lena became very spirited. There was new energy in her.
It was the night before our departure. I decided to take one last walk, this time at night. As I made my way, I felt a car pull up beside me. A man of maybe forty or fifty with a large belly and a receding hairline said, “Let me drive you, hilwa.” He had one hand on the wheel, the other holding a cigarette. He was saying more words, talking quickly. He insisted he’d drop me off where I was going. He said he was worried about me, a pretty girl in the street at this hour. My mother probably didn’t want me there alone. He knew my mother, even, he’d seen her drive around with our driver in a black car. A black, expensive car.
I said no thank you. But he wouldn’t leave me alone.
He called out to a man on the side of the street smoking hookah: “Tell her I’ll give her a ride! Tell her I’m as old as her daddy!”
“Leave me alone. My daddy is right down the street,” I said, but my voice wasn’t convincing. The man continued to follow me with his car.
I was very scared. My face got hot. If I had wings, I would have taken off right in that moment, but I was glued to the ground. I knew that turning around wasn’t a good idea either; there were staring men all around me. If I dashed into a side street, perhaps I could make it. But then that would confuse my route, and I didn’t know these streets too well. I only knew my way back from here.
It was then that I felt a hot, tight grip on my wrist. I jumped back and tried to pull but looked up to see Nada. Beside her was the grocery boy, a boy of fourteen, who was helping her with the bags. She looked at me with large, worried eyes.
“Yallah,” she said, in a severe tone to the man in the car. He drove away, looking irritated.
She walked me home. “What are you doing out here alone? Where is your mother?”
“She is asleep,” I said. “I thought I’d walk a little.”
She looked at me for a very long time. “You shouldn’t be alone so late at night. Or, if you are, stay on the main street.”
“I was craving some chips.”
Nada smiled a little, then motioned to the boy, who was now behind us, and dug her hand into one of the grocery bags. She pulled out a bag of chips.
“No, no,” I said, “It’s okay.”
“These aren’t mine. I am shopping for your aunt. That is where I’m headed. She bought these for you anyway.”
I accepted, and then said, “She’s very happy with your baby.”
Nada smiled. “I’m very lucky she cares so much. It’s been very difficult taking care of the children while I work.”
She walked me all the way home. I focused my attention on the floor, noticing that the people passing us continued to greet her. One of the store owners said, “Nada, your husband owes me money,” to which she responded, “And so he also owes me money, his own wife!” The old store owner laughed and continued to mop his floors, and this is what kept happening, locals looking at her, respecting her, interested in what she had to say. It occurred to me that in my twelve years I didn’t know anything about her except that she cleaned and cooked for us, I didn’t know how many kids she had, what she had studied in school, her husband’s name.
Nada walked me all the way to the front of the building. “Okay, here?” She said, motioning towards the building. She switched to English, trying to make me understand. “You are okay?”
I nodded.
“I saw you open the birdcage,” she said, in Arabic.
I was stunned. I blushed. I opened my mouth to say something, then I shut it.
She nodded. “I won’t tell her you did it.” I felt my shoulders relax, after feeling under her mercy. “Whatever you do is between God and you.”
The mention of God made me feel shameful. Nada had always been loyal to my aunt. But me? I was able to do mean things and lie about it.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said.
“Yes, of course, ya binty,” Nada said. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I just needed to tell you, to get it off my shoulders.” Her scarf was slipping, she pulled it over her head again. “I’m not very good at keeping secrets. And your aunt is a good woman who helps me and my children. I felt very sorry for her for a long time, and you never know why things happen the way they do.”
Her fingers were muddied. Her face was full of sweat. She had been working all day, carrying things and children on her back. Still, her eyes were large and consuming.
I pulled out some money from my pocket to give to her. I had always seen my mother and aunt do it. They gave out money to others whenever they could. But Nada looked at me in horror. “No, no,” she said, stepping away. “No, no. I could never. Have a good night. You go right up to bed.” She backed away, waved, and then began walking in the direction we came from. The boy trailed behind her, one bag on his shoulder and one balancing on his head. I had been so embarrassed I had forgotten to ask if she would also keep quiet about my night wandering. I watched her until she and the boy became a shadow, and they could be just about anyone, perhaps heading toward me, heading away, the city sucking them in like a vacuum.
I climbed up to the second floor and turned the keys to the apartment. My mother was fast asleep in the bedroom. I sat on the balcony waiting for the sunrise, signaling the day we’d fly back to the States. Everything was still, the birds chirping and coming alive, a secret all to myself.
***
Rumpus original art by Ian MacAllen
