Saturday 25 February 2012

Home Sweet Home


 I can’t believe it took me months to plan this. Should I wait until the girls are free though? No, today I want to be alone. I might get emotional when I’m there. I might want to write and if that happens I most certainly don’t want anyone interrupting me. 

Olayinka had finally decided to give herself a day off, even from her children. She’d been working non-stop since she got back, and it was about time she had some time for herself.

Should I drive or should I take the tube? Well, since today is about reminiscing, I’ll take the tube.
She steps outside her London flat, shuts the door behind her, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and tries to smell the Nile. A smile slowly reveals her beautiful white teeth. Today, I will not be in London!

On Edgware Road, she takes out her smart phone to check that she’s walking in the right direction ,but then the  phone rings.

“Hello ...Wa alaikom assalam …I’m fine, thanks, how are you?...Yeah, I’m on my way over there right now…oh, of course you can join me… I’ll see you in a bit then, bye.”

Okay, that’s not so bad. She won’t be coming until later, I could still have my alone time. So, where was I? Right,map. Using her index finger, she scrolls down the touch screen of her phone. Right, so I walk all the way down this road and then turn left on Bell Street, perfect.

Olayinka continues down Edgware Road. Ten minutes later, she is no longer in London. Her ears detect a foreign but familiar language spoken on the street. Her heart sinks. Her imagination, or rather her memory ,flies her back to Cairo. People’s skins are starting to darken, to tan, to lighten again-to become Egyptian.
She regrets having only English music on her iPod. Knowing that she won’t be coming here very often, she wants to try and live today as a full Egyptian day out. Oh, I know. I’ll play the Quran, there is no better Arabic than that, huh?
 
The soothing melody of Quran recitation take her back to where she once felt at home. Born and raised in London, this British Nigerian, in less than a year, was able to interweave herself into her Egyptian social circle. Leaving a failed marriage behind, she found refuge in one of the least multicultural capitals on the planet. Her skin color did not define her identity, her unilingualism wasn’t a barrier, and finally, finally, being a Muslim actually made her belong.

As she strolls down the street, the verse sounding in her ears reminds her of a specific day. She stops walking. She looks across the street. It is suddenly warmer than a usual London February afternoon, louder and more polluted. She is now enjoying the view of the Mediterranean, the cars honking in the background don’t bother her, neither does the poor man who’s asking her to spare some change.

Against the beautiful shades of blue, she sees a man in a green boat. He is looking for something beneath his feet. He finds it and then slowly stands up and stretches his arms out in the air. His fishing net lands not so far from his boat, and then he waits for his week’s food to swim its way into the net. Staring at the fisherman, tears run down her cheeks. She takes out her notepad and pen and starts writing.

When work at the British Council and living in Cairo got too overwhelming  for her, she would take the train to her favorite getaway destination; Alexandria. The sea soothed her. It reminded her why she had to leave her two kids back in London. It helped her rediscover herself. It helped her recharge.

Right, so time to get moving again! Man, I’m hungry! It’s time to get there already!

After ten more minutes of walking she sees a sign saying “Bell Street”.  She smiles with relief and starts to walk faster excited to go to the Egyptian restaurant she has heard so much about. 

They told me it’s going to be on my left. Mark Jason Gallery…La-Bell-e Bou-tche-rie…what is that? Oh, fine halal meat and poultry…Ten out of ten barber?! That has got to be a very poor literal translation from Arabic! Oh, here it is! Meya ,Meya!

There are three men sitting in front of the restaurant engrossed in a conversation which seems ­--judging by their loud voices and hand gestures--to be very serious. She doesn’t understand what they’re saying but when she hears the word sawra--revolution-- she immediately knows that they--like all Egyptians these days--are talking about politics.

Yep! This certainly sounds like post-revolution Egypt!

She takes a deep breath, and walks into this little Egypt she’s so glad she found. Upstairs, she sits in a small u-shaped couch in one of the corners. The first thing she orders is shay bel na’na’ --tea with mint --and asks the waiter to give her a few more minutes for the rest of the order.

She takes off her shoes, and crosses her legs on the couch. A film strip of memories runs in front of her eyes and her heart can only pound against her chest with nostalgia .Waiting for her hot tea, and now for her fetteer, she’s as excited as she was when she returned to Egypt after the evacuation of all the British citizens when the revolution started.

She receives a text message from her friend saying that she’s ten minutes away.

This is as much as I’ll have of Egypt to myself today. This is as close as I’ll get to Egypt for many years.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Muse


I’m not angry. The man of my dreams has not just walked out on me, my tears have not just blackened my cheeks with mascara, and the mirror has not just bluntly shown me how I really look. I am not angry, I’m sorry. I just can’t write.
***

  They had agreed to hang out together that day but it was mainly to catch up on work. It was only the two of them when they arrived at the open-air café. For a few hours, she was actually having a very refreshing afternoon; sitting in the sun on a comfortable couch, sipping an ice-cold pina colada, smoking an intoxicating coconut-flavored hookah and sitting next to the man who not only seemed to be the man of her dreams, but the manifestation of her dreams in a man.

  They had just recovered from a big fight but she didn’t doubt for a second that she was going to give their relationship another try. She was sitting right next to him, but he didn’t ask her opinion when he edited his short story for the contest. Her eyeliner was perfectly painted over her eyelids but he didn’t look her straight in the eye. Her skin was musky-scented but he didn’t put his arm around her. Her fingers were decorated with beautiful rings but he didn’t hold her hand.

   He was the only man who brought out the writer in her, who saw the female in her, the optimist and the dreamer. He was the first to admire her intellect and then her sexuality, her sarcasm and then her humor. He saw her from an angle she didn’t know existed.

   It is so foolish of him to think that the small talk would cover up the fact that he is hiding something. It’s an omen that he isn’t letting it all out like he usually does. I know he’s sitting right next to me, but he’s just not here. The writer in him isn’t being articulate today, the naughty guy isn’t flirting with me, the poet isn’t looking at me and describing how beautiful I look, the friend isn’t talking about his day, the thinker has abandoned teasing my brain, and instead we’re just talking about our work.

  They made their way through working for a few hours and eating lunch. But he was holding back what he was really feeling and she wasn’t sure what to ask him. So, she was waiting for him to come out with it, because, just like the short stories he wrote, he was being very hard to read.

  The sun was setting, putting an end to a beautiful day, but she was hoping the evening would have something good in store for her

 “I want to be a writer more than anything in the world,” he said.

“You know, this might be shocking to you, but I actually don’t mind having a child outside wedlock. I think that’s how much I don’t mind not having a wife but I would really like to have a child”

“You know my grandfather was a writer, he got married more than once but he always ended up divorced”
“I think it’s because my mom left my dad”

“I’ve lived alone since I was 15. When my dad used to go to work and I would have a cold, I used to make soup for myself. I don’t think I can actually have a long-term partner”

 Sitting on his right, she had one leg over the other and was looking over at him, in awe,as if watching him perform .They were no longer having a conversation .She had nothing to add to his list of why he thought she couldn’t and shouldn’t be in his life. Every time he said something it tore her pride because he was making her wonder whether or not he was really breaking up with her. Because- he- had- her-sit- there -listen –to-why-she –didn’t- fit- in -his –life, and yet he acted as if he were simply talking about himself.

“By the way, I’m leaving in a little while. I can’t wait till I get home to be alone and read and write all night”
  So he left her alone in the café to go enjoy his solitude, and so, for her, he didn’t just leave –like all the other men had. He left her behind.
 
  It was as if the space he had occupied when he was with her was automatically filled with descending words, emotions, and anger. She couldn’t contain herself, she needed to outpour her overflowing self before it all evaporated. She frantically searched for a pen and a paper. And under the dimmed lights of the café, amongst the chatter and laughs of the couples surrounding her, in the midst of the loud music, she managed to seclude herself. She was trying to transform her feelings into words. She was racing with her own brain, because if she didn’t write fast enough she wouldn’t be able to capture the muse that had temporarily possessed her.
 ***
 

Different people, different places, but nothing has changed. You need to vent, you smoke. You need to vent, you write. You need a relief. You walk away doubting that tomorrow is actually the future...

Tuesday 14 February 2012

Promise


  She finally has the TV to herself. She sits down, legs crossed, in the tiny living room enjoying the temporary silence of her apartment. She is wrapped in her decades-old robe, holding, with both hands, a steaming hot cup of tea with milk. Stretching her back, her muscles start to untangle and her mind -as usual- starts to wonder how long her life is going to remain like this. 

   As the show starts on TV, she inhales. Exhales. She thinks to herself that maybe she should’ve let my brother watch the cartoon he wanted, but she lets the thought escape her confused conscience. He knows I watch it every day, he’s just going to have to watch his cartoon another time.

  9 P.M.; an hour later, she’s back to her reality. Now what? I don’t want to go to bed right now, it’s really early. I definitely don’t want to go downstairs and sit with mom! Grandma will endlessly complain about what my overseas uncle said or didn’t say when he last called.  Ok, so, should I go and ….?

  I imagine that my mom spends most of her free time thinking what she should be doing with it. I imagine that most of the time when she’s waiting for my brother to be done with one of his sports practices, she watches the other moms talk and laugh. She wonders if they’re actually happy, she envies them for a split second, she reminds herself that everything happens for a reason, that God has something better in store for her. He must.

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She says it so many times. Sometimes it hurts and other times it doesn’t, but it catches me off guard, every-single- time. I honestly cannot imagine how she has survived living with my father until now. At least my sister and I have lives outside our apartment, but mom? Her world has become a combination of budgeting, blaming, reminiscing, crying, being almost genuinely happy for me and my sister’s accomplishments, and lots and lots of day dreaming.

“Mom, are you okay?”

She looks at me without lifting her head up, but I see tears glowing on her cheeks.

“Of course not”

 “What happened? Why are you crying?”  

She looks up at me and tries to straighten her back. “Nothing happened. That’s the problem. Nothing ever happens.”

I don’t say anything because this is not the first time that we’ve had this conversation, not even the hundredth time. She then breaks the heart-throbbing silence:

“Marrying your father is the biggest mistake of my life”

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It’s never really complete, her happiness. It could be the news of me getting the job I wanted or my sister getting the scholarship she applied for, I feel that she’s still never completely happy. I don’t think even a miracle would make her happy, what she wants is her life back, or at least control over the one she has now.

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 I think my excessive need for men to tell me how they feel about me and also act on it is because my mom doesn’t say much. And when she does, it’s when I wish I was deaf. Years of being alone, with three kids, trying to maneuver around an almost non-existent income has dried her inside out. Her emotions now are only what she does, because dad has proven to her that words mean nothing.