My first week in Masr was a dream.
Our drive out of Cairo was terrifying. Cars weaving recklessly around bumper-to-bumper traffic, horns blaring every few feet. The thick smog choking the air, thickened by the cigarette swinging between my aunt’s lips. But I was chronically positive, even if a bit scared and fighting a coughing fit.
When we’d unpacked at the hotel in Miami, Alexandria, I tentatively asked Khalto Safa about my other family members. “When do I get to meet my cousins? Or Teta and Gedo?”
A darkness stole across Khalto Safa, so venomous it sent me cringing back. “Your mother never told you?” Her laugh turned my stomach. “Your grandparents are dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” I worried the edge of the bedspread, deliberating pressing her temper with another question. “Do we have any other relatives around?”
My aunt switched off the light. “None that matter.”
Khalto Safa took me everywhere. I rode a camel around the pyramids, ate rice pudding on the thirtieth floor of a building overlooking the water, visited the mummies at the Cairo Museum, rode a buggy around the Citadel of Qaitbay in Alexandria. It was touristy and cheesy, but I ate up every minute.
I couldn’t get over how time had splintered across Masr. Pieces of it forever frozen, ancient and majestic, while the rest raced toward the future. Restaurants overlooking the sphinx. Cyber cafés near the Alexandria Lighthouse. Suburban streets full of old, colorful buildings, some of which had little family-owned shops built into them. We picked up most of our snacks from those shops, since Khalto Safa hated the crowds at Fathalla, the main grocery chain in the area.
Khalto Safa had a tendency to act first, apologize second (minus the apologizing part). She had been complaining about my split ends daily, so I was only moderately surprised when the cab dropped us off in front of a blinking neon sign that readSAMIRA‘S STYLES.
“Fine,” I’d sighed.
I emerged from the salon with healthy curls, a wealth of information about Samira’s sister’s second divorce, and a long list of products to stop using on my hair.
On our second to last day in the city, Khalto Safa and I walked along the coast from Miami to Mansoura. Microbuses zoomed past us on the street, battling against yellow and black taxis and giant buses. I bought food from every vendor we passed. Grilled corn, cotton candy, fresca. Nothing was spared my curiosity and hunger. Khalto Safa had to drag me into the car before I could make a run for the guy selling Lotus crepes. I was squeezing lemon over my third cup of tirmis when my aunt, who dined exclusively on cigarettes, spoke. “The water used to be much cleaner,” she said, flicking the ash from her cigarette out of the car window.Hercar, which she’d apparently kept stored the entire time we were in the city. “I bet you think it’s disgusting.”
Her vehemence startled me. “What? Of course not. It’s a little strange that they charge you an entrance fee, but I’ve paid for worse views.” I intended the last part as a joke, but Khalto Safa’s mouth tightened, as though I’d said the wrong thing.
“It never used to be so overrun,” she spat, glancing at the crowds of people in the water.
I chewed my lip, unsure how to respond. What was the problem with more people going to the beach?
It wasn’t the first time Khalto Safa had seemed irritated at my enthusiasm during the trip. I hadn’t managed to pluck up the courage to ask her about visiting Mama’s grave, although I’d nearly bitten my tongue in half when our cab passed Tanta on the way to Alexandria. The driver had been a nice guy—from thearyaf,which wasn’t the name of any place I recognized. I’d asked Khalto Safa, and she’d responded with a little sneer. “The countryside. Can’t you hear it in his accent?”
Which only further baffled me, because as far as I knew, seventy percent of Masr was the countryside.
Regardless, it was definitely not the time to ask about Mama. Not until I could figure out what I was doing to make her so angry with me.
I watched a child dart between stalled cars, knocking on their windows while they crawled through traffic. The box he cradled with his free arm contained dozens of plastic-wrapped packs of tissues. Twenty pounds each—less than fifty cents in American currency. I clutched a wrinkled fifty-pound bill in my palm and begin dramatically sniffling, just in case he came by Khalto Safa’s window.
To my relief, he didn’t approach Khalto Safa. She’d snapped at the last kid who came up to us trying to make a sale. The girl had returned the attitude right back. That little girl had a spine three times stronger than mine, because if anyone had told me I should be ashamed of myself in the tone Khalto Safa used, I probably would’ve cried until I fell asleep.
The children risking their lives to collect what amounted to a few bucks wasn’t the only startling sight I’d encountered. In many ways, Alexandria was like any big city—luxury and deprivation wrapped around one another in an unbreakable coil. On the same street where we had lunch insidean iconic pink hotel in Mahatet El Raml, we drove past a man with one leg as he dug through a dumpster on a concrete island between two busy traffic lanes. Khalto Safa’s Mercedes sped past a toktok driven by a boy who couldn’t be older than thirteen.
And thelittering.Khalto Safa had taken me to a juicery to try asab juice. Sugar cane, I’d later learn. Bags of mangos hung from the awning, and I took photos of the seller yanking long light green asab canes out of barrels and feeding them into a giant metal juicer. He poured the opaque yellow juice into two plastic bags and tied them shut around a straw.
One sip, and I nearly fell to my knees under the mango awning.
I finished the juice in minutes, but I held on to the bag for hours. Waiting to spot a trash can, any trash can. As soon as she realized what I was doing, Khalto Safa had huffed and snatched it from my grip, tossing it over her shoulder. It landed next to a dog with bald spots on its matted fur, sprawled out beneath a parked car. “Someone comes and picks it up,” she’d said at my stricken face. “You take money away from them if you don’t throw it.”
I might be gullible, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I started hiding my trash in my purse.
Despite Khalto Safa’s … eccentricities, I was having a wonderful time. Every day was a new opportunity to disappear into the palaces of imagination I’d built in my head. Would Masriya Mina have been an artsy sort of person, working at one of the many cafés lining the streets, secretly dreaming of her big break? Would she have grabbed a fresh falafel sandwich from one of the street carts after school and made small talk with the owner before joining her friends at the library?
More than anything, I missed Mama. I couldn’t help but wonder how much better this trip would have been with her by my side instead.On our last day in the main city, we made our way into the enormous, glittering structure that was the San Stefano Mall.
It was the most beautiful mall I’d ever seen. Storefronts stretched on either side of long marble halls, winding across white banisters and rows of busy escalators. Towering pillars stretched from floor to ceiling, forming a cleft in each level. Families and teenagers streamed through the mall, and the smell of sizzling oil and fried dough made my mouth water.
“This is amazing,” I breathed, zeroing in on a black leather bag with braided stitches. I’d seen several girls my age carrying it, pairing the purse with stylish outfits I could never pull off in a million years. I’d felt more than a little drab lately, having mostly packed jeans and fuzzy sweaters. Ward fashion didnothold up well in Alexandria.
Khalto Safa made a noise. “Really? You thinkthisis impressive?” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t condescend, Mina. I’m sure there’s a thousand times better than this where you are.”
