Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter

Thank you to my family and friends for your love, support and encouragement. A special thank you to Sally Ann Scott, Baqar Haider and my siblings.

Thank you to all at Impress Books, including and especially Richard Willis, Adam Bell, Davi Lancett, Rachel Singleton and also Jane Olorenshaw.

Someone once told me never to make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings. It took me a long time to realise all feelings are temporary and no decision is permanent. It took me eighteen days.

At the end of those eighteen days I stood on the streets of Cairo and realised what we do is a forever unfolding narrative, always in transition, always changing. Everything unravels, slowly, part by part. It rarely explodes spontaneously. To watch it unravel means to be also a part of the unravelling, as it sucks you in, pulls you apart. And then slowly merges you with something else, putting you back together again.

The potential of human imagination surpasses both fact and fiction and a revolution does not happen because of a flick of the finger … though many say it depends on what finger. The layers of dried and crusted blood in dungeons beneath one of the oldest cities in the world have been threatening to come back to life, to bubble out onto the streets for generations. To ooze out of the antiquated sewage system and consume the entire world. In the end, it took fresh blood
spattered on graffitied walls, caked in the fumes of a million exhaust pipes. It took someone like me, willing to fight for small victories in the hope they would amount to something, in the end.

I do not claim to be a spokesperson of my generation. I am not a poster girl of the revolution, nor its victim. But you should read my story so you can see the big picture in all its glorious detail. After all, what is a big picture except a collection of smaller ones? And what is a grand narrative, except a thousand threads pulled together to make a tapestry of fantasy?

You see, beneath the din and commotion is a collection of hopes and screams and between the laments of joy and pain the weary walk. These are my screams. This is my dream … this is my lament.

My story is an Egyptian cliché. It is a story of forbidden love and youth’s defiance against the traditions of its ancestors. But who wants to live a life of clichés? Who wants to speak of themselves in stereotypes? I wish I had a different story for you, one not wrapped in ancient legends of love and tragedy. Because then you could not judge me as insignificant.

But, I don’t. This is the only story I know to tell. So I ask you to suspend your preconceptions, to fight your cultural intrusions and accept that while the words may sound familiar, the voice is a unique battle cry of love.

But first, let’s open at the start. Because that is, after all, where all things begin.

I grew up in Nasr City, a suburb of Heliopolis, which is in itself another suburb of Cairo. Built in commemoration of another long-forgotten revolution, it was designed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, a president loved by the people. ‘Nasr’ means victory in Arabic. A fitting name for a neighbourhood with aspirations of rising like a phoenix from the ashes of its own making. But like all victories, the rush of adrenalin, hope and brotherhood is soon replaced by mediocrity and an uncivilised grab for the spoils of war.

Today, Nasr City is no different to any other Cairo suburb. Consumed by car fumes, the once whitewashed buildings now look like a plague of anaemia has descended from the heavens as a curse for our sinful prematurity. And of course the modern apartments, built in large blocked rows with identical interiors, are now home to more people than
anticipated. The families taking up illegal residency on the rooftops and the
bowab
, the building caretaker, with his six mouths to feed, turning a blind eye for a monthly black market salary that surpasses his yearly wage, all contribute to a feeling that what was meant to be a quaint neighbourhood with a holiday feel has been overrun by all-inclusive tourists. The roads, designed with visions of families of 2.4 children taking evening promenades, are now filled with extended families of seven, SUVs and taxis that look as tired and ill as their drivers. Even the odd donkey and cart can be spotted on some days. And as the weekend descends the chaos amplifies with the socially mobile from all over Cairo making their way to City Stars or one of the various other modern malls dotted around. All there to taste the American dream in one of the many American coffee shops.

And that is where you will find me this Saturday afternoon, on a comfy couch in Starbucks, slowly sipping a latte and talking university gossip with my girlfriends. A Mango shopping bag proudly displayed at my feet.

Position yourself standing outside Starbucks staring at me through the large glass window. The noise of the mall behind you. What do you see? There may be a number of things you pick up on at first glance.

Perhaps you will notice my carefully coordinated outfits. The red headscarf, modestly covering my hair, is wrapped so that the end drops delicately onto the right side of my face. I have pinned the end to resemble a flower in bloom. The scarf, by no coincidence, complements my flowing skirt, which is dotted with flowers of different hues of red. The light cotton white shirt is held in place by a belt hanging loosely on my hips accentuating my midriff, but not too much.

I am fashion conscious. I have to be. I spend as much mental energy on colour coordinating my outfit as I do on my weekly assignment. But I do not say this with pride. The truth is, balancing modesty and fashion, ensuring you never fall on the wrong side of decency, while simultaneously avoiding
a grotesque fashion faux pas can be the make or break of a young woman’s prospects in modern day Cairo.

When you look from your position, with the large glass window between us, look closer still. Beyond the red and white, behind my dark brown eyes, deepened with black kohl, you will also detect a silent determination, a wisdom that far surpasses my number of years. Like the Nile waters, my thoughts run deep and beneath the still surface flows a deceptively strong current.

My parents are both doctors. My father a neurologist and my mother a general practitioner. In Egypt a doctor commands respect, but not a salary. My father often tells the story to anyone caring to listen of his time spent as a junior doctor at the government hospital. He describes the time he observed a well-respected neurologist perform surgery and how in the moment before the patient slipped into anaesthetised sleep, the surgeon looked down into the scared man’s eyes, scalpel in hand. ‘Some backsheesh will guarantee extra care,’ he said. For my father, that moment sums up all that is wrong with Egypt. I suppose that is why he never tires of telling it. Most people question whether it is even true. Either way, as soon as he could my father partnered with a university friend and opened his own practice. Though he does continue to do some work at the government hospital.

My parents met at university. They were in the same class and by the end of the first year they had already decided to marry. My maternal grandparents laid down two conditions to the marriage. The first was that my mother would qualify as a doctor and the second, that she would wait two years after graduation to have a baby. Almost on the second anniversary of her graduation I was born. To this day my mother can be heard pleading to God to grant her parents eternal bliss for that lone act of foresighted wisdom. No one knows if God has listened to her pleas all these years. My grandparents died soon after I was born. My grandfather of an aneurism and not long after my grandmother of a broken
heart. Of course, to my parents a broken heart is not a medical condition and she actually died as a result of a long battle with failing health, but to my storytelling mind she died after giving up on a life without her love.

I study Comparative Literature at a private American university in Cairo. My father was, no doubt, disappointed in my choice of subject. Unlike my parents or younger brother, I am not blessed with a scientific mind. The cold facts do not suit me. If you do not have your kidney removed you will die. If you do not take this tablet for the rest of your life you might slip into a diabetic coma, lose a leg or go blind. Medicine basically comes down to ultimatums with little chance of a calm negotiation. I will trade your spleen for an extra two years, your womb for sanity. Literature is far more humane than medicine. It talks of English meadows and Arab sunsets, of love, loss, corruption and injustice. Things far more appealing to me than the mysterious function of the appendix or the long-term effects of smoking on the lungs.

Situated in Al Qahira Al Gedidah, the university, the grounds and surrounding residential neighbourhood is perhaps what Nasr City could never be. The name itself, ‘New Cairo’, makes Nasr City shudder with jealous rage, while reluctantly submitting to the relegated position of barren older sister.

The 15 kilometre distance between my home and campus can take anything from twenty minutes to over an hour depending on a number of variables. The first variable is of course traffic. The question is not whether there is or is not traffic, but how much? This in itself is also subject to a number of other variables, which I won’t bore you with now.

The other factor is the collective number of hours sleep Cairo taxi drivers have had at that moment. Divide the total hours of sleep by the number of taxis on the road and you will get an indication of your chances of reaching your destination in one piece. More often than not the figure is not in your favour.

My parents sent me to the university for two reasons. Firstly, its prestigious reputation. The simple fact that it has American in its name is enough to make potential employers queue up at the gates to snatch up fresh graduates before they pound the streets looking for work. This is not necessarily because Egyptians associate America with a high standard of learning. It is, in fact, because the word American denotes social status, money and a certain aptitude for work.

The second reason, which my parents will not admit to, is that when I broke the news to them that I wanted to study literature they made an unspoken agreement that if I was never to be a doctor they would have to maximise my chances of marrying one. My father hopes that between the lectures where my head is filled with romantic notions, I will cross paths with a prospective heart surgeon, oncologist, husband, father of my children. To his disappointment that is yet to happen. I have never fully explained to my innocent parents that for many girls of my generation and social position, ‘chaste’ is a shackle they violently tear off at the first opportunity and ‘America’ conjures up images of
Sex and the City
rather than middle-class domestic bliss.

I cannot complain too much because at least the university environment affords me certain freedoms, which I take full advantage of. Freedom to look and smell nice, socialise and talk to boys without my chastity being thrown into disarray. I have heard horror stories about government universities and the unspoken restrictions placed on female students.

For this reason I have always been very happy to protect my family’s honour. It is not out of a sense of duty, but more because I have never
known
a man well enough to feel he is worth the sacrifice. So at 18 I have never kissed a boy, or been in the social company of a lone boy for longer than an hour, other than my younger brother.

I have been on dates and even had a boyfriend for three months, but we only met in groups of friends and he soon grew tired of me when he realised I would never ‘go all the way’, as some Americans say.

At university I have developed a reputation for being a number of things, some contradictory. People think of me as traditional, naïve, endearing, mistaken or frigid depending on their general view of women. I don’t seek to confirm or deny any of the reputations I am subject to. My multiple social personas work to my advantage. You see, in Arab culture reputation is everything. With reputation alone a man or woman can reach great heights or never climb out of the gutter. And that’s why it is important to harness a good reputation … or the reputation you want. I am going for aloof. By never saying yes I sleep around and never saying I want to be married first, I come off to most people as indifferent to what they think. The truth is for a woman in my social position, I cannot escape objectification. I will be objectified by others. For some I am a whore and for others I am a saint. Those labels are handed out like candy, and once you are given one it is virtually impossible to request a new wrapping or flavour. So, by being both, I am neither. This is the best I can hope for under present circumstances.

And this is exactly what my girlfriends and I are talking about this Saturday afternoon in Starbucks. Talking about someone else’s reputation. As you watch our mouths move, eyes widen, you will notice each and every one of us takes turns to appear scandalised by the details of another girl’s social rise and fall. Though I try to not partake in the social lynching of another woman, I have to feign shock at the right moments to ensure my own long-term survival.

Rumour is all we really have to go on and as each adds a little fabrication or exaggeration to this week’s favourite university gossip-mill story, it becomes an example of just how vicarious all our lives really are and a warning of how a future of our choosing could be snatched from beneath us while we busy ourselves applying mascara.