Reunited Under the Egyptian Sky - Chapter 1

Kafr el Dawwar, Egypt, 1883

The Sham el-Nessim holiday was many things, but the fact that it was primarily intended for families to spend together was why Wafaa would have rather been working instead.

‘Two iced creams please.’ The request came from a handsome man who was too well-dressed for the humbleness of their stall. Yet, it was the man next to him who caught Wafaa’s eye.

Faheem.

It seemed a different lifetime ago when Wafaa, her sister and their mother, a domestic in his father’s mansion, had lived in its lower level. Theirs was a small room, barely any space between the three single bed mats. Yet, Wafaa couldn’t remember ever being as happy after leaving Faheem’s home as she’d been then.

He does not remember me, she thought, or the friendship they had as children, even though it lasted up until Wafaa’s sister, Samya, came of age and grew too beautiful to be in a household of impressionable boys.

It infuriated Wafaa still, how they, a trio of women, had to fend for themselves afterwards. She herself was barely fourteen and Samya short of eighteen. And while their mother, widowed soon after Wafaa was born, was strong, none of them were strong enough for what would come next.

Wafaa kept her gaze down as she handed over the iced cream and her mother collected the payment. ‘Ahlan wa sahlan, please enjoy.’

When the next people in line moved forward to place their order, Faheem left, not having exchanged a single word with her.

Wafaa tried not to think of him, tried not to lament not getting a closer look at how he’d grown, instead trying to lose her senses in the festivities around her. There, under the park’s highest palm tree, a group of children sat upon a blanket, painting hard-boiled eggs. Opposite them, a large musical troupe of middle-aged men, each wearing a red fez hat, were practicing their instruments. Soon the beat of their tambourines and strumming of their lutes meshed in a lively song.

Some of the people in the gathering clapped along; others ignored the music in favour of laughing with their loved ones or snacking on the tasteless termes lupini beans that were traditional on this day.

The park was only ever this full of glee on either of the two Eids and Sham el-Nessim.

No one was alone, and that was why, when her mother announced that the ice had melted and they were done for the day, Wafaa worried over the cat who’d never come to their stall alone before.

‘Where is Tamra?’ she asked, rubbing Mawz’s fur and offering him their remaining bowl of milk.

Mawz looked at her as if to say he appreciated the question. Then, the cat’s mew turned alarming.

‘Mawz wants me to follow. I think Tamra is in trouble,’ Wafaa told her mother.

‘Don’t tarry. You’ll need your rest for tomorrow. The Sham el-Nessim celebration kept us busy today, and tomorrow Omniya is bringing an arees to ask for your hand. She assures me that this suitor is very eligible and you will not be able to refuse him. We should prepare tonight, pick a pretty dress. Clean the house.’

Wafaa promised that she would and refrained from commenting on her mother’s friendship with Omniya, also known as the village matchmaker, or how the woman had said the exact same thing about the last few suitors, none of which had, well…suited her.

Besides, it didn’t matter how much rest Wafaa had. Her body was fine; it was her spirit which was tired. The ‘waft of spring’ that was the translation of the Sham el-Nessim holiday’s meaning had, sadly, done little to renew her.

Wafaa followed Mawz along the riverbank, crossing puddles of mud and a group of boys who’d left the park to play a marbles game outside the gates of St. George Church.

The building’s dual minaret towers were magnificent, newly erected out of white limestone, a shade so bright it could illuminate the darkest of nights. The towers matched like mirror images of one another, from the half-round lunettes towards the bottom to the crowning crosses at the top of the hexagonal gazebos, each of which contained a large church bell.

There was only one difference between the two: the cat stuck on the middle sill of the left tower.

‘Tamra! How did you get up there?’ Wafaa searched for something she could climb in order to bring the cat down safely. Luckily, she found a ladder stowed away next to the building’s backdoor. ‘It’s good, they didn’t complete their construction,’ she told Mawz.

But try as she did, the ladder proved heavier than Wafaa could handle. She was about to ask the boys playing outside for help when the backdoor creaked open and a figure stood in the doorway, haloed by an abundance of candlelight.

Faheem, again.

‘What are you doing?’ There was no accusation in his voice, but the sound of it startled her. How long had it been since she’d last heard it? It was deeper now, the voice of a man.

‘A cat. You’re the Eumda’s son. Tamra is stuck.’ She pointed to the ladder when her words came out jumbled.

‘My father is the mayor of the city,’ he confirmed, one side of his mustache lifting in a gesture she couldn’t quite make sense of. Was it a smile or a frown?

He had grown very handsome. Now she’d had a closer look, she was sure of that.

‘Tamra is the cat,’ Faheem deduced, reminding her of what she’d come to do.

‘Yes. I need to bring her down from the ledge.’ Wafaa explained what her intention was with the ladder and Faheem rushed to her side. The two dragged it to the tower.

Despite his expensive-looking trousers and shirt, Faheem wasn’t bothered by the prospect of getting dirty. Wafaa bit her lip, lest she blurt aloud that he’d been the same as a boy. She pushed back the memory of how, one Friday morning, in the quest for the highest mango on the tree, he had fallen and ruined his best galabiya.

Instead, she fixated on her own dress, where the stains had gathered in drips despite her careful scooping of the iced cream.

‘We will get her, Mawz,’ Wafaa reassured the cat, who now looked like he did not need it. He’d sprawled on his side and seemed more interested in a nap.

‘You’ve named them after fruits,’ Faheem observed. He held the ladder fast as Wafaa climbed.

She explained, ‘Tamra is for the dark red variety of dates my mother makes jam with. And Mawz, because his yellow-and-brown-spotted fur is reminiscent of a ripe banana peel.’

The sound of Faheem’s chuckle made her want to sprawl out too. A breeze came in, knocking the church bells until they chimed along with him.

Having arrived at the middle of the tower, Wafaa carefully loosened her shawl and reached out to wrap the cat in the folds of it. Tucking the bundle in her arm, she went down the way she came.

‘Careful.’ Faheem’s grip on the ladder didn’t waver until she’d neared the bottom and turned to face him. His closeness as he leaned in to relieve her of Tamra was…something.

That was new.

I should be upset with him, she reminded herself. He’d ignored her earlier today just as he had three years ago, that day they crossed paths in the street a few weeks after her sister’s death. Faheem had the chance to offer some excuse for not attending her funeral march or to convey his condolences. He hadn’t. Samya’s death wasn’t anyone’s fault –Allah decreed she’d get sick with cancer, but even the Eumda expressed how bad he felt for allowing them to leave his house in the first place. Though he didn’t say it, they all thought it: it wasn’t like Samya would ever have been able to marry one of his sons anyway.

Faheem carefully unwrapped the cat so Wafaa’s shawl didn’t slip much. Then, he respectfully lowered his gaze while she readjusted it over her hair.

She’d kept up with Faheem’s news. He’d gone to Cairo, studied at the university. Villagers referred to him as the Eumda’s ‘scholar’ son.

Did he marry or get engaged? That was a question she’d not wanted an answer to before, and seeing him now she knew why. She’d be disappointed if the answer was yes.

‘Tamra’s scared. Her heart is beating too fast.’ Faheem kept the cat close, gently swaying her as one might a sleepless baby.

When he finally set her down, they watched as Tamra rubbed noses with Mawz and then the cats sauntered off together.

‘You’re welcome for saving you,’ Wafaa said to the cats’ retreating tails, eager to lighten the mood, maybe hear Faheem laugh again. Alas, a shadow had fallen across his face.

‘Thank you for your help,’ she said. ‘I should go.’

‘Wait. Would you like to see inside the church, get the tour as it were?’

At the prospect of spending time with Faheem, excitement bubbled more than anything else Wafaa had felt in a long time. She shouldn’t trust that feeling, shouldn’t want that. And yet, she found herself nodding.

After they’d put the ladder back, Faheem led her into the inner sanctuary of the church. They ambled between the aisles while he spoke of where the materials for the construction were procured and the manpower it took to build. He told her that the craftsmanship of the stained glass windows was most apparent during midday, when the sun was highest in the sky.

‘The organ is different than a pianoforte. Air is pushed through its pipes to produce sound. It is powerful when you hear it, as if it is playing in your very body.’

Faheem remarked that the church honored a saint named George who, centuries ago, had been a Palestinian conscript to the Roman army.

‘It was said he killed a dragon! Can you imagine the courage it would take to stand before a fire-breathing beast? Sadly, however, George was brought down by a mortal man, executed in 303 by Emperor Diocletian for practicing Christianity.’

‘There should be no compulsion in religion. The Qur’an says as much.’ Wafaa stood near an enclave table, careful not to knock over the host of lighted candles that were somehow burning both vividly and softly.

‘It’s why the priest asked me to lead the tour for the Khedive today. To show that houses of worship –whether mosques or churches or synagogues—should be places to bring people together rather than pull them apart.’

‘Maybe the priest asked because you’re knowledgeable and you speak eloquently.’ Wafaa had spoken instinctively and was prompted by a sense of defensiveness that she wasn’t entirely sure of. Feeling too warm (maybe the candles were emitting too much heat?) she tried to explain further. ‘You made me believe dragons are real.’ And then, ‘Wait, the Khedive was here today?’

Faheem watched her for a long minute, looking like he was getting warm too. He raked a hand through his hair, pushing his dark curls off his forehead. Wafaa tried not to notice the scar, faint and puckered, but Faheem’s skin colour was lighter, and its pinkness immediately drew her attention.

Was it from the fall he’d taken that Friday at the mango tree?

‘No, the Khedive sent his son from Alexandria instead, but Prince Saleem was eager to get back to a female guest he’d brought. I think she’s his intended? In any case, the tour was rushed.’

‘How rude! Royals and rich people always thinking they’re better than everyone else. Did you tell him you’re the Eumda’s son?’

‘Saleem is blameless. He understands the value of all you’re saying, wants Egyptians to be of one body no matter their faiths.’ Faheem took a breath, then smiled. ‘He bought iced cream from you and you didn’t even notice, Wafaa. Did you notice that I was standing there too?’

Faheem’s brown eyes crinkled with merriment.

‘I thought you did not remember me,’ she said.

He teased, ‘You are the one who keeps calling me the “Eumda’s son” as though you’d forgotten my name. It is very demoralizing.’

She snapped, ‘Perhaps you deserve it. Twice, we’ve crossed paths and you have ignored me.’

‘My apologies, Wafaa. The sight of you…stills my tongue….’

What did that mean? Wafaa decided that he must only mean it out of pity for what she’d suffered.

Faheem slipped into a pew, then patted the place beside him for her. Wafaa hesitated, but the earnestness in his gaze moved her to sit next to him.

He turned to her and she to him. She offered him a tentative smile.

He nearly looks like the Faheem I once knew.

As soon as she thought it, he said: ‘You look different, Wafaa.’

She fought back tears. ‘Happens when your sister dies.’

‘I didn’t mean it…badly.’

‘Inshallah you never experience the same with any of your brothers.’

Faheem held out a handkerchief he’d pulled from his trousers. When she took it, it was as though she’d pushed through a formidable-looking iron gate that had secretly been rusting for too long. Her cries were heated and confused. Wafaa believed she’d buried the pain so far down, but she must have been wrong. It was always right there, on the surface.

‘Samya was twenty-one when she died. The age I am now.’ Wafaa sniffled. She didn’t want to talk about it, not with him. Faheem knew her before her sister died, how hopeful she’d been about life, the future. She doubted he’d understand, but she needed to express it, to stress to him why there could be nothing between them. Why she couldn’t move past her hopelessness.

‘It struck me the other month that I’ve had thirty more days on this earth than Samya. I’ve been counting ever since. Today is not Sham el-Nessim only, it is day fifty-seven.’

‘You cannot think that way,’ Faheem admonished softly. ‘Days with you, Wafaa, are gifts, not things to pass. Only just today, the children you made happy with iced cream? The cat you rescued? And that’s just what I could see and count. There have been days in my life, times I am sad. When I remember the laughs shared with you as a boy, it makes me happy.’

He gently touched the chin of her shawl so she could look up at him.

Seeing that she wasn’t convinced, he pointed to his scar. ‘I was lying in the mud, miserable that day, hurt –thinking about all that could go wrong, because it was Jumuah and my father was expecting his sons to look presentable because he planned to lead the prayer. And then you offered me a hand up and commented, “It better be the most delicious mango ever”. And you peeled it open with your teeth. I was already laughing, but then you said, “Nope, sour as a lemon” and I couldn’t stop. Nothing mattered after that.’

‘It tasted awful. I have disliked mangos since then.’

‘Nobody can dislike them.’ Faheem vaulted from the seat and a minute later returned with a sack of mangos. ‘I was practicing for the tour and forgot I’d packed them –just in case I was forced to eat the traditional Sham el-Nessim faseekh before it.’

‘You didn’t want to be talking to the prince with fermented fish breath?’

‘It wouldn’t do, would it?’

Wafaa said, ‘At least, that would have been a valid excuse for Prince Saleem to rush out of here. If I’d known, I’d have stuck some faseekh in the iced cream for habibtu.”

Faheem chuckled. ‘Still mischievous, I see.’

He was wrong about that. The Wafaa-after-her-sister-died played by societal rules. She got up in the morning, did her work, put her head down, then back home to supper and sleep, all to do it again the next day. An automaton.

She didn’t want to delve into deep matters with him again, so she just watched him peel the mango.

The perfume of its sweet ripeness filled the air. Wafaa couldn’t resist inhaling the flesh when he offered it to her. She must have been hungrier than she thought, for she was holding a fruitless pit before Faheem had even started eating his.

She watched him. The rich had a way that utilized spoons, and although he (or someone in his father’s kitchen staff) had packed one, he took his cue from her and ate as she had. A piece of pulp was trapped at the corner of his lip, beneath his moustache, and it took all of Wafaa’s might not to reach out and wipe it away in the instant before he’d licked it back himself.

She cleared her throat. ‘I guess I don’t hate mangos.’

‘I’m grateful you’re here, Wafaa, happy we could see each other again, before... When I got back from Cairo two days ago, I immediately planned to come by, talk to you and your mother. With my father, of course, but he suggested that we employ—‘

‘There is no ill will between our parents, if that’s what you think,’ Wafaa said. ‘He was the one who loaned her the money for the stall, gave her the idea to do iced cream, said that your household missed her sweets.’

A troubled look crossed Faheem’s face. ‘I did not know about the money.’

Pride pricked Wafaa. ‘Mama paid it back within a few months. We make a good amount and adapt to the seasons. Iced cream in the spring and summer, basboosa and jams the rest of the year. We don’t need anyone’s charity.’

‘You misunderstand me, Wafaa. I know your mother has eked etched out a good living for you. Everyone in the village respects her. I am only glad my father was trying to help.’ Faheem wiped his hands with the handkerchief she’d given back. If its wetness bothered him, the way he clutched it tightly said otherwise. ‘He and I do not talk about matters in depth. Our conversations are mostly “do this, or do that”.’

‘It sounds like you’re the one doing the demanding.’ Wafaa would not have taken Faheem for a person who would be aak alwaladayn–disobedient to one’s parents. It was an Islamic concept that was paramount in their lives, especially important in his village, where everyone knew everyone. Samya had been the most obedient of daughters, and when she got sick, Wafaa believed it her duty to be more vigilant, especially dutiful.

‘Yes, but he respects that I’ve succeeded in life without his aid. Now, finally, he listens to me.’ Faheem tilted his head. ‘You seem surprised.’

Wafaa knew Faheem’s brothers were dependent on their father’s position, the opportunities he afforded them. ‘How?’

‘When I went to Cairo, I began working immediately alongside my studies. It was anything I could find at first, but now I teach at a private school, and with the extra tutoring in the summer months, I can afford a nice apartment. The work keeps me busy throughout the year, but along with Eid holidays, the school insists on closing in the spring for Sham el-Nessim because it coincides with Coptic Easter and honours the Shemu harvest festivals of Ancient Egypt.’

‘You were able to go beyond the smallness of Kafr el Dawwar, make your own path. I am glad for you.’

‘Is that something you’d entertain?’ Faheem asked tentatively. ‘Leaving here? Would your mother agree to that?’

‘If I married, perhaps.’

‘That is good to hear… but, why have you not agreed to any men asking for your hand before?’

Wafaa hadn’t said there’d been suitors but perhaps he’d assumed it. She shrugged. ‘If I were to marry, it would have to be exciting, a very new start–not just a sham or whiff of it.’

‘A new, new start? Would you agree to an older, new start?’

Tentatively, Faheem took her right hand and then her left in both of his. He rubbed her knuckles gently with his thumbs. Wafaa didn’t pull away, despite the rolling in her stomach and the racing of her heart.

‘I don’t know why exactly your mother decided to leave our house,’ he said, ‘but it was because of me that my father allowed it. The two of us fought not long after the mango tree incident.’

Wafaa swallowed. ‘What did you fight about?’

‘I told him I would marry you.’

‘You were a boy who couldn’t have yet known his own mind.’

‘You’ve forgotten how wise I was?’ He blinked back a self-deprecating scoff. ‘Beyond your beauty and sense of humor, I knew your soul. Kind. Good. And as I said earlier, you were, and are still, a gift.’

‘And your father thought we were too lower class, that I was beneath you?’ It didn’t surprise Wafaa, and strangely, it didn’t upset her either. There was something almost healing about the revelation, knowing that Samya’s memory did not have to be impacted by the reason why they left the Eumda’s mansion in the first place.

‘My father doesn’t think that way anymore. Life has mellowed him, and maybe it is my insistence on the matter, since I have been stubborn in my unwavering stance on who I wish to marry.’

Wafaa had never before experienced a bout of shyness so strong, one that felt like there was something blocking her throat.

Faheem continued, ‘I told my father to warn me if you were about to get engaged before I had my chance to ask for your hand. He says you might refuse me as you have others brought to you by the matchmaker, Omniya. Is he right, Wafaa?’

She could only manage a shake of the head.

‘And what of the suitor coming tomorrow?’ he asked.

The one her mother had asked she come home to prepare for tonight! Something in his tone made Wafaa wonder: Was the suitor Faheem?

When he grinned at her, she knew it was.

‘Let me be a part of all your days,’ he said. ‘Can you want this to be our spring?’

In this holy place, Wafaa could nearly feel her sister’s presence, and it gave her something she’d not had in long while: hope. ‘Yes, I can want that.’