Black Book of Arabia (23 page)

I was taken to Aswan University Hospital, the main hospital amongst the villages of southern Egypt. This time it was serious. I could not wake up properly. My vision was blurred and I kept fainting. The headache left me irritable and restless, and I would vomit air and bubbles because there was nothing in my digestive tract to begin with. I was drowsy and drunken-looking all the time. My speech was slurred and I could not get up, nor did I feel inclined to do so. I was breathing, but barely. Mother was worried that she had gone too far. She cried and wailed. I was a boiled cabbage, a vegetating human child in her arms.

Trauma to the skull had resulted in a loss of consciousness. My pupils were of unequal size. My limbs were limp, and I did not flinch. My temperature was dropping, and I could feel my life slipping away.

“You killed her, you crazy, cruel woman,” my grandmother whimpered, rocking back and forth in sorrow and bitterly eyeing her daughter. “You should have left her with her father. God will never forgive you. Never. You killed a baby. You monster!”

“Stop it,” said Mother. She was nervous. She had miscalculated the strength of the blow, not thinking a clay bowl would crack my skull.

“How was I to know!” she shouted. Her voice broke and she began praying. “I didn't mean to hurt her. She never shuts up about wanting to go home. She belongs with me. Sammy isn't helping, either. I thought he would. I can't afford to keep her anymore. He's against me, you're against me, and the whole world is against me!”

“You should have let her be with her father,” said Grandmother. “You can't afford to feed yourself and yet you go ahead and take the child, and now we have two starving fools!”

“Hush, you'll embarrass me. She just had a coconut fall on her head. Stick to the story. I could go to prison if she dies! Oh my God! I won't last a week in there. Mother, promise me you will stick to the story. You saw the coconut fall on her head and I was in the house and then . . . and then I came out. I was nowhere around when this happened.”

“Silence, before another lie throws you into the deepest pit of hell, you devil.” Grandmother was a firm woman. She had studied Arabic literature and had taught in the local school, but now was collecting her pension and tending to her chickens, ducks and a small group of widows and mothers who stopped by every afternoon for tea.

“Mother, please.” My mother pleaded for her own life as mine was slipping away. I stared at the hospital ceiling as her tears fell on my cheeks.

“Things have to change from now on,” said Grandmother. “Everything is going to be all right, but you have to change.”

The doctors were worried that I had suffered a spinal injury. Upon reviewing the x-ray, they said I had a cracked skull. The doctors inquired how the injury occurred. The coconut story was presented, and I feebly agreed. Better to be with the devil you know than the devil you do not. I was afraid of foster care, as I had seen too many smacked and scarred foster children in the hospital who shared their own tales of woe. I did not want to join them.

I chose to stay silent, as it seemed that I was allowed some peace if I remained so. Mother and Grandmother were ushered into the doctor's clinic and shown my skull x-ray on the screen, revealing a hairline crack. They then came back to my bed in the children's ward and spoke more about my condition. It was a concussion. The doctors explained to them that I would suffer from headaches and cognitive changes, which meant I would feel like I was in a
fog. Emotional and behavioral changes were regarded as a further possibility and my sleep would be disturbed.

I was hospitalized for a long time, and the nurses asked me why I had so many bruises, cuts, and scars. I chose not to say anything because Mother might hit me with a rock and I might never wake up next time. I was quiet about wanting to go back to the United States but could not help mentioning that I knew the Disney characters and places in America and most obviously had an American accent.

My mother called my father, hoping he would continue to support me financially even after she had kidnapped me. He in turn called it blackmail and emotional extortion, refusing to be forced into funding a scheme concocted so she could bleed him dry. He was beside himself with grief and yelled over the phone that I could die of malaria or one of a hundred other diseases I was not vaccinated for. He was right. I had malaria several times when I was in Egypt. Furthermore, I was still under his custody and it was not Mother's legal right to take me away. He vowed to come and find me and take me back, but Mother threatened to hurt me if he tried. He became as cold and hard to her as he had been warm and loving to me. Mother was so intimidated by his outbursts that she stopped calling altogether. Father was lost to me for over thirteen years. I did not know a number to call him on and soon had forgotten the details of my address, schools, and the faces and names of my friends.

After I was released from the hospital, I returned to high school. When I graduated, I wanted to go to a good university, but my mother could not afford to send me. She
collected the courage to speak with my father and ask him to sponsor me. He agreed to pay for my tuition, books, and fees on one condition: that I would stay with him the entire summer before my first semester started. Overcome with joy, I cried harder than I did when I was first kidnapped. I felt wings sprout on my shoulders, ready to fly me home. I would go back and never return to Egypt. I just needed to keep my thoughts, dreams, and hopes to myself until I was back with Papa.

My father had remarried and moved to California with his new wife. They received me with hugs, kisses and two kids who said they were my sister and brother. I said hello to the young children, as I did not want to be rude, but they were complete strangers to me. My room was furnished exactly as my room in New York had been thirteen years earlier. Father had kept all of my things. My teddy bear was untouched, my musical carousel was in its place on my dresser, and my clothes were hanging in the closet, waiting for me to come back and wear them. My drawings and paintings hung on the walls with small, colored ribbons. My school portraits were hung around the room, perhaps to force my absent presence to be in it. I smelled the scent of lavender on the quilt and remembered the good old times. I felt like Snow White, waking after years of sleep. And yet, my happy ending came with a bitter realization: My father had moved on, and I had not. He was happily married with two children who had compensated for my loss. He simply did not know how to communicate with me anymore. I felt cheated and forgotten. Three new members
had taken up my spot in my father's heart. The youngest even reminded me of myself, as I had been abducted at roughly the same age.

I was an adult now, a young woman, with many unanswered questions. Why had he not looked harder for me after my mother took me away? I planned to tell him all about the pain I had endured—the beatings, the feverish nights, the hot days, the cruel taunts of children who did not believe my father was successful and rich, the lonely nights without his stories and kisses goodnight. But I said nothing. I felt my presence in his new life was an interruption because everything was perfectly set for the family that had taken over what was once mine.

I had forgotten the once-familiar tongue and spoke English with a foreign accent. I saw the same lack of acceptance that I had received from the kids at school when I had arrived in Egypt. I was poor then, but I was poorer now. Even when my father gave me money, I felt everyone looked down on me, like I was the adopted charity case. I was a stranger in my own home. A tornado had swept through my safe cottage, wreaking havoc and leaving me to collect the shards of broken memories that left my fingers bloody. I felt raped, taken, abducted. I was lost on so many levels. My home was not mine anymore. My father was not the same person; he was older, and I was no longer his princess. I was an interruption to his life. I did not want to be that. I just wanted to come home, but I felt that I had to tread softly, as if everyone regarded me as a majestic guest. I sensed coyness in the way that everyone
was speaking to me. I was the precious china doll that was lost in the post and finally delivered, only too late, long after the birthday or Christmas, long after the days of beauty and play times.

In Egypt I nearly had been killed for wanting to speak my mind. And there I was, in free America, but could not vocalize the demon's voice that was burning me from the inside. I would cry at how broken I was, and how gentle and happy the children were. They were so innocent and easily pleased, but I, who was once the same, had endured too many fractures and emotional scars, leaving my heart deaf to the things that once made it sing. My mind was not the same; my heart was not the same; nothing was the same. Life goes on, or so they say, but my life had come to an abrupt and rude halt, and I wanted to go back home. Only home was not home anymore.

The weather was beautiful but I could not enjoy the sun, the gentle summer breeze, or the beach. Malibu Beach was every sun-loving creature's heaven, but I felt cold the whole summer holiday. There was no space in the car for me, and they had a big dog that I was afraid of. My brother Ramsey told me that the dog was part Irish Wolfhound, a breed used in the past to hunt deer and wolves, and that he was strong enough to carry him on his back when he was younger. The dog would lick me all the time and I could almost swear that his licking me was a teaser for his midnight feast of me. I realized that my thoughts were running wild and made the conscious effort to try not to be morbid and stop putting grotesque masks on every sweet face that came my way.

It felt awkward for my father to have his dinner on the sofa while I sat with his wife and two children at the dinner table that could only seat four. The children were excited that they had a half-sister from the land of the pharaohs and pyramids. They asked me all of the tourist questions about the mummies, the pyramids, the gold, and of course about the terrorists. I told them that I never saw any. We had discussions about religion, politics, and freedom of speech in the West versus the Middle East. They wanted to come visit me in Cairo, and I encouraged them to. I had no friend I could confide my mad situation to. I was finally home, which was exactly what I had wanted, yet I could not wait to leave. I booked my flight back to Egypt and left a week early because I felt choked in this candy-floss happy land, simply because it was not mine anymore. The weather had been sunny; the food, delicious; the people, friendly; but I always felt like the odd one out. The nightmares of the suffering I had endured never left me. These children, along with Papa and my new stepmother, were untainted and unmarked and had not seen the things that would shatter the innocence in their souls.

I spent the vacation happily, but was even happier to return to Mother Egypt. I buried myself in her bosom and began to count my blessings that I had made friends along my troubled road. I moved from southern Egypt to northern Egypt and settled in Cairo to attend university. The metropolis was always bustling and alive, throbbing with life and excitement. Every corner was a new discovery. The people were so diverse and the professors so enlightened
they seemed like walking, dusty encyclopedias, as most refused to retire at old age. There were people from all over the world in this bustling metropolis, and the walls would sing the songs of history of thousands of years. Everyone in Cairo had a tale of woe and love, and everyone was eager to tell every stranger their story or someone's story or their own country's story for the sake of storytelling. It was poignant and dusty, an older kind of beauty that held its allure timelessly. People worked very hard in Cairo and the energy of the unified spirit of being from one of the oldest civilizations on Earth made my heart beat faster. I loved America, but Egypt was calling for me. It was my mother—not my biological mother, but my earth mother.

I began working for charities on Fridays and they were my therapy, a place where I could heal by helping other people. I felt as if I was repairing an unset broken rib from old times. I was grateful for the opportunity and I matured and took up responsibilities in university and in clubs. My social life flourished. I enjoyed my popularity, and life was finally beginning to smile down upon me.

The university was a city of lights, holding the promise of worlds of adventure and exploration. The students were of different colors, ages, and nationalities but all agreed that the café opposite the university had the best coffee and tea in the world. Turki, the loud bagel seller opposite the café, certainly had magic baked into his bagels, and they were perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. He swore that his recipe had been handed down from generation to generation, originating from his ancestors: Turks, he claimed,
because he had blue eyes. He said that he was named Turki because he had Turkish roots.

The boys would make fun of his hair because it was ridiculously curly and stood like pyramids on each side of his head, where a
taqia
sat covering his shiny forehead. His curly hair was matched by his curly eyelashes, and he had full lips with a flat nose and a square face. Whenever people asked him about where in the world he got his colored eyes, he would gloat and say he had been offered a role in a movie because he was so handsome, blessings be to Him. He would smile and show us his big white teeth from which he usually had a
meswak
stick protruding—the Arabic toothbrush high in fluoride, whose gentle bristles act as such an excellent oral cleaner that the Muslim Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him, advised its use over 1,400 years ago. Turki stood tall and broad in his grey striped
galabya
, his daily uniform, which seemed to host a world of accessories and change from across the continents.

The richness of the air in Cairo made the locals addicted to walking its roads. It is said the Nile is bewitched: Once you drink from its waters, you must return. It was my home now, and in it I found my solace.