The Girl with Braided Hair

by Rasha Adly

  Her head jerked up at the sound of a distinctive knock on the door, Zeinab’s knock. She leapt up and rushed to the door, almost upsetting the flowerpot. “Why are you so late?” she hissed. “Haven’t you heard about the kidnappings and the murders that are happening everywhere these days?”

  “I lost track of time,” said Zeinab, lifting her veil off her sweaty face.

  “Well, don’t do it again! I want you home early from now on.”

  Zeinab went straight to her room. She stood before the mirror and took off her clothes and undid her braids, then lifted up the edge of the cotton mattress and took out a tin box. She painted her lips with its contents, dried powdered deer’s blood, and reddened her cheeks with it. Then she dipped a pigeon-feather into the silver kohl bottle, and painted her eyes with kohl. She stood admiring herself in the mirror for a long time, turning left and right and smiling confidently. She imagined her girlfriends standing around her gazing enviously at her beauty, and stuck her tongue out at them in the mirror. Then she remembered his smile, and it took her to another world.

  Cairo: August 1798

  The Nile waters had risen. Everyone went out early to celebrate the flooding of the Nile. For days, preparations had been underway for this day. Every family was standing outdoors in front of their house: the streets had been sprayed down with water to keep down the dust, decorations hung up in the streets, and lamps filled with oil. A week previously, the water-carriers had put on their new clothing and perfumed their gourds of water with flowers and jasmine oil, and walked through the streets and alleyways, giving water to drink to anyone who was thirsty in the street, and to every house, without recompense. They rattled their brass cups against one another with a joyous clang. The women vied with each other to see who could make the best sweets: sadd hanak, basbousa, and luqmat al-qadi, and the children went out laden with trays on their heads, handing out sweets to the passersby in the street. And in a tradition thousands of years old, several strong men gathered at Fom al-Khalig, “the water’s mouth,” to build a dam of sand weak enough for the gushing of the Nile’s waters to demolish. When it fell, that was the signal for everyone to cheer and celebrate.

  That day, Zeinab stood at her mirror longer than usual. She painted her eyes with kohl and reddened her cheeks, and let a few locks of her hair hang loose across her forehead. Then she put on her embroidered head veil, and went out with the young girls and children of the neighborhood, all in new clothes, and they cried out, “The waters have risen! The river is full!” beating loudly on drums and tooting horns. She joined the throng and sang and made noise with them.

  All along the banks of the Nile, boats were decorated with colorful ribbons, carrying gaudily dressed revelers, floating through the narrow canal that separates Roda Island from the bank of the Nile. Crowds gathered around conjurers performing their acts, while bands of musicians roamed the crowds, playing joyfully. It was as if everyone who lived in Egypt had come out to celebrate. Crowds thronged the banks of the Nile, and some even put up tents. Like a cloying drink, people poured into the streets and every corner of the earth seemed filled to the brim with them, and when the street would not hold them, some climbed trees and stood on the rooftops. There were merchants, fat wallets concealed under ample turbans; women carrying their children on their shoulders and muttering prayers; dervishes with rosaries hung around their necks; beggars with tin plates; and French folk in odd raiment looking all around.

  On a high hill, a huge marquee had been erected, its walls made up of khayyamiya, a thick cotton fabric embroidered with colorful Arabesque designs. The inside was covered with brightly colored and embroidered Persian rugs, and dotted around with wooden couches covered in red velvet and large cushions embroidered with gold thread. A long table ran down the middle, covered in plates of delicious-looking fruit and nuts, the Egyptian and French flags erected above it side by side. Bonaparte stood at the center of the assembly in full regalia, medals and decorations glinting at the breast and shoulders of his uniform in the sunshine, surrounded by several of his high-ranking officers. Next to them stood the imams of al-Azhar and the elite of Egypt. At a distance, everyone could see the flamingo feather in Sheikh al-Bakri’s imposing turban, waving in the wind. His shoulders were draped with his golden-yellow cloak. Zeinab saw him and pointed with a finger, saying proudly, “Look! That’s my father sitting at Bonaparte’s side!”

  “Shame on him to sit next to him,” muttered one of her friends.

  “Why? Isn’t he here to rid us of the Mamluks’ brutish rule? Didn’t he promise to make things better for our country? It’s enough that he commanded that the houses be cleaned and the refuse removed from the streets and—”

  “But he’s an infidel!” the girl interrupted.

  “Our Prophet says,” Zeinab challenged, “ ‘You have your religion, and I have mine.’”

  The cries of the revelers grew louder, making conversation impossible. The pounding on the tins and drums increased to a deafening pitch. Suddenly, the water burst forth, breaking down the false dam, and the canal filled up until it was on the same level as the river. The mayor threw some shiny bara coins into the water, newly minted specially for the occasion in keeping with the tradition that new money brings the Nile flooding. The young men and boys leapt into the water to catch them. Zeinab, seeing that everyone was preoccupied with cheering for the men and boys and encouraging them to dive for the coins, slipped away from her friends toward the marquee where her father sat with Bonaparte. She crept past the guards watching the commotion and went straight to her father. She bent to kiss his hand, whereupon the guards finally noticed her and crowded around. Sheikh al-Bakri whispered into Napoleon’s ear, “It is only my daughter, Zeinab,” and Napoleon commanded them to let her be.

  Her father nodded to her, hinting that she should pay her respects. She bowed her head low, smiling behind her chiffon veil, showing off her dimples. Napoleon, charmed, smiled back.

  He was a small man indeed! But he sat proudly, all puffed out, his jacket encrusted with gold medals. She felt small beside him, not in size, but in status. He was fully aware that he ruled over all he surveyed. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him. His face was white, with a few freckles here and there. His eyes were small and the color of honey, full of cunning. His mouth was small, too, and enticing behind his sparse mustache. His features betrayed nothing of his cruel nature: if he took off his regalia and dressed in civilian clothes, she thought, and walked among regular folk, he might be taken for an Azharite sheikh or the scribe who sits outside courthouses to help the illiterate write down their complaints.

  At noon, the sun was high in the sky, the day at its hottest. A gentle breeze sprang up, easing the sweltering heat. From the marquee high on the hill, Zeinab was entranced by the sight. She could see the domes of the mosques and churches, and the pyramids seemed small at this distance. A military parade passed by, rows and rows of officers and soldiers, to the tune of a military band. Yells and cries broke out when the traditional ‘Bride of the Nile’ statue was thrown into the water, and several women threw scraps of their clothing or locks of their hair in after her. The boats that had been in a long race since daybreak began to arrive, and Bonaparte himself handed out the medals to the winners. Then he began to give out gifts and largesse of golden baras to the public, and there was a general pushing and shoving to get some. He motioned to Zeinab with the tip of one finger: with shy, hesitant steps she went to him. When she drew level to Bonaparte, he took her small hand and placed several baras into it, then closed her hand firmly around them. With difficulty, she managed to squeak out, “Thank you.” She looked straight up into his eyes. There was something unreadable in them. She ran back, a child running like the wind in joy at the gift of the ‘Emperor of the East.’ She asked herself: had he pressed her hand a little longer than strictly necessary? Or had she only imagined it?

  The diamond in Napoleon’s ring glittered as he motioned to an officer, who came running. He whispe
red something into his ear and the man hurried out. Moments later, he came back, bearing a caftan of pure silk, trimmed with fur and adorned with diamonds. Bonaparte placed the caftan onto the shoulders of Sheikh al-Bakri and announced that he was to be the new Naqib al-Ashraf, the Head of the Prophet’s Descendants, replacing Sheikh Omar Makram, to the cheering and blessings of the crowd. The judges, merchants, and other important men clustered around Sheikh al-Bakri, congratulating him. He returned their congratulations with pride and pleasure. Napoleon took his leave, surrounded by his military procession, but not before telling Sheikh al-Bakri that he would await him the next day to discuss the responsibilities of his new position. What was truly strange, however, was that he asked him to bring his daughter.

  7

  Cairo: Autumn 2012

  Her alarm woke her from a dream. The hands of the clock read a quarter to seven. She had a class at 8:30. Sluggishly, she pushed the covers off herself and yawned and stretched like a lazy Persian cat. Sleepy-eyed, she padded to the kitchen, flicked the electric kettle on, and shoved a cheese sandwich into the toaster. She was exhausted; the discovery she had made the previous day filled her with so many questions that she hadn’t slept all night. She had to find answers.

  Quickly, she dressed in something suitable for work. She disliked formal attire, much preferring jeans, a T-shirt, and some sneakers, but a university professor must appear conservative. Therefore she followed the Egyptian proverb, “Eat what you please, and wear what pleases others.”

  She looked into her grandmother’s room with a cheery “Good morning.” Receiving no reply, she watched her chest to make sure it was still rising and falling. She was always haunted by the fear that the old woman would have a heart attack and die in her sleep. Relieved, she packed some papers into her briefcase, swallowed down her sandwich, and went out, travel mug in hand. As Yasmine was waiting for the elevator, Fatima, the Nubian-Egyptian maid, came out of the service entrance as she had been doing for more than a quarter of a century since she started working for them; she refused to use any other door, although the service staircase was long deserted and inhabited only by stray cats. Even the newspaper man and the milkman used the elevator: only Fatima insisted on using the service stairs. She was continuing the journey her mother had started half a century before, when she had first gone into service with Yasmine’s grandmother. She used to take her up the service stairs with her as a little girl, and thus she never used any other. She belonged to the ‘servant class’ that used to exist in bygone days, the people who bowed when serving the coffee, and used ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam.’

  The weather was crisp with spring, encouraging her to walk to the Faculty of Fine Arts, only a few streets away from her house. She needed time to collect her thoughts and exercise in accordance with Nietzsche’s maxim, “Great ideas come to us while walking,” but she was only preoccupied with one idea, one painting, one girl, one artist.

  In class, she stood distracted at the slide projector, hardly able to see the painting before her for her mental image of the girl. They merged in her mind, although they were completely different. “Look at her thick black braids,” she said, pointing to the hair of the model in the painting.

  “What?” The students murmured loudly.

  Yasmine blinked. There were no black braids; the painting was of a blond with her hair up and a hat on her head. “Excuse me,” she said, shaking her head. “I meant, look at the way her hair is arranged and the design of the hat, a look popular in nineteenth-century France.”

  As soon as the lecture was over, she went straight to the Conservation Department. She sat a few meters away from the painting and tried to view it with the eye of an ordinary viewer. The girl’s features combined innocence with seduction: there was a promise of something in her eyes. The gold hoops in her ears indicated that she was from a wealthy family. Her lace scarf was draped around her shoulders, her black braids peeking from underneath it. That fabric was unknown to Egyptian women of the era. Her gallabiya was black, with vertical stripes of red, gold, and blue. The artist had paid attention to all of these small details, to the features that mingled innocence and seduction, good and evil. Which of them did he mean to portray?

  The voice of Professor Anwar jolted her out of her thoughts. “Still staring at that painting? Is it really that much on your mind?”

  “Yes,” she responded.

  “Tomorrow we’ll take it down to the infrared lab.”

  She smiled at him gratefully.

  After class that day, she wrapped the painting carefully, obtained a permit to remove it from the premises from the head of the Conservation Department, and took it home.

  Fatima knocked on the door to her room. “I’ve done the housework, fed Madam, your grandmother, and given her medicine.”

  “Thank you,” said Yasmine. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” The compliment was by no means an exaggeration: Fatima relieved her of a burden she was incapable of shouldering.

  At six, he called to invite her out to dinner, “unless you have plans tonight.”

  “I don’t have any plans.”

  “How would you feel about going out for pizza?”

  “Pizza?” she repeated slyly.

  She was well aware that since their breakup, he would never say he wanted to see her, and would never call to tell her “I miss you” or “I need to see you.” All he would say was “I’ll be there at such and such a time, if you want to join me,” and give her the freedom to come or not as she chose. There had been a time when the relationship they shared gave him the right to demand her company. Now he had no excuse. She knew perfectly well what he was thinking. “No, I don’t feel like pizza tonight. I’ll come by the restaurant at nine and we can take a walk together. That’s what I really need.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  She pulled on something from her closet, a short wool dress, and put on a coat over it, leaving her hair loose and only putting on some kohl and lip gloss. That was all she needed when she went out to see him, for with him, she could be herself. That was the best thing about this relationship, to feel this close. She never felt the need to put on a mask to meet him, or pretend when talking to him.

  Pizza Thomas was a few streets away from her home in Zamalek, and had been there since the 1950s. Its owner had preserved it perfectly in its original vintage style. The kitchen was open onto the dining area: you could watch the pizza cooks rolling the dough and pressing it into the dishes, then putting the ingredients on top of it and sliding it into the oven. It gave the place a perpetually warm and delicious smell. She approached the glass front of the store through which the tables and customers were visible. She saw him at his usual seat, and waved at him to come out.

  Outside, he put an arm around her and they walked together: sidewalk followed sidewalk and street followed street. Each street had its own smell; each path sounded different as feet displaced tiny stones. Now they were face-to-face with the Nile. He sat on a bench facing the river and lit a cigarette. “Something on your mind?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “You remember the girl I was talking to you about?”

  “What girl?”

  “The girl in the picture.”

  He let loose a hearty chuckle. She had always loved his laugh: he threw his head back and looked up and laughed long and loud, making it impossible not to share in his merriment. “What are you laughing at?”

  “This!” He pointed to her head. “This head of yours!”

  “Oh?” she said coolly.

  “You leave the here and now and go running after the past.” He let out another laugh. “My dear, it’s just a face in a painting, and you’re spinning tall tales about it! She’s just another Egyptian girl, like any other girl. The artist saw her, and fancied her, and painted her. There’s nothing more to it.” He took a deep breath. “You’ve got your life ahead of you, clear, transparent, waiting. Why do you run away down the corridors of the past?”

  “Wel
l,” she retorted, “If she’s just a regular girl, why would the artist weave locks of her hair, human hair, into the pigment he mixed with the color for her braids? Tell me there isn’t a secret behind that girl. Why would he do that?”

  Sherif sobered. “True. Why would he do something like that?”

  “I’ve got the painting at home. Come,” she said eagerly, “let me show you.”

  “Now?” he protested, looking at his watch.

  “Yes, now.”

  Yasmine took his hand and they walked to her building. When he saw it, the architect let out a long, low whistle in admiration of its Baroque architecture with the double entrance, one leading onto the main road, and the other into a side street. She smiled, knowing how much he liked it. On the inside, it was even more like an ancient castle: the stairs were polished marble, the banister wrought-iron. He refused to take the elevator, choosing instead to walk up the stairs: “I don’t trust elevators. They make me claustrophobic.”

  “Me too.”

  The echo of their footfall on the marble staircase was loud in the silence; it seemed wrong to speak in such an atmosphere. Many of the older apartments in the building were uninhabited thanks to the outdated rent-control laws that plagued Zamalek and other quarters full of historic buildings. As a result, walking through the building was like entering a place where time had stopped—locked into the old, empty apartments.

  The sound of a television reached them from behind Yasmine’s door: her grandmother was used to turning it up loud. When they went inside, she hung up her coat on the rack and asked him to wait in the entryway. He could see that the apartment was a lot like her, plain and simple. It was easy to tell that an artist lived there from the paintings hanging on the wall and the artwork on the tables. Everything was quiet, except for the din from the television. Her grandmother ignored her: she was watching a televised black-and-white recording of an old play and guffawing loudly. Yasmine picked up the remote and turned down the sound, bending to speak in her ear. “Grandma, we’ve got company. A colleague, here to see a painting.”