30

“So many things inside me have broken without making a sound. I can’t glue them together again or make up for their loss.”—Nadia

“Unfortunately, Nadia, you have no other options. You have to do more to help yourself.”

That was my psychiatrist’s refrain in my last five sessions. In his opinion, I had to bring myself to accept my current situation. I should remain Nadia Abbas Mahalawi, upper-class socialite from Zamalek, daughter of a wealthy established family. He also advised me not to turn down Murad’s offer out of hand. I should play along and try to silence him, even if I had to bow to his demand for a quarter of my inheritance. The risks were too great. I could never tolerate the impact of the scandal. The toll it would take
was incalculable.

“No amount of money could compensate for your loss. There’s no medicine that can repair the damage,” he said. “Anyway, why do you refuse to be Nadia? Abbas and Zeinab gave you the best education money can buy. They lavished money on you. Even if they were crooks or forgers, they’re through. Abbas is dead. Zeinab can’t speak or move. Tarek was a terrorist and psychologically disturbed. He was an opportunist who took advantage of you and died. He’s not worth even thinking about. The whole problem now boils down to General Murad Kashef, your brother Abraham, and your daughter, Yasmine. These are the people who define the new reality you have to deal with.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to my shrink’s advice. In previous sessions he spoke of divine retribution: “God alone has the power to exact revenge from immoral criminals whose advantageous circumstances enabled them to evade justice on earth. Divine justice does not recognize crimes marked ‘unsolved.’” Nice-sounding words, but they had nothing to do with my reality. Murad and Abraham weren’t the problem; neither was Yasmine. The problem was inside me. I was living the life of another woman. She was not the real me and her life wasn’t really mine. It belonged to Nadia Abbas Mahalawi, not to Batel Jacob Zananiri. I was battling so many conflicting feelings. I really was trying to adjust to my new reality, but it was so hard when everyone still saw me as Nadia. New reality? It wasn’t new at all. It was old as I was. What was new was what would come next. I’d always been a puppet manipulated by others. Some used it. Others were amused by it. Few truly wanted it. My shrink didn’t understand that not every painting had to be in color. We needed to step back from the easel and contemplate our work carefully. Perhaps its perfection could be attained in charcoal.

I leaned back on the couch, set my feet on the coffee table, and stared blankly at the walls. As I reached for a cigarette, my fingers encountered a small picture frame. It was another old photo that I’d come across in the basement when I went down there some months after the fire. I took it with me, along with some other things. It was taken by Abbas in the early winter of 1939, according to what was written on the back. It showed Zeinab, not even thirty yet, a crafty smile on her face, in the black Cadillac with the elegant Mme Paula, who stared haughtily at the camera. I felt an acrid taste in my mouth. I picked up the picture and looked at it more closely. It seemed to encapsulate an important phase in my history: the prelude to my arrival into their world. Fifty or more years of lies and deception were summed up in that photo.

The phone rang, rousing me from my dismal thoughts. The caller reminded me of an appointment and asked me whether I wanted to keep it or whether I preferred to change the date. I told him I’d be there at the agreed-upon time. I was fairly comfortable with what I’d arranged for Zeinab. I hadn’t told Yasmine yet and I wasn’t sure how I would explain it to her. Still, she would handle it better than me. I downed a couple of sleeping pills, despite my doctor’s objections to the amount of sedatives I was taking, and went to bed. As I nodded off, I muttered, “Yes, I admit I’m stubborn, as Zeinab always said. If I fall into the sea, I’ll either swim to safety or I’ll choose to drown. That’s how I am.”

The following morning, after dressing, I went to Zeinab’s room. Her maid was with her, as usual. Zeinab had grown attached to her to some years ago, though none of the rest of them could stand her because she was so unctuous and was always spying on us. Zeinab brought her down from the farm at Mahalla Marhoum. After she fell and broke her leg, she wanted someone to help her change her clothes and keep her entertained. The maid was administering Zeinab’s medicine when I burst into the room. I signaled for her to fetch the other large suitcase and started to remove some of Zeinab’s clothes from the closet. Zeinab’s eyes shot back and forth between the two of us and, with a hand gesture, she asked me what was going on. I didn’t answer. She signaled that she wanted a pen and paper, but I refused. I didn’t want to hear another word from her. I didn’t want to learn more truths. She could take them with her to the grave.

I shut the door and went up to her, close enough to feel her weak breath on my nose. “Who was it who tried to poison Abbas?” I asked. I received the same response: a shake of her head, after which she looked down and closed her eyes. Then she opened them and raised them slowly toward me. They were filled with fear. Abject fear. She asked for a pen and paper again, and again I refused. I couldn’t stand her and I couldn’t believe her or those tears that had frozen at the rims of her tiny eyes. Her silence served as the answer to all my questions. I lifted her off the bed and set her in her wheelchair. I removed the blue diamond ring she’d worn for years and placed it in my pocket, then pushed her toward the door. When I opened it I found the maid. She had been eavesdropping. She immediately understood the look I gave her. I’d be dealing with her soon.

The fight seemed to drain out of Zeinab as we made our way to the car. The maid helped without saying a word, as I’d instructed. I planned to fire her when I returned from my errand. As I was about to open the car door, she stepped forward with her head bowed and handed me a small medicine bottle.

“It’s the medicine for the madame and the late Mr. Abbas,” she said in a barely audible voice.

I turned the bottle over in my hand. It had no label or anything to indicate its contents. I showed it to Zeinab. She jerked her head back in surprise, shot the maid a furious stare, then turned back to me with eyes widened in alarm. After I settled Zeinab in the rear seat, I took the maid by the arm and led her away from the car.

“What is this?”

Tears poured down her cheeks as if she’d been exposed for complicity in a crime. “Madame Zeinab told me to put a drop of this into Mr. Abbas’s orange juice every morning. She said it would pick him up and make him better. Then, about a week before the fire, she got really mad at Mr. Abbas and her blood pressure shot up. So I put a little bit in her juice as well. I swear by God, Madame Nadia, I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Ha—if the worst disasters don’t pack a laugh! I gripped the bottle nearly tightly enough to smash it. I told the maid to get into the car next to Zeinab and never to speak of this matter again. I couldn’t tell the police that Zeinab had been trying to murder Abbas by slow poisoning. After putting the wheelchair in the trunk, I climbed into the driver’s seat and switched the motor on. Along the way, the radio broadcast a Quranic recitation. We listened in silence, as though in a funeral procession, until we arrived at the home for the elderly in Maadi.

Zeinab’s jaw dropped on seeing the sign at the entrance. It bore Abbas Mahalawi’s name. She turned to me with such a meek and resigned look that I could practically hear the questions she was unable to utter: “What kind of place is this? Why is his picture on the wall? Why are you doing this to me?”

I had a volcano of rage inside me, and it would be better for everyone if it remained dormant. I said nothing, though I felt like shouting at those pleading eyes brimming with crocodile tears that this was exactly what you deserve for having taken me from the orphanage and changed my name twice, and thinking you’d grant me a new life for your own selfish sake after plundering my father’s and mother’s property. Now I was going to return the favor. I was consigning you to an old-age home founded by your brother who you wanted to poison to death. They’d look after you and make sure you lived out the rest of your days in dignity. Maybe that would make you atone for your sins. At least they’d take good care of you in your capacity as the sister of the founder. My conscience was at rest. Wasn’t this how the sad story started, Zeinab? I was giving you an ending that matched the beginning.

Her baffled eyes took in her surroundings while her teary-eyed maid rolled her chair down the path that cut through the garden to the administration building. She caught sight of a bust of Abbas on a pedestal in the middle of a flowerbed. Her lips moved, mouthing something incomprehensible like a mad woman. I walked alongside, silently. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. I felt myself recoil. She had probably given my tiny hand a squeeze when I was an infant in the orphanage. She’d selected me like a piece of new furniture for the house, to decorate her life and make up for what she lacked. Again I was seized by the desire to shout: Why did you and Abbas lie to me all these years? Why did you rob my father and mother and force them give me to you as a pledge? Why did you make me reject Tarek, force me to marry Murad, and deprive me of Omar? Zeinab’s muteness held me back.

Maybe it was a form of divine mercy. Her muteness spared me the torrent of lies she would spout if she could speak. She would probably think up dozens of excuses and invent dozens of fictions in order to cast the whole blame on the late Abbas, but she’d been silenced forever. Now she could repent of her sins. I could feel myself weakening before her pleading eyes and the hand begging my forgiveness, which I would never give. I wrenched my hand free. I was struggling to keep control of myself because nothing she could do would help her. Some things just came too late, like the kiss of an apology on the forehead of a corpse. A couple of tears trickled slowly down my cheeks. I took a few steps ahead so she couldn’t see my face. I knew I never wanted to see her again.

“You’ve had more than enough time to think it over, Nadia. I am not going to fly to London alone . . . Nadia?”

Every muscle in me tensed just from hearing that name. It belonged to another woman, from a different life. Nevertheless, I nodded. I turned to Murad, a sour smile on my face, as I arranged the words in my head. I couldn’t afford to lose control over my nerves as I did so often with him. I made a wry comment about his son: “He doesn’t look like you at all. But surely he couldn’t have gotten that oily smile from his mother?” The purpose of this type of chatter was to annoy him so I could regain my composure. When I felt more in control, I said I would follow him to London soon after he left. He was going to find prospective buyers for Abbas’s properties in the UK. “Once we sell them off, I’ll give you your share,” I said.

“Okay. But I still need guarantees. I know you’ve been selling off Abbas’s assets here, but I haven’t said anything. I’m flying to London the day after tomorrow. I’ll be expecting you there. I’ll give you a month, max, to arrange things.”

I picked up the phone and booked a flight while he looked on and followed my conversation closely. When I hung up, he seemed mollified, and even more so when I agreed to show him Abbas’s safe. I opened it in front of him and held the door open. It was just as I’d found it the day of the fire—totally empty. I also showed him the map Abbas had left me. He was as puzzled as I was. He gave me an address and the telephone numbers of the British law firm he dealt with to facilitate my dealings there, especially as concerned my brother Abraham. Then he had the nerve to spring a marriage proposal on me. “We need each other more than ever,” he said, and spoke of how deeply he felt for me. He was such a ham. I told him to stop the nonsense. He stood up, approached, and tried to take me in his arms and kiss me. I pushed him away, but not before he managed to plant a kiss on my forehead. He turned to leave. Then, just before reaching the door, he turned and extracted a small device from his pocket.

“Forgive me, Nadia,” he said. “I recorded our whole conversation today. It’s not the first time, I can assure you. You just can’t trust anyone these days. If I don’t see you in London within a month, I’ll come back and expose you to Omar and to the police.”

I spat after him as he left. I stretched out on the couch again, settling into it as though it had become my new home. I used to love lying on it when I was young, but my aunt always scolded me. That was why I was so determined to salvage it from the Heart of Palm and bring it here to this apartment. I lit another cigarette and exhaled a large cloud of smoke. I contemplated the cloud as it metamorphosed into strange shapes. Some seemed to resemble me. Others I thought looked like Murad or Tarek. I watched them expand, rise into the air, and evaporate.

I fell asleep right there on the couch. Early the following morning, I dressed quickly and left the apartment carrying my passport, which had Yasmine registered on it as well. I applied for a visa at the consulate and received it later that day, around noon. Then I went to the airline, where I met the director, who had known us for years. After the usual pleasantries, I told him I was there to book tickets to Europe for myself and Yasmine.

“To London, of course, as you told me on the phone, Madame Nadia?”

“No, no. Cancel the London flight, please. Make it Paris.”

No one else knew of Abbas’s little getaway in the French capital. I had the only key. It was still in my name, unlike other things that were once in my name until his greed got the better of him. Who knew? Abbas might have other properties scattered around the globe that no one knew about. If so, their secret was buried with him and Fahim.

Once in Paris, I wasted no time. Two days after I arrived, I went to the bank to ascertain that my transfer had arrived into my account. I made that transfer exactly a day before I left Egypt, after having sold off everything I owned in Egypt over the preceding months. I’d used a prominent lawyer for this purpose, to ensure that Murad wouldn’t learn of the transactions. It was easy. Abbas hadn’t left us that much and I didn’t touch Zeinab’s share of the inheritance. I received payment for the properties in cash—Egyptians keep more money under their mattresses than they do in banks. True, I probably got only half of the real value for the estates because I was in such a hurry, but that was better than leaving the table empty-handed. I sold off everything without the slightest qualms, except the Heart of Palm. I wavered three times before signing the contract. I felt as though I were selling off my whole life: my memories, my childhood—everything for better or for worse. They all lived there with me. They all passed through this place. I wish I could have kept it, but my fear of Murad and my haste to leave made me sell it, complete with its furniture and all the junk in the basement, as though the place might collapse any second.

I can still see the surprise on the face of the man who was acting on behalf of a major bank, which bought not only the Heart of Palm but also the farm in Mahalla Marhoum. How he gaped at those dozens upon dozens of old tires stacked on top of each other in the basement like a wall. God knows why Abbas kept all those old tires. He certainly wasn’t a miser.

“Did Mr. Abbas Pasha trade in rubber in the past, Madame?” the agent asked with a mixture of surprise and concern. “The barn is filled with old tires!”

I shook my head in a way that meant neither yes or no, while my frown said, “Why are you asking me about a pile of junk?” The man must have feared that his silly question about old dust-covered tires might make me change my mind about selling the farm at such a steal. So he accepted my silence as assent, and avoided annoying me further.

After I signed, his curiosity got the better of him again. On our way back to Cairo, he asked, “So, should we just dispose of them as junk, ma’am? Or do you need them for something?”

“Do whatever you want with them. Burn them, if you like. As I said, I don’t need anything here.”

On my third day in Paris, I turned to my next and most important step before the deadline Murad had given me ran out. I phoned the publishers in Beirut with whom I’d signed a contract several months earlier. The manager told me that they had they’d received my final revisions and that the book was now at the printers. The first copy fresh off the press would be on his desk in a few days. He confirmed that he would send it to me and not release the book to distributors until he had received written authority from me, as per our agreement.

When I hung up, I turned to Yasmine and asked her to make herself free for me today so we could take a long walk and discuss something important. I struggled to stay composed before her innocent surprise and added, “There’s a story I have to tell you in connection with a new book I’m having published and that will appear soon. It’s called My Name Was Never Nadia.”

The last night of December 1990 marked a new birthday for me. I’d shed all my fears and conquered my weakness. I received the package containing the advance copy my publisher sent me by express mail. My heart raced as I slowly opened it. I glanced at the picture of me on the cover. It showed just half of my face, as though I were truly half a person. My hand trembled a little as I flicked through the pages, until I came to the last and most important section: “Documents.” It was an appendix, but it took up almost a third of the book. It contained all the letters written in the hand of the eminent security and strategic expert Major General Murad Kashef, some containing his account of his heroic deeds, such as planting bugs in the homes of many prominent families, including mine. It also contained all the documents he’d faxed me, photocopies of the documents he showed as proof he was telling the truth about the nefarious deeds of Abbas and Zeinab Mahalawi; some photos I had of them; photos of my forged birth certificate; my ID card as Nadia Mahalawi that had been forged by Fahim; my authentic birth certificate, faxed to me by the first orphanage I was placed in; the transcripts of the tapes in Murad’s handwriting; the birth certificate of Abbas’s son Abraham, and a picture of him with his mother in London; Abbas’s will naming Abraham as heir, which Murad had managed to get from Abbas’s law firm in London; an old birth certificate belonging to Cicurel’s daughter, Nadia Solomon, which I’d found in Abbas’s papers and which had somehow ended up in Murad’s hands; and photocopies of many papers on which Abbas had jotted down notes and reminders.

My heart pounded violently. I downed a couple of tranquilizers without water, then went to the window to watch the light white streaks of snow make a modest attempt to cover the street. It floated down like tiny curls of cotton. The particles stuck to the ground but melted within moments. They didn’t have the strength to last long enough to spread a white blanket on that black asphalt road that stretched to infinity. My heart gave a leap as the fireworks lit up the sky around and above the Eiffel Tower. They were far from where I stood but I could see them clearly. When they stopped, the darkness set in for endless seconds. Then they began again, to the accompaniment of loud reports and fizzles.

Thirty minutes passed at a crawl as I thought about what I would write. I took a deep breath to settle my nerves, then picked up my pen, opened the book to the first blank page, and wrote a dedication:

To Mr. “Brigadier” Murad Kashef,
I am going to tell you a secret with the first edition of my book, My Name Was Never Nadia: The Memoirs of a Lady of Zamalek. Read it carefully. Hopefully it will entertain you in your final days.

I signed it. I couldn’t bring myself to write my real name, Batel. However, for the first time in my life I used a name that I myself had chosen. It was one of the three names I’d been given, but it was the one that I decided I would keep for the rest of my life. I tightened my grip on the pen to keep my hand from shaking and wrote “Ilham Mohamed Hussein.” It wasn’t as smooth as I’d hoped, but it was clear. A tear escaped despite myself. I sighed, picked up the pen, and signed again, this time in a minuscule script barely large enough to read: “Nadia.”