If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

by Noor Naga

IN ONE VERSION,

They trample me to death, but when the police come at last, they extract her, safe, naked as a tangerine, from inside my pored, pitted skin.

There are so many versions of this story, I am ready for them all.

SO MAYBE I CAN FORGIVE THE BOY from Shobrakheit for trying to crack my skull open with the steel leg of the red side table, but can I forgive him for all the hours he sat watching YouTube videos, smoking while I peeled onions in the kitchen?

Was it because I was neither of him nor truly other? Not family and not quite stranger—a thresholded, half-inside, half-outside woman?

I’ve dated enough to understand how I am used by men who reject themselves:

Big

but also improved by Western inflection,

That’s how he talked about the rest of the world—“outside,” as though this country were a broom closet, as though I were a fish-eye peephole.

Since 2013, this is the ruse we’ve been passing back and forth between us like a joint,24 since I have no way of pressuring Sami and he has no incentive to pay me back the cost of the equipment.

when the math finally worked out and he subtracted dishevelment from a face he used to know. I

today a woman crossed the street in broad daylight to avoid passing me on the sidewalk,25 so it’s official.

People used to speak to me so carefully and now they disappear me instead.

It is a thousand times kinder than Sami’s leg of lamb, so kind I want to cry.

in the story where the American girl is saved from an assault, she is saved from someone who looks like me.

THE MOST DEPRESSING KIND OF RELATIONSHIP is one without clearly demarcated roles of victim and abuser, where the partners take turns leading, as in a Madrid-style schottische.

We spent years waiting for the divorce, even trying to egg them on with it. Instead, my mother threatened my father more explicitly with cuckolding;

knew instinctually that he would tuck away the truth about my parents’ marriage and sharpen it behind my

It’s been weeks since I made it up the bridge to see my love on her balcony. I’m scared the incline will faint me if I try, and I no longer trust a population that doesn’t look me in the eye to remove my body from the fly-humming sun.

My grandmother spoiled me by giving me a pride beyond my means.

handicapped me to a lifetime of scoffing at the very things I need. There is such a thing as princely poverty.

While necking, I sink my teeth into his shoulder and pass back the venom I received from him.

It’s true that he ghosted me, but only after having reached the end of his utility. He saved himself the unnecessary degradation of being rejected, and he saved me from having to watch.

Maybe all Egyptians are. Reem is the same. They think dating is about love, when any New Yorker will tell you that dating is a martial art.

walked into my body with the same tools I possess.

I HARDLY LEAVE THE MOSQUE AT ALL ANYMORE. I sleep in a corner and sometimes wake up to find that someone has left me a bag of ful or a little money, even once a hibiscus flower.

There he was: the boy from Shobrakheit, as if back from the grave.

street. The man shakes his hairless plastic head and barks in the wrong direction.

Then I don’t know what happened. What happened? Tell me what happened.

He grabbed her but now the Famous kid is rubbing the back of my skull like a brother, the first physical contact I’ve had in months, saying, You did the right thing, you did the right thing, and we’ll finish the bum off, but you have a woman with you, take her home. He’s leading me away by the shoulder.

and there was no Arabic in me at all anymore and he didn’t know that yet, but I knew. My English body led the way,

I just don’t want you to be frightened, he continued, and it was clear to any American girl that he wanted me to be frightened.

my English brain knew that in Arabic he’d be offended at having to follow me into my own home and close the door behind himself while I walked off.

There are calculations that precede thought, there are protective measures that one recognizes as protective only retrospectively.

This is an Egyptian drinking game, not an American drinking game with cards and Ping-Pong balls. In America, no one wants to buy a dog, all the dogs are rescued.

because one use is not enough in America. They must also be disemboweled and buried in dirt.

I SPENT THE NIGHT not because I saved her, but because she saved me.

and in the mirror a tripod covered in skin revolved, pretending to be my body.

And then he kissed the back of my hand and I had to look away. It wasn’t funny anymore. I have to be gentle now that I’m refusing him. But there isn’t a gentle way to say no to a man who knows he is being told no and continues in a pleading manner.

I work her pity like a bow saw, lengthwise, violining with a hand against the bones of my own throat.

Can she trust me to toe the line, to respect what we are and what we are not, or will I ask for too much?

Her breath caught in her throat like a sleeve on a door handle, as if she was only now realizing how vulnerable she might be. Was I blackmailing her? I smiled. She breathed an embarrassed sigh of relief and it was all the information I needed.

He smiled and said, Do you need anything? We dare each other. I dare him to answer me and he dares me to ask the question one more time.

If I want a night off I have to put my phone in airplane mode. Otherwise, if I see his call, I’ll answer, and if I answer, I’ll go to him. There is something I owe him, though I don’t understand what,

There’s a danger between us, but I’m not always sure who it belongs to. Which of us needs protection and which of us should be afraid?

The fool cannot register terror on the face of a woman he is actively loving.

ducked into an alley to answer, Allo?, and his voice was so familiar it seemed to spring from inside my own head. How much? he said immediately. Magdy? Did you call me, or … I checked my phone. I’m sorry, I must have called you by mistake, I tried to explain.

bewildered, thinking, Look what God has clashed together.

What are the chances I should be here at the very moment my phone remembers Magdy and chooses his number from any number of numbers, and that I should have just enough money in my pocket when it does?

only to lure me to harm? I crossed the street, I looked alive.

I looked around me at the ruins and could not comprehend that they were mine.