If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

by Noor Naga

Is it arrogant to return to a place you’ve never been?

How far can you run from home before you run out of water?

If everyone you knew jumped off a bridge, wouldn’t you believe you could fly?

It seems so obvious now, but if you weren’t there, you can’t possibly judge. I can’t tell you what it was like.

I’m caught between my desire to understand and my desire to appear as though I already understand.

If a girl misremembers the first time she saw you, can you ever truly fill her eyes?

If a man’s anger is lovelier than his loveliness, what kind of ending do you expect?

If the shoe doesn’t fit, should you change the foot?

I am outside of my context, confused about where the margins and the pressure points are. Who has the power? Where is the center? I haven’t seen a woman’s knees since I got here, and no one has seen my knees either. There is Quran playing everywhere, and people drag God’s name into every conversation. Every time I get into a cab, I am given a sermon by the driver about the wrongness of women looking like men, and why don’t I cover up my head, seeing as I don’t have hair anyway? But when I leave the car, having paid less than a dollar for a half-hour ride, I’m confused about my right to offense, just as I’m confused about drinking as an act of resistance. There is something entitled about it. Yes, there is something rich.

More than anything, what binds people here to one another here is the pointless struggle for quality of life. I’m learning slowly that having money and the option to leave frays any claim I have to this place. It turns out that to be clean in Egypt is just to be free of Egypt, to exercise the choice to stay or go elsewhere, which most of the population cannot do.

How far can you run from home before you have to face what your father has done?

It’s as though the city were deliberately designed to resist comprehension and to discipline those who left for daring to return. You have either lived here and you know, or you never have and never will.

If the men make animal sounds in your direction, which of you should get the bone?

What if female arousal is just the belief that you will not die at this man’s hands?

Can you be good together if you don’t look good together?

Can home be passed from one body to the next, like a secret whispered in the ear?

He is both childishly romantic and a hater of women.

Is it racist to believe that being sexist makes you more Egyptian?

Is it arrogant to grieve the loss of what you never had?

Is it possible to contemplate a thing—any thing at all—without sadness?

How many fingers and toes will you sever before you’re small enough for a man to possess?

He picks up the red-legged side table, swings it as though to fell a tree. I duck. There is the sound of metal thwacking wall: solid, intentional. Then a gape of silence. He says, Look what you made me do.

If the beast is already in your house, does that make the wilderness safer?

How long can you hate yourself before everyone else hates you too?

Of course, the end was always coming, but I never imagined it would be me putting myself on the other side of the door, deciding enough is enough.

Only now, looking back, do I realize how terrible it is to subsist on just enough, without the joy of beautiful things.

I don’t need to reinsert myself into her life, so long as she is safe and happy, so long as I can know she is safe and happy. And if she is not … If she is not, all I need is a glimpse.

Those outside of a language, of a culture, see furniture through a window and believe it is a room. But those inside know there are infinite rooms just out of view, and that they can always be more deeply inside.

My grandmother spoiled me by giving me a pride beyond my means. She raised me to believe that wherever I went I would be recognized, I would be rewarded, celebrated, and only now do I see. It was an accident, but she handicapped me to a lifetime of scoffing at the very things I need. There is such a thing as princely poverty.

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.

As soon as you begin rejecting a man, you have to be twice as polite.