It’s the first day of Ramadan, and dust seeps onto every surface in the house like sap from a wounded plant. Fallen bougainvillea flowers rattle on the balcony, a homemade wind chime. Soon, the car horns and faint sounds of Cairo traffic will dissipate, and my part of the city will fall unnaturally still as we enter curfew hour.
One evening last week loud music punctured the air. I went outside to listen. How recently it would have just been part of the constant activity of this city that is always alive, always watching. Like the sermons from the mosque next door during Friday prayers, that have for years cut through my too-long weekend sleep.
Friday prayers are suspended now. Easter gatherings were cancelled last week. Breaking Ramadan restrictions could see you facing a fine or prison. Sham el Nessim, Egypt’s festival of spring, came and went like a whisper. A year ago, this is when we would have started flocking to the beach, seizing this extra gift of a holiday that comes just before the pounding, oppressive heat of summer. Sunny days tempered by cool breezes, book reading and rest.
I stood in the night air, sweaty from unsatisfying exercise, and I ached for this music, spicy and almost discordant, cutting through everything, insisting on being heard. Like the city itself, overwhelming, sometimes intrusive, but elemental. How many times I’ve wanted to block it out, blaring in a taxi after a long day. How many times I’ve danced to it at 3am, on a boat, at a house party. Pulsing through the air, it made me think of defiance. For weeks I’d been living in fear of the cheeky, rules-are-made-for-evasion approach that prevails here. The kerosene to a pandemic’s flame. But in this moment, I found myself wishing for life. For chaos and unpredictability. Immediately I felt selfish, and soon afterwards the music stopped. I haven’t left the house in days. 11, I think. My record was 18. I invoke the number like a mantra every time I speak to my family, telling myself that the higher it is, the more assured they will feel of my safety. I don’t know if this is really true, but it feels grounding.
When I do go out I don a cloth mask, putting on my armour. Measured, deliberate movements. If I’m not early I queue to enter the supermarket, where everyone jostles to pass one another in the aisles, and gloved hands linger on the produce. Outside, I pass one man who wears his plastic mask like a party hat so he can smoke. Another sees me struggling with my bags, and offers his help as I carry them home. There’s a heaviness that can come with just being fine. A dull beige lethargy. It makes me sullen, as though my individuality is under threat and needs to be carefully guarded. I try to direct these feelings inwards, or at impersonal things – sneezing, mealybugs, the burnt remnants of sweet potato that stubbornly stick to an oven dish. In these moments, the urge to be heroic is overwhelming and shot through with shame. Haven’t I seen enough in ten years to know what happens to heroes? Locked up or forced to leave the places they call home. Stories of NHS workers without protective gear sing the same age-old song in a different key. About greed and artifice, the great weapons of our power structures. How little protection any of us have, really.
On lighter days, I feel less like a cardboard cut-out. Joy comes from the green shoots I check several times a day, every tiny measure of progress a victory. Or my little nieces giggling as we exchange phone filter faces, the serious way they place the phone on a pillow telling me to take a nap.
Memories of hundreds, thousands of nights of sweaty abandon hum in the still air. This city is so ancient. And when it invites you in, you feel you belong. Even when there’s so much you may never understand. The bigger cat walks across the table and head butts me, a sure sign he wants attention. Jasper, I tell him mock-reproachfully, you smell of dust. He gives me a possessive look and licks my nose. I rest my hands in his luxuriant fur.
Human touch is only impossible because I’ve made it so. And when I think of it too deeply, that’s the cruelest thing. Here, there’s little to stop me from going where I would be held tightly. The rules are barely more stringent than usual. But I think of the line in that beautiful poem: touch only those to whom you commit your life. And I don’t go.
But I will love you always. And what if the world is ending?
I miss the brilliant red haze of sunset. Have I been too busy wiping my groceries with Dettol, planning what to eat, listening to comforting, hammy audiobooks, to notice it?
My mind returns to the movie-reel of memories that may have to fuel these days. A bed and breathless laughter. The sun coming up at a festival. A jolt of happiness so intense I thought my heart would explode. Music transmuting into brain waves, ebbing and flowing like the sea. Reading a poem for beloved friends at their wedding, every word chosen for them. Shared jokes with my parents. Grief, the ritualism of mourning. Ramadan seven years ago, when I learned for the first time how collective fasting changes the rhythm of the city.
The night hangs vast and expectant. And I am so small.