“Do you, um—do you have a girlfriend?” I ask, watching as the guy lays a gentle hand against the girl’s cheek. He smiles at her as if she is his whole world. As my question hangs in the air, I worry whether it’s an appropriate question to ask a Muslim guy I barely know.
“Relationships before marriage are not something Islam encourages. Some of my friends have girlfriends, but . . .” He trails off, leaving me to wonder what he was going to say. He’s shy? Conservative? A jerk who can’t get a girlfriend? I bite back a smile at the ridiculousness of that last thought. He knew what I needed even when I didn’t. Adam Elhadad is definitely not a jerk.
“So if Muslims are not supposed to have relationships before marriage, how do you find someone to marry? Aside from breaking the rules, I mean.”
“Friends. Family members. Sometimes parents will arrange the marriage.”
I try to imagine my mom and dad picking out a husband for me, and I wonder if they would have picked Owen. “How do you know they’ll choose the right person?”
“Who knows you better than your family?”
“Um . . . me?”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Sometimes families do not choose well.”
“So why not just date?”
Adam shifts a little on the bench, angling himself in my direction. “Islam says the goal of any relationship should be marriage. Dating has the potential for sinful behavior.”
One of the most embarrassing moments of my life was the time I was grocery shopping with Grandma Irene and she asked me if I was having sex with Owen. When I said no—which was the truth—she said, “Good, because premarital sex is a sin and you will go straight to hell.” At that moment, I’d kind of wished a portal would open and drag me there, because hell could not have been worse than talking about sex with my grandma in the bread aisle at Kroger.
“There are some who believe the two of us sitting here alone is haram,” Adam says.
“And haram is bad, right?”
He nods. “Right.”
Over the course of my lifetime I’ve spent tons of time alone with boys. Luke Corso lets me bum a ride to school whenever my car is out of commission. Whenever I see Fernando Leal—a defender on the public high school soccer team—kicking around in the park between our houses, I’ll go join him. And there have been countless times I’ve watched TV alone with any one of Hannah’s brothers. None of those encounters led to anything remotely sinful. “Do you think what we’re doing is haram?”
“I would not be here if I were not your driver, but . . .” He trails off as his shoulders lift and drop.
Maybe he’s not thinking about marrying me, but buying a girl comfort food and taking her to a quiet park in the middle of a chaotic city are not listed in the job description. Also, now I’m pretty sure he’s flirting with me, intentionally or otherwise. I nudge him with my elbow. “Good thing I’m the boss of you then, huh?”
He looks away, his expression inscrutable, leaving me to wonder if I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth. I was only joking, but what if Adam took it seriously? The crinkling of the plastic bag seems unnaturally loud as I pack away the empty koshary tubs. “I mean, I’m not your boss. I’m just—I, um—I should probably go. Since my house is just down the street, I can walk from here.”
My face burns as I take my wallet from my purse, feeling as if I’m adding insult to injury. I hand him some bills. Hopefully enough to pay him back for lunch, as well as a respectful tip. I need to get better at Egyptian money, but more important, I need to figure out how not to crash through cultural boundaries. “Thanks for rearranging your life for me . . . and the koshary was exactly what I needed.”
Adam says my name when I’m just a few steps away from the bench and the little roll of the r as it moves across his tongue makes me want to hear him say it several thousand times. I turn back as he catches up to me. “You’ll never walk alone.”
I crack up laughing at his perfectly timed, deadpan reference to the Liverpool anthem. “I hope your dad feels better soon,” I say when we reach the car. “And thanks again. Today was nice.”
His mouth softens and he offers a shy smile, along with a nod. “Yes. It was.”
CHAPTER 7
I wait a few days before calling Mr. Elhadad again. Partly to give him time to recover, but mostly because having a driver makes me hyperaware of my privilege. My mother’s driver has the legitimate task of driving her to and from Manshiyat Nasr, but Mr. Elhadad is saddled with an American teenager. A tourist, basically. Except when Dad calls from the tugboat and wants to know what fun things I’ve done in his absence, I have no answer.
The next day I ask Mr. Elhadad if he will take me to the souk at Khan el-Khalili, one of Cairo’s most popular bazaars.
“Tomorrow my son will take you to the Friday Market.” His voice is creaky from sickness. “The prices are much better.”
“But—”
“He will come very early so you can arrive at the market before the crowd.”
Mr. Elhadad hangs up before I can offer to wait until he feels better. I don’t want Adam to have to shuffle his schedule for me again. He also leaves me wondering what the Friday Market might be—and how early is very?
With an entire day to fill, I decide to venture out alone again. I start out in the direction of the park but stop when I reach a tiny bakery. The sidewalk is half-obstructed by wooden racks piled with cooling loaves of fresh bread in different shapes and sizes, and the air around me smells yeasty. My stomach growls as I watch a woman buy several flatbreads, trickling coins into the bread seller’s palm.
Their transaction complete, she walks away and I approach the man as I dig into my jeans pocket for some Egyptian coins. I point to a pita-style round and extend my hand to him, not knowing if what I have is enough or which coins are the right ones. The bread seller plucks a small bronze coin from the cluster—one that doesn’t seem adequate for something homemade and fresh—and hands over the bread.
As I continue on my way, it hits me that both the bread seller and I touched dirty coins, then touched the bread. There is no bag. No nutrition label. Everything American in me says don’t eat this, but it would be wasteful to throw it away, even if it was practically free. I tear off a bit of bread and shove it into my mouth. It’s warm and delicious, and by the time I reach the park, both the bread and my worries are long gone.
I find a bench close to the river, where I sit and read my latest e-mail from Hannah.
C—
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write back. Your apartment is gorgeous and I am superjealous you have your own balcony, especially because it overlooks the freakin’ Nile! You should buy some plants and maybe a big comfy chair to make your own little indoor/outdoor reading nook.