“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You play soccer with your friends and hang out at the ahwa, but what do girls do for fun?”
“My sister and her friends go to movies and listen to music. Some take ballet lessons or play sports. Aya redesigns the styles she sees in fashion magazines to make them halal—”
“Halal?”
“The opposite of haram,” Adam explains. “In this case, my sister makes the clothes more modest, and then our mother sews them for her.” In the rearview mirror I watch the corner of his mouth tilt up in a grin and he glances up at me. “We also have football teams for women.”
I grin back. “It’s probably good that women don’t play against men. It would be painful for the men when they lose.”
His laugh is clear and strong. “I think you may be right.”
Yesterday’s misunderstanding behind us, I sit back and watch Cairo fly past the window. The sky is hazy with smog and the city looks kind of gray, despite the sun hanging full and bright in the sky. Mom and I have learned that leaving the balcony doors open invites the heavy, polluted air inside, so we open them only early in the morning or well after dark. The rest of the time we keep the air conditioner running. Balconies all over Cairo are hung with drying laundry and it makes me wonder if pollution affects the clothes.
“From here we must walk,” Adam says as he squeezes the sedan into a space that doesn’t seem big enough. When we get out, the front bumper is touching the back bumper of the car just ahead.
“In the United States you would not be allowed to park like that,” I say. “In fact, I’m pretty sure no one would give you a license.”
His cheek dimples as he fails to keep from smiling. “I’m telling you that I am a good driver. Did I not fit the car in the space?”
“You are terrifying.”
“I am terrifying and good.”
I laugh. “I like you.”
The words slip out before I can stop them and the city around us slows to a crawl. Or at least that’s how it feels. Embarrassment in agonizing slow motion.
“I mean—I just—I didn’t mean I like you like you.” The words stumble from my mouth, making the awkward silence between us even worse. “I’ll just shut up now.”
We walk many steps, about half a block, before Adam clears his throat. When he speaks, he doesn’t really sound all that pleased. “I like you, too.”
Part of me wants to do a cartwheel on the dirty Cairo sidewalk—the same part of me that wants to smile (at him) until my cheeks hurt—but I also understand that Adam Elhadad and I liking each other isn’t really supposed to be a thing. Not a friend thing. Definitely not a more-than-a-friend thing. In this moment, the whole idea of wanting to keep men and women apart . . . kind of makes sense. The more time I spend with Adam, the more time I want to spend with him.
“I have been trying to be professional.” He shakes his head. “I have not been trying very hard.”
“It’s my fault. I keep making you take me places.”
“That is my job.”
“You’re really good at picking places.”
“But don’t you see . . . when I am choosing for you, I am thinking of you,” Adam says. “And I should not be doing that.”
“Do you want to take me home?”
His curls bobble as he shakes his head more vigorously. “No.”
“Then let’s not think about it,” I say. “Let’s just have fun.”
? ? ?
Khan el-Khalili is everything I’d hoped it would be. Crazy. Crowded. Beautiful. Vegetable stalls stand next to silver jewelers, souvenir shops beside rug dealers, spice vendors alongside dress stores. The merchandise spills outside the spaces, into the narrow streets, into a riot of color—a living postcard.
There are more tourists than at al-Gomaa. More women, too. As Adam and I walk the winding alleys, men call out from the shops, trying to grab our attention. Men from the restaurants push paper menus in our faces. Every single one of them claims that what he has on offer is the best. Best food. Best prices. When I look too long at a table piled with little plush camels, the shop guy walks backward in front of me.
“For you I give best price,” he says, holding a camel out in front of me.
“No, thank you.”
“Only fifty pounds.”
Adam laughs and speaks to the man in Arabic. The only thing I can pick out is something that sounds like mish mish.
“Twenty-five,” the shopkeeper replies.
“Would you like to buy the camel for twenty-five pounds?” Adam asks me. “I think that is around three dollars.”
As I hand the man three dollars, it strikes me that even fifty Egyptian pounds—around six US dollars—isn’t very expensive. Is getting the best deal really so important? Especially when I have way more than six dollars in my wallet?
“So why are the vendors so pushy?” I ask Adam as we continue down the alley. “Are they desperate for sales or is that just the way it works here?”
“Both,” he says. “Tourism is Egypt’s largest business, but the revolution, the Russian plane crash in the Sinai, and bombings by the Islamic State all over the world have frightened some of the foreign visitors away. Many Egyptians are poor and must take every opportunity we have.”
Since most of the factories in my hometown closed down or moved abroad, our local economy has relied heavily on tourism. If we lost the amusement park, the hotels and restaurants would lose many of the tourists. The desk clerks and housekeepers, waiters and bartenders, would be out of work. The economy would probably collapse. It’s unlikely to happen, though, and I know it can’t really compare to Egypt—we don’t have children begging in the streets—but I get the gist of what Adam is saying. No one should have to hustle so hard to make such a small amount of money.
“What did you say that made him drop his price?” I say. “Something mish mish?”
“I said fil-mi?hmi?h, which means that will never happen,” Adam says. “Never will I pay so much for this thing.”
“Fil-mi?mi?h,” I repeat softly to myself.
“Very good,” he says. “Also, I reminded him that his wares are made in China. Perhaps six dollars is not so much money, but the camel is worth much closer to three.”
“Doesn’t paying more help him?”
“Yes, but haggling is also the Egyptian way.”
We stop at a store that sells only silver jewelry—necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings—where I haggle with the English-speaking shopkeeper over a cuff bracelet covered in hieroglyphs for Hannah. Adam grumbles that I paid too much.
“I thought the price was fair.”
“You are like your father,” he says.
I bump my elbow against his as we walk. “Apparently you are like yours, too.”