He returns with an older lady dressed in an unadorned chestnut-brown dress. Instead of wearing a hijab, she has her gray hair pulled back in a low bun. The men stand to welcome her, and Mr. Elhadad introduces her as his mother, Nazeerah, and explains that her English is limited. As they fall back into conversation, Mr. Elhadad translates and Mom speaks as much Arabic as she can.
Adam takes a seat across from me and I want to ask if this is the grandmother who taught him how to cook, if he prepared any of the food for tonight’s dinner, and if he’s already looking for a new job. But asking him these questions in front of his family feels too intimate. Instead I scoop a bit of the cheese dip onto a cracker and give him a quick smile before looking away.
After a couple rounds of tea, Mr. Elhadad invites us to the dining room for a spread of roasted chicken with potatoes; a salad of marinated green beans, beets, and carrots; and dishes of pickled cucumbers. It’s not fancy food, but it looks and smells delicious. It reminds me of Sunday dinner with Grandma Irene, who serves garlic mashed potatoes and homemade chunky applesauce with her roasted chicken.
“Now,” Mr. Elhadad says to Dad when we’re all settled around the table. “I would like it if you would explain your job to my wife and my mother.” Since my father has never walked away from an opportunity to talk, he speaks at great length about life aboard a tugboat, pausing only to let Mr. Elhadad’s translation catch up. Mom asks Mrs. Elhadad about being a seamstress. Even Nazeerah contributes to the conversation, speaking in Arabic about how she used to work as a maid for a wealthy Cairene family.
“I bet you’ll be glad to let your dad take over the driving again,” Mom says to Adam. “Have you started looking for a new job?”
“I had an interview today at the Nile Ritz-Carlton,” he says, and my heart lifts a little, thinking maybe losing the koshary shop wasn’t too big a setback. Working in the kitchen at the Ritz-Carlton sounds like it might be an improvement. “I begin as a waiter on Saturday.”
Mrs. Elhadad says something and her husband explains that they are proud of him, that a waiter can earn a good income.
“But that’s not your dream.” The words spill out, even though I’d meant for them to stay in. And when I look up from my plate of chicken, seven pairs of eyes—even those of the elder Mrs. Elhadad, who probably didn’t understand what I said—are on me. “I just meant . . . you should be working in a kitchen. You should be cooking.”
“It is a good job.” Adam speaks to the whole table, but I know he’s trying to reassure me. And convince himself. “I can take the metro almost to the front door.”
Mr. Elhadad’s gaze bounces from me to Adam to his wife, and I see the subtle downturn at the corners of her mouth. When she notices I’m watching her, Mrs. Elhadad gives me an awkward smile and offers me the bowl of salad for a second helping. My own parents glance at each other with concerned eyes, and my humiliation level redlines. I blink back tears as I dish a couple more carrots onto my plate, and Dad launches into a story about how, at eighteen, he was fired from waiting tables because he broke too many dishes. I’m pretty sure he made up the story just now to help Adam feel better and that makes it even harder not to cry.
The conversation moves on and I spend the rest of the dinner focused on my food. Taking more when it’s offered, even when I’m full. When Mrs. Elhadad brings out after-dinner coffee, Aya says she has something she wants to show me and I follow her gratefully away from the dining room.
“How embarrassed should I be right now?” I say as she closes her bedroom door. The pale purple walls are covered with pencil sketches and finished colored drawings of hijabi fashion. An ancient-looking sewing machine stands in one corner of the room, while in the other corner is a tall, narrow shelving unit in the corner that is almost completely filled with rolled scarves in every color.
“My family will wonder how you know about my brother’s dreams and perhaps they have guessed he has shared them with you, but on Saturday everything returns to normal,” she says, flopping onto her bed. “Everything will be forgotten.”
Including me?
Her room goes blurry with fresh tears.
“It’s not so bad.” Aya hands me a tissue. “My parents cannot say that Adam must work as your driver, then be angry when he speaks to you.”
“He kissed me.”
“Oh.” She covers her mouth with her hand for a moment, then says, “Was it like a movie?”
I laugh as I wipe my eyes. “Actually, it was.”
Aya is silent for a while, considering. “Maybe that can be enough?”
“Maybe.” I touch one of the drawings on her wall. It’s a picture of the outfit she was wearing at the hospital when I met her. “Adam told me about this. You have so much talent. Why do you want to study engineering when you could be doing this?”
“My family is happy, but there is never a time when we do not struggle,” she says. “I am not like my brother. My dream can wait until I am no longer poor.”
“That’s very practical,” I say, feeling fortunate—yet again—that I don’t have to be practical with my future. Even if I risk it on an anthropology or history degree, I still have a better chance of earning more money in the United States than Aya will in Egypt.
“It’s good to dream,” she says. “But better to have a plan.”
I walk over to her hijab collection and choose one that is the rich, dark blue of Lake Erie in November. My favorite color. Aya takes the fabric from me. “I will show you how to wrap a hijab . . . well, there are many ways to do it, but I will show you one.”
She repositions my bun so it sits at the back, rather than on top, then places the scarf over my head. Aya pins the tails beneath my chin, then drapes one of the tails around my neck, arranging the fabric into neat folds. She brings the other tail over my head, letting it hang down beside my face and pinning it into place so it won’t slip.
Without my hair showing, my identity feels lost and the dark blue fabric makes my face look washed-out. Not like Aya, who looks so beautiful wearing a hijab. I crinkle my nose at the reflection in the mirror. “It’s not me.”
“It takes time to get used to it, and I think such a dark blue is not your color,” Aya says. “I chose to wear the hijab when I was twelve, so I have learned how to wrap it in ways that are good for my face, and darker colors need bolder makeup. We all have bad hijab days sometimes.”
“Is that why not every woman in Egypt wears one?” I ask.
“The choice is personal,” Aya says. “Of course, there are people who believe every woman should cover, but if I decide not to wear my hijab, no one can force me.”
My mind goes back to the women at the airport on my first day in Cairo and it makes more sense now. I still don’t understand why anyone would choose to hide her face, but I guess another woman’s choice is not really my business.
Aya removes the scarf from my head and plaits a few tiny braids into my hair before she does it back up in the topknot.