24 - 30 January 2002
Issue No.570
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 24 - 30 January 2002 Issue No.570 |
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Unforgettable pizza
Everyone called him Mac the Knife and I thought the name suited him well. He was smart and sharp-witted. He always seemed to be around and, since he was a few years younger, I did not pay him much attention. I don't remember how we began to talk. I was on the rebound and rather depressed. I must have welcomed any diversion.
I had engineered the break-up with a boyfriend because I could not stand the monotony of an established relationship, but adventure had failed to beckon and I had been left alone to mull over my rashness. That is when Mac entered my life. There was no question of romance: we discussed more serious topics.
Soon I realised that my bons mots did not make him laugh. He did not think I had achieved much. In short, he found me wanting in a domain to which I had given less than my full attention. Having graduated from university, I believed that my job was now to concentrate on my physical features. I dressed well, used expensive perfume, made myself up carefully, dieted to appear appropriately slim and minced graciously along in my high heels. Mac informed me that I had only succeeded in looking much older than my age. "Guys don't like all that stuff that you spread on your face. You should trust water and soap," he advised firmly.
But that was not his main concern. "What have you done lately to develop yourself?" he would ask. I thought that I was fully developed and when Mac told me that I should begin to look at myself as "a person, not a pretty appendage to some man," I decided to avoid him. Surely he thought that I was not good-looking enough to capture the man of my dreams, and was therefore encouraging me to build myself a future as a spinster. I became even more depressed.
Since in those days I was always attracted to those who found fault with me, however, I compulsively went looking for my critic. We took long walks and ate pizza at the only pizza parlour in Cairo, behind Cinema Rivoli. I found the atmosphere romantic under the quaint pergola and yearned to go there with someone who would look into my eyes and tell me I was beautiful.
Mac drummed the song in vogue on the table instead, and asked me if I was making progress. "Stay at home for a fortnight, close your door, don't talk to anyone and begin to think about what kind of a person you are. What have you achieved so far? What do you plan to achieve? What direction do you want your life to take?" he would say.
Educated girls in those days did not confess to their secret desires: a nice husband, a house to look after and a couple of kids. It was fashionable to say that one wanted to pursue a career. I blabbed the right answer, but under my companion's scrutiny I could not come up with a suitable career that I had the remotest wish to embrace. Mac was triumphant. "See? You don't even know what you want," he said. "Solitude will do you a world of good." But I wanted none of that. "Look," I blurted, "I hate solitude, I hate myself and I cannot think of anything more boring than staying with me." Mac smiled in his own special way "And if you bore yourself to death, what makes you think you will be able to hold the interest of an intelligent man?" I could see the qualities I had been attributing myself crumbling faster than the pizza crust on our plates.
Of course I did not listen to Mac then. Nor do I believe that I was endowed with hidden treasures that I could have discovered by even the most exacting introspection. Mac had simply come too early for me to heed his advice.
I lived a full life and was blessed with all the things I had coveted. For years I did not have a minute alone. I tried to make my children and husband happy and found a definition of who I was through them. I never thought of the future. Tomorrow was as far ahead as I could contemplate. But time caught up with me. With my husband no longer there, one of my daughters far away and the other getting on with her life, the question begged to be asked: what was I going to do with myself? I was completely lost.
And then I remembered Mac and his advice. I should have listened to him then. I knew he was around; I could have found him easily. But how can one resume a conversation left off 30 years ago? I began working on myself, following his instructions. It is not very pleasant to get acquainted with who one is. At first, all I found was hatred for what I perceived to be me. It took me several years to emerge stronger from the ordeal. Gradually I came to terms with who I was, and understood my needs. It was a difficult experience, with many drawbacks. In the end I realised that it involved acceptance and forgiveness. Finally, I was able to move on.
One day my daughter told me that she had met Mac. "I told him you used to call him Mack the Knife," she said. "He patted his pot belly and told me to tell you that he has become Mac the Spoon."
I saw him recently in a crowd. We greeted each other, and he said: "I read what you write and I like it very much." I thanked him graciously for his appreciation, but did not tell him that I was really thanking him for being there so many years ago.
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