The Sons of Adam

I met Hesham in Dahab almost three decades ago. It’s no wonder I barely remember the particulars of our encounter, though I don’t think it's the only time that is impacting my memory. Dahab, at least back then, was the Hippieville of Egypt. He was a handful of years my senior, but he looked much older. It had to be his early thinning of hair and receding line. Or maybe it was his thick, outdated round glasses. Certainly, his bony frame, a result of severe malnourishment, didn’t help his case. He looked very much like Gandhi, even if he was nothing like Gandhi. 

My arrival to Hippieville coincided with his departure, so we barely got the chance to get to know each other. We did, however, have the same taste in music, and he lived across the street from where I lived. In Middle Eastern social behaviour, this is more than enough to form a bond that would seem to a passerby like a friendship that predates the dawn of time. Naturally, we exchanged numbers and agreed to meet in Cairo once I was back. We had to explore our long-lost friendship. 

Once back to Cairo I called to invite him over, but he insisted we meet at his place and not mine. I always preferred playing host to being a guest. I found the inconvenience of receiving people is far easier to deal with than deciphering the social code of being the guest. What to bring? How much of it? When to arrive? How long to stay? How comfortable or uncomfortable should I be? How much can I eat, and more importantly, how much should remain on the plate? Finally, how much notice do I need to give in anticipation of my departure? I put my anxiety aside and braced myself for discomfort. I couldn’t decline, there was our friendship at stake.

I had to walk. After all, he lived across the street. Too close to calm my nerves or allow for enough time to talk myself out of the visit. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of his building. I already knew it. A place I walked in front a thousand times, not realizing who lived there on the second floor. It wasn’t much different from the building where we lived; that was comforting. I climbed up the stairs and rang the doorbell but didn’t hear a thing. I suspected the bell didn’t work but pretended it did. It was too soon to ring another time, so I waited for someone to open it, but no one did. I rang once more, and again, I heard nothing. 

That could have been a reasonable excuse to walk away. I came and rang the door multiple times, but no one opened. Unfortunately, I would have looked stupid in a resourceful culture like mine. Why didn’t you think of knocking on the door? I waited a bit longer, and only then I felt at liberty to knock on the door. You can’t just knock if you don’t know for certain that the bell ain’t working. Yet another intricacy of the unwritten law of appropriate guest behaviour. Yet another instrument of psychological torture designed to weed out the fake from the OG Egyptians. I can’t claim to be an Original Gangster of anything. I can accept that now.

The knock worked, and an old man opened the door. He looked like Hesham, only older and a bit less malnourished. Before I could ask for Hesham, the old man walked away, leaving the door open. I assumed he went to fetch my friend so I waited while trying to make sense of what I could see of the apartment. It was daylight, mid-summer, and yet I could barely see the inside. Windows were closed everywhere. A few beams of light that slipped through the rolling blinds showed the outline of a dining table, a seating area, and a few paintings on the wall.

It looked like a scene from a horror movie. All of a sudden, it hit me: I didn’t know Hesham. He’s not the long-lost friend that any self-respecting Egyptian would consider a stranger to be. For all I knew, I was about to be butchered into pieces for some Satanic ritual. Before I could weigh my options, Hesham came, and I obviously followed him inside. I couldn’t admit to him, or worse to myself, that I was afraid. I couldn’t make out if the house was clean or dirty. I could barely see where I was stepping. The stale smell of cigarettes had me believing the place was a dump, and it felt like I was breathing inside an ashtray…refreshing. 

His room wasn’t far from the door. Much like the rest of the house, the blinds were closed in his room, but fortunately, the lights were on. I didn’t know what to make out of the room, but it was much cleaner than I expected. It was relatively small. The bed was a mattress lying on the floor that must have made for great lumbar support. The walls of the room were cramped with music posters and graffiti. There was a double-decker stereo cassette with oversized speakers sitting on the only piece of furniture in the room surrounded by towers of cassette tapes. Finally, there was a leather pouffe that was meant to accommodate one guest at any given time. “Make yourself comfortable. Would you like a glass of water?” Hesham pointed at the lonely pouffe nestled between the towers of tape. 

“Your father doesn’t say much,” I said as I sat down.

“That was my brother who opened the door, but you’re right. He’s not much of a talker.”   

“How old is he?”

“He’s four years older than me.”

“He looks forty if you ask me.”

“He does! I wouldn’t know. I don’t look at him.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I nodded. Hesham then pressed play on his stereo and the distinctive start to Gary Moore’s Still Got the Blues echoed in the room. I was used to a much rougher sound than what played. Instead of a distorted power chord I heard a clear, however crunchy sound with notes that were bent to eternity. It immediately resonated with a deeper part of my soul. I loved it. The volume was high, and I feared my friend would get himself in trouble trying to impress me with the size of his speakers. 

“Your parents wouldn't object to the sound?”

“They’re not around.”

“What about your brother?”

“It’s a part of our agreement.”

“What agreement?”

“I live as I see fit in my room, and he does the same.”

“And where do your parents stand on this arrangement?”

“My parents are dead.”

“Both of them!”

I was speaking to myself as much as I was speaking to him. It was a request for affirmation, an unnecessary clarification to which he didn’t provide an answer. His statement was as clear as the light of day, as sad as a moonless night, and as heavy as the reality of death. I said nothing. I hid behind my silence. Was it worth saying, “I’m sorry?” Should I have offered my condolences? I looked at him, I hoped he would say more, but he didn’t. I wanted to hear the unspoken words; I wanted to feel the hidden emotions, but instead, I drew a blank.

“How unlucky to lose both?”

“It was a car accident. They were both in the car.”

“How old were you?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“At least you have your older brother, man.”

“Not long after their death, me and Haitham got into an argument that soon became a fight.”

“Brothers fight, I suppose, not that I know much about that.” I meant to console him.

“We were like two animals locked in a cage. That was not a regular fight between two brothers. One of us was going to kill the other for sure. I knew it, and so did he. It hit us that this was our intention when he reached out for….we stopped. Now, we keep to ourselves in our rooms. It’s better this way.”

The broken sentence wasn’t lost on me. I could’ve asked and yet not an inch of me felt the need to know the word he skipped. It didn’t require much to fill the dotted line. The unspoken word was louder than the oversized speakers spewing notes straight into my eardrums. What need did I have to know the specific word? I wasn’t going to be the prosecutor, nor was I going to be the judge. The image was as sharp and crisp as black ink on a white canvas. Would it have mattered if he reached out for a chair, an ashtray, or a knife? He said it himself: two animals locked in a cage. They wouldn’t try to kill each other with roses or puffy cushions.  

I noted that both their names started with the letter H, but I kept this revelation to myself. I wanted to diffuse the heaviness, more for me than for him. A purely selfish act made palatable when an entire society accepts it as the chosen remedy to deal with discomfort. I couldn’t because even I, awkward, peculiar, and charmingly odd, recognized that it wouldn’t work. It felt like a Biblical story, Cain and Abel, or maybe Cain and Cain, or probably Abel and Abel. I couldn’t tell who was good and who was envious? Who was generous, and who was evil? Hesham said it: one of us was going to kill the other! 

My apprehension dissipated, and my anxiety faded away. Hesham was as broken as I was, if not more. My brother might have walked away, but he never reached out for anything to hurt me. It felt like not knowing where my brother’s whereabouts was an easier pain to deal with than having him next door but emotionally distant. Maybe I should have hugged him, but that would have been as uncomfortable for me as it would have for him, I remained quiet instead. I understood the closed windows and the dark house. I understood the substance abuse and malnourishment. I understood why Hesham looked decades older than his actual age. I understood why we bonded the way we did. I was right, after all. He was a long-lost friend.