Can you rinse away this city that lasts/like blood on the bitten tongue?
-Chandni Chowk, Delhi, Agha Shahid Ali
Maybe everyone has a city in their lives like Cairo is in mine. The city where I first drew blood and saw blood, where you can never wash away the taste on your tongue. Cairo is still on my tongue, I have two small scars to prove it where the cuts were made, the holes where the tubes were inserted letting me breathe again.
But I still like Cairo, admire it even, and I hope for the best despite all the stupid things Cairenes have done to themselves since their Arab Spring. The lines from Julius Caesar come to mind, as I remember them- in fact I misremembered them and just now had to look them up again- when Marullus scolds his fellow Romans for being so easily swayed by Caesar’s oratory following his defeat of Pompey- “you blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things”, he says- just as I wanted to scold Cairenes for going gaga over Sisi after he toppled Mursi. Do they really not regret cutting their own democracy’s infant throat?
The people I knew there forty years ago are either dead or their whereabouts are unknown. Ahmad my building’s bawaab, Mahdi Bashir the camel trader’s son, my first Arabic teacher Ahmad Taher who no longer answers email, and the makwagi who worked in the stall next door. But still I would not mind going back again and wandering around Talat Harb Square. Groppi is gone but Cafe Riche is open. Maybe you can still buy books at Madbouly. I hear it’s easier to cross the street without getting killed by wild traffic, and that a dollar still goes a long way in kebab restaurants.
What blood sticks to a Cairo-bitten tongue does not have to be bitter. Wash it down with ahwa saada, and swallow again.