I don’t like walking or driving down Nozha Street. It gives me contradictory feelings. If I step into the old building where my grandmother lives, or maybe lived, see myself a hundred thousand times in the mirrors left and right, take the beautiful old elevator, get off on the third floor and knock my grandmother’s door no one will answer.
Now, if I knock on the door she will open laughing, hugging me then saying that she did not expect me to come today; it’s old information. I did not expect me to come either anyway. My grandmother was always there. I did not go visit her frequently but I knew she was always there and she will always have the same smile and think that everything is funny as long as life goes on. My grandmother loved life more than anyone did, I guess. She went to Alexandria in the winter and in the fall to stand there and make a painting of the sea. Every year the drawing looked different; older and more observant; like my grandmother. When I was a child I went with her from time to time. Sometimes I would watch her paint, sometimes I would try to mess her painting and sometimes I would just sit next to her and try to imitate her painting on my own paper that she bought me. She also bought me watercolors and small paintbrushes and she got me and my two cousins the same sized skirts even though there was an age difference between us three.
I still remember all these details because my grandmother liked details too. She liked details in her paintings and details in her stories. She never told us fake stories about birds and animals. Her stories were about real people except the ones about the pharaohs. Well, you could never find out whether they were true or not I guess. The summer before the last my grandmother was a bit sick. She had a disease that some stupid physicians could not identify. Our family was just as stupid to believe the doctors even though each one said it was a different problem and gave my grandmother different medicine. And, of course since it’s my grandmother, she thought that was funny. On her forehead there was a scary wound that for one reason or another would not heal and we thought it was from the sun. Then, there was another one on her leg which never really saw the sun ever since she was forty and wore short skirts that had strange motifs on them. My mom is not a doctor and she hates my grandmother because my grandmother gave her shit when she was a child. And therefore, my grandmother and my mama do not get along. So, when mama said the reason why these wounds never seem to heal is because my grandmother may have leukemia. This “story” was “far fetched”, that’s how my uncle phrased my mom’s explanation.
My mom never got to be a doctor because she got bad grades in her high school and did not make it to medical school! And so, whenever she said something about a disease or a medicine no one believed her because they think that my mother is a doctor wannabe and she is just trying to look smart. When the stupid doctors finally found out that my grandmother really did have leukemia, it was already in stage three, they said, and each one of them would come up with his out with his own conclusion but the range of my grandmother’s life was three months to a year, they said. She needed someone to take care of her. My uncle was in Saudia Arabia trying to earn money to spend on his four children, my aunt lived on the 9th floor with no elevator in the building and so my grandmother had to come and stay here with us.
Mama did not like the idea. It is funny how my mother does not have to like something in order to do it. She felt that it was her duty to take care of her cruel mother whom she hated since childhood. My grandmother came and stayed with us. She looked different from the Nena I knew and I found it hard to call her Nena. She was in a very bad health state and she cut her hair really short because, she said, she could not do the effort anymore.
My grandmother had long gray hair, nicely made into a braid that sometimes rested on her left shoulder and sometimes on her back.. Today I tried to do some knitting to remember my grandmother. I still have her knitting needles and her ring. Her ring was a dolphin. Once I asked her whether she really thinks what’s on the ring is a dolphin, she said that she will answer that later.
My grandmother stayed with us for months. She was very sick and she had fever often. She would not move from the bed unless she’s going to the hospital or the toilet with Mama’s help. She even stopped painting because it makes her eyes tired. She listened to some music from time to time. Her taste did not change; she still listens to Edith Piaf. I used to show her my pictures when she was here. She hung a picture I took of myself on the wall and she said it was very artistic. My grandmother would critique the picture like a piece of artwork. Over the few months she stayed with us, my photography improved and developed. I started looking at more delightful points of view. Once, my grandmother asked me if I have a book that is not a tragedy so I told her that I do not. She said “ You don’t like comedy? Why? Comedy is funny!” so I told her that I do not like comedy because funny things are likely to be untrue. “I have Voltaire’s Candid if you’d like” but she said she had read that a hundred thousand times.
I also had it in English, and she thought that was ridiculous. My grandmother thought English was ridiculous most of the time. One day she went to the hospital with my mother to have new blood, I think. When she came back she decided to tell me some stories about real people, her brothers and sister. She did not like to tell these stories to anyone because she was not proud that she was of Jewish roots but I always showed interest to family tree. And so, she told me about her brother who had cancer, was cured but then when he traveled to Brazil with his wife he died with Malaria. She thought that was funny. I told her it was ironic but not so funny.
She went back to bed and took her ring off and put it on the table. “Well, it is silver and it does not move therefore it is not a dolphin but what’s funny is that if you only believe it’s a dolphin you could imagine it moving and you could also imagine it swimming in the white foam waves of the ring itself” She said.
I did not think that was funny at the time because imagination is very far from reality unless you take drugs, I considered this a fact. It turned out not to be a fact every time I pass by Nozha street. Every time I pass by Nozha street imagination is funny. My grandmother died that summer. I woke up in the morning on my mother telling me that Nena had died. The night before she couldn’t speak on the phone for some reason but she was crying. My uncle was her favorite child and when he called to check on her she was crying so hard but she could not open her mouth. My mom said that it might be that the gland that is responsible for the tears is not working well. I did not think that, I thought my grandmother is really sad because she wants to talk to her son who loves her very much, but she could not realize that very last wish. In the morning I was going to university. I looked at my grandmother and she had her eyes open. Her body was not as blue as they show in the movies. Her eyes had a scared look and an unsatisfied one at the same time. I did not cry in the funeral and I thought it was funny that people were all in black trying to look as sad as they could, even if they are not very sad because they did not know my grandmother so well. I wore a necklace that my grandmother had given me. I was not sad because I knew that the body that rested on that bed was not my real grandmother. My grandmother lives in Nozha Street and she likes to paint and take care of the plants in her balcony.
Months later my friend’s father died. I went to the funeral and sat with his sisters as they cried. They knew they will never see their father again. I cried like I never did before. I knew the man but I did not know him that much. He was a nice man and he died with lung cancer. Mustafa, my friend looked so pale after the funeral. I did not try hard to cheer him up because I myself looked melancholic. I remembered my grandmother and I remember that it had been eight months since I last saw her. I feel as if tomorrow she will come over for lunch and tell me one of the family tree stories that were funny.
Months later I decided to talk to Mustafa about his father’s death. I hated the song that was playing it got on my nerves there was this man with a jazz music background and he said ;“imagination is funny, it makes a cloudy day sunny” I did not think that was funny I thought it was rather cruel. I looked at the ring in my finger and I could not see the sea waves nor the dolphin all I could see is a piece of silver shaped as a dolphin.
I looked away as I was waiting for Mustafa to come. There were groups of friends laughing and seeming to be having fun. I ordered cappuccino and sank a bit in my book reading but not really reading. I felt as if something was stuck in my throat. I could see my grandmother sitting next to me and laughing just like other people in the café; or maybe moving with the music.
Mustafa walked in. He talked about his father a bit and I felt that something even bigger was stuck in my throat. I listened and I remembered his father’s funeral. Strange faded pictures were having a slideshow that came out from the back of my head. Funeral, Grandmother, leukemia tests, stupid doctors, grandmother’s bed, people in black, my picture on the wall next to my grandmother who was laughing. They were all playing in my head. I could not stop myself from crying now.
I was crying and words came out from my throat non-stop. I do not want to believe she died, Mustafa, she did not die. I mean, I feel that one day I will go to the building down Nozha street, step into the old building where my grandmother lives, see myself a hundred thousand times in the mirrors left and right, take the beautiful old elevator, get off on the third floor and knock my grandmother’s door. She will answer laughing telling me that she did not expect me to come.The thing that is stuck in my throat went away for a bit but then “Imagination is silly…and found it’s only your imagination” the song slowly plays again.
