Driving Mother Crazy, Abeer Elgamal
(Egypt)
Abeer Elgamal (Egypt)
“Watch
out, Mummy! Watch out! He’s breaking your mirror,” Nora screamed. A smashing
sound deafened my ears as I woke up terrified but grateful that the accident
was only a dream. I felt like a small helpless animal being hunted by a large
brutal one. Our black Lancer had turned into a rabbit being chased by a vicious
dark wolf, intent on biting off the creature’s left ear before devouring her.
I did not know how much I
hated driving until I had that dream. Driving through Cairo traffic is a
nightmare, a circus in which you perform without training. I spend half my
days driving my twin teenagers Nora and Ali to private lessons, tennis
coaching, doctors’ appointments, and outings with friends. Driving not only
strains my back and neck, due to the hours spent sitting in the car in streets
like clogged arteries, but it sucks all my energy, shatters my nerves and raids
my dreams.
A woman driving in a
male-oriented society triggers all kinds of reactions that men would normally
repress in other situations. Whether they admit it or not, most men believe
women should stay home to make kofta [meatballs] or mahshy [stuffed
vegetables] and leave the outside world to them. Since they cannot afford it,
men express their innermost feelings in malicious forms toward women in the
streets, and women drivers get the lion’s share. That surely doubles the risk
of my daily journeys with the twins.
In my dream I was driving
the twins as usual, but we were heading to two different places at the same
time. I kept driving back and forth on the same road, Tareek al-Nasr, never
reaching either destination. One moment I was going toward al-Mokatam, where
they were supposed to have a private lesson, and the next I was heading in the
opposite direction, to al-Ahly club, Nasr City. I drove in my cautious, or
rather “slow,” manner, as my kids describe it. As it did in reality, my driving
triggered two contradictory reactions in the twins, according to the
destination I was heading. When I drove toward the club, they shouted, “Faster,
Mummy, go faster, we’ll be late for training.” But when I went in the other
direction, to the private lessons center, they were kind enough to support my
lame driving, “Take your time, Mummy; the teacher is never on time.”
Usually, Nora is never
silent on our drives; she bugs me about one thing or another and interrupts my
desperate attempts to focus on the road. She is continuously planning some
event or other: a surprise birthday party for a friend, an outing to the mall,
a color festival, a paintball battle, or a sand-boarding day. She is practical
and clever enough to figure out that the best time to discuss the details of
any of her projects with me is when we are stuck in the car. At home I am
always busy, but in the mandatory prison which is our battered, shark-faced
Lancer, there is no way I can escape her. Sometimes I listen and sometimes I
scold her, telling her I need to focus on the circus going on around me or we
won’t make it to our destination.
The other day Nora
declared, “Mummy, we have to be there before five. It’s the deadline for onsite
registration.”
“There, where?” I said
stupidly, as I maneuvered to avoid a sure attack from a minibus aimed at my
mirror.
“Mummy, don’t you ever
listen to me?”
“I do, sweetie, I do all
the time. Where do you want to go? Is it tomorrow?” I tried to soothe her.
“Nooo, it’s on Friday. We’re
going to the tennis colony for the championship.”
“And where is this
colony?” I endeavored to sound patient and looked quickly at Ali through the
front mirror, hoping that he might object to Nora’s plan, but he was immersed
in his BlackBerry chat as usual.
“It’s on Ismailia Road, thirty-five
kilometers away,” she said.
I flinched at the thought
of driving amid the wildest trucks and buses on the Cairo-Ismailia road. Gathering
up my courage, I attempted to reason with her. “We don’t have to participate in
every tournament; let’s restrict ourselves to the ones in the city. You know I hate
to drive on highways. What do you think, Ali?” I tried to enlist his help by
glancing at him again in the mirror.
“Eh? What did you say, Mum?”
he inquired in his absent-minded way.
“You are being a zombie
again. Why don’t you leave that thing and join the conversation? I asked if
that colony tournament is really important.” I was starting to get really
nervous.
“I don’t want to go. If
she goes I’ll take part only to be with her.” He said in that casual manner
that plays on my nerves.
I was happy to get his
support but angry that he was letting his sister down, as he always does when
she needs him. I promised Nora I would think about it and tell her my decision
when we got home.
Ever since they were in
kindergarten, Ali and Nora did everything together. He was the lazy one. He
wanted things just as much as she did, but did not exert any effort to get
them, letting her fight the battle for both of them. He played the king and she
was the minister who had to carry out his plans. To me, it was neither fun nor
fair: it enabled him to sit back and relax and let her do the dirty work, just
like most women do in real life. It was neither a game nor child’s play as
everyone around me insisted; it was a life-defining experience that would last
forever. On most days she would carry both her own and his school bag from
class to the school gate where I waited for them. He would often run to give me
a hug while she trudged behind with the bags, and it made me crazy that she did
it voluntarily and he took it as his lawful right as king. Every time I
intervened to prevent his early male dominance and her submission, I regretted
it because both of them have accepted their roles without hard feelings and
everyone accused me of endangering their bond as twins. My husband believed I
worried too much about a matter that meant nothing to anyone but my own “disturbed”
mind which detected gender differentiation in every small action.
I did my best to accept
their relations the way they were since they were both happy. Meanwhile, a
question kept buzzing in my head: “Why can’t their bond work the other way
round?” I dared ask my husband once and he simply asserted that it was the most
natural thing in the world for the girl to “serve” her twin brother and that in
time they would switch roles when he became a man. “Honey, you are the only one
who is trying to swim against the tide; just leave them alone to manage their
own business,” he wrapped the entire matter up in his usual nice cool manner
that left me speechless.
And I tried to leave them
alone, but not all the time, though. Once, when they were in grade five, they
went too far and I had to intervene. They were doing their finals when Ali gave
Nora his exam sheet to answer for him before she did her own. The teacher, who
had been my student in college, was furious and called me, and I rushed to the
school. It was not the act of cheating that upset us so much; we were more
concerned about Nora’s self-denial at such an early stage of her life.
“That’s it. I can’t leave
the twins alone anymore and you have to help me fix their relationship,” I told
my husband angrily that day. But, of course, I had to do it alone. I kept
nagging them about the importance of cooperation, and the need for mutual
give-and-take, but nothing worked. I tried to be discreet and never accused Ali
of negligence or dominance, but it seemed that neither of them cared.
That night, after the
dream, I decided I would not drive to the colony on Friday. I would take the
day off – off housework, off the twins, off driving. “Dad will drive you there
safely and spend the whole day with you,” I broke the news to them. I had
delegated the chore to my dear husband. Let him swim against the tide for once.
