Dalia

In the city, it’s hard to have friendly neighbors. You grow up seeing all these movies about being best friends with the girl next door, you would have all these sleepovers and share secrets. But the only thing you end up having is shattered expectations, and a grumpy guy in the floor below who keeps knocking on your door every two days yelling “stop playing the damn piano”. They don’t understand music here, they only know noise.

And when you’re 10, you don’t understand why people don’t smile back in the elevator when you’re straight up beaming, and you can’t explain either why when that big gruff guy was the only one who returned the wholesome gesture, you felt weird. Everyone would push the button two times in a row, and I would chip in innocently “Do you know that it doesn’t make it go faster?” only to receive glares from towering passengers. That would always make me shut up.

Between the rushing adults trying to make it in a world that was always too big for me, I only found one person who would take the time to smile back. The first time I saw her, it was the perfume that caught my attention. Hair dyed, hanging in short locks on her forehead, and eyes as big as my dazed ones. She would always lean down, she understood the intimidation of always having to look up to these huge adults; I wasn’t as grown. She was pretty, very pretty, or so we all thought before we became obsessed with what it means to beautiful. None of it mattered, my Dalia took the time to smile back at me, maybe she wanted to be friends after all.

Dalia lived in the apartment just across the hall with her mother. Her mother was an old lady who was nice too, but not as nice as her. Every time I would open the door to find her, she would beam and smile excitedly at me, waiting for me to run into her arms and I would happily. Always asking how was school, how was home and how was I. The last question I liked best, no one asks me that anymore. When I was done with homework I would play the piano, show off the lessons I’ve been taking so that maybe Dalia would hear me from across the hall. It wasn’t until one day that I was interrupted by my hurrying father walking in to ask me to stop: “Dalia’s mother is sick darling, she needs to rest so stop playing around”. My fingers abruptly stopped; I wouldn’t want to do anything to upset her. That’s the first time I experienced worry, was Dalia going to be okay? How did she feel? Was she crying? I prayed for her during Isha prayer that night, because that’s what mum said I should do when I worry. I told God everything, I told him she was the nicest lady in the building, please don’t make her sad.

God didn’t listen to me that night, mum told me sometimes that happens because what we want isn’t always what we need. I didn’t really understand but it didn’t matter anymore. The news came a quiet afternoon, and I found myself tearing up just like when I lost my teddy at school, the concept of loss was the same.

That same summer I started watching Disney movies, every princess had a prince and they would kiss at the end, though mum always chirped in that it was haram, we have a different culture she said. I didn’t care about that part, the only thing that got manifested in my brain was that princesses should have their happy ending with their beau. Their hair was always blonde but looking in the mirror my hair was a light brown; not light enough to pass for yellow. Maybe I wasn’t a princess after all, and I stayed upset for a while until I remembered Dalia’s bright blonde hair. Maybe Dalia was! My mind started going back to all my encounters with her, I never saw a guy accidentally bump into her, or tuck a loose strand of her behind her ear. Why did I never see her prince?

I ran to my mum to ask that very question, to find her dismissing the matter, answering with a prayer for her to find someone. With no clue about filters, I told her I wanted to be like Dalia when I grew up. Surprised, and what I identified then as sadness, she told me she hoped not, that she wanted to see me in a house of my own with a spouse and children. I only replied : “but look how pretty!” Only to be met with a light laugh, my ways always earned a laugh at the end.

When you’re young, and surrender hasn’t taken over yet, you tend to not understand how society works. So when I turned 11, I shared my dreams of having an apartment of my own, all painted yellow. Yellow was bright, and the same color as my favorite flower. My Dad smiled and told me but your husband has to love it too, which earned a scowl from me, what husband? It was my apartment alone. I was told girls don’t live alone, when asked why, I would get a classic “ Kedda” which is the Egyptian version of “because”. Everybody seemed to understand why except me, maybe it was something you understood when you grew up. But it didn’t matter still, my Dalia lived alone.

One day, I was exiting the elevator on the right, or maybe wrong, time to see our bawab trying to open Dalia’s door and her trying to push him away. She was shouting for someone to help and get him off of her, I didn’t understand why Saeid the doorman wanted to get into her apartment, but my brother and I would do this all the time at home to try to tickle each other. Maybe Saeid thought of Dalia as a friend too, but something told me that wasn’t it. I ran to her anyways and told Saeid to stop playing it wasn’t fair, he was so much stronger. He suddenly got scared seeing me there and left hurriedly, but Dalia was crying that day and I could do nothing but innocently give her the gum I had in my pockets. When I told mum, in hopes of understanding, she was raging; I’ve never seen her so red. The next day we said goodbye to Saeid, he was a nice man, but I found out my parents didn’t think so.

A few months later, Dalia got a dog, and he would bark all the time. That was all the more reason to love Dalia, I always wanted a dog. She always apologized, though, for the noise he makes, and she started locking the door at night; I would hear the keys turning twice. As my visits to her apartment grew, to play with Lucky the dog, I would notice more the way people would talk to her. She was told to find someone on an average 10 times a day by either friends or pure strangers. What someone? I was sitting right there. Everybody sympathized and had a small sad looking smile.

The years passed by, and Dalia was still there. When I was in college, mum started warning me to find someone so that I don’t wind up the same. And oh how I wanted to be like Dalia. They were afraid I would end up just as sad, but she was still the only one I saw smile on my way up in the elevator.

And surrounded by her revolutionary yellow walls, and barking dog, I always had one thought in mind;

Dalia never cared,

Dalia was unapologetically loud.