I knew later that when I arrived, it was such a cold day in many winters, 27th
December, 2010. But I really did not feel it. I was literally
insulated: one thick cotton sock, three cotton shirts, pullover, a coat
and a hood. Every time I saw the snow out of the window, I smiled
heavily as I remembered the sun I left in Cairo. I was leaning over my
two bags, ready to get them down. A British woman-the landlord- was
waiting for me outside; I got into her car like a pregnant woman in the
last months, I had a stomachache from Manchester and was dying to get
into a house, any house which has a bathroom.
She
put my bags in a room in the first floor, I was confused whether to ask
first about the bathroom or give her the money. I took the money from a
yellow envelope in my backpack. The bathroom was upstairs. When I went
down, I could not find my envelope. I searched my backpack and opened my
first bag; granules of sugar were splintered all around my clothes; I
saw my mother looking at me.
In
that context, I met Nami, my neighbor from Japan who would soon leave
the house to work as a tour guide in the Lake District. In my mind,
England was a new place and the house was old. I had to pull a rope to
turn the lights in the bathroom and do the same thing to turn on the
shower: first pull a rope, turn a circle that adjusts the temperature,
and press the button; and do the same thing again to turn it off. Our
house in New Cairo had a horizontal design but here it was all vertical:
the kitchen and the TV area were in a floor and the room and the
bathroom were in another.
Before
leaving, Nami showed me the way to university, ‘Bailrigg Lane’ was
certainly a label, a post, but for the first time I went to the
university, it was a crossroad, either to wander among trees or go to
university. I stopped to take a picture of the place. Remember that this
is where you have to turn, she said.
Stepping
on the cobbled streets of town, Nami classified shops into types: ‘Home
Bargain’ is good for chocolate; Sainsbury’s is for grocery; Marks and
Spenser has good quality but is more expensive. Because of her, I would
refuse to get Toblerone from Sainsbury’s for 1.70, ‘I am sure I saw it
in Home Bargain for only a pound’. ‘Before she left, my friend Nami told
me from where to get what’. I laughed; my eyes fell on Sainsbury’s bags
as we went out.
When
I visited Nami in the Lake District, she was planning a tour in Europe:
Poland, Czeh, Germany and Spain. I love Spain, I said. On the Internet,
she looked up the prices. ‘I am actually not sure I can make it, I
will see the photos when you come back’, I said evading looking at her
face.
Nami
has now left England and promised to visit me in Cairo. It was not a
small thing after a year and a half in England, when I told Nami on
Skype that now, now, I am drifting South, not to Spain, but to Portugal!
Stamping
passports, packing and unpacking, watching the clouds, feeling the
airplane touch the ground, sending a message that ‘I have landed safely’
seems to me now part of the journey, an inception, a dream within a
dream, a step forward Nami, isn’t it?
