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  Samir felt entitled to offer his unsolicited opinion on most subjects. On my troubles with Number One: “The shade of a man is better than that of a tree.” With the caveat, “But a woman like you provides enough shade for herself and others around her.” On employees who stole from the company: “A dog’s tail will never straighten.” On giving people second chances: “All the fingers of one hand are not the same.” We spent hours together in Cairo’s traffic, driving between meetings around the city. Samir knew more about me than Number One, the father of my children, did. He overheard all my phone conversations, rife with confessions, arguments, and insults. Occasionally, while I was on the phone, he would tap the glove compartment in front of me to interject his comments in a whisper. He was cheeky, slightly daft, and no amount of my criticism dampened his spirits. Despite his sloppy appearance (waddling walk, overgrown mustache, greasy black hair, and chipped front tooth), Samir was surprisingly calculating. With time, he became aware of the power he wielded from listening in on other people’s conversations, and he learned when to dispense, and when to withhold, information. I trusted him. In a society that thrived on gossip and the bartering of information, he guarded my secrets as though they were his children.

  Samir pulled up and parked in a third line of cars under the office of Adham, the junior lawyer. As we waited, without turning on the hazards or turning off the engine, Samir got out, lit a cigarette, and offered one to the traffic policeman who’d walked up to threaten him with a fine. He gestured at the running engine, pointed to a random window in the building, lit the second cigarette, and lodged it between the traffic policeman’s fingers. They chatted.

  I remained in my preferred place: the front passenger seat. Women and employers normally sit behind the driver, establishing distance between boss and worker. I could have set up camp in the back, but Adham would perceive sitting with a woman as immodest. Offering him the front passenger seat would be equally disruptive of unwritten norms. As a guest, he must be given the most comfortable seat: the back one.

  We crossed Kasr al-Nil Bridge, entering downtown. Samir and Adham discussed the state of things: power cuts in the poorer areas of the city, the rising price of a kilo of tomatoes, and the latest rumors surrounding Mubarak’s son, Gamal, the heir apparent of the Arab Republic of Egypt. We turned right at Tahrir Square onto Abdelkader Hamza Street, where the Mogamma’, the complex that housed Egypt’s bureaucratic headquarters, towered over us with elephantine grayness. I’d visited the building as a teenager, when I’d lost my national identification card. It had taken me a full month to acquire my birth certificate, file police reports, and prove to the state that I existed, during which I learned the essential skill of bribery. The trick was to make the proposal ambiguous, in case it raised suspicion. Giving too little was an insult; giving too much paved the way for exploitation. When I finally completed my application, I slid it under the teller’s partition with a twenty-pound note inside. It was approved. In the years following, I came to understand bribery as its own act of civil disobedience: a tryst between citizens and bureaucrats, spurning the official government systems we all work within.

  If buildings hold memories, I hoped Mogamma’ al-Tahrir had lost its. Occupying the site left by the demolition of the British barracks in 1945, the concrete leviathan was meant to serve as a centralized administrative complex where citizens could efficiently complete all bureaucratic matters. Its 1,309 rooms served more than twenty thousand people every day. It was a building only architects could admire, an icon of monotony and the death of individuality. (The Mogamma’ was actually the color of sand, but I remember it in monochrome gray.) Kafka writes: “Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.”

  We were directed to the ninth floor, the headquarters of the Censorship Bureau. I placed my handbag on the belt of the security scanner and looked up at the arches above me. We turned right toward the sweeping staircase, its weary and dusty steps leading upward. Following gendered conventions, Adham walked up in front of me. It would have been inappropriate to go in front of him and give him a view of my behind going up the stairs. That was the privilege of strangers.

  I proceeded through the floors: passports, licenses, birth and death certificates, and pensions. The musty stench of wet carpets. The sour scent of sweat. On the ninth floor, we were told that the office had relocated to the thirteenth. When we reached the office, I watched Adham as he approached the farash, asked for directions to the toilet, and slipped him a five-pound note. I pretended not to notice. A few minutes passed and the farash ushered us into the bureaucrat’s office, to the metal chairs facing the desk. Mubarak gazed out at us from a framed photograph, customary in all government offices. Adham spoke in dulcet tones, reminding the official that we were here at his kind invitation to address a delayed shipment for Diwan Bookstore.

  If bribery was a skill, the handling of government bureaucrats was an art form. As a woman, I had to show deference to his institution, and to his masculinity—but I couldn’t show fear, which might imply wrongdoing. Adham spoke on my behalf to avoid antagonizing the bureaucrat. He flattered and cajoled him, carefully establishing an alliance.

  The bureaucrat’s fingers sifted between his files, pulling out an orange-colored invoice. I recognized the penguin at the top of the page. The censors knew Penguin as the publisher of The Satanic Verses, but we’d never dared to order that book. I mentally flipped through a Rolodex of Penguin books, searching for the offending title: Lolita? Lady Chatterley’s Lover? It couldn’t be Nineteen Eighty-Four, as that had already passed through several shipments. Finally, the bureaucrat presented Adham with the invoice showing one highlighted title and an illegible phrase scribbled next to it in Arabic. As Adham handed it to me, our heads leaned in toward each other. While the bureaucrat returned his attention to the open files, we turned to whisper to one another.

  “Ustaz Adham, the title isn’t literal.”

  “What do I tell him?”

  “What I told you.”

  “Wait, what did you tell me?”

  The bureaucrat muttered to himself some Islamic phrase about patience, cutting our dialogue short.

  “This is not what we expect of a company with Diwan’s reputation, nor from a young woman,” said the censor, acknowledging my presence for the first time.

  “Of course not. As you well know, ya basha, Diwan is an institution that aims to educate and enlighten the minds of all Egyptians. We are here to serve you in your admirable goals.” Adham looked at me, inviting me to speak, but I couldn’t. He exhaled and charged ahead.

  “Basha, in Egypt, we pride ourselves on our women. They make good wives and mothers. You know how important it is for some of them to keep up to date with the latest trends going on abroad…” Adham trailed off. I fixed my gaze on the carpet, trying to distinguish the designs from the dirt. I rubbed my thumb against the gold band on my ring finger.

  “At the Censorship Bureau, we have our finger on the pulse of the entire country. We know the trends before they happen,” responded the bureaucrat.

  “You know, in the West they have loose morals.”

  “Yes, it is deplorable. Look at their women. How does their God accept them?”

  “Alhamdulillah ‘ala kol shay’,” proferred Adham.

  “Alhamdulillah ‘ala kol shay’,” confirmed the bureaucrat.

  “In America, everything is about sex and nudity. They don’t have the wisdom of Islam, or the Censorship Bureau, to protect them,” Adham continued while the bureaucrat nodded in dismay. “This is why they have to resort to such cheapness to sell books. But who are we to judge? As the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, ‘You have your religion; I have mine.’ You know, ya basha, there is nobody naked inside the book. Can you believe the maskhara? The Naked Chef by this Jamie Oliver—it’s just a cookbook! But what can we do? We live in trying times, and now the internet is in our homes spreading more evil.”

  As we gathered ourselves to le
ave, Adham promised to send coloring books for the bureaucrat’s children, in thanks for the honor of his acquaintance. I knew that when the next shipping holdup inevitably arrived, the office would just call us. With the censor’s concerns allayed, I continued to stock an array of Jamie Oliver titles as soon as they were released: his return, his dinners, his kitchen, his Italy, his different ingredients. Our alliance had helped me survive the early years of marriage, of domesticity. His recipes allowed me into the kitchen I’d been afraid to enter.

  * * *

  A few years later, as a more seasoned bookseller, I walked into the offices of a different government complex the day before the national holiday celebrating the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. Samir followed me, carrying a stack of boxes of “sweets of the birth.” These were typically comprised of a selection of sugar-coated sesame, pistachio, and almond bars, and Turkish delight. There was also a doll known as the bride of the birth and a sultan on a horse, both made of sugar. Samir stationed himself at the corner of the booths, leaving me to walk to the center of the room.

  “Sabah al-fol! I need to finish this power of attorney before midday and I know how busy you all are. As a token of our respect, Diwan Bookstores would like to offer each of you a box of sweets to enjoy with your family,” I hollered across the open space, gesturing toward Samir, who comically paraded the stack of boxes with an inviting smile. The cycle of paperwork was initiated and completed within twenty minutes.

  “This will help you keep your figure,” Samir told the full-bodied woman who sat behind the cashier guarding the open drawer of crumpled Egyptian pound notes in lieu of a safe. “For once make your wife a happy woman, instead of walking in empty-handed,” he jested as he laid the box of sweets on a three-legged stool next to one official’s desk with a smile.

  * * *

  Though Diwan was not a huge financial success, it was a moral victory, an experiment in marketing, and a mastery of the will. Hind, Nihal, and I ran a high-quality, labor-intensive operation and cut no corners. We had one location, with a handful of staff to cover the fourteen hours we were open every day. A lot of the behind-the-scenes work we did ourselves. Often, in order to break even, we sacrificed our own paychecks in the service of lowering operating costs. Perhaps, at some level, we did this because we still doubted our own value in the business we had created.

  Against all odds, we had proven to our doubters and detractors that a modern bookstore could survive in Egypt. And as with all pioneering endeavors, ours had paved the way for others to follow. Imitators and knockoffs had begun to sprout up across the city. As we slowly lost business to these new stores, which undercut our prices by a pound or two, we were faced with a choice. We could let these copies, which were sincere in their imitation of Diwan, but not in their commitment to reading, crowd out our flagship. Or we could raise funds for an aggressive expansion, and attempt to pluralize what was singular. We wanted to expand our reach, and yet we didn’t know whether we could possibly replicate the magic of our first shop while maintaining its authenticity. The success of the first store didn’t necessarily mean that another one would survive. Even though none of us said it, I knew we were also worried about taking on more responsibilities. Our lives were already imbalanced enough.

  We had dreamed of a bookstore. That dream had been realized. Why weren’t we content? For the first time, we found ourselves at odds with what we thought was best for Diwan. Consensus, our familiar terrain, evaded us. Steadfast Nihal wanted things to stay as they were. Ambitious Hind believed expansion was the only viable path: go big or go home. And I believed whichever one of my partners I’d spoken to most recently. Like our old cook, Fatma, who’d become domineering and intense after her promotion, I was changing alongside Diwan. At first, these changes were small. I urged Nihal to fire underperformers without giving them a second chance. I began to obsess over sales. Suddenly, most of my relationships revolved around shared to-do lists. I knew there was a middle ground, between benevolent bourgeois housewives and sales-driven tyrants. I hoped to find it.

  One thing was clear: if Diwan was going to survive, we’d need to compromise on our ideals. I’d already started, as in the bureaucrat’s office, where I’d made myself smaller and let Adham speak on my behalf, man to man. I knew that was the only way to rescue The Naked Chef, and myself. This was a minor sacrifice, but what might happen as the stakes got higher? What would I give up to get shit done? What would I surrender of Diwan?

  4

  BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

  In the end, Nihal was the one who discovered our next home. She pulled Hind and me aside one day to make a confession: she’d gone to a real estate agent’s showing of a beautiful 1950s modernist three-story villa. “With a garden. Off Heliopolis’s main road. It felt like Diwan. You have to see it.” She was still hesitant about trying to replicate the originality and intimacy of the flagship. We’d all agreed that if we ever opened a new location, it would need to be far from Zamalek. So we’d narrowed in on Masr el Gedida (New Egypt), an affluent neighborhood also known as Heliopolis, Greek for “sun city.” Built on the outskirts of Cairo in 1905 as an escape for the rich, Heliopolis was founded by the Belgian baron Édouard Louis Joseph Empain, who settled in Cairo after meeting and falling in love with a local socialite, Yvette Boghdadli. Rumor has it that he built Heliopolis for her.

  “You believe in it. It came to us. We should go for it.” With Hind’s words, we were off on a journey from booksellers to businesswomen. That week, we visited the villa. Tucked away from the main road, yet still visible and inviting, it had an air of humble grandness. Above a modest garden, a set of stairs led up to the main entrance. I felt certain after entering the building through the arched doorway. It just felt right. We could imagine our future there. The rooms seemed to invite these musings. Looking up at the intricate, vaulted ceilings, we pictured the mahogany shelves and stainless steel skirting beneath them. The high, lofty space was practically begging for ornate lighting; later, after we closed the deal, Minou designed a custom chandelier printed with Diwan’s calligraphy, which we suspended in the center of the winding staircase. In short, we fell in love. And like people in love, we succumbed to fantasies. Of wanting more, of conquering space, of actualizing dreams, and of testing ourselves and our luck. Months of planning, paperwork, licensing, decoration, meetings with Minou, and the hiring and training of new staff followed. We created a new bag featuring Heliopolis’s architectural marvels: the Hindu-style palace of Baron Empain, and the Belgian architect Ernest Jaspar’s Heliopolis Company buildings with their fusion of Islamic and Art Deco architecture.

  On Saturday, December 8, 2007, five years and nine months from the opening of Diwan Zamalek, we officially opened our second branch. It was a feat such as no one in Egypt had ever seen, an act of utter lunacy: a three-story villa filled with books. We designed Heliopolis with Zamalek in mind, striving for continuity in our sections and café, while also modifying our store for the new neighborhood. As we shuffled old and new hires between the stores, sibling rivalries ensued. Some staff believed the original would always be better; some wanted to prove themselves through the new store. Hind, Nihal, and I tried to channel this into healthy competition, while panicking at what was happening inside our Diwan family.

  The three of us juggled new responsibilities, spending entire days in the Heliopolis café, just as we had done in the early days of Zamalek. We weathered terrible traffic in our hour-long trips along the 6th October Bridge between the two stores. On these daily commutes, my car became a makeshift office, too. As our work increased and our time grew scarce, Hind, Nihal, and I realized that we couldn’t make every decision together. We needed to delineate our responsibilities more clearly.

  Nihal took over managing the two cafés, staff, maintenance, interiors, and the stationery and impulse sections. Hind oversaw store operations, the warehouse, and all things Arabic (books, music, film). And I supervised our English and French books, marketing, and finance. We each gravitat
ed to what we loved, while also agreeing to take on some of what we hated (see: “finance”).

  As Diwan grew, the three of us struggled to keep up. The workload, already daunting, doubled. We made small mistakes. We put our faith in staff. Most were dedicated, but some were dishonest. A few stole from us. All the while, we doubted our own abilities. In our later years, we’d make bigger mistakes. We’d increase our losses. We’d write off these losses.

  * * *

  As our shelves multiplied, stocking them required more vigilance than ever. As soon as I restored a section to neat equilibrium, a customer would inevitably disrupt the system: transplanting irrelevant books and discarding unwanted titles in haphazard stacks. Still, I took pleasure in correcting the disarray, with one exception: Business and Management. Despite, or maybe because of, owning a business, I had no interest in reading books about the subject. Diwan’s customers clearly did, though. Business books flew off the shelves. Faced with growing demand, I divided and expanded the area into subsections: Finance, Management, Marketing, Personal Growth, and Success Stories. As I became inundated with books by authors I had never heard of, I invented a game: I judged them as I imagined my father would have. I knew that he would have admired Warren Buffett (American investor and currently the fourth-wealthiest man in the world) and Robert T. Kiyosaki (the author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series) for prioritizing financial well-being over social status. I could imagine his distrust of business consultants and professors, like Jim Collins, Stephen Covey, and Philip Kotler—he respected knowledge gained through practice rather than theory. He would’ve scoffed at quick-fix books like The One Minute Manager, since he knew that complex problems demanded comprehensive solutions. I smiled when I imagined my father’s distaste for one of our top sellers, How to Win Friends and Influence People. He didn’t give a fuck who he offended, or how.