By Sherif Milad Not too long ago I called my family back in Cairo; the usual check in on how they were and what was new. My mother casually mentioned that she had finally replaced our old dining table with a new one she really, really liked; at which point my mind stopped taking in any other details of the conversation. I found myself sad, and somewhat resentful. How could she have done that? How could she have parted with this table that was as characteristic a part of our Cairo apartment as the nose on my face was of me? For days I walked around with that table on my mind. A squad of memories came rushing in from everywhere, like worms from underneath a rock that was removed from its centuries-old spot, now suddenly exposed, and disoriented. More than any other item in our house, this table had been our national theatre. It was around that table that we knew, and assumed, our places in the family. Father had the head of the table, and that was unchangeable, even unimaginable, no matter who was present as guest. Mother always sat to his right, and I to his left, my brother Hisham next to me, and when Teta was alive, she sat across from him next to my mother. Lunchtime was the one date we all respected. A daily gathering, with the inevitable attempts to have you eat more, with hands extending across the table with pieces of chicken that were slipped out of their skins, or a fork loaded with a slice of veal scallop, with the reassurance that it was lightly fried, just the way I like it; "have some more rice and vegetables, I don't want to take them back." In winter afternoons, after lunch, we would all migrate to the far corner at the other end of the table, soaking in the last rays of the sun coming in through the huge balcony doors. My father got it down to a science, as if he knew the sun personally. He would sit in the one spot where the sun stayed the longest. Mom would get an orange or two from the fruit bowl on the cabinet, and start pealing the rind in a single strand that simply amazed us. Hisham and I would try to rebuild the hollow orange back, and end up squirting each other with the oil from the skin. The whole scene was like a portrait of our family that was never photographed, nor painted, but for some reason chiselled in my memory forever. These were moments isolated from time. It was in those moments that we seemed to have let go of our constant arguments and endless disputes, and surrendered to something much bigger than all of us. Our seats around the table bore our marks; mine had two dents formed over time by my kneeling when I couldn't reach the table just sitting down. And, if by mistake, after a major cleaning the chairs were put back out of order, we would go around testing the backs of the chairs for firmness or looseness, each reclaiming his own, and returning them to their original spots. And of course, it was on that table that several bottles from Groppi, with the vibrant colours of strawberry and mango syrup, surrounded by tall frosted and rim-gilded glasses, appeared in summer afternoons, to celebrate our success in the school year, and the passage to the next grade. Several weekends a year, usually around the change of seasons, the table was totally cleared, and the stage set for another activity: Mass'oud the tailor. Mother would be very happy and excited that he was coming, not only for the new wardrobe that would be produced, but also for the fact that he was able to fit her in his schedule, now that he catered to a larger and more prestigious group of society ladies. After the morning tea and some small talk, he would spread, on that same table, some paper patterns that mom had saved from fashion magazines. Mass'oud would stand over them, his reading glasses halfway down his nose, and study them as if charting the course of some great adventure on which he was about to embark. The new fabrics were rolled out, gliding on the glass of the table, miraculously stopping at the desired length. And then, it would be time for the chalk marks, and the jaws of the biggest scissors I have ever seen, cutting along the white curving lines. It was always fun when Mass'oud came over; mom thought the man was a genius, I had a crush on his assistant, dad always seemed inconvenienced by the delay in lunch plans. In the cabinets around the table, Teta would stash away boxes of holiday cookies hidden among the china. They were to be kept away from our reach. That of course meant only one thing for my brother and I: a treasure hunt that would not cease until the complete devastation of the entire supply. It was around that table that the entire family gathered for holiday luncheons, always held at our house, and always following a dinner at Auntie Alice's place the night before. The whole scene seemed like a tour de force of the family coming together. The different matriarchs, gathered around the table for hours, talking, laughing, and always recalling incidents from past years. It all seemed endless and eternal, and all taken too much for granted. Now that one by one they slipped away, leaving the table with the unspoken sense of void, and empty chairs, I ask myself if I have the right to deny my mother the right of letting go. It must have been harder to live with the table, a constant reminder of so many memories, than to part with it in hopes of creating new ones. What gives me the right to ask the people I left behind to be the guardians of my past, while I explore new experiences? And the past cannot be sold or upgraded, it cannot vanish either, it cannot be denied, it does not exist in dining rooms, or salons. It is a living organism that forms who I am. Sherif Milad The sketch above is a recreation of the dining room as remembered by the writer, an Egyptian expatriate living in New York.
