To die in style

By Fayza Hassan
My mother has always had very few friends. She was, and still is, very picky about whom she will talk to and whom she won't. Apparently most of the people she met in her life did not stand up to her stringent criteria. She tried hard to imbue us with her kind of reserve, but we seem to have been born gregarious and, consequently, our favourite playmates were often the butt of her criticism. I fought hard for the right to decide who would be my companions, the harder maybe because deep down I knew that she was right. Tafida had indeed been sent home from school because lice had been found in her hair, although I denied it fiercely at the time, and Adriana did undoubtedly cheat shamelessly on her exams, exactly as my mother had told me.
As I was growing up, my mother had much more to say about the company I was keeping, but by this time I had an argument to fall upon whenever she made a disparaging comment about my latest best friend. How about Cici? I would ask. Hardly a paragon of style, is she? My mother would just smile a secret smile then, and tell me not to be silly. Cici was a ray of sunshine; one could not help but like her. I kept changing best friends, but my mother stuck staunchly to Cici over the years, regardless of the fact that she was the total opposite of the kind of women my mother infrequently diagnosed as having class, and thus worthy of being befriended.
I don't remember that Cici ever remained unnoticed, nor did she want to. Wherever she went, she did not just go, she made an entrance -- and left a lasting impression on whoever was there to witness her arrival. She would stop for a fraction of a second at the door to make sure that every one had seen her, whereupon she would decidedly sally forth, head raised proudly, clad in outfits so ridiculous that they surpassed anyone's wildest nightmares.
Cici was homely, short and on the plus side of chubby. She favoured very tight fits and stiletto heels; she also loved knits that hid nothing of her rather rotund silhouette. Large belts and strange headdresses, such as reinterpreted jockey caps or berets, usually completed her toilette. How on earth my mother could sit with her at the Lido, in full view of my own friends' parents, I could never understand. But Cici had the most cheerful -- and loudest -- laughter I had ever heard. It seemed to come from her belly and shook her whole body. Even her toes shared in her mirth. She was also an extraordinary gossip. Thanks to her, there was not a scandal in town that remained hidden for long. She was not a cruel person, however, but was rather endowed with a razor-sharp sense of humour. She had a knack for purging her stories of any nastiness and the way she told them just made them sound very, very funny. She could give a rollicking account of the most ordinary events. A soirée with friends, a dinner party, a friend cheating on her husband or vice versa, even a simple shopping expedition were transformed, as she recounted them, into the drollest affairs ever.
Surprisingly, however, Cici was never able to apply her sense of humour to her own dress style. Countless times, her distressed husband called her friends for help. "Please, I beg you, try to talk her out of wearing this skirt (blouse, suit...) to the restaurant. I am meeting business associates, tell her that a black dress is all she needs." Cici remained both unconcerned and untamed. "He is rich," she would tell the friends who tried to assist her desperate spouse, advising against the fuchsia (bright yellow, mauve) number several sizes too small she had forced herself into. "People like him for his money, they don't care what I wear. Besides, I rather like the way I look," she would add, admiring herself in the full-length mirror after carefully selecting a few large stones to complete the decoration. A generous spray of heavy perfume and a convoluted hat would crown the particular look she had chosen for that evening. According to my mother, there is no record of Cici ever having given in to her husband's entreaties... or any rumours that he has ever stopped adoring her.
"What happened to her?" I asked my mother recently. Cici and her rich husband have been living in London for some years now. She rarely comes to Cairo, and those who know her say that even in her old age she cuts quite a figure when she trips down Bond Street in her favourite extra-tight two-piece knit suits, a jaunty little cap perched on her head.
During one of her recent shopping sprees, she was shopping for cashmere sweaters at Marks and Spencer when suddenly she felt dizzy. As she recounted it to a friend, she really thought that her number had come up. "I walked out of the shop as fast as I could, hailed a taxi and ordered the driver to take me immediately to Harrods."
"Why Harrods," asked the friend puzzled.
"Darling, can you imagine me dying at Marks and Spencer? If I was going to kick the bucket, Harrods is a much better place to be found!"
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