Hamza’s mum and Hiba walk back into the room carrying two ornate-looking silver trays weighed down with cold drinks and some sort of savoury pastries, which they place on the coffee table in front of me.
‘You must be thirsty after the long journey,’ Hamza’s mum says, handing me the drink. ‘Lunch won’t be for another half an hour, so please, have some snacks while you wait.’
‘Lunch? Oh no, I couldn’t—’
‘What? Of course, you must! I’m making koshary, it’s Hamza’s favourite! It’s not something I would make for a special guest really, but Hamza asked for it. Anyway, it’s nearly ready, habibti.’
With that, she bustles back to the kitchen and Hiba loads up a plate with three different pastries and forces it into my hands. I’m too nervous to eat, but at the same time, I don’t want to offend anyone, so after a long swig of juice, I take a couple of dainty bites of the lamb mince one. It’s deliciously subtle with very few spices, and different to the Bengali samosas we make at home. I polish off the rest of it and wonder if I would have to change my style of cooking (well, eating, since I barely cook) if I married Hamza.
All this time I’ve been getting to know Hamza, I haven’t given much thought to the fact that he’s Egyptian, and I’m Bengali. I’ve been too preoccupied with the whole attraction thing to really ponder what it would mean to marry outside my culture. But now, as I sit here in this ostentatious sitting room eating food I’ve never had before, feeling confused about Arabic terms being thrown at me, I wonder how easy it would be to slot into the chaos. Would I be expected to change my ways and conform to theirs? Will it be a problem if I don’t? No matter how different our cultures may be, I know for a fact that it would be easier to mesh with Hamza’s family than Adam’s. As lovely as Adam is, he’s not a practising Muslim and doesn’t pretend to be. If I went to visit his family, I’d feel uncomfortable about the drinking, unsure if the meat is halal and constantly worried that they’d think I was an extremist.
Hiba and the cousins start making small talk with me; what I do, my family background, how many siblings, what my parents do, etc., and as I start to open up, I slowly become more comfortable in their presence. They’re really friendly and personable, just like Hamza, and I’m relieved that they don’t ask anything too intrusive.
It’s obvious from the way they talk to each other, even when taking the mick, that Hiba and Hamza are close, and have a lot of love and respect for each other. It’s nice to see but it’s a bit unnerving as well, if I’m being honest. I mean, yeah, she’s acting all nice and stuff now, but what if she’s unnaturally protective over her brother and no other woman can live up to her expectations? Or what if they’re the type that tell each other everything and she ends up becoming the third wheel in our relationship?
And then a sickening thought crosses my mind. What if he’s revealed my secret to her? What if, right now, she’s actually disgusted by me, and is pretending to be nice to spare her brother’s feelings? The thought makes me nauseous and for a good few minutes, I’m lost in a maze of ‘what ifs’ created entirely by my paranoia.
‘Yallah, kids, lunch is ready,’ Hamza’s mum announces with a flourish as her tomato-red face appears from behind the door. ‘Come through to the dining room.’
We go back into the hallway and then into the room next door. Immediately, I’m hit with the scent of cumin, tomatoes, chillies and onions and my stomach growls in response, as if I hadn’t gobbled up all those pastries.
Hamza’s dining room is a similar size to the sitting room, and has the same high ceiling, fireplace and old-school furniture. The dining table is a glossy mahogany and the matching chairs have oval-shaped backrests engraved with intricate designs. There’s a sideboard full of gold frames containing photographs of Hamza, Hiba and their younger brother, Hussain, when they were kids, and by the patio doors there are a couple of fancy two-seater sofas. The room is completely different to my own family’s dining room, and then I notice the plastic sheet over the table and suppress a giggle. Maybe it’s not that different, after all.
‘Tfaddil, take a seat, habibti,’ Hamza’s mum says as she ushers me into the chair next to Hamza.
As everyone starts to pull out chairs and sit down, Hamza’s dad reappears and takes his place at the head of the table and then there’s a flurry of activity as Hamza’s mum and Hiba start serving everyone the koshary, salad and kibbeh, which is a deep-fried bulgur wheat thing stuffed with mince and pine nuts that I’ve tried before in a Lebanese restaurant. I stare at my plate with interest. I’ve never seen this koshary stuff before, let alone eaten it, and it looks fascinating.
‘Koshary is traditionally a Cairo street food,’ Hamza’s mum explains once everyone has been served. ‘I wouldn’t usually make it for a guest, but, as I said before, Hamza loves this dish and he wanted you to try it.’ She looks a bit embarrassed and I smile reassuringly at her and try and put her out of her misery. She was obviously reluctant to serve this, and I’m guessing it’s the Bengali equivalent of serving up daal and rice to a guest.
‘It looks and smells amazing, Aunty,’ I say genuinely.
‘Hold on, let me get a picture,’ Hiba says, taking out her phone. ‘Sorry, Zara, I have a food Instagram. Do you mind if I take one of you as well?’
‘Sure, go ahead,’ I say, because it’s not as if I can decline. I smile brightly as Hiba takes a picture of me holding up my spoon with the dish of koshary in front of me, and I spot Hamza rolling his eyes good naturedly.
‘Don’t mind her,’ he groans. ‘She always does this.’
Once she’s done, I take a big spoonful of the concoction and stuff it straight into my mouth to experience what I can only describe as an explosion of flavour and texture. The red sauce is spicy and garlicky, the onions are perfectly crispy, and I think the lentils and rice have been cooked in some sort of stock because it’s bursting with flavour. There’s also pasta and chickpeas in it. I never thought that such a carb overload could be so tasty. I glance over at Hamza and he’s too busy eating to notice me watching him. He looks like he’s in heaven.
‘This is absolutely delicious, I can see why it’s Hamza’s favourite.’ I look around the table and based on Hamza’s mum’s pleased expression, it’s obviously the right thing to say.
‘Saha wa afia,’ she replies with warmth and promptly loads my plate up with another massive spoonful. I have no idea what she said to me, but I’m pretty sure it was something nice.
‘So, Zara, Hamza told me you work for the council?’ This is the first time Hamza’s dad has properly looked at me and spoken to me apart from the brief ‘salaam’ earlier, and he chooses the moment my mouth is full of food to do so.
I don’t want to keep him waiting so I try and swallow everything that’s in my mouth, but I end up choking and coughing manically, so much so that I’m petrified I’m going to throw up. Hamza frantically hands me a glass of water which I guzzle down as quickly as a thirsty horse in a desert oasis. My eyes brimming with tears and my face flushed from the exertion, I determinedly manage to croak out an explanation of what I do, and everyone listens with pained expressions. I try not to crumple in shame.
‘Hamza said your father is an accountant?’ Dr Hegazi continues kindly, as if I haven’t just made an utter arse out of myself. I smile gratefully at him.
‘Yes. He’s the director of finance for a housing associating in North London.’
‘When did he come to the UK?’
‘Oh, in the early seventies. And my mum came here when she was a child, so all my maternal family live in the UK, but my dad’s family is more spread out. When did you come over?’
‘I came in the seventies myself to continue my studies, but Om Hamza arrived after we married in the eighties. We moved immediately to the States for more than a decade and came back to London in the late nineties.’
‘Yes, and I hated it,’ Hamza’s mum adds with a laugh. ‘It was so cold and so grey and boring. But to be fair, I felt the same when we moved to the States. I missed Cairo’s heat, the vibrancy, the food, the nightlife. Here, unless you went to the pub, there was no life after five o’clock.’