SEARCH PART TWO

For as long as i can remember, my travelling companions have been annoyed by the attention i pay to animals. I can understand them. Whenever i see a street dog or cat, something squeezes my heart in so firm a grip that i cannot help but kneeling next to them and ask them if they feel like interacting with me. As one can well imagine, this makes walking around cities and villages quite slow and exhausting for everyone – myself excluded, obviously. Nothing makes me happier than bonding with a local. And Egyptian dogs always look like they are smiling and are simply irresistible! What can i say. I’m just a girl, after all.

Well, in Cairo there is a lot of street dogs. Like, a lot. It is the first time i am in a country with so many animals that aren’t pets. But, contrary to what one might imagine, the grip on my tender squishy heart hasn’t loosened yet, nor has my heart gotten any harder. The only reason why i try to minimise contact with my favourite creatures on earth is that i don’t want to damage their healthy distrust towards humans. We can be pretty shitty and dangerous. But of course i do buy them food as often as i can, even at the cost of offending street vendors who look at me in anger or amused disbelief while i feed expensive meat to some famished puppy. I know they are making fun of the weird italian tourist. If only they knew how little i care – me, who has spent most of her life literally caring only about what others thought of her!

But someone does care in my stead. I am tagging along two friends for some of these Cairo days, and while one of them knows me like the palm of his hand and accepts (dare i say, loves?) all my most annoying parts, the other i barely know and, oh how bothered he is by – well, me. Oscillating between embarrassment and pure anger, it is evident how everything about me is testing his limits.

You know the feeling when someone is able to reawaken in you all the darkest shadows, all the most childish insecurities, everything you thought you had outgrown – with only a look, a word, or a silence? The pain can be so sharp and unexpected that you find yourself utterly unprepared. Naked. Stupid.

A 33 year old woman, i am thrown back to my childhood. And i hate it, but i find there is nothing i can do. The shittier he treats me, the longer his silences, the more offensive his behaviour, the more ingratiating i get. Offence is repaid with flattery, silence is filled with mindless comments in baby voice. I am disgusted by myself but i cannot stop, my 14 year old self has taken full control. So overwhelming are the feelings i am feeling that i cannot hear my brain.

I have faded.

The only thing my 14 year old self and me have in common is our love for the dogs. Bless their little faces, we sigh in unison when we see one two three, dozens of them on the streets. If only we could fit them all in our heart!

Luckily, our time together is limited. When we finally part ways, at the end of each unpleasant day of sightseeing, i try to snap out of this old pattern and get my shit together. Which turns out to be less easy than i would have thought. Scary. And i catch myself wondering – what if he is right?

Am i an annoying child who refuses to grow up to reality of the world? Am i an embarrassment to my friends? Is my enthusiasm and appreciation of beauty a disguise for some sense of superiority, of white savioursim?

Zigzagging back home on the backseat of the little motorbike that picked me up, the hot wind slapping me back to myself and the never-stopping symphony of car horns shutting down my obsessive thoughts, i manage to leave teenage Valeria behind. I glance over my shoulder and wish i could wave at her, but i’m afraid i would die if i let go of my driver’s belt, so i wave in my mind and smile. I’m doing well, no need to worry about me. I don’t need you any more.

No one will ever hurt you again. No one can make us feel stupid and small. We are free and our heart is huge and ours.

Suddenly the kid who’s driving me pulls over and as i hurriedly dry my tears laughing and saying it was the wind and rummaging in my fanny pack for the fifty pounds i owe him, he touches my keffiyeh and grins: no need. Free Palestine!, and off he rides.

The cats i have been feeding tuna every evening welcome me back with their purring, and my body feels finally solid again.