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that she is cheerful for a change. Her husband must be in a good temper. I wonder whether it’s because their children are doing well in school, or if he’s had a recent promotion at work. I have to force myself to stop, to pull myself away from the details of our neighbors’ lives. I don’t want to start caring. Then I might not try as hard to break away from this soul-destroying place.
    Two weeks on and still we haven’t managed to see Sherif Nasr, the composer. My limbs feel heavy at the thought of trudging into his office again later today. Once more, Mama and I will step into the rumbling elevator that will take us to the seventh floor. I don’t look forward to that windowless waiting room, full of other hopeful mothers and daughters. Sometimes the secretary sends us away because he’s not in. If he is, however, the biggest struggle is remaining patient and pleasant during the long wait.
    â€œAnd more important, don’t fall over!” Another voice comes from the building facing mine, but one floor above, on the sixth floor. This well-fed neighbor is called Tafida, and her husband works in the sanitation department. She is grinning, but her eyebrows furrow as she concentrates on the stuffed brown paper bag she is holding. Herplump hands press it firmly, as if willing it to magically turn into a ball. Once satisfied, she steals a look below and lets go.
    I watch it crash to the ground and disintegrate in an explosion of potato and carrot peelings. I’ve seen this many times before. It lies alongside two other garbage bombs. Cats tackle the fish skeleton that peeps through one burst bag, trying to free it from the threads of pulped sugarcane. The other ripped bag looks alive with clumps of flies, which hover and stick to bits of soggy bread on a spill of watery yellow mush. It could be lentil soup or vomit—hard to tell. After the cats and flies are done feeding, whatever is left will lie there. People will skirt the mess until some brave soul, hopefully with old shoes, kicks the guck along the street to a gutter or rubbish heap. Perhaps Tafida’s husband’s people will pick up the mess. But it has been more than a week since I last spotted any sweepers or garbage collectors on this street.
    I want to ask Tafida about this, inquire whether there is a strike, perhaps make a smart comment that poor streets are just as important as tourist roads. I want to tell Salwa that her clothes will never dry if she keeps hanging them right under other people’s laundry. Instead I smile at the women and say, “Good morning to you both.”
    They giggle; it’s 2:00 p.m. But all hours that don’t require a bulb being switched on are morning hours to me. They, on the other hand, have been up since dawn to prepare breakfast for their husbands, feed and clothe their children for school, make the beds, scrub the floors, wash the clothes, and cook the food for the rest of the day.
    I laugh along with them, but all I can think about is my singing career, which is proving to be so much harder to attain than I’d predicted. I passionately crave this career. I dread the possibility of becoming one of these women, enduring a life like theirs, being unimportant and apathetic. I have been in Cairo for ten months and I am still stuck in this wretched alley, where rats grow fat and roaches don’t scurry to hide.
    I step into the apartment as the sun moves on to shine on someone else’s balcony. My mother is in the sitting room, stretching the sleep out of her limbs.
    â€œHow long is this going to take? How many more times must we go to Sherif bey’s office?” There is the whine of a starving cat in my voice, which she ignores as she plods to the kitchen to make some food.
    I follow her and sit on a stool at the small wooden table. She fills a medium-sized pot with water and a smaller one with milk. She lights the gas stove and places the pots on burners. I slump