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father that Ehsan took great pains to describe to her in the most complimentary manner. Her brother, ten years her senior, had his own memories to counter his mother’s, ones that involved, among other things, a brown leather belt with a brass buckle that his father used as a disciplinary tool. But even after she had learned to doubt the accuracy of her mother’s stories, Nagla still found them a welcome refuge, perhaps because they transported her back forty years, planting her in a warm bed next to her mother, a dim light the only accompaniment to Ehsan’s whispers of the great and mighty Mahmoud Fuad Mansour.
    The stories were endless. Among Nagla’s favorites was the time he, at seventeen, had been walking alongside the Nile in Al-Fayoum when he saw a little boy being swept away by the current of the muddy water. Mahmoud, who was not the best swimmer, jumped in without a moment’s hesitation and splashed his way to the boy, keeping him afloat until some bystanders found a rope to dangle from the embankment. Mahmoud tied the rope around the boy’s waist, hoping the bystanders would be able to pull the boy to safety. The current, however, proved too strong: every time people tried to reel the boy in, the angry waters would rise up and push him away from safety. Exhausted, yet determined to save the boy, Mahmoud did the only thing left to do: he took a deep breath, dove down, carried the little boy on his shoulders, and, using him as weight, literally walked on the muddy bottom of the channel, holding his breath for what people later swore must have been at least five full minutes, until he finally emerged at the edge, the boy’s legsdangling on each side of his head. The entire village had spoken of Mahmoud’s bravery, Ehsan whispered, and to make matters even more exciting, the boy turned out to be the son of the village’s
omda,
or chief. The
omda
’s gratitude was immense, and he immediately gave Mahmoud a job in his office, arguing that a man with such courage had to be a man of great integrity, as well. Ehsan herself was very impressed, and felt quite honored when Mahmoud, a year later, chose her to be his bride. For years after hearing the story for the first time, whenever Nagla passed a channel or a river, she would find herself peering through the murky water, trying to detect her father walking the muddy bottom underneath the surface.
    Apart from his bravery, Nagla also learned, Mahmoud had a good singing voice, knew how to bake the best
basbousa
, was accustomed to spending hours with his sons playing soccer, had sold the watch he had inherited from his grandfather just so that he could get Ehsan a pair of crescent-shaped gold earrings, had memorized the entire Qur’an by the time he was nine, and had been the confidant and advisor of everyone living on their street when they finally moved to Alexandria: The lawyer two buildings down, the doctor occupying the sixth floor of their apartment building, and even the university professor across the street, who consulted Mahmoud on new texts he planned to assign in class. Nagla listened to all of this in awe. Most important, however, she listened with teary eyes as her mother told her how Mahmoud learned to braid his only daughter’s hair by the time she was three, just so he could keep it away from Nagla’s eyes as she played in the humid Alexandria weather.
    Forty years had passed, and Ehsan still told stories of her husband.
    â€œDo you still miss him, Mama?”
    â€œOf course,
habibti
.”
    Nagla bit her lower lip, rubbed her eyes with the back of one hand.
    â€œI still don’t get the whole memorial service idea,” Ehsan started aftera pause. “But I’ll tell you one thing: I do think there is some sense behind doing something to make it all better.”
    Nagla stubbed her cigarette against the brick of the house’s outer wall and then flicked it away, watched it fall on the grass