Chez le coiffeur

She was at the coiffeur.

"No one told you, but I had a stroke," she admitted as I hauled my Samsonite through the doorway. Sporting her new binocular-glasses, she looked like Cyclops from the first editions of X-Men.

Her daughter M was visiting from Riyadh, and they were going out to lunch that afternoon. Usually, lunch is at home (half past one), and without fail Mama Hiam plows straight to her couch after her last bite for a two hour nap. She lunches outside the home only under the most exceptional of circumstances.

It was a special occasion. And as such, an appointment at the hair salon before lunch was only logical. When she sat down for the shampoo, the room started spinning. She didn't say a word and then passed out for the conditioner.

From the salon, they drove home, and Hiam crawled into bed, vomiting. Just like Anita the manicurist, the doctor came to her. It was a mild stroke, he told her. She was lucky it passed so easily.

I rolled my Samsonite down the marble corridor to my room. I wanted to give Hiam the chocolate that I brought her from an estate in the Western Cape, but turns out I had forgotten it in my shoebox-refrigerator in Cairo.

"I was afraid for you when you were in South Africa--all those black people," she said through a mouthful of cherries. I'm used to her racism and don't even acknowledge it anymore. I know my apathy bothers her because I sense her waiting for a retort: she indulges in arguing for the inferiority of the blacks.

There is only one thing Hiam fears more than black people, and that is Alzheimer's.

My Saudi cousin Mk is coming tomorrow night before he spends a week on the Riveria at his buddy's chateau. His buddy is a prince and will be waiting for him in a private jet at the Nice airport to fly him to other end of the coast. Mk and I will share a room for a week. Ya. hoo.