Utopia

by Ahmed Khaled Towfik

  ‘Then living with us became an impossible matter, so your class was forced to isolate itself, seeking safety in those settlements along the North Coast. They employed Marines because they could guarantee their loyalty, unlike the loyalty of their wretched bodyguards. The idea that this ocean of poverty would rise up used to keep them awake at night. Since the dawn of time, all popular revolts have begun with slaughtering the rich.

  ‘And now two societies have formed: one of them owns everything and the other owns nothing. The second society is only important as a consumer market, nothing more. Even if it suffers poverty, the density of its population makes everything possible. If each one of us buys one olive, then the olive-seller will become a millionaire.’

  Then he stopped eating, and asked me, ‘Do you have Israelis in Utopia?’

  ‘A lot,’ I replied. ‘Some of my best friends are.’

  ‘That’s an important characteristic with your people,’ he said, as he resumed chewing. ‘They’ve assumed their position in the new Middle East they used to talk about. The triangle that Israel dreamed so much about – Gulf money (before it dried up), Israeli know-how, and cheap Egyptian manual labour. We, the poor, haven’t stopped thinking of Israel as an enemy.’

  Angry from all this lecturing, I said: ‘Why would I consider Israel an enemy? Just to make you happy?’

  He looked at the girl, exchanging a feeble smile, and said, ‘Go to sleep now. Sleep. You don’t know the half of what I know. And the other half you aren’t interested in knowing. Sleep, and in the morning we’ll see how you can get out of here with your ears still on.’

  Then he said urgently, ‘I’m not kidding. They know where I live, and they will come back here when the effect of the phlogistine wears off. When that happens, I have to be here to protect you, otherwise—’

  He drew his finger across his neck in an unmistakable gesture.

  So we couldn’t escape. It wasn’t on the cards, not to mention that we were really exhausted. It was the most abominable night of our lives, sitting there stuck to each other in that foul-smelling shack. We didn’t dare stretch out or touch any part of the wall. Would we remain this way until morning? And then what? Everything rested on this guy’s plan.

  I don’t understand him: I think he’s a cultured type in an environment that isn’t his own. The sheep that thinks becomes a danger to itself and others. I’m considered a cultured person in Utopia. I’m one of the few who’s read everything that’s fallen into my hands, but that doesn’t make me feel one iota of sympathy for him. Culture isn’t a religion that links hearts and joins them together. In fact, it probably divides them because it informs those who have been wronged about the horror of the injustice they are suffering and tells the lucky ones what they can lose. It makes you nervous and wary. Not to mention that your cultural convictions can be transformed into a new religion that merits your death, and leads you to consider others as unbelievers.

  Gaber’s snoring had begun to grow loud as he lay in the corner, curled up in a ball.

  What does he want from life? Why does he go on living?

  If I threatened him with a knife, he would shout and kick my hand. Why?

  In the faint light, his sister, half-asleep, lay beside Germinal, looking at her.

  Germinal was sleeping like a child. Her lips moved. She whispered from her tormented spirit, ‘Layla, Layla.’ Layla was her mother, of course (no one in Utopia liked to use the words Mama and Papa). For the first time, I saw her simply as a tormented child who wanted to return to her mother. I had only seen Germinal excited, bored and arrogant. It took sleeping on the ground to reveal her true self.

  For several minutes, Safiya continued looking, then she cautiously put out her hand to Germinal’s hair and started feeling a lock of it. There was something bestial and strange in that touch, which I had only seen once before in a monkey who put out his hand once to feel my fingertip out of curiosity when I was at our zoo. Germinal woke up, startled and moved her head away a little, and then she sank back into slumber.

  But the girl did exactly what I expected: she leapt back a metre, in a way that further convinced me of that monkey theory. Those non-human movements. Those movements connected to innate animal reflexes that have nothing to do with the rational brain.

  ‘Her hair is beautiful,’ the girl said in a hoarse voice. ‘Very beautiful and clean. I don’t know how you could ever have imagined you would fool us. Not with hair like this!’

  Then she stretched out her hand to mine and grabbed my fingers in a friendly way, saying, ‘Do you see the difference?’

  Yes, I see the difference. A soft, clean, manicured hand and a rough, filthy hand with broken nails. The strange thing is that the former is a man’s hand, and the latter a woman’s.

  ‘We were in the dark,’ I said indifferently. ‘You can fool anyone in the dark, and we were going to return quickly.’

  Then I pointed to her sleeping brother and said, ‘Where does he know all this from?’

  ‘He insists on reading. He sifts through the rubbish for every old book he can find, since such things are no longer sold. That’s the advantage of being interested in things that no longer interest anyone else. At least other people won’t rob you. These books were tossed out here years ago, while you can’t leave a matchstick without anyone taking it. It’s—’

  Then she began coughing so heavily that I expected she would cough her lungs out. I waited until she had finished as I looked at her in amazement. She said with a little bit of pride, ‘It’s tuberculosis. It’s come back since the nineties of the last century. We don’t have a treatment for it, and it’s no use in any case.’

  Then she pointed to her sleeping brother. ‘He’s one of the graduates,’ she said. ‘They’re the ones who entered colleges or universities ten years ago and then couldn’t find jobs. They couldn’t do anything productive with what they learned. But their relationship with books continues. There have been no opportunities for anyone at all in the past twenty years. If your father isn’t a high-ranking police officer or a businessman or merchant who’ll pass on his business to you, then you have no chances, and you’ll join those who sniff glue in ruined buildings.’

  Then she yawned like a bull and closed her eyes. I began to watch her as I sat there. Pretty, no doubt, but how could you find that beauty underneath all that roughness and filth? Or eliminate all those years of suffering, poverty and hunger? Impossible. This girl will marry one of these men who will beat her, and she will die during one of his rages. There seemed to be no other future before her.

  I don’t think I slept.

  If you ask me, I’ll tell you that I didn’t sleep.

  But there was that fog that surrounds you, and swings back and forth between solidity and lightness. Consciousness sinks into a swamp and comes out of it. That’s what my sleep was like.

  3

  Morning: no breakfast because one meal is enough for a person here. Besides, we were completely abstaining from the food.

  Morning, and Gaber was outside the house.

  Morning, and Safiya was doing all sorts of strange things.

  She ripped sheets from a pile of old school notebooks.

  She cut some cardboard boxes into long strips.

  She poured some black liquid into a cooking pot.

  She collected broken matchsticks into a bag.

  She mended a piece of plastic.

  She scraped off bits of leftover soap and added some lye to them.

  She poured some water into a battery.

  She tore a piece of sponge to bits.

  The household chores of these people’s women were really strange. Gaber said that it wouldn’t interest me to know everything, which I would agree with. Following the activities of cockroaches is only interesting to entomologists.

  I wouldn’t ask her about anything. I wouldn’t ask her why she ripped up old school notebooks or why she cut up cardboard boxes. I wouldn’t ask her about the black liquid or why she collecte
d broken matchsticks. I wouldn’t ask her about mending plastic or scraping pieces of soap. I wouldn’t ask about the water in the battery or tearing the sponge.

  Cockroaches.

  Germinal watched me curiously watching Safiya. Germinal whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t tell me you want her.’

  I said I wouldn’t object. There was a special, unique appeal to her that was different from the appeal of the girls I was used to: girls who had the same fragrance, silken hair, tattoo and nose ring or ring in the lower lip. I knew them by heart in the way that you know the taste of chicken by heart. No chicken is different from any other and you can feel that you have eaten this chicken before. As for her, she had to be a different experience. But I wouldn’t risk flirting with her while we were at the mercy of Gaber.

  I wouldn’t risk flirting with her while layers of filth covered her – perhaps covering her soul.

  I wouldn’t risk flirting with her when she coughed up blood every five minutes.

  Gaber didn’t do anything all that day. When I asked him about what he was planning to do with us, he said mysteriously, ‘Wait until the appropriate time.’

  ‘Why haven’t you got rid of us?’

  ‘Because I detest tit-for-tat violence, and because you two don’t know any better, that’s all. You only did what the rat does who tries to steal some bread – because he doesn’t know anything else. It’s his instinct and his nature. But you two aren’t rats. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’

  Then he took out a container with some grease in and put some on his fingers. Then he said, as he put his hand up to my cheek, ‘If I may?’

  ‘By all means.’

  So he smeared my face and Germinal’s – carefully and precisely. He got our hands dirty, and then selected some filthier clothing for us. He had a master’s touch, no doubt about it, and finally Germinal looked like beggars do, and I think I looked even worse. Then he explained to me how we should walk and talk.

  ‘These people have seen everything and know everything, so they almost don’t talk. Speak as little as possible. For example, if you want to buy something fancy for yourself, don’t ask about the price like a schoolboy. Grab the thing roughly and look in the seller’s eye with a questioning look. Don’t say anything. He will look you in the eye grumpily and tell you, “A hundred,” for example, and nothing more. At that point, you give him a rude gesture with your finger, and maybe let out a short grunt. Then toss him fifty and don’t speak.’

  Then he thought for a time, adding, ‘Good habits will get you killed here. You have to spit on the ground from time to time. Grab your crotch occasionally. She should scratch her chest and head, as if the first is swarming with fleas and the other with lice. These are important touches and they’ll reduce the number of curious glances directed at you.’

  He told me we were about to begin a tour in which he would show us a world I was completely ignorant about. He said we were free to escape, if we wanted, but he couldn’t guarantee our lives for another moment after that.

  ‘You’ll make a ton of mistakes and, at that exact moment, they’ll tear you apart.’

  So we left the wretched little shack, and walked out onto streets that were extremely crowded and extremely poor. There were traces indicating that there had once been a government, and that it had then totally abandoned everything. In the alleyways and side streets fights occurred at the drop of a hat and with no justification.

  ‘It’s the morality of crowds. Put six hens in a confined coop and watch how well-behaved they end up being. If one hen doesn’t gouge out her neighbour’s eye or gobble up her guts, then I’m mistaken.’

  Germinal had gone pale with fear. As I clutched her hand, I asked him, ‘So then, why do they continue to multiply?’

  ‘Because multiplying is a poor person’s only luxury. Besides, all these people believe that one of their sons will change everything. While waiting for this unknown, they multiply, and the boy scratches around for his daily bread, like a chicken. No one knows whether he’s died, eaten or slept. At the age of eleven, he learns to sniff glue, and after that, he has to commit crimes in order to get high on something better. Of course, he only robs those who are as poor as he is, because no one can steal from you. It’s a bright future, as you can see.’

  Then he scratched his head and smiled: ‘In spite of that, our fertility rate has declined a lot. Two full generations have eaten tainted food, laden with hormones. So it’s become normal for married people not to have children, but the upshot is that our numbers are ceaselessly growing in any case. There were castration crews, then the need for them fell off.’

  ‘Castration crews?’ Germinal said in dazed astonishment.

  ‘Yes. You haven’t heard about them? Groups of masked policemen would attack young men. With surgical precision and swiftness, they would anaesthetise their victim, give him the snip and then sew up the incision and flee. That way he would become permanently incapable of having children. On average, three guys would be sterilised in one night.’

  ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘A lot of religious people in Utopia said that was sinful. Instead, we rely on tainted food, so he can sterilise himself, instead of our government ministers taking responsibility for it! So the practice of tainting food grew more widespread, and the dose of the male oral contraceptive gossypol – a substance extremely effective in killing sperm and destroying the tissue of the testicles – was increased to the highest possible rate in the oils we consume. In spite of that, we multiply like bacteria. There is no way in the world to kill bacteria, no matter how effective the antibiotics you use are. They always find a way.’

  I asked him the question that had been pestering me during the night, ‘So why don’t you revolt?’

  He laughed until tears ran down his cheeks, and replied, ‘This is something that is repeated from time to time. But the revolutions of the twentieth century that satisfied the aims of the masses are now old history. Those at the top have learned from the mistakes of others. No one will ever see again the Shah of Iran, who circled the air in his plane looking for a country that would give him shelter, and you won’t see the corpse of Ceau escu or Mussolini left hanging in a public square. The security apparatus is complex and evolved today. There are six security systems observing each other and the mission of each of them is to protect the rulers. Revolutions today are more like riots, then helicopters hover in the air, launch some grenades and fire several shots, and the crowds disperse.’

  At that moment, a shabby-looking man with an unshaven beard approached us, wearing clothes that suggested an unkempt official uniform. He stretched out his hand to us.

  ‘Do you have anything to eat?’

  Gaber shook his head and continued walking. ‘They’re everywhere,’ he said. ‘There are no jobs. Unless he finds work in your settlements on the North Coast, then no one needs him for anything. He’ll spend his life looking for bits of food thrown in the rubbish heaps. Then he’ll die of tuberculosis one day and they’ll find him beside the wall. That’s his life.’

  At that point, my disgust and astonishment had reached their limits. I thought of Utopia and my house, and the dollars I fling around. I remembered my group of friends, and the phlogistine I burned with desire for. I remembered my dog that gobbled down enough food to satiate five of these people every day. I wasn’t prepared for a moment to abandon all that but, at the same time, I couldn’t stomach the idea of all this poverty existing. Only then did I understand the reason for those high walls and the Marines and the internal airport. If we abandoned all that, this flood would pour in to drown us and kill us. I didn’t know how things had got to this point, but I knew it had to continue.

  Germinal began to shudder. She started muttering to herself: ‘Oh God! I want to go back! I want to go back!’

  I gave her a hand a squeeze to shut her up.

  There was a man standing in the middle of a crowd, selling bottles with coloured liquid in them and claiming they co
uld cure tuberculosis and cancer. They were a mixture of herbs that he’d concocted, and the ‘thieves in Utopia’ – as he put it – didn’t know their secret: they spent their money on garbage they bought at the highest prices, while everything there was to know was here.

  We have everything there is to know …

  We have everything there is to know …

  We have everything there is to know …

  These medicines were of no value, except for the fact that they were cheap! In other words, they provided you with the benefit of taking something rather than just waiting helplessly for death.

  There was a man standing in front of an overturned wooden crate with small appliances on it.

  ‘The best equipment we’ve stolen from Utopia!’ he shouted. ‘Step right up!’

  My eyes paused on something and I looked at Germinal, only to find that she was avidly looking at the same thing.

  There was a small mobile phone on that crate, one metre away from us!

  This wasn’t just a mobile: this was a clean bed and a hot meal and a bath and sex and phlogistine and glasses of wine and home and friends …

  I couldn’t get the mesmerising image of the mobile out of my mind.

  We left the crowd, and Germinal lingered a bit beside an alley, saying that she needed to relieve herself. Gaber said indifferently that she could. Any place would do. Public toilets no longer existed because the sewage system was history now.

  Germinal disappeared into the alley for half a second, then she came back, shaking and yelling, ‘It’s full of guys sleeping!’

  ‘They’re under the influence of glue and ground-up Parkinol pills,’ Gaber said with a laugh. ‘Don’t be afraid. Even if Ms Universe was naked in front of them, they wouldn’t move an inch. They stopped being men a long time ago. Maybe they’ve stopped being human too!’

  So she went back in the alley filled with young guys who were no longer men.

  Suddenly I heard a commotion.

  Suddenly I saw a scene like the mob when they attacked the Bastille. Around ten men carrying machetes and sticks were rushing towards us. One of them shouted as he pointed at us, ‘They’re the ones who stole the mobile! I saw the girl put it in her pocket!’