Live from Cairo

by Ian Bassingthwaighte

  “When?” asked Hana.

  “Right after the rock,” said Dalia, as if that were so obvious it almost hurt to say. “They hit him so hard.”

  “I mean, the date.”

  Dalia cocked her head. “August,” she said coldly. “I don’t know what day.”

  Hana listened to the sound of Margret scribbling notes on her legal pad.

  “That’s all right,” said Hana after a few seconds. “Please, continue.”

  Dalia inhaled as if relief might be found in the air. “Omran fell and there was blood on the sidewalk. I sat by him and grabbed his arm and held tighter than I’ve held anything. ‘Omran, wake up!’ I screamed. The men from the army approached and kicked me right here.” Dalia put her hand on her stomach. “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream again.”

  Hana said, “By ‘army’ you mean . . . ?”

  Dalia’s eyes widened and Margret’s pen scribbled madly. “Militia. Young men with guns, but no fear or even restraint.”

  “What militia?”

  “How can I know?” cried Dalia. “Maybe the Lightning Brigade of Ansar al-Sunna. Maybe al-Qaeda. Even the mujahideen. I didn’t care at the time and had no fear except in losing Omran. Finally, I stood up. I fought back. I hit the nose of the one who was closest, a young man. So young he had no beard. I think not even the ability to grow one. I balled my fist and hit so hard he fell onto the ground and made a whimpering noise. His friend, the much-larger man, hit me with the stock of his gun and said, ‘Damn you.’ I can’t be sure what he said, but I think he said ‘Damn you’ and ‘whore’ and ‘bitch’ before he hit me a second time in the face with his gun.”

  “Were you injured?” asked Hana.

  “I woke up later and my husband was gone. That is an injury.”

  “Did you break any bones? Was your eyesight affected? Your memory? Do you get headaches? Nightmares? Flashbacks?”

  Dalia’s disgust, indicated by her blank face and her refusal to say more, prevented Hana from making meaningful eye contact.

  “Okay,” said Hana. “So you don’t know who took Omran.”

  “I told you. I don’t know.”

  “Do you know why, at least?”

  “Yes. Why, I can tell you. Omran worked for the American army. He rebuilt water mains after they were blown up. The militias say, whoever helps the enemy is also the enemy. Even the worse enemy for betraying their home.”

  “Did you receive any threats before the kidnapping? Some warning? A letter of some kind?”

  “Yes, a letter. I found the letter in the trash. I think Omran didn’t want me to know.”

  “What did the letter say?” asked Hana. “Do you have a copy?”

  “The words won’t leave me alone. Even after I burned the letter. I suffered once the threat and suffer a thousand times the crime in my imagination.”

  “Please, if you don’t mind . . . will you . . .”

  “ ‘Leave now you atheist, with no God in your heart. Take your whore wife out of our country. Leave now or die. Your wife, too, will die after we ravage her. God’s will be done by our hands if you don’t go.’ ”

  Margret had warned Hana about rape. That warning was really instruction on how to broach the subject. “Caution should be matched by persistence,” Margret had said—aware, if not comfortable, with the irony. “Few refugees volunteer the information. So few I’ve never met one myself. The shame is too great.”

  “Was the threat of rape just a threat, or . . . ?” The whole story was already in the testimony, but that didn’t save Dalia from Hana’s prodding. The truth of her story would be determined, at least in part, by any disparity between the written testimony and the verbal interview. Facts would align; lies would reveal themselves as small divergences in the story. When Dalia presented a blank stare, Hana tried rephrasing her question. “It says here that you—well, is that something you experienced? I’m not referring just to the men who took Omran. I’m referring to any men, anytime in Baghdad.”

  Dalia’s face changed. There was a sickness in it. “Omran is the one I love.”

  Hana couldn’t stop thinking about her choice of words. What a horrible, empty way to ask that question. “I know you love him,” said Hana in a vain attempt to repent. The instinct to offer a few more kind words, or even her hand, was curbed by Margret’s insane scribbling. “Please, I need to know. Ahem. Dalia.” Hana felt sick to her stomach for saying ahem so many times. “I need to know if you were ever . . .”

  “I got Omran back,” said Dalia, more coldly than before. “After paying all the money we ever saved and selling whatever possessions we owned that were worth anything to anyone with money. That’s the important part, that Omran came back alive in good health considering. Blinded in one eye, but not both. And not dead. What else do you possibly need to know that’s not written in front of you? You keep reading the sheet. I see you reading.”

  Hana didn’t know how to explain the methodology. What could she say? That institutional distrust compelled her to ask questions to which she already had answers? No, Hana would never say that. At least, not in present company. Not with Mute Margret wielding her black pen.

  “At least, tell me about Omran,” said Hana. “Why did he go to America without you? Boston, right? That’s where he resettled?”

  “He didn’t abandon me, if that’s what you mean. I told him to go.”

  “I don’t mean to suggest . . .”

  “Omran worked for the Americans. He qualified for a special program. If we had legal documents to prove our marriage, I would have gone with him. We had no papers, so I didn’t go.”

  “What papers?”

  “That’s what I want to know.” Dalia wore the sort of despair that looked from afar like apathy. “Our marriage was a religious one, in the village. We didn’t sign anything or even take a picture. The memory of the people who were present, and the memory of God, was enough. Why didn’t the US embassy permit that history? ‘It’s a fraud issue,’ they said. I could’ve been anybody. Omran’s neighbor. Omran’s cousin. Omran’s friend. I am his friend! The one he loves! That’s why we married!”

  Hana, who’d been holding her breath, sought to release the pressure without making any noise. Controlling her breathing that way proved Hana wrong about herself. Maybe she could calm down. Maybe she could finish the interview. To that end, Hana rushed the rest of her questions. Dalia did her part by answering tersely. She’d fled Baghdad when the violence got worse. Life was slightly better in Cairo, but not good. Not good at all. As a noncitizen, she had no rights. She couldn’t work or buy property. Not that she had or would ever have that kind of money. The revolution made things much worse. A rising sense of nationalism—reflected in the street by flag-waving, but taking more insidious forms at night, in the metro, on buses—meant trouble for immigrants such as her. “It’s not safe to reveal my origin.” Her accent, Dalia said, was enough. What was she supposed to do? Stop talking? That’s where the interview ended, with the feeling—belonging to no one specifically, but floating in the air above the table—that the only way to change Dalia’s fate was to change her location.

  * * *

  After the interview, Margret used her tractor beam to pull Hana into her office for an informal debrief. Hana stood under the ceiling fan, which made an obnoxious clicking noise. Click, click. Her hair kept blowing into her mouth. “The testimony says she was raped,” clamored Hana, words dislodged by the pressure of waiting to speak privately. “That has to count for something.”

  “I wish it did,” said Margret, master of the relaxed look. “Unfortunately, if her verbal testimony contradicts the written one, or even presents omissions, we have to strike the relevant details from the file and flag her for reliability issues. Now, tell me what to do with her case.”

  “How can we strike that? Wasn’t the proof on her face? Didn’t you see how she reacted?” Hana knew, suddenly, what Joseph had been thinking. Or feeling, at least. A compulsion to approve the case. A
s if there were no other way to spend his empathy. “Every bone in my body tells me she needs our help. She can’t work. She can’t own property.”

  Margret had dexterous fingers. She rolled a pen cap from one side of her hand to the other like a gambler with a coin or a poker chip. The behavior seemed utterly unconscious. “What about her husband? Can’t he work? Can’t he send money?”

  “Hypothetically,” said Hana. “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “My point is that Dalia’s case doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Is her poverty more compelling than another’s destitution? Is her broken heart more compelling than another’s broken spine? Is her rape more compelling than another’s fall into sex trafficking? I hate to juxtapose tragedies with greater tragedies, but there’s no other just way to fill the quota. Now, tell me what to do with her case.”

  A single-file queue almost a million people long appeared in Hana’s mind. Dalia was an invisible dot in the distance, with no chance whatsoever of leaving Egypt.

  2

  Dalia needed to cross the street if she wanted to catch a minibus. The walk home was too far and the cab ride was too costly. But the street was four lanes wide with a de facto fifth lane called the sidewalk. There were no stoplights. No crosswalks. Not even a median. Dalia’s head swiveled in search of a gap in traffic. Black taxis from gone decades blasted past, and minibus drivers, who ate amphetamines to stay awake, didn’t bother honking. When there finally was a gap, she darted beyond the first row of cars. Vehicles were now on both sides, whizzing past. Instead of praying before darting across the next lane, Dalia thought of Baghdad for good luck. Why would that city bring good luck? Nothing good had happened there recently. Though everything good had happened there at some point. The memory of her alley—clotheslines hung low with wet dresses, dropping rain that smelled like soap—was a painful camera flash. She saw things that didn’t exist anymore. Omran sitting outside with the neighbor eating pastries, and the neighbor’s children playing war games in the street. It had been hard to watch them point plastic guns at each other. Not emulating the militias, but executing the terrorist. The boys had achieved victory when the boy terrorist played dead. They’d made popping sounds with their lips as they shot the body.

  Dalia heard a similar popping sound now and turned toward the source. A man’s car had run out of gas and was now blocking the road. He kicked the front tire with enough anger to fill ten men. Pop, pop. Obstructed drivers took pleasure in scolding him with their car horns. Dalia took the opportunity to cross the rest of the street in a single fluid movement. She reached the other sidewalk just as a few pedestrians helped push the stuck car out of the way, releasing a surge of vehicles. The wind of their passing brought a temporary reprieve from the heat. So temporary that Dalia didn’t register the coolness until the air was hot again. She looked at the stranded driver, who looked depressed. He sat next to his car, rested his elbows on his knees, and grumbled to himself. Dalia imagined he was praying angrily for a tow truck or, if he was more sensible, a time machine. She imagined borrowing his time machine and using it for her own purposes. She’d go back and kiss Omran. She’d go back and kiss him again. She’d go back, much further this time, and tell a younger version of herself to leave Iraq before the war started. When the younger version protested—the disbelief, the pride, the desire to finish school—Dalia would slap her so hard the pain would knock her and Omran north into Turkey or west into Syria.

  A minibus sped by every minute or so with a man hanging out the window shouting the destination into the cacophony of car horns. Gezira! Maadi! Shubra! El-Manial! Dalia threw her hand in the air when she heard a man shout, “Imbaba!” The minibus swung toward the curb and the sliding door swung open from the inside. People were packed in like books on shelves, pressed against each other. Dalia pushed in, taking the only available seat: the one nearest the door and, lamentably, by the man who shouted the route. His breath smelled like cigarettes and what must’ve been gum disease. Every time the bus turned right, his body, pulled by the gravity of the turn, moved toward her. Each turn, slightly closer. When his arm finally grazed Dalia’s chest, she pushed him as hard as she could. It was an automatic reaction. The repulsion was so immense and instantaneous. The man stopped shouting the route to express both surprise and dismay, as if Dalia were wrong for rebuffing him. His stare was even worse than his breath. Sadly, there was no obvious way to escape. No empty seats. Not even enough empty space for Dalia to lean away from him. A body blocked her. Another woman. Dalia leaned against her anyway. Maybe no room would become a few spare inches. Even one spare inch. When Dalia leaned into the woman, she leaned back with equal pressure. Why wouldn’t she make room? Dalia was hopeless and mad only until she saw another man—using more space than he needed, with a briefcase inexplicably between his knees—on the woman’s far side. So they were trapped. Dalia kept leaning into the woman, who kept leaning back. Any increase in pressure was matched exactly. Dalia told herself they weren’t locked in battle; they were commiserating. The calmness brought on by the contact was very real. Dalia’s anger blew out the window. Not all of it, but some. The residual anger became an acute spatial awareness. She cut an inch from her width by stacking one thigh on top of the other and twisting her hips so that facing forward didn’t require seeing, even out of the corner of her eye, the man who shouted the route. Though it did require intruding further on the woman against whom she leaned. Dalia hoped the woman wouldn’t mind; thankfully, she seemed not to. Dalia gazed past her, out the side window. She was yet denied her peace. A faint reflection in the glass proved the man shouting the route still had something to say. “Whore,” he croaked at Dalia’s back. She didn’t acknowledge the slight much less fling one back at him. It was enough to know that one day he’d meet God. Probably while hanging out the window of the minibus. He’d get hit by the side mirror of a parked car or, better yet, a road sign. His head would fly straight off.

  Dalia used the rest of the drive, nearly an hour—or longer, on account of its zigzaggedness—to commit more of Cairo to memory. Before the revolution, she’d done her learning on foot. The traffic circle at Sadat to the market at Saad Zaghloul, with a detour through Garden City if she wanted to see the trees. Or Dokki, by the theater, to Gezira, by the opera house, if she wanted to see the water. Really, the fishermen. Really, the fish in their buckets. Twenty-four hours a day, every day—before, after, even during prayer—fishermen dangled bait off the bridge. She used to walk past them and had loved looking down at the catches, watching fish splash in bids to return to the river. A few times she’d even bought a fish—small, a single serving of meat—cooking it almost beyond recognition. Omran used to say, “The skin is the best part. Fry until it’s crispy.” She’d cooked the fish and had eaten the skin to feel closer to him.

  The revolution put an end to that wandering. Dalia had no way to avoid the army, the protesters, the police. There was no real difference between them in her mind. One brought the other into chaos. Police carried sticks and guns. Protesters carried signs and rocks. Soldiers carried bigger guns and radios. Each radio could turn one soldier into a truckload. The worst of the violence had ended, but the memory kept Dalia inside. Her memory was of Mubarak’s regime killing protesters out-of-uniform or using hired men. That way the regime couldn’t be blamed for civilian casualties. Her memory was of embassies closing and the resettlement process dying overnight. Hundreds of thousands of refugees who’d escaped war only to find themselves stuck in a street fight had prayed for miracles. Dalia had prayed with more anger than hope. Her prayers had gotten lost in a city full of protests, full of smoke. Cigarettes, car engines, piles of wood, and glass bottles filled with flammable liquids had all contributed to the haze that hung over the city. Her memory was of many police stations burning along with at least one library.

  Dalia left her apartment now for only three reasons: phone cards, food from the corner store, and, as of today, her resettlement interview. Thinking about the interview caused in Da
lia the urge to feel something other than sorrow, but trying to avoid the inevitable only hastened its arrival. She tried not to cry; she tried to hide the crying; she tried to stop. If only to prevent the man who shouted the route from thinking he’d wounded her. Dalia thought of her age, which made her happy. In six years she’d be forty, halfway through a full life. Only halfway! If she could come into existence, grow up, and become herself in less than half a life, what could she do with the rest? Row a boat to America? Swim, if necessary? The crying mixed now with laughter, which produced a sound. Something between a cough and hiccup. The hair on the arm of the woman sitting next to Dalia stood up. Dalia saw the hair and knew her neighbor was listening. At the base of each hair, a goose bump. The goose bumps were a divine gift. Their multitude gave Dalia hope. If her hiccup could solicit compassion from a stranger, couldn’t also her story? If so, then Hana might approve Dalia’s case. Then Dalia might see Omran again.

  She thought of more divine gifts in order to stop the silliness. Crying on the minibus, thought Dalia, was silly. Stupid, even. Crying begged her neighbors to stare. Their attention was the last thing she wanted. Divine gifts included Omran’s humor. He was always doing funny things with deeper meaning, such as naming their cat George after the first American president. Every time the cat had meowed, Omran had saluted the four-legged war hero. The cat had been a war hero because he hadn’t feared bomb blasts or power outages or gunshots that sounded like fireworks through the walls. The animal ignorance, or deafness probably, had made Omran and Dalia feel braver. That feeling, as if they’d survive the war no matter how long it lasted, had made it easier to love, fuck, cook dinner, eat dinner, and clean up. Dalia had abandoned the cat after fleeing Baghdad, but kept photos as penance paid for the crime of leaving him. She couldn’t bear to forget. Other divine gifts included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, and Rumi, inventor of love. Now, in lieu of sex, Dalia and Omran read his poems to each other, back and forth until some ecstatic and altogether mysterious satisfaction brought the call to an end.