Live from Cairo

by Ian Bassingthwaighte

  “Well, occasionally the appeal process—”

  “Never.”

  “Very rarely, I’ll admit.”

  “We need to do something else.” Charlie stood from his chair with such force that the chair rolled into the wall. He paced and wrung his hands. “Something that might actually work.”

  “What, exactly?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The pacing continued, picked up speed.

  “Will you sit down? I’m getting sick from watching you.”

  “Stop watching!”

  “Habibi,” said Aos, grabbing Charlie by the arm. My friend. “We can’t do anything tonight. The workday ended two hours ago, officially. Let’s talk more tomorrow, after you’ve had a chance to—”

  “Are you going to tell me to calm down? Don’t say that. It’s not meaningful.”

  Aos was particular when it came to choosing battles. Charlie knew that, so didn’t blame him for walking away. A few minutes later, Charlie heard water boiling. Then a cup of tea appeared at his desk.

  “Are you calm yet?” asked Aos.

  “It’s hard to know for sure.” Charlie blew the steam off the hot water. More steam appeared, so he blew again. Then more steam appeared. “God damn it,” he said, blowing the steam off his cup.

  * * *

  The next morning Charlie showed up unannounced at the UNHCR in 6th October City. The trick to sneaking inside any building, according to every heist movie he’d ever seen, was confidence. Charlie didn’t ask where to find Hana’s office; he just walked assuredly until he found it. All he had to do now was resist the urge to pontificate, to disparage Hana’s work, to impugn her conscience. Control yourself, thought Charlie. Swiftly arrive at your point. Don’t argue. Make space in the conversation for Hana to speak. Don’t interrupt. Don’t rebut in a tone. Remember why you’re here. Remember Dalia. Don’t dress up her tale; the truth itself is monstrous. Say plainly what you think Hana should know. Ask plainly for help. Don’t beg. (Don’t ever beg.) No matter what happens, leave on good terms. You never know when a person may prove useful.

  Hana’s office was void of life, but that didn’t stop Charlie from entering. The door had been left open. There might as well have been a welcome mat. Sunlight busted through the windows in massive beams that seemed to bleach the carpet. The office was much hotter than the hall. Charlie felt like a grape becoming a raisin. He hated raisins. He hated desserts with raisins in them. He even hated his tie, which was the color of a raisin. A deep, textured purple. And a little tight. Charlie tried to loosen his tie, but the knot wouldn’t cooperate. Every frustration and failure channeled now into his hands. He tried to yank the tie off his neck. In doing so, Charlie dragged himself toward Hana’s desk. He leaned against it for leverage. Then tried yanking again. He yanked so hard he couldn’t breathe for a second. It was a peaceful feeling.

  “You’re going to strangle yourself,” said Hana, guardedly entering her own office. “If you keep doing that.”

  Charlie, aghast to be caught off guard, looked up. Dear God, he thought. He’d been ambushed. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one ambushing her? It was a shame to give away the upper hand so easily, but Charlie had nobody to blame except himself. He threw his tie over his shoulder to be rid of it. “Hana?” he said, trying hard to sound dispassionate. As if he were here on official business. As if he’d called ahead. As if they’d planned this meeting. “Are you Hana?”

  “That’s right. Why are you . . . ?” She gestured to his choice of seats.

  “Oh.” Charlie stood up. Leaning against the desk had prompted him to sit on top of it. The desk had been the perfect height. He’d barely had to lift his body. “God, I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean . . .”

  Part of Charlie regretted coming now that he’d embarrassed himself. He’d never known what to do with that feeling. Were you supposed to learn from it? Were you supposed to pretend it didn’t bother you? The same part blamed Aos for having failed to dissuade him. Aos had tried, of course. Last night when Charlie had shared his simple, lambent idea: he’d solicit help from a mole inside the UNHCR; the only way to get a mole was to go there and get one. “Oh, Jesus,” Aos had said. “That won’t work. Not even with luck, karma, and God on your side will that work.” Charlie hadn’t listened. Charlie hadn’t been able to listen. The only thing he’d been able to think about was why Aos had taken Christ’s name in vain when he could’ve, and perhaps to greater effect, taken Muhammad’s.

  “Do I know you?” asked Hana after the silence had dragged on for a duration bordering on the uncomfortable. “I mean, should I know who you are? Do you work here? Are you delivering something?”

  “I run the aid office near the Nasser metro stop,” said Charlie, trying and failing to achieve nonchalance. “The Refugee Relief Project.”

  “Ah, Charlie,” said Hana as if there were no one else on Earth he could be.

  Charlie felt he was being insulted somehow, but tried not to let it bother him. If his mood got any worse, it would enter that unpredictable territory where he said things as soon as he thought of them. Nothing good had ever come of that. “I received a letter from your office about Dalia. It was a rejection notice with your name on top. To be honest, it ruined my day. Not that I blame you. You’re just doing your job.” Though he did blame her, didn’t he? For sacrificing her scruples in pursuit of loyalty to some enigmatic machine? The UNHCR. Headquartered in Geneva. Jam-packed with human-shaped administrative robots.

  “It’s no fun sending bad news.”

  “That’s true,” bemoaned Charlie. Every time he got bad news from the UNHCR, he passed it on to his clients. Often crushing them beyond recognition. They wouldn’t move; they wouldn’t speak.

  “Is there something you want?” Hana asked eventually. Her cluttered desk implied she was a busy woman.

  Charlie didn’t want anything, per se; he needed to get Dalia the fuck out of Egypt. There were so many reasons she needed to leave. Her safety, her marriage, the efficacy of Charlie’s office. His weird feelings for her, he thought, were not relevant. Were his feelings really that weird? Was it wrong to love someone you’d come to know deeply, who’d told you the story of her life? The long and arduous telling had taught Charlie about the intimidating and remarkable teller: a woman with resplendent forearms, impeccable language skills, and strength beyond even the toughest wood. Hickory, pecan, hard maple. She loved her husband more than Charlie had loved anything. At first, he’d admired what she had. Then part of him wanted it. The other part wanted to get it away from him. “I’m just here about the rejection letter.” Charlie’s dispassionate tone was beyond reclaiming. “It was—I’m sure you know, since you wrote it—a little vague. There was a check mark in a box labeled not urgent and another check mark in a box labeled not medically necessary. The former is untrue; the latter is more or less gibberish. What does that mean? ‘Not medically necessary’?”

  “There’s a set of criteria. I can send you the list.”

  “You know,” said Charlie, no longer trying to hide his disdain, “most of my clients don’t have the capacity to move on with their lives without physically moving on. Like, to another country.”

  “We can’t resettle everybody,” said Hana. She pulled two bottles of cold water out of her minifridge, offering one to Charlie.

  How disarming. The room was hot, after all; he was thirsty. “Thanks,” said Charlie. The bottle cap resisted slightly. Breaking the seal was crisp, satisfying. “But I’m not asking you to resettle everybody.”

  “I think you are.”

  Charlie winced from the sting of the truth. Or what the truth used to be. “Right now I’m hoping we can focus on Dalia.” That was the problem, wasn’t it? His eyesight? It was as if Charlie had developed some kind of lovesick tunnel vision.

  “There’s nothing more I can do. I’m sorry. Not that it’s actually my fault.”

  Exactly what Charlie hated about systems. No human was ever to blame.

  �
��You can change your mind.” Charlie struggled to articulate why; the reason, like a primary color, was too elemental. “Edward de Bono once said, ‘If you never change your mind, why have one?’ He makes a good point.”

  “Am I supposed to know who Edward de Bono is? Or are you trying to make me feel stupid for not knowing?”

  “No, you shouldn’t know. I’m not even sure how I know. He’s an obscure Maltese philosopher. Unless, I guess, you’re from Malta. Perhaps then he’s slightly less obscure. Anyway, he invented lateral thinking. Like outside the box. Way outside. Once he posited the source of the Arab-Israeli conflict wasn’t land or even religion, but low zinc blood levels in the local populations. This from eating too much unleavened bread. Low zinc causes aggression, and aggression causes war. He advised the British government to stop selling weapons to the region and ship jars of zinc-heavy food spread instead. Have you ever eaten Marmite?”

  “I think this conversation might be illegal,” said Hana. “A conflict of interests, at least.”

  Charlie relished the moment when Hana glanced out the door and down the hall as if she expected her boss to swing by any second. Her worry indicated the upper hand was shifting in Charlie’s favor. “Dalia deserves to leave this country,” he said, relaxing slightly. “If you knew her, you’d agree. It’s obvious. Really, she’s wonderful. Nice and very smart. Doesn’t America need more smart people? Who know more than one language? Who can feel empathy? Isn’t our country getting dumber and colder as we speak?” Charlie recalled why he’d left Montana; not because he had somewhere to go, but because he couldn’t bear living amid selfish white similitude. My land, my God, my gun.

  “Urgent cases go first. It’s the only just way to fill the quota.”

  “What do you mean, urgent? You keep saying that.”

  “I mean a credible threat on her life. Is she dying from some injury or disease? Is she suicidal? I mean, has she actually tried to kill herself? Are there scars on her wrists?”

  The sound of Hana’s words contained compassion, but the words themselves were merciless. Charlie thought saying them must feel like stabbing yourself with a pen—to admit aloud that your job was to measure trauma, then rank it, like a popularity contest in which the winner was crowned Most Hurt Person.

  “That’s a high bar you’re setting,” said Charlie.

  “It’s not my bar. It’s policy. How else to evaluate resettlement claims? Knowing the quotas fail to meet demand by a factor of . . . ?” Hana made an imprecise gesture with her hands. “I’m not sure exactly. It’s a lot. Most refugees have to integrate locally or repatriate to their home countries. Only extraordinary cases qualify for resettlement.”

  “Extraordinary? What do you mean extraordinary? Like better written?”

  Hana looked annoyed by the semantics, but also somehow penitent for resisting them. “Why put Dalia’s case above others?” The question, sharp and fast, was clearly designed to kill the conversation instantly. Hana might’ve accomplished her task had she not tried to slam-dunk with a second zinger. “What do you know that I don’t?” The second zinger morphed into less-effective versions of itself as Hana lost steam. Charlie saw a breach developing in what was otherwise her impermeable exoskeleton. It was as if some part of her wanted to help. “That I didn’t read in Dalia’s testimony? That I didn’t learn in her interview? That would change my mind? That would change Margret’s mind? Margret, by the way, is my boss.”

  “It’s a long story.” Charlie exhumed a letter from his pocket and read what his verboten love had written: a fateful tale scribbled on pages that had been folded and unfolded more times than bore counting. The pages should’ve torn months ago. Charlie’s tender handling was all that had kept the seams intact.

  4

  Six months ago, Dalia walked into Charlie’s office for the first time. Her anxiety had condensed in her legs. “I can’t sit,” she said. “My legs are . . .” Dalia waved at them. “I would just need to stand up again.” Dalia examined the room as if she might find a lost article pinned to the wall or left on a shelf. A letter, a picture, a key. The search delayed but didn’t preclude her introduction. At last, Dalia offered her name. She said she was from Baghdad and had lost her husband. Not because he’d died, but because he’d left her. “Not his choice. I told him to go.” A world map was on the wall. Dalia put her finger where her husband fled to. Her finger covered the entire state of Massachusetts. Her arm crossed the Atlantic. “It looks so close, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, it’s a small map,” said Charlie.

  Years of her suffering and years of his loneliness met where they stared at the wall.

  “Can you help?” Dalia turned. “Please, the truth.”

  “I can write your testimony and submit your case. The rest is up to other people, who don’t work here. Sometimes I think they don’t work at all. They’re very slow.”

  “How slow?”

  “For an initial decision? Just from the UN?” Charlie hesitated. “Six months. A year. Maybe longer.”

  Hearing time discussed that way—as if it moved slowly, but no matter what—actually comforted Dalia, a little. “What do you need from me? A signature? A payment?” Please, not a payment. If Charlie asked for a payment, what would she do? Promise to pay later? Never pay?

  “Just where you came from and why you left.”

  The relief was immense, but temporary. Dalia had always thought of her life as simple, short, often tragic, but punctuated by moments of such joy that she couldn’t imagine changing much. A line running from the past to the present. Describing that line, however, was precarious. She couldn’t tell the whole story. Not to a stranger. Not to a man. “There are things I can’t say.” Dalia thought she might never be able to say them.

  Charlie offered Dalia a ballpoint and a legal pad. He was practiced, it seemed, in handling such a predicament. Dalia thought his pen trick might work. A pen would allow her to move at her own pace without a live audience. Clarity and chronology were no longer pressing issues. The only downside, so far as she could tell, was that speaking the words let them dissipate in the air, whereas writing preserved them. “Are you going to read this?” asked Dalia. “Can a woman read it instead?”

  “I’m sorry. Sabah’s desk is . . .” Charlie gestured to his own desk by way of example; it was buried in paper. “She has no bandwidth. Not today. Maybe never again.” Charlie laughed, or tried to laugh. His fake laugh was so obvious. He turned red. “Plus, whoever reads what you write—me or someone else—will pass the information along to the UNHCR in the form of a written testimony. From there, the information is public record. Not generally public, but a lot of eyes will read your story. It’s the nature of the beast, I’m afraid. I’ll wait outside. Don’t rush. Write everything.”

  * * *

  Dalia pressed the tip of her pen into the legal pad. The black dot grew over time as ink soaked into the paper. Her mind wandered to Omran’s missing eye; the bruised socket had been almost as dark. Dalia thought she might as well start there. The origin of that physical injury could be identified and the cost could be described. It was an easy entrance to a darker place, where much worse things had happened. The ink dot grew into a line, a letter, a word, a sentence, and finally the story Dalia never wanted to tell:

  My husband’s abduction began with a dent in his head. At least, that’s how Omran remembered it. He said he woke up with what felt like a dent. He couldn’t touch the spot with his hands. They were tied behind him. But his head felt dented. Or broke open, with the brain coming out. A headache, he said, like no other. The ache ran all the way down his neck into his spine. Even his ears hurt like he was deep underwater. The skin surrounding the point of impact—he’d been clubbed with a rock—burned, and the pain radiated outward from there, like someone had scratched raw a large area of skin and rubbed salt in the wound. No light penetrated the bag over Omran’s head. He tried to pray and scream and stand up in order to escape. His captors were smart, or at least systematic.
In addition to tying his hands, they’d also tied his feet. They’d tied his hands to his feet. He couldn’t even sit up comfortably. They drove Omran to a cellar somewhere in the city. Right away they dug out his eye. They provided a single mercy during what Omran called the “prolonged extraction.” Each time he woke up, they beat him to sleep again. A few words he remembered only because they shouted them so many times in his face. Traitor! Atheist! American!

  Omran talked about the experience only once, shortly after his release. I cried the whole night while he sat at the kitchen table and shook with tremors. The morphine, the shock, the pain of trying to explain how he survived. I couldn’t endure his bewilderment. I asked him to stop so I could vomit. Cruel, I think, to ask him that. I didn’t vomit. I just stood over the sink for a long time spitting. He didn’t know and couldn’t ever know what I’d done to free him. He only knew what he felt. The gag, the blindfold, the beating. The feeling of being thrown from a moving car. He felt his skin rub away on the pavement. He felt the sun beating him. He felt my hands lifting him into the sitting position. He felt more hands lifting him into a car. He felt the doctor cleaning his eye socket. He screamed that he needed to see me. The doctor turned his head. Omran saw me in the chair and he wept.

  Maybe that’s too close to the end of my story. Maybe it’s better to start with the war. When the Americans came, Omran said to me, “The sooner they win, the sooner it’s finished. God willing.” He gestured out the window at the Green Zone. We couldn’t see the Green Zone from our window, but we both knew it was there. “There must be something I can do to help.” I said he didn’t know how to shoot a gun, fly a helicopter, or read a map. War maps are more complicated. How could he possibly help? What if he found danger? What if he died? “If you die, I’ll find another man,” I said. Not to cause pain, but to dissuade him. “To kiss, to marry, to have children.” Omran laughed and touched my wrist. He said his bones told him he wouldn’t die. (His whole family had strange bones. His father had bones that found water; his mother had bones that found lies. Prognostic bones were Omran’s inheritance.)