Live from Cairo

by Ian Bassingthwaighte

  Construction. That’s what Omran did. He rebuilt exploded pipes and sewers for contractors working for the US Army. An engineer brigade. When my city turned inward and started shooting itself, when it turned inward and blew up its own infrastructure, Omran dug ditches, poured cement, and brought back the water. “For washing,” he’d say. “Hands, vegetables, dishes. Infants in the sink.” Infants appealed to Omran more than they’d ever appealed to me, but I still promised we’d have one. “Several?” he asked every time the subject came up. “By one you mean ‘several.’ ”

  Neighbors knew Omran moved dirt with an American shovel and disapproved. What neighbors, I don’t know. What militia they contacted, I don’t know. Maybe no neighbors. Maybe militias gathered information another way. I don’t mean to blame my neighbors with no evidence except a betrayed feeling. Feeling betrayed isn’t evidence, is it? Omran was abducted in the name of God, which they screamed in his face when they stole him. Who, exactly? And why? All I knew was that my husband was gone, feared dead. My only hope was that he was held for ransom. Not executed. What good was Omran shot dead? His body had no value and his death would convey no message that hadn’t been conveyed already, a thousand times.

  I expected the Americans would say one of their own went missing. Omran had labored and made friends and had worked for their army for months. Did Omran not deserve rescue or the money to secure his release? The embassy cited limited resources and a policy of non-negotiation. The soldier watching the door said, “I’ll pray for you.” I don’t remember the young man’s name or even the sorry look on his face, except to say it was sorry. At the time, I couldn’t bear to observe such a bad omen.

  How could I secure Omran’s release without money? I sold the jewelry, the computer, the furniture. The cash in my pocket was my only hope for my husband. I sought him by seeking the nearest cleric to our house, who people said had abandoned God for more profitable opportunities. Like connecting militias to recruits. I had not gone to that mosque in some time, since before the war. When I saw him again, he didn’t hide who he’d become. He barely greeted me. I told him what happened. I handed him cash. He shook his head like he couldn’t help, but I could see the truth in his eyes. He wanted more money. I had nothing left to sell except myself. “Is that worth something to you?” I asked. He didn’t even hesitate. His hands fell like rocks upon me.

  What to do next besides clean myself? Go home? Wait in despair? No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear the stillness. So I continued my search. I searched for Omran every day by walking and shouting his name, and shouting the cleric’s name at the door of his holy hiding place to embarrass him; he would have to keep his promise to quiet me. His face beat red until I found my husband gagged and blindfolded in an alleyway after more than a week, when even my heart said he was dead. A note was stapled to his chest: Leave now in the name of God. The blood around Omran’s eye had dried and the wound was closed by its own swelling. My heart swelled with love and gratitude and surprise and hate and regret. At the hospital, the doctor said Omran’s eye socket was, considering the circumstances, in good shape. The captors, he said, must’ve given antibiotics. The doctor asked Omran if he’d taken pills during his captivity. Did he know what kind? For pain or infection? Omran had said, “I don’t remember. I can’t remember. The information has gone.” He cried my name when he saw me.

  Soon after, I packed the car—Omran in the backseat so he could lie down—and drove around the city in a kind of delirium. We had nowhere to go except back to the Americans. They took some responsibility. Not all, but some. Contractors had been persecuted before for their association with the US Army. Had been shot, had been tortured. There was a special, expedited resettlement program for survivors like us. The caveat being violence must’ve resulted from an association with the US Army. Not religious beliefs or preexisting ethnic tensions. Not even ethnic tensions exacerbated by the American war. The embassy wanted proof that Omran’s blood was their responsibility. And that more blood would spill soon. Written threats, corroborating witnesses, police reports. The only threat we had was leave now or die written in pencil. No reason was listed and no sender was marked. We had no witness. No police report. How could we go to the police? Who loved to punish victims, not perpetrators? Who said rape was adultery? And the woman was whipped? What evidence could we present them? Omran’s empty eye socket? Only to be laughed out or arrested for lying?

  We didn’t leave our country because we were barred from doing so. We didn’t leave our city because we had nowhere to go. Home, then, for lack of other options, where an unknown enemy lay in wait. The intruders came to our house the same night. They shot the wall, the floor, the window, and finally Omran. Once in the shoulder and again in the meat of his thigh. He held his stomach to fool them into thinking they’d struck his gut. He moaned for a few seconds and stopped breathing. The intruders saw a man killed by his wounds; they saw a wife killed by her grief. “God is great,” they said, fleeing.

  We didn’t go to the hospital. I looked at Omran’s wounds and told him he wouldn’t die. He didn’t have permission to leave me. Omran said, “The pain.” I said, “The morphine.” Prescribed by the doctor for his eye. Omran took a large dose and said, very disoriented, that we needed to get into the car before he fell over. If he fell over, I would have to carry him. He apologized for being fatter than he was at a younger age and less handsome. “My bones,” he lamented. “My bones don’t work. They haven’t worked in a long time. I’m sorry I lied to you.” I plugged the wounds with cotton balls and tied scarves around to stop the bleeding. He could only walk on his right leg, so I bore the rest of his weight. I drove to the Americans at a speed enabled by my terror. “Look what they’ve done!” I yelled from the far side of the gate. “You didn’t believe us before, but look!” I shouted so loud that I spit. The spit convinced the Americans of what the truth had not. That Omran’s service had put his life in danger, and also my life. Thank God, for they expedited his paperwork. My husband was granted the right to go to America. But the good news came with a catch. Omran could go, but I couldn’t. Not without a marriage certificate issued by the Social Status Court.

  The what? I said we were born in a village where the memory of our pledge was enough. We didn’t marry in the same village, but one like it. Not Baghdad. Not close to Baghdad. Not anywhere near the Social Status Court. “What else can I do to prove I love my husband?” I asked. “I don’t have those papers. There’s no way to get those papers. Those papers don’t even exist.” The Americans said proof of love was not required, but proof of marriage; a document, rather than a feeling or the memory of an event. Unless I could produce the guests who were there and those guests would submit to questioning. The Americans had forgotten they’d started a war! That people had died! That people had scattered!

  Omran held my arm like a cane. “I won’t leave you,” he said. “Don’t bother asking.” I wanted to peel his hand away, but I let him rest. “If you don’t go,” I said, “the intruders will return. Ten bullets in your head, Omran. Not even you can survive that. You’re stubborn, not immortal.” He wept and finally had to sit down. I gave him no option. I told him to go. Thank God his departure was swift. I had no time to fear his absence. It was suddenly before me.

  I remained in Baghdad for one month. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t sleep. So I got in my car and drove to the border of Jordan, then along the King’s Highway through the Sinai to Cairo. Visas didn’t matter by then. People were flooding out. Every border had a queue. You could pay money to skip the queue, but what money did I have that I didn’t need for food and water and gas? The only thing I wanted was to make it to Cairo alive. When I finally arrived days later, I found Cairo was only safe in comparison. I was an immigrant in a land that didn’t want me. I meant to steal work they didn’t have. To implant my sorrow in a place that had too much grown from its own troubles. One night on the train, a man pinched my breast and told me to go back to Iraq. “Go home,” he said
. And I wanted to, badly. Except home stopped being a place the day I met Omran. Not the same day, but one day, ambiguously, when I discovered I loved him. I was so young. That day I knew I would marry Omran and saw in his eyes that he’d known his whole life that God had pushed him, hard and fast, toward me. Now that he’d arrived, he was so glad. Gladder still that his affections were returned. And that I would be with him.

  * * *

  “Is there more?” asked Charlie when he finished reading the letter. The pages displayed ink smears where tears had fallen and been wiped away. “Please tell me there’s more.”

  “Halas,” said Dalia. “It’s finished.” She watched Charlie’s heart beating through his shirt until she realized it was just a fan blowing the fabric.

  “Why’d you flee Baghdad after Omran left? What’s life like in Cairo? Why can’t you stay here?”

  “I told you. You’re holding it.”

  Charlie scrutinized the pages, front and back. The backs were blank except for the ink that had bled through the paper. “More specifically. The details matter. More than they should, I’m afraid.”

  Dalia waved away his request. Telling stories was lonely work. Charlie pretended not to see the gesture. Or needed glasses, badly. He asked the same three questions again. Why’d you flee Baghdad? What’s life like in Cairo? Why can’t you stay here?

  “Telling stories is lonely work,” said Dalia, and not politely.

  “Hm. I’m sorry, but I need to know.”

  “Today? Right now?”

  “Well . . .”

  Dalia couldn’t endure his calmness. She walked down the hall to the door, down the street, down the stairs to the metro. The train went down under the river. An hour later Dalia lay down on her bed. Really, her couch. A week passed before she could will herself to go back to the office. How to get to America without Charlie’s help? How to get Charlie’s help without trusting him? How to trust him without telling him everything? Dalia continued the exhausting process—hour-long meetings scheduled over several weeks—by explaining where pain lives. “In the clothes Omran didn’t take with him. In pictures from before the war. Even in George’s despondent meow. The poor cat. He never liked me very much, but he loved Omran.”

  Later Dalia told the story of her flight to Egypt. Not a flight so much as a long, troubled car ride. Her desire to survive weighed more than her fear of driving the dangerous route from Baghdad. The car broke down in the Sinai. Dalia had to walk twenty kilometers before she saw another vehicle. She carried food and water and pictures, minus the frames and the glass panels. The cat stayed behind in the car. “How wicked,” she said, “to leave George.” Dalia shielded her face with her hands and wept for several minutes before she could speak again. “I shut the windows so he’d die faster. I didn’t want him to wander around in the sun and be afraid and suffer for hours. He would’ve died anyway. It would’ve been worse.”

  That wasn’t even the most dismal part of her story. Before Dalia took the King’s Highway to Cairo, the cleric she’d once bribed with her body returned and raped her again. He didn’t knock on her door. He just opened it. “Don’t look at me like that,” said Dalia, rebuffing Charlie’s pitiful gaze. “I didn’t even want to tell you.” Nor did she want him to tell Omran. What if Omran didn’t understand? Her entire being said he would understand, except for the part of her brain where fear lived and reason couldn’t penetrate. “Don’t tell him. He can’t know.”

  In time Charlie circled back to his hardest question, though he was shrewd enough to change its verbiage. Why can’t you stay here? became Why isn’t Cairo a durable solution? Dalia was still annoyed but nevertheless had an answer prepared. It had taken her a few sessions to distill the myriad reasons into one immutable truth: “I can’t work. If I try to work, I’ll be arrested. If I’m arrested, then . . .” Charlie nodded as if he already knew what would happen. Then why ask? He took copious notes and even recorded the conversations on tape. “For backup,” said Charlie, gesturing to shelves full of cassettes. He appeared overwhelmed by the sheer number. “If only our system weren’t so . . . antiquated.”

  Dalia didn’t want to know who Charlie was, where he came from, or what kept him at his desk all day. Obsessive-compulsive disorder? Glue? She only wanted to know what the lines on his face meant. Was he affected by her story? Was that empathy? Not fatigue? No, thought Dalia. It wasn’t possible that her story had affected him. Charlie must’ve heard the same story, and ones much worse, a thousand times. More than a thousand times, judging by the number of tapes. Charlie was just tired. Her story meant nothing to him.

  5

  In a less professional setting, Hana would’ve punched Charlie in the stomach. No, the face. What right did he have planting his sorrow in her heart? A fertile, crowded ground.

  “I’m not asking you to help me,” said Charlie from the floor. Somewhere amid his story, he’d sat. The telling must’ve burdened him. “I’m asking you to help Dalia.”

  Hana envisioned Dalia’s pain as a sphere rolling behind her. How else to bear so much, so far? If only Dalia’s pain were more square. If only she were weaker and more depressed and sicker and poorer and less articulate. If only her entire being screamed her suffering. Then Hana would have a chance in hell of convincing Margret to change her mind. Presently there was no way. “You can appeal the decision.” Hana’s sadness took a stern form lest it reveal itself. “You have that right. But the same people will review the same case, evaluating its merit using the same policy. I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”

  “Why don’t you?” Charlie tried handing Dalia’s letter, which he’d read in its entirety, to Hana. “Please, I’m asking . . .”

  “What, exactly?” Hana wouldn’t take the paper.

  “Well, if there’s no chance an appeal . . .”

  “There’s no chance.”

  Hana could see Charlie’s mind whirling in the way he wrung his hands. “Then a new yellow card. Please, it’s the only way.”

  A yellow card was, at first glance, a Holy Grail. A refugee bearing one, who’d not only endured Refugee Status Determination, but had, by the end of the process, been deemed worthy of the title of Refugee, was allowed to petition the UNHCR for the right to resettle abroad. But the rate of approval was abysmal and each card was tied to a single application; therefore, one chance to resettle. That made a yellow card more like a lottery ticket. If Dalia wanted to play again, she needed to start over. That required a fresh story, a false name, a forged case file. More than anything, it required a new yellow card. There was no way to get one without stealing it.

  “You can’t be serious,” said Hana. “That’s illegal. That’s very illegal.”

  “It’s the right thing.”

  Hana reached for the phone as if she would call Margret or even security. The threat was enough to dislodge Charlie from his spot on the floor. He stood up, dusted the seat of his pants, and raised both hands in the air as if he were surrendering to an armed guard. He walked that way to the door, only putting his arms down so they didn’t bang the frame. “So long,” said Charlie as if his last hope had been shot dead; it was a sober, mortal parting.

  Relief struck Hana like a spritz of cold water. At last, she thought. The bother was gone. A few minutes later, she saw Charlie again through the window. He was standing on the sidewalk outside. “Jesus Christ,” Hana said to herself. “Why are you still here?” She wondered if Charlie could sense her staring at him through the glass. His posture—rigid, as if each arm were made of a single bone; long, and slightly curved, but otherwise unable to bend—indicated as much. A taxi hurtled toward him, but Charlie didn’t flinch. Nor did he flinch when the car stopped so close to his body that he needed to step back to open the door. Presumably he knew what Hana was still learning. That taxi drivers were street surgeons. They never hit customers and rarely hit pedestrians. When they did, it was pragmatic: drivers used their bumpers to part crowds or push teenagers, who belonged on the sidewalk, out of the street.
Charlie ducked into the taxi, which merged into the heat shimmer bouncing off the road; traffic in the distance appeared to undulate.

  Hana sought to think no more of that man, diving back into her work like a suicidal person anxious to jump off something. She found what she always found in the testimonies stacked on her desk. Lists of physical injuries inflicted by gangs, militias, police, and soldiers. Fingernails torn away. Whippings. In one case, an electrical wire was inserted into a woman’s genitals and connected to a battery. The captor, who operated the battery, repeatedly whispered, “You’ll die soon,” into the captive’s ear. The shocks caused internal burning. The captor was pleased but not finished. He removed the wire, pinched the genitals, and asked, “How tender?” He took a picture with his cell phone, then sent the picture to the woman’s family for ransom. These and other physical injuries manifested later as stutters, twitches, shakes, nightmares, headaches, and uncontrollable weeping. One man described his weeping as a failed cleansing of his memory, his body’s desperate attempt to remove toxins that refused to pass in his urine, his sweat, or his shit. Formerly, Hana had read these testimonies as separate accounts. Now they seemed to stack upon one another. Yusuf upon Hakim; Hakim upon Sanaa. Finally, Hana turned away from her desk. To imagine something else, she needed to see something else. Date palms flanked her window from the outside, a kind of natural framing. The date palms, with long leaves, shook even in a light wind. When a vehicle barreled past, for example; or, more rarely, during a weather event. Cairo, thought Hana, had almost no weather. Just as she had almost no purpose in life. What was her purpose? To resettle a few refugees in the time it took to make a multitude? To categorically deny people the right to migrate? The right to migrate was really the right to move on from your suffering. The right to joy, to reunion. The right to forget. Hana felt like the worst person on Earth until a knock on the door proffered the needed distraction. It was Joseph. As ever, his sullen demeanor hid well in his bewitching choice of bow ties. Azalea mélange. And wool, by the look of it.