6
“You’re the first person to get Alzheimer’s in their thirties,” said Charlie to himself in the mirror. “Congratulations.” The party boat, after all, wasn’t the only thing he’d forgotten. He’d forgotten that his brother, who’d ambushed Charlie by surprise and was in Cairo for one day—en route back to Baghdad after his leave of absence—would fly that night on the red-eye back to the war. Even though that war was supposed to be over. Let’s put an end to our feud, Tim had written via e-mail in advance of his obscene layover. I’m bored of it. I’ll probably never be in Cairo again. Normally I fly through Frankfurt. He’d offered drinks as penance for a tense childhood and a long, silent estrangement. Not only was Charlie dreading it—his original plan had been to drink a few beers with Tim, then say good-bye in a vaguely hostile way, something like “Good luck in Baghdad”—but now Charlie had more pressing things to do: tell Dalia her case had been rejected without emitting any kind of sorry moan; tell Omran he might never see his wife again without feeling some kind of sick joy that Charlie would still get to see her; finally, locate a straw longer than his whiskey bottle so he could drink the whole thing without moving. Unfortunately for Charlie, the desire to abandon his brother wasn’t matched by the capacity. He just couldn’t will himself to be that cold. He wanted to, badly. But couldn’t. It was something his mother had told him before she’d died. That deeds follow you. “Shit!” said Charlie to his grimacing face in the mirror. He exited the bathroom, swinging shut the plywood door with more force than necessary but not enough to cause a loud bang. Charlie was disappointed. He’d wanted Aos to hear the door. To look up. To say something.
“Are you ready?” asked Charlie in a deceptively neutral tone. He didn’t want to sound indignant. “For tea?”
Every Wednesday after work, Charlie and Aos drank tea on the corniche. They nursed the hot water and watched feluccas—small wooden vessels propelled by giant triangular sails—nearly collide with the bridge. Charlie was anxious to begin the ritual, but Aos didn’t indicate his readiness. He just kept translating. His pen seemed to move of its own accord, like a sentient extension of his hand.
“Hello?” Charlie loathed to interrupt such devotion, but needed to get the fuck out of the office. The office contained every ball he’d ever dropped. Not to mention the mirror in which he’d seen his brother. Sad how they shared the same features but not the same principles. Both were handsome, if hairy; left unchecked, their eyebrows would connect and their beards would cover their necks. Charlie suspected he was more Neanderthal than other men. He allayed this fear by keeping a trim image.
“Yes,” said Aos. “One second.”
Ten minutes later they walked to the corniche, the promenade on the east bank of the Nile. They sat on blue stools and sipped black tea from hot glasses. The glass was so hot that Charlie couldn’t hold it for too long. He rested the glass on the red bricks beneath his feet. Aos, who’d developed calluses, laughed at the procedure. He’d been drinking hot tea his whole life from glasses with no handles.
“How do you endure the pain?” asked Charlie.
“What pain?”
Charlie pointed to the steaming glass.
“When I was a boy, my father told me to rub my thumb against my index finger every day for several minutes. He said, ‘One day you’ll know why.’ ”
It always made Charlie a little uncomfortable to talk about Aos’ dad. He’d been a security guard at the Semiramis Hotel in 1993, the year a disturbed musician played his revolver in the coffee shop. Four people were shot dead. “That’s good advice,” said Charlie, looking with scorn at his thumb; it was barely callused. He started rubbing his thumb against his index finger. It occurred to him, as the rubbing intensified, that he’d never leave Egypt. There could be no life without hot tea on the corniche. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask. Will you come to El Horreya tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” said Aos. He’d already reached his weekly quota of nights out: one, maybe two. Not counting protests in Tahrir, which were beyond stricture. “I think I’ll just go home.”
“Don’t tell me you’re behind on your reading.”
“I am behind.”
Aos read the entire Qur’an every month; the routine, on account of being so boring, required a schedule.
“Double tomorrow’s pages,” pleaded Charlie. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you.”
“What for?”
“Tim wants to drink warm beer until curfew. I’m worried I’ll commit a murder-suicide. Come and stop me?” The joke landed exactly as intended. Aos groaned and looked over his shoulder in the direction of El Horreya. Due east one kilometer. Charlie thought he’d sealed the deal until Aos said, “I’ll come if you tell me . . .” But Aos couldn’t bring himself to actually make his demand.
“What? Tell you what?”
Aos turned red and took refuge in his tea. “I’m embarrassed to ask. It’s about Dalia.” The only thing that could embarrass Aos so totally was the topic of sex. He’d always been overmodest.
“Oh, God. You think Dalia and I . . .”
“I’m sorry! It’s killing me! I have to know!”
Charlie spit in the river. There was sand in his tea, though it wasn’t the tea seller’s fault. The tea seller occupied a windy spot by the river. He worked all day for almost no money in horrible conditions without complaint. At least, Charlie had never heard the tea seller complain. Not about the wind. Not even about his fate. Was his fate really that bad? He had a cart, a view of the river, plastic chairs, and at least two regular customers. He didn’t look that unhappy. “I can’t answer a question you didn’t ask,” said Charlie. The futile attempt to evade only forced Aos to speak candidly.
“Did you touch her? Did you kiss her? Did you . . . ?”
“No.”
Aos relaxed a little. “Then . . .”
“God, Aos. Hurry up. My brother’s waiting.”
The prodding tightened Aos’ orbit around the question he was really trying to ask. “How did this happen?” he said finally. “One day you just woke up in love?” The deceptively shallow inquest contained an army of implications. That Charlie should’ve known better; that his acumen was compromised; that his work, as a result, would suffer.
It wasn’t easy for Charlie to trace the origin of a love he’d spent months trying to put down like a sick dog. The dog in his heart wouldn’t die, so he’d muzzled it; the biting pain had subsided, but had been replaced with the constant high-pitched whine of confinement. “I never met a client I didn’t like,” confessed Charlie. His greatest sin was his bias. “I know I like them because their stories hurt me. With Dalia, the pain became love. I can’t explain how or why, exactly. I can only tell you when. The day Dalia called in a terror. ‘Come quickly,’ she said. ‘My bawab is unlocking my door.’ The bawab wanted money for an undisclosed building repair. You know the ploy. ‘Please pay. Right now. The repair has already been made.’ And you pay to get rid of him. Dalia wouldn’t pay, so her bawab wouldn’t leave. She closed the door in his face. That didn’t stop him. He kept a spare key. By the time I arrived, the bawab—a large man made giant by his fury—had burst into Dalia’s apartment and pinned her against the wall with his broom. The shaft of the broom was pressed horizontally across her chest. ‘Hey!’ I cried from a safe, cowardly distance. ‘Put down the broom. We can figure this out . . . some other way.’ The bawab fixed his hot stare on my shoes. We never made actual eye contact. ‘Get out!’ he shouted, freeing one hand from the broom to wave me away. ‘Unless you came to pay.’ I was the invertebrate who produced his wallet. Dalia shouted that no bawab like this should be paid and, enraged a thousand times by the idea of paying him, twisted the broom from his grip. The bawab was stunned and stunned again when Dalia began whipping him. The broom cracked against his back as he ran screaming from the building.” Charlie finished his tea with the sand in it; he scraped the sand off his tongue with his teeth, then off his teeth with his finger. “D
alia wasn’t even a little calmed by the bawab’s absence,” rued Charlie. “Like she knew he’d come back, and soon. She began packing her things. ‘I need another apartment,’ she said. ‘I need the only key to my door.’ All day I was gone to help her find that kind of place. Being white made it much easier. She was sorry to know that and I was sorry to find out. Somehow we agreed not to mention it.”
Charlie was suddenly overwhelmed by the task before him, of explaining himself; he’d failed to describe Dalia the way he saw her. He thought he should’ve told Aos more about how Dalia gripped the broom without fear and whipped the bawab just enough to send him running, but not enough to injure him. And how she seemed to deeply regret the violence afterward. “I forgot to say . . .” Charlie’s train of thought not only derailed, but exploded. He was trying to explain what couldn’t be explained. If no poets in history had successfully captured their love, how could Charlie, who was more Neanderthal than most men, possibly shed light on the sick dog in his heart?
* * *
El Horreya, known to cure depression, drowsiness, loneliness, and temperance, was hidden on a street leading northeast from Tahrir Square, less than twenty minutes by foot from the corniche. No sign or menu was displayed out front, or other declaration begging patronage. Those who knew about El Horreya either stumbled in accidentally or were told to go. Recently El Horreya had been renovated. The charm of the gritty walls had been lost, but the beer was still cheap and the coffee still cost less than clean water. It was a baladi bar, a watering hole for locals who loved chess and their foreign friends who loved feeling like a part of something. Tables were covered in chessboards, ashtrays, mobile phones, and bottle caps.
Tim was already meandering outside by the time Charlie and Aos arrived. When he saw Charlie, Tim cocked his head like a perturbed animal. “I was beginning to think I was lost. I hate that feeling. The only worse feeling is getting shot in the leg.” Then after a pause: “It’s good to see you again.”
Counting how many years it had been distracted Charlie from the obligation to hug his brother. They walked inside without touching. Charlie led the way to a square table in the back corner, where he sought to let the comfort of his favorite haunt sink in and overwhelm him: the humidity, the smell of lupin beans, the dry beer gluing his elbows to the table. If it hadn’t been for Tim’s fidgeting, perhaps Charlie would’ve achieved his tranquil state. As it happened, Tim’s body was slightly too big for his chair. Each time he adjusted his position both men grew more ornery.
“I need a drink,” said Tim, finally giving up and sitting still. “Is there a menu? A waiter?”
Charlie didn’t know how to explain. Not that he wanted to try. He preferred to think the obscure system was beyond account. It was the sort of understanding you had to acquire through experience.
“You have to make eye contact,” said Aos.
“With who?” asked Tim. “Also, nice to meet you.” His face said it was not nice, that he wanted privacy, that Aos wasn’t supposed to be here.
“My pleasure.” Aos pointed to the best-dressed gentleman in the room: a man wearing a perfectly ironed button-up, who flew through the seating area with speed and fluidity. The man opened bottles as he set them down, but never actually stopped at a table. Tim tried staring at him, but not for long; the embarrassment was too much. He turned away. “Maintain eye contact!” cried Aos. “You have to earn his attention. It doesn’t come easily.”
Charlie had, once upon a time, received the same instruction. Hearing it again was almost nauseating. To think, he used to have no idea how to order beer at El Horreya. Thank God that phase of his life in Egypt had ended years ago. Charlie wasn’t local by a long shot. He could never be local. But he wasn’t a tourist. Not anymore. He knew how to cross the street without getting run over, how to pay utilities without getting ripped off by his bawab, how to use every form of public transport without getting lost. At least, not terribly lost. He even knew how to order groceries by phone and have them delivered by motorcycle.
Tim tried to make eye contact again, but it was no use. “What am I doing wrong?” The question bore an unnamable ache, which proved Tim hadn’t changed in the years since Charlie had seen him. He was still a cryptic bastard. The waiter delivered beers only after Tim quit eyeing him. Clearly perplexed, Tim said, “I don’t understand. Why, after all this time, did he bring . . . ?” Tim grabbed the bottle nearest to him. “And why did you, after much longer, bring . . . ?” He pointed the bottle at Aos.
“Embrace the mystery,” said Charlie. He refused to let Tim’s questions get the best of him. If he answered earnestly, the conversation would be free to evolve; as fruit, it would bear other subjects. Brotherhood, for example. Charlie didn’t want to talk about brotherhood or anything adjacent to brotherhood. Why unearth what had passed between them? Not just words, but money; not just money, but blood. That tired history began with an accident. Charlie had, after claiming he wasn’t drunk, wrecked Tim’s car. And Tim’s face. Tim was asleep in the passenger’s seat. His face beat a hole in the dashboard after the air bag failed to inflate. His personality changed less than his appearance, but nonetheless diminished; he became a darker sort with a shorter temper. To apologize, Charlie spent what had remained of his savings—law school had bled him almost dry—on a used model of the same car. The title changed hands without even a smidge of forgiveness. That destroyed Charlie, who saw no other way to repent. He buried his regret inside his reticence. Soon the brothers stopped talking. Charlie went to Egypt; Tim went to war.
“It’s not really a mystery,” said Aos, eyes still aimed at the waiter. “If you can figure it out by paying attention, it’s more like a puzzle. Puzzles want to be solved. That man wants to sell beer. The trick is convincing him that his best route includes your table.”
Tim leaned back in his chair until the wood creaked. “There’s no alcohol at Camp Victory. I can’t even drink when I’m off duty. There’s nothing to distract me from what I really want. My children, my wife. I have to sit there all day thinking I’m going to die before I see them.” Just then the button-up guy swung round again, this time delivering lupin beans—large, brown, soaked in brine on a white plate. Tim didn’t bother asking who ordered or how the fuck. He just smelled the beans before asking if the button-up guy had peanuts and/or pretzels. “Pretzels,” said Tim. “You know pretzels?” He tried to make a pretzel with his fingers. The button-up guy snickered and told Tim in decent English to eat the beans.
The air in the room was humid from the sweat of men playing chess. Charlie, grabbing an unused board from another table—on the fly, gifting cigarettes to the occupants for their generous surrender—said to Tim, “The first time I played Aos, he beat me in less than ten minutes. I’d like to see how long it takes him to beat you.” Charlie knew the challenge would appeal to Tim, whose competitive nature had always been disguised as an attention to detail; as a kid he’d been happy to win any game on a technicality buried in the rules somewhere. Tim had called it “planning ahead” or, when he was really proud, “playing with strategy.” If Charlie was lucky, the game now would drag on until night fell. Then he’d be able to avoid whatever serious conversation Tim had smuggled into the country. Charlie would look indignantly at his watch and say something damning about Mubarak’s curfew: Why does the army still enforce the tyrant’s command? It’s unjust! I’m so angry! They’d have no choice but to call it a night. Then Charlie could go home and stare at the phone until he found the courage to pick it up.
“Uh, sure,” said Tim, irked if not yet stymied. Nobody asked Aos if he wanted to play, but Aos didn’t seem too bothered. He loved chess enough to play in unsavory conditions. Once he’d played outside in the rain. Tim arranged the chess pieces on the board, turning each piece until they faced the same way. Even the pawns had faces, which were scrunched up. Tim said the pawns were dismayed by their fate. Not as a joke, but as a sad fact: “Their lives don’t really figure into most defense strategies.” Tim gifted Ao
s the first move even though Aos was using the black pieces. Thus began a silent slaughter. Aos played slow, decisive chess and never regretted a move. Or else never admitted regretting one. His pawns inched forward the front line while his cavalry hung back with his castles, his bishops, his queen. Even so, Tim’s king perished in less than twenty minutes. Fuck, thought Charlie. “Ah!” said Tim, amiable to a fault now that he’d finished his drink; he was downright neighborly. “I see your trick. I know what you’re doing.” His skin had become a nice pink color. “Rematch? Just one more?” To entice Aos, Tim added, “If you win again, I’ll eat all those nasty . . .” He threw a queasy look at the beans.
Live from Cairo Page 9