Live from Cairo

by Ian Bassingthwaighte

  * * *

  The shade of the Mugamma, the most intimidating government edifice in all of Africa, covered Aos so that he felt cool and dead. The Mugamma, located one block south of Tahrir, was nicknamed the Tall Monster for its colossal block exterior and thin, labyrinthine halls, each like a vein pumping blood through a beast. Normally the blood was men and women in worn-looking office attire who worked on everything from tax-evasion investigations to visa renewals. Now the blood was hot, stagnant air. Today, as on most days since the revolution began, the Mugamma was closed. It relieved Aos to know the building was abandoned, the Supreme Council couldn’t govern, the army had no lasting power. Their power would run out with their ammunition, which would run out eventually. Or would it? In a window several stories above the main entrance, Aos saw something move. His heart stopped when he realized it was a man’s head.

  “I came for the shade,” said a voice behind Aos, from the palm garden. “Then I recognized your water bottle. Am I intruding? May I sit?”

  Aos turned and saw the man with a swollen eye and a gash coated in what looked like jelly. The shame of seeing him again fit nicely inside the shock of seeing a head in the window, so that he couldn’t feel it right away. “Come here!” said Aos, gesturing. “Do you see that?” He pointed to the window.

  “What?”

  “Is that a head? Not a football? Not a globe?”

  “It’s hard to say. I don’t have my glasses.” The man pointed to his bulbous, swollen eye. “The thug was a young boy, I think. Barely as high as my chest. That’s why I didn’t see him. I’m afraid now for my own sons, who are the same height. Not once have I asked what they believe or what they want from their country. Now I wonder. What if they love Mubarak? What if they want him to come back?”

  Aos couldn’t think about anything except the head in the window. He wanted to know who it belonged to and what they were doing at their desk. Maybe the Mugamma wasn’t really closed. Or only closed to the public for appearances. Maybe the Supreme Council was governing behind closed doors. Not in service to the people, but scheming against them. “I’m sorry,” said Aos, standing up. “I’m sorry I had no water and didn’t carry you to the medical tent and can’t stay here in the shade. Someone is inside the Mugamma.” Aos left the man with jelly on his face to recover alone in the palm garden. Then he ran back to the office to tell Charlie what he’d seen. To Aos, a head in the window meant the revolution was in grave danger. Charlie needed to know. The fate of the revolution and the fate of their clients were inextricably linked. Most of their clients would never leave Egypt, so the only way to improve their lives would be to improve the government. The government would never improve if it wasn’t overthrown. The government would never be overthrown if the Mugamma wasn’t closed due to general civil disobedience. If the Mugamma wasn’t closed, the Supreme Council wasn’t scared. If the council wasn’t scared, they wouldn’t hold fair elections. Mubarak would be replaced by a man like him. Only his name would change.

  When Aos arrived at the office, news lodged in his throat, Charlie was nowhere to be found. Odd considering how rarely Charlie left the office, even at night. Certainly not during working hours. The weekend counted as working hours; even interns slogged through half days. Aos called Charlie using the office phone since Aos’ mobile had been stolen in Tahrir. Not that day, but last week. He’d not gotten round to replacing it. There was no answer. “Where’s Charlie?” he asked the office at a slightly heightened pitch. Aos didn’t want to react badly in front of the interns, but couldn’t help himself. Michael answered with a blank stare while Sabah answered with several questions: “What happened to your shirt?” She gestured to the polka dots. “Is that blood? Are you hurt?” The interns answered with confused looks. Nobody had seen Charlie leave.

  * * *

  Aos’ unusual day was only beginning. Later, the office phone rang. He was so sure it was Charlie returning his call that he didn’t use his normal greeting. “Salaam, habibi! You won’t believe what I saw! A head in the window at the—”

  A smoker’s cough revealed the caller wasn’t Charlie. He wasn’t patient, either. “Am I speaking to Aos? If not, I need to speak with him. Tell him it’s a matter of life and death. Tell him I’m not joking.”

  The office phone traded almost exclusively in matters of life and death. Aos had acclimated years ago. “Yes, Aos. That’s me.” He tried to sound attentive and concerned. “What’s your name? Have you or your family been threatened? Injured? Arrested?”

  The police were known to arrest refugees caught selling trinkets in the street, which was a common and altogether pitiful source of income for many clients. It was technically illegal. The police would demand to see work permits. When no permits could be produced, they’d demand bribes. The bribes were always in excess of the value of the trinkets. There was no way for the clients to pay.

  “No, no. My name is Naguib.” The caller said his name as if it meant something. As if they’d been friends once.

  Aos cycled all the Naguibs that he knew. His bawab, who collected money for repairs that never materialized. The man from the corner store who sold the best bread in all of Cairo but refused to name its source. (He was a shrewd businessman.) Even the boy who came every so often with his cart of nearly spoiled vegetables down Aos’ alley. “For soup,” he’d say. “Very cheap.” Many clients, too, had the same name. Naguib Fakhoury. Naguib Ashhad.

  “I’m sorry,” said Aos. “I don’t—” Aos heard a fist slam a desk.

  “Please, remember! The Yemeni Restaurant. On Sharia Iran. We ate there one night in college after class was canceled. I ran away when a machete man outside tried to rob us. I never apologized for leaving you. I should have apologized, but I was so humiliated. How could I come back to class? How could I face you?”

  Yes, of course. Naguib. Aos was surprised how vividly he remembered a man he’d not seen or thought of in years. Their friendship had lived a short life. It began at Cairo University outside the locked door of a canceled class. Masters of Egyptian Literature. That week they were studying The Yacoubian Building, about the fictional residents of a real edifice by the same name located on Talaat Harb Street, not far from Tahrir. The novel condemned and utterly dismantled a society consumed by a corrupt government, by greed, by lack of principle. The author’s reproach, though aimed at the ruling class, had a wide spread; nobody, not even the shirtmaker, escaped blame. Aos read the book but slept through the professor’s speculations about which Egyptian politicians and socialites the characters were based upon. The professor’s only passion was his theory; he didn’t really want to teach.

  That night Aos and Naguib had arrived at the locked classroom at the same time. They weren’t friends and had barely spoken until that moment. It wasn’t either man’s fault. The size of the class precluded normal rapport. Naguib awkwardly bent over to investigate the slit at the bottom of the door. “No lights. The class is canceled. Why weren’t we notified?” He looked excited and almost afraid, as if he hadn’t expected to have spare time and, as a result, would now squander it.

  “Are you hungry?” Aos thought spare time was God’s blessing. It would be a sin not to use it to eat. It would be a worse sin not to invite Naguib, who looked lonely. “I know this place. It’s far, but not very far. It’s worth the walk. The bread is . . .” Aos made a large circle with his arms. “Humongous.”

  They went to a Yemeni restaurant. The restaurant was called the Yemeni Restaurant, located on a street called Iran. Aos went there originally for the strangeness of the name and location, but visited every week after for the hot saltah stew, which he scooped with torn pieces of malooga flat bread. Aos said the bread would, if toasted, make a good shield against an armed enemy. Naguib, in an attempt to make the jest a little smarter, said too seriously, “If Romans ever return to Egypt, I’ll lift my bread in defense.” He made a strained face when lifting it and, after a few long seconds, let himself laugh. They continued eating and, in between bites, talked a
bout history, art, and, after exhausting their knowledge on the other subjects, literature. Were the characters in Al-Aswany’s novel based on real people? Could the professor’s theory be believed? Naguib said a professor, out of respect, should be trusted; Aos said a professor, out of duty, should have proof. Not that it mattered much either way. The conversation was an exercise in intellectual heavy petting, and by the end of the meal both Aos and Naguib thought highly of each other and, more important, themselves.

  Sharia Iran was a dark and oddly quiet street, but Cairo was a safe city—safe as most cities, at least—and after splitting the bill they walked west toward Al Bohooth, where they would’ve turned south toward Cairo University. Naguib had another class to attend and Aos had a paper to write in the library. The library was quieter than his apartment. His upstairs neighbors had a habit of watching TV all night. The floors were so thin they may as well not have existed. On the walk, Aos and Naguib passed the Asad Ibn Al-Forat Mosque, the Metro grocery, and the iron gym where men boxed away their bellies with no gloves. The gym’s signage displayed one man knocking out another man, who somehow was smiling as he fell to the mat. After the gym was a trash pile that dwarfed the cars parked next to it. Every time Aos walked by that pile—he went to the Yemeni Restaurant at least twice a week—he was reminded of the Zabbaleen, the garbage people of Manshiyat Naser. They traveled door-to-door collecting refuse. They hauled the refuse back to Garbage City, their slum on the edge of the ward, where it was sorted, sold, recycled, reused, or, in the case of organic material, fed to pigs. It was the most effective garbage collection Cairo had ever seen. But those responsible weren’t rewarded by the government or respected by the people. Aos tried to start a conversation about the Zabbaleen. Not that he had anything insightful to say about them, other than how he admired their resourcefulness. Maybe it was an overly polite opinion, but nice to say nonetheless. Somehow Naguib found a reason to scoff. “The Zabbaleen? Those weasels? Those rats?” Aos didn’t know how to react. Let it go? Or defend the Zabbaleen? He could say weasels were better than racists. Was it even a race issue? Or a class issue? Maybe it was a religious issue. Most of the Zabbaleen, after all, were Copts.

  A machete man saved Aos and Naguib from what had become an awkward lull in conversation. He jumped from the shadows into the yellow light cast by the lamp hung overhead on a black wire crossing the street. He demanded two wallets and swung his machete as evidence of his willingness to chop them up to get their money. The swinging was so wild it was almost beyond the machete man’s control. His arm looked ready to fly from its socket. Aos, in a bid to keep what belonged to him, said they were students and had no money. Naguib vigorously nodded in agreement. The machete man swung his blade, closer this time, again and again. Naguib turned to run, but slipped into the trash pile. The quick movement of his body falling startled the machete man, who lunged at Naguib with his blade extended. Aos stuck his foot out, tripping the machete man. Aos’ foot moved entirely of its own accord. Why would Aos consciously protect Naguib? Whom he didn’t know and had discovered he didn’t like? Who’d said crude things about the Zabbaleen? The questions disturbed Aos, for they revealed his brain was less moral than his foot.

  The machete man landed flat on the pavement in a daze. Aos snatched his blade lest the daze wear off and the machete take to the air again. Then he dragged the machete man to the side of the road in case a vehicle happened past and, mistaking his body for a speed bump, slowed down but nevertheless drove over him. Finally, Aos turned to check on Naguib. Part of him wanted Naguib to be injured from his face-plant into the trash pile. Not so injured that he needed medical attention, but injured enough to regret what he’d said about weasels. If the Zabbaleen hadn’t suffered such enmity—the prejudice made it easy for Parliament to imperil their livelihood by culling their pigs—then perhaps the trash pile would’ve been long gone to Garbage City. To Aos’ surprise, Naguib didn’t lie sprawled in the refuse. There was only a mark in the pile where he’d landed. Naguib must’ve stood up and, without concern for the fate of his new “friend,” slunk away. “You’re the weasel,” said Aos to the trail of garbage betraying the direction he’d fled. To prevent that annoyance from becoming anger, Aos shoved Naguib from his mind. He returned to and sat by the machete man. With the adrenaline beginning to wear off, Aos could finally see the man for what he was: thin and tired looking. He gave the man some money. Not a lot, but what he had. The prophet, after all, had commanded it: If I had a mountain of gold, I would love that, before three days had passed, not a single coin thereof remained with me. . . . But so, too, did something in Aos’ gut compel him to hand over his banknotes and even his coins. The feeling that he’d made an error of judgment. How could he blame the poorest of the poor for being desperate? That was like blaming the fire you’d set for burning you. It was Aos’ fault for not giving the money right away. For not giving more often to more people. For not attacking the problem at its source: in government, which fed injustice with nepotism and corruption and greed. For not revolting against tyranny. For not demanding the tyrant step down. The machete man accepted the money, then tried to steal back the blade Aos had tucked under his arm—a lazy and futile attempt to reclaim an identity no man could possibly want.

  “I need that,” said the machete man.

  “I’m sorry.” Aos scooted away. He stood up when the machete man scooted after him. “I can’t give it back to you.” Aos walked east toward the river instead of south toward the school. The machete man didn’t give chase, but did yell that he’d been robbed. “Thief!” he shouted from the sitting position. Aos didn’t stop until he reached the Nile’s bank, a kilometer away. There he let the blade fly like an ibis over the water. A faint splash rid the world of the machete.

  That night had been the beginning of Aos’ political disposition and the end of his brief friendship with the weasel Naguib. The man, who’d failed to appear again in Masters of Egyptian Literature, had practically fallen out of Aos’ memory. He’d barely thought of him again until now.

  “You didn’t run,” said Naguib quietly into the phone.

  “I was so afraid I forgot to run.” Aos was pleased to discover how easy it was to forgive someone who’d committed a small crime long ago. There was nothing left to discuss. Aos hadn’t fostered a grudge. He didn’t want an apology. He wanted to get back to work.

  “I have a son now,” said Naguib.

  Aos’ job had cursed him with a laconic way of speaking. He’d learned to stay on topic. In doing so, he’d lost the patience required to converse the Arab way—with a strange, rapt interest in knowing everything about everyone. Aos felt sorry that he’d lost the part of himself that had allowed conversations to unspool, to go nowhere, to wind endlessly. “What’s his name?” The obligation to ask bothered Aos. The bother informed his regret. He’d changed. He’d lost something.

  “Geb.”

  The name of the Egyptian god who permitted crops to grow, whose laughter caused earthquakes. Aos knew the name from an elective course he’d taken on Egyptology, once upon a time. Geb was, or might’ve been—at least some archaeologists theorized—related to the divine creator. The divine creator was a bird that laid the world as an egg. The bird was either a goose or an ibis. When the egg hatched, Ra, the sun god, filled the sky. Geb was his cousin or something.

  “He’s sick,” said Naguib.

  Oh, no, thought Aos. Now he couldn’t end the conversation in good conscience. He’d have to wait for it to end naturally.

  “Sick how?”

  “He requires an operation.”

  “What operation?”

  “Maybe I deserve this,” said Naguib with a drawl that implied he was drunk or medicated. Why hadn’t Aos noticed the drawl before? Perhaps he really had lost the ability to listen. “My life hasn’t always been virtuous. I left Egypt for medical school. London, you know. I came back with a nasty habit. Pills, I’m sorry to say. What once cured stress then cured sadness. Years melted away in the sun. Now I
work at Hallacare. You know Hallacare? The hospital in Shubra? We tell our patients there is no better care to receive than the terrible care we can offer. My soul is gone from saying that. I wait for God to punish me. But Geb? What could a boy do in four years to deserve this? Geb is four. I don’t have the money.”

  “What money? Why do you need money?”

  “Any doctor in Egypt who would take the surgery would just kill my boy. The system is falling apart. There’s no trust. No accountability. Call me a traitor for saying that. I don’t care what you say.” Then, after calming down a bit: “Two days ago I found a stray goat in the ward with the children. I knew then what I’ve known for years, but was too ashamed to admit: I should’ve stayed in London. I should’ve stayed. But my family said come back. They said come back to Egypt. They said, ‘What is our country if all the educated people abandon us?’ I had agreed at the time and felt proud. The mistake now ruins my family. Geb, my boy. He’s sick.” Aos realized too late that he’d also made a mistake. Naguib hadn’t called to share his woe. He wanted something. “One hundred thousand Egyptian pounds. I beg you. For the plane ticket and the surgery. Please, I beg you. Geb will die.”