Sharia Ahmed Orabi became Sharia Gemeat al Dewal; that became Dokki, which became Tahrir. The Nile, languid and perfectly flat, flowed under the bridge without regard for the troubles of the country it watered. Mustafa hooked left toward Ramses. A few minutes later he made a parking spot where there wasn’t one, on a small pile of trash. Several weasels scattered like roaches with tails. Mustafa bid farewell to Charlie, a man he didn’t know and hadn’t traded words with, in the style of his old self—with well-wishings, with prayers, with his hands in the air, gesturing both goodwill and good luck. Apparently the soldier who had meant so much in Imbaba meant so little downtown; he was long gone on the far side of the river. Then Mustafa turned to Hana and said, “God willing, you call soon.” Charlie opened the door, got out, then tried to close the door. The door wouldn’t shut. Mustafa told him to kick it. Charlie kicked the door, which mysteriously stuck in the frame. Mustafa pretended to be happy. Hana could see through his bullshit as if it were beach water. The soldier was obviously still on Mustafa’s mind. His posturing lasted only until he was paid. Then he sped away looking flabbergasted and bleary-eyed.
Charlie offered to reimburse Hana for the fare, but his mobile rang before he could produce his wallet. “What?” he shouted into his phone. Then Charlie mouthed five words to Hana: Aos, colleague, translator, trusted friend. “Yes, I know. The rumor. I heard. From Ali. You know Ali. Or met him once. The man from before. With the knife. . . . Yes, the knife! . . . I know. I’m telling you. I’m outside as we speak. I’ll be there in two minutes. . . . Yes, two minutes! I’m right here. I’m with Hana. You know, from. . . . Yes, that’s right. The UNHCR. . . . I know! I’m sorry! It couldn’t be helped!” The long, somber pause alarmed Hana. She was, and probably had been several times before, the topic of conversation. She couldn’t imagine those conversations had been flattering. “I’ll explain later! God, Aos! I’m two minutes away!” Charlie consigned his phone to the grave of his pocket. Then he faced Hana, looking ever tired but never dead, and said, “Let’s go.”
Their feet beat the sidewalk. They turned left at the traffic circle. Then left again at a one-story brick building, which was unassuming in every way. Before them was a courtyard surrounded on all sides by a wall, except for a metal gate that provided a disturbing view. Clients, wearing everything from pajamas to suit jackets, leaned against walls, paced the length of the yard, rapped the screen door, and begged each other for information. Men gripped wives, who gripped suitcases. Their children gripped their younger children, who gripped toys. The younger children wept violently. It was so late. They were so tired. Above it all bobbed Ali’s head. He used his hands as a bullhorn. “Who got a ticket already? Who knows where I can get mine? And four more for my family?”
8
Earlier that day, Aos had made a grave error. He’d dialed the wrong number when trying to call Charlie. He’d been forced to dial all twelve digits using the office landline, since his mobile had been stolen in Tahrir. It felt weird and old-fashioned. Had Aos not blundered, he would’ve reached Charlie and said, “The Mugamma is only closed for appearances! The revolution is in danger! It’s always been in danger, but the danger is worse than I thought!” But Charlie couldn’t answer a phone that didn’t ring. Aos hadn’t known that—there’d been no recorded message to reveal his mistake—so pressed redial every thirty minutes on the dot. He’d been blinded by frustration until a moment of panic and despair: when, in late evening, there came a series of impassioned knocks. First on the door, then again on the window. It was entirely unexpected. There were no appointments scheduled. The interns had gone home. Even Michael and Sabah had left. The office, until the knock, had felt more desolate than the Sand Sea beyond Siwa. As a boy, Aos had gone camping there. Not once did he see a fox, a bug, or even a bird. His only company had been his father’s voice, the sound of wood burning, and the innumerable stars. His father had said the stars were innumerable because the sky rotated. There were always new stars to count.
Aos answered the door cautiously. What if the knocker was the person he’d seen in the window at the Mugamma? What if the person wore a uniform and absconded with Aos to jail? His crime was seeing what he shouldn’t have seen and knowing what he ought not to know. The Mugamma was only closed for appearances. He pulled the door open so slowly the spring hinges didn’t whine. Then exhaled in a happy gust. There stood clients he recognized, trusted, and liked. He embraced Ibrahim, who carried two suitcases. Behind him, Nujah held two kids. Nujah was Ibrahim’s wife. They’d married at a young age by arrangement, then fell in love at a later date. “She is my al-Kiblah,” Ibrahim had said during his intake interview. Al-Kiblah was the old word for Polaris, the North Star. God’s compass. “I’m lost without her. Lost like the others. Lost like my son.” Their first son had been shot during a botched kidnapping attempt in central Baghdad. A terrible fate, but Ibrahim hadn’t had the money to pay the ransom the militia would’ve demanded. The boy would’ve died anyway after a long torture. Better his death was swift and, at least by comparison, painless. Ibrahim had cried when he’d said that death was better. The remaining two children, normally little balls of life but asleep now, held tightly in their mother’s arms, were named Nada and Ahmed. Behind that family, a few more clients ambled in the yard, a cement rectangle between the office and the street. The yard was surrounded by a high wall cleaved by a green gate. It was bowled in the middle so that when Cairo received rain, a blessed rarity, it filled with standing water. The water smelled bad, but made the yard cooler. Birds visited to bathe and eat bugs. The birds’ chirping invariably boosted the mood.
“It’s good to see you,” said Aos. Though it was less good to see Ibrahim’s suitcases. “Please wait.” He gestured that Ibrahim should wait outside. Then he shut the door, retrieved his phone, and hit redial several more times until finally seeing his mistake. “Alla,” said Aos. “Ya salaam.” He dialed the right number, carefully. When Charlie picked up, Aos didn’t mince words: “You need to get back here. The Mugamma isn’t really closed. I meant to tell you before. Also, where have you been all day? Ah! The second thing I have to say is much worse than the first. Clients are gathering. They’ve brought suitcases.” Charlie said he already knew. He’d seen Ali, the man with the knife. “Alla,” said Aos a second time. “Ya salaam. The man who threatened to cut his own throat? He’s still alive?” Aos breathed deeply and held his head in his hands. The first piece of good news he’d gotten in a long time was ruined by the bad news already waiting in the yard to wipe away the sweet feeling.
Clients gathering after hours wasn’t unprecedented. The same thing had happened last summer. A misinformed client heard tell that the Refugee Relief Project was handing out plane tickets. First come, first served. The rumor had spread like a virus. A crowd had gathered at the office in the early hours of a cool morning. Their agitation had been obvious. People moved hastily and kept inspecting their phones. Charlie and Aos had been the only two employees on-site at the time. When they’d opened the screen door, confusion had ensued. There’d been some yelling. The Refugee Relief Project had never given and would never give away plane tickets. Why were clients surprised? Where would the money come from? What was a plane ticket even worth without a visa? Charlie had tried to explain this to Aos, who’d tried in vain to translate for the crowd in terms that wouldn’t incite a riot. The bleak silence following the translated speech was broken by the sound of glass shattering. Someone had thrown a brick through a window. It had been disturbing at the time and more so after the fact. The brick couldn’t have been lying abandoned in the yard. It was a different color from the building in which they worked and the wall surrounding the yard. Whoever threw the brick had brought it with them.
To thwart history from repeating itself with renewed fervor—a fervor borrowed from or feeding off the revolution—Aos boiled water for tea. The idea was to give the clients something. Aos had always believed the act of giving had a hidden significance. What you gave mattered less than th
e gusto with which you offered it. He practiced saying tea as if it meant ticket. To England. To Germany. To France. While the water boiled, he laid paper cups in a grid pattern across the counter. “Where are you, Charlie?” he said to himself. Two minutes had already passed; five minutes were at risk of passing. He needed help filling the cups. He needed even more help passing them out.
The office door flew open so hard the knob lanced a hole in the drywall. “There must be forty people out there,” said Charlie as if he’d never seen a bigger number. “They’re asking a lot of questions. I said we’d be out soon to answer them.” Charlie looked at his watch. He wasn’t wearing a watch. The absence clearly disturbed him. “We need a plan. We need something to say.” A woman who must’ve been Hana followed Charlie through the door, backward. It surprised Aos—to be honest, it also relieved him—that she wasn’t white. Past experience had taught him the last thing clients needed was another pale face looking sorry for them.
“Forty?” said Aos. “There were only twenty the last time I checked.” He looked out the window before nervously arranging the chairs in a grid pattern, akin to the cups.
“What are you doing?” asked Charlie.
“We have to let them in. We have to let them sit down.”
Charlie extended his hand and told Aos to slap five. Slapping five was their ritual beginning to seemingly impossible work. Such as when several rejection notices arrived the same day and they were tasked with breaking the news. Such as when the Supreme Council shut off electricity, forcing Charlie and Aos to excavate typewriters from storage. The typewriters were badly in need of repair. Indispensable keys such as the space bar didn’t function properly. Aos and Charlie slapped five for several reasons. To make a loud sound. To feel a modicum of pain. To wake up. To mark the start of a race. First to finish the task at hand so another task could be started! Most of all, they slapped five for things they refused to talk about. How glad they were to be friends, to have similar obsessions, to care so much about their clients without ever confessing their emotional attachment to the work. This due to ego and toughness of heart, for both men seemed to believe that muscle functioned best when neglected. The slap cracked so hard it startled Hana, who turned around. She let the screen door swing shut. The door hitting the frame—bang!—startled her a second time.
“There’s not enough room,” said Charlie, rubbing the sting off his palm. “There aren’t even enough chairs.”
“I know. You’re right.” Aos sat down and ran his hands through his hair until it wasn’t combed anymore.
“Is there anything I can do?” asked Hana.
Impulse told Aos to eye her skeptically—why was she here and what were her motives?—but he didn’t want to be incredulous in case there was a hadith against it. Plus, he needed her hands. “I put tea in paper cups,” said Aos. “Will you help me distribute them? Quickly, before the tea is cold.” He fetched one tray while Hana fetched the other. Charlie pushed the screen door open using his foot. The sound of the hinges drowned in the sound of feverish mumbling from what must’ve been sixty clients ambling in the yard. Aos knew immediately there wasn’t enough tea to go around. Hopefully the children didn’t like tea or were too tired to want it. Clients turned on seeing the glint of the trays. Even the children woke up and turned. “We have tea,” said Aos loudly. There were a few seconds of puzzled staring. Then clients began shouting. Are there tickets? Are there really tickets? Can I have one? Can I have three? The questions grew increasingly philosophical. Why me? What did I do wrong? Why can’t I work? Why can’t I leave? Why did I come to this country? Clients started yelling to be heard. As the volume of the crowd increased, so did the unintelligibility. Aos walked down the two stairs leading from the door to the yard. He said tea as if it meant ticket. “Tea! Please, take a cup! I have tea!” Clients grabbed cups and also his sleeves, to slow him down. What’s the status of my case? When can I leave? Where can I go? I need money. I need medicine. I need help. Some of the youngest children cried from tiredness and the fact that their parents were loud, angry, and scared. Children looked at their parents as if they didn’t know them anymore. Who is this person holding me? After Aos’ tray of tea became just a tray, he tried to silence the crowd by hitting the tray with his hand. It sounded like a gong or a bell. He tried to explain to the whole what he’d already said to the parts. There were no plane tickets. A ticket was no use anyway. Not without a visa or a job set up on the other side. Not without a place to live. These were the responsibility not of the Refugee Relief Project, but of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—Aos thought it would’ve been dangerous to expose Hana so didn’t look at her—and the various nonprofits and service agencies available on arrival in the host country. Should that happen, should your case be approved, should a country take you. Aos affirmed the process was still going. Yes, slowly. Very slowly. He apologized in the loudest voice possible in the simplest Arabic so even the children could understand. Then he repeated himself in English in case the few Sudanese and Eritreans in the crowd, whose first languages were probably tribal and whose second languages were probably Standard Arabic, had trouble understanding the Egyptian. He said the reasonable course now was to go home and wait. “Wait?” a man yelled so loudly the others in the crowd shut up and stared at him. “I’ve been waiting!” When Aos turned toward the yelling, a suitcase whacked him in the face. The black plastic shell stuffed with old clothes swung heavy. He fell over. The clothes, set free from the suitcase, rained down and covered him. Aos didn’t move right away. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. He was tired. Also his face hurt. So Aos just lay there and listened to Charlie pushing the offender back. “Stay back! Calm down, brother!” Aos could feel the client still whacking him with the broken suitcase through the pile of clothes. The suitcase, relieved of its contents, weighed so little that its impact barely hurt anymore. Aos felt no need to roll away. He just lay there until Charlie, with the help of Hana—“Put the suitcase down!” she shouted—successfully pushed the assailant back into the crowd.
Where Aos lay was quiet and peaceful and dark. He thought he was dead for a second. Then Aos remembered how much he feared death. He feared death because he feared God. That he’d not done well enough by Him. Or that God didn’t even exist. That Aos had been wasting his time talking to his hands and to the floor and to his books. He jumped up in fear of where his mind was taking him. “I shouldn’t have stood up so quickly,” said Aos, squatting until the dots in his vision went away. He stood more slowly the second time. Then he tore away the clothes hanging off him and continued walking on through the crowd, answering questions as best he could with his crushed, bloody nose stuffed in his shirt. He didn’t stop until he bumped into a heartsick Ali with a knife on his hip, where his hand also rested. The memory of what had happened last time—Ali running toward what Aos had feared would be a suicide—shoved away his other concerns. Aos touched the man on the arm to convey what there was no material way to say: You’re thought of, worried for, and cared about; I beg you, don’t pull your knife or, God forbid, make use of it. The sorry touch must’ve conveyed to Ali what the calamity had not. There were no tickets. He wept like the children by him and turned away from the embarrassment of being seen. The back of his head advanced without pause toward the gate. “Wait, Ali!” shouted Aos. “Come back! I beg you, come back!” He tried to give chase, but Charlie, appearing from nowhere, grabbed Aos by the arm and pulled him the other way. “Damn you, Charlie! Let go of my arm! I need to know where Ali’s going!” Charlie just pulled harder. He wasn’t listening. When Aos turned, he saw why. He saw Dalia. The world’s suffering was obscured behind her. Therein lay the cost of Charlie’s want. Aos tried not to bump into or bleed on the crowd, hooked as he was like a fish, and more or less flailing like one. “Drop my arm! Do you hear me? I said . . . !” Charlie finally dropped Aos’ arm, but by then it was too late. Ali had already reached the gate and had fled into the dark of the city. Aos moaned,
but that moan was lost in the loudness of the crowd.
Live from Cairo Page 20