The City Always Wins

by Omar Robert Hamilton

  At last! Egypt has not one living

  ex-president but two!

  Whatever protesters’ grievances there

  can be no alternative to constitutional

  and electoral #legitimacy.

  The Army will never allow democracy

  again if President Morsi is couped.

  This is no coup. 14 million people asked the

  army to protect them from terrorism.

  The people have once again shown their power.

  They’ve shown they can change the regime,

  and they know they can do it again if necessary.

  Prez Morsi enjoys huge support but

  protests are being distorted and amplified

  by elite-owned media.

  Brotherhood supporters launching violent

  protest marches daily.

  JULY 8: 51 KILLED OUTSIDE REPUBLICAN GUARDS HQ

  The kitchen sink is full of coffee cups, plates, improvised ashtrays. The fridge is empty. No one has cleaned the office for weeks. Mariam is looking for a clean spoon when she hears the front door open and Nancy’s voice coming through it.

  “Well, who do you think is behind the attacks?” Her tone is sharp, bullying.

  “I don’t know,” someone mumbles. Hafez? “I don’t think they’re entirely organized.”

  “Well, let’s apply some logic, shall we?” Nancy is angry. “Who benefits from protests ending? Who are the protests in Tahrir against?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  Mariam steps out of the kitchen to say hello, but Nancy is in full swing and ignores her: “Maybe it is. You always said you thought the police were involved. All you Opantish people kept saying that. But why would the police be attacking this crowd? These are their people. So this is proof—it’s always been the Brotherhood.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Hafez is tired, harried. His beard is long, scruffy. His hair, too. He looks unslept.

  “You can think what you like but the logic is there.”

  “Fine,” Hafez says. “Let’s drop it.”

  “I don’t understand. You were against Morsi. You wanted him gone. Now he’s gone and he’s, he’s started a terrorist insurrection and—what?—you feel sorry for him? They’re throwing children off rooftops! They’re terrorists!”

  Christian militias spark violence while 30 million

  Egyptians gather in support of Morsi today.

  In photographs: Empty tents at Morsi rallies.

  In photographs: Record numbers turn out

  for President Morsi.

  Islamist mob kills teenager by throwing

  him off a rooftop.

  Revolt against #Military_Coup across all Egypt.

  Reports of whole governorates now engaged

  in civil disobedience.

  At least five civilians in Manial dead after

  Brotherhood march attacks residents.

  JULY 14: 18 DEAD IN CLASHES AT BEIN AL-SARAYAT

  The nights fold into each other. They dress for another night on patrol and he’s putting his ID into his sock and his door key into the other and she stops and holds him and tells him to be careful and then she’s gone to the Operations Room, where she switches on the three hotlines and waits for the first call before the flare ignites through the red teeth and shadow blacks of the crush and the helicopters dip over the shrieking crowd drowning out the cries for help from the circles of men and knives.

  Mariam finds Khalil sitting on a muddy stairwell behind Hardee’s, his head in his hands, his intervention team waiting to be called out into the square. “I brought you a sandwich,” she says, knowing he won’t have eaten for hours. “I brought for the whole team.”

  “Thank you,” he says, touching her hand. He puts his nightstick down. His shirt is ripped open at the neck, his hands are covered in mud, maybe blood. Who have we become?

  JULY 15: 7 DEAD IN CLASHES ON OCTOBER BRIDGE

  He opens the washing machine and shovels the Opantish T-shirts in. His phone sits waiting for him on the kitchen counter but he doesn’t pick it up. Just five minutes more before it’s time to breathe in the toxic fumes of the Internet.

  He runs the tap, flicks on the radio, starts the dishes.

  More news has surfaced of violence emanating from the terrorist Brotherhood’s illegal occupation of two major city squares at Nahda and Rabaa …

  He flicks it off.

  They call it polarization. Two ends of the country pulling away from each other toward the extreme, leaving the middle clinging on above the gulf.

  He picks up his phone, heavy and inevitable as Pandora’s box. Soon he is knee-deep in a new dawn of the pro-military’s bullying triumphalism and the Brotherhood’s sanctimonious hypocrisy. And the hectoring paternalism of the international commentariat.

  JULY 24: SISI TO THE NATION: GIVE ME A MANDATE TO END THE BLOODSHED

  Hafez hands him a cigarette. Tens of thousands have flooded the square to give Sisi his “mandate.” There is nothing to do but smoke and watch.

  “You know the ridiculous thing,” Hafez says. “The thing I find ridiculous is that no one mentions, you know, the people. Why is Morsi out”—BANG!—a firework sends a shudder through them both. Hafez looks ill, like he hasn’t slept for days. He’s talking quickly, his mouth tripping to keep up with his overwired brain. “Why’s Morsi out? Because more people marched against him than have ever marched against anything in the history of”—BANG!—“in the history of marches and, yes, we’ll go back into some kind of dance with the army now, but we know that the army can’t take power directly again”—BANG!—Khalil lights a cigarette and it cuts at his throat, bone dry from the long dehydrations of patrol nights. He is too tired to speak. “Even if Sisi feels the hand of history on his shoulder, SCAF wouldn’t let him put himself in as president. It makes them too vulnerable in the long run.”

  Death toll from clashes between security forces

  and Morsi supporters rises to 72.

  Evidence surfaces of MB killing protesters AND

  police during the 18 Days.

  Morsi in good health, says EU’s Ashton.

  Minister of the Interior coordinating with armed

  forces to disperse sit-ins at Rabaa al-Adawiya

  and Nahda Square.

  Feeling in #Rabaa is that of #Tahrir in #Jan25,

  but police retaliation more brutal & protesters

  more determined.

  Let us say it courageously and honestly:

  “No to free elections in Egypt.”

  More bodies surface near Brotherhood sit-ins.

  Sweet little girl now singing on #Rabaa

  #AntiCoup stage. Click for pictures from largest

  rally Cairo has ever seen.

  Anti-Morsi protestors told Amnesty International

  how they were captured, beaten, subjected to

  electric shocks, or stabbed by individuals loyal

  to the former president.

  #Egypt’s first & only democratically elected

  President #Morsi is the only one who can

  speak for all #Egyptians. #Morsi is a symbol of

  Egypt’s struggle for freedom & liberty.

  Rania is in the kitchen. No one else is in the office.

  “We have to do a podcast,” Khalil says.

  “Okay.”

  “We have to clarify our position. I’m sick to death of all the assholes on Twitter and Time and the rest of them. I’m going mad.”

  “So let’s write something down. Where’s Mariam?”

  “Where do you think?”

  Mariam hardly leaves the Operations Room. He doesn’t say anything more. He knows Rania hasn’t been back in the Operations Room since January.

  “So we’ll write it ourselves,” Khalil says. “It’s all simple: we’re not with the army or the Brotherhood and everyone who says they’re the only options has no idea what they’re talking about. The revolution is still the strongest force in the country. This i
s just another wave of the same political process that’s been going on for two years, and if they think that Sisi or any of them are strong enough to stop it they’re not paying attention.”

  “You’re right,” Rania says. “We should say it. But I don’t think anyone’s listening.”

  The Brotherhood has rejected al-Azhar’s efforts

  to resolve the political crisis through a national

  reconciliation initiative involving all parties.

  The Minister of the Interior says plans are in

  place for the peaceful dispersal of the sit-ins.

  The Brotherhood calls on all supporters to take

  pilgrimage to sit-ins at Nahda and Rabaa.

  Brotherhood snipers killed 10 people

  protesting in front of MB HQ.

  #Democracy #Freedom #Dignity

  #Social_Justice are ideas.

  You can’t kill an idea when its time

  has come.

  The Minister of the Interior

  says plans are in place for the peaceful

  dispersal of the sit-ins.

  Repeat: our safety is in numbers.

  If you care about democracy

  Go to Rabaa or Nahda now!

  AUGUST 14: POLICE OPERATION TO CLEANSE BROTHERHOOD SIT-INS HAS BEGUN

  Go to your brothers in the hospital! The crackling speakers reverberate between the buildings. Go to your brothers on the front lines! Mariam and Hafez move quickly through the side streets. The guns are still for now. Rabaa is a tent city of tarpaulins and broken bottles and cooking gas and posters of Morsi and men racing to the front with blankets full of rocks, bricks, sandbags, water, and unshakable groups of women marching through the acrid smoke, chanting battle cries for their president. Prepare the barricades! There is no god but God! There is no god but God! The martyr is the beloved of God! Something big is on fire in the distance.

  Hafez is on one knee, taking photographs, when a booming recording floods over the street:

  This is the Ministry of the Interior. You are ordered to vacate this area. This is the Ministry of the Interior. You are ordered—

  “Come on, Hafez!” Mariam is pulling at him. “We need to get to the field hospital.”

  With a great thud the gunfire begins. A heavy artillery sound followed by an automatic. Thud. Tktktktktktktk. People are running in all directions. Thud. Tktktktktktktk. A bulldozer is slowly chewing its way through the encampment, crushing the tents and fragile barricades before it, men push a refrigerator toward the front and hide behind it and pop up from their hiding places and throw rocks, but they bounce off it harmlessly. Behind the bulldozer comes an APC and the guns. This is the Ministry of the Interior. You are ordered to vacate this area. Thud. Tktktktktktktk. They are running, away from the guns and deeper into the camp, through the alleyways, and a man falls and another and thud. Tktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktktk. They’re coming fast. A car siren is sounding, the bulldozer is inching closer, the wooden tent poles crunching underneath it. Get to the hospital don’t look back don’t hesitate breathe just run stick to the sides don’t listen just run oh fuck just run you’ll know when you’re shot so just run.

  The hospital is all burning and weeping. Bodies being carried bleeding and moaning, the index finger of a right hand up, blood trailing thick and shining behind them, the high voice screeching out of the speakers on the stage again and again. Don’t run! There is no god but God. The martyr is the beloved of God. Hold your ground! The revolution continues! Hold your ground! The smell in the field hospital suffocating her, clinging to her mouth and skin, climbing up into her nose, breathing over the sweat on her chest, dried blood and Dettol and mud and smoke and terror and sweat and the windows all closed and the doctors with gas masks on and there’s blood everywhere and every inch is a dying in this room of soaking blankets and blood-sodden shirts and the air is all last breaths wept out of lungs ripped open with buckshot and a baby, two babies, are crying and it’s the only sound that makes any sense. The yellow light streams in hot through the closed windows and suddenly Mariam is so hot she’s sure she will pass out. The gunfire draws closer. This is the end. No one is coming, no one is stopping this, no one is saving us. They are coming, the guns and the trucks are coming.

  A bullet hole can be so small. A body can hold so much blood. A baby can cry for so long.

  Get to work. Concentrate. She looks quickly for Hafez. Stick together. He’s filming. He won’t leave without you. You can help. Tourniquets, basic dressings, stop the bleeding. That’s all anyone can do. She looks around at the doctors, dressing the wounds. That’s all anyone can do here. Stem the bleeding, dress the wound. Save an arm, a leg. Stem the bleeding, dress the wound. Crack. A new gun. Crack. A different gun now, stronger. Crack. Its echo lasts through you. Crack. One sure death at a time. People running, pushing, picking up bleeding brothers and lost sons and doctors with their arms raised, pleading with people to wait and—crack—they’re coming closer—crack—people are pushing out through the door and everything is the thrashing of a body drowning and straining for a last breath, for a chance and then there are more bodies, new bleedings being pulled back into the room and the door is a portal of white light and wind and people pressed against the wall to either side of it. Crack. Crack. So many people pressing against each other, keeping out of the corridor, breathing and crying and praying, all corralled together, pressed against a wall with a man lying bleeding just beyond the doorway, his arms spread out, his shirt thick with blood and no one can reach him to pull him inside—crack—blood is flowing out of his gut and coagulating around him in the debris of cardboard boxes and medical gloves and tissues and syringes and masks and plastic bags and water bottles. Toussi, you’re here again. You’re killed again. Crack. We’re coming for you, we’re coming, you’re wet with sweat. And blood? Don’t look. There’s nowhere to run. We’re coming for you and there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Stay here, with the injured, where you can help. They will give the injured passage. What are you talking about? They’re attacking the hospital, you can’t get out and the man on the floor isn’t breathing anymore, the pool of blood has stopped growing and someone reaches out into the hallway and hooks the tips of his fingers into the dead man’s trousers and tries to pull him closer and his body starts sliding across the hot slick of thick, dark blood pulled behind him, congealing around his trousers heavy with blood slipping down to his hips and down beneath his bloodied pubic hairs and penis. Please don’t let me die here, where no one knows me and no one will find me and no one will call my mother and I’ll be pulled into a pile with all the other bodies buried and burned. Please don’t let it be here without even a rock in my hand, facedown in medical waste, please don’t let it be now. Who will call my mother? She’ll hear the words and won’t believe them but she’ll know it’s true. I can’t do this to her, she can’t take it, she can’t, I can’t do it. Don’t think about her. We’ll get out. Don’t think about her or your friends all in black and holding back their tears and choosing their highlights of how they’ll remember you. They’ll remember you. Oh Khalil we should have done things differently, I should have been different. How will you remember me? My mother will be all alone with no one left. She’ll know. As soon as the phone rings she’ll know. An unknown number and her heart will stop and from the first breath of the voice down the line she’ll know before the words come and the ruin begins and the apartment is filled with black and aunts and uncles and friends and patients and everyone who ever shared two words with her each in a barren procession of formality and distraction and a bottling of rage and there’ll be no one she can ever talk to. Will Khalil look after you, Mama? Will he come and sit with you day after day? Will you take strength from each other? You can look after each other. Everyone who dies today will be named a terrorist. This isn’t helping. This isn’t you. Stop. Stem the bleeding, dress the wound. You can keep some people alive. Stem the bleeding, dress the wound.

  Wait.

/>   How long has the stage been silent? When did the baby stop crying?

  An electronic voice booms through the room. “This is the Ministry of the Interior.” Machines. They’ve sent machines to kill us. “You are ordered to vacate this area.” The air is so hot with smoke and gas and blood that she can hardly breathe and the bullets, the bullets, just keep your head down, just grab Hafez’s hand and try to keep breathing and pray and breathe and say thank you, God, and please let it be quick.

  PART 3

  YESTERDAY

  Tomorrow, we will die the same death.

  @mahmoud_hakem

  2:23 AM–15 Aug 2013

  I’m sitting, smoking alone in the heat on the balcony.

  Cars pass, honking their horns in celebratory rhythms. Happy, sweaty families shout Long live Egypt.

  Dalida’s voice wafts up, relentless, from a shop downstairs:

  My hope, always was, my country

  That I’d come back here, my country

  Staying close to you fore-e-ver!

  Shut up shut up shut up.

  * * *

  Someone has ripped the eyes off the Nefertiti sticker on my door, scraped off the “No” and scrawled Yes to the Military Trial of Civilians.

  * * *

  In the night, the city is silent. Nobody moves through the hot darkness of the curfew. The streets are still.

  * * *

  You talk in your sleep. Not to me. “Run,” you say. “Run.” I lie in silence next to you, listening for clues about the things we don’t talk about. I should have gone with you. I should have been there. “We’re going to be late, Toussi,” you say through the dream. “Everyone’s waiting for us.” I listen for the words I can’t ask for. I’ve forgotten how to sleep.

  * * *

  The room is shaking. Your eyes open as an army helicopter passes low overhead.

  * * *

  The daylit world is worse.

  Sisi is everywhere. On posters on every street, on car windshields, on necklaces and key rings and cupcakes the Great Savior’s saccharine smile beams out at us, his sweating underlings. Downtown Cairo has become a military-themed fairground of Sisi sandwiches and fridge magnets and posters and cooking oil relabeled with his name and cupcakes iced with his face and women in camouflage pants posing for selfies, flashing their vampiric smiles and CC claws. No talk show dares air without a paean to his virtues of manhood and charisma, no storefront is safe from the burning mob without his Apollonian gaze staring down at you, there will be blood, blood, and more blood. Nine hundred killed in a day. Egypt has never been more glorious. We’ll kill nine thousand for our homeland. Are you not relieved? Are you not Egyptian? Do you not love your country? Are you trying to keep her on her knees? Now we see your true colors, now we know who to come for in the night. We are free of the terrorists, at last, we have been delivered. The country was crumbling, Egypt was on her knees, the Brotherhood was an occupying force and we now have been liberated by the great Sisi. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last. Sisi, did you know, was the true name of Ramses III? Sisi the lion and the lionhearted. Our eagle and our beret and our flag are one in you, Sisi, and the victory you have led us to. Oh Sisi, my Sisi, you have returned Egypt to the Egyptians, you have led us out of the desert. Women grow weak in the knees and men rise firm at the sound of your name. We will face down the terrorists together. Oh Sisi, my Sisi, the last three years have been so very, very hard. Oh Sisi, my Sisi, you are the answer to my crossword puzzle. Your name, in its perfect and eternal symmetry, can sell my potatoes.