Glass Collector

by Anna Perera

  The cart’s in the distance now, approaching the roundabout, and without it Mokattam is a long walk home. The pony’s being made to almost trot, the brothers are so desperate to lose Aaron after his erratic behavior. “You creeps,” Aaron mutters. The white bag bounces by his side, but his luck’s in and a bendy bus pulls in front of the cart, forcing it to slow down just as Aaron reaches the back wheels. As he jumps up he crashes into one of the heavy bags, which tumbles on to the street.

  “You idiot!” Joseph hisses, angry at the sight of Aaron’s happy face.

  In a second they’re both down and trying to avoid the screeching cars. Between them they manage to throw the bag back. It thuds as it lands on the heap and at that very moment Aaron spots a policeman hurrying toward them. There’s no time to argue as Aaron leaps on the cart, though Joseph would like nothing more than to leave him here forever.

  Packed tight and safely hidden from view between the bags of garbage, Aaron rips Omar’s package apart. Inside is a folded receipt for four bottles of lavender oil and lovely sparkling violet bottles that are decorated with sprigs of leaves with slim gold edges. Aaron holds one up to the sun and for a second the light sends a wide blue heaven over his dusty, dirty arms before he quickly stuffs the bottles tight in his pockets and wedges the receipt and brown paper between the bags—they’re recyclable. He won’t recycle these bottles. The glass is new; it’s clean. And when the bottles are used up they will still be beautiful.

  That’s what’s great about glass, Aaron remembers. It’s always clean somehow. The light leaves nothing to clear up.

  He’s sitting in garbage, looking at garbage—scrunched-up paper tissues on the road, dirty paper cups with plastic lids, blue straws in a doorway. By the railing there’s a curling newspaper and crushed cigarette packets. Everywhere he looks there are tin cans, polystyrene packaging, stray cardboard, white plastic, clear plastic, broken things, useless things, forgotten things. Debris. Rubbish. Trash. Junk. It’s endless …

  Chapter Nine

  Engagement

  By the time the pony clops to a thirsty stop outside the Mebaj home and they start unloading the cart, everyone’s surprised by the silence. There’s no singing coming from the church choir, celebrating the announcement of Shareen’s engagement. No laughing and giggling from the pack of women who are sitting, peeling vegetables on the street. Worst of all for Aaron, there’s no smell of roasting chicken or pork coming from the direction of her home. No banners or strips of colored paper have been strung across the shops, stalls, between the houses, or anywhere in Mokattam. And Jacob hasn’t been out spray-painting their names on the crumbling walls.

  Obviously something’s not right.

  Aaron gives Joseph a suspicious look as he jumps off the cart, swinging his white plastic bag. He’s got it wrong. No party’s in progress, but even though there’s no smell of food, his mouth’s watering just the same. Instead, he is greeted by the same tired picture of families fiddling with broken keyboards, bits of engine, and empty plastic bottles while they wait for the carts to return with the garbage.

  “Hey, Aaron!”

  Shareen spots him as he turns the corner for home. She is dressed in an old blue galabeya and her hair is hanging loose, unkempt and unwashed, and her toenails have only a few flakes of red varnish left. She doesn’t look much like the happy bride-to-be. In fact she looks angrier than ever. Aaron picks up a touch of jealousy in the way she eyes him for signs of an interesting morning while she’s been stuck here.

  “Are you getting rid of the wheelbarrow?” Aaron asks.

  He approaches her slowly to prevent the bottles in his pockets from clinking together. He’s desperate to dump the bag and hide the perfumes.

  “What? Who cares what happens to the wheelbarrow?” she says. “I’m getting married to Daniel.”

  “I was just wondering, that’s all.” Aaron sighs. “Where’s the feast, then?”

  “Why rush? I want a silk dress, my hair done, ribbons and that. He has to buy me a proper ring. Why should I jump when he says jump? I’m not going to.” She twiddles her hair with her fingers and purses her mouth, determined to be awkward and not give in. “The party’s on Saturday if you want to know.”

  “Don’t do it!” The words spill out before Aaron can stop them. “You’ll regret it. My mom did. Look what happened to her.”

  “Are you in love with me too?” Shareen isn’t surprised by his outburst. “Well?”

  A band tightens round his chest. He wants to run away. Love you? Are you crazy?

  “I was just saying I don’t understand, that’s all. He’s old and he lies. He hasn’t got as much money as people think. Jacob told me.”

  “Jacob? What does he know?”

  Aaron can see this conversation is pointless and now Shareen’s annoying him.

  She reads his mind and glances at the white plastic bag. “What’s in there?”

  Aaron is just lifting the bag to show her when Daniel, with a toothless snarl, creeps up to startle her from behind—but Aaron’s eyes give him away and Shareen twists round.

  “Go away!” She slams a fist on his shoulder.

  “Don’t speak to your love like that,” Daniel warns.

  “You’re not my love,” Shareen shouts.

  Daniel’s face changes from anger to joy. “I was going to give you the money for a new dress. It’s just as well I didn’t. I’ll buy something for myself instead.” Then, turning to Aaron, he smiles and says, “Keep away from her, boy. She’s mine.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Aaron says crossly. “You don’t own her.”

  “Give me the money,” Shareen begs. “Daniel. Daniel. P-please.”

  Now Daniel has what he wants: her undivided attention. Aaron escapes. Their sharp words follow him home, taking up all the space in his head until the thought hits him that Rachel would never behave like that. Never.

  Three minutes later, with heels in the dust and crouched over tin plates piled with rice and pieces of rich-smelling liver, there are satisfied chewing and swallowing sounds coming from Hosi, Youssa, Lijah, and Aaron as they cram food into their mouths. The flies buzzing around them are no competition for the speed of their fingers. Then there are cake and biscuits with marmalade to come.

  It’s almost too much for their stomachs to bear but they manage it, and snake-tongued Lijah gets to lick the remains of white and pink icing from the corners and lid of the cardboard cake box.

  No one notices the odd clink made by the bottles in Aaron’s pockets and, having changed into one of Hosi’s ragged white shirts, the bulges are safely hidden from view. When it’s evening, he’ll hide the bottles in the cavity under the low wall. But first he wants to see Jacob and find out if he’s going to die from the needle that was stuck in his arm or if they’ve taken his kidney without telling him. Aaron wishes he’d had time to see him in the last few days and regrets not looking for him.

  With the sun high above him and the clatter of garbage being sorted nearby, Aaron settles back to read the newspaper. Too soon his eyelids turn heavy from gazing at the pages and, weighed down from eating too much too quickly, he’s tempted to take a nap. Youssa’s snoring beside him, leaning against a bag. Aaron fancies drifting off as well, but what about Lijah? He’s pacing up and down. Uh-oh. Anything can set him off when he’s slapping the wall like that. Jumping up from the warm concrete floor is a mistake, though. The bottles clink suddenly in Aaron’s pocket. Lijah turns and stares, but Aaron’s too quick for him. A hand on the perfumes, he dives past him, jumping over a dead rat and a bent coffee pot, and into the lane.

  Aaron rushes past Shareen, who’s now on her knees doing her best to clip her father’s warped yellow toenails while her friends Constance and Malia pull horrified faces.

  “Keep still. I’m not going to cut you,” Shareen says sharply.

  “You did last time,” her father complains.

  Rather you than me, Aaron thinks, burrowing a dark, slimy passage through heaps of bags and ex
hausted women. He wonders, as he slips past young kids swiping each other with computer leads, whether Shareen will be expected to cut Daniel’s toenails when she marries him. He’d hate to have to do that. The picture sticks in his mind as he hurries down never-ending alleys to the path which leads to the medical-waste clearers’ area.

  Hot and tired, Aaron arrives at the darkest corner of Mokattam with the sound of cooing pigeons in his ears. There’s no one around apart from an old lady sitting in a doorway. Aaron glances up at the tenements reaching for the sky. At the top are bare concrete floors littered with pigeon coops. When a roof covers a building, taxes have to be paid, so none are ever put on. He remembers being told that Jacob’s was one of the first to go up, twenty years ago, to house the growing Zabbaleen population. It’s a stained, red-brick slum in the sky. Aaron glances at the newer buildings that surround it. Faded, limp clothes hang from washing lines strung between the walls, while inside the rooms rubbish strays from every corner.

  Aaron’s in time to see Jacob coming home from the pigpens with an empty plastic bag under one arm. Even the hospital waste contains food litter: rice, beans, potato peelings, and sometimes burned bread. Always pleased to see him, Jacob gives a huge grin even though he looks a bit spaced out.

  “Still alive, then?”

  “The health-clinic nurse gave me a vaccination just in case.” Jacob rolls his eyes and rubs his arm at the memory of the tweezers plucking out the broken needle. “It was horrible. I’m never going to that place again. Did you hear about Shareen and Daniel? What’s wrong with her brain?”

  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Aaron explains. “She hates him.”

  “Everyone hates him. He shouts you down if you disagree with him. Did you see the bruise on her neck?”

  “No. Does he hit her?” Aaron’s shocked to hear it, but there’s something else that’s bothering him. Jacob’s on edge. He’s twitching. His eyes are darting all over the place.

  “I saw him squeeze her neck with two fingers when she spilled his tea this morning,” Jacob says, then gazes at the sky, his feet, the next building, the sky again.

  “Did he hurt her?” Aaron asks, wondering if the vaccination has made Jacob’s eyes ache.

  “I don’t know!” Jacob scratches his curly hair in an odd, slow way, as if he can’t quite get to his scalp, where the problem is. “I’ve still got that nearly full bottle of poison I told you about. Do you want to sell it to her?” Then he laughs and his big yellow teeth pop out of his mouth, making him look more like himself.

  “She could mix it with chili sauce or black coffee,” suggests Aaron. “He wouldn’t be able to tell.”

  “I could hold Daniel’s nose and chin while you pour it down his throat?” Jacob grins. “Hey, maybe it would be better if she marries him first, because if he has got some money, she can keep it.” Jacob starts twitching again.

  “Maybe give some to us,” Aaron says hopefully.

  Suddenly the old lady opposite starts wagging a finger and cursing as she struggles out of the doorway and hobbles away.

  “Who’s she?” Aaron asks.

  “Fatima,” Jacob replies. “Fatima with the Filthy Mouth—that’s what they call her ’round here. Her husband and his brother died last year of that horrible disease. You know, the one I might have? They used to clear the private hospitals. They all sling stuff out that’s not allowed.”

  “Hepatitis?” Aaron wonders what the symptoms are. Maybe that’s why Jacob is twitching.

  “Yeah. Fatima went a bit crazy after that.” A wave of fear crosses Jacob’s face. “Do you want to sit on the wall?”

  “Maybe later,” Aaron says.

  He is watching a sagging cart with two teenage boys on it come to a halt. Instantly the boys begin unloading bags crammed with boxes. Boxes marked on all sides with the words “Bio-Hazardous Waste.”

  “What does that mean?” Aaron asks.

  “It’s dangerous, I guess.” Jacob sighs.

  “Why don’t they burn it if it’s dangerous?”

  “You should see those hospital incinerators.” Jacob’s eyes fly every which way. “They’re so old, they’re nearly busted. Sometimes they break down. There’s never a spare one. They don’t have room to store everything and they don’t want to pay the special companies to take the dangerous stuff away when we’ll do it instead.”

  “What’s in there, then?”

  Aaron hasn’t ever wanted to hang around in this area when the carts return. He covers his nose at the overpowering smell of old bandages, blood, and disinfectant that turns his stomach. A young girl, no more than eight years old, appears from the side of the building, holding her mother’s hand. She is followed by two girls of about eleven and twelve, dressed in rags. The teenage boys nod at their mother and sisters briefly and then head inside for water while Aaron and Jacob watch the mother and girls start to break open the boxes to reveal broken plaster of Paris, cracked beakers, tubes, blood bags, and syringes. They pour the lot on to the street before sorting them into piles.

  “Their home’s on the ninth floor,” Jacob whispers, and Aaron immediately understands that the families who live high up have to work here first before carrying the sorted bags upstairs for safekeeping.

  Needles, scalpels, knives, and all sorts of other sharp things clatter from plastic, puncture-proof containers. Soon the path resembles a hospital that’s just been bombed. The only things missing are the dead bodies and walking wounded. Aaron watches in horror as small, innocent hands pick up used plastic syringes and throw them into a pile for recycling. The youngest girl smiles at him as if she’s playing with dolls, not death, and the smell and silence of the afternoon heat press down on Aaron and Jacob like a cloud of sulphur as they walk away.

  “Hey! I’ve been looking for you,” a voice shouts. From the end of the lane, Abe breaks away from three of his friends the moment he spots Aaron. “Want a game?”

  Aaron catches the ball and for a few minutes they kick it back and forth. But it’s a half-hearted game. Aaron sees Lijah talking to Shareen in the distance.

  “Everyone’s after her now,” Jacob says with a clown-like grin.

  It turns out that Shareen’s still the most desired girl in Mokattam and, because she’s engaged, even Lijah’s moving in. Aaron’s sickened by the way he just pretended to touch her arm accidentally. What’s more horrible is the fact that she’s obviously enjoying the attention, and when Aaron sees Simon rush to join in with Lijah’s teasing, he can’t help moving closer to listen. Jacob and Abe go with him.

  “Are you excited about the wedding?” Lijah smirks.

  “I don’t know,” Shareen says, giggling.

  “Daniel goes to sleep at seven o’clock every night,” Simon tells her.

  “Nah, it’s six, you idiot,” Lijah says. “I’d be worried about keeping your marriage together if I were you.”

  “Get lost,” Shareen warns.

  Simon bursts out laughing. “You’re too late, Lijah.”

  “What are you doing here?” Lijah says to Abe.

  “Nothing,” Abe replies, kicking the ball at Simon.

  Simon catches it and watches Lijah expectantly. A threatening atmosphere descends until Simon throws the ball back and an impromptu match breaks out, with kids appearing from the lane to join in on their way home from school for lunch.

  Shareen is clearly crushed by the sudden lack of interest in her and, arms folded, slumps on the ground to watch, anxious for the stupid kicking to stop. At first she thinks Lijah just wants to show off, but the longer the game goes on, the more she sees he’s enjoying himself, even though he says he hates soccer.

  The only way that Shareen can cheer herself up is by imagining her forthcoming party. She’ll have her hair in silky-smooth curls that fall over her eyes and earrings. With dainty shoes and a bright red dress, she’ll be the prettiest girl there. The engagement party has given her something to look forward to and, though she doesn’t have a dress or shoes yet, Malia h
as promised to do her hair and makeup. She’s having a party and that’s all that matters.

  By the time Aaron and Jacob reach the open, clean, beautiful lane leading to the limestone carvings and statues surrounding the church, the ponies and carts have all returned from the first trip of the day.

  “When I see tons of cartons, newspaper, corrugated boxes and stuff, you know what I think?” Jacob suddenly pipes up.

  “What?” Aaron asks.

  Jacob blinks wildly. “That it’s stupid. They turn all the paper into tissues and people throw them away and then we pick them up again.”

  “I know.”

  As Aaron settles on the warm brick wall and looks back through a haze of heat at the buildings, he imagines what Cairo would be like if, overnight, the Zabbaleen didn’t exist. The city would soon drown in garbage crawling with rats and every kind of vermin. Stray dogs and cats would tear into the bags to eat maggoty meat and drag food across the roads. Disease would spread through every home and the tourists would stop coming. The city would soon collapse into ruin without them.

  It’s too hot to talk and Aaron doesn’t have the energy to do much but sit here and dream. After imagining the destruction of Cairo, he conjures up a picture of himself working in—or, even better, owning—a perfume shop.

  Beside him Jacob prays to find other work—something that doesn’t involve medical waste. He’d be quite happy sorting paper for one of the wealthier Zabbaleen families who don’t like getting their hands dirty by touching the rubbish they’ve collected. Anything would be better than wondering if a terrible disease is eating your insides.

  “Someone said there’s a new company in the city taking people on to collect printer trimmings from offices to sell for recycling. Do you think they’d have us?” he asks.

  “Nah. Easy jobs like that go quickly.”

  Aaron glances at Jacob, who doesn’t usually sit here for long. Naturally restless, he normally jumps up from the wall after a few minutes to wander round Mokattam, eyes down, looking for lost coins or anything else of interest, then returning half an hour later to tell Aaron what he’s found. Right now, Aaron sees he’s calmed down slightly. His eyes are half-closed instead of whizzing everywhere and he’s stopped twitching. Even so, he wishes he’d go.