Glass Collector

by Anna Perera

  The Passion of Christ. The priest’s words zip through Aaron’s mind but he has no idea why. What does that mean? He turns away from Michael’s ladder to walk over to the wall and to sit looking out at the tenements, ready to act when the perfect moment comes to dig out the earth. Which it does the second the tourists disappear into the taxi van with the clunk of a sliding door and the women on the church steps flap dust from themselves as they walk home to empty the carts.

  Aaron’s pleased he saw fit to leave a bottle here before he stuffed the rest in his jeans. If he hadn’t he would have nothing now. Grit sticks in his nails as he claws his way through the earth to the small, rose-colored bottle. He should sell it but he can’t. A hot meal isn’t worth the only connection he has to his old life. What if he never sees Omar or the perfume shop again?

  A small breeze touches Aaron as he whips the bottle from the hole to his pocket and rubs the earth from his hands. He feels better. Having the bottle feeds him with the energy he needs to do what he must do next. Breathing hard, he stamps the ground flat before heading for Jacob’s tenement. Lighter on his feet now, and moving quickly, he stops only when he turns a corner and sees two fresh apricots, orange in the sun. It takes a moment for the sight to register. The apricots are somehow waiting for him in the middle of the lane, like a gift from heaven. Chewy and sweet, the flesh clings to his teeth and puts a spring in his step.

  Feeling blessed, Aaron kicks a tin can in the air. Kicks it again and again until he reaches the point in the next alley where the bags block his path and he’s forced to squeeze through the crackling plastic with arms held high. Out of habit, his eyes travel over the garbage, looking for leftover bread, not-so-old noodles, or half-eaten falafel that haven’t been delivered to the remaining pigs.

  The taste of apricots still fresh in his mouth, the smell of soiled diapers in his face, Aaron runs his fingers over the smooth bottle in his pocket until he reaches the towering tenements. So far he’s found nothing else to eat and now the paths are divided by dark, filthy tunnels which morph into women and children picking through the garbage. The early shift is over and a raging tiredness fills their faces in the airless, midday heat.

  It feels as if the sky is pressing down on Aaron as he pushes past a woman with a stove between her knees who is frying pancakes made from chickpea flour. There seems to be no way back as he hurries through a maze of filth to the cauldron where the medical-wasters live.

  A few drug addicts huddle together in each alley. Aaron hurries past them and at last turns the corner to Jacob’s tenement, then heads up the stairs. He sucks in his breath as he grazes an arm on something poking from a bag on the way up. Aaron grabs at the scratches on his skin, scared stiff they’re needle marks. Turning back, wild-eyed and frightened, he focuses on a few copper wires, not needles, sticking out of the top of a bag. To calm himself he clasps the perfume bottle, pressing it to his nose like smelling salts. The scent of rose mixed with lotus and jasmine floods through him. Sniffing the stopper of the bottle again and again, he wallows in the ripple of peace it provides. Before he places the perfume back in his pocket, a new determination sets in: He’ll try and talk to Jacob, then … get out. He won’t stay here.

  The calm determination stays with Aaron as he climbs the concrete steps to the second floor, where Jacob lives with his mother, Noha, and two sisters. When he reaches the top, he notices Fatima with the Filthy Mouth standing in the opposite doorway with a bundle under her arm.

  Instantly, she swoops past him, flying down the stairs like a witch on a broomstick. The sight feels like an omen. A bad omen. Aaron shudders. He doesn’t want to go in, even though the door is wide open.

  Aaron’s mouth waters at the smell of garlic and peppers as he hesitates for a second before stepping slowly into the room. Heart beating wildly, he almost turns back at the sight of Jacob and his family, cross-legged on the floor, eating from tin plates and surrounded by bags of medical waste. The room is cleanly swept, Aaron notices, and the glassless windows are clear of cobwebs—like his home was when his mother was alive.

  “Aaron?” Noha jumps up to greet him, as if she was expecting him. “Sit here. I was hoping you would come.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fortune

  Aaron’s standing stock still. Run for it. Go. Get away. Forget the chance of a proper meal. You know medical-wasting is the worst job in Mokattam.

  Now Aaron wishes he’d begged Hosi to take him back. Anything is better than this and he knows what will happen next.

  Noha hands Aaron a plate of rice and oily brown lentils and a huge grin spreads across her wrinkled, kind face. For a moment the rich smell disguises the stink of plastic and old bandages coming from the bags, but it’s already too late. Too late because he’s accepted the food and he can read the payment she wants in her eyes.

  Jacob’s pretty sisters watch Aaron with interest. He’s never been inside their two-and-a-half-room home before and they’re surprised their mother has allowed a handsome boy to come this close now that they are twelve and thirteen years old, let alone that she’s amazingly pleased to see him. While Jacob’s always happy to see Aaron, he’s more interested in eating just at this moment.

  Casting off his fear, Aaron takes his place on the floor and hungrily digs into the first proper meal he’s had since the engagement party. The delicious lentils are mixed with peppers and garlic and Aaron gobbles them up in record time. Noha looks at him carefully, aware that he’s desperate and has no way of managing on his own. She doesn’t speak until he’s finished.

  “Are you ready now, Aaron, to make up for your sins? For your stealing.”

  “I don’t know,” he answers sheepishly.

  “I think you do,” Noha says with a glint of triumph in her eyes. “Jacob, show—show.”

  At this, Jacob springs from the floor with a burst of energy, as if the “fruit cordial” argument hadn’t happened, and leads the way to a tiny dark room, which is off the main room where his mother and sisters sleep beside the stove and sink. There’s a basic bathroom to one side.

  Jacob’s half of the room has a yellow boxing glove that clearly serves as a pillow and a worn mat at one end. There’s no need for him to point out where Aaron’s meant to sleep. Beside the mat is an empty space just big enough for him to lie in. Beside that is a cardboard box with a bundle of clothes on top, a dirty white comb and a wax statue of Mary, Mother of God. Aaron picks it up for a second and smiles before putting it back.

  “What made you come now?” Jacob asks.

  “I got hungry,” Aaron answers simply.

  It seems fate that has propelled Aaron to this place and he starts to feel ill, wondering if he’ll get out of here alive. A pang of regret for leaving the pony yard stabs him in the chest, until Jacob puts him straight.

  “Shareen and her friends are gossiping about Rachel. You had to leave. She’s got enough to deal with. That nice Fatima, her stepmom, is going to die in a few weeks.”

  “A few weeks?” Aaron shakes his head in disbelief. “I liked it there, Jacob—at the pony yard. The stars at night and the smell of ponies and the funny noises they make.”

  “And … Rachel?” Jacob grins. “Her too, eh? She’s always down at Sami’s, you know.”

  “Yeah.” Aaron shrugs. “But it’s OK, I think. I don’t know. Rachel’s different.”

  “Not that different. She’s still a girl,” Jacob says. “But not as pretty as Shareen.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Aaron’s shocked. “Shareen’s not half as pretty as Rachel. You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “No.” Jacob’s glad to have made him smile. “But Rachel is a bit weird. Everyone knows that.”

  “She’s not. Not really.” Aaron touches the small bottle of perfume in his pocket and wonders whether he should try and sell it to Noha. She might have some money stashed away somewhere. The thought makes him smile as they re-enter the room and Noha looks up.

  “I have a surprise.” She unwraps a paper
parcel on her lap to reveal a nest of pastries dipped in honey and stuffed with pistachios and walnuts. “Come. Come. Have. Have.” She waves a hand at Aaron to show he’s included.

  With a pastry melting in his mouth, Aaron instantly joins the group of bewildered people in Mokattam who have no idea how Noha manages to look after her family so well on so little money when everyone else scrapes by on next to nothing. Two years ago, when the village was at starvation point due to another war with the merchants, Noha was one of the few people who appeared not to be suffering, food-wise at least. The rumour is that she has a magic way with money, but Aaron knows she has a magic way with Habi, the married greengrocer, more like. Jacob’s never talked about it but eyes Habi with interest whenever he sees him—so he must know.

  “Everyone’s got their secrets,” Aaron often heard his mother say. It’s true, he thinks as he licks his lips and wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist. Jacob’s younger sister, Salome, smiles at him sweetly from the middle of the floor, while the older one, Wadida, refuses to meet his gaze. She seems uncomfortable and wriggles and shifts in her dark galabeya, as if backing away from her own body.

  She hates herself, Aaron thinks, and glances at the floor, wondering if she knows that she’s got a really nice face. Then he realizes that Wadida is probably ashamed of her family. Or hates being a girl who will be of marriageable age in a couple of years’ time and then palmed off, persuaded, sent away or even paid to marry the best available bet. Aaron can’t help feeling sorry for her. She looks so miserable that, for a moment, he takes on her sadness as well—almost as if he’s her.

  One thing Aaron’s always been grateful for is that he wasn’t born a girl. He’s seen how the girls he knows are hoodwinked and fooled, often treated as servants by their husbands. How guys like Hosi and Daniel let them slave away while they play cards and talk about soccer.

  Jacob distracts Aaron’s train of thought by tugging at his elbow. “Visitors are coming to see the church today. We should check them out. They might give us something.”

  Aaron shakes his head. He has other ideas. “No. I want to go with Ahmet.”

  It’s been several days since he last went into the city and he’s pining for the noise, fumes and craziness of the streets, for Omar’s shop and the excitement that only Cairo can bring. Suddenly he’s desperate to get out of Mokattam.

  Ahmet, the deaf metal worker, takes one afternoon off a week to ride his boss’s pony and cart around the city because the doctor told him twenty years ago to give his ears a rest from the hammering and banging of the foundry and listen to different sounds. Ahmet took this to mean “listen to other loud sounds” and began haunting the noisiest parts of Cairo. He soon went deaf, but he keeps up the routine of riding the cart around the city with a happy grin and is always good for a lift.

  “Right,” Jacob says, nodding. “Come with me!” Aaron suggests.

  He stares at Jacob’s open face. His friend looks normal, like his old self right now. It was stupid to worry about him. Maybe he was just hungry and the medicine bottle was all he had, Aaron tries to tell himself. He blocks out the lingering memory of pastries and lentils that proves otherwise.

  Jacob shakes his head. He’s exhausted. “You go.”

  Aaron nods at Jacob’s mother. “Yes, I’ll do it.” Then he glances at young Salome, and tries to catch Wadida’s eyes to give her a quick smile, but she squirms from his gaze. He shoots from the room. This could be his last afternoon of freedom for a long time and he’s determined to make the most of it, knowing he’ll be too tired tomorrow after working with Jacob to do much of anything else. But the sweet feeling of escape turns bitter the closer Aaron gets to the bottom of the stairs, where a woman is piling used bandages into a bag.

  The smell of blood makes him gag. He grabs his stomach to hold back the need to vomit. How’s he going to do this? He can’t even bear to look. And if he survives the first day, there’ll be another and another after that, until a vile disease brings him out in sores and finishes him off. He’s not ready to give in to this, he realizes.

  There’s one last thing he can do to save his own skin—run to the perfume shop in the hope that Omar will take pity on him. Rescue him. Save him from a fate worse than death.

  Soon Aaron arrives at the shops and stalls in the old part of the village. Glancing up the lane, he sees Ishaq, the icon seller, pulling down his shutter, closing up for his afternoon nap. The baker’s shelves are empty. Only the butcher is hard at work with a meat cleaver by a wooden block that is loaded with chunks of pink flesh. At the small foundry where red-hot coals, high flames, and four smoky figures are pounding hot metal into a molten pulp there’s a loud noise of tapping, knocking, and banging. The noises aren’t too bad when one man slams his hammer down, but when all four do the same, the sound is deafening.

  Aaron covers his ears.

  “Where’s Ahmet?” he asks the butcher, keeping his eyes firmly on his wide face and away from the meat he’s cutting.

  “He just left.”

  The butcher turns his head in the direction of the stone arch and Aaron takes off. He races past the laundry with its sudden alien whiff of soap, then Sami’s electrical shop with a flickering TV in the window. Remembering Jacob’s words, he slows down and peers inside to see if Rachel’s there. A pulsing beat sounds from where Sami’s perched in front of a radio beside Habi, the old greengrocer, who’s smoking hard. There’s no sign of Rachel.

  Running under the arch, Aaron spots Ahmet in the distance and speeds up to catch him before the cart turns into the road. There’s no point in shouting at the deaf man. Panting for breath, tensing his stomach, Aaron gallops alongside the cart. Ahmet finally spots him and slows down to let him on.

  Aaron touches Ahmet’s arm with gentle affection as he settles beside him on the scratchy bench. Several fig seeds are trapped between Ahmet’s teeth. Aaron points to the seeds. One there. Two there. Ahmet nods and licks his lips. He doesn’t find them. No matter. Aaron’s here at last, on his way to the city. With sunshine skating across Aaron’s shoulders, the pony ambles along the busy road, which is bursting with taxis and cars.

  Ahmet grins with an animal energy that whips him up to steer the pony right in front of a blue truck.

  “Don’t be crazy!” Aaron cries, grabbing the reins.

  The blue truck overtakes them in a cloud of exhaust fumes. Blasting horns and screeching brakes bring the traffic to a standstill. Aaron makes a fast clicking noise to get the pony out of the way of several stalled cars, but it lifts a hoof and stays where it is. Ahmet can’t stop grinning as Aaron awkwardly pushes him aside. He wasn’t expecting to be killed today, not when he’s trying to escape another deadly fate. Afraid of what Ahmet might do next, Aaron gently tugs the reins and make soothing noises to the pony, which eventually lumbers on to a trot.

  With one hand on the reins, Aaron reaches for the perfume in his pocket and it feels real—cool to the touch and safe. Everything else—the orange sun, the wide sky, the endless traffic—seems flimsy and made-up.

  This weird sensation of unreality only leaves him when he turns the cart onto the familiar road leading to Omar’s shop. The carved black door is open wide and Aaron glances in as he comes to halt a few feet away. Ahmet frowns, wondering why they’ve stopped, and Aaron reassures him by touching his arm briefly before handing over the reins and climbing down. “Two minutes,” Aaron mouths, holding up a couple of fingers.

  It’s only been five days since he was here but it feels like a long time ago and the window, with its pink, blue, and golden bottles, seems to glitter a welcome. Aaron stands, hands in pockets, wide-eyed at the new display. The noise of the streets fades to nothing as the reflections of the glass reach out from the mirrored shelves to a place deep inside his chest. He’s lost in the sight of the smallest bottles placed between the ones with the bubbled, need-to-touch sides. The rose-glass perfumes are lined up together on the lowest shelf, while the bottles with tall blue necks and pointed stoppers h
ave been carefully mixed in among the round ones with twisting golden spires.

  He’d like to stay and work out the reasons for putting this one here, that one there, but he can just make out the dark shape of Omar behind the cash register. There’s a chance he might look up and see Aaron gazing in. There’s a chance he might feel sorry for him and offer to help. If only a miracle would take place right now and Omar could see he needed looking after and take him on. But then, if he’s guessed who stole from him he’ll just rush out and collar him again. Can you be locked up for just looking? For just wanting?

  Aaron drops his eyes, remembering there’s a bottle of stolen perfume right now in his pocket. He finds his way through the denim for the bottle. He’s too nervous to stay—too sad to go. He suddenly becomes aware that he’s not alone and turns swiftly to see Ahmet standing behind him, eyes glued to the window.

  It’s then that an earth-shattering blast rocks the city and a bolt of black smoke darkens the sky. A bomb. It’s a bomb. Aaron knows it’s a bomb. A second later cars slam to a stop. Speed to reverse. Taxis brake and screech, skidding and turning. Buses pull over to let passengers off. Police sirens wail. From the direction of the smoke, it’s clear a bomb’s exploded somewhere in the hotel district. Women pick up their children and flee. People scream, running for their lives.

  But in a state of supreme ignorance, Ahmet rubs the sides of his face and stares at the glittering bottles in the shop window. He hasn’t heard the blast and is intoxicated by the colored glass. Then metal shutters cruelly unfurl, dropping to slice the window in two, but not before Omar spots Aaron out front. This clearly isn’t the moment to deal with him and the black doors clunk shut. A key twists in the lock.

  “Ahmet! Ahmet!”

  Aaron tugs his arm, but the deaf man brushes him off, rooted to the spot. He can’t look away, even though the window’s shuttered tight. In the end, Aaron drags him backwards toward the pony, which is restlessly kicking back while trying to pull the reins from the lamp post. Staggering awkwardly, Ahmet’s about to lose his temper until he wakes up to the incredible chaos around him. His eyes dart from cars and buses eager to go the wrong way down the street, to the ominously dark sky, to clouds of dust and dirt flying from the other side of the roundabout, while all around shops are clattering to a shut.