Ines appeared at the end of the lesson wearing a loose white veil that fell halfway down her stomach, concealing her breasts. After people had dispersed from the front of the queue and crowded around the man, she tried to pass on the lesson’s advice to the woman with the short hair, who stood watching from a distance. She hoped to dissuade her from continuing the campaign, but wasn’t met with any success. The woman with the short hair redoubled her efforts, and the next day she printed oppositional leaflets responding to the allegations made by the man in the galabeya, and declared that she would continue the campaign. Ehab had helped her draft the text, and alongside her statement they’d included another passage from the Greater Book, which urged people to respect and defend personal privacy. He wrote a hard-hitting and well-researched article about the campaign—its grounds and implications, and how many people joined each week—but the newspaper didn’t print it. Instead, they gave him a stern warning about “fabricating the news.” The editor in chief lectured him on how necessary it was to strive for accuracy and honesty in everything he wrote. Then he warned Ehab against giving in to ambition and trying to achieve professional or financial gains at the expense of journalistic ethics and principles.
The man in the galabeya intensified his lessons in response to the leaflets, making each lesson longer than the last. Shortly afterward, he was overheard speaking on his cell phone, while picking at the toes of his right foot, repeating that he’d done all he could. He told the person on the other end that he wanted to buy a horse and ride up and down the queue, from north to south, so he could give several lessons a day. He could disseminate the fatwa, temper the influence of the woman with the short hair, and achieve a greater heavenly reward. He was also heard confirming that the ban on cars entering the street would stay in place for months, perhaps even years, and lamenting that his feet didn’t allow him to walk very far.
FIVE
Document No. 5
The Gate’s Response
Tarek spent many fitful nights experimenting with all sorts of sedatives and sleeping pills until his colleagues commented on the dangerous quantities he was requesting from the pharmacy. He ignored them, his mind still preoccupied with Yehya’s fate, so consumed by his predicament that at one point he swallowed half a strip of pills in one go. But still, he couldn’t sleep. Sabah, who was temporarily managing the nurses, noticed his distress and took it upon herself to keep him away from patients, especially on the days when he arrived at the hospital with dark circles under his eyes. She watched him surreptitiously, and then went to him and reminded him of that strange official visit he’d received the morning after the Disgraceful Events. She revealed that she knew a lot about his patient, the one named Yehya Gad el-Rab Saeed—quite a lot, in fact. But despite all that she knew, she’d chosen to keep her mouth shut and his secret safe. Now she held something over him. She knew that if he noticed any misbehavior from her after that, he wouldn’t dare mention it. It was in their mutual interest to work together, for one to erase the other’s tracks.
Sabah immediately took advantage of Tarek’s leniency toward her. She left work early that day, while Tarek headed to the plush sofa in the corner of his office, stretched out, and closed his eyes. He plunged into a desperate struggle for sleep, pressing against the back of the sofa, then turning over and facing it, bending his knees and curling into a fetal position, then flipping onto his back, stretching his legs over the arm-rest, and staring up at the ceiling. When met with failure, as he was every time he tried to sleep now, he got up. He went over to his desk, picked up the key to the bottom drawer, and pulled out the file. Its papers were worn and tattered from how often he’d handled them.
The fifth document contained nothing more than a large box as long and wide as the page itself, yellow like all the other pages. It didn’t contain a single word and remained empty and pristine. So many times he’d hoped to open the file and find a sentence or two printed there, the way all the other papers he read over and over were inexplicably updated. But he knew that this one would remain blank, would wait for Yehya to receive either a permit to remove the bullet or an official rejection. A permit for the operation was practically hopeless at this point. And if he received a rejection, the file would be closed and sealed with red tape forever.
The box merged with the Gate in his mind, the resemblance overpowering. Vast and vague, able to contain so much. Everything in his world was determined by the Gate, bound to its decisions. His future depended on it, as did Yehya’s life, his friends’ lives, the lives of countless others. Whether he slept or lay awake, was unperturbed or miserable, everything depended on the Gate—even his work, which had been affected by the closure of the radiology department. And now Sabah was blackmailing him, forcing him into line with her. There was no question that life was more restrictive now, though they’d promised the exact opposite when the Gate first appeared and everyone had rejoiced. They’d said the Gate was going to make everything easier, that it would bring peace, joy, and security to each and every citizen. He was a citizen, a dutiful one, too, but now it was clear that these promises had been empty. The space on the page grew wider before his eyes, encompassing him, as if to swallow him whole and imprison him within it. His head dropped and his eyelids began to close, and then he impulsively turned the paper over, buried his head in his arms, and fell asleep.
ZEPHYR HOSPITAL
Amani woke up early. She picked out a plain pair of jeans and a jacket that wouldn’t draw attention, but she was also careful not to look as if she were poor or in a precarious situation. Public officials had a distaste for serving people poor like themselves, even in a hospital like Zephyr, where things should have been different. Standing before the mirror, she rehearsed the manner she used with customers at work, settled on a tone that would sway the official, and practiced a small, friendly smile on her thin lips. Reassured by her appearance, she left the apartment.
A guard from the Concealment Force stopped her at the hospital doors and asked for her ID. He directed her to the Investigations and Instructions Desk, where she left her ID card and took a temporary one. She headed to the main sign with its list of names and arrows, and from there toward the surgery department, following signs that led her down a long corridor with exits to other departments branching off on both sides.
The floor was covered with what looked like rubber; it was dark and an indeterminate color, and the ceiling loomed high above her. The dull gray walls almost seemed to hold the shadows of people who had passed before her, and appeared even more imposing as they towered above her. She felt a coldness in the air, and shivers rippled through her body despite the sweat that was beginning to form along her hairline. Several doctors in white coats with distinctive badges walked past her whispering, but she didn’t see the doctor who had visited her at the office, and was reassured a little by this. She looked behind her; she was the only one in the corridor. The last sign pointed toward the surgery department, and she turned down the corridor, then continued until she reached the secretary’s office, where she stopped and summoned all the courage she possessed.
She stood before the official in silence; he was busy with a thick notebook open in front of him. Her eyes swept over the writing on the forms, searching for a word about Yehya, but she wasn’t used to reading upside down. He noticed her attempts and closed the book quickly, and raising his hand at her, he asked what she wanted by standing there. Her quick, forced smile seemed to have no effect.
“Good morning. I need a copy of an X-ray that was brought here about two months ago.”
“What’s your name?”
“Actually, it’s not under my name, it’s for Yehya Gad el-Rab Saeed.”
“What’s the relation?”
“He’s my cousin—my mother’s sister’s son.”
“Do you have authorization to pick it up?”
“I don’t, actually … I lost it.”
“We can’t just hand over an X-ray to anyone who walks in here. Not eve
n if belongs to him, not without authorization.”
“But he really needs it, the doctor asked him for it, said he needed to get it, as quickly as possible, and it’s so hard for him to wait for another X-ray, there are so many people ahead of him, and he’ll have to wait maybe a whole month until he gets his turn … Please, will you help? I’ll do anything.”
He looked at her with disinterest, and then opened the notebook again and looked through the names. He asked her if she could remember the date Yehya was admitted, give or take a week or two. She could, but when he searched again he realized that the time period she’d told him included four days that hadn’t been entered in the book. His eyes narrowed, almost maliciously, and he stood up and reached over to a huge cabinet. With difficulty, he removed a medium-size file wedged between the massive folders and ran his finger down a list of names on the front.
“His name is here. He was injured in the Disgraceful Events. You should have said that from the start.”
“I just came for the X-ray, to be honest, that’s all … I don’t know anything about anything else … Do you think I could have it? Please?”
“Of course not. First of all, you need a special form, particularly in cases like this, signed by the doctor who treated him here, and then you have to bring me authorization from the director himself, stamped by him and by the hospital. And secondly, ya madam, I don’t have the X-ray. It’s in the filing department on the fifth floor, and just so you know, no one’s permitted up there.”
The color had left her face; the official knew how Yehya had been injured. Her attempt at naïveté had failed, but she maintained her composure, refusing to be defeated so quickly, and decided to see it through to the end. She asked him for the name of the doctor attending to Yehya’s case and where he could be found. He ripped a scrap of paper from the corner of a roll that happened to be nearby, scribbled something down, folded it, and held it out to her. He bade her goodbye with a mocking glare, and she hurried away. She didn’t open the piece of paper until she was far from the window and sure she was no longer in range of his sneering gaze, which felt like it pierced right through her. Dr. Safwat Kamel Abdel Azeem—Fourth Floor, Special Cases. She put the scrap of paper in the inside pocket of her purse and took out her cell phone, and saw several missed calls, all from the same number. She called the number back, and an unfamiliar voice picked up on the other end.
“Amani? It’s Ehab, Yehya and Nagy’s friend. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Perfect timing, though. Are you in the hospital?”
“I’m out front. Do you need any help?”
“I think so.”
“Right, I’ll meet you at the entrance. I’m wearing a light-blue shirt and sunglasses, and I’ll be holding a newspaper.”
Amani quickened her pace back along the corridor to the lobby. She felt a sense of relief to no longer be dealing with this alone. She watched the entrance from afar, pretending to be talking on the phone so that none of the staff would ask her what she was doing or offer to show her how she may have strayed. Ehab appeared a few minutes later. He walked over to the Investigations and Instructions Desk and showed them his ID card, but after standing in front of the official for what seemed like an age, he became obviously exasperated with the conversation. Amani began to worry, and her heart beat faster when she saw Ehab tussle with the man and the other officials behind the counter.
She watched several guards rush over, shouting at Ehab, and they didn’t lead him away so much as carry him by his hands and feet to the hospital door before throwing him out. A tinny announcement echoed through the lobby, broadcast over the intercom on repeat, asking for her, Amani Sayed Ibrahim, to come to the Investigations and Instructions Desk immediately. She was now back at square one, or maybe even square zero. The Concealment Force was trained to catch people trying to infiltrate the place, and if she responded to the announcement, they would throw her out, too. Wildly, she wished the official would change his mind and let her have the X-ray, whether out of sympathy or complicity, but she knew that was impossible. She needed to act decisively, fearlessly. She didn’t have time to weigh her options, and there was no way of knowing what was best. She abandoned the idea that Ehab would return and pushed hope of the official’s sudden kindness far from her mind. If she wanted the X-ray, she would have to get it on her own.
She looked around. No one was following her, and she walked toward the elevator as the announcement was repeated for the tenth time. She pushed the button and slowly stepped out onto the fifth floor when the doors opened. Her eyes wandered across the large, barren space, which looked like it had been emptied of everything it had once contained. No people, no chairs, not even signs like those she’d followed on the ground floor, past hospital wards, offices, and officials. Nothing at all. She studied the high ceiling as the elevator doors rolled into motion and closed behind her. There was a doorway connected to the lobby, and she cautiously slipped through it and walked through the narrow corridors until she noticed a closed door. This, she suddenly realized, was what she had come for. Next to the door was a pink plaque made of some strange, shiny metal, and engraved on it were the words DEPARTMENT OF CRITICAL BULLET FILES. She grabbed the cold metal door handle, but there wasn’t enough time; the elevator opened again and angry voices clamored over one another. She couldn’t understand a thing they were saying, but she recognized a face in the confusion, the one face she’d hoped never to see at a moment like this.
Ehab tried to get back into Zephyr, but it was impossible. They had posted an enlarged photocopy of his ID card at the entrance and distributed it to the Concealment Force. He headed to the newspaper headquarters, where he met his editor and filled him in on what had happened, and then he set off for the queue in search of Nagy. He didn’t want to tell Yehya what had happened because he didn’t want to worry him, especially as Ehab didn’t have anything reassuring to say. After the scuffle in the lobby and being thrown out of the hospital, he had nothing good to report, and now Amani’s phone wasn’t in service, either. He and Nagy left the queue together, unseen by Yehya, and headed to Amani’s apartment. They knocked on her door for nearly a quarter of an hour, until the bawab came up to say he hadn’t seen her since that morning. She was probably still at work, the old doorman said, and he invited them to wait with him in front of the building until she returned.
They sat with the bawab for a long time as he made tea, took a few cigarettes out of his pocket and placed them in front of them, and then told them about the building he’d guarded since he was a boy. When he first arrived, the district had been a vast and remote expanse, there were no other buildings or people—just this one, its residents, and the desert beyond. The closest inhabited district was a few miles down the highway. But the place he had known had vanished long ago. High-rise buildings sprouted, scores of people marched in and settled down, markets opened up, and the area was now bursting at the seams. He let out a grievous sigh and gestured off into the distance with a veiny hand, saying that there was still one empty plot of land out there, vacant and vast. Ehab got excited, as he knew the land the doorman was referring to: it was now under the Gate’s dominion. The old man laughed and coughed, spouting a puff of smoke, and added that although many years had gone by, people were still reluctant to buy there because of its past. Everyone knew what had once stood there: a detention center from which those who’d entered never returned, not even after decades.
The old man said the area had changed a great deal since the Gate appeared, and even more so after it had closed and the queue formed nearby. Back when the Gate had still been open, there was always a huge commotion during working hours, with people shouting. But when its work ended, it became deathly still, and not a single voice was heard, as if no one had ever gone in and no one ever left. As time passed, he told them, people said the weather in the area was always strangely stifling—but only around the Gate—and that sometimes the sun both rose and set over the Northern Building, perhaps bowing t
o whatever went on in there. People passing by it became increasingly wary and didn’t even act like themselves when they were nearby, especially after the Disgraceful Events.
He leaned in a little closer, having decided he could trust them, and whispered that Amani had gone to Zephyr Hospital, that Zephyr Hospital belonged to the Gate, and that he had suspicions about her work, and about her involvement in those Events people talked about. On the night after the Events she hadn’t returned home until after midnight, which was unusual for her, and on more than one occasion people from strange organizations had come asking about her, although they’d never asked to speak to her directly.
They waited all day in front of her building, but Amani had vanished. Nagy and Ehab returned to the queue to look for Yehya, filled with a greater sense of helplessness than ever before. They both felt guilty that they hadn’t been with Amani from the start. When Um Mabrouk heard the news, she immediately decided to distribute leaflets; Abbas designed them in exchange for a few free phone calls, wafers, and juice, and signed it at the bottom as usual. He made copies at a nearby photocopier, whose owner owed him a favor, and gave her a hundred copies. The flyer featured an old photo of Amani, since Um Mabrouk didn’t have a recent one. Abbas had written her full name with great care, followed by the standard wording for these kinds of cases: an appeal to the Gate to intervene, find the person, and investigate the strange circumstances around the disappearance. Um Mabrouk put the flyers next to her wares, wailing and lamenting her eternal bad luck, and explaining—even in the absence of customers—that Amani was like a daughter to her. When she’d buried her elder daughter the day after she died, Amani had come from so far, cried like no one had ever cried before, and hadn’t even gone home until the funeral was finished and all the lights were out.
The Queue Page 12