Vertigo

by Ahmed Mourad

  Ahmed interrupted him in earnest tones. ‘Listen, is that a scanner?’ He was pointing at a device that Omar had brought in with his other possessions.

  ‘Yeah, and better than the one we’ve got at Kodak Express too.’

  Ahmed peered at it.

  ‘Could I scan negatives on it?’

  ‘Yes, you could. What’s with the interrogation?’ asked Omar, fed up. ‘Do you want to work now? Do what you need to do tomorrow at work. I’ve got a lot of fixing up to do here with Koko. Look, why don’t you sleep now? I’ll finish up and tell you how it went, but just don’t get in my way, I beg you.’

  Ahmed went and sprawled on the mattress, leaving Omar who, sweat pouring, started yanking on wires and cables until his belly dangled down like a life ring worn beneath his shirt, his vast underpants, which would have made a perfect dust cover for a medium-sized truck, showing every time he bent over. He huffed and puffed, swore and cursed and kicked things as though he were trying to reset a satellite that had dropped out of orbit. He looked like a tow truck without the hook.

  Ahmed lit a cigarette, lost in an idea that had begun to invade his mind, to take control of his very being, to dominate his senses … Omar opened the window as wide as it would go and flopped out. ‘Hey, Koko! Throw the cable!’

  The next morning, Ahmed awoke to the noise of a plough tilling the floor of the room. It was the sound of Omar, mouth agape like a Nile crocodile, fast asleep and snoring beside him, and occupying about eighty percent of the mattress’ surface area. Quietly, he got up and placed his glasses on his face to inspect the NASA space station Omar had built while he slept. He had connected the two computers and placed a black glowing object next to them. There were more wires and cables than there are black mambas in Africa.

  It was a Sunday, a day off at the studio, and perfect for taking care of an errand he had neglected for other things. It was time to go to the gallery.

  Washing his face, he dipped his fingers in the tub of gel that never left his side, combed through his hair and checked its sheen. He threw on whatever clothes were clean and dry and wrote a note to Omar, sunk in his coma: ‘Get us something to eat. I’m going out and won’t be late. And clean up the mess you’ve made! PS Wash your feet.’

  He stuck the note on one of the screens and left, gently closing the door, but not before locking Gouda’s cabinet and dragging it away from Omar’s things. He couldn’t be sure of what he would do.

  Outside the gallery, Ahmed stood for half an hour trying to order his thoughts. He had yet to catch sight of her when a car driven by a good-looking young man pulled up in front of the gallery. The door opened and Ghada got out. She really was beautiful, her wavy hair cascading down her back … her hair?! Didn’t she wear a hijab? She pinched the young man’s cheek and bounded gracefully into the gallery.

  The camera was not with him today. If it had been he would have photographed the judge as he sentenced him to death before everyone in the gallery. Ahmed examined the handsome fellow who had erased him with a single decisive blow. There was no comparison: the tiger versus the shrimp.

  He sat down on the bench, and an icy tremor passed through his chest as Ghada emerged from the gallery and headed for the car … followed by Ghada.

  It took Ahmed several seconds to attain the joy Archimedes had felt when he discovered the principle of buoyancy. Ghada had a twin! An identical twin! His heart rejoiced and loosed off shots into the air while his veins ululated, pumping blood all over his body in celebration at the happy news.

  The twin slid into the car beside her boyfriend, and the authentic Ghada said goodbye to the gorgeous screen idol and returned to the gallery. Ahmed twisted and turned about himself, looking for a bookshop or stationer, until he spotted one not far away. He bought a pen, some paper and a white envelope and sat on the bench, scribbling words like the Egyptian scribe of old.

  He sat writing for an hour, during which time he created a pile of paper capable of triggering a riot between the rubbish collectors of Cairo. He folded the page and placed it in the envelope, then, concealed inside a Trojan Horse, he crossed the street towards the gallery.

  The gallery’s interior was supremely tasteful: dazzling hues, an artfully chosen fragrance, roses in large translucent vases and the sun’s rays coming through the window. Its stock in trade was modern luxury furniture.

  Ghada was talking to a wealthy-looking client. He had never seen her at such close quarters before. She was truly beautiful. Her voice: he’d never heard it. She had an exquisite speech defect, so faint that the ear could hardly hear it, which turned words like ‘selection’ or ‘biscuit’ into song.

  ‘Good morning. Abeer Haggag at your service. May I ask your name, sir?’

  In front of him stood a girl beautiful enough to model for a fashion designer. He tried to focus and remember the role he had prepared for.

  ‘Good morning. To be honest, I was waiting for Miss Ghada. I’ve been sent to see her by Mr Kamal.’

  He did his best to swallow the name. Maybe she would leave him in peace.

  ‘Mr who, sir?’

  ‘I’ll wait for Miss Ghada to finish, merci.’

  ‘But of course. Make yourself comfortable.’

  Ahmed began to circle Ghada and her client, watching her lips as she talked. He heard her delicate voice; observed her hands as they moved. He saw her tiny fingers, the colour of her headscarf, her eyes that seemed to carry some hidden sadness.

  Ghada finished her conversation and was saying goodbye to her client when her colleague drew her attention to the person waiting for her. Smiling, she came over. His heart plummeted to the floor and slithered beneath one of the sofas.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning. Ghada?’

  She nodded with a smile.

  ‘I’m here on behalf of Mr Kamal.’

  She nodded again, her smile still in place.

  ‘Welcome.’

  ‘Mr Kamal wanted to come himself but his circumstances wouldn’t allow him. In any case, he has explained everything in this envelope and he advises you to read it closely.’

  He extended his hand with the envelope and she took it.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t understand. Has Mr Kamal sent you with a specific request? I don’t remember. I know he called me, but …’

  ‘Everything is explained in this envelope. Excuse me, but I have to go now. Phone numbers are in the envelope. Please give it some thought. It’s a tricky business and it requires concentration. Thanks again.’

  He walked away, leaving her standing by the nearest desk, opening the letter. Then something occurred to her. ‘I don’t know your name.’

  Bond. James Bond. God bring you a happy old age, Sean Connery!

  ‘Kamal,’ he said. ‘Ahmed Kamal.’

  Then he disappeared before she could open the letter or make the connection between him and the bouquet of roses he had signed with his name. He hurried away, bounding down the steps and out into the street and looking behind him like a thief. He quickened his step until he found himself face to face with the traitor.

  The little lad was playing peacefully with his young friends, as though he were just like them. None of them knew that he had sold his country’s secrets and worked as a double agent, nor that he possessed an advanced two-way transmitter. Now was not the time for a reckoning, but for flight, yet that did not prevent Ahmed from stretching out a leg in front of the little informer as he ran past him playing hide-and-seek. He struck the leg and went flying onto the pavement.

  A little lesson until their next encounter.

  Unsettled and distracted, Ghada sat at the desk. She opened the letter. It was peculiar for a customer to send a message rather than coming to choose the furniture himself. And that Ahmed Kamal, who had come and gone with the speed of a delivery boy. Everything was mysterious to her, until she read the first line of the letter:

  In the name of God, the Compassionate and the Merciful

  Hi there, lady, I’m the A
hmed Kamal who sent you the bouquet of roses. That’s right. Just bear with me so I can make you understand. I’ve been watching you for a very long time. Whenever I pass by I see you standing there, staring into space. I like you, and I don’t know how to tell you, and I’m scared you’ll embarrass me. Since I don’t know if you’re in a relationship or not, I decided to write you a letter. If there’s any hope, I’ll be waiting for you at quarter past five this day next week, by the flower seller next to the gallery, and if there’s no chance and we have to abandon ship before we leave the harbour, then don’t go. Easy, no? And don’t bother asking afterwards about the young man who threw himself off a rug or poured guava juice over himself. I work as a photographer at Kodak Express in Manial Street. Take your time and think about it, but watch out: when I love someone I’m hard to get rid of.

  Ahmed Kamal

  The handwriting was abysmal: the scratchings of a chicken afflicted with mad cow disease that had downed a cup of hydrochloric acid. The blood rushed to Ghada’s cheeks for the fifth time as she reread the unexpected letter from that skinny man who had forced his way into her life. She could scarcely credit the gauche way he had expressed his admiration. If Romeo had done the same, Juliet would have accused him of mental retardation.

  Yet soon that faint smile appeared at the corners of her mouth, a sign that her vanity had been gratified. Once again she found herself experiencing that tremor that chilled her breast; she hadn’t been expecting anything like this and certainly not in such a romantic fashion. She started recalling the features and voice of the one who had watched her, taken her by surprise, swooped down upon her. How lovely it was to surrender to these feelings!

  But Ghada was no schoolgirl to fall flat on her face at the first wink, added to which there was her keen sense of alienation and her sensitivity about the looks of disappointment she received when her weak point was discovered. Miyada was the Siamese guinea pig through whose mischievous eyes Ghada experienced life. She was her window on the world.

  She refolded the letter and put it in her bag, looking at the eyes of those around her and hoping that no one was watching her. There was someone, of course: Abeer, her loyal friend and the well into which she threw her secrets. She hadn’t once lifted her eyes from Ghada as she read the letter, observing first her preoccupation, then watching her hide the prize in her bag. She went over.

  ‘Ghada, I don’t understand.’

  Ghada led her over to the window by the hand.

  ‘You won’t believe what …’

  ‘The bouquet of roses!’ Abeer cut in. ‘Right?’

  Ghada watched the movement of her lips to ensure she fully understood her meaning.

  ‘Come on, I’ll tell you.’

  The two of them huddled together in a distant corner, their heads together, swapping their women’s secrets – the secret of Ahmed Kamal.

  10

  The day swept by like a passing cloud. Ahmed imagined a thousand scenarios resulting from his handing the letter to Ghada. The possibilities dwindled away to a handful of outcomes. Some (about eight percent) were encouraging; the remainder could be filed away under ‘horror film’. He discussed the matter at length with Omar, whose cruel tongue mercilessly castigated him for the cheap way he had chosen to demonstrate his admiration without first consulting him, as he was, in his opinion at least, an expert in the opposite sex.

  They were sitting together at the Layalina Café in Manial. It was half past ten. Two cups of tea and an apple-flavoured shisha for Omar, who started spewing smoke like an angry Vesuvius, the clatter of dominoes and ringing laughter, talk of Al-Ahly and Zamalek football clubs and watching girls on the pavement opposite while the leaking air-conditioning pipe sprinkled water droplets on shirtsleeves.

  ‘That’s not the way, my friend. The girl will think you’re a creep.’

  ‘Anyone who saw me in action would say the guy’s a piece of work and has the ladies chasing after him.’

  ‘Ignoramus! I work in a photography studio and I know how girls think. That’s my speciality.’

  ‘Your only connection to the female sex is your dear mother, porno movies and that one-eared girl from secondary school.’

  ‘Look here, fool: you’re a dear friend so I won’t short-change you in my analysis of your predicament. Let me reduce a whole night’s worth of explanation into a few possible outcomes; for someone like you there are four.’

  He paused for a moment to take a deep drag on his shisha. The pipe’s water bowl bubbled violently, as though a genie was imprisoned within, and the coal glowed, popping audibly. He let out a thick white stream like the exhaust pipe of a microbus with an antiquated engine labouring up the Muqattam Hills.

  ‘Maybe the girl saw the clapped-out roses you bought her and realised that you were a stingy little skinflint. She gets the letter. She reads it like it’s one of those Marcel Mauriac letters that Raafat el-Hagan sent from Rome and burns it on the spot. Add to that the fact that your handwriting is hieroglyphic: you’d need Indiana Jones to decode it. There’s also the possibility that the girl was completely baffled and just tore up the letter. And finally, every time she thinks of you in those snorkelling-mask glasses that you wear (and frankly, she couldn’t be blamed for wanting to make a run for it), she realises that you’re a worn-out little weakling that she and her friends would have chopped up and eaten a long time ago. Just forget it, my friend. That’s advice from someone who’s seen it all.’

  Sealing his speech with a long drag that toppled the tobacco plug to the floor and inflicted a choking fit on the shisha, he resumed. ‘And remember now, I don’t give out advice like that to anyone except treasured friends like yourself. As God’s my witness, Ahmed, you’re as dear to me as Shakira. Do you see the honour I’m giving you? Shakira!’

  ‘God soothe your soul, you villain. You know, your place isn’t here; you should be worshipped like Buddha in India. What pendulous wisdom! Shakira! God bless you!’

  Omar nodded contentedly.

  ‘Merci.’

  On the distant horizon Hussein appeared. Hussein Abdel Hadi, crossing the street with his shiny bald patch that had gradually widened over the passing years. He was short with a flattened head atop an almost non-existent neck, bulging eyes and a tongue of great length both physiologically and metaphorically.

  ‘Here comes trouble,’ muttered Ahmed.

  Omar looked in the direction Ahmed was pointing.

  ‘God help us. He’ll never change.’

  Then it was all greetings and embraces, playful pinches to Omar’s belly, noisy laughter, an insult or two by way of praise and recounting all that had taken place since they’d last seen this school friend who had become a biology teacher at their old school.

  ‘You’ve gone bald, Hussein. Your bald spot is growing nicely.’

  ‘Marriage and kids, my friend. You’ll see.’

  ‘You’ve had children?’

  ‘There’s Sarah; she’s about your age: two and a half.’

  ‘And how’s your wife?’

  Hussein scowled. ‘Don’t remind me, I beg you; and don’t say “your wife”: she’s a single-celled organism living in my house. Bilharzia, ascaris, tapeworm, fruitfly; call it what you like. You wake up in the morning to the sound of something opening the fridge and guzzling water, like the rhino who’s sitting with us, here,’ indicating Omar, ‘then it lets out a belch you couldn’t manage after a bowl of koshari. Who did I marry? Believe me, Ahmed, you’re more feminine than she is. I was tricked. And that’s aside from the noises in the bathroom. Your friend is in a living hell. What’s going on? Are these things meant to be women? On the Day of Resurrection I hope we get the sloe-eyed maidens and they take our wives to torture the unbelievers.’

  ‘That’s horrible. How can you live like that?’

  ‘I teach mornings and give private lessons in the afternoon; I never go home. If it wasn’t for Sarah I would have got the animal control squad to put a couple of bullets in her. And satellite TV make
s me hate the day I was born. It’s relentless. The sexiest singers in the Arab world, one after another: every one a feast to make your heart sing, and with a cherry on top too. So what am I supposed to do with the plate of old potatoes I’ve got sitting at home? How can I even look at her? It’s like seeing a cake in the window of a patisserie and when you get home it’s salamander in tomato sauce or roadkill for supper. I’m telling you: Thursday nights are a patriotic duty; it’s like national service: mouldy bread, burnt food and the sergeant giving orders to boot, but I have to like it or lump it. I sometimes pretend I’ve got a migraine or diarrhoea so I can get some sleep. Life is precious, after all. And then there’s the vile young generation that I teach. You mentioned that my bald patch had grown lately? Those kids have been fed on rubbish. They’ve got the brain-power of platypuses.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, speak in plain Arabic!’ exclaimed Omar. ‘Enough with the classroom lingo. Platypus, dragonfly, white rhinoceros – don’t piss us off! Tell me, how’s your mother doing?’

  ‘She’s doing fine. Listen to me, you donkey. These kids aren’t children, not like you, me and that stupid oaf were when we were young.’

  As he said the word ‘oaf’ he gestured at Omar, who smiled as though he was receiving praise from a sultan.

  ‘All we had was children’s programmes on TV. Kids nowadays have mobile phones and the Internet. Anyone can watch these satellite channels and websites: they’re like uncovered drains. It’s unrestricted access and whoever doesn’t like it can go to hell.’

  Omar was silent for a long time.

  ‘But I go on the net,’ he finally said, missing the point.

  ‘Right, you’re a grown man. I’m talking about eleven-year-old kids and up. Their own tongues want to disown them and they know how to put you in your place. You’ve seen the girls screaming when pop wonder Tamer Hosni starts wailing away on stage. You think he’s going to puke from all the romance: wearing one of those things on his wrist, a bike chain round his neck, a shirt your mother wouldn’t use to wipe the floor plus some skin-tight T-shirt with that Speedyman on the front.’