Utopia (12 page)

I am incapable of killing them.

The only question is whether it is because Utopia is stronger than me, or because I am stronger than me.

We are two peoples … two peoples … two peoples

Look where the first is, and where’s the other

Draw the line between them, brother

You sold the land with plough and axe – on her people’s backs

Before the eyes of the world, you undid her clothes

Stark naked she was, from head to toes

Front and back, knees to nose

You could smell her breath a mile away

We the people are sons of dogs

We belong to the Beautiful One

And his way is hard

With the kick of a boot and the whack of a cane

Then we die in the war, all in vain

– Abdel Rahman el-Abnoudi

El-Sirgani was the first one who approached me about the matter.

I don’t like el-Sirgani, since he’s the one who cost me my cornea. It’s true that life went on after that, because the next step
would have been for one of us to have killed the other. And I wouldn’t have been able to kill him. So the next step would have been my own death. So that’s where things stopped.

It’s true. All that is true, but you can’t like the person who destroyed your cornea, no matter how much you try. He doesn’t like me either, because Azza preferred me.

El-Sirgani came to me as I was sitting outside the house, smoking hashish, squatting and thinking.

He stuck the machete he was carrying into the dry mud and sat down beside me.

‘Good morning, Gaber,’ he said as he nonchalantly took the joint from my hand.

He let out a thick cloud of smoke, contemplated the ash that clung to it in the shape of a long cigarette-butt, and said, as if he were a man who was concerned with grave matters, ‘This girl who lives in your house. I’m not talking about Safiya, of course. Safiya has our utmost respect.’

‘What about the girl?’

I said it with disgust, although I knew what he would say, to the letter.

‘She belongs to you?’ he asked as he gave me back the joint, taking care not to let the ash fall.

‘And what if she doesn’t?’

‘Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.’

‘Speak clearly, Sirgani.’

The subject was important, so using the shorthand language we’d been using for the past ten years was out of the question. It’s the language of those who have seen everything and who are no longer amazed by anything. Now was the time for explanation and elaboration.

‘That girl can make you a lot of money instead of being a burden on you,’ he told me quietly. ‘Goods like her are scarce, and the available stock is of poor quality. You’ve seen Somaya’s face – as ugly as the devil’s. But that girl of yours can make money for us both.’

‘You took Azza,’ I said irritably. ‘Isn’t she enough for you?’

‘It’s a tough profession. A filthy profession that completely wears out a woman’s looks and body. You need to get new blood.’

I smiled inwardly. If I wanted revenge, then what revenge would be nastier than that? A girl from Utopia finds herself in the middle of this, among these men. But I don’t want that. Call it a victory over myself or a victory of Utopia over me. I only know that I will protect the two of them as long as I’m alive, and as long as they are among us.

‘She doesn’t like that line of work,’ I said as I handed him the joint.

‘Up to you.’

Then he thought a little bit, and added the threat that I knew was inevitable, ‘Between you and me, we don’t know who those two really are. You said something and threw us some flog so we could fight over it like dogs. Somaya tells a different story. Those two have an air of wealth about them. You can cut my arm off if they’ve lived through a single day of hunger before they got here. Where did they get all that flog? You know as well as I do that those two are from Utopia. Don’t tell me they were working there – they’re from the people who own homes there. In the days when there were dogs, I had a dog that guarded me. He would eat my food and sleep under my roof, but let me assure you that he didn’t look like me for a moment! He lived as a dog and died as a dog. The real idiot is the one who mistakes the dog for his owner.
Those two aren’t dogs – they
own
dogs. So why did they come here? We can imagine why!’

‘Get to the point!’ I said without looking at him.

‘I will get to the point. You work with Abd el-Zahir. If he knew that two people from Utopia were living under your roof, what would he do? And what about Bayoumi and his men? They’ll all dance for joy, and the whole neighbourhood will come to get what they’ve got coming to them. Believe me, my friend, no one wants any harm to come to you, and no one would allow a hair on Safiya’s head to be touched. Safiya is as dear to me as – as Somaya, the daughter of my dear, departed brother.’

‘Yes,’ I replied in angry derision. ‘You watch over Somaya and protect her really well. We all know that.’

He looked at me and didn’t speak, then turned away without giving me back the joint.

I wasn’t worried about Bayoumi. I was worried about Abd el-Zahir.

Bayoumi and his gang were the enemy and they always represented a danger, while Abd el-Zahir and his gang were the source of my protection and prestige. If they turned against me, then I’d be done for.

Abd el-Zahir was there in the subway tunnels, discussing the biroil plan for the millionth time. For years, he hadn’t stopped discussing this idea, while I’d tell him he was crazy.

‘These people may mock everything, but there’s no joking around with biroil. That’s what makes the plan so excellent and puts us in a really strong position.’

‘The drugs have addled your brain, you son of a bitch,’ I told him sarcastically. ‘You think you’re fighting the English in one of
those old black-and-white movies. Cut the crap and think about how we can find a new dog.’

Abd el-Zahir was a thug, but he was a good guy, if hot-blooded. He wasn’t just a hyena provoked by the smell of blood like Bayoumi. So I preferred to be with him from the start.

Some of the gang were sitting on top of a subway carriage playing
barghouta
and others were sitting in a corner of the station sniffing glue. It was midday, but the subway tunnels were a permanent, eternal night. Maybe that was why they gave us a feeling of intimacy.

It was comforting to know that all these guys were with you. They could rush to your aid if you were in danger. That was why I knew that Safiya would marry one of them. There was no other way for her to live.

It would be terrifying beyond description if they turned against you.

Abd el-Zahir scrutinised my face with his wide, honey-brown eyes that made him appear mad. He told me, ‘Lately there’s been a lot of talk about you, my friend.’

I raised my head nervously and looked at his face flickering in the torchlight. ‘What talk?’

‘First, you ran off from our last fight with Bayoumi,’ he said firmly.

‘You know I’m a weakling, and I can’t get the better of them. You were losing, and I could have stayed, but you’d be mourning me now as a fallen hero. Would you prefer that? At least I’m here and alive, and getting grief from you. Don’t forget that Suleiman died and you couldn’t defend him.’

It wasn’t the first time I’d run away and it wouldn’t be the last, so why was he so concerned?

‘And those two in your house?’ he resumed. ‘There’s a lot of
talk about them. They say that they’re from Utopia and that you insist on denying it. What are you up to?’

There were no secrets in this neighbourhood. That was clear.

The thing I was most afraid of was happening.

I held up my hand and took an oath, ‘I swear to God. I swear to God I don’t know where those two came from. They were going to kill them, and I didn’t—’

He interrupted. ‘Stop the swearing. Everyone takes oaths all the time. Listen. We want them. We’ll find out all about them. If it’s clear that they are from Utopia, then we’ll play an excellent game with them. Not even flies will find their bodies, and maybe we’ll bargain over them. And if it turns out that they’re poor like us, then we’ll find them a job and a life.’

He saw me hesitating. ‘Gaber,’ he said firmly. ‘Think hard. Don’t lose everything for the sake of a couple of dogs. I don’t know what their importance to you is, but they definitely aren’t more valuable than Safiya!’

Then he stood up and, in his loud voice, he shouted at the men scattered around the station, ‘Let’s go! I want these torches in one place. One of Bayoumi’s men is here in the tunnels and he’s got hashish with him. Which of you will bring him to me and get half of what he’s got on him?

When I left the station, I knew for sure that I had to act that night. The bees were gathering around the honey, if you could call what I was sheltering in my house honey.

If I wanted them to live, then they’d have to escape tonight.

Let them escape, so the only blame placed on me would be foolishness and stupidity.

Tonight, before anything else happens.

I told them they would be setting out that night, and I went out to organise things. There were a lot of arrangements that had to be made. I came back to them two hours later and they were ready, as I had advised them to be. They had done a careful job smearing their faces with filth, and their clothes had ended up even filthier. The strange thing is that my sister Safiya seemed sparkling and clean and shiny, although she didn’t seem very happy; it occurred to me that she perhaps had taken a liking to the guy.

No. Maybe she likes the girl, considering that they are almost the same age. She will lose the one friend she has made in her life.

My beloved cornea – and dream of something beyond sex …

I know that I will die tonight, so don’t annoy me, please.

Let me live out the final moments of my life.

Let me try to dream …

We would set out that night.

Gaber told us about this. He said that suspicions were increasing, bees were circling, questions were being asked, gossip was getting louder and – and – and so on with endless nonsense.

And we’d set off tonight.

Set off?

Maybe to the top. Maybe to the bottom. Maybe to Utopia.

If we don’t move in a vertical direction, then there’s hope that we’ll stay alive.

We’d set off tonight.

In the first hours of the evening, he told us that we needed to get everything ready. He’d be away for two hours, then he’d return to find us ready. Were we preparing ourselves? Did we have anything to prepare? Of course not.

But Safiya told us that getting ready here meant more filth. She brought some black grease and began to smudge it onto our faces with expert strokes. She gave us clothes that were even worse than the rags we wore.

I asked her as she smeared my face with mud, ‘What are you going to do about this tuberculosis?’

‘I’ll take the infusion of herbs which Abir’s mother prepares,’ she replied, as if the matter didn’t concern her. ‘And I’ll warm my chest. Eventually, I’ll die in a puddle of blood. That’s it. But Gaber doesn’t believe that. He thinks that I will recover.’

‘There are medicines for tuberculosis.’

‘Yes. And they’re all with your kind. What do you expect me to do?’

I wanted to lie, to tell her that I would return and bring her some medicine from my father. It’s impossible to take an aspirin anywhere in Egypt without going through him, but I realised that it would have been the silliest lie possible. I could leave her a souvenir, but it wouldn’t be a box of medicine.

When Safiya turned her back, I whispered to Germinal, ‘Listen. I want you to leave the shack for ten minutes.’

She looked at me, confused, then her face contracted into a grimace and she yelled in disgust, ‘Are you joking?! Is
this
the right time?!’

‘I have to have a souvenir. I told you that she has a different, arousing appeal. This is the last chance in my life to experience this appeal. If we set out, that’s the end of it.’

Her face looked its ugliest, combining wildness, disgust and ferocity. The ugliest, angriest tiger I’d ever seen in my life.

‘We’re at their mercy, you pig!’

‘I know how to keep her quiet. Now get out!’

She looked at me with blind hatred. I hadn’t known before this that she was capable of such jealously. I think it has more to do with female pride than jealousy. In Utopia, she knows that I am with another girl almost every other day, but she doesn’t talk
about it. But she finds this situation insulting, especially as I haven’t touched her since we arrived.

I was alone with Safiya by torchlight, and from the first moment she knew what I wanted.

No.

That isn’t true!

She put up a fierce and vicious fight. She resisted like a wild, agitated bull. She scratched. She hit. She kicked. She spat. She screamed. She howled. She stiffened. She cried. She called me names. She cursed. She bit. I had assumed the thing would be a lot easier than this. She was supposed to melt at the mere thought that I desired her. Among the Others, the men aren’t really men. Hunger, rotten food, and gossypol have killed off their manhood, and we easily make conquests of their women all the time in Utopia, while their men are content to feign virility and potency. Isn’t virility an animal that needs good nourishment, exercise and radiant sunlight? So they’re nothing, nothing …

But she put up a fierce and noble fight. I was used to violence, in any case, so I tied her up with strips I ripped off the old shirt I’d taken off. I gagged her and she fell quiet. In any case, this also protected me from the flood of tuberculosis bacteria she exhaled.

Raping a woman who is sick with tuberculosis! This event would go down in history. Maybe I’d tell it sometimes to my friends in phlogistine sessions, if I got back safe and sound.

I wrapped a piece of cloth around my hand, and dipped it into a bucket of water she had filled. I soaked the cloth, and cleaned her face and feet, so that she appeared somewhat human. In fact, I didn’t touch any part of her body before washing it carefully.