Taxi (English edition)

by Khaled Al Khamissi

  ‘So in the end they will turn on us again, if not tomorrow, the day after, so everyone’s role in the country is to prepare his son for war, because it’s coming for sure. We now have to give our army the same spirit with which I fought when I was in the army between 1968 and 1973.

  ‘I have a relative who’s an officer in the army, a very clever officer who went to the Soviet Union for training courses. The army’s spent a packet on him and sent him abroad several times to make him highly skilled. Know what that officer is doing now?

  ‘He’s working at an armed forces mess in Nasr City. What does he do? He organises parties and buys food and serves it. They’ve turned him into a chef in a restaurant. See the disaster when you take an officer on whom the country has spent thousands upon thousands and make him into a waiter? The disaster is that he’s happy and delighted with his status now. How many more years do you think we’ll go without war?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I told him.

  ‘In my opinion no more than another ten or fifteen years,’ the driver continued. ‘That means I have a son who’s ten years old and when he leaves university war will have broken out between us and Israel.’

  He paused a moment, then resumed: ‘The problem’s with them, not with us. They’re the ones who won’t be able to keep the peace and it’s no use us making peace with ourselves. Peace is something we have to make with someone else, isn’t it?’

  He laughed at his own joke. ‘Personally, I’m always explaining the situation to my kids so that when the drums beat, their ears will be ready to hear the call,’ he added.

  Thirteen

  As we were driving along the Cairo University wall I let slip to the taxi driver how nostalgic I felt for my college days and confessed to him that the dreams for Egypt I dreamt within these walls even now shook me to the core, despite the passage of two decades since my graduation. I said that most of those who sold out had been handed the keys to the gates, while those who continued to dream had seen their towering hopes dashed to the ground by battering rams.

  ‘And what did you study?’ the driver asked.

  ‘Economics and political science,’ I said.

  ‘So you studied politics, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s great, an excellent opportunity, because for ages I’ve had a question I wanted to ask,’ said the driver.

  ‘What’s the question? Maybe I can answer it.’

  ‘What would happen if we said to America: “You have nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction and if you don’t get rid of all these weapons, we will sever relations with you and declare war on you, and we will have to use military force to protect Cuba, because it’s a small country and we have to look after it?”

  ‘Of course, we wouldn’t be serious, but we would stake out a position in the world. And the world would have to stand with us as they stood with them when they said the same thing against Iraq, and as they are saying now against Iran. I’m not saying we would fight them. Of course you know what I mean. But we would say exactly the same thing as they are saying to the countries of the world. I mean, for example, we’d ask to monitor the American elections because we’re not confident their election procedures are sound, we’d ask for there to be international monitoring of the ballot boxes, and anyway we’d be right to say that. Everyone in America and the whole world said the Bush elections were rigged and that his brother fixed the elections and made him win in his state. And we’d say we have to defend democracy and we have to send Egyptian judges from here to make sure the democratic process is sound.

  ‘You know if we did that, we’d make them understand what they are doing to people, and we’d vent some of the anger that’s inside us, just like when some calamity strikes and there’s nothing to be done so you let off steam to whoever and you find yourself calmer, but the disaster’s still the same as it was.

  ‘We could also sue America for supporting international terrorism and taking sides with countries that aren’t democratic, and get evidence of that and, as you know, it’s very easy to get evidence, especially in this matter. By making a move like that, you’re on the side of democracy and against terrorism and you’ll find a few countries taking your side against America.

  ‘We could also call for economic sanctions against America if they don’t comply, I mean take what Rice says every day to all the poor countries in the world and say the same thing to their faces.

  ‘The most important thing is that we all do away with the word “Americans”. We should say a White Irish Protestant from America, or a Black Muslim from America, or a Spaniard from America, or a White Catholic from America, or a Black Protestant from America, just like they say these days: “six Shia and two Sunnis from Iraq died”. The sons of bitches at our newspapers repeat the same thing, and of course you find them saying: “a Christian from Egypt” and “a Muslim from Egypt”. Surely we have to demand as loud as we can the right to defend the rights of the blacks in America, and sue if some White Scot from America kills some Black African from America, of course we have to make a big scene not least because he’s African like us, I mean, he’s much more closely related to us than a White Italian with a mole on his cheek from America is to some Copt from Egypt. I mean, protecting the rights of the black minority there, that’s our role, and we have to intervene in everything big and small.

  ‘I know I’m talking too much and repeating myself. I’m waiting for you to respond but you just hold your tongue and don’t reply.’

  ‘I’m thinking about what you’re saying,’ I answered.

  ‘You see, I leave the radio on all day and every day what the Americans say gets up my nose. It’s enough to drive a man out of his senses. It’s very serious because soon people will explode. “We feed you, we put you on your potty, do this, don’t do that.” Soon we’ll burst and that’ll be the end of it. So I had this idea, that we should do to them just as they do to us. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And those people live in houses of cracked glass.’

  ‘OK so why don’t you send that suggestion to—’ I started.

  ‘I’m just letting off steam, man, I mean shooting the breeze. They’re ready to let the Americans do anything to us. The suggestion they might like is for the Americans to put a camera in every Egyptian house so they can monitor the population explosion!’

  Fourteen

  This time the driver was Nubian and it’s very rare that you come across a Nubian taxi driver in Cairo. That’s very strange. Why don’t Nubians work as taxi drivers? Especially since they work as drivers in companies or for private individuals, embassies or international organisations. I don’t know the reason but the question is food for thought.

  He was a young Nubian and I learned from him that he had come to Cairo recently and was trying to settle down here. I started explaining to him the topography of the city: ‘Yes, turn right here in to Sharif Street, you know that Sharif, he was the grandfather of Queen Nazli, and after that right and right again into Sabri Abu ‘Alam Pasha, who was minister of justice in the days when they used to say: “Keep to the straight and narrow and you’ll confound the enemy”, straight on in to Suleiman Pasha Square. The statue’s of Talaat Harb, but after fifty years we still call the square and the street Suleiman Pasha, who was Suleiman the Frenchman who came to Egypt and set up the modern Egyptian army with Mohamed Ali and his son Ibrahim. Here in Egypt the state just changes the names of streets and nobody knows about it. A year passes, or ten or fifty, and people stick to the old names. That’s Antikhana Street and that’s Champollion. They’ve changed the names of all those, but the government’s on one planet and we’re on another. Neither I nor anyone else knows what their new names are, which they have had for some fifty years, but never you mind, those Aswan people are the nicest there are.’

  ‘God preserve you,’ said the driver. ‘You’re too kind, sir.’

  ‘So where in Aswan are you from?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, between Aswan it
self and Abu Simbel.’

  ‘And you were working there?’ I asked.

  ‘I was dabbling in everything, and after that I worked a little on the Toshka land reclamation project17.’

  ‘Really? That’s the national project of our times!’

  ‘No, it’s not national or anything. That’s a project that’s dead and buried.’

  ‘What do you mean, dead?’ I asked him.

  ‘We had very great hope in it and we felt that the world was going to finally smile on us, but unfortunately it’s all over. And what brought me to Cairo is that there’s nothing doing there, it’s over,’ he said.

  ‘If what you say is true, then it’s a disaster.’

  ‘What I’m telling you is 100 percent true. For us as people living there, the project is kaput. I mean simply put: there’s no work there for us. But why do you say a disaster, God forbid? The world has its ups and downs, swings and roundabouts. There’s no disaster or anything.’

  ‘No, of course it’s a disaster. Egypt has spent billions on the project,’ I said.

  ‘Billions . . . OK, why didn’t they divvy up that money among the people? Aren’t there 70 million of us – that makes about 10 million families. They could have given each family 1,000 pounds. We would have said prayers of thanks for the government till the day we died. And haven’t you noticed that even in the papers there’s no longer anything about it? Once news about Toshka used to pour out at you from every tap you opened. Now even if you turn on the shower, you won’t find a single drop of water about Toshka.’

  ‘And how long have you been in Cairo?’ I asked.

  ‘Three months. We came, eight guys together, and we rented a room in Boulak el-Dakrour for eighty pounds a month, that’s ten pounds each. And at the coffeeshop I got to know the owner of this car. I’ve always driven and I’d got myself a licence to work as a driver just in case. I did some paperwork and proved I was resident here in Cairo. I take the car from him for one shift a day.’

  ‘How much do you pay him for the shift?’ I asked.

  ‘Sixty pounds. The car’s good, as you can see. He’s trying me out, and I hope it will all work out.’

  ‘Are you planning to stay in Cairo?’

  ‘What kind of question is that? What would make me want to go back there?’

  Fifteen

  I was standing in front of the New Ramses College in Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed Street, where my children go to school, and the street was crowded. There was a large number of public buses pumping tons of exhaust into my face and I was close to suffocating from the level of pollution around me. I wondered what my beloved Cairo must be doing to the lungs of her inhabitants. I saw a taxi approaching me and it came to a stop as if in joy at finding a customer. I got in without saying where I was going, as I usually would. I found the driver smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke in my face.

  I couldn’t bear the sight of this trail of smoke, dancing through the air towards my lungs like a poisonous snake. My lungs sent my brain an urgent message to act immediately to stop the sight of this silent smoke dance. I thought a moment and realised that if I asked him politely to put out his cigarette, out of mercy for my chest, he would condescendingly dismiss my request, so I decided to try out the tough-voiced approach on the chance he might take me for a police officer and might submit to my authority and throw away the cigarette.

  ‘Throw that cigarette away,’ I said to him sternly. ‘Isn’t it enough the filth we already breathe?’

  He looked me over carefully, put my face on one scale and the face of a police officer on another and began to compare the weight of the two in his mind’s eye. Then he threw the cigarette out of the window and I realised that my face could pass for that of a policeman.

  ‘Go to Agouza,’ I said, continuing to play the tough guy role.

  ‘Sure,’ said the driver.

  I knew that if I uttered a single word more, the cat would be out of the bag and the driver would start smoking again, so I stayed silent.

  ‘Whatever you say, sir. Want to hear something strange?’

  ‘Tell me,’ I answered.

  ‘I used to work for a millionaire and my salary was 700 pounds a month, leaving aside the gifts, the clothes, the holiday bonuses and so on. I gave up that cushy life because I wasn’t allowed to smoke. I work as a taxi driver all day long and scramble to stay free and smoke at my leisure, but for your sake I threw the cigarette away. And that was a Marlboro, I tell you.’

  ‘May you live long,’ I said.

  ‘Because I started smoking late, I mean when I was like in secondary school, and after that I went into the army from 1973 to 1976. At that time they used to give out cigarettes to us for free, every soldier one pack a day. Those cigarettes were a gift from Gaddafi, from Libya I mean, for the Egyptian fighters. Before the army, I didn’t use to smoke much, I mean just every now and then. When I was at secondary school, my family didn’t know I smoked, and after I graduated from the army a pack of Marlboro cost forty-three and a half piastres and Egyptian cigarettes were between fifteen or twenty piastres. That’s when I started smoking Marlboro, and Marlboro now cost seven and a half pounds and Cleopatra cost two and a half pounds, I mean total wrack and ruin, but what can you say, they’re a pleasure to smoke.

  ‘Look, I’ll tell you a very strange story. I’m from Assiut in the south and my family told me “That’s enough” and that I have to get married.

  ‘I told them OK. They said, “No, you have to marry a local girl.” They took me there and we went and met a girl I’m related to. And, as one does in Cairo, I took a cake with me. Of course, that’s something that doesn’t happen there. I went in with the cake and they were very surprised, but I don’t know what happened. I didn’t take to the girl, there was no chemistry between us, so I took my leave and they understood so then they sent the cake to my uncle’s house, because my father had been living in Cairo for ages and he doesn’t have a house there. And as I was going home, I met my cousin in my other uncle’s house and we clicked. I was attracted to her and she to me and we got on well. My folks couldn’t believe it and before a couple of days were up we were getting engaged. She was a beautiful girl and working at a primary school there.

  ‘I came back to Cairo and thought. “Look lad,” I said, “If you marry her, you’ll add to your expenses”, and what I bring in isn’t enough to make ends meet in the first place. Where will I find the money for my smokes, and my hashish? No offence, sir, but we only smoke a joint once a week.’

  ‘I kept turning the question over in my mind and found that if I married her I would have to give up smoking and give up my hashish. Because I can see how it is with those around me. So I went off to the country after my folks and broke off the engagement, and ever since I’ve not repeated any of that business.

  ‘I live free, smoke at my leisure, roll a joint at my leisure, don’t owe nothing to no one. Why don’t you have a cigarette, sir? They’re Marlboros, look at the packet here.’

  Sixteen

  The driver’s features had an unfathomable sadness, a sadness that had spread until it engulfed him, as though the cares of the world had accumulated and clumped together, forming in the end a heavy ball that descended on the soul of this wretch. One glance at him was enough to know that some disaster had befallen him.

  I asked him the reason for his deep sorrow. ‘Really I don’t know what to do or how to cope. My brain never stops churning it over and I can’t make a decision. I’m going to go crazy. I feel like my brain is going to explode,’ he replied.

  ‘What’s the matter then?’ I asked.

  ‘The story is that I have a school run. I take six kids and each kid pays just eighty pounds a month. Two days ago the father of two, a boy and a girl, went to jail or was arrested, I don’t know exactly. Yesterday I went to pick up my monthly money and their mother told me what happened and asked me to wait until he’s safely out.

  ‘To be profitable a school run has to have seven or eight kids and I
have six. At the same time what will the boy and the girl do? Their mother wears the face veil and doesn’t leave the house. My wife tells me: “This is work, and work is work. Tell her that either she pays or you don’t drive the kids to school.” And their mother swears to me blind that she doesn’t have money to eat and that patience is the key to salvation, and that if you do good on Saturday you’ll have your reward on Sunday.

  ‘I don’t know what to do. My conscience tells me I have to drive the kids to school but at the same time I’m a poor soul who needs someone to throw him a bone. I will definitely lose money on the school run. What do you think, sir?’

  ‘It’s very hard for me to have an opinion on that,’ I told him. ‘Someone with his hand in the water is not like someone with his hand in the fire.’

  ‘No, honestly, if you were in my place, what would you do?’ he asked.

  ‘My view is do what’s right and forget about it, and drive the kids to school.’

  ‘My father, may he rest in peace, always used to say do good deeds and they will come back to you, like a sound and its echo, if you don’t shout out loud you won’t hear the echo. Likewise, if you don’t do right by people wholeheartedly then it will never come back to you. May he rest in peace, my father, but he was living in a different time, a time when he used to come home from work at three o’clock in the afternoon and sit around with us. I see my kids once a week, if I see them at all.

  ‘OK, so if I drive the kids to school this month and their father doesn’t get out of prison, how long should I wait? You can’t do good deeds for ever. Because my wife kicked up one helluva fuss when I told her yesterday I would drive them to school and to hell with it. Besides to be honest I really like the girl Amina. She’s five years old and looks just like my sister’s daughter Asma. A beautiful girl, funny and quiet. Ever see a girl who’s naughty and quiet at the same time? Ah, that’s Amina for you. I really don’t know what to do.’