Taxi (English edition)

by Khaled Al Khamissi

  ‘I mean one lot was going in one direction and the other lot in a completely different direction, and the two of them were in the same government. How can that be? It doesn’t make sense.

  ‘Ever since then the streets have been packed with stacks of taxis. Know how many taxis there are in Cairo?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Today there are more than 80,000 taxis, too many of course. Can you tell me how we’re supposed to make a living? For the life of me, I don’t know.’

  ‘That decree really was strange, that any car could be turned into a taxi,’ I said.

  ‘It’s well-known, not strange at all. When they issued that decree what was going to happen?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘As we said, tons of cars were going to be turned into taxis. And there’s business in it for the government and for lots of people. I mean, there’s easy money for the traffic department. For every car to become a taxi you have to pay licence fees and so on to the traffic department and the new drivers for these taxis have to get commercial driving licences and there’s plenty of money in that as well, and then all those taxis have to buy meters.’

  ‘Very well, and then?’ I said.

  ‘Some fat cat went and imported a large number of meters and suddenly he’d cornered the market for all the meters in the country, and all the new taxis bought them from him. A meter cost more than 1,000 pounds on instalment. It was a huge business. He made money hand over fist. One decree on a piece of paper and a tiny little signature, and one guy made millions.

  ‘Then just a few years later they tell you there are too many taxis and they don’t know why. They suggest withholding new licences or retiring old taxis or those in poor condition or they say we have to issue decrees banning taxis that are more than twenty years old, and others say more than ten years old. It’s dream talk because at the stroke of a pen they want to put tens of thousands out of work and send them home, since most of the taxis in the country are more than ten years old. And where were they when they issued the decree on converting cars into taxis? They’re the same people, they still haven’t been changed.

  ‘The trouble is that ever since then we can’t find any passengers. People can’t afford to ride in taxis. Nowadays the taxi passengers take the minibus, and we’re left living off the Arabs from summer to summer, and those have gone too since the launch of Capital Cab, which was established for them. Frankly, the government does everything it can to turn us into beggars or criminals. You feel they’re making a big effort to ruin us and our families, and don’t forget that the taxi drivers in Cairo are no small number. There are about a quarter of a million of us. What they don’t know is that they won’t be able to do it because God is the one who provides livelihoods. He is the Provider and there is no Provider other than Him.’

  By this stage in the conversation the driver was in a highly emotional state. He put on a cassette tape and we started listening to a recitation of Quranic verses.

  Thirty-nine

  I often take taxis with drivers who don’t know the way very well and don’t know the names of the streets. But this driver had the honour of not knowing any street at all – except, of course, the street he lived in. His absolute ignorance of Cairo astounded me, as though he were a blind man walking for the first time in a grand palace.

  ‘What’s up, man?’ I said. ‘Aren’t you a driver or what?’

  ‘No, really sir, I’m not a driver,’ he said.

  ‘So what do you do for a living?’

  ‘I’m a smuggler.’

  ‘A smuggler!’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ said the driver. ‘That was the last will and testament of my late mother. “Son,” she told me, “the way of the wicked is the way you can make a living in this country.” And anyway, I don’t smuggle anything bad and I don’t do the country any harm. On the contrary, I do it good, I mean, it’s something to be proud of.’

  ‘Are you having me on?’ I asked.

  ‘By the Holy Quran I am a smuggler. What happened is that my father died and I buried him. This is his taxi that I’m working on until I work out what I’m going to do with my life.’

  ‘And what do you smuggle, for God’s sake?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m still a young boy and I’ve been working for a few years with a business woman in Salloum. With God’s help we smuggle smokes from Egypt to Libya, I mean we buy honest to God in Egypt and sell honest to God in Libya. Didn’t I tell you we benefit the country? You could call me a patriotic lad.’

  ‘What do you mean, smokes? Drugs, you mean?’

  ‘Drugs? Do you honestly think you’d find someone in the drugs trade driving a taxi and working himself to exhaustion, and I’d tell you I’m a smuggler, just like that? Do you think I’m stupid or what? Smokes means cigarettes, packets of imported cigarettes.’

  ‘How does that work? What do you do?’

  ‘It’s a very simple business. There are several wheeler-dealer women in Salloum who employ men under them and we’re their apprentices. Our business is we buy the passports if we’re clever for ten or twelve pounds, fifteen at the most.’

  ‘What do you mean, you buy passports?’

  ‘Because everyone has the right to buy six cartons of cigarettes from the duty-free shop. We make a deal with everyone coming out of Libya to buy the six cartons of cigarettes on his passport. The six cartons cost about 175 pounds, plus the ten pounds for the guy with the passport, that makes 185. In one day we buy about 200 passports and then we smuggle the cigarettes into Libya. Because the Musaid customs post is easy, I mean people coming in cars get searched but if they find someone going across on foot then he can cross with no problem. We put the cartons of cigarettes in cloth bags and put them on our shoulders. After we smuggle them into Libya we sell them there for about forty-two to forty-five dinars, and the dinar then was worth four seventy-five, so one passport would bring in about twenty pounds profit. On the whole amount we’d come out with 4,000 pounds a day. That’s the business, sir, an honest business.’

  ‘But I don’t understand, aren’t these cigarettes available in Libya?’

  ‘These are particular imported brands from the duty-free shop and the Libyans love them. Should we tell them not to like them? Everyone benefits.’

  ‘Do you smuggle only cigarettes?’

  ‘No, we used to bring in a few videos and cassette players from Libya to Egypt from time to time. But the Salloum customs post isn’t like the Musaid post. They are merciless. If they saw a bag walking along on its own, they would arrest it. But we still manage, I’ve been there for years after all. My father was a taxi driver all his life. He wanted me to drive his taxi, may he rest in peace. My mother said: “Your father held us back and always gave us a wretched life. Son, go and find yourself a job that suits the times, work that earns you some money. Can’t you see how all the people around us are doing? Travel. Go to Libya and maybe the Good Lord will give you a break.” Then as I was on my way to Libya I found this work smuggling cigarettes. I thought my prayers had been answered and I used to send my mother everything I saved, thank God, I made her happy for a while until she passed away. She was a real mother, may she rest in peace.’

  ‘So are you planning to hang out in Cairo driving your father’s cab?’ I asked.

  ‘No way, sir. I saw with my own eyes, and no one need tell me, how my father lived all his life. I saw with my own eyes how he died without the money to pay for a shroud, and what’s coming is worse than what’s past. I’ll work any honest job that brings in money, even as a gangster.’

  Forty

  Place: Cairo International Book Fair at Nasr City

  Day: 26 January 2005

  Hour: 2:15 p.m.

  Temperature: Moderate

  Event: A television programme about political participation, and taped interviews with the general public (definitely not on air because live broadcasts would be a danger to the democratic climate)

  Method: During the interviews th
e interviewer gives the unfortunate public lessons in good ethics for the refinement of political participation. If necessary the interviewer uses barks and grimaces to keep people in their places.

  As I was walking past the Ezbekia bookstalls, a man approached me and introduced himself. ‘I’m the production director of a television programme and we’re filming here,’ he said. He asked if the interviewer could do an interview with me and assured me that my lady wife, would respect me more highly once she saw me on television. And my children could tell their friends at school with great pride about what happened to their father on the silver screen, or even the bronze.

  They fixed the microphone to my shirt and the cameraman put the camera in front of me. Behind him a group of small girls in full face veils gathered next to the wall of the German pavilion, laughing at the sight of the film crew. The interviewer combed some of the few hairs left on his head and prepared to start filming. ‘OK, 1, 2, 3, rolling!’ The interviewer ambushed me with a question about the voting card and I told him this conversation I had with a taxi driver:

  ‘Have you got your voting card?’ I asked the driver.

  ‘Oh my God, you want me to get a voting card? Those guys would monitor me and if I didn’t vote for them they would arrest me and send me to Tokar prison28.’

  I laughed. ‘What do you mean, monitor you? Are you kidding?’ I said.

  ‘I’m totally serious! If I got a card they would monitor me and I would be registered with them and that would be a disaster. You’re too naïve and you don’t understand what’s going on,’ the driver said.

  Then I told the interviewer about my attempts to convince the driver that what he was saying was sheer madness and that this suspicion of the state that is entrenched in our psyche must end immediately, but what I said blew away in the breeze. The driver didn’t believe a word of it. On the contrary, he started to grow suspicious of me and I think in the end he felt certain I was with the secret police.

  I ended my interview with the television by saying this driver proved to me that talking about political participation in Egypt was a bad joke, a very bad joke.

  I was hoping that my children could boast of me to their friends, or that my wife would have a touch more respect for me as soon as they saw me on the silver box. But it looks like my talk was too straight to fit me on the screen!

  Forty-one

  As soon as I got in the cab I discovered it was more like a cattle shed than a taxi. It smelt rotten, and filth surrounded me on every side. As for the dust, that was the least of it. When the taxi started moving I was surprised to find that every part of it was operating independently of all the other parts and that every piece had its own particular screech, creating a concerto that was extremely unpleasant.

  I glanced at the driver and he didn’t look much better than the taxi I was riding.

  ‘What’s this that you’re driving?’ I asked him.

  ‘What can I do? The owner doesn’t want to fix it. He doesn’t give a damn. He’ll keep running it like this till it conks out completely. (The driver was imitating the voice of the comedian Mohamed Saad when he plays the outrageous character el-Lembi.) Anyway, if they brought me a cigarette kiosk with wheels on I’d operate it as a taxi. I’m a driver and that’s that.’

  ‘OK then, mister, how much will you charge from here to Maadi?’

  ‘Whatever you pay.’

  ‘No, let’s agree first. You haven’t driven more than a couple of yards. “Set the terms first and everyone will end up happy” as the saying goes.’

  ‘We’re not going to disagree,’ said the driver.

  ‘Well suppose we did disagree, we’d end up arguing in the street. So how much will you charge?’

  ‘I don’t want to lose out on my livelihood. What I earn comes from God and you are merely a conduit. Who am I to cut the flow?’

  ‘Look, I’m the one who’s going to pay. If you won’t say how much you want, then you can drop me off.’

  ‘Suppose I told you I would charge you so much and you were planning to give me more. That’s providence, sir.’

  ‘When you go into a pharmacy and ask how much a medicine costs, does the pharmacist tell you six eighty, or does he say “Whatever you’ll pay”? You should be the first person to know how much the trip should cost.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, what’s it worth?’

  ‘Fifteen pounds.’

  ‘OK, make it twenty,’ he said.

  ‘Drop me off!’ I shouted.

  ‘OK done, fifteen is fine. Agreed. (The driver grinned broadly.) Well you know what, I was going to tell you ten, and you said fifteen. That means if I’d done what you said I’d have done myself short. I tell you that so that you believe what’s right is right. A driver shouldn’t state his price. That way he leaves it to God.’

  ‘And if I had said five?’

  ‘No, impossible. Excuse me, but the trip to Maadi for five pounds?’

  The car drove on, each part of it moving in a different direction, the various components playing the worst symphony in the history of mankind.

  ‘Have you seen the film el-Lembi?’ I asked him.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen it, believe me, but they say it’s very good.’

  Only then did I realise that he wasn’t imitating Mohamed Saad in the film. It was Mohamed Saad who was imitating him.

  Forty-two

  ‘You know, I have a big dream,’ the driver said. ‘A dream I live for, because without a dream you can’t live. Otherwise you always feel sluggish and you can’t get out of bed, you get depressed and start wanting to die. But someone with a dream is sprightly and energetic, like a spinning top, a blazing fire that won’t go out. I’ll stay ablaze like that, going round and about and saving money for four years.

  ‘You know what my dream is? To take my taxi in four years’ time and drive as far as South Africa and see the World Cup there. I’ll pile up the pennies for four years and then go explore the African continent from the very north, where I am now, to the southernmost point. I’ll cross every African country and I’ll follow the Nile until I come to the start of it, as far as Lake Victoria I mean, and on the way I’ll sleep in the car, and in the boot of the car I’ll stack away food to last me two months, tins of beans and tuna, and a shitload of bread, because I really like bread.

  ‘I’ll see the jungles and the lions and the tigers and the monkeys, the elephants and the gazelles. And I’ll get to know new people, people from Sudan and all the countries beyond. I still don’t know exactly which countries I will cross. I bought an atlas from the bookshop and looked at it but I haven’t fixed the route yet.

  ‘When I reach South Africa I’ll go to the southernmost point on the African continent on the ocean and I’ll see with my own eyes the South Pole from afar.

  ‘Of course I’ll go to all the matches. I’m planning to apply to the Football Federation here, which is next to Ahly Club in Zamalek, so they can get me some tickets. Since we’re all Africans together, they’re bound to help us out.

  ‘Basically I drive all day long. You know, I drive about fifteen hours a day so I’m used to it. I’ll have no problem driving to South Africa.

  ‘That’s my dream and I have to make it come true.’

  I didn’t want to tell him that there’s no paved road linking Abu Simbel, the last town in Egypt, with Sudan, and the road stemming from the Toshka road to Sudan is closed, and that there isn’t a continuous railway line linking Egypt and Sudan, or that even if he did reach Sudan, he wouldn’t be allowed to go to southern Sudan without security permits from the Khartoum authorities, which he would be not able to obtain. Or that Cairo taxis aren’t allowed to leave the country.

  I forgot to tell him that the African continent is fragmented and disconnected, completely colonised, and that the only people who can still travel there are definitely not the indigenous Africans but rather the white lords, who make the Afr
ican doors that swing open only for them. Long gone are the days of Ali Baba, who could open doors just by saying ‘Open, Sesame’.

  Forty-three

  I was in the University Professors’ ‘City’ in Saft el-Laban, right behind Cairo University, beyond the railway tracks. The place is a perfect example of Egypt’s urban planning, for Saft el-Laban is a village that borders on farmland and, because Cairo’s massive expansion, high-rise buildings made of breeze block have mushroomed in the unfortunate village – imports from the cities and the embodiment of disgusting architecture. People from outside have descended on the village and the university lecturers’ compound has also landed there from Mars, surrounded by a large wall to prevent the earthlings from entering.

  While I was leaving this ‘city’ (and of course ‘city’ here means no more than a collection of a few apartment blocks inhabited by Martians) towards Saft el-Laban, and after carefully examining the architecture and the inhabitants, I realised the extent of the disaster. The place was a real monstrosity with no identity whatsoever. A beautiful woman walked past me wearing a long village-style dress and pendant earrings bought from the nearest provincial centre hanging from her ears, while her long, straight nose did not belong the the city. Her feet were leading her towards a market place that was the filthiest I have ever seen in my life.

  From behind the market there began to appear legions of children coming out of school, a first wave of primary-school girls, all in headscarves, then a wave of boys all wearing faded brown uniforms. They passed around me on every side as though I were a disembodied wandering spirit, and I felt some tension, although usually the sight of children fills me with delight.

  I caught sight of a taxi from the city and ran towards it to escape, after besmirching my face in this salad bowl of humanity.