Utopia

by Ahmed Khaled Towfik

  That stupid boy had chosen Somaya, and therefore he was at the mercy of el-Sirgani. He could do anything. He could threaten him with a machete and take everything he had on him, or accuse him of attacking his family’s honour – like the actor Stephan Rosti in old movies – and force him to accept any one-sided condition.

  The most important question here was: what was the role of the girl who was with him, and why wasn’t he satisfied with her? Was she his sister? Who makes a deal with a hooker in front of his sister? For that matter, who makes a deal with a hooker in front of any other woman?

  In any case, the guy had taken Somaya with him and led her into the ruined buildings.

  No one would pick a fight with him. She was protecting him. But if she screamed or called for help or something happened to her, then he’d be torn to shreds. The guys in the ruined building sniffing glue would tear him apart until her uncle arrived to finish the job of flaying him alive.

  Curiosity to know more got the better of me, so I forgot all about Safwat and what he had on him, and I started making my way into the middle of the ruined buildings, looking for Somaya and her client.

  The girl who could be his sister would probably run into some problems. I couldn’t stand seeing a girl in a trouble, because it reminded me of Safiya.

  I thought I could rescue her if that happened.

  I wasn’t strong, but I was popular. I was also part of Abd el-Zahir’s gang, so I was under his protection. Any attack on me was an attack on him – that wasn’t a trivial matter.

  Standing there in the dark, I was suddenly surprised by a strange sight. The guy landed a karate-chop on Somaya’s neck, and she crumpled to the ground like a heavy sack. He didn’t want her for sex. He wanted to hurt her, for some reason that I didn’t understand.

  Or maybe I did understand!

  But he was really stupid. El-Sirgani never let Somaya out of his sight and, consequently, there had to be someone watching her from a distance to guarantee that she wouldn’t escape or take more money from the client. So I knew that the news of this had reached el-Sirgani with lightning speed.

  Ten young guys raced in the dark. They leaped over the rubble of collapsed walls, bricks and piles of rubbish. They leaped over rocks. They leaped right into the scene the moment it happened.

  They surrounded the guy and his girl, while Somaya lay in a heap on the ground, unaware of what was going on.

  Then Suka shouted in his rough, guttural voice, ‘They aren’t like us! They’re from Utopia!’

  Part Three

  Predator

  1

  The hatred in their eyes was clear. They probably had the same look in their eyes when they stormed the Bastille. They were one and the same. The rabble has a standardised type and appearance, regardless of the difference in countries and languages. In their hands flashed blades that weren’t part of knives: instead, they were parts of car frames that had been turned into murder weapons. There was a water pipe or two like in Gangs of New York.

  Germinal trembled and clung to me. We wouldn’t get out of this.

  I felt a hand roughly searching through my pocket, then it pulled out my mobile phone.

  Their eyes all turned to the body lying on the ground. The message was entirely clear, and they understood it, ‘They kidnap any one of us they find, take them back for their entertainment, then kill them!’

  I understood that the first punch would open up the floodgates, after which punches would come raining down.

  Only who would start it? Goodbye, Germinal. In spite of everything, life was boring. Maybe ridding ourselves of it was a kind of change.

  ‘Don’t hurt them, guys. They’re innocent. I saw the girl fall: no one touched her.’

  It was one of them, speaking with determination. I couldn’t make out his features, because my eye was looking at the situation as a whole, not at individuals.

  ‘I saw him hit her, Gaber,’ one of them said.

  ‘You didn’t see anything, you son of a …’ retorted my mysterious rescuer, who apparently was called Gaber. ‘The glue you’ve been sniffing has killed off your brain and blinded you.’

  Then he whispered in my ear, ‘Got any phlogistine on you?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Either that, or you’ll be seeing your ears on the ground in a second!’ he hissed.

  I reached my hand into my sock and pulled out a small bottle resembling an ampoule that had been stuck to my ankle with tape. He snatched it from me and waved it before their eyes. ‘Do you know what this is? Phlogistine! Anyone who hasn’t yet tried it should know that it’s totally different from glue-sniffing and pot and Parkinol pills. Take it and try some. One drop on your forearm. Don’t do too much of it, dumbasses: I’ve seen someone die from it in seconds because he put two drops on.’

  They all seemed to know what he was talking about.

  Instantly they forgot all about revenge, pounced on the ampoule, and started calling each other filthy names. Suddenly we no longer existed.

  One of them tried to run with the ampoule, but another one stuck his leg out in his path and he fell. He leaped on the ampoule and wrenched it away, only to have someone else stick his finger in his eye. At that, another one pounced, biting the rear end of the one who had done the eye-poking. Meanwhile, the one who had fallen had got up on his feet and kicked the face of the one who was biting the other’s behind. A mass of bodies wrestled, and you couldn’t tell where one of them began and the other one ended. Who was losing and who was winning?

  None of them asked me how I’d got hold of that amount. You’d have to try some before you’d understand: faced with phlogistine, only idiots stop to ask where it comes from.

  If they’d stopped for a moment, they’d have realised that the fact that I had phlogistine on me confirmed their suspicions about me.

  Gaber shouted at the group, which was no longer hearing or seeing, ‘They’re thieves! They stole this phlogistine from those Utopia bastards!’

  With that, it was as if he was giving us a get-out-of-jail-free card!

  At that point, I saw the giant pimp approaching from a distance, brandishing his machete, sending imaginary heads flying as he launched a barrage of curses.

  He was coming towards us, foaming and frothing at the mouth, and then, before he could say anything, the young guy shouted, ‘Phlogistine, el-Sirgani! Flog! Flog!’

  The man didn’t slow down, but altered his trajectory; he had been heading directly towards me, now he rushed towards the brawlers. I didn’t understand what happened, but I was certain that he brought his machete down on them. These people seem to have a very quick grasp of things and their hesitation is nonexistent. They’re the hawk that doesn’t have time to understand what is taking place, but attacks first and understands later.

  The young guy, our rescuer, furtively gave us a signal to take off, so we ran behind him.

  If we couldn’t trust him, then who could we trust?

  Soon we were somewhere in these ruined buildings, then we were at a small shack made from scrap wood, disassembled parts of car frames, newspapers and a very odd assortment of things. He pulled back a piece of tarpaulin so we could enter and, feeling compelled to, we did so.

  The condition of the hut was worse inside. There were two car tyres being used as seats, and there was a small kerosene stove and a mound of books, the likes of which I had never seen in my life.

  The only evidence for the presence of electricity came from a feeble lamp connected to an ancient car battery. The lamp cord had been hung on a stick jutting out from the wood. Darkness would have probably been better and brighter than this light. This measly light was what you would expect over your last words before white foam-flecks dribbled out of your mouth and you died.

  For the first time, I was able to get a good look at the features of this rescuer. He was around thirty years old and skinny, with tousled hair. He showed clear signs of malnutrition, but he had a strong physique, like a wolf. On his nose were glasses
that had been soldered together hundreds of times, and under them was a face that was filled with stitches, like the face of the monster in the Frankenstein movies. I also noticed that he had one cornea that had melted and turned into white paste.

  ‘Thanks for rescuing us,’ I told him,

  ‘My name is Gaber,’ he replied, as he pushed away some junk to give us room to sit down. ‘No thanks needed. I hate killing of any kind, although you two came, of course, to acquire a unique souvenir! You’re from Utopia, of course!’

  ‘No, we’re not from—’

  He gave me a sharp look with his eye that had turned to paste, saying, ‘Don’t try to fool me. We all know what thieves do when they sneak up on us. And when they’ve finished their mission, the Marines’ helicopters come to rescue them with their quarry. What does your father say to you when you come back to him with one of us? “Dirty!” “Shame on you!” “Oh how cruel!”’

  I looked at Germinal and she looked at me.

  An uncomfortable feeling washed over us. We didn’t fool anyone. The Others would have torn us apart on the spot: as for this guy, he had a fate in store for us. I didn’t know what it would be, but it was slow in coming, slow, and everything that is slow is cruel.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Alaa,’ I told him indifferently.

  He smiled maliciously and said, ‘Of course, if you thought that I’d believe for one moment that you are Alaa, then you take me for an idiot. But it’s not important. The only value in names is in letting you know that I’m talking to you. We’ll assume that you’re Alaa, and she can be Maha. Alaa and Maha. Nice. Are you two brother and sister? I’ll assume that too. But if you’re not brother and sister, then you should know that I won’t allow any funny business under my roof, or rather, under the tarpaulin over my shack, because I didn’t bring you here for that, and I don’t live by myself.

  We heard movement, and a teenage girl entered the shack. She seemed pretty, even if the filthiness of her tattered clothes concealed any beauty. The filth stiffened her dress so that it neither fluttered nor moved, as if it were tanned leather. When she saw us, her eyes had the look of a timid animal withdrawing into the thicket. Later I learned that those two eyes could say everything, as if they were communicating directly with the soul.

  ‘This is my sister,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Come here, Safiya. You were asking me about how those rich people who live in their private settlements – look, here’s two of them!’

  She gave us a look of incomprehension. We appeared to be in a worse state than she was.

  ‘They had to look like this as a disguise,’ he explained. ‘It’s a kind of grease that actors put on their faces. They came to grab one of us to amuse themselves.’

  Gradually he began to grow more agitated, as though he were spitting out the hatred that had built up in his soul. ‘Why don’t you leave us alone? You stole the past, the present and the future from us, but you hate to let us live our lives.’

  Before I could understand where it was coming from or when it appeared, I found a giant machete blade under my chin.

  ‘I wonder if I should take a souvenir from you, the way you do with us?’ he said between yellow teeth. ‘A girl’s ear would be an excellent souvenir. A delicate, clean, red ear. Everyone will envy me over it – maybe they’ll borrow it from me.’

  Then he burst out in savage laughter. Savage laughter. Savage.

  We remained silent. I was torn between showing fear, which would inflame his sadism further and showing indifference, which would provoke his insane fury. In the end, I continued to look into his face with my own face like a hawk, expressionlessly. I looked at Germinal out of the corner of my eye, and found that she had decided on the same thing.

  Eventually, he calmed down. ‘Make us something to eat,’ he said to the girl.

  Gaber told us of his friend who was called Azuz.

  He had a large body and a left eye that constantly fluttered. As if he had been expecting bad luck since birth.

  Azuz entered the ruined buildings to relieve himself one night, when three guys from Utopia seized him. They were forced to kill him when they were unable to abduct him. Three powerfully built young men with cruelty, coldness and condescension in their eyes.

  People here only found out what had happened to him when they saw the Marines’ helicopter circling over the ruins, its bright searchlights sweeping over the place. At that point, they knew that one of them had fallen.

  People began pelting the helicopter with stones, and Mursi pulled out the pistol he had manufactured himself in a metal shop and fired off two shots at the helicopter.

  The noisy beast rose higher as it pointed its searchlights in every direction, and then descended a little, making it possible for them to see a Marine sitting by helicopter’s open door. He had placed the machine gun between his thighs and began firing bullets indiscriminately at the angry crowd.

  A lot of them fell dead. Mursi himself fell dead.

  The helicopter entered the ruins, then a rope-ladder dangled from it. The three young guys climbed up the ladder, shouting wildly, and then the machine ascended. The sons of bitches thought they were acting in a Hollywood movie about the Vietnam War. The boys got inside the helicopter and they looked down on the angry crowds. One of them brandished something bloody in his hand as he let out a stream of curses.

  Gaber hurried to where Mursi’s body was and picked up the pistol. He steadied his right hand with his left and aimed carefully, but the shot that rang out didn’t injure anyone. He only seriously hurt his arm, and its echo reverberated for ages.

  The helicopter moved off into the distance.

  The crowd hurried to the ruins by torchlight. And there, beside a wall, they found Azuz’s body, riddled with stab-wounds. He had only one arm. The guys from Utopia had worked hard at it until they could tear it off, and they clearly didn’t have a butcher’s expertise at dismemberment. But if they hadn’t taken a souvenir, then no one in Utopia would have believed them when they got back.

  The helicopter moved off into the distance.

  But it left behind more blind, black hatred that could find no outlet to pour itself into.

  Azuz’s brother, who couldn’t stand his brother when he was alive, swore that he would cut off the forearm of anyone from Utopia if they fell into his hands. But this time, he would do it with his teeth, not with a knife.

  The opportunity never arose, even though the crowd kept waiting expectantly to see how that could happen.

  They knew that he would carry out his revenge to the letter, but with any unfortunate one of the Others who fell into his hands in the next fight. There is someone who will lose his arm because he vied with Azuz over a crust of bread. That’s for sure.

  This was the story Gaber told us, and more than anyone else, I knew it was true.

  2

  Look at me, little girl, say your final prayer

  As I crush your ribs and leave you there

  I squeeze out your soul with my burning flame

  So it goes to heaven broken and lame

  When the angels ask how it got that way

  It’ll say, I slept with the Devil today

  It was the Devil himself who gets so high

  On the screams of virgins before they die

  – Orgasm Songs

  The food this girl Safiya prepared for us was a mix of broad beans and falafel, the sacred food of the Others. Sometimes we eat these things, of course, for variety’s sake, but not like this: they were almost-spoiled leftovers from several earlier meals, which she mixed together and heated on the stove. Then she poured oil over the mixture, took a handful of spices and scattered them over the pan.

  ‘We use a lot of spices because they can hide the taste of anything,’ Gaber explained. ‘They hide the taste of spoiled chicken, sour beans and rotten eggs. Spices are the one commodity whose price hasn’t gone up, because we need them to stay alive.’

  He handed me a plate and another
one to Germinal. Then the girl handed him a piece of blackened bread, and he kept it for himself.

  I had eaten broad beans before; it helps to change things when you’re bored of your usual meals. But our digestive systems couldn’t put up with it any more. So I refrained from eating because I didn’t know what condition their toilet would be in. I don’t mean that I didn’t know: it’s just that I didn’t want to know.

  Putting his spoon down on his plate, he said, ‘Of course, you don’t understand a thing about the situation we’ve got into. But I’d hate not to tell you everything. The picture you’re seeing now was there from the start, but unfocused. Then, little by little, it expanded. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer, and then came the moment when the collapse occurred. It seems to me that it happened in the first decade of this century.

  ‘Suddenly, the dam broke: tourism was no longer capable of feeding these mouths. Israel opened its own canal, which became a ready substitute for the Suez Canal. As for the Gulf countries, their oil petered out or was not needed after the appearance of biroil, and they kicked out their imported labour force. So the economy became burdened by a crushing weight, and services for the poor disappeared because the state wiped its hands completely of its responsibility for them, and privatised everything. There was no longer a government, or no longer a government that cared about us. Eventually, salaries were halted, and services were halted, and the police melted away. Consequently, we are no longer taxed.

  ‘Your parents were from a class that could use its influence to get rich: bank accounts abroad, loans from banks, monopolies. Everything played into the hands of your fathers and against us, all down the line. So your class was able to stick together, and its wealth expanded, while we fell into the abyss.