Utopia

by Ahmed Khaled Towfik

  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 …

  Part Five

  Predator

  1

  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.

  As I finished, I began to repeat, in a mix of rapture and hatred, ‘You’re so dirty! You’re so dirty! Unhh, unhh—’

  A muffled scream – sobs …

  ‘Your poverty isn’t our fault – unhh – don’t you understand yet that you’re paying the price for your foolishness, your stupidity, and your submissiveness? Unhh, unhh—’

  A wail – weeps …

  ‘While our fathers were taking advantage of opportunities, your fathers were queuing to get their salaries from government agencies. Then there were no more government agencies. There were no more salaries. Unhh, unhh—’

  Sobs – groans …

  ‘You didn’t catch on to the game early on, so you fell from high up into a bottomless pit – unhh, unhh. How is that our fault?’

  Tears – sniffs …

  ‘When everyone rose up in rebellion in every country on earth, you shook your heads and shielded yourself with faith and contentment at what you had been allotted. Unhh, unhh. Your false piety is used to justify your weakness. Unhh, unhh—’

  Howls – cries …

  ‘You are less than us in every way. That’s how life is. You should just accept it. No one is capable of changing a thing … thing … thing … thing … thing … thing – unhh, unhh – thing – unhh, unhh – thing!’<
br />
  Muffled pleading – hysteria …

  I was done. My body became like a deflated balloon, and at that very moment, I heard Germinal saying from behind my back, ‘Have you finished, you pig? Her brother will be back at any moment.’

  I threw myself down on the ground, exhausted, beside the girl, collapsed in a heap.

  ‘Right. Her brother,’ I panted.

  I pulled the knife out of my pocket – the knife I had stolen from the slaughterhouse when we were cleaning the chicken. I put it against her throat and said, looking into her wide, bulging eyes: ‘Listen, not a word about what happened here. If a word is said, then—’

  ‘You’re not going to kill her!’ Germinal shouted. ‘She’s just a child!’

  ‘Who said anything about killing her? I’ll kill Gaber, little girl. You’ll see the knife ripping his guts out before he realises what you’re talking about. You’ll be living alone for ever, and your whole life will become a tedious repetition of what just happened, because Gaber won’t be bringing you food after today. Gaber won’t protect you.’

  She stayed quiet, so I repeated the question, ‘Do you understand?’

  Calmly, I undid the gag from her mouth and untied her.I told Germinal to take as much care as possible to make her appear human.

  ‘Did you enjoy yourself, you bastard?’ Germinal asked, spitting on the ground.

  ‘Keep it up,’ I said coldly. ‘You’re picking up their language and habits with every passing day. That’s useful for us, as you know.’

  2

  Except for the sadness and silence: you can get rid of the evidence of your crime, but the sadness and silence remain.

  That was why Gaber kept glancing at his sister curiously as he prepared for our escape. But the girl didn’t talk. She was really honourable. Besides, she had genuinely resisted me, and I’d never seen a girl who was genuine in her resistance. There is always a trace of hypocrisy and pretence. But this girl really hated me. She hated my guts, as the Americans say.

  A little later, Gaber said, with a serious look on his face, ‘I don’t trust any oath you people take since you deal with us as if we were subhuman. And you lie to us with the ease of someone lying to sheep, but I will try this one time: what you will see is to remain a secret.’

  ‘I’ve been forced to make a lot of deals,’ he added as he got up. ‘That has cost me money.’

  ‘My father—’ I started to say in annoyance.

  He raised his hand dismissively. ‘I don’t want to hear a word about your father or about his life,’ he said. ‘Now come with me.’

  He reached for a strange tool that consisted of two wooden sticks propped against each other like a cross.

  We walked amid the darkness in the filthy alleyways and back streets, unlit except for a torch here and there.

  Amid the people selling rotten fish.

  Amid the people selling cheap drugs.

  Amid the people selling bodies.

  Amid the young men who rip each other apart in endless brawls.

  Amid the vagrants and conmen and herbalists.

  Amid the pools of putrid water and puddles of petrol.

  Amid the open sewers that haven’t been cleaned out for months.

  Amid the dead dogs that have been stripped of meat.

  Amid the people selling stolen goods.

  Amid the teenagers sitting and gambling on an overturned chicken coop.

  Amid all of that, we departed.

  Three ghosts, not frightening, but frightened.

  Germinal didn’t stop scratching her head and chest, as if that were an SOS signal. I’m one of you. I swear to God I’m one of you!

  There we sat on the collapsed wall.

  Gaber told me, as he lit a roll-up, ‘I think there are a lot of eyes on us. So, it’ll go like this: you go around the wall as if you want to relieve yourself, then run across the ruins head down, bent double. Do you know how an ostrich runs? No? This is your chance to learn. When you reach the other side of the ruins, wait for us. We will join you the same way.’

  We were sitting in the darkness and I saw Gaber take my dirty jacket off my shoulders and place it on the two pieces of wood, so it seemed as though someone else were wearing it. I understood. Between the darkness and the distance, whoever was watching us would think there were still three of us there. So I jumped down to go around the wall the moment he raised his strange flapping scarecrow.

  I began running across the ruins, stumbling and short of breath. At least rabid dogs wouldn’t chase after me, because there weren’t any. I ran in the dark, not knowing if what I was stepping on were rocks, human waste, rotting corpses or merely earth.

  I reached the end and found another collapsed wall. I stood beside it, gasping for breath.

  A little later, I heard the sound of someone else panting. I saw Germinal running, bent, to join me.

  She stood beside me, unable to catch her breath.

  Soon Gaber appeared, running in his turn. He had left the jacket hanging there, as if two people were relieving themselves while the third waited for them.

  We looked at him heading towards a filthy nest and followed him down demolished stairs.

  At the far end of the square there were ancient buses, leaking oil and gas, rumbling constantly.

  ‘North Coast this way! Utopia this way!’

  Those words made my heart stick in my throat.

  The homeland. In spite of everything, it is the homeland. I’m someone who doesn’t belong to a place or to an individual or a principle.

  My heart sank. That meant that there was a way to return, but what about the guards? What about the Marines and reaching Utopia? Oh God!

  It’s tough to get close to Utopia without permission. The Marines will unload their ammunition into you.

  They won’t listen to you as you tell them complicated stories about testing your manhood and all that crap.

  If I don’t talk to my father, it’s no use.

  The ride had begun and I watched Gaber, silently sitting in the darkness in front of me. Everything in the bus groans, creaks and shakes. The smell of petrol is suffocating. I sneak a glance towards Germinal, then at all the weary faces of the workers going to work in the settlements on the coast. Bakers, rubbish collectors, rat-hunters. All of them badly nourished and pale-faced. All of them defeated. All of them spent. All of them …

  Their work began with the night-shift. They worked ten hours straight and then came back. That meant that they had less than seven hours in the day to themselves.

  The best thing for them would be to die right here and now.

  Oh my God! Phlogistine! I’m burning with lust for it! If things go as I hope, then I’ll be enjoying some again in three hours or less.

  I watched the road signs as we headed towards Alexandria. Even in this metal tinderbox, we were moving along.

  Signs for the North Coast: Gaber’s rigid face was silhouetted against the signs along the dark highway. The streetlights illuminated him from time to time.

  What was his plan?

  The most dangerous possibility was that he was plotting against us. Maybe he wanted to get rid of us, far from his territory. Two dead bodies in the desert, and no one would know who had done it. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to put my full trust in him.

  Why was he now getting up? Why was he whispering back and forth with the driver?

  He came back to sit down beside us, but he seemed to be waiting for something.

  Suddenly, the bus stopped and I heard him say in the darkness, ‘Come on, let’s go!’

  What was he planning?

  We were in the middle of nowhere, literally.

  3

  The bus started up, taking its passengers with it. The spot of light faded into the darkness: a ship of hope ploughing into the sea as it grew distant, abandoning us on an arid island where we would die.

  The darkness of night and the desert; the darkness of possibilities and ideas. I knew I could overpower Gaber
if he attacked us. Poverty and malnourishment can’t triumph over wealth and exercise since childhood.

  But he possessed the element of initiative and surprise and knew the territory.

  If I’m too hasty in attacking him, then we might lose our chance of returning.

  Gaber walked into the middle of the desert, between thorny plants and the remains of prickly pears. He circled behind a small hill and asked us to join him, so Germinal and I complied, expecting the worst.

  The worst was there, in fact, in the shape of two men who bore the marks of viciousness and brute strength, and they were armed. Germinal and I exchanged looks. Had the time come at last?

  But the three men were kneeling in the sand, digging it up with their fingernails and a small knife by the feeble light of a torch. One of them looked at us maliciously, the way a dog does when you surprise him as he’s digging up a bone. Then he went back to work.

  ‘Can you vouch for these two, Gaber?’ one of the two men said, without looking at us.

  ‘Like I vouch for myself.’

  Then he put out his hand and slipped something into the man’s hand. I think it was drugs, since it didn’t seem like money. I opened my mouth to speak, but Gaber shouted in my face, ‘Shut up, Hanafi! When you get in there, try to steal us some phlogistine. Hibara and Shiha have never tried it.’

  One of the two men smacked his lips in anticipation when the thing they were looking for appeared: a small iron gate buried under layers of sand. The one called Hibara revealed it and we saw wooden steps fixed into a vertical wall.

  ‘Hanafi and Nafisa, get down there’ Gaber said as he shone the torch into this pit.

  I’m Hanafi and she’s Nafisa? I didn’t like the names, but I didn’t think this was the appropriate time. In any case, we crept into the opening and began to descend the wooden stairs in the darkness, not knowing where they would lead us. I heard Gaber tell the two men, ‘I’ll take them to the closest point, then I’ll come back. Wait for me.’

  Then I heard his body and saw his light descending behind us. As soon as he caught up with us at the bottom of the pit I shouted, ‘What’s going on here?’