by Anna Perera
That’s the thing about glass, Aaron thinks. Even when it’s old and chipped, it’s somehow clean. The light leaves nothing for anyone to clear up.
The noise of zooming traffic fades and the sound of shattering glass increases as bottle after bottle lands in the plastic bag. With the sudden overpowering whiff of strange blossoms that might once have been used to bring the dead back to life, Aaron becomes lost to the world. Despite the push to do as much as possible in the least amount of time, he lingers over a heart-shaped bottle with an amber-colored stem.
“Give me that!”
Shareen’s hands briefly touch his when she grabs the bottle. Aaron looks up blankly. He’d forgotten she was there. The surprising touch of her soft skin was as hot and sharp as a wasp sting. Not since before his mother fell ill has he been touched by a girl—or in fact by anyone who doesn’t want to hit him. He stares at her, but she’s caressing the bottle with love-starved eyes. She wants to own it.
“See … ?” Shareen asks.
Aaron lowers his gaze to the bottle. Yes, the glass-blower has left a mark on the rim, but it’s a small one and hardly noticeable. Omar’s getting fussier about which bottles he decides are worthless. Just as Aaron’s surprised that Shareen noticed the blemish before he did, he’s angry with himself for overreacting to her brief touch.
Suddenly a taxi screeches to a halt, letting out a stench of exhaust fumes. A tall, broad-shouldered figure leaps from the car to peer down the alley. Aaron can’t quite make out the face but from the way he’s standing—elbows out, hands on his smart navy galabeya—he’s certain it’s Omar himself.
“Quick!” Caught red-handed, Aaron swings the half-full bag over his shoulder.
Shareen grabs the pile of folded bags from the floor and shoves them under her arm. In her rush, she knocks over the unsorted boxes, which crash to the ground with a rattle of breaking glass as Omar gallops toward them. She glances back to see a smile as treacherous as quicksand on his face as he jumps over broken glass, his hands out to catch her.
The sight of the alley walls disintegrates as a shaft of dazzling sunlight hits Omar’s contact lenses, blinding him, forcing him to pause and refocus. By the time he blinks a few times, Shareen and Aaron have gone.
They move like gazelles, the wide street juddering and thumping along with their hearts as they run. Dashing into an adjoining street, with huge grins pasted all over their faces, they dart between schoolchildren and push past shoppers. Their rasping breaths and pounding feet drown out the sound of the rhythmic clink of glass drifting from the bouncing bag on Aaron’s back. Even the traffic appears to fall silent the second they stop beside a snack kiosk several roads away.
Drained of energy while trembling with laughter, Aaron can hardly take in the sight of Shareen beside him. In a sweat, cramped up and hugging the thick squares of folded bags to her waist, she looks at Aaron and giggles with sheer excitement.
“I’ll have to go back and get the rest,” Aaron says, swinging the bag of glass to the pavement. His knee throbs as he looks back the way they came. “When Omar’s gone. No problem.”
“Are you serious? That guy’s a crazy man.”
“He’s not crazy, he’s clever, and he chases me at least once a week,” Aaron explains. “It’s a sort of game we play.”
“Has he ever caught you?” she gasps.
“No. That’s why he keeps doing it—I suppose.”
Sweat pours from Aaron as he swings the bag on his back again. At the same moment, a broad-shouldered man steps in front of him, shocking him into losing his grip. The bag crashes to the ground as Omar’s black eyes bear down on him.
“Come back to the shop. I want to talk to you.”
Omar’s stern voice and firm gaze let Aaron know he’s got him now and there’s nothing more to say. He trembles as he nods an agreement. Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shareen bolting down the street.
There’s a space at the far end of the perfume shop that is used for coffee breaks and storage. It smells and looks like a newly dug cave, complete with bare walls. Shovels and buckets that the builders have been using to dig below ground, to make space to store more vats of oils, are on one side. Leaning back against the uneven wall, on a stack of breeze blocks, Aaron wonders if there’s a hidden burial chamber nearby, the sensation of being in a passage leading to a tomb is so strong.
Omar has left him here to attend to something and, as time goes by, Aaron can’t help worrying about Shareen being alone on the street waiting for Lijah. Also, Lijah might just go crazy when she tells him what happened.
He can see that close by, behind the door and waiting to be shelved, there’s a collection of rose-colored glass bottles that are filled with dark oil.
Aaron’s heart beats faster and sweat sprouts like dew from his body. He’s scared, but the excitement of finally owning one of these perfect perfume bottles proves irresistible. His expert fingers race over the tiny bottles and a few seconds later two are inside the wide pockets of his jeans.
Aaron fondles the bottles in his pocket while eyeing those still on the floor. There are so many he doubts Omar will notice that two are missing. Suddenly he looks up, biting his lip in terror at the sound of quick footsteps coming toward him. As the small door opens, he is aware of a strong smell of cedar wood before he sees Omar in a smart navy galabeya. For some reason the man’s lavish leather sandals, studded with gold, prove what Aaron already knows: that Omar’s an important man. He sways for a moment, with his hands behind his back, before opening his mouth to speak.
“Now listen.” His hand out to prevent Aaron from escaping, Omar sighs. “This shop—our family business—we can trace back to the beginning of time. Since the pharaohs, there’s been perfume here.”
Aaron raises his eyebrows. How does he know that?
“Our task,” Omar goes on, “is to continue the practice of making the world more beautiful by spreading the power of these sacred oils, which are beyond the experience of humanity as we know it. You understand?”
“Yes,” Aaron says, pretending. What does that mean? He tries not to bat an eyelid, suffocated by the overpowering smell of cedar wood, unsure of where Omar’s going with this speech. A speech that has little to do with him stealing rejected bottles.
“The oils we use are distilled in the same way they have always been. They are part of Egypt, just as the cells in your body are part of you. In abundance these blossoms have grown along the banks of the river and been picked at the perfect time of the moon’s cycle through the heavens. The glass-blowers who create the bottles come from the same old families too. We’re connected by creating beauty. Adding to, not subtracting from, the world we live in.”
Omar stops to gaze directly into Aaron’s eyes. A powerful gaze that Aaron can hold only for a few seconds before looking away, embarrassed.
“You see what I’m saying?” Omar asks again.
This time Aaron doesn’t answer. Head down, eyes on the earth floor, he has the sensation of headlights burning into his forehead. Shocked by the even sound of Omar’s breathing and the depth of feeling behind his words, Aaron feels suddenly weak. This could go on for hours and Lijah will be in a temper, waiting outside.
Like Omar, Aaron loves glass and light and the colors that shine so brilliantly they’re like something from another world. He wants to hear all of this, but when is he going to tell him off for stealing the bottles from the alley?
“You think that when you hold something in your hands, take it home, and put it in your house, that it’s yours? Nothing on this earth belongs to you. You come with nothing. You leave with nothing. Things are just veils. Barriers to prevent you from seeing what’s real.”
In a fever, queasy and weak, leaning back closer to the gritty bumps of breeze block, Aaron can’t think properly. His mind spins from pictures of the bags of rubbish outside, to Lijah, and to the bottles in his pocket. Then to policemen with guns—Omar’s obviously waiting for them to come and take him awa
y.
“You’ve gone green. Are you all right?” Omar whispers. He opens the door sharply. “Bring hibiscus tea with honey,” he calls to running footsteps.
By the time Aaron gathers the courage to look up, a decorative round tin tray with a small gold china cup—not a pink one!—floats past his face as the assistant hands it to Omar. The unlikely combination of being caught red-handed and then being given tea to make him feel better unnerves Aaron.
“Drink this and go,” Omar says. “But next time, think about what you’re doing and whether you’re adding or taking away from your own soul when you steal my glass.”
The moment Aaron realizes he’s been given a strange telling-off and nothing more, he unfolds his thin body, grabs the small cup with a rough, dirty hand, and gulps down the sweet tea. It’s sickly sweet and makes him gag.
He puts the china cup down with a clatter, grabs the bag of glass, and darts past Omar. With a single leap, he’s through the small door, racing past the glittering shelves. Barging through the big black doors, he bursts into the crowded streets of Cairo, with its honking cars and dazzling sunshine, and crashes straight into the side of the cart.
“Quick,” he gasps. “There’s a maniac after me.”
Lijah takes off with Aaron’s legs still dangling over the side of the cart, but the traffic is so dense the pony is soon trapped between two buses, like a slice of bread in a toaster. Before long they stop. Aaron glances back at the shop, expecting to see Omar and the assistant staring after them down the street, but the shop door is closed tight. He glances at Lijah, who gazes straight ahead at the traffic with a heavy, dumb expression.
In the back, Shareen leans toward Aaron and whispers, “What happened?”
Aaron shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Annoyed by his lack of an answer, Shareen pouts at the passing cars.
There are two hotel alleys to clear before they can return to Mokattam and, as the pony lowers his head to plod down the busy street, Aaron notices that he’s wobbling slightly as he walks. Pulling the load plus the three of them in this sticky heat is taking its toll on the pony’s thin body and now there’s a slight limp in his back leg.
“Did you give him any water?” Aaron asks.
A flicker of irritation passes over Lijah’s face as he tightens the reins, taking pleasure in forcing the pony to go from a slow walk to an uneasy, fast trot down the middle of the street. The pony stumbles more than once, as if trying to get rid of the cart, and attempts to turn into the traffic instead of the pavement when they come to a stop outside the next hotel.
Aaron hurtles from the cart to the alley in a desperate bid to find water to quench the pony’s thirst. With a look at me swing of her shiny hair, Shareen comes to life as she leaps down, hoping to find something expensive that a rich guest has accidentally thrown out.
Nearby, a talkative group of tourists spill from the hotel doors. One of the middle-aged men looks Shareen up and down as she runs toward the alley, eyeing her graceful steps and long, luscious hair and ignoring her filthy hands and feet and dusty, threadbare galabeya. Shareen pauses, catches his look and tilts her head to one side, which embarrasses him and his huge wife.
This alley’s cramped and smells of old meat. Aaron fumbles through the rapidly decomposing rubbish like a madman, scrabbling for plastic bottles that might contain a drop of water. Sticky marmalade jars, cracked glass candle holders, burnt oven dishes, and a split juicer are flung to one side as he grabs at warm, blue plastic buried in the mountain of filth. Bottle after bottle is ignored until he spots the dregs of jewel-like water swimming in pale, dented plastic.
Shareen watches Aaron with a vague respect as he dashes back to the street and pours the last drops into the pony’s reaching, gasping mouth.
“Omar must have said something,” she whines when he returns.
“Shut it!” Aaron turns on her. “Help me! The pony might die.”
Once Shareen understands the danger of the situation, she sets to work. They pick their way through trash, searching for bottles of water like a well-ordered team. Aaron takes one side of the alley, Shareen the other, but anxiety spreads as they discover that most of the plastic bottles are empty, dry as bones. In a fury they bounce them at the walls and as time wears on become more and more frightened the pony’s going to drop dead in the street from dehydration.
After a while they stop for a second and silently agree to bag the broken glass, jars, and burned dishes. Shareen squints at the light at the edge of the alley to check on the pony’s hanging neck and moving mouth. Lijah suddenly twists from the sun and stares back, untroubled by the pony’s fate or their distress.
“He doesn’t care,” Shareen cries, tugging frizzy hair from her damp neck and swallowing hard. She realizes she’s as thirsty as the pony and hasn’t had a drink since before they left Mokattam this morning.
“Hey! We missed this …” Aaron smiles as he twists off the cap. “Some idiot’s only had a few sips.”
“Can I just … ?” Grabbing at the bottle, she knocks it out of his hand, and the plastic hits the edge of a broken laptop before Aaron can catch it. But by then only a few mouthfuls of water remain.
Shareen leans flat against the alley wall. Will he lash out at her? She’s never seen him lose his temper but suspects he might now.
“There’s a bit left,” Aaron says calmly while taking off.
A moment later, when he lifts the almost-empty bottle to the pony’s mouth, Shareen starts to wonder what would have to happen to make Aaron show his anger. Everyone in Mokattam says that since his mother died he hides his feelings to protect himself. As they clear the rest of the alley and continue down the street toward the main highway, Shareen decides she agrees.
The few drops of water revive the pony enough for it to plod slowly toward the second-to-last hotel for some respite while Aaron works. Once this alley has been cleared, instead of heading to the Imperial Hotel, Lijah turns to Shareen, who’s curled up on a bag, half asleep in the back.
“Get off! The pony has to rest.”
“I’m tired. I’ve had enough,” she grumbles.
“Shareen, come on,” Aaron says.
Not wanting to provoke Lijah any further when his eyes are popping like that, Aaron’s at the side of the cart in record time, waiting for her to get down. The high-voltage sound of a police siren helps catapult her to the street. The cart swiftly pulls over, along with honking cars and taxis.
Everyone swings around to witness a convoy of police cars heading in their direction. Instinctively Aaron shoves his hands in his pockets, ready at any second to jettison the stolen bottles of perfume, but the police cars sweep past in clouds of dust, surrounding a black Audi, which is safely cocooned in the middle of the huge escort.
Shareen screws up her eyes toward the sun to catch sight of the passengers of the Audi as it speeds past, but the glossy black windows hide them. She wonders what it would feel like to be in the air-conditioned car instead of out here on the hot pavement. Crossing the busy street, she’s tired and fed up, but she can’t help smiling with delight when the Audi and its police convoy come around the roundabout to a sudden halt outside the dark, swinging doors beside them. She’s frozen by a rush of excitement when a young, good-looking man in a smart suit gets out of the back of the car, glances at her for a second, and jumps into the seat next to the chauffeur. He almost smiled.
Then the cavalcade continues on its way.
In the alley, as she helps Aaron by holding out the plastic bag for him to throw in beer and wine bottles, she imagines the man from the hotel is the son of a sheikh who’s fallen in love with her—a poor Zabbaleen girl. Imagining holding his hand and sitting beside him on the black leather seat as the car shoots away, she can’t help blushing when she thinks about what might have happened if he’d stopped to speak to her.
While Shareen invents, Aaron reflects. Swinging the clanking bags on the cart with hands stinking of beer, he pushes hair from his face to glance
back at the glass doors of the Imperial Hotel. The smoky doors revolve as guests enter and leave the hotel, but the Virgin Mary is nowhere to be seen today. For a second his mind goes blank. A small voice inside his head doubts he ever saw her in the first place and his world shrinks with the thought that this road, these cars, that wide sky are all there really is to this hard, lonely life.
Back on the cart as they skirt the edge of the city, Aaron starts monitoring his stepbrother’s breathing. A couple of times it seems as if Lijah might push him into the road again, so staying alert is always on his mind. By the time the silence of Mokattam settles on them like old sheets, Lijah has calmed down, Shareen is a princess in love with a man she saw for only ten seconds, and Aaron’s lost in a vision he saw on the Imperial Hotel’s glass doors.
Once the chaos of the main road is left behind, the pony begins to stagger, gasping heavily and barely able to move in a straight line. Aaron and Shareen get down and walk slowly beside the cart as they enter the village. Aaron pats the pony’s drooping neck and hot ears, trying to calm himself by studying the tiny arrows of glass on the dusty ground that glitter in the sun.
Stumbling farther past a man bashing a broken cupboard to bits with a hammer, Aaron doesn’t notice the pony’s right knee buckling until the cart comes to a sharp stop. There’s a flapping sound, mixed with a strained creaking from the cart, as the pony sinks to the ground.
Aaron quickly unhooks the shaft and the bags topple, thumping and rolling off the sides as the pony shudders. Shareen jumps clear of the crashing bags in time to stand over Aaron as he leans in and cups the pony’s clamped mouth in his hands. Shareen watches the pony grunt a last breath and flop to the ground before scooting home as if her life depends on it.
The reins loose in his hands, Lijah can’t believe his eyes. A pony is a precious animal that can’t easily be replaced, and the fear on his face reflects what they and everyone watching is thinking: That family’s finished now.
