by Anna Perera
Rachel watches him dip his hands into his torn jean pockets and straighten his back as if he doesn’t care. It’s obvious he does.
“Where are you going?” she calls.
“I … er …” Aaron stammers. “I need to stretch my legs.”
“Did you know my dad’s new wife’s got cancer?” Rachel catches up with him.
“No,” Aaron replies in surprise.
An overwhelming desire to put his arm round her hits him. He watches sunlight flicker over her lush eyelashes and clenches his palms with frustration. Why is she telling me this? “Yeah. Fatima’s only twenty-nine and it’s spread to her lungs. She’s going to die soon.”
Staring at the ground, Rachel makes a diamond pattern in the dusty earth with her toes.
“I meant to water the ponies. It’s just that …” Aaron starts.
“I know.” Rachel forgives him with a kind glance. “Sometimes I’ve missed doing it because I was helping Fatima and stuff.”
“I thought you …” Aaron stumbles. He can’t ask her how she feels. “Fatima looked fine at Shareen’s party.”
“Yeah, but the effort took it out of her. She’s been much worse since then. I can remember when Mom died last year, she went kind of gray. Her skin changed color. It was weird. Just like Fatima. Mom used to laugh about it, but Fatima doesn’t laugh. Remember when my older brother died?”
Aaron nods.
Rachel continues, “He went gray too. When my sister died she still looked normal, but she’s the only one.”
Aaron’s heart suddenly feels heavy in his chest. “You’re not going to die,” he mutters.
“One day I am.” Rachel shrugs. “It’s OK. I’m not scared. There won’t be stinking mess and horrible diseases in heaven, will there?”
“There might be,” Aaron says, looking into her sad eyes.
“No, there won’t.” She pauses, then asks, “Do you want me to find you something to eat?”
“I can do it.” Aaron sees she’s got enough to deal with. “Just don’t get married,” he blurts out.
“What?” His statement takes her completely by surprise.
“You know, your dad … He might need some help, after …”
“Aaron, I’m going to be a vet and look after animals, not get married to some old guy who wants a slave.”
Aaron’s stunned. She’s never been out of Mokattam. “How are you going to do that? You need exams and loads of cash to be a vet.”
“It’s a secret, but this writer woman said that if you want something enough it will come to you. I heard her talking about it on Sami’s TV. She said all your dreams can come true just by using the power of thought, so that’s what I’m doing—thinking. Stop making that face, Aaron.”
“Well, just don’t get married.” He’s seriously worried about her now. “Maybe you should go back to school.”
“Yeah, I might.” Rachel gives him a look and a smile that makes Aaron feel sorry for her innocence. “But Mokattam only has a primary school.” She sighs. “I’m going to find out about it anyway.”
“You should.”
Aaron doesn’t want to trample on her dreams. His dream is to have a shop like Omar’s, where people come from miles away to buy his perfume, which is distilled in the same way as it was at the time of the pharaohs. He wants to tell her, tell someone.
“You know Lijah’s getting married?” she says at last. “Who to?”
“Suzan! One of Shareen’s friends.”
“Suzan? Shovel Face? Are you sure? How is Lijah going to get married when there’s no money to buy another pony and make a living?”
“They’re getting married the day after Shareen,” Rachel says. “Her family is helping Lijah, his brother, and his father.”
“Maybe that’s why he’s marrying her. I hate weddings.”
“Me too. But Lijah likes her.” Rachel gives him a smile that says everything’s mended between them and then, rubbing out the dusty diamond shapes with her heel, she turns for home.
Aaron’s sad little hiding place doesn’t feel so bad all of a sudden. At least he gets to see her every day and help with the ponies. She brings him bread when she can and there’s a well with a tap right here and no Lijah to watch out for, so things could be far worse. Plus the only other option is giving him nightmares. Sadly, Aaron knows he’ll have to face that option sooner rather than later. Rachel can’t look after him forever. It’s not fair on her—someone could easily discover what she’s doing.
The longer he stays in Mokattam without a home or a family, the more likely he is to be accused of every crime in the village, including compromising her. When the flapping sound of Rachel’s galabeya dies away, Aaron makes his decision.
A strange commotion is coming from a far corner of Mokattam. Judging by the rising level of the shouts, people are getting angry about something. Aaron rubs the dust from his face and stretches his stiff arms and legs. Without a mat to lie on, the ground is as unyielding as a bed of nails and
Aaron’s paying for it now. The rich smell of pony dung gets stronger as the sun rises in the sky.
When the next round of yells echoes in the distance, Aaron takes to his heels.
North of the pony yard is a steep path that divides into alleys. Aaron’s eyes settle on a number of people standing in tight clusters, muttering, ears cocked to the shouts coming from the far end of the lane that leads to the biggest pig enclosure. Hurrying through the endless filth, Aaron hears angry voices interrupted by the sound of pigs bellowing like cattle. Their horrible howl is the sound of slaughter. Didn’t someone say that pigs aren’t responsible for spreading swine flu? Why is the government doing this?
When Aaron reaches the enclosure he nervously runs a hand through his matted hair at the sight of the fortress line of police and soldiers holding back the red-faced elders, who are arguing with them. At the same time they’re trying to keep order among the shoving, yelling Zabbaleen behind the elders. Surely all the pigs aren’t being killed off? What will happen to Cairo’s food waste then? After running around the crowd for a minute, searching for a way in, Aaron gives a determined nudge and crashes through a throng of men and boys who are screaming at the murderers.
It takes only a second for the full horror to emerge. One glance at the carnage of bleeding, gasping pigs, stumbling to their deaths from knives that are working overtime, is enough for Aaron. He turns back, speechless and disoriented. By the time he reaches the pony yard, he’s desperate to share the horror he just witnessed but there’s no one to talk to. Not even a pony.
Jacob will be out now, collecting medical waste until after midday, and he can’t tell Abe. He’s only a kid and he’ll be upset and scared for his mother’s pig when he hears what they’re doing. Aaron wishes he’d made the effort to catch a lift to the city with the Mebaj brothers, who left very early. Then he would have missed the slaughter.
He can’t stay here. He’d like to, but he must go somewhere else. Get moving, instead of hanging around waiting for Rachel. As if she can make everything right. As if she can put him back together.
In slow motion Aaron sinks to the ground beside the fence. Resting his back on a hot, skinny metal pole, he fingers the dusty earth and looks at his filthy jeans and dirty feet. Instantly the energy he needs to get out of here and do something drains away. It’s easier just to sit and do nothing. He used to think he was cleverer than most of the other kids. Clever enough to exist in Cairo on his own if he had to. Clever enough to get by living with a stepfamily he hated. Clever enough to see through tourists and hotel doormen and their stupid little lives. Clever enough to handle glass without cutting himself. And clever enough to understand some of what Omar said to his customers. Now he’s come to this.
What he did was wrong. He knew that then. He knows it now. When it comes to feeling guilty he hates himself for stealing the perfumes but wishes he’d found a better hiding place and hadn’t been caught. Only when it’s time for the ponies to return to the yard does he
shake off these horrors and make himself scarce. Then he wanders the alleys to the stalls and shops in the old part of the village, dodging the slime and shadows to find a clear wall to lean on until it’s safe to go back.
Standing beside Ishaq, the icon seller’s stall, opposite the electrical shop, Aaron watches Sami tinkering with a car radio, and frowns at the thought that Rachel might turn up. Then he sees someone moving quickly like her, coming toward him with her head down. But it’s Mariah, Sami’s sister, who’s seventeen and already married with a baby. Now, dressed in black with a blue band round her head, she looks desperately poor and a lot more serious than she used to. He liked Mariah before he fell for Rachel. He still likes her. She’s kind to everyone and easy to talk to. One of those grown-up girls who get on with things and never complain. She prays and fasts and does her best.
“You heard about the pigs?” Mariah asks her brother. “Yes,” Sami says, shielding the sun from his eyes with a greasy hand lined with purple veins. “A few hid them in their houses before they got to them. Abe’s mother stuffed the pig’s mouth with a cloth to keep him quiet.” He laughs. “She forgot to cover his nose, though, and he started making a noise as if he knew his brothers were being killed. He escaped into the street.”
“They won’t catch him. And they won’t look inside the houses for them,” Mariah says. “They can’t stand the filth.’”
“But if anyone hides a pig they’ll be sent to jail,” Sami reminds her.
“It’s illegal now. We must get goats instead.”
For a brief second Aaron looks at Sami and frowns then turns away, forgetting his problems and the slaughter of the pigs. Watching the sunlight dancing in Mariah’s dark hair, he’s transfixed by the tiny mole beneath her left eye. He used to love that mole. And as if she can hear what Aaron’s thinking, Mariah glances at him leaning on the wall opposite and smiles.
Her smile lights Aaron up for a moment, until out of the corner of his eye he spots Jacob coming through the arch on his cart. Clonking and clanking along with bedposts, knives, scalpels, boxes, and plastic, he’s swigging pink liquid from a small bottle and muttering to himself. A sudden fear wipes the effect of Mariah’s smile from Aaron’s face as his friend walks toward him.
“What’s in that stuff?” Aaron asks.
“This?” Jacob stretches out a hand to shake the bottle at him. “Fruit cordial for coughs.”
Making a click in the side of his cheek, he forces the pony to trot on, but Aaron scrambles up beside him, worried sick. They tussle for the bottle, but with two shakes Jacob empties the liquid on the street before flinging it at a wall, where it smashes and splinters.
“Stop it,” Jacob says, and laughs, but Aaron can smell the strong chemicals on his breath and knows he’s lying. There’s a hint of steel in Jacob’s eyes when he turns away. “It’s only lemons and figs. Fruit,” he says again.
More than a few times lately, Aaron’s suspected that Jacob’s on something but he’s never caught him. Well, now he knows, and must pretend he doesn’t. Today is the day when Aaron must do the thing he fears most and ask Jacob about becoming a medical-waster. He’s thought long and hard about it, but he’s decided this is the only work left for him in Mokattam. Even so, the sight of used bandages, syringes, and blood bags piled high on the cart is too much to take, and the smell of death and disease horrifies Aaron. Maybe he’ll soon look for ways to feel better and start drinking cough medicine or whatever it is that Jacob’s been gulping down. Aaron’s eyes begin to water. He brushes away the tear rolling down his cheek at the thought that his glass-collecting days are over.
Doing his best not to burst out crying, Aaron swallows his tears, quickly drying his face with a dirty fist when he spots Abe racing toward them with news about their pig, his grubby ball held tightly under his arm.
“Marris went crazy this morning.” Abe’s voice is shaking slightly. “You look drunk, Jacob!” he adds.
“He does.” Aaron narrows his eyes at Jacob, who seems shocked by Abe’s comment.
“I’m not drunk!” he growls.
“Just drugged up,” Aaron whispers, so Abe can’t hear. “They didn’t catch him!” Abe grins. “They’ll never catch our pig.”
He throws the soccer ball at Aaron, who swings down from the cart to play. Eyes on the ball, Aaron chokes back the heat of the day, glad to have a reason to leave Jacob behind. Though he knows it won’t be for long. The pony and cart clop past them and Jacob smiles as if nothing’s happened. He’s lying about what he’s taking, but Aaron can’t deal with him now or hang around kicking a ball with Abe for too long. He’s starving hungry and needs to scour the lanes for food, as he’s been doing for the last few days.
Starting in the nearest alley, he swings by the first houses, which are almost empty of people. Most are hard at work on the carts or talking about the devastation caused by the slaughter of the pigs. Sides of pork are still cheap to buy at the small butcher’s and there’s a good chance Rachel will bring him some later, but what about now? How can he fill his stomach when there’s nothing but plastic cartons, flattened boxes, potato peelings, and a hotel brochure at his feet?
A demented, sour-faced old lady scratches her cheek and pushes a broken Game Boy in Aaron’s face. He shakes his head, darting past her. Day and night she’s here, peddling the useless thing, dressed in the same filthy galabeya, gray hair covering her face like a shaggy dog. On the opposite side of the lane a kid sucks on a ketchup packet, leaving dirty traces on his fingers and face. Aaron flinches, thinking it’s blood at first—that he’s been cut—then hurries past, head down when the kid waves the packet at him.
A memory flashes through Aaron’s mind of Mahmud, a kid at school who won a scholarship to go to a private academy in Cairo. He’s studying to be a doctor now and has never returned to Mokattam. He’s the only kid who ever escaped the village alive, but Mahmud was a genius, the teacher said. Rachel’s never going to become a vet and leave here. Aaron firmly sidesteps a heap of rotting food with the certainty he’s not going to escape either. The feeling of hopelessness increases as he picks his way through the web of trash leading to his old home. Aaron can feel his stepfamily’s presence before he sets eyes on them.
Lurking behind a mountain of bags, Aaron watches Hosi swivel on his haunches in anger and throw his hands up. “Without a pony there’s no living. Now they’re killing the pigs. Why go on?” He shakes his head. “I’ve worked every day for this—nothing.”
Elbows on knees, crouched beside him and a group of men from the nearby slums, Lijah’s sucking up to his elders every chance he gets. Listening to and nodding hard about the many obstacles they describe.
Hidden behind a plastic wall of rubbish, Aaron moves slightly to get a better view and the bags crackle.
An old man glances in his direction before saying, “Only a few pigs are left to eat all the food we collect and Cairo Corporation has a new fleet of rubbish trucks. The merchants are paying less and less for the trash we’ve sorted.”
“Lord have mercy!” someone pleads.
“Yes, mercy!” Lijah echoes.
Lijah cheers up when he spots Suzan coming down the alley with a wide grin and a red tint to her roughly cut hair. Though she seems kind and friendly on the surface, Aaron’s heard about her spiteful streak. With her long chin and caved- in cheeks, it’s no wonder they call her Shovel Face behind her back. Why anyone would want to marry her is beyond him. But then Lijah is more like a vampire than a human being, so maybe they’ll be very happy. Suzan works at the craft center with Daniel and, being one of Shareen’s friends, Aaron guesses she’s keen to follow her example and get married as soon as possible. That way, they can hang out together and compare notes.
Lijah stands up to greet her. They don’t touch—just lock eyes. Touching would break every rule in Cairo. Not even married people hold hands or kiss in the streets. Aaron stands up. He wants to swagger past them on the way to the church wall, show them he’s doing fine without their help
, but it’s difficult with them gazing stupidly at each other in the middle of the lane. As he gets closer, Aaron decides to barge through them with his head held high.
Gazing straight ahead, Aaron strides past with a confident whistle. Hosi glances at him for a moment. A few of the men do the same, uninterested. Suzan’s chin is longer than ever close-up, Aaron notes as he goes by. Then, passing a huddle of children sifting through mountains of congealed decay, Aaron catches his breath. Shareen’s up ahead, leaning on bags, talking to Father Peter.
Aaron’s stomach rumbles from fear as well as from lack of food.
He could go back, but then he’d have to see Lijah again, and if Shovel Face has gone he might decide to pick on him. Aaron hasn’t got the strength for it. He looks ahead at the curving path and the limestone walls, which are just there in the distance. If he can only get past Shareen and the priest without being noticed.
Flicking hair from his forehead with a sudden burst of courage, Aaron surprises himself by the speed at which he takes off down the lane scooting past them in a flash. Though not fast enough to avoid the puzzled look on the priest’s face, which proves that the missed talk hasn’t been forgotten. Shareen shouts after him but he carries on running, heart pounding in his throat.
When he reaches the wide-open space in front of the church, Michael’s settling a ladder against one of the high walls with a sharp click. Aaron would like to ask when the Jesus he’s sculpting in the limestone will be finished, but instead he stands back to watch. Awed by each fine and tender mark the chisel makes, Aaron glances back down the walkway to make sure the priest isn’t coming. He isn’t, so, though hungry and pitted with fear, Aaron watches dust fall from the limestone as if something in the sharp edge of the figure of Jesus is drawing him to it. It takes a while before he can cut the connection to the emerging shape and look away.
Shielding his eyes from the sun, Aaron sees that the space in front of the church is empty apart from a black six-seater taxi van. Several local women lounge on the church steps, watching a tourist couple stare at the church with a look of amazement that asks how such indescribable beauty can exist this close to so much filth.
