by Anna Perera
“Ergh!” Aaron covers his nose.
“The incinerator’s working, then.” Jacob sighs. “But it must have been broken earlier, because there’s plenty of stuff here. When it’s operating twenty-four hours a day there’s not much here and I have to do the sister hospital two miles away to make up the load. I hate that place.”
Aaron eyes him cautiously. He hates that place! What about this place? First, it stinks to high heaven of death, then there are the leaking bags and boxes stacked against the peeling walls and filthy doors that thump and bang from whatever’s happening inside. The plume of gray smoke choking the sky smells far worse close-up.
Jacob steers the cart along the wall to a small concrete area hidden from view to one side of the waste. It’s this cover that allows the Zabbaleen to do their illegal job. Jacob climbs down, his eyes squarely on the white door near where the pony’s parked. He pats the pony on the nose and says, “Stay!” Aaron follows Jacob quickly back to where the waste is stacked, aware that if they’re caught collecting used and diseased plastic, metal, and glass, the hospital won’t be blamed for what they’re doing. The hospital managers rarely fulfil their legal duty of packing dangerous waste safely and paying special companies to take it away. They know the Zabbaleen will remove it for nothing so the blood bags, tubes, instruments, and test tubes are rarely packed correctly. And if the collectors are caught, the managers will say the Zabbaleen ripped the bags and boxes apart in their search for salable goods.
Today Jacob and Aaron have hit lucky. There’s no one around and they work in total silence. A shiver of fear strikes Aaron’s stomach. He’s used to touching glass and these materials are new to him. He imitates Jacob’s watchful eyes as he scans the sides of a huge white bag before kicking it over to check that nothing’s leaking underneath.
Jacob handles the first bag carefully, pinching an exposed edge, any clear edge, with a finger and thumb to avoid getting his hands and arms cut by syringes, scalpels and knives that haven’t been placed in the proper containers and are ready to stab at him like weapons. Aaron copies him, working hard to get rid of the bags as quickly as he can, as if they’re unexploded missiles.
Once they’ve emptied the hospital bags they start on the stack of white boxes marked “Bio-Hazardous Waste.” Only one box is tightly closed and taped; the rest have open lids and two are badly damaged and look as if they’ve been dropped from a window. Jacob is bending down to inspect one that’s filled with half-used blood bags and medicines when a car engine sounds and putters to a stop in the distance.
Jacob straightens, holding his breath. Aaron gazes at the entrance and, listening hard, hears a car door open and then shut. Footsteps head in their direction. Low voices start up. Someone’s coming.
Quick as a flash, Jacob grabs a box and runs to the cart, with Aaron close behind. As the voices get louder their fear grows. It sounds as if two men are having a heated row about the waste. Aaron flinches at the sight of Jacob’s shaking body as they climb up. Jacob forces the pony back along the wall. Just before they reach the gap in the fence, Jacob pulls the pony close to the other side and, hidden from view, they listen to the conversation.
“If they catch us, say we’re taking dead bodies to the crematorium and laugh,” Jacob whispers to an increasingly nervous Aaron. “Look pleased.”
“Pleased? With a cart full of dangerous medical waste that should be got rid of properly?” Aaron shakes his head.
“Shush!” Jacob warns. “Listen.”
There’s a shuffling sound as the first man raises his voice. “I’m telling you, don’t let those Zabbaleen inside or you’ll be fined and sent to jail. They’re selling the medical tubes, blood bags, and intensive-care trays to Faisal, who’s turning them into plastic knives, forks, and spoons for the restaurants. It must stop.”
“They make plastic cutlery from the tubes and syringes? I don’t believe you!” The second man may not be convinced, but Aaron is.
“Whoa …” Aaron mutters, shocked.
“Be quiet,” Jacob mouths.
“The All Saints’ Hospital is buying a new incinerator to cope with their waste. You must do the same here or pay the correct people to dispose of it. Those are your only choices,” the first man warns.
“Ha,” the second man laughs. “The manager of the All Saints’ Hospital is a liar and a cheat. If you believe him you’re the stupidest government inspector I’ve ever met. I’m busy. I’ll walk back. You take a look at the waste if you want, but I’m done. Good-bye.”
Things go quiet, then quick footsteps thud away.
Aaron wrings his hands, scared but ready to jump from the cart and run, while Jacob leans forward, grinning. They hear the metal fence shudder for a second, then a car door clicks open and slams shut.
“Phew!” Aaron sinks back on the cart.
“Don’t worry,” Jacob says, sighing. “That government inspector takes baksheesh from the hospital guy to ignore the stuff we collect. They’re both crooks.”
Aaron can’t believe what Jacob has to go through each day. Not only does he have to clear syringes and dangerous medical waste, but he also has to avoid people like this, who will blame him for doing their dirty work.
“The new city rubbish trucks have picked six pilot areas to add to their clearing. How much do you bet they won’t be doing the hospitals?” Jacob asks.
With complete understanding, Aaron shakes his head in disgust.
“What about Faisal? Does he really recycle this stuff into plastic knives and forks?”
“Probably. Who cares?” Jacob taps the reins and the pony clops toward the exit in the fence.
“I’m never touching plastic spoons again,” Aaron says, and squirms.
“You’ll be doing a lot worse than that soon.” Jacob suddenly looks twice at him. “The guy who runs the incinerator here is one of the good ones. You wait and see how the Sulayman Hospital gets rid of their syringes and tubes.”
Aaron frowns. “Can’t wait.”
Half an hour later they’re staring at another tumbling mountain of ugly hospital debris in the yard. But this time the see-through hospital bags have been tipped out by drug addicts searching for medicines they can swallow or inject. Aaron does the only thing he can think of while straining to control his nausea. His stomach turns over as he grabs one of the bags from the cart, fluffs it open, bends the rim back over his hands to protect them, and using it like a shovel, scoops as much trash into it as he can.
Aaron watches Jacob for a moment. His friend is working slowly because he’s searching the river that’s falling into the bag and running down his arms and crashing to his feet—searching for the pill packets and medicine bottles the drug addicts have left behind. Aaron leans over him and, the second their eyes meet, Jacob speeds up. When Aaron turns to sling the bag on the cart, Jacob grabs a white packet he’s had his eye on, squirreling it into his pocket.
With no need to clear another hospital today because the cart’s full, they trot down the long dirt track to the main road, knowing they’re more or less free now. Aaron’s relieved it’s over. Once they’ve emptied the cart of rubbish, Jacob’s sisters and mother will sort the bags. The rest of the day belongs to them. They can eat and rest. His first day as a medical-waster has been scary, but at least he didn’t get pricked by anything sharp. Maybe if he’s careful he will survive this for a month or two, until something better comes along.
With the sunshine burning into his back, Aaron turns his thoughts to Shareen’s wedding party later tonight.
“Shall we go to the wedding, then?”
“If it happens.” Jacob nods. “Mom said Shareen’s going to stay at the hairdresser’s all day for threading her eyebrows and having her nails done. She won’t make it, I bet.”
“What about Daniel? Do you think he’ll stay under the tap for longer than two minutes to wash his hair and feet?”
Jacob smiles and says, “Doubt it. He’s worn that same galabeya all year. But Fatima with the Filthy
Mouth says she saw him scrubbing his neck with a stone, so he must be keen.”
“He’ll need more than one stone to clean his neck!” Aaron lets go of the bottle in his pocket when a dark-windowed white coach speeds past them with the words
“Land of the Pharaohs” written in large letters on the side. “Land of the Zabbaleen, it should say.” Jacob laughs.
“I’ve got some spray paint left …” “How much?” Aaron asks. “Enough for tonight.”
Jacob waves a fly from the pony’s back by flicking the reins and smiles at the mischief they can make later with a drop of red paint.
“Did you know there’s a whole island of plastic bottles in the sea near Japan?” Jacob says. “I saw it on Sami’s TV.”
Aaron hardly listens as Jacob expands on how the world’s drowning in plastic. After the word Sami, the picture that springs to his mind is of Rachel, not plastic. Rachel wishing on a future with animals and trying to make it happen by dreaming and hoping, but never being able to do anything about it. She is already great with animals, but all that’s open to her once her stepmother dies is a job caring for her father and younger sisters until someone like Sami gives her another list of tasks. Tasks to make his life, not hers, better.
The thought sparks a memory of the last hour he spent with his mother. Out of breath, clutching her stomach in pain, she told him not to fetch Hosi from a neighbor’s house because there was nothing he could do to make her well again. “Do my share of the sorting, son, then sweep the floor for me,” she whimpered, before collapsing for the last time.
He picked up her limp hand and felt the warmth of her skin. “Mom, Mom, don’t leave me here,” he pleaded. But he knew she’d gone and he stared at the tiny smile on her calm face with disbelief. Disbelief until her hand went cold. Then he ran outside, reeling from shock. In a daze, staring at the garbage, the dirty track, the woman opposite curled up in filth, her kid vomiting beside her, he wanted to punch the sun out. To scream, cry, yell, weep. Get rid of the poisonous pain rising in his gut, the guilt that he was somehow to blame for her sad end. Her sad life. The sadness he couldn’t save her from. He should have rescued her. He should have helped her more. He should have shouted for someone, even though she told him not to.
Then he came face to face with Lijah. “Mom’s dead.”
“So what?” Lijah said. The cart suddenly stalls.
“You OK?” Jacob asks, catching the desperate look on Aaron’s face.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Aaron smiles wearily. “Just thinking.”
The main road is crippled by traffic. A thick gray smog blocks the tenements from view and, when the car horns start blaring, a feeling of suffocation stirs Aaron to action. He jumps down, eager to get away.
“Where are you going?” Jacob calls, but he’s off.
Aaron runs down the middle of the road, darting between buses and coaches, squeezing through backed-up taxis and cars. A man in a red truck leans out of the window to stare angrily. His fierce eyes follow Aaron to the pavement, where he disappears down a narrow road leading to Mokattam.
Ten minutes later Aaron wanders under the stone arch of the village, where a red paper banner hangs between two pillars. The names Shareen and Daniel are intertwined with painted hearts and a white balloon at either side. The smell of fried onions and spices in freshly made kushari fills his nose as he rushes past the small food stores. The fat laundry man is ironing a black jacket on a huge board in the street. He sprays water from the bubble in his bulging cheeks to smooth the hard cotton every few seconds.
“Daniel’s?” Aaron shouts.
The laundry man pauses to stare at Aaron, remembers what he’s done, and turns away.
“Is that Daniel’s?” Aaron points at the jacket and nods. Without looking at him, the man says, “This borrowed suit is threadbare. I told him to buy a new one but nah, nah.” By the time Aaron reaches Sami’s secondhand electrical shop he’s feeling moody and angry at the laundry man’s reluctance to answer his question. But his face relaxes when he spots Sami in a yellow T-shirt at the counter, which is crammed with old-fashioned radios. He’s rewiring a plug with a sharp fingernail and cursing the short wires. Rachel’s nowhere to be seen, which pleases Aaron.
Switching his attention to the path ahead, he quickly avoids a group of women busy scrubbing stains from their rags with screwed-up balls of paper. The carts haven’t returned yet and their soft voices rise and fall like birdsong as he scoots past, hands in pockets. The recent deaths have darkened their smiles.
Then he sees—almost bumps into—Shareen, who’s sitting on her haunches, caressing a pair of silver slippers in her lap. She hasn’t been done up yet. Her hair’s still a tangled mess.
“Hey! Hey!” she shouts as Aaron races past. But Shareen’s a lost cause. If he can save Rachel from Sami instead, that would make him happy.
Rushing on through the alleys, Aaron soon turns the corner that leads to the yard. There’s the rumble of a train in the distance and he pauses to listen. Whenever he hears that sound he recalls Jacob saying that 150 years ago, ten thousand mummies were dug up from the necropolis and most were sold to the railway for fuel. It’s hard to believe they ran the trains on mummified corpses. But they had so many. Some people say there are too many Zabbaleen.
Maybe they’ll get rid of us too, Aaron thinks grimly. Sell us for fuel.
Chapter Sixteen
Rachel
Aaron can hear swish-swishing sounds before he gets to the yard.
“Rachel?”
She’s there beside the trough, washing a metal bucket in the water. Silver arrows of light skate across her arms. Her dark hair gleams. She looks so lovely, a sudden attack of nerves stops him from speaking. He’d convinced himself she wouldn’t be here. It feels tougher attempting to talk to Rachel than it does to suddenly admit to himself that he’s a medical-waster.
Rachel lifts her head and curls her lips. “Look,” she says. “I got bitten by a snake.”
She stretches out an arm and a whiff of jasmine fills the air. Aaron leans in to examine the blotchy patch of skin below her elbow and the smell becomes stronger.
“Nice perfume,” he says.
“No. It’s special soap.” Rachel swings the bucket from the trough and places it at her feet. Drops of water darken the earth in spreading patterns. “Fatima’s been saving it for when I get married, but she says she won’t last until then. Are you going tonight?”
“Married?” The word almost chokes Aaron. It feels as if the pyramids have just collapsed. “When are you getting married?”
Why did I say that? Don’t tell me!
But, as she splashes her arm with gritty water, softly patting the red mark where she was bitten, she says, “Who said I was getting married? You’re not listening.” Rachel raises her eyes to heaven. “It wasn’t much of a snake. I was sitting on my hands over there, watching the ponies, and felt this nip, then it slithered off fast as anything. I knew it wasn’t bad before the nurse from the clinic worked it out, because when I saw the bite I said to myself, nothing can hurt you unless you let it, and it didn’t. It’s a kind of magic I’ve got going with God. You know?”
“I guess,” Aaron mutters, without really understanding. She’s talking, but not particularly to him, and there’s a lovely dreaminess in her eyes that he’s never seen before.
“What, Aaron?” she asks.
“I was … thinking about glass.” Aaron flushes.
“Glass?” She sighs. “On this show on TV it said girls should say what’s on their mind as boys are going backwards because they have the same chromosomes they’ve had since the times of the pharaohs. While we have two big XX ones which are growing, you have an X and a Y and anyone can see a Y is just an X with a bit missing. I said that. Not the TV. Anyway your Y is shrinking. It’s just a stump now. Our Xs are growing. They share information, but your Y is useless. It doesn’t share. It’s just a tiny lump.”
A lump? Nice!
For the first time, Aaron
realizes Rachel’s more interested in watching TV these days than looking after the ponies and he knows why.
“What does Sami think about this stuff?”
“He says don’t believe everything you see on TV.”
A heartfelt smile spreads across her face. A smile that tells Aaron she’s impressed by Sami, who swears at plugs and sits on a stool all day. Plus he walks on the hems of his jeans.
It’s a truth Aaron doesn’t want to see. A tight cluster of sweat breaks out on his forehead, while miles and miles of emptiness open out in front of his eyes. His brain throbs into a pulp. He’d been feeling sorry for her, while all along she’s been feeling sorry for him—for being born a boy and now for being an orphan medical-waster.
All Aaron can do is walk away. Heart in his mouth, he takes a deep breath. If he can hold his temper until he gets to the edge of the yard, he can run to the church, to the low wall, and slam his fist on a brick—stamp the ground, kick something hard to take the sting of jealousy away. He scrabbles for the bottle in his dusty pocket and, just as he reaches the path, he hears Rachel shout.
“Fatima … died last night. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
Aaron turns slowly to look at her standing there like a beautiful, sad-eyed statue, trapped in perfect sunshine. So still and lovely. Instantly, he understands why she didn’t tell him about Fatima before. She couldn’t. It wasn’t real until she said it. He knows that feeling and he wants to run back and hold her, but that’s the last thing he can do. He must say something, as long as it isn’t stupid. Isn’t like Lijah’s horrible So what? Go. Go on. Go. Move.
Aaron shifts slightly. There’s quarry dust on his toes. He clenches a fist. She’ll remember this moment for the rest of her life. The first time she’s told someone Fatima is dead and he’s staring at his feet. Frozen to the spot.
Don’t be like Lijah. She’ll remember what you say.
