The Most Beautiful Night of the Soul

by Sandor Jaszberenyi

  “I’m not on jihad,” said the boy. The colonel leaned toward the boy and, taking care not to touch his urine-soaked trousers, pulled him back up, chair and all.

  “When did you join ISIS?”

  “I don’t belong to ISIS.”

  “You’re lying.”

  The colonel hit him again, but this time made sure he didn’t topple over. The blood again started running from the boy’s nose. The boy began to sob. He raised his head and looked at me.

  “Please help me! I’m innocent!” he said in perfect English. The colonel hit him again, and the chair fell over. Grimacing, he repeated, “Please help me!”

  “Where did you learn English, you dirty Arab?” asked the colonel, kicking him in the mouth, his teeth crackling loudly. The boy stayed silent.

  “You shouldn’t do this,” I said as the colonel set the chair upright yet again. He went to the back corner of the room, where a faucet was hanging from the wall. Beside it was a grimy plastic bucket. The colonel turned the faucet and let water into the bucket.

  “And why not?”

  “The Geneva Convention.”

  “Fuck the Geneva Convention. This here isn’t a soldier.”

  “Then he’s a civilian.”

  “He’s a dirty ISIS beast. You yourself have seen the mass graves and what they’ve done otherwise.”

  “But you can’t know for sure that he’s one of them.”

  “I know. This is a dirty Arab.”

  “Not every Arab is with ISIS.”

  “Tell that to those who’ve been beheaded or burned alive.”

  “Please stop it. The kid has the right to a trial.”

  “You idiotic Westerners. You come here to dole out your wisdom and to rob our oil. This is the trial.”

  “Don’t be a brute.”

  “I’m not a brute,” he said, pointing at the boy. “This is.”

  The colonel took the bucket of water and poured it on the boy’s head. The kid came to, blood pouring from his mouth.

  “Who was the target?” he asked.

  “There was no target. I’m not with ISIS. I learned English in the American School. I was on my way to Khanaqin to visit my mother,” he said, choking on his own blood. Looking at me, he said, “Please, sir, don’t let him do this to me.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said the colonel, taking the Makarov pistol from his belt and loading the barrel. It was a beautiful pistol I’d done lots of target shooting with on the front with the boys.

  “I’ll count to three,” said the colonel, pressing the pistol to the kid’s temple. “I’ll count to three, and if you don’t tell me who or what the target was, I’ll blow your head apart.”

  “Dear God!”

  “One.”

  “There was no target. I came to visit my mother!”

  “Two.”

  “I swear that there is one God and Mohamed is his prophet and that I’m not with ISIS.”

  “Three.”

  My right hook struck the colonel on the chin. It caught him off guard, sending him flying right across the room. He landed on his back on the floor. The pistol fell from his hand. I jumped on him at once. He was ready. With one swing of his leg he kicked me off him. I fell back, toppling over the kid, chair and all. By the time I got up, the pistol was in his hand.

  “I really do like you, Hungarian, but if you hit me one more time I’ll shoot you.”

  I got up from the floor. The only sound in the room was that of the kid sobbing.

  “I won’t let you do this.”

  “You humanists. It’s because of you that the whole world is where it is.” He held the pistol toward the boy and fired three times. Two bullets ripped open his chest and one hit his head. My ears began to ring from the shots.

  “You’re a cold-blooded murderer.”

  “There’s a war on.”

  The door opened and the guard ran in, machine gun in hand. The colonel said something to him in Kurdish. The guard saluted and left.

  “Coming?” asked the colonel, locking his pistol and putting it back on his belt before stepping out the door. I followed. We went up the stairs. The car was already waiting by the front door. We didn’t say a word to each other the whole way. The colonel spoke only with the driver. On getting back to the house, the colonel opened the door and went to the living room; I went upstairs, to the guest room.

  I had one more day in Sulaymaniyah, from where I had to go to Erbil to catch a flight to Europe.

  I undressed and got into bed. The image of that teenage boy didn’t let me sleep. What could I do to feel better? I considered my options. There were none. The Kurdish military command and human rights organizations were too busy with the war to look into the case of a single murdered Arab. My throat was dry from the realization.

  I looked at my watch: 2:30 AM. Getting out of bed, I headed downstairs, intending to go to the kitchen, where the colonel kept a jug of drinking water. Even from the bottom of the stairs I could hear him snoring. I looked into the living room, where he was sleeping. He was gripping an empty bottle of whiskey in his sleep. On a little table by the couch was his laptop, which kept playing a video from some Arabic file server.

  I stepped closer to see what it was.

  It was an ISIS video—featuring the murdered teenager, holding the decapitated head of a Yezidi woman by the hair, displaying it to camera. He was smiling.

  I went to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  Son of a Dog

  Two dead mongrels swung back and forth in the wind. They had been hung by the neck, with wire cord, at the entrance to the alleyway. They were fresh kills: the blood dripping out of their coats left little spots in the mud. The cacophony of sounds filtering out of the alleyway mixed with the noise of the city’s traffic. Men were shouting loudly and anxiously. It was Thursday night in the City of the Dead. The sun had already set hours earlier behind the red crags of the Mokattam Hills.

  These were months of madness: I could not sleep. By day I wandered the city like the living dead, and not even the nights brought relief.

  The first person who gave me opium was called Khalid Ramzi. We’d met in a grimy, inner-city café a month earlier. He asked for one hundred fifty Egyptian pounds, or geneihs, for the raw opium, which, wrapped in wax paper, he pressed into my hand. He gave me his mobile number.

  With the opium I could treat my chronic insomnia. No longer did I have any idea what it was like to sleep normally, so those opium-infused days were truly exhilarating. I was able to work, able to sleep. There wasn’t a happier man in the world. Then the opium ran out. The insomnia and the visions returned. After the third day of wakefulness I pulled out my mobile and called Khalid. Finally, he answered. He told me to go to the City of the Dead.

  “I won’t be far from the Sayeda Aisha Mosque, by the Bahtak. Go there by nine.”

  A half-hour before the meeting I got in a taxi that took me to the mosque.

  The City of the Dead is a huge necropolis where everything is muddy and gray. The paved access road does not lead in among the tumbledown tombs, but ends by the live-animal market.

  The wealthy had themselves buried here a long time ago. Here, they built up imposing crypts for their dead. A city unto itself, which they had guarded by the area’s poor. The poor then brought their families up to Cairo, and slowly but surely they moved in among the crypts. Thus, it was that the cemetery filled with life.

  Right at nine I got out of the taxi at the Sayeda Aisha Mosque. An old man was sitting out front, leaning against a stick, and I asked him where I could find the Bahtak, at which he pointed a hand toward one of the alleyways. The mud squelched under my shoes as I went further and further into the City of the Dead. My nose was filled with the stench of garbage and urine.

  The Bahtak was not where the old man had indicated. I realized this after wandering about for half an hour. I vanished among the narrow alleyways formed by the sinking crypts. I walked round and round. I called Khalid’s mobile but he didn’t
answer. That’s when I noticed the two dog carcasses swaying on the wall and heard men shouting. Beside the hanging corpses a thin little road ran all the way to the foot of the Mokattam Hills. That’s the way I went. It led to a square beside which garbage was burning—which, together with a barrel of burning oil, provided all the light, illuminating the throng of men who had gathered in the middle of the square. Blocking my way at the alleyway exit was a rat-faced man in a djellaba, a spear in his hand.

  “Well now, what are you doing here, khoaga?” he asked, using the local term for a rich foreigner. He struck down with the spear, whose swishing I could hear well indeed.

  “I’m looking for Khalid Ramzi.”

  “What’s your business?”

  “I came to do some shopping.”

  The Arab looked over my sweat-splotched, dirty shirt and my bloodshot, insomniac eyes, whereupon he nodded and made way.

  The swarming men had gathered around a ring formed by rusty metal barrels. They were shouting and shaking their fists. I looked for Khalid Ramzi in the crowd. I went closer to the ring to see what was happening. No one bothered with me. Everyone was focused on the fight. Two young teenage boys—barefoot, half-naked—were pummeling each other inside the ring. They were filthy and sweaty, with mud bubbling up from between their toes. One was a head taller than the other; he must have been the older, but he didn’t look a day older than fourteen, either. They were hitting each other with their fists, full force. Neither one was putting up a defense; each simply jumped up close to the other and then parted for the length of a punch. They circled each other. There were fighting for stakes. Their lips and eyebrows were torn, and the blood had soaked through dirty gauze bandages wrapped around their hands. I quickly understood that there were neither rules nor breaks. No trainer or assistant stood behind them in the corners to throw in the towel if all hell were to break loose. The crowd was waiting for one child to knock out the other.

  The taller one had the upper hand. He was also heavier than the shorter one, and with his long arms he was able to ward off the other one so much that he couldn’t get a really big punch in. How long they’d been at it, I didn’t know, but both were gasping for breath in exhaustion. After one exchange of punches they clung to each other and flopped down in the mud. That’s when one of the onlookers stepped into the ring. With a reed cane half a meter long he went about hitting the two children until they got up off the ground. Tottering, they stood by the light of the fire, facing each other, their faces filthy with mud and blood. The smaller one lost his balance and crumpled to his knees. The crowd began whistling as the other child spread his arms wide triumphantly and grinned.

  “Finish it! Finish it!” the men shouted in unison.

  The tall boy stepped over to the one kneeling on the ground, stepped on his right leg, and with all his might struck him on the face. The dull thud of the blow could be heard even through the ruckus. The smaller kid sprawled out in the mud.

  “Mustafa! Mustafa!” came the crowd’s rapturous cry.

  The boy turned, held his hands high, and jumped round and round the ring triumphantly.

  What happened next, no one expected. All at once the knocked-out boy appeared behind Mustafa, as if from out of nowhere. Only the blood running from his nose indicated what a big blow he’d just received.

  “Hey, you!” shouted the shorter boy.

  Mustafa turned around, and that’s when the blow struck him. A perfect right hook, it was, and one could hear the clashing of Mustafa’s jawbone. The strength of the blow sent him spinning around, and as he lost his balance, he hit one of the oil barrels head first. He lost consciousness immediately.

  For a few seconds the crowd just stood there, dumbfounded. Finally, the clamor began: “Little lion! Little lion! Little lion!”

  The short boy did not strut his stuff. In an instant he climbed over the barrels behind him and vanished. The crowd opened up before him, and then closed again. Another ruckus got underway as groups formed around a few men: those who’d placed bets were demanding their due.

  Still seeing no sign of Khalid Ramzi, I stayed there by the ring. The boy who’d fainted slowly came to, at first getting up on one knee and then, holding onto a barrel, on his feet. He’d hideously smashed his head; one of his eyes was like one big wound. For a few seconds he just stood there uncertainly before he, too, then climbed out of the ring. He headed toward a bulky man in a tank-top who must have weighed 120 kilos. The man held a thick wad of cash in his hands and was using it to pay various others. The boy said something to him that I didn’t hear. The man cast him a loathing stare before turning away. The boy fell to his knees and clutched the man’s legs imploringly. Turning with disgust at the boy, the man gave him a slap. The boy fell flat, face-down, on the ground. The man gave the curled-up boy a few kicks before a couple of others tugged the man away.

  The boy lay on the ground for some minutes before again getting to his feet with great difficulty. Stumbling, supporting himself with his hands against the walls of the crypts, he vanished into the alleyway. I stared at the scene for a long time before turning around to resume my search for Khalid Ramzi. I noticed him standing opposite the ring, beside the burning heap of trash. He was in a brown djellaba and black slippers. His belly stuck out from beneath the outfit and his face was smoky from the filth. Beside him stood the boy who’d won the previous match, drinking water from a grimy plastic bottle.

  “Abu khoaga,” said Ramzi on seeing me. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”

  “You didn’t answer your phone.”

  “Yes, there was a match. We won.”

  “I saw. Do you have opium?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The bloody Bedouins are bringing it only next week. And I need an advance, too.”

  “You can’t do that to me.”

  “I’m sorry about it. What I have, I need, too.”

  “You can’t fucking do this to me. I can’t sleep without opium.”

  The next few days passed before my mind’s eye at once. How I’d be lying on my back in my roach-infested, inner-city hotel room, unable to sleep. Recurring in the visions, the end of a bourgeois life and the figures of a temptress and a little kid. That inexplicable gripping, throbbing sensation in my head that didn’t let me rest, that tightened its grip every day until I finally began thinking of suicide. As if staring into an abyss, that’s how I saw the hell of insomnia before me.

  Finally Ramzi took pity on me: “How much money do you have?”

  “Two thousand pounds.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “In a hotel. Downtown.”

  “Have you paid for it yet?”

  “Yes, to the end of the month.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Why?”

  “You could have stayed here until the Bedouins arrived. And gotten some of mine.”

  “I’ll stay here.”

  “Let’s have the money.”

  I took the money from my pocket and counted it into his hand. I didn’t care. I just wanted to sleep; that’s all the mattered. It didn’t matter where, it didn’t matter in whose company. I wanted to lose consciousness.

  Khalid Ramzi lived pretty far from the Bahtak. We plodded along for quite a while through the mud, avoiding the trash heaps and the toppled crypts until reaching his house. Three of us walked along: Ramzi, the victorious boy, and me. We stopped along the way at a food stand where Ramzi gave the kid five pounds to buy kusherie.

  “Eat, Amr, you deserve it,” said Ramzi, caressing the boy’s head.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Though clearly ready to drop from exhaustion, the boy still didn’t start stuffing himself with the lentils and rice. He took it with him, in a plastic bag, while stumbling along the road.

  Khalid Ramzi’s house was at the other end of the City of the Dead, where the flea market ended. This too was a crypt, with the name of the family that had owned it written on the entrance. Electricity
ran in from the street by way of black wires that entered the windows.

  After rummaging about the pocket of his djellaba for a while, Ramzi finally produced a huge key and inserted it into the black iron gate. The gate creaked loudly as he opened it. Once he’d turned on the light bulb hanging from the wall, he waved for us to go in. The crypt comprised two rooms, if, that is, the interior spaces where the granite tombstones stood could be called rooms. The larger one was Ramzi’s. In it was an arabesque sofa, and the old man had draped a dirty rug over the granite. The tombstone—engraved with the name of an influential nobleman of the early nineteenth century—was the TV stand.

  “Sir,” said Amr. “if you don’t have any other work for me tonight, I’d go to bed.”

  “Sure thing, go ahead,” Ramzi replied.

  “Good night, sirs.”

  He left the room, heading for the smaller space. In the yellow light I could see clearly a pair of eyes glinting inside.

  “Is there someone else here?” I asked.

  “Amr’s little sister. I let him bring her along. Make yourself comfortable. Abu khoaga. Do you want tea?”

  “I do.”

  Ramzi turned on the water boiler and I meanwhile lit a cigarette and sat on the floor. I looked over toward Amr and his sister, who was around seven or eight, barefoot, and dirty. They ate the kusherie together.

  Ramzi handed me the tea in a grimy metal mug. I took a sip. It was nauseatingly sweet.

  “Your boy?” I asked.

  “No way.”

  “Then?”

  “Son of a dog.”

  In Cairo, that’s what they call the city’s innumerable street children.

  “I said he could stay here as long as he keeps brawling well.”

  “Do you pay him?”

  “Sure. He gets 500 genēhs after every win.”

  “And how much do you make?”

  “That’s none of your business,” he said, capping it off with coughing laughter.

  I took a drag on my cigarette. My forehead was throbbing from insomnia.

  “Where is the opium?” I asked.

  “Here it is already,” Ramzi replied. “Don’t be getting impatient now.” Reaching into his djellaba, he fished the perspiring brown, paper-wrapped opium out of his pocket. The smell struck my nose at once. He tore off a bit and pressed it into my hand. I rolled it into a little ball and took it in my mouth. It was a bit tart, but I knew that everything would be better in no time.