Flame Guardian

by Kristin D. Van Risseghem

  They look different in another way, too. It takes me a moment, then I realize they’re not dressed as most of the Muslims in Cairo. These people look like Americans, wearing jeans, blouses, shirts, sweaters of all colors, though faded, patched, and old. The women’s heads are not covered. Some wear long dresses and skirts, but they’re not as Middle Eastern-looking as those of most of the city’s women.

  “Marhaban,” greets a brown-skinned boy about our age, with short, black, curly hair. We look at him, not knowing Arabic. “Hello,” he says cheerfully.

  “Hello.” Tor shakes his hand, looking relieved, but steps in front of me, blocking my view. I notice a small tattoo on the guy’s wrist, a tiny cross with four equal-length arms. “Where are we?” Tor asks.

  “This is Zabbaleen, Garbage City.” The boy grins, one of his upper teeth missing. He’s skinny, in a faded red T-shirt, the graphic no longer discernable. His jeans have a few holes and are a little too short, the bottom hem cut and frayed. He has an air about him like he’s the luckiest guy alive. “I’m Pamin. Who are you?”

  “I’m Torrent, and this is Smoke.”

  Pamin’s large, brown eyes get big. I suppose our names must be surprising.

  “I’m Ash, and this is Tage.” I step out from behind Tor.

  “Are you lost?” Pamin asks.

  “Yes, we … need a place to stay,” Smoke answers. “Somewhere cheap, out of the way.”

  “Oh, you can stay with me,” Pamin laughs. “Only 179 Pounds a night for all of you. My mother cooks good meals, too; it’s included.” We exchange glances, not sure about this.

  “That’s about $10 per night, US,” Smoke whispers to us.

  “Can we see what it looks like first?” Tor asks the young man. The dark boy grins and walks off, expecting us to follow.

  The lanes here are even narrower, with trash spilling out of the buildings. Squatting people sort and organize around the piles. Giant hand-sewn cloth bags of garbage stack twenty feet high. Dogs, cats, goats and rats are everywhere, along with buzzing flies filling the air.

  Pamin seems to be loved by all as they greet him cheerfully. It’s strangely quiet here without the honking of horns, music blaring from cassette players, vendors shouting, and people chatting. Despite the smell and the mess, I find the place strangely calming. Maybe it’s the many magazine pictures of Jesus and the saints, pasted here and there all over the buildings. I guess they don’t recycle those.

  After turning down a few alleyways and scrambling through some abandoned buildings, we come to a slightly-less ruined building with a few rooms cleared on the second floor. Inside, it’s almost like a normal apartment, the small rooms furnished with mismatched chairs, tables, couches and décor, everything covered in old quilts and colorful blankets.

  Pamin leads us into the tiny kitchen. A thin woman draped in a loose, dingy, blue-printed muumuu hugs her son warmly. They speak in rapid Arabic. They seem to haggle back and forth a bit. Finally, she nods and picks up a large stew pot from the corner, placing it on a small stove, hand-lighting the flame of the burner. She pours a little oil into the pot, then begins cutting onions and carrots, using a paring knife and slicing them right in her hands. She also sports a similar tiny, black, cross tattoo on her right wrist.

  “Maow agrees, you can stay with us. God brought me to you, this was much needed. It will only cost you 179 E£ a day for all of you, and that includes two meals a day.” Pamin grins, his enthusiasm infectious.

  “Done.” Smoke shakes his hand. “We’re exhausted and looking forward to sleep.”

  Pamin looks surprised, as day is just starting, and everyone is up and busy. But he nods and shows us a small bedroom, off the living room, near the kitchen.

  We survey the two old, patched mattresses. Pamin and Tor drag in two small, broken couches. It’s very crowded in the room now, but we’re so tired we don’t care. Pamin hands us faded, clean, blankets. We roll up extra blankets to serve as pillows; Pamin only had two to share.

  We drop into sleep, with Smoke taking first watch. It’s obvious we have practically nothing to our names, but we don’t want to be murdered in our sleep. We don’t want them to discover our cash, either. Who knows how long we’ll need it to last?

  Chapter Forty-Four

  We take the bus to Giza, on the southwest edge of the city, across the Nile. We keep our heads down. Though Garbage City is a total shithole, it has proven the safest place for us to stay. No one will think to look for us there. Pamin helps us find local clothes, a little faded and not at all in fashion, but they help us blend in.

  “What’s that tattoo everyone has?” I ask Pamin, as we dine on roasted pigeon and a fava bean-olive oil mixture, almost like hummus. Squeezing in with us in the small living room are his little brother and sister, Matta and Virina. The various couches and chairs are covered with old, colorful blankets. We share the low, oval coffee table in the center.

  “It’s the Coptic Cross. Every Christian in Cairo has this inked on, usually when we’re babies. You can only get into our church services if you have this cross. We have to be careful.”

  “Does the government make you do that?” Smoke asks.

  “We Copts have been doing this for hundreds of years, it’s tradition. We don’t mind. It sets us apart.”

  “Why are there so many Christians living here?” In Garbage City almost every single resident has one of these crosses, even the little kids.

  “The Muslim religion doesn’t allow them to touch garbage. We Christians aren’t allowed most jobs, so this is one we can do. We’re very good at it, everyone says so.” Pamin smiles. “Each family is in charge of one type of garbage, and we live close to others handling the same type. Over there they sort glass, there is plastics, down the way they compress and stack cardboard and shred paper.” Pamin points out the open window to the various regions. “I’m weird—I work with stone, bricks, pottery, and sand. The only who handles this, but it’s what I like. Each family has their own section of the city they collect from, going door to door.” Pamin points toward the window, its red and blue sheet curtain tied back to let in the view. “Down there is the butcher. Most of the food waste is collected by the women, and they feed it to the pigs and goats. Muslims don’t eat pork, but we do—it’s delicious.” Pamin grins, spearing another tiny piece of pork from the stew. “The city looks at us as dirty outcasts. But we say: who are the ones making all this garbage?”

  We laugh. Somehow, we’ve gotten used to the awful smell. The people here are friendly and welcoming, like the rest of Cairo.

  Our bus pulls up to the gate. We stand in line to buy our tickets into the Giza pyramids. Smoke will wait close to the paws of the Sphinx. We’ll be near, watching. But I hope we have time to tour the pyramids while we’re here. I can’t believe we’re in Egypt, about to see the great pyramids of Giza!

  The tickets aren’t expensive, and we leave the city behind. We enter a majestic, golden desert, topped with the three giant pyramids and the lion-like sphinx. The strange, feline statue is smaller than I imagined, though it towers above us.

  Upon entering the grounds, we’re assaulted by natives, some trying to grab our tickets, promising to be our personal tour guides, others offering camel rides, horse rides, souvenirs—you name it. Smoke shoos them all away. Everything here is haggling and aggressive vendors, and it gets a little tiring after a while. One guy follows us, trying to be our guide, but we ignore him. It sets us on edge.

  It’s thirty minutes before Smoke is supposed to meet Dr. Mara. We don’t see her anywhere. We watch for the US military or anything suspicious. But it’s just tourists, though fewer than we would have expected, and all the vendors, camels, and donkeys.

  The rest of us walk around, keeping Smoke in sight. He goes down by the Sphinx and waits between the paws. He studies the tall, stone stele with the hieroglyphs, reads the smaller plaque, and tries to appear busy.

  An hour crawls by, and the sun is making us sweat. The heat is especially intense
here in the open desert, with no shade. We peer into the many tombs near the pyramids, but the doorways into the cool interiors are barred shut.

  We find a place to sit and rest, fanning ourselves with brochures. We are still in view of Smoke, but not too close.

  Another hour passes, and Smoke climbs back to us.

  “This is a bust, two hours late and no sign of her,” he sighs.

  “We’re here, so let’s see the pyramids,” I suggest. “Plus our tickets are paid for.”

  We’re hungry, though, so we eat at a cafe in view of the majestic structures. We spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the stone monument, the last remaining of the ancient wonders of the world. There’s a mystic energy about them, and I love being here. Near the base of one of the three larger structures are three smaller pyramids, like children staying near their parents. There are a few other smaller ones in the distance. The air is a little hazy, but the sands shine in bright, gold tones.

  The setting sun turns the sky orange, silhouetting the grand pyramids in black. It’s breathtaking. We return to Garbage City, covered in dust and sand, exhausted, but happy. Despite not meeting with Dr. Mara, we had a good time, the first fun thing we’ve done in forever.

  But we can’t shake the fact that Dr. Mara didn’t show. We’d even checked the Sphinx several more times before leaving.

  “Okay, one down, three to go.” Smoke looks discouraged.

  “She’ll show at one of the meeting times.” I try to sound confident.

  “She probably wasn’t sure which plan she’d be able to follow,” Tor suggests. “And maybe there are extra complications, now that the army knows we’re alive.”

  “What will we do if she never comes?” Tage asks.

  “Let’s sleep on that. Maybe something will come to one of us,” Tor nods.

  We feel funny having to stay so long with Pamin’s family. To keep us busy, to help them out, and to better hide our identities, we follow Tor’s suggestion. We pitch in to the work and go native. We girls help Maow, and the boys go with Pamin. Matta and Virina run around having fun, finding toys, climbing over hills of trash. Soon they will be old enough for school, Pamin tells us. They’re cute and friendly. They lead us by the hands above the building into their towering, wooden pigeon loft. They raise them for food, and watching the pigeons fly into the air every day is a fun spectacle.

  ***

  The weeks pass. We look like our neighbors more and more, the sun browning our skin, already dusty with dirt. The meals here are simple and cheap, so we don’t complain. Somehow, we’ve gotten used to the filth; it’s what saves us from being discovered.

  Tage and I find old gloves, we’re not ready to touch this shit with our bare hands, as most do. We learn that Pamin’s dad died just last year, at fifty-five. It seems the life expectancy here is shorter than normal. It’s no wonder, with broken glass, stray needles, rats and feral dogs—who knows what kind of germs are festering here.

  After some effort, Pamin talks the church guards into letting us attend one Sunday. The members meet in a large cave, on the edge of Garbage City where the hills and dunes of the desert start. It’s packed with thousands of people both inside the cave and crowded outside as well. It’s so jammed, we don’t go again. But seeing all these believers singing and lifting their voices in joy is an amazing sight. They pray for Egypt, its government, and their countrymen every week.

  One by one, we go to our designated spots to meet Dr. Mara. Each time we wait at least two hours. She hasn’t appeared.

  The last rendezvous is Tage’s. We’re worried about our money running out, so she is the only one who buys a ticket into the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. The rest of us linger outside the massive red building, waiting.

  An hour passes, then two. Smoke is getting agitated. Another hour passes. We stay, grabbing bowls of Koshari for less than fifty US cents, and wait until the museum empties and closes. We watch it like a hawk.

  Tage never comes out.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Smoke wants to stay all night. But when several military vehicles drive up the street, we get out of there.

  The military presence is strong in this city, and now we’re really noticing them, all of a sudden.

  “What do you think happened?” I ask.

  “Maybe the army found out Dr. Mara’s plans, and set a trap.” Smoke is grim.

  “That makes the most sense,” Tor adds. “She couldn’t have gotten lost for that long. If she wasn’t being detained, she would’ve met up with us.”

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  “I want to go back tomorrow and wait,” Smoke says. There’s no deterring him. I don’t bother talking him out of it. Not when he’s like this. Besides, I’ve seen the way he looks at her. We just never had a chance to discuss it. It didn’t seem too important to ask in a letter. Then by the time we reunited we had bigger issues to discuss than his love life. I’m glad he and she are together.

  Next morning, he returns to the museum, even buying a ticket, and searches for Tage. She’s nowhere to be found. He tries for several days more. She never returns to Pamin’s, either.

  Tage is gone.

  “They must have her,” Smoke says, frustrated.

  “Well, we can’t sit around waiting,” I say. “We can’t rely on Dr. Mara: she must have been compromised. We have to find Tage and get her back.” I’m done with all this waiting around, doing nothing. My anger is brewing again, heat simmering inside.

  We pick at our fava and chickpea salads. Pamin looks concerned, as does Maow. They can’t help us, though. Matta and Virina chatter and giggle together, like always.

  A heavy pounding at the door makes us all jump; the kids fall silent, their eyes wide. This kind of knock is familiar. Smoke, Tor, and I look at each other, frozen.

  Pamin answers the door. He is shoved back by a group of large men in US military uniforms, shouting our names and waving M16s. Maow grabs the children and shrinks into the kitchen. Without thinking, I lift my hands and spark flames. The couches nearest the door alight.

  Pamin’s eyes are enormously wide as he backs to the wall near the kitchen.

  The men raise their M16s – I shoot more flames, lighting everything near them, and some of their clothes catch fire. Tor shoots water at their feet and freezes it to ice. They slip and fall, their weapons firing in thunder.

  Smoke grabs us both, and we run into the bathroom behind us. Pamin bolts in right after and locks the door. He scoots to the window and opens it, showing us where to jump down, onto an open balcony one story below.

  Flames heat the room and are roaring through the apartment, muting the men’s shouts as they pound on the bathroom door.

  We drop to the balcony. From there we lower to the ground. We spot US soldiers around the corner, a whole platoon, it seems.

  Fuck.

  Pamin leads the way, and we scramble through open windows, over mountains of garbage, through old buildings, down narrow alleys. Looking back, we see his entire building is flickering in fire. The smoke is black and acrid, streaming into the sky. The pigeon loft is burning like the Olympic torch.

  “Pamin, your family!” I shout as we run.

  “They probably got out the kitchen window,” he replies, never slowing his pace. But he looks worried.

  We catch our breath for a few minutes in a ruined shack, the garbage piled up all around inside.

  “What, what is that thing you guys did? With the fire, and the water and ice?” Pamin’s eyes are as big as saucers.

  “We’re a little unusual,” Tor answers. “We have special abilities, and the US military wants to use them.”

  “We defected,” I add. “All four of us.”

  “Are you all American soldiers …?”

  “No, not anymore,” Smoke answers, pointing to Tor and me. “They were born with powers. There was someone helping us, Dr. Mara, but we haven’t been able to contact her.”

  The roaring of the fire reaches our ears. I
t’s growing.

  “What have I done?” My voice trembles. “Pamin, your family. I’ve ruined everything, again. What if they’re trapped … or …?”

  Pamin looks at me a moment. What is there for him to say? “Wait a minute,” Pamin rushes to the stairs and vaults up. We follow.

  Up on the third floor, filled with giant, patched plastic bags of trash, we crawl onto a balcony.

  Dark smoke is pouring into the air from the whole area behind us. Buildings are burning, piles of trash everywhere are lighting up like Fourth of July smoke snakes. The sounds of pops, cracks, glass breaking are joined by screaming and yelling. The smell is so bad, I’m afraid I’ll vomit. My stomach turns and clenches, and my eyes are wet.

  It’s all my fault. How many will die? I wipe my eyes.

  Pamin clasps his hands together and mutters a quick prayer, his eyes also filling.

  Gunfire hits the wall near us as soldiers run toward our building.

  “Shit,” I yell. We scramble back and out the opposite side, onto another balcony. There is no roof and we can’t go higher.

  Pamin peers at the giant pile of trash bags thirty feet below. “We have to jump. It’s a soft landing,” he yells over all the noise. He vaults over the brick rail like he’s done this before.

  We look over. He lands and slides down the hill of garbage, several bags rolling with him.

  “I don’t know about this,” I say.

  “Let’s go together,” Tor holds my gaze. We climb onto the rail, and he grabs my hand. Any other time I might like having him holding my hand again. But now is not the time to think about that. “One, two, three!”

  I do like his cool touch, though.

  The bags rush up to me as the wind whips my purple T-shirt. We land, our hands coming apart, the fall knocking the air out of my chest. The bags roll me down to the lane like waves of an ocean. I land on my ass. Good thing I’m wearing jeans.