. . .
On TV there’s a girl in a sparkling tie-dyed spacesuit. Moud and Ihab are arguing about something. Even though I wasn’t really paying attention, I made sure to butt in with a sarcastic jab or an obnoxious retort, usually aimed at Moud.
For the first time, I noticed Ihab had an old scar on his neck. Meanwhile, the girl on TV was inviting viewers to call for a chance to win tens of thousands of dollars if they could correctly answer the question: What do we call the thing we put in our room and sleep on top of?
Moud went on talking about his favorite subject: politics, politics, and then some more politics. But I could tell he was just skirting around the real question he wanted to ask his new friend. It wasn’t long before he turned to the topic of informal political alliances in the United States. Showing off his great knowledge of the subject, Moud expounded on the fraternal ties that bind together the sons of the middle and upper classes, from their college days to their graduation into business empires and political parties. The picture he drew of American society made it seem like a bunch of sorcerers, priests, and military men jockeying for control of the great tribe. Ihab nodded in agreement with most of what Moud was saying, which suggested he might know something about the subject.
“So, any of them got anything to do with this Society of yours?” Moud finally asked.
“Maybe, but I can’t say for certain. When secrecy is the only language you speak, it’s hard to know the truth.”
At this point in the conversation, I suddenly recalled one of my visits to the Mosque of al-Hakim bi-Amrillah. I had noticed a sign in a corner of the great complex that read, “A gift from the Rotary Club.” It was clear the sign was of some age, and predated the renovations done by the government in the surrounding area. It struck me that there really are no secrets, that the signs and symbols are all around for us to see. The dung gives away the camel, and the tracks lead straight to the chase, but we just don’t notice. We exhaust ourselves tearing things down and throwing them away, without stopping to reflect calmly on how to cultivate and build.
That’s when the doorbell rang . . .
I stick the side of my face against the wall of the freezer, wishing it were big enough for my entire body. I try to think, to remember. But memory’s a dark room painted all black. How did I get back to my apartment?
The last thing I remember was the dagger stuck in Moud’s lifeless corpse. Was all that real? I switch to the other cheek. The tiles at my feet are warm. I leave the kitchen and search in vain for my phone.
Is this really my apartment?
I turn on my computer and go online. There’s no news about anything. Everyone I should be worrying about is offline. Moud’s offline, Mona’s offline. I decide to text Ihab: “WHERE ARE YOU?”
Then I notice Samira’s icon light up. “Online.” I ask her for Mona’s number, then rush out of the apartment without even taking a shower.
The sky is orange. The humidity’s the highest it could possibly be, and with every step I find it more and more difficult to breathe. The streets of October are almost empty. I continue nonetheless, and walk to the end of the street to catch a microbus to Cairo.
I don’t know what’s driving me. Why don’t I stay home? I should consider this a humanitarian gesture by Paprika to keep me out of trouble. I should try to be normal and just go back, but there’s a strange desire behind my persistence. Maybe it’s just the pointlessness of life pushing me to the edge. Maybe it’s my sense that the end is near, and I better make the most of it.
A number of microbuses pass by already full. Where are all these people headed?
I go over to a kiosk to call Mona. She picks up right away, letting loose a torrent of questions: “Bassam! Where’ve you been! Why’s your phone off! Why don’t you answer!”
I can’t get the words out. My throat is dry but I don’t feel thirsty. I can’t stop the broken faucet: “And where’s Ihab! He called me and he didn’t sound right, then he disappeared!”
“Where . . . are you?” I utter with some difficulty.
“I’m headed over to his place on Adly Street.”
Up goes the elevator. This time, it was me, Ihab, and Madam Dolet on board. It was my last visit to the chamber of secrets underneath Garden City. We got out and headed over to the car. Ihab turned to Dolet.
“Where are you planning on heading now?”
“I will go home and pack my suitcase. My flight leaves at six in the morning.”
Ihab nodded in understanding. Madam Dolet drew closer and planted a single kiss on his left cheek.
“This isn’t my fight, and neither is it yours, my dear Ihab.” It was her good-bye.
I bought a bottle of water from a kiosk on the street, the last one in the owner’s almost empty fridge. In the elevator on my way up to Ihab’s apartment, I finished the whole thing, but still felt thirsty. My tongue was a dry clot of sand.
I rang the bell, and Mona opened the door. I was still thirsty. My vocal cords twitched. I couldn’t breathe normally and had to open my mouth. Ihab wasn’t there, and there was still no sign of him. Every attempt to call him would just give us, “The phone you’ve requested is currently unavailable. Press ‘star’ to leave a message.” Beep.
Something inside my head suddenly lit up, like it had caught a current from the weird lamp in Ihab’s apartment. I could visualize our last scene together. Moud: Would his corpse still be lying there? I looked over at Mona and said, half apathetically, “We have to go to Garden City.”
“Why?”
I gave her the details of our last scene. She covered her mouth in horror when I told her what happened to Moud. More than once, she asked, “Are you certain Ihab was able to escape?”
“Yes,” I said each time.
She sat down on the bed and pressed her palms against her face, caressing the spot on her nose with the tips of her fingers. I went to the fridge to look for a bottle of water.
“I can’t go there,” I said, opening the fridge. “The place is swarming with security officers. If they found out what happened, they’ll arrest me. I’ll be interrogated and tortured.”
No water in here either. Only some queer-looking objects wrapped up in plastic bags. I took one out and opened it on the table. I could feel the bile rise from my stomach. In total disgust, all I could say was, “What is this?”
The digestion of food takes place in the stomach, with the help of an enzyme known as pepsin.
“What you’ve got there is meat,” Mona said, as if not taking me seriously.
I leaned over to get a closer look at the stuff. Bright headlights from the opposite lane are a frequent irritation to drivers on the expressway.
“What kind of meat?”
“Human,” she said.
I put it back in the fridge. I stuck my head under the faucet to wash off the thick layers of sand and sweat. That’s when Mona’s phone beeped. “You have one unread message.”
“It’s Ihab!” she shouted.
I took a roll of toilet paper and dried my face.
“Oh? What’s he up to?”
The text read, “I’m in the asylum. I want to see you, my love, to say good-bye.”
The sun was setting. The end of things to come swung backward toward the past. They say that nuclear war will wipe out all life on Earth, save for a certain species of desert lizard and wild boar. The streets of Cairo appeared as if they were in old movies, but instead of black and white, everything was covered in shades of yellow.
The asylum mentioned in the text turned out to be the old hospital of the medieval sultan Qalawun. Mona said that Ihab had shown a special interest in the place. On our way down in the elevator, she broke into tears. “He told me once it’s the place where he hoped to die,” she choked.
I patted her on the shoulder with caution, trying not to get emotional. I knew that the smallest spark of emotion, even something as simple as a brotherly hug, would be enough to send her into a fit of weeping and hallucinating. Madness was one of her proudest attributes.
We wouldn’t be able to get a taxi on Adly Street, with all the cars coming out of the old city. We’d have to walk, and get a taxi somewhere else. You see, Cairo is arranged as a collection of historical circles, where it’s easy to go to the future, but difficult to return to the past. This, too, I have learned.
Ihab was drenched in sweat. He clung nervously to his phone, its clock counting down to zero. Just thirty minutes and the poison would finish him. His body was crammed inside a small room that had been reconstructed to look like one of the asylum’s old cells.
It’s said that this place was originally made for soldiers returning from the shock of war. At dusk, a band of musicians would come to the courtyard and play. The cell doors would open and the inmates would listen, supposedly as a treatment for their madness.
There was no music here, and I wasn’t sure which of the three of us was truly mad. Maybe the mad were only on the outside, while here between these walls stood the sane ones, impotent victims of a war that never took place.
“Go out from here in peace,” Ihab chanted, concluding a melodramatic scene with Mona smiling and me smoking a last cigar.
