THE BOY FROM CAIRO

Excerpt from 'They Call Him Light' by Katherine Boland

The apartment block stood to attention at the edge of the desert when his father brought him there in the year of 1987. Like a brave soldier in the 6th of October War, it’s foundations dug deeply into the swirling miasma, it held itself steadfast and heroically on the front line against the onslaught of wave after wave of ferocious attacks from it’s sandy enemy. It wasn’t until years later, when identical buildings positioned themselves all around it, that it could drop it’s guard and stand at ease, knowing that, as any wise, war weary building knows, there is safety in numbers.

‘Come! Hurry up’, his father growled through gritted teeth to his wife and small children. Evolved over decades of prostrations the tell tale ‘prayer bruise’ of the devout appeared on his forehead more bruised than ever in the stark neon light of the lobby. They would all squash themselves into the tiny elevator as quickly as possible, trying not to further agitate the smallish, already greying man’s seemingly permanent state of irritation. Then with a jolt, the good Muslim family would be slowly and laboriously raised up on high to their apartment on the top floor of the building.

When he was older and rode the elevator alone, he'd spend the wasted void of time going up and down constructively preening and admiring himself in the mirror that covered the back wall of the airless box. Sucking in his stomach muscles, expanding his upper torso and flexing his developing biceps he'd try to catch hieroglyphic glimpses of his Pharaoh-like self in profile. Patting down a wayward dark curl that had dared follow it’s natural instinct to escape from it’s compatriots he'd check for any desert debris caught in the slightly flaring nostrils and count the individual hairs multiplying on his swelling chest until, like the evening stars in the darkening amethyst sky, there became too many to count. There was never a need to inspect his perfect white teeth.

Inside the large apartment the grey and white streaky bacon marble tiles felt glacier cold to the touch of bare feet in winter or hot and clammy after soaking up the heat of the day in the oppressive Egyptian summer. He'd slip into his waiting flip-flops on entering the room or jump from Persian rug to Persian rug to avoid the prevailing conditions. Even though he could well afford it, it had never occurred to his father to install one of those split system air conditioners or at the very least to have some kind of insulation laid in the ceiling. Maybe his long suffering mother had never dared to complain to her ill tempered husband and he was unaware of the discomfort endured by his family or perhaps he considered the harsh internal environment good training for his budding brood of over privileged spiritual warriors.

The reception area featured a collection of reproduction baroque sofas, a number of formal armchairs and an elegant chaise lounge, regally upholstered in satin bands of cream and burgundy and adorned with a staggered row of over stuffed, tasselled cushions. Faux rococo vases and porcelain ornaments jostled for position on elaborately carved mahogany sideboards and bow legged occasional tables. In the late afternoon rays of golden sunlight and imperceptible drifts of stifling air filtered through a gap in the gauze curtains causing the two cut glass chandeliers to delicately tinkle and pretty shards of rainbow light to waltz across the room.

On the plaster wall, adjacent to a window draped in blood-red brocade hung a Constablesque painting encased in a chunky, gilt frame. As a small boy he would stand for hours below the picture gazing above with such intensity that he would feel his soul leave his diminutive body, gravitate upwards and enter the idyllic scene. Here he could run through the artist’s palette of Cadmium Green grass, roll up his trousers to wade in the Cobalt Blue shallows of the bubbling brook and lying down on the Raw Umber earth beneath the old oak tree, look up through its leafy Viridian branches to the Titanium White clouds floating in Cerulean sky above. Having never smelled rain he'd imagine breathing in it’s sweet, damp aroma. Further and deeper into the landscape, way beyond the bounds of the picture frame, he would roam. In a sun dappled forest where fat rabbits hopped and birds flitted, a greedy wolf eternally stalked a pretty blond haired girl in a cherry red burqa. On the far side of the woods by a small lake sat the cosy log cabin where he knew in his heart one day he would live. In the farmyard chickens scratched at the dark, moist earth, cows serenely chewed their cud and curly fleeced lambs bleated to their plump woolly mothers. Continuing along the winding path to the top of the hill he would breach its crest and for a long time scan the lush valley below before picking his way through the field of wild flowers down the gentle and fragrant slope.

Unfortunately he couldn’t stand before the picture perfect Paradise forever. The reality on the dusty, monochromatic streets outside were a universe away from the chocolate box painting on the living room wall. In those days the satellite suburb of Nasr City, situated on the outskirts of Cairo, consisted of only one of everything - a bakery, a pharmacy, a grocery shop, hairdresser, cinema and mosque. The roads were mostly empty of cars and people. He would run wild with his friends and play soccer or ‘War of Stones’ until one of the kids got hit in the head by a rock and his wailing mother came looking for blood. When he was grounded and confined to indoors he'd invent a different war game using a militia of kitchen knives, spoons and forks. A knife held in one hand would brutally attack a spoon in the other. As Commander in Chief of his Army of Cutlery he'd decide who would live and die. If his father became infuriated with the clash of metal on metal disturbing his prayers he'd be forced to revert to the quieter yet no less intriguing Army of Cards game in which the King of Spades would be thrown violently at the Jack of Diamonds, the chance landing of the cards deciding the fate of the card soldiers and the outcome of the war. Eventually he'd tire of these solitary military operations and enlist his younger siblings to re-enact the plot of a famous movie in which an Egyptian national is arrested by the Security Force’s Intelligence Agency and executed when he betrays Egypt by selling information to Israel.

The conclusion of Ramadan, the gruelling month long fast performed by practicing Muslims, provided far greater opportunities for entertainment than his regular games. The family would all come together for Eid Al Fitr, the Fast Breaking Feast and his grandmother would bake 'kahk', honey filled semolina cookies powdered with icing sugar and traditionally eaten with cups of tea. Crouched beside his cousins, Mohammed and Ahmed, their pockets bulging with fire crackers, he would hide in wait on the narrow balcony of the fifth floor apartment. Through the gaps in the railings the boys had a good view of the arrival of uncles, aunties and a menagerie of kids below. Before their 'dressed in their Sunday best' relatives had a chance to enter the lobby of the building a shower of exploding fire crackers rained down on them from the boys above and everyone on the ground would be squealing, laughing and leaping on each other to avoid the detonating bangers. But the billowing clouds of fire cracker smoke created chaos making it difficult for the victims to find their way inside and eventually one of the aunties would loose her cool and start screeching for a cease fire. Upstairs the victory cries of the young assailants would ring out over the neighbourhood.

 

'Allah Akbar!' they would yell. 'God Is Great!'

One year it was his family's turn to break the fast at his aunt's house, so of course the customary bombardment from the balcony was out of the question. Not to be out done the little cousins devised a cunning plan and talked their parents into letting them drive to the event with their affable Uncle Adel. On the way to the feast, with their whistling chauffeur concentrating hard on the road ahead, blissfully unaware of what was happening in the back seat, the boys furtively lit their fire crackers with a cigarette lighter and then hastily and indiscriminately threw them into the open windows of the cars passing by. Hooting with delight they'd jump to their knees to watch through the rear window the faces of the drivers and their families as the crackers exploded on the dashboard of their vehicles.

'Having fun boys?' their humming Uncle Adel enquired as he reached to turn up a warbling Egyptian love song on the car radio.

On one occasion the boy's exploits literally backfired. Ahmed fumbled and dropped his just lit cracker on the floor. Quick as a flash he snatched up the ready to explode device and shoved it firmly under his backside. The cracker went off silently and painfully but luckily for him, his unsuspecting uncle was none the wiser.

Eid Al Adha, The Feast Of Sacrifice or The Meat Feast as it is affectionately called is held throughout the Muslim world during the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Across the Egyptian capital thousands of sheep are slaughtered and the meat is cooked in three stages by the women in the family then eaten by everyone for four consecutive days. The first dish consists of liver and kidney fried with onions. Next comes 'fattah'. Layers of bread, tomato puree, rice and lamb are baked in a clay crock pot in the oven and served with salad and pickles. Lastly the grilled ribs are devoured and then, too stuffed to do much else, the men of the family loosen their belts and sit back to watch the miraculous footage on TV beaming live from the Holy City.

Sometimes, after everyone had gone to sleep he'd scramble out of bed, careful not to make a sound as he slipped on a T-shirt, tracksuit pants and a pair of well worn flip-flops and avoiding the clunky elevator sneak down the internal stairwell of the building like a mini Special Forces agent to steal his mother’s Chevrolet sedan. Mohammed and Ahmed would be waiting for him in their mother's stolen cars at the agreed rendez-vous point and the seemingly driver-less vehicles would set off in a worryingly meandering convoy to patrol the deserted streets of the slumbering suburb. Past the boarded up tobacco stand on the corner, the domed mosque luminescent in the moonlight and the open air coffee shop, it's flimsy tables and chairs stacked under a striped canvas awning they would drive. Past the communal rubbish heap in which emaciated cats with tails bent at abnormal angles (obviously betraying some prior hellish suffering) poked gingerly around in the putrid contents of the disemboweled plastic bags, the wretched feline descendants of a once glorious era unaware of their former God like status. Past the hairdresser cum beauty salon where a faded billboard of a swinging sixties Middle Eastern belle with a coiffed bob and a velvet headband glowed bluely under a weak fluorescent light.

In the dead of the night the empty dirt streets became the domain of the Dogs Of Nasr City and fierce territorial battles, often heard but unwitnessed by the human residents raged as rival packs of desperate canines fought for supremacy, the mange infested and lanky creatures slinking off into the darkness as the boy's entourage approached. Perched high on the edge of their seats, their feet barely reaching the brake or accelerator pedals, the locks on their angelic looking heads scarcely protruding above the arc of their steering wheels, the eight year old car thieves would imagine themselves soldiers in the legendary Egyptian Army on the hunt for Zionist insurgents. After he'd parked the car precisely where his mother had left it the day before the young hero would creep back to bed to cuddle his plastic toy pistol and drift happily off to sleep counting enemies of Egypt being shot in the heart one by one by firing squad. To this day his mother is unaware of her son's midnight missions.

In fact neither parent had the time or energy to be aware of much that was going on with their offspring in those days as both of them determinedly forged their respective careers in the cut throat world of print journalism. His mother had done more than her duty in breastfeeding him until he was three years old, when at the birth of his little sister and the revitalisation of the supply of breast milk, he had, pushing his baby sibling aside, greedily come running back for more. The task of raising the cluster of dark haired cherubs then fell to his portly, lumbering, salt of the earth, heart of gold grandmother. In her illiterate, Upper Egypt eyes, being the oldest male son meant he was on a par with the Egyptian Sun God, Ra and she spoilt him rotten. If he felt like skipping school he had only to sidle up to her immense form, bat his long lashes and feign frailty and she would immediately call her daughter to tell her that the boy was too sick to go. His mother of course acquiescing, knowing she couldn't argue with the matriarch of the family even though she might suspect foul play. Should he want a new game or a book his grandmother would instruct her daughter to purchase them. If he needed money to buy sweets or a Coke his adoring Teta would never deny him. If he was hungry for pizza she would make his lowly sisters go out and buy it. There was no limit to her unconditional love and devotion. When she died it was he who carried her bulky, muslin wrapped body into the musty family tomb to tenderly lay it on the ledge beside the parched bones of his ancestors.

His grandmother may have ruled the roost on the domestic front but when it came to the critical matter of religious instruction it was his father who took strict control. As a small boy he was given his own little prayer mat and taught how to perform the daily prayers. What to say and when, how to do the prostrations and most importantly how to focus his heart and mind on the direct communication with Allah. Hand in hand father and son answered the Friday call to prayers which emanated loud and wide from the balcony of a minaret across the district and solemnly make their weekly pilgrimage through the sandy streets to the local mosque. He would stand proudly alongside his father and all the other men and boys in the spacious, muted atmosphere and feel himself part of something Big and Special. As a child he found praying five times a day a bit much, his religious zeal as yet unformed and his practise sporadic. No one really forced him to observe his religious duties so it wasn’t until early adolescence at that highly receptive and often puritanical age when it all seemed to coalesce and he began, of his own volition, to read the Qur’an and pray in earnest.

On the way home from the mosque his father would often stop to rent a Jackie Chan or Jean Claude Van Damme video. Sitting cross legged and enthralled in front of the TV on a Friday afternoon, stuffing his face with foul and falafel with the rest of the family, he dreamt of becoming a martial arts hero and it was he slaying the villains, eliminating evil and conquering the day. So when his parents told him he had to choose a sport to play he chose Tae Kwando. His mother took him to his first class to show him the bus route and after that he negotiated the journey to his lessons alone. He was only six years old but he wasn't afraid.

 

'Where is your mother?' the kindly old gent driving the mini-bus asked one day.

He had studied and then tried to emulate the behaviour of adults so that no one could label his behaviour childish. To be considered a 'man' was important and he saw his forced expulsion into the outside world a necessary part of his warrior training.

'I do not need my mother', he replied dismissively as he marched to the rear of the bus.

As he matured he preferred to sit with the elders rather than hanging out with his teenage cousins. Listening to their animated talk about religion and politics was far more interesting than aimlessly roaming the streets, bored and agitated looking for Allah only knows what. By the time he was sixteen he'd earned a Black Belt in his chosen sport and had learnt how to disable or kill an attacker in a heartbeat. By nineteen he'd won the Egyptian National Championship in Tae Kwando three years in a row. To hear his name roared by the crowd when he entered the stadium was thrilling but as soon as he began to fight the voices melted away, he felt no pain and wasn't aware that he'd fallen or been badly hurt. He broke many bones during the years he played the sport and once he was rushed to hospital by ambulance after landing badly during training and cracking his skull. His mother told him he was unconscious for days and they feared he might not wake up, the doctors explaining that the thin, transparent liquid oozing from his ear canal and soaking his pillow was brain fluid. His other grandmother died two months after the incident. 'From the shock', the rumour quickly transferred by osmosis in knowing whispers along the long line of aunties.

He considered himself far too pure to be tainted by an actual physical encounter with a female of the species. But in high school a hopelessly besotted young girl repeatedly threw herself at him so he decided to take advantage of the situation. One day after everyone had left the classroom he locked the door and sweetly but insistently convinced the lovesick girl to reveal herself. When finally she lowered her panties and raised her skirt he was horrified by what, however briefly, confronted him. The image of a large expanse of jet-black fleece and a flash of something crimson instantly imprinted themselves on his memory. From then on he chose to satisfy his curiosity by watching air brushed porn on his laptop in the sanctity of his bedroom and praying to Allah for His Mercy and Forgiveness.

At University his friends nick named him 'Joey' after the handsome but not so bright actor in the American sitcom 'Friends', although he could never decide whether to be flattered or insulted by the comparison. He was a brilliant student and a martial arts star and his good looks landed him a part time modelling job to supplement the already generous allowance provided by his parents and the pocket money given to him on the sly by his grandmother. His mother bought him a car and there was talk of buying him an apartment when he finished Uni. He dressed to impress and never left the building without admiring his dazzling reflection in the trusty elevator mirror.

He avidly studied the Qu'ran as well as Western philosophy, the conflicting and constantly repudiated views of the latter merely serving to reaffirm his belief in Islam and intensify his spiritual pride. Devoutly religious and no doubt annoyingly self righteous he admits that back then he was the epitome of  arrogance and conceit. But after obtaining his degree two years of compulsory military service put paid to that and the primping, haughty and pious youth emerged from the Egyptian Special Forces a humbled, modest, though still God-fearing, young man.