The City Always Wins Read online

  He hears the words, he hears their logic, but they do nothing to unclench the fist in his pocket.

  18

  January 14, 2012

  A fragile shaft of light shines. A widening cone of shifting colors caught between two perfect lines beaming out from the projector cradled in Hafez’s arms to the cotton screen hanging at the base of the metal monument to Talaat Harb, the curling smoke of dozens of cigarettes rising from the crowd between them, catching the image’s chromatic shifts racing to the screen, the eyes, the brains of the audience: the shifting consciousness of the future.

  Mariam and Khalil stand toward the back of the crowd, her hand subtly in his down by their sides. Every night street screenings are happening, young men and women across the country, gathering equipment, rallying their friends, and taking over the squares and alleyways of their cities to illuminate the old walls with the new truth: The army lies, the state media is its mouthpiece, everything you are being told is untrue.

  Toussi dies a thousand times a day, his young body raked across the screen. The chaos of Maspero, the suffocations of Mohamed Mahmoud, the rain of bullets on April 8, the battle for Qasr al-Nil Bridge on January 28 plays out again and again. Images and dates and names of the dead are our history, eternal rebellion our future.

  When Mariam hears Umm Ayman’s voice she feels the ice vapors of the morgue curling in her lungs. “My son.” The image cuts from mother to son. “My son was martyred in Maspero.” An army APC crashes through a crowd of protesters. “The Egyptian Army killed him. I have no doubts about that.” Soldiers open fire on the fleeing crowd. “But my son died for a reason. All our children died for a reason. They died for this revolution. They died for this country to be a a place you all can have children in.” The image cuts to a marching crowd. “We will see our children’s killers in jail. We will see the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the police in jail. Go to Tahrir! Hold your square! As long as each of you are in Tahrir my son is alive! As long as each one of you are in Tahrir all our martyrs are alive! Don’t give them an inch! We will see all the killers in jail. The revolution continues!”

  The crowd erupts.

  The people! Demand!

  The field marshal’s head!

  The people! Demand!

  The field marshal’s head!

  Khalil leans lighter on the cane now. Mariam presses her body close to his other side. She removed the final bandages this morning, carefully peeling the gauze off the sealed skin of his back. The doctor said the body will slowly push the pellets out of itself. One by one. The doctor said it can take months. No one can question your commitment now or snip about the passport in your pocket or ask when you’re going to leave. You’re a real Egyptian now.

  “Not long now,” she says. The anniversary of the revolution is coming up fast and everyone expects big numbers to turn out. “We have to take the TV building. The numbers will be big, we need to use them.”

  “The army will be heavy round it,” Khalil says.

  “So we have to overwhelm them. More people than they can shoot.”

  “You don’t want the Ministry of the Interior?”

  “Of course I want the Ministry of the Interior, but we can actually take Maspero. If fifty thousand people march at it and calmly dismantle the barbed wire, the army won’t shoot. They won’t be able to. We overwhelm them and march in. So we have to make the marches go to Maspero and not Tahrir. Once everyone’s in Tahrir you can’t move them again.”

  The credits roll on a video and a group of Ultras fire up a familiar chant:

  We haven’t forgotten Tahrir

  You sons of bitches.

  We gave you a beating

  Like you hadn’t had for years.

  Khalil feels the metal quivering in his body, alive with audiographic excitement as he takes in the street sounds, the ambient bustle farther down the avenue, the distant dark spots waiting to be filled by a siren pulling around a corner and charging into the bullring.

  How long will they let us stand here insulting them? Let them come. No one will run. Raise your head high, you’re Egyptian. You’re a real Egyptian now, real as the steel under your skin.

  A face he knows but whose name he can’t remember is smiling at him. “Hey, man! How you doing? How’s the back?”

  “Fine. Better.”

  “That’s great, brother. That’s great. You need anything?”

  “I’m good.”

  He feels Mariam press closer against him. He’s never been more attractive than in these days of heroic recuperation.

  “The projector’s holding up well,” Mariam says.

  “It’s been through a lot with these screenings,” Khalil says. “I got it last year. I took this terrible job. A Canadian crew on a TV spot about temples and ley lines and shit.”

  “Like in Dan Brown,” Mariam says.

  “The very same. I spent days with this idiot director trawling around the pyramids looking for an ‘indigenous wisdom keeper’ and scanning the ground for—what did he call it?—‘conductivity discontinuities.’ It was awful.”

  “What was his name?”

  “The director? I don’t remember. Jim something.”

  “No—Tom Hanks’s character.”

  “Dr. Robert Langdon.”

  “Wow. No hesitation.”

  Then the words, stark and clear, appear on the screen: February 2, 2011, and Khalil feels the crowd hush in anticipation. The camera moves through Tahrir, toward the museum, up into the Camel Battle and the Molotov cocktails raining down from ornate rooftops onto the revolutionists below. Cairo is a new map of memories. He can’t walk through Tahrir without thinking of that night, without a heartbeat of pride at the victory over Mubarak’s final assault, the parting gift of the ultimate Orientalist: to attack a political protest with a camel. The wretched bastard. The wind ripples through the screen. A Molotov falls through the image but the revolutionists are unrelenting. The crowd holds its breath. They will hold the square. They will fight off Mubarak’s militias. The revolution will prevail. This—he smiles to himself—this is cinema. He has no time for the regular movies’ expensive ticket, sniffling audience, and formulaic stories, can’t bear the inconstancy of popcorn and the heartbreak of the stale batch. Add to that Cairo’s triple alliance of terrible sound, soft focus, and the impeccably timed interval and a lousy experience is guaranteed—and often garnished with an audience engaged in insistent conversation: with each other, with their glowing smartphones, with Mr. Cruise himself. When invited out he cites with dullard regularity the time he was told the impermeably dark projection of Harry Potter was “meant to be like that” or the projectionist on Shutter Island who insisted the out-of-focus picture was uncorrectable or the night he had to actually go into the projection booth during Step Up 3D (don’t ask) to get the corrupted file playing from the right point again.

  The crowd breaks into applause as the credits roll. The revolutionists won. Here we are. The revolution continues. Forget cinema. This is cinema.

  “Show me your list again,” he says.

  She pulls out a series of folded papers from her back pocket, checks one, another, and hands him the third.

  SCREENINGS TO PUSH ONLINE

  Ain Shams Uni (every day, midday)

  Helwan (Sat, 6 pm)

  Luxor (Sat, 7 pm)

  Mansoura (Mon, 3 pm; Wed, 3 pm)

  Matareyya (Mon, 6 pm)

  Sohag (Mon, 6 pm; Tues, 6 pm; Thurs, 6 pm)

  Agouza (Mon, 7 pm)

  Mahalla (Mon, 7 pm)

  T5 (Tue, 6 pm, Swedish mosque)

  Rod al-Farag (Tue, 6 pm)

  Helio (Wed, 6:30 pm)

  10 Ramadan (Thurs, 5 pm)

  Qalyubia (Thurs, 6 pm)

  Maadi (Thurs, 6 pm)

  Fayoum (Thurs, 6:30 pm)

  Zaytoun (Thurs, 7 pm + march)

  Zamalek (Thurs, 7 pm)

  Warraq (Thurs, 7 pm)

  Sadat City (Thurs, 7 pm)

  Haram (Thurs, 7 pm
)

  Cairo Uni, Faculty of Arts (Mon, 10:30 pm)

  This is cinema. These people, the revolutionists, these images moving elegantly across this screen, this street in the winter wind. The screen cuts to an image of Alaa, his newborn son in his arms as he strides triumphantly out of prison. He stops for a camera:

  We all know who killed the martyrs at Maspero. There won’t be justice until General Hamdy Badeen is picking his nose in a courtoom cell.

  The crowd cheers. The revolution continues. This is finally it. This is art that can truly change the world.

  19

  January 27, 2012

  We lack a killer edge. Of course we do. Our weapon is mass. The revolution’s anniversary passed. January 25 is gone for another year and Maspero remains under military control. The streets were filled with people, twelve marches all zoning in on Tahrir, bodies all pulling one another toward the center, a mass building up its own gravity. There were more people on the street today than ever before, millions, but only a few hundred were pulled toward Maspero. Can the crowd be made to think tactically? Can there be tactics when there is no leader? It’s been a year now of asking the same question and we are no closer to an answer. We have to take Maspero. Two hours, one year ago. That’s all we had. Two hours between the police retreating and the army deploying, two hours to take the right buildings.

  A few hundred stood outside Maspero. An unmarked microbus circled through the back streets, picking off lone stragglers. The happy crowd cheered in Tahrir. The police wait with their fingers on the trigger.

  20

  February 1, 2012

  Someone has died at the Masry–Ahly FC match

  5:43 PM–1 Feb 2012

  Confirmed one Ahly supporter has died in the dressing room

  5:53 PM–1 Feb 2012

  News coming in of three people dead at Ahly match in Port Said. Tens wounded.

  6:07 PM–1 Feb 2012

  3 are dead in the players’ changing room. At least 15 bodies in the hospital now.

  6:35 PM–1 Feb 2012

  What the hell is going on in Port Said?

  6:42 PM–1 Feb 2012

  Got a phone call from Port Said. My cousin says dozens of Ultras are dead in the stadium!!! It’s a massacre!

  6:49 PM–1 Feb 2012

  35 people now confirmed dead in Port Said.

  6:51 PM–1 Feb 2012

  35 confirmed dead?!? What the fuck is happening in that stadium?

  6:52 PM–1 Feb 2012

  35 dead in Port Said. The police are taking their revenge on the Ultras. What are we going to do?

  6:55 PM–1 Feb 2012

  And now Cairo Stadium is on fire. What is happening?

  6:57 PM–1 Feb 2012

  They welded the stadium gates shut. The Ultras are trapped inside. They’re massacring them!

  7:27 PM–1 Feb 2012

  At least 50 people now confirmed dead in Port Said massacre.

  7:34 PM–1 Feb 2012

  It’s on the TV. Security forces stand by while Masry fans attack the Ultras.

  7:37 PM–1 Feb 2012

  Why were the Port Said governor and the Head of Security not at this match? They always attend. This is a setup!

  7:41 PM–1 Feb 2012

  They turned off the stadium lights as the attack began. This is all planned.

  7:55 PM–1 Feb 2012

  Health Ministry confirms at least 73 killed.

  8:25 PM–1 Feb 2012

  When the Ultras bring their friends’ bodies home they count seventy-four dead.

  Mohamed Mahmoud Street is flooded within hours, the army’s wall is ripped down, and the crowd advances on the Ministry of Interior. Khalid moves through the sounds, the invisible world of the battle, the rain of stones, the hiss of a fire extinguisher, the echoing crack of a shotgun, the insults volleyed at the cowards in armored uniforms. He checks the mics in his headphones. A doctor’s coat flits between the bodies moving in battle through the street, catching Khalil’s eye with its movements. He stands to the side and watches her move confidently through the crowd, the flashes of her white coat a private Morse code between them, unrecordable to his microphone.

  A shop is on fire. Voices bark in different directions. Sand, bring sand! Step back! Clear a path! A supply line of boys rush sand to men at the front to be hurled onto the flames. The crowd shouts at the neighbors above to evacuate, to hurl water, to attach a hose. Another civilian response to the emergencies unleashed by the state. A huge round of applause breaks out as an elderly woman is carried out of her building in her armchair. She looks as if she’s not been outside for a long time.

  Mariam slips her arm subtly into his: “Have you seen my mother?”

  “She’s in the hospital behind Hardee’s.”

  “Okay, thanks. See you later.” She squeezes his arm and is gone.

  He moves closer to the front line. A group of teenagers hurry past with a plastic crate full of rocks. Another has three Molotovs in his arms. How much longer can we keep fighting with rocks and fireworks? How long until we see the first gun on our side? Something is going to snap. With each report of a shotgun the metal pellets in his back vibrate. We are one, still. Your steel lives on in me, poisoning me, seeping chemicals into my bloodstream. His muscles twitch in readiness with the sirens of the attack truck but he doesn’t move, determined to suppress the Pavlovian reaction.

  The doctor in the white coat stands still in the middle of the crowd, watching the police lines ahead through her industrial gas mask.

  He can see the flashing blue of the attack truck’s beacon in the distance. They are coming. He doesn’t run. The truck charges and unleashes a volley of heavy buckshot and the crowd splits—but the doctor is still. He watches her, unmoving as the crowd parts and pushes, as gas canisters land around them, and as the truck pulls closer an armored policeman appears out of a roof hatch with a spark of light. Her white coat crumples to the ground. The truck pulls closer but she doesn’t move as the police leans over the edge and unloads another round into her. A gas canister lands by her feet, pouring a white cloud into the air around her but she doesn’t move and Khalil is running toward her into the cloud and the tears are streaming and burning little salt runs of acid down his cheeks his eyes are raw and sealing shut and his chest is heaving when he kneels down before her and pulls her up into his arms as another canister lands behind them and he turns to run but his eyes won’t open and his chest is closing and with every breath he’s gasping for air while his lungs try to vomit themselves out of his body and he’s running half-blind and arms full into the tear-burned world and you’ll be okay you’re gonna be okay and every muscle is working to keep him moving and his chest closes while he trips blind through the debris and a wrong breath and you’re finished so run but don’t fall, run fast but don’t breathe run faster but don’t breathe and don’t fall just run and run faster without breathing and without seeing, keep running until through the stinging crack of an eye he sees a faint shimmering of a line, a shape as the world begins to define itself again and he can see now two doctors and with his last strength drops to his knees before them as she spills from his arms.

  He gasps for new breath as the medics remove her mask and quickly unbutton her coat, its white fabric mapped with an oozing constellation of bloody points.

  The doctor’s hand reaches up, grasps for something, grips his. Her breaths are short, shallow; her eyes are open and she is looking up at the world; she knows where she is, what’s happening: and she’s afraid.

  She breathes short—shallow—breaths.

  A crowd is gathering around them. “Get back!” a medic shouts. “Give us space to work!”

  She is trying to say something but the breaths are pulling in so fast she can’t form a word. She grips his hand tighter.

  “No!” someone shouts. “No! What are you doing!” A medic is cutting away her shirt, revealing her skin and the little red ruptures across her chest. “What are you doing? You can’t disrespect h
er like that!”

  “We need plastic wrap!” a medic shouts out to the crowd. “Plastic wrap! Her lungs are being crushed! If you don’t all start helping, this woman’s going to die!” The crowd erupts into activity and young men set off running and others reach for their phones. “Now—help! Turn around! Link arms! Make us some space and give the doctor her privacy.” As soon as people are given a clear instruction they snap to it.

  She is looking at Khalil. Each little breath collapses her rib cage tighter onto her lungs. Short. Sharp. Breaths. The plastic wrap will plug the holes. Her hand is holding on tight to his, but she is looking past him. Short. Sharp. Breaths. Each breath snatched for life brings her closer to death.

  She grips his hand firmer.

  “I’m here,” he says. “I’m here with you.”

  Each breath comes shallower than the last. The doctors work quickly but the wounds are too many. Her skin trembles. Her grip loosens. Her eyes scan the dark sky for a comfort that will not come.

  21

  There’s that tree, on the corner of the square, in front of Safir, that blooms blood-red flowers early every year. The people waiting for the bus on the street corner crush its soft body bleeding underfoot. The red cotton tree. It prepares us for the coming heat.

  PART 2

  TODAY

  With a constitutional assembly on the brink of collapse and protesters battling the police in the streets over the slow pace of change, President Mohamed Morsi issued a decree on Thursday granting himself broad powers above any court as the guardian of Egypt’s revolution.

  The unexpected breadth of the powers he seized raised immediate fears that he might become a new strongman. Seldom in history has a postrevolutionary leader amassed so much personal power only to relinquish it swiftly.

  —The New York Times, November 22, 2012

  She hurls another rock. Throws it so hard that her shoulder might rip out of its socket, and before she can see where it’s landed she’s stooping to pick up another.

  “You bastards! You stupid sheep bastards!” Mariam’s never been so angry. “You stupid sons of bitches! Think what you’re doing! Think!”