Authors: Basma Abdel Aziz
Patient History
The patient, Yehya Gad el-Rab Saeed, had an ordinary childhood and adolescence; he did not contract any illnesses of note, has not previously undergone surgery, and has no family history of disease. He has suffered episodes of anxiety and irritability, which, during his final years of university, led him to commit certain acts that may be described as rebellious. His supervisors recommended follow-up in this regard. These episodes returned several months after he had graduated and secured appropriate employment; the reason for their recurrence has not been determined, although it is likely they are responsible for certain aspects of his behavior, particularly recent behavior, as he was seen in the square on more than one occasion, when he had no reason to be there. All information relating to this matter has been recorded in his Personnel File
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Records were subsequently requested from his university and workplace, and examination of the observations recorded therein has established that the symptoms observed in the patient offer an incomplete picture, and thus prevent an accurate diagnosis. In addition to anxiety and irritability, other symptoms include an irrational belief that he can alter reality; a clear tendency to act in a socially unacceptable and unhealthy manner; and a sharp, unfriendly manner when interacting with others
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The first time Tarek read the document, he had to look up the symptoms to fully understand them, as they were well outside his area of expertise. He read it two or three times, and then it dawned on him that all the episodes mentioned in Document No. 4—episodes that, it was said, Yehya had succumbed to on more than one occasion—coincided with particular events. Some had occurred before the Gate appeared, and others shortly afterward. Tarek knew what had happened to Yehya during the first Disgraceful Events, and knew that Yehya had suffered episodes of pain so severe that they left him immobile, but Tarek hadn’t noticed anything like these emotional episodes or other strange symptoms.
Tarek was interested only in matters relevant to his work as a surgeon: whether Yehya had previously undergone surgery, or had a disease that would prevent further operations. He found himself calling for Sabah and asking her if she had noticed any unusual behavior or symptoms in Yehya when he’d been at the hospital, or whether he’d behaved in any way that might have unsettled or bothered her, but she was quick to dismiss the suggestion and seemed surprised by the question.
He returned to the last paragraph, searching for a detail that might lead him to a possible diagnosis, but found nothing. He contemplated the three additional symptoms, trying them on for size himself. It wasn’t hard: Tarek had certainly done a few things that his colleagues had deemed unacceptable, or at least unwise. Once, he had made an honest mistake while assisting on a difficult surgical operation, and they had called
him crazy when he actually admitted it to his boss. As for a “belief that he can alter reality,” it was true that when he was younger he’d been certain he could convince other doctors not to skip their shifts and keep to the schedule like he did … or, at least, as he had done until recent months. He realized that he was on the same path as Yehya, and that one of these days he might merit a document just like this one. He turned the page over, burying it among the other papers, and pushed the file to a far corner of his desk.
Ehab shook Yehya’s hand encouragingly, welcoming him into a relationship of friendship and solidarity, where he would be at Yehya’s disposal. He told Yehya that he was ready to help him any way he could, with anything and at any time. Whether he was in the queue or at the newspaper headquarters, all Yehya had to do was call him. He gave him his phone number and left him with Nagy; he didn’t want to waste time talking when he was sure he could find this Mrs. Alfat, wherever she was. If Yehya was ready to go public with his story, which was sure to spark an uproar, he would be by far the most important person Ehab had met in the queue; he and his bullet were pieces of solid evidence that hadn’t yet been covered up. If Yehya was able to get his permit, it would set a significant precedent; the Gate had never issued anything like it before. But if he failed, he would pay with his life, and no bargaining or compromises would save him. Ehab meant it: he was ready to do anything to help Yehya stay strong until the Gate opened. He and Nagy could take care of anything Yehya couldn’t do himself—any difficult tasks that could cause Yehya’s health to take a turn for the worse. There was no question that the two of them were faster than he was, but he refused to stop coming and going. He kept fighting against it all, even though it was exhausting his ailing body and he desperately needed to rest. Ehab had been interested in Yehya since he first laid eyes on
him and his perpetual frown. It didn’t seem to match Yehya’s admirable fighting spirit, but from the time they’d first met in the queue, Ehab didn’t remember ever having seen Yehya smile.
A few days after the Gate released its announcement, Amani called Nagy from the office. She’d been debating what to do, and trying in vain to reach Yehya, and she was so anxious by the time she phoned Nagy that she didn’t even wait for an answer when she asked how he was, and leapt right into her next question:
“Did you hear the message?”
“I heard it.”
“What about Yehya?”
“Yehya heard it, too. We’re looking for the head nurse.”
“I think we really screwed up. We got off to a late start; Yehya should’ve requested the X-ray sooner.”
“We would have run into the same problems either way. That or other problems. Now’s not the time for blame, Amani.”
“
Tayyeb
, all right. Listen, I took two days off work, and I’m going to Zephyr Hospital tomorrow or the day after.”
“Call me before you go, Amani, please … or better still, let’s meet up beforehand. We can meet you anywhere near the queue.”
“Fine. Tomorrow at three at the restaurant across from the coffee shop?”
“We’ll see you there.”
“Tell Yehya I say hi. And can you convince him to get a new cell phone? I can’t stand not knowing how to get hold of him.”
Yehya, meanwhile, was rather pleased to be working with Ehab, who wasn’t nearly as nosy as he’d feared. Perhaps he’d been mistaken about him; maybe he’d been overly annoyed by his loud personality, or maybe he’d just lost patience with
Ehab’s constant buzzing beside him, the pecking that threatened to bore holes straight through him. Yehya wasn’t sure when Ehab would be back, but he wasn’t worried. A strange mood had taken hold of him recently: the significance of life’s minutiae waned and dwindled before his eyes, and suddenly everything seemed inconsequential.
Standing there in the queue, he toyed with the possibility of freedom; he wanted, even if only in the smallest way, to cast off what he was used to doing so mechanically and to break the tedium of these countless weeks of waiting. He marked his place on the ground, told people nearby that he was leaving, as was customary in the queue, and then decided that for the rest of the day he would no longer do what was expected of him. He woke Nagy up from his nap and told him he wanted to wander through the downtown area of the city for a while. Nagy stood up, wiped his face with his shirtsleeve, passed his fingers through his hair, and looked ready for action. He hadn’t expected Yehya to leave the queue again, not after their last and only excursion, to see Tarek, which had ended in disappointment. They walked side by side, occasionally linking arms, and without a word they headed toward the old coffee shop. It was where they’d often met up in their student days, and they hadn’t been there for years, although they’d heard recent reports that it was almost in ruins after surviving numerous attacks.
A warm breeze blew on their faces from the direction of the coffee shop, but it carried the pungent gas that still lingered in the streets, making their noses run and their eyes sting. The world looked like it had the day they went to see Amani: the ground was crushed, and deep fissures ran through the asphalt, as if creating new streets. Their eyes fell on a scattering of strange, large, multicolored munitions. They didn’t look like
anything Yehya and Nagy had ever seen before, and offered no trace of where they might have been manufactured.
There were empty tear-gas canisters strewn in the stretches between the munitions all the way to the coffee shop. Nothing they remembered was as it had been, except for the beggar lady, whom they knew well from their university days. As they drew closer, they caught sight of her sitting in her usual place under the violet sign, but her things, which had long been the same, were slightly altered. A gold medallion on a dark-blue ribbon now hung in front of her, next to an old kerosene stove, a cup of tea, and her usual packets of tissues for sale.
In Nagy’s eyes, she’d earned that medallion as a badge of honor for refusing to leave her place during the times when the street had been filled with tear gas. She’d sat cross-legged in her usual place, not moving an inch, not trying to hide, a helmet on her head, a black gas mask hung around her neck, while everyone else was running all around her. She’d reached the pinnacle of valor, her hand always extended in front of her, clearly signaling she was begging for change. After all, one must not stop working, no matter what the circumstances were. Yes, he thought, clearly she’d realized that the economy was lifeblood itself! That the wheel of production and construction must not stop spinning, not even for a moment, not even in the darkest of times. He smiled cynically at his own thoughts. If he hadn’t made that valiant decision—a valiant stupidity, he admitted at times—to resign from his position at the university, where students often missed classes and didn’t ask much of the lecturers, he would have presented her to his advanced students. He would have asked them to conduct a study on the philosophy of time, space, and physical existence, and then write a short paper inspired by her: the Lady with the Mask.
For as long as they could remember, the television had been sitting on a thick wooden shelf high up on a wall in the coffee shop, stuck on one channel. It couldn’t get any other signal, the boy who worked there often announced. Or maybe it was Hammoud who constantly claimed that the thing was broken, just stuck on the same channel, and never gave customers the chance to ask to change it. With practiced care, Yehya slowly bent his right knee, leaned his torso to the right, too, and then lowered one side of his skinny bottom onto the edge of the wooden chair. He let the pain swell to its full magnitude for a moment, until he knew he could bear it without groaning or crying out, and then slid his whole rear end onto the rough-edged wooden seat, stretching his left leg out a bit. From their table on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop, they could see that the damage hadn’t been serious. Some glass cups had cracked, a few chairs had lost a leg or two, and an antique painting had fallen from the wall where it had hung. Nagy poked his head inside the coffee shop but didn’t see Hammoud, just a few customers staring at the television while the backgammon sets and domino pieces sat untouched. He turned his gaze toward the television, watching it carefully, and then placed a cautionary hand on Yehya’s shoulder. The Gate rose up on the screen in its full splendor as the announcer’s voice proclaimed with zealous delight:
“O beloved fellow citizens, in order to fully cater to your needs, the Gate shall soon extend its exceptional services to you every day of the week, from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon each day. Please complete your paperwork before reserving a place and deliver it to the Booth, making sure to keep the receipt signed by the official as proof of validity. For applicants for Certificates of True Citizenship, your application must be accompanied by an official letter notarized by your place of work or study, stating the purpose of your request, the party to which the Certificate shall be sent, as well as confirmation of their eligibility to receive it. Do not hesitate to inquire about the following numbers …”
The announcement lasted seven whole minutes, and Nagy watched them tick by on his watch one by one. Afterward, a phrase no one in the coffee shop had seen before appeared on the screen, as though it were an addendum, unconnected to the audio recording.
With regards from Former Major General Zaky Abd el-Aal Hamed, President of the Northern Building
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Nagy looked away and smiled. Despite how often the Gate released these promising updates, it still had never reopened, and nothing ever really changed. All it provided was hope for people to cling to and a reason to stay in the queue. The Gate had started producing these announcements shortly after it appeared and initially aired them on several different channels. Before long, a special channel was created to broadcast all Gate-related news, then related fatwas as well, and recorded messages aimed at citizens, too. After that, the special channel began to broadcast new laws and decrees as the Gate issued them, one after the next, and forbade other channels from showing them. Then it decided to list the names of people whose applications and permits would be approved when the Gate opened, listing them on-screen at the end of every week.
This attracted a huge viewership; people delighted in discovering who among them had been lucky and who had been rejected. Later, the Gate issued a decree that forbade other channels from screening any announcements other than its own and forced them to air its broadcasts instead. Its messages had become increasingly aggressive and intense, particularly after the Disgraceful Events, and it made the other channels replay them all. Some networks complied, but others refused and instead shut down their channels and offices. The Gate didn’t regulate radio stations the same way, though. It simply made sure it held sway over employees at the stations, and recruited loyal citizens, men and women alike, to call in to the programs while posing as unbiased listeners.
Hammoud appeared about half an hour later carrying a tray of drinks, and stopped short in front of them, understandably surprised. Seeing them outside the queue, right here under his nose, was the last thing he’d expected. Nagy reproached him for disappearing so suddenly and abandoning the residents of the queue without a hint or warning, but Hammoud said the situation had become so dangerous that he had no choice but to serve the construction workers instead. He was sorry, he said, but he was also fed up with the way things were going, especially with Um Mabrouk, who’d overstepped her bounds.