New Short Fiction: Basma Nagy’s ‘A Special Camaraderie for a Lonely Individual’
A Special Camaraderie for a Lonely Individual
By Basma Nagy
Translated by Enas Eltorky
There was a cacophonous confusion of stomping as the grocer walked in and untied Ibrahim.
– Run!
Ibrahim picked up his pants, quickly slipping his skinny legs into them. He poured a bottle of water down his throat and snatched a knife from the top of the meat refrigerator. Then the grocer pushed him out as he hurried to close his shop, nearly cutting off the shop assistant’s finger as he shut the interior door. Ibrahim ran in confusion, thinking of the long distance to his home, the dessert of rice pudding, and the streetlights that hurt his eyes, despite their dimness. He tripped and nearly fell. He had no idea what he was fleeing from, or where he was heading. He felt the stomping getting closer, so he straightened up to resume his flight. Downtown Cairo was quaking.
Ibrahim wasn’t a thief, but a hungry writer. He had gone out that morning in search of food and found the grocer waiting for him, after the man’s suspicions had been confirmed regarding Ibrahim’s repeated recent visits. He caught him trying to sneak out of the shop without paying for a block of cheese, some loaves of bread, and a tub of dried-out rice pudding that made his eyes gleam, despite having been in the grocer’s fridge for at least three days. Aided by his assistant, the grocer had stripped off Ibrahim’s clothes, and they tied him to a pole in the middle of the storeroom attached to the grocery shop. He swore that Ibrahim would spend the night naked with mice in the storeroom.
Ibrahim kept running until he reached a lane where a faint band of orange light lurked amidst the darkness, spilling from one of the remaining lampposts on the main street and leading to the metro station. He took refuge in the entrance to one of the abandoned rundown buildings, and he kept his eyes on the street from behind the bars of its iron door.
Ibrahim gazed out at the decay that had crept over this area during twenty of his forty years of age. The municipality had stopped repairing the lampposts long ago, so that most of the streets had fallen into darkness. However, this square hadn’t turned into a residential area for the owners of tin slums until the stones and columns of the courthouse façade were carried away and repolished, to occupy a special place as a memorial edifice at the entrance of the New City.
The stomping didn’t disappear, but it did grow fainter. Ibrahim’s stomach growled. He noticed a rancid smell nearby, which his nose distinguished from the usual stench of the city’s streets. At first, he thought it was the smell of the urine and sweat that had accumulated on his skin, mixed with the storeroom’s dampness. But no, it was a more bestial scent. Its source approached the entrance of the lane.
It was a huge ginger coloured pig—or a sow, to be more accurate. Ibrahim caught a glimpse of her swaying teats as she approached his hiding place. He watched her apprehensively as she sauntered, grunting and sniffing and scraping the cracked street with her front hoof, before picking up something from the ground and munching it. He thought the beast’s fangs protruded a bit. And also: just one sow wouldn’t have produced this thick, rancid smell that was overwhelming his chest.
Once again, the stomping returned, confusing and cacophonous. His heart raced.
The number of pigs on the city streets had increased, and people had stopped confronting them. They let them perform their natural role, sorting, separating, and devouring the impoverished waste that had become such an annoyance on the streets. Garbagemen had a particular and profitable view of the situation. They had abandoned the rusty, dilapidated city,leaving it drowning in its waste, and moved to work in the New City. What use was the old city to them when it had already been abandoned by the full, smooth bodies slicked with cool perspiration that had once made their way to its administrative buildings every morning not so long ago! They had replaced this city with a vast desert that accommodated their daily filtered shit, mixed with muscle relaxants, heart medications, and sleeping pills. They had built a colorful city, which had at its center a lake of swimming serpents. It became their whole world.
In the New City, mothers were never done with preparing food. They always had something to leave on over a low flame while they wallowed in the sand on the banks of the lake. They rushed to it after being pressured by advertising campaigns: “Only five minutes separating you from the lightest serpents ever,” “Residential compounds overlooking the lake,” “A real orgasm in the embrace of the sand.” Afterwards, they enjoyed the tickles of the lake’s light waves, and the nibbles of the serpents, which they advertised among their acquaintances. They bid farewell to the moribund city and its stains resulting from humidity and marital disputes.
The sight of the sow, the stomping, and the stench all called to Ibrahim’s mind the recent rumors concerning the pigs’ ferocity, though he was sure they were mere exaggerations. All his life, he had never heard about a pig roused by blood. They were filthy creatures, yes, but they were tame. They had settled in the Zabaleen neighborhood for successive generations before leaving it to wander the streets of Cairo, eating the refuse of those who still lived in the ruins, who were visited by hunger after hunger, and who didn’t possess the funds to escape, thus becoming morbidly faithful to the smells of carbon, sulfur, and ammonia.
However, while Ibrahim had been locked in the storeroom, the streets of downtown Cairo had quaked with overwhelming chaos as a group of rabid pigs raged and spread across this side of the city.
***
Ibrahim shut the iron door that separated him from the huge creature. She slammed against the door repeatedly, as if she were tempted by the sight of him shielded behind the bars. She continued slamming her body against the rusty iron, shaking her mix of odours towards him. Just before dawn, the smells grew more intense. Her assaults were more like play fighting, as if she were deliberately avoiding hurting him, and after each bout she would calm down, crawl towards the door, and stare at him without really seeing him.
During her brief periods of calm, Ibrahim gave her an understanding smile. Sharing time and space with her created within him a kind of anticipatory familiarity. He felt a special comradery for this lonely individual. He thought of making her the heroine of his new story. A huge lump of pure placidity. He could easily insert her in a commercial plot that didn’t require much imaginative effort, then send it to some online magazine.
The sow resumed her assault. Thoughts froze in his mind. He fingered the knife, and she looked deep into his eyes with a reproachful glare. Did he really admonish himself afterwards? His feet were glued to the ground. He felt doubtful, asking himself if this were a dream. No, dreams had their own mechanisms, and people like him didn’t daydream.
The stomping grew louder again, both confusing and cacophonous. Calls for help came from far away. Ibrahim moved his eyes between her and the main street, where successive small groups of pigs swarmed—pink, and brown spotted with black—their sparse hair gleaming orange under the light of the lampposts. A couple of them advanced into the alley. His companion stuck to the door, facing towards them. They came closer. An intense feeling of nausea swept over him, bringing tears to his eyes. He turned to the street, as if bidding it farewell, wondering: “Is this door protecting me, or is it holding me captive? What have I done to myself?”
***
Hours later, the sun scorched Ibrahim as he wandered the streets of the New City in search of a confectioner selling bowls of rice pudding. He didn’t let go of the knife, even after he left the butcher’s shop while counting his money. He thought that the price of the two lumps of meat would suffice him for two months, during which he wouldn’t write. However, after that, he never wrote again. He became a meat supplier, living in a house that overlooked the lake, with a wooden shed and a muddy pond in the garden for his pet. He continued to seek a cure for his hand, which never stopped trembling.
***
Basma Nagy is a writer, freelance translator, and culture coordinator. Her short story collection Replica Archive received a publishing grant from the Arab Fund for Culture and Arts (AFAC), was published by El Kotob Khan, and was shortlisted for a Sawiris Cultural Award in the young author category. In 2020, she received a Writing Sabbatical Grant from Mophradat foundation to finish her first novel Escaping Shadow. She attended to Cairo Short Stories Workshop at the Goethe Institute in Egypt and has translated many books and literary texts from English to Arabic.
Enas Eltorky graduated from the department of English language and literature at Ain Shams University, where she earned her PhD. She has published several translations and was shortlisted for the ArabLit Story Prize.