An Exhausting Attempt to Escape from Reporting in Cairo

Companionship is the only safe place in the world. I miss my hysterical comrades, who emigrated, and handed their memories of Cairo to the guardians of snowy northern cities. I miss our beautiful, sentimental exaggerations, which dragged us into a string of disasters.

Will the camaraderie of January 2011 grow old? Does Cairo age? These naïve, urgent questions came in the early dawn, after a spontaneous messenger call from my dear comrade Mahmoud Mroueh. We had exchanged greetings, and talked about Cairo, Beirut, the Morocco earthquake, the dangers of journalism, and smoking.

Friendly conversations with our loved ones, from time to time, become keys that unlock our memories. We talked about where cities sat in our minds. I began holding forth about Cairo. I talked eagerly about English orientalist Edward William Lane’s Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, its importance and the aspects of Cairo it documented. Lane, who wrote it between 1832 and 1835, used to wear a turban and call himself “Mansour Effendi.”

He, too, was haunted by the companionship of Cairo—until he was buried in Great Britain, in 1876. You bastard, Edward.

I don’t remember how our conversation got to this point. A report on the spirit of Cairo for the new issue of Al-Morasel? A one-two combo. How had I agreed to write it?

I had to run immediately to the emergency door of my home pharmacy. The doctor had been strict with me on my last visit. He had a sinister look on his face. He said I shouldn’t go to downtown Cairo in my condition. Before he got into writing, I promised him it wouldn’t involve any writing that would involve squinting for long periods.

“You’re stubborn,” he told me, his tone becoming threatening. “The only treatment available for squinting is painful intravenous injections!”

(1)

At first, I was excited about the assignment. What had happened? I became so excited that I forgot about the intravenous injections. I told my friend that the windows of Cairo opened onto verdant gardens of stories. I dreamed up scenes of nostalgia for my hysterical comrades, who now live in distant lands. Was that why I was excited? I don’t know.

A reportage on Cairo: a gateway to bipolar depression.

I received another call on messenger, as the dawn call to prayer rang out. The time difference between Cairo and Canada is ridiculous. Beware of Facebook. Comrade Gandora showed me the snowplow she drives, in the province of Ontario. The southern Egyptian musician and professor of musicology, whom I had met on a yellow plow. What a day.

What was my comrade laughing at? I had congratulated her on her new job, but she had suddenly disappeared. Was laughter forbidden in the land of capitalism and snow? But I had done my friend an injustice. She had almost fallen under the wheels of her plow to point the camera at houses, buried under piles of snow. I was annoyed, and tried to end the call. Good riddance to the world. This is the end of it. My comrade had become became a robot, riding a dangerous snowplow.

Why hadn’t I switched off my phone after Al-Morasel called? My friend had been on a break, and wanted some light relief. She asked me to drink a coffee for her in downtown Cairo. The remnants our of hyperbole seemed alive and well in Canada.

A coffee for an absent friend is a southern Egyptian ritual. You place their full cup next to your own, then drink both cups in honor of them. A plague on your ideas, comrade. She was writing a song about Cairo’s coffee. This was her first project, years after she had left. You wasted 10 years, you loser? But I loved her project. Fine, comrade. Do hysterics never grow old?

The bipolar depression hit me late at night. Guilt was the biggest symptom. I had to calm down, hang up the phone and then think. That was the first thing. The second thing was to make sure the phone was turned off for good. I involuntarily closed my eyes and went to sleep. I wrote down some thoughts on a small piece of paper. I put it next to the stove. In the morning I would burn it while making my coffee. In the morning? It was already 8:00 AM.

I had to find a good excuse to get out of writing this report. I’d find one. Of course of would. AI would help. Ah – actually, I hadn’t turned off my phone. Just in case, here was an excellent collection of topics, on proper jogging techniques in times of danger.

“Pay attention to the position of your head while running. It should be straight, so the neck is in line with the spine. To achieve this, the runner should focus their gaze forward, three to six meters beyond their feet.”

No thanks, AI. Disconnecting the battery from the phone would be the best solution.

(2)

On my way to the air-conditioned bus station in 6th of October City, I thought up some subtle ways to get out of writing the reportage. I read another article, about ways to avoid bone fractures while jogging. The AI on the bus with me was listening to Umm Kulthum’s Sirat Hubb (Love Story). This driver deserved a statue in the street. The musical introduction was beautiful. The great Egyptian composer Bligh Hamdi discouraged me from writing.

“Your features are pure Egyptian.”

With an accent somewhere between that of Khartoum and that of imperial Cairo, the young Sudanese woman in the seat next to me addressed me. Was she talking to me? Yes. She repeated the same phrase.

“No, sister of the Nile: I’m Mexican!”

Karima Gambo, who was preparing a master’s thesis at the Academy of Arts, laughed. She wasn’t laughing alone. From the seat in front, a young girl called Farah looked at me and started laughing, showing her red teeth. From the red lollipop, I supposed? Of course.

AI couldn’t interrupt the companionship of Umm Kulthum on the bus. I detest the slavery the new lords of technology have imposed on the inhabitants of this alien planet. Elon Musk, John McCarthy and Mark Rosenberg are no different than the white slave traders in the states of the American South: Evil hysterics. I turned off my phone’s internet in anticipation of Android’s surprises.

The civil war in Sudan worried Gambo and I, and interrupted Farah’s smile as she approached the end of her lollipop. This women’s party was approaching the pyramids now. Baligh Hamdi’s melodic transformations had made me forget that the bus had entered Pyramid Street. I’d been away for too long.

“Farah, you have lots of smiling friends here,” she said—Sudanese slang, meaning “welcome”.

I summoned my southern friend and turned to other passengers. I laughed at Farah, who didn’t understand Gambo’s words. I translated between Sudanese and Cairo dialects. I had become the interpreter for the air-conditioned bus? That’s how I escaped thinking about the reportage. God bless Umm Kulthum.

Gambo, responding to my questions, told me that Egypt was no temporary asylum. The sister from the Nile was not planning to migrate to Europe.

“Nor Canada,” I advised her in a serious tone.

“What about Canada? Sure. All countries are the same to me.”

I felt ecstatic as “Love Story” came to an end. Would our respected driver play another song by Umm Kulthum? We’d see. The important thing was that I had achieved a personal victory and saved Gambo from the yellow snowplow.

The beautiful girl Farah got off with her mom at the top of the street. What a shame. I’d been taken away with talking with Gambo about Sudan. Why didn’t little Farah say goodbye to the Mexican passenger?

Karima Gambo also got off at the corner of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani Street, which leads to the Art Academy. At the end of the street, the Nightingale (a reference to singer Abdel Halim Hafez) still serves delicious, cheap sandwiches to students and artists. The owner is an oppressed film extra and an independent playwright of note. Now in his 50s, he fills his days with a few roles in final year students’ graduation plays. The Nightingale competes with McDonald’s, on the corner of the same street.

Karima Gambo will definitely eat at the Nightingale and enjoy it. No one in Sudan hates Abdel Halim Hafez.

I missed Farah and Gambo as the bus approached downtown Cairo. Its huge wheels passed over the Qasr al-Nil Bridge, which leads directly to Tahrir Square. Good morning, Bridge of Hysterics.

(3)

Bingo! Amr al-Masri, the waiter at the Strand café, was surprised to see me talking to myself. He was surprised when I ordered two coffees, even though I was sat alone. I didn’t reply. I didn’t know him, and I didn’t recognize the Zahrat Strand Café. The bright lights of the café chased away any sense of companionship. Light distribution was the main characteristic of the Strand. Could a 65-year-old café strut, and change her features? The walls were blue and white. Following in the footsteps of the Cairo of Khedive Ismail, Zahrat Strand enters the historic makeup room.

This is not my café. Its name was originally derived from that of an old movie theater, on which the current Strand building was built in the 1950s. Soviet-style architecture, typical of the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who resisted the ultra-European urbanism of downtown Cairo.

The Strand Building, above the café, was where the bigwigs and celebrities lived. It competed with the most famous buildings in downtown Cairo, such as the Emobilia, the Groppi, the Bahler and the Yacoubian building.

It was home to writers, artists, and dreamers of change under Hosni Mubarak’s regime. I drink the snowplow driver’s coffee. She drinks a light coffee and I drink a darker drink. I finish the task, heavy on my stomach. I wouldn’t mind a mint lemonade.

I thank the barista and look around. I don’t see the famous composer Mohamed Sultan playing backgammon, like he used to every day. He passed away in 2022, God rest his soul. I always loved him and his wife, singer Fayza Ahmed. I don’t hear the hum of conversation at the neighboring tables. Are these people statues? I forget: What had I found?

From my table at the Strand Café, I hear the sounds of people arguing in the neighboring shoe store. A new shoe store? It was a big bookstore three years ago, before AI started talking about proper breathing techniques in times of danger. Most of the floors of the Strand Building are now corporate offices, clinics, and opticians’ clinics. Its majestic wide entrance hosts daily queues for mankind’s battle with rusty escalators.

What had I found? I had forgotten, while I was talking to the café worker about the septuagenarian literary figure who owned the bookstore.

Had he emigrated too?

Oh, my God.

That guy was too old to drive a snowplow.

(4)

I am in the triangle of companionship that used to pulse through the veins of art and life. Dreamers are laughing and smoking at cafés. Deeds of recognition for young writers and musicians sit on café tables. Take Al-Bustan Café on Huda Shaarawi Street, Al-Hurriya Bar on Mazloum Street, and the side-by-side Cultural Forum and Hamidiya Market cafes. Not to mention, of course, the Grillon Restaurant and Rish Café, near Talaat Harb Square.

I don’t understand the energy of European urbanism. This is the center of a new Cairo. I feel cold as I raise my head, along Qasr al-Nil Street, as AI advised. The head should be in line with the spine.

I had to go home immediately. When I got back, I would calm down and think of an excuse for my friend Mahmoud Mroueh. The air-conditioned bus soon passed Ramses Street. The conversation with Farah and Gambo had been pleasant. My stomach hurt. Cairo’s companionship had aged.

I had received a message. She should concentrate on the snowplow, while I concentrated on waiting for the bus, so I wouldn’t miss it.

Does AI know that my chest bumps up and down across the Qasr Al-Nil Bridge? “The correct breathing technique is very important in running, as running depends primarily on the runner’s breathing power, so the runner must make sure to supply the body with oxygen through the breathing process.”

I would remember to breathe correctly when I opened messenger that night.

“Cairo’s windows are closed, my friend,” I would say apologetically.

“What are you talking about? And the green gardens?” Mahmoud Mroueh would reply, sending a team of exclamatory, reproachful emojis.

“Dry as peachwood, buddy.”

“No! I’m waiting for the reportage.”

That’s how the conversation went in my head. I would get excited and agree again to write something. But I should concentrate instead on getting on the bus, which had arrived.

Unlike with the previous driver, I didn’t hear Umm Kulthum on the way back. This driver was grouchy and looked like a microbus driver. He halted at every stop and called out to passengers, who backed off when they realized the price of the ticket.

(5)

I got home in the early evening. I opened my computer and made a cup of aniseed tea. Was I going to sing? No. I was treating my throat, which had been hurt by the absentee coffee. I paced back and forth in the corridors of the apartment, like a man guarding a wall of fantasy.

“How do you get out of writing a report on Cairo?” I posed the unintelligible question to AI.

“You could escape using a distraction technique. Imagine that you have a stop sign in front of you. This kind of visualization of the signs you encounter on the road helps divert your attention from troubling thoughts, according to the great psychiatrist Grant H. Brenner. Focus, then focus on the troubling thought, shouting the word ‘stop’ in your mind. Saying ‘stop’ to yourself can be a useful technique, and is most effective when you say it out loud.”

A stop sign? That’s bullshit. I’m going to close my eyes and open a blank Word document. I will write every possible apology for not writing the Cairo reportage.

That, then, is what you’ve just read. An exhausting attempt to escape from reporting in Cairo.

Translated from Arabic
by Paul Raymond

Photo in the article
taken by Wissam Matta