Free Utopia by Ahmed Khaled Towfik

thought that I’d believe for one moment that you are Alaa, then you take me for an idiot. But it’s not important. The only value in names is in letting you know that I’m talking to you. We’ll assume that you’re Alaa, and she can be Maha. Alaa and Maha. Nice. Are you two brother and sister? I’ll assume that too. But if you’re not brother and sister, then you should know that I won’t allow anyfunny business under my roof, or rather, under the tarpaulin over my shack, because I didn’t bring you here for that, and I don’t live by myself.
    We heard movement, and a teenage girl entered the shack. She seemed pretty, even if the filthiness of her tattered clothes concealed any beauty. The filth stiffened her dress so that it neither fluttered nor moved, as if it were tanned leather. When she saw us, her eyes had the look of a timid animal withdrawing into the thicket. Later I learned that those two eyes could say everything, as if they were communicating directly with the soul.
    ‘This is my sister,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Come here, Safiya. You were asking me about how those rich people who live in their private settlements – look, here’s two of them!’
    She gave us a look of incomprehension. We appeared to be in a worse state than she was.
    ‘They had to look like this as a disguise,’ he explained. ‘It’s a kind of grease that actors put on their faces. They came to grab one of us to amuse themselves.’
    Gradually he began to grow more agitated, as though he were spitting out the hatred that had built up in his soul. ‘Why don’t you leave us alone? You stole the past, the present and the future from us, but you hate to let us live our lives.’
    Before I could understand where it was coming from or when it appeared, I found a giant machete blade under my chin.
    ‘I wonder if I should take a souvenir from you, the way you do with us?’ he said between yellow teeth. ‘A girl’s ear would be an excellent souvenir. A delicate, clean, red ear. Everyone will envy me over it – maybe they’ll borrow it from me.’
    Then he burst out in savage laughter. Savage laughter. Savage.
    We remained silent. I was torn between showing fear, which would inflame his sadism further and showing indifference, which would provoke his insane fury. In the end, I continued to look into his face with my own face like a hawk, expressionlessly. I looked at Germinal out of the corner of my eye, and found that she had decided on the same thing.
    Eventually, he calmed down. ‘Make us something to eat,’ he said to the girl.
    Gaber told us of his friend who was called Azuz.
    He had a large body and a left eye that constantly fluttered. As if he had been expecting bad luck since birth.
    Azuz entered the ruined buildings to relieve himself one night, when three guys from Utopia seized him. They were forced to kill him when they were unable to abduct him. Three powerfully built young men with cruelty, coldness and condescension in their eyes.
    People here only found out what had happened to him when they saw the Marines’ helicopter circling over the ruins, its bright searchlights sweeping over the place. At that point, they knew that one of them had fallen.
    People began pelting the helicopter with stones, and Mursi pulled out the pistol he had manufactured himself in a metal shop and fired off two shots at the helicopter.
    The noisy beast rose higher as it pointed its searchlights in every direction, and then descended a little, making it possible for them to see a Marine sitting by helicopter’s open door. He had placed the machine gun between his thighs and began firing bullets indiscriminately at the angry crowd.
    A lot of them fell dead. Mursi himself fell dead.
    The helicopter entered the ruins, then a rope-ladder dangled from it. The three young guys climbed up the ladder, shouting wildly, and then the machine ascended. The sons of bitches thought they were acting in a Hollywood movie about the Vietnam War.