The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton

Author:Omar Robert Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The irony of our one and only sure victory being both pyrrhic and compromising.

@Alaa

5:39 AM–26 June 2013

JUNE 28: BROTHERHOOD MILITIAS ATTACK ALEXANDRIA PROTEST WITH SHOTGUNS

Morsi berates the nation for two and a half hours, his voice following Mariam around as she walks through Downtown.

Every revolution has enemies.

It will be terrible, the thirtieth, and all she can think about is her eyes. Everything else is out of her hands, but she can at least try to keep the buckshot out of her eyes.

The twenty-fifth of January revolution belongs to its people. It was a single revolution.

She counts her friends, trying to work out how many sets of goggles she needs. She walks up Talaat Harb toward the old Opera and on every screen she passes is Morsi.

We have to operate to remove the worm from the nation’s body.

Twenty. She needs twenty sets of goggles. She counts again. When she finds the shop Morsi is still speaking, shouting now, shaking his finger at his impertinent subjects.

Some people are abusing some of the freedom we’re giving them!

Industrial goggles are expensive. She digs into the bottom of her bag for the envelope with the month’s rent and hands it over.

The armed forces deserve the respect of all Egypt’s citizens for choosing to side with the revolution.

She leaves and walks back into Downtown. Morsi is still shouting. With the goggles in her bag her heart rate relaxes a little and she stands with a crowd gathered around a kiosk to watch.

My last message is to the corrupt troublemakers among us: Choose sides, you crooks. Your days are over.

A young man walks out into the middle of the street and chants at the top of his lungs:

“Down, down with the Morshid’s rule!”

His chant echoes back from a dozen more voices. Enraged, the cafés of downtown empty into the streets.

“Not a single concession, the motherfucker. Nothing!”

“He calls himself a Muslim and not a word about the Shia men murdered.”

“I’ll break that finger of his and shove it up him if he doesn’t stop shaking it at me.”

“The nerve!”

“You heard how he addressed the police? He’s giving them the green light.”

“Everyone who’s against him is a thug? Really? That’s the best he’s got?”

“He’s finished! He knows it! You can see he’s terrified!”

“Looks like June thirtieth is going ahead as planned…”

JUNE 29: ARMY DEPLOYS TO SECURE GOVERNMENT MINISTRIES

Six half-drunk Stella bottles sit on the table, cigarettes burn in the ashtrays, counting down the minutes. Anticipation hangs over the whole city. Morsi is on the television above them. Highlights of his speech being looped and dissected by talk-show panelists. Sixteen hours to go.

The waiter comes over. “Hello, Mariam. What can I get you?”

“How bad is the whiskey?” Rania cuts in.

“It’s not bad at all, Rania,” the waiter says.

“We’ll have seven.”

“Fucking hell,” Mariam says.

“Well, we can’t sit here just waiting to die all night! And if we’re checking out tomorrow, then what’s one last hangover?”

She was expecting a laugh but everyone is too nervous.

“Do you actually think it will be that bad?” Nancy asks.

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