White Masks by Elias Khoury

Author:Elias Khoury
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Archipelago Books
Published: 2010-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

The thing is, why isn’t the city buying them those handsome red trucks anymore? The ones where you pile the garbage in at the back; then, when the driver switches on the engine, great big rolling blades churn all the trash into the belly of the truck? With those trucks, the vehicle stays pretty clean and there is no smell — or at least it’s bearable. They’ve set them back a couple of decades with the open dump trucks they have now, and it makes the job so much harder, there’s no pleasure in it anymore. And then there are the new workers, who take no pride in the job whatsoever! They assume, like everyone else, that a garbage collector is just someone who doesn’t know how to do anything else. That’s not at all the case! It’s an occupation like any other, requiring both skill and experience. The Lord alone knows where they got these new recruits from: ignoramuses who mix everything up together — tin cans with tomatoes, bottles with shoes. That’s no way to work!

And then, when you get this old, battered truck to the actual dump, in Shuwayfat, they go and set the garbage on fire! That’s no way to work, there’s no comparison, no comparison at all, between Shuwayfat and Qarantina! Now that was a proper garbage dump: a clearly defined area, with a name, where the garbage was dumped and then sorted, at least to some extent anyway. Even though the garbage was piled everywhere, it wasn’t harmful, because there were people that sorted it. They sorted it out well, putting each thing in its place.

Nothing gladdened our hearts more than seeing the street kids jumping up and down in excitement when they sighted the garbage truck. As if it were laden with presents! As soon as we’d emptied the trucks, the hills would swarm with them: children of all ages, girls and boys, squatting over the piles of garbage and working quietly, without fighting. It was like watching a silent game being played — hundreds of children on the garbage mountain fashioned by our labor, sorting trash and making an income, thanks to our work. They’d take things and resell them, that way we earned a living and they earned a living. We learned to set special things aside, like shoes and bottles, before shoveling the garbage into the truck. And however much we took, there was always plenty left to go around. We filled our bellies and they theirs. The children, the men, and the women of Qarantina scattered across the hills we created, and all of us made a living.

Some said the stench was foul, but it wasn’t: yes, it smelled bad, but it wasn’t foul. It was quite bearable, and the children could play. I’d watch them sometimes playing house, perched on the top of the garbage hills; they’d visit and take presents to each other, eyeglasses, combs, any little thing, all valuable things the rich threw out because they’re godless and ungrateful for their lot.

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