Cairo Circles by Doma Mahmoud

Author:Doma Mahmoud
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Unnamed Press
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

On the third day after Zeina’s disappearance, Mustafa woke up and found Salma sitting cross-legged on the floor, dressed in a black gown and veil, and reciting chapters of the Quran. All the screaming and sobbing the first night had taken her voice and he could barely hear her. The foul stench emanating from the sink, which was overflowing with dirty dishes, had gotten worse, and there were no less than a dozen flies circling the apartment.

“Where’s Omar?” he asked.

“Went with your father,” Salma said with what little voice she had.

He closed his eyes and rested his head on the pillow, to try to fall back asleep, but the thoughts had already kicked off: Zeina was still out there, somewhere, suffering under a monster’s hands. Please! Mustafa could hear her yell in his mind. Someone help me! Last night, he had overheard Salma whispering to one of the neighbors, who came upstairs to console her, about the illegal organ trade: how street children had been abducted in different parts of the city, given anesthesia, robbed of their kidneys, and then released to return to their lives; how children can live with only one kidney; how Salma hoped whoever had taken Zeina would at least spare her life and bring her back. And it was not only these kidney robbers he hated with all his will; he was beginning to resent God too. He knew it was haram to have such feelings for God, but what God was doing was no less awful. Salma, Mustafa, Omar, and many neighbors had spent hours praying for Zeina’s return. And yet God had fixed none of it. He had allowed Zeina’s abduction; He had known just how much agony it would put the whole family through; He had created child abductors and put Zeina in their hands.

Mustafa left the bed and walked across the apartment to sit beside Salma. His legs were weak under his weight and he felt as if the floor were slanting to his right. His body was famished, but the idea of eating did not interest him in the least; to sit down and have a meal would be to act like everyone else, like the fruit vendors and neighbors and prayer-calling sheikh, who had helped with Zeina’s search the first day and then resumed their regular schedules, as if she had been found.

Salma’s pale face was shining with sweat under the cold light bulb hanging from the ceiling. She placed her cold hand on Mustafa’s neck, pulled his head into her chest, and kissed the top of his head. She smelled rotten.

“Mama,” Mustafa said, “do you know why God hates us?”

Salma sighed. “He does not hate us,” she said with her low, hoarse voice.

“Then why is doing this?”

“Glory be to Him, the Most High, said, It is possible that you dislike something and there is good in it for you, and it is possible that you like something and it has evil in it for you, and God knows and you know not.

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