Glass Collector (2 page)

A shrieking truck shoots by, blocking his sight for a second. The sudden draught shaves his sore knee and he steps back, forcing his bare feet against the edge of the pavement. Aaron tries to make the vision disappear from his mind.
Go away!
It scares him.

He ignores the strange appearance of Mary by looking down at the oil-stained pavement. When he dares to glance back at the doors, expecting her face to have gone, he’s shocked to see she’s still there, staring out at him. Something—and it feels soft—just touched his heart. Even the sight of his ugly feet and the pockmarked pavement can’t rub out the gentleness of her face. It just can’t. The same feeling of being lifted from his body and taken far away returns, but stronger than before. Almost as odd is the sudden pang of hunger that gurgles a strange “yes” to what his eyes are telling him. And, when Aaron looks back at the doors, the beautiful, bright lights are even more amazing than he first thought. She’s more perfect than ever.

Somewhere at the back of his mind are a thousand pictures just like the one he’s gazing at: paintings, drawings, postcards, mosaics, statues, and carvings all exactly like this.

Beautiful, strong, and powerful pictures of the Virgin Mary with her head to one side. They’re everywhere and always she looks lovingly down, leaning gently, a scarf falling from her head to the sleeping baby in her arms. Staring at her, Aaron forgets his aches and pains.

For the first time since his mother died, Aaron feels loved, special, chosen.

Through Aaron’s head flash the Nile, the Four Seasons, the Sheraton, the Marriott, the Hyatt—the poshest, most expensive hotels in Cairo. Surely those hotels are the right places for miracles to occur, not the silly old Imperial, which is only a three-star, and without any concrete security barriers or sniffing dogs to check for bombs. You can’t even see the River Nile from there.

Aaron is aware of a feverish feeling that makes itself known by covering him in a prickly sweat. It’s as if the sun’s rays have reduced him to an unbearable-to-touch mass of flickering cinders. He turns slowly and looks at the crowd waiting to cross the road: women, children, businessmen. They wait with glazed, anxious faces. Sunken eyes. Nobody’s staring at the vision on the opposite side of the road. No one can see it except him. The Virgin Mary is gazing straight at Aaron as if she’s waiting for him, him alone, and it feels as if a thousand heavens are opening their golden gates. Just for him. But now and then, when something special comes to you, it’s hard to believe it’s really meant for you … Only saints see angels and God and Mary. Don’t they? Is she showing him the light or telling him off because he has decided to get Lijah back once and for all? Or perhaps this vision is a sign to keep going because the world is coming to an end, which it will any day soon, according to Lijah.

Aaron trembles. The sounds of the city echo around him. The sun, sky, people, cars, buses, and taxis change shape as he gazes at her face. The filthy gutter beneath his feet is still there. Nothing’s really changed but everything feels different. Less solid. Less real. Lighter. And when he looks at the hotel doors the outline of her form, painted in pastel lights, is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and it feels as if she’s welcoming him as the colors change from pale yellow to a lost, un-pin-down-able red.

“Why?” Aaron whispers.
Why has the Mother of God come to me—a Zabbaleen whom everyone hates? No one will believe me. Miracles don’t really happen, do they?

He wants to point and scream, but he’s a Zabbaleen and if he makes a fuss the police might come and carry him off. He knows the women in their headscarves behind him and the businessmen and the children and that old lady with the big yellow teeth and the tourists won’t understand that what he’s just seen is real.

As the molten cars screech past, the small flame inside him grows. He’s in a strange state of happiness and no longer feels like himself, or a Zabbaleen. But is Mary, Mother of God, trying to tell him to be a better person and pray more? Well, that won’t work, because Aaron never prays, but still he itches for the chance to run to her, though now there’s too much traffic in the way. Then, when he glances again—no—she’s gone. The world turns solid and dull. The colors have disappeared. Where? How can that be? Maybe Mary didn’t want anyone else to see her?

Come back.

The road closes in until a guy elbows him in the neck. Wobbling dangerously, he’s forced to grab someone’s arm. Trying to regain his balance, Aaron crashes into a small man who smells of fresh laundry. The guy quickly shrugs him off. Drenched in sweat, Aaron steadies himself, but now the vision has gone he feels heavy and stifled. Disappointed. Left behind and unloved.

If Lijah came round the corner on the pony and cart right now and said, “That’s it for today,” Aaron would forgive him for this morning; he’s so eager to get away from here and home to Mokattam. But for this to happen, the bag under Aaron’s arm will have to be filled and tied fast, and at this rate the sun will be going down before he gets across the road.

In the road, cars suddenly stop. One car in front has braked hard to avoid a flea-bitten dog that appears desperate to get killed. The dog wags its tail and wanders off, leaving behind brakes jamming, horns blaring.

It’s the moment Aaron’s been waiting for. With a quick leap, he grabs a red elastic band from the gutter and slips it on his wrist before diving between the slowing cars. He plunges awkwardly through the sound of horns, cackling radios and yelling drivers. He can see the dog a few paces ahead. Everyone dashes past him now as a man in uniform takes the center of the road, holds up a hand, and nods the traffic to stop.

Aaron ducks away from the screeching, chaotic cars, but the stench of exhaust fumes follows him when he reaches the dark silence of the alley beside the hotel.

His eyes take a second to adjust to the blackness and he catches his breath. A foul chemical smell greets him as he scans the piles of rubbish. A smell that suggests detergents have recently been sprayed here to disguise the filth.

There’s tons of stuff here, more than he’s seen in ages. Glass glints from piles of rotting noodles, chicken carcasses, paper serviettes, plastic containers, newspapers, tea bags, stale bread, and threadbare blue towels.

There’s twice the usual amount of wine bottles, beer bottles, and broken glasses here, which means there was a big event at the hotel yesterday. Aaron’s heart sinks at the thought of cramming so much stuff into the last bag.

A sick feeling rises in his throat, as if water that’s gone down the wrong way is coming back up. Aaron blinks the rubbish away and eyes a small blue chair lying on its side. Great. But then he looks again: It has only three legs, the seat’s split, and the side is cracked. It’s no use to him. He rarely finds anything good in this hotel alley. The workers who tip out the rubbish take first pickings.

There may not be a vision of Mary here to help him but there is a way of touching broken glass, a way of picking up the sharp lids and bottles so you don’t cut yourself, and Aaron’s an expert. There’s a slip of light glancing from a green bottle and for a while he forgets himself. It’s no longer glass, not solid or smooth or real but just a feeling—a tickling feeling, like a feather landing in the palm of his hand.

He knows stuff about glass that no one else knows and he’s only fifteen. Plus he knows other stuff too; stuff about what happens to light when you hold glass up to the sunshine on the horizon. How you can shape dreams out of red and purple reflections. How a certain shade of blue glass can make you feel peaceful. Yeah, that’s right, peaceful inside and all over, when he … How can he explain? It’s a bit like the feeling he gets when he stares at water—any water—but especially the waters of the Nile, which aren’t even blue in this city anymore.

Aaron sniffs before unfolding the warm, thick plastic bag, swiftly slapping it on his thigh and shaking it out until it fills with air. Then, despite his aching elbow, and with a deftness that only a glass collector knows, he begins to pluck out green stems, smashed jars, pale curving triangles, wine and soda bottles that glint like giant pearls from within the stinking rice, bread crusts, and plastic spoons.

With the skill of a master pianist, Aaron waggles his fingers to pluck even the smallest bits of glass from the collapsing rubbish. It’s second nature, this fast, easy scooping, because the glass feels soft as gum and his touch is so light, the sharp edges barely skim his leathery skin.

Aaron lets go of the wriggling tail of a disappearing rat and steps back to wipe his filthy hands on his filthy jeans. Rats are the worst part of the job and they’re out in force today. Perhaps it’s a good thing he’s no longer hungry, and anyway there aren’t any remains of pastries tempting him to eat. The rats have had the lot. It’s just as well, because many times he’s been ill after eating scraps from this waste pile.

He’s supposed to clear everything, but there’s so much glass today, he can fill the whole bag with it and leave the rest of the garbage until next time. Yellow rice and red sauce stick fast to his grubby jeans, arms, and rolled-up, faded green shirt as he grabs at the glass. Thinking foul things about Lijah keeps him moving. Then, as if by magic, the moment Aaron tightens gray twine around the rim of the bag, he hears, “Whoa.” The pony responds by neighing weakly and Aaron can just make out Lijah’s shape blocking the light at the end of the alley. With a swift tug, Aaron plants the bag on his back and, shaking himself straight to gather his strength, hobbles out to join his stepbrother.

The noisy traffic and piercing sunshine hit Aaron with full force as he swings the bag on to the cart, which is already crammed with bursting sacks. The glass tinkles and shatters further as it lands. Lijah doesn’t look around as Aaron tries several times to clamber up to join him. Of course he doesn’t mention what happened this morning. There’s no point in talking to Lijah about anything, but especially not at the end of the working day before he’s had anything to eat. Instead they sit in silence.

As they perch side by side on the pony and cart, taking the waste home for recycling, a large grin breaks out on Aaron’s handsome face whenever he pictures Lijah dead. He knows it’s wrong to wish that on anyone, but he can’t help himself.

The cars and taxis stream past, hardly noticing them. On they plod with a soft
clip-clop
that only they can hear, and inside Aaron’s head is a picture of himself taking a bottle of poison to his own lips and pretending it’s delicious so that Lijah becomes desperate to try it. So desperate that in the end he grabs the bottle and swallows the whole thing in one go, like he did with that carton of chocolate milk Aaron found in the doorway of the leather shop. Only the chocolate was safe to drink. It would be so easy to get hold of poison from one of the medical waste boxes waiting to be sorted at the other side of Mokattam. There are so many bottles of half-finished medicines there, his friend Jacob wouldn’t mind him taking one instead of emptying the dregs down the drain as usual.

Yes, getting Lijah to drink poison would work nicely. The idea of him finishing himself off through his own stupidity is Aaron’s best yet. What could be easier? Aaron could honestly say he tried to stop him from drinking out of the bottle but Lijah had taken no notice of him. Like always.

It might just work.

Another big smile is about to break out on Aaron’s face when the flea-bitten dog he saw earlier jumps in front of a badly dented black-and-white taxi. In slow motion Aaron watches the taxi screech to a halt. The dog’s feeble body crumples from the impact, splaying on his side.

“NO!” Without a thought, Aaron leaps from the cart, dodging a beaten-up brown car to get to him.

“Come back, you idiot!” Lijah yells.

Swiftly, Aaron falls to his knees to cradle the dog’s battered face in his arms. Luckily, he’s not badly hurt. The dog coughs with a gooey tongue and big teeth and wags his tail. Aaron helps him up, rubbing his hands quickly over his skinny, hot body to check for wounds. Then, leaning in to caress a ragged ear with the side of his face, he whispers, “Keep off the road. Stay on the pavement.”

The dog bounces up, in the same way that Aaron had done this morning, without thinking. With an arm around his damp, hairy neck, Aaron gently guides him to safety while the taxi driver spits with anger.

“You’re not going to live long if you do stupid things like that,” Lijah crows when Aaron climbs back on the cart.

“Good,” Aaron says, and today he means it.

The usual sounds of the foundry ring out to tell them they’re almost in Mokattam. The second shift of collectors, who start at midday and return at seven in the evening, left here an hour ago. Different families work different hours, but seven hours a day, every day of the year, the Zabbaleen are always on the streets of Cairo, picking up trash to recycle.

Aaron and Lijah are struggling to stay awake as the pony turns toward the rows of glassless, roofless brick tenements that lead to the center of the village. This is Cairo’s dirty secret: a hidden village built into the side of an abandoned limestone quarry at the foot of the Mokattam Mountain.

The noise of traffic dies away when they reach the oldest part of the village and pass under a high arch with dusty pillars leading to the tunnel of shops and stalls at the entrance to Mokattam. There are no visitors’ cars today. No crackling radios or TVs. The silence is the thing that Aaron likes about Mokattam—that, and the low brick wall beyond the church where he sits to look out at the pigeon coops on the buildings that stretch into the distance.

The pony slows to a thirsty walk, head down, gray ears flopping forward. Turning into the alley with its overhanging tiles and dark doorways feels like turning into an underground canyon. Bags of garbage are piled high beside crumbling concrete walls and giant wooden doorways with Coptic crosses and faded pictures of Jesus.

The pony moves slowly past the wooden sign of St. George and more shops—a foundry, shoe mender, greengrocer, barber, all with crosses over the doors. Plodding on past stalls that sell stickers of Mary, statues of the Holy Family, clocks, clay lamps, and candle holders.