TRANSLATED FROM THE ARABIC BY OSAMA HAMMAD

Lucy was an infertile dog living in Maadi, the quiet Cairo suburb. For Lucy, infertility probably played a role in her psychology as a stray dog. She abandoned her life of wandering and chose to settle next to the Al-Baqary family house at the southern edge of the suburb.  She was content to relate herself to the family without being officially adopted by any of them. She lived at the threshold, satisfied with the care she received and whatever leftovers they tossed out to her. Lucy’s sexual life wasn’t affected by her inability to bear puppies, as she willingly raised her tail to any of Maadi’s lax male dogs passing by or sneaking from the neighboring Tura. Lucy was an example of an easy dog; maybe this was the origin of her foreign name with its climatic tone, as she was always ready to bang. She was always there for the horny night dwellers or those who couldn’t find better entertainment than the free exhausting barking.

When I say ‘The White Dog’, it’s not just a simple description of a random white dog. It is The White Dog in capital letters. If we want to be more scientifically accurate, he was an Albino white dog. In a rare coincidence where history and nature came to an agreement. The White Dog migrated from Tura, the dreadful neighborhood of the prison, the stone quarry, the Institute of Police Secretaries, and the people who were forgotten by God, to Maadi, the calm neighborhood with its gardens, elegant villas, and leafy trees.

Dogs are unlike humans. In crowded areas, people’s feelings grow thicker, and dogs become timid creatures due to overpopulation. People, especially children, are always violent against them, and this turns dogs into domestic chickens or sometimes terrified rats. The ancient Arabs had an adage about generous persons, calling them “a person with a timid dog,” meaning that their dogs were used to seeing guests, making them cowards.

The opposite happens in the calm neighborhoods where people are softer; this turns dogs into lions ready to attack anyone passing by. They turn into monsters practicing their imagined domination over the space they occupy, recalling some of their old instincts as wolves. This attitude is well received by the residents who rarely move without their lofty cars, from which they can play with the loud-mouthed creatures, showing what seems to be a fake intellectual emotion from behind their window’s glass.

Because his bright white color gave him a superior position over the scabby puppies of Tura, our friend thought he had greater potential. He decided to leave, searching for a better life and a community more suitable to his thirst for a dignified life. All he had to do was to cross the dry channel that separated the two adjacent neighborhoods in a tyrannical, classist and cultural manner.

He landed in the Thakanat Al-Maadi area, specifically next to McDonald’s, where its rich trash provided him with over-fried hamburgers, kilograms of French fries dumped by customers, and bloody bubbles of Heinz ketchup— a great feast. He grew stronger and more muscular, like a blond beast. He quickly established a security perimeter with his urine, giving himself ownership of an area more than two square kilometers wide. All its garbage dumps were under his control, and wherever he went in his vast kingdom, the females he encountered became his lawful right.

Whenever I went out of my house to walk around or buy cigarettes, I would find The White Dog humping a new female surrounded by his entourage of young dogs who had crowned him their king. They would guard him until he was done with his pleasures. According to my estimations, the number of his harem exceeded Sultan Abdelhamid II’s, maybe even larger than the harem of Haroon Alrashed himself.

Every day at two hours after midnight, The White Dog’s gang would show up at McDonald’s, the time to empty the trash cans. You could have set your watch on them. They arrived confidently following their leader, wagging their tails in excitement. However, winds do not always blow as the vessel wishes.

On the other side of the metro line, exactly at the point opposite McDonald’s, was the Andrea Restaurant. Andrea Restaurant resembled a Greek restaurant at the Pyramids of Giza, specializing in grilled chicken.  The other side of the metro is calmer than the McDonald’s side, which is swamped with noisy teenagers. This means that the dogs are more aggressive than their counterparts on the opposite side of the metro tracks near Andrea Restaurant.

The territory around Andrea was occupied by a group of dogs who benefited from chicken remains and leftovers. The group was led by a huge grizzly baladi dog with erect ears. This meant that one of his close ancestors was probably a German shepherd, also known by locals as the wolf black jacket, might have snuck out of one of the villas and had some fun with one of the strays. The fruit of this whim was this hybrid leader. The tough leader had benefited from the daily grilling of chicken on coal and grew bigger and stronger, using all the bones and marrows, and, as usual, the best and strongest of the young dogs joined his gang.

Andrea’s vintage style could not compete with the flood of American fast-food restaurants that invaded the opposite side of the tracks. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Chicken Tikka, and KFC, all attracted modern customers to Road 9, while Andrea remained dependent on old loyal customers nostalgic for quieter times and traditional flavors. The restaurant shuttered in a sad significant scene since the owner did not have a multinational company. This hit the west Maadi gang hard. Their leader, the grand wizard, stepped up, barking what probably meant in dog language, “We have to catch the globalization train.”

We all witnessed the landing operation. My friend and I were smoking a cigarette and talking in front of my house, which is a couple steps away from McDonald’s. We saw the grizzly dog’s gang crossing the pedestrian bridge over the metro tracks with looks of determination all over their faces. The scent and sound radars of the White Dog’s gang sensed the closing danger, so they stood alert and ready even before the other gang had finished crossing the bridge.

As soon as they arrived, a medium-built young member of The White Dog’s gang took the lead, growling at the invading gang. They ignored him carelessly and moved toward the leader like vicious wolves licking their muzzles. The Road 9 gang was surprised and stood there with their tails tucked between their legs, watching the other gang’s claws and fangs cutting their way through their leader’s beautiful white body. Howls and barks of pain echoed through Road 9 for the whole length of the bloody battle in the street that held it’s breath.

The White Dog barely survived the battle and disappeared from Road 9 after a humiliating defeat. The members of his gang dispersed. Some were dead on the metro rails, others were left for dead in the dry canal between Tura and Maadi. The lucky ones joined other gangs following other leaders.

The White Dog walked wounded and wobbly. When he was about to surrender to his death he remembered Lucy, the dog that he was always too proud to fuck when he was on the top of the game. Without too much hope of a good reception, he went to Lucy. She let him in through the door of her wide tender heart and sat beside him, licking his wounds hoping they would heal.

Our friend and Lucy stayed near the Al-Baqary house as a retired couple. When you look at him now, in his weak condition, you think of an old criminal just released from jail, sitting in his cigarette kiosk given to him by the government.

Also, read Claiming The Sky, a book review by Oudarjya Pramanick, published  in The Antonym:

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