The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark.
Title: The Haunting of Tram Car 015.
Author: P. Djèlí Clark.
Genre: Fiction, fantasy, science fiction, feminism.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 2019.
Summary: Cairo, 1912. The case started simply enough for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities: handle a possessed tram car. Soon, however, Agent Hamed Nasr and his new partner, Agent Onsi Youssef, are exposed to another side of Cairo stirring with suffragettes, secret societies, and sentient automatons. It's a race against time to protect the city from an encroaching danger that crosses the line between the magical and the mundane.
My rating: 4/10
My review:
♥ "Why, I've seen the wicked thing myself!"
"What did you do?" Onsi asked, drawn in by the tale.
"What any right-standing man would," the superintendent replied, puffing up. "I informed the foul spirit I was a Muslim, and there is but One God, and so it could do me no harm! After that, a few other men took my lead, reciting surahs in the hopes of driving it away. Alas, the vexed thing is still here. After the attack, I deemed it best that I call in those who are more skilled in these matters."
Hamed suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Half of Cairo flooded the Ministry with trivial concerns, jumping at their own shadows. The other half assumed they could handle everything themselves-with a few verses, some amulets and charms, a bit of folk magic passed down from their teita.
♥ Corded cable lines stretched across the skyline in every direction, metal vines that curved and bent as they went, interwoven and overlapping the breadth of the city. Aerial trams zipped along their length-leaving bright electric bolts crackling in their wake. The tram system was Cairo's lifeblood, running on a network of arteries and transporting thousands across the bustling metropolis. It was easy to take it for granted when you walked the streets below, not bothering to look up at the rumbling of their passing. But from this vantage, it was hard not to see transit vehicles as a stark symbol of Cairo's celebrated modernity.
♥ He reached into his coat to pull out the small leather case where he kept his spectral goggles. The copper-plated instruments were standard Ministry issue. They fit like eyeglasses, though the pronounced round green lenses were far wider. Onsi had removed his spectacles to slip on his own pair. Eyesight mattered little when it came to the spectral world-which appeared the same to everyone in a haze of startlingly vivid, luminescent jade. The brocaded flower patterns on the cushioned seats could be seen in detail, along with the golden calligraphy that ran along the black window panes. But what stood out more than anything was the ceiling. Craning to look up, Hamed couldn't fault Onsi for his breathy gasp.
The curved ceiling of the tram was awash in a spectral glow. It came from a complex arrangement of cogwheels covering the entire space. Some of the gears meshed with one another, their teeth interlocking. Other were conjoined by chains into sprockets. They spun and rotated in multiple directions at once, sending out swirling eddies of light. Trams didn't require conductors, not even a boilerplate eunuch. The djinn had created them to run by themselves, to plow along their routes like messenger birds sent on an errand, and this intricate clockwork machinery was their brain.
♥ "What's the next step for first encounters with an unknown supernatural entity, Agent Onsi?" Hamed quizzed, keeping his eyes on the thing.
"Perform a standard greeting to ascertain its level of sentience," the man answered on cue. It took a brief awkward silence for him to comprehend that Hamed meant him to perform the task. His mouth made a perfect "Oh!" as he hastily drew out a folded document. Opening it revealed a sepia-toned photo of his beaming face above a blue and gold Ministry seal. "Good morning, unknown being," he said in loud slow words, holding up his identification. "I am Agent Onsi and this is Agent Hamed of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities. We hereby inform you that you are in breach of several regulations governing paranormal persons and sentient creatures, beginning with Article 273 of the criminal code which forbids trespass and inhabitation of public property owned by the State, Article 275 on acts of terrifying and intimidation of citizens..."
Hamed listened stupefied as the man rattled off a series of violations. He wasn't even certain when some of those had been put on the books.
"...and given the aforementioned charges," Onsi continued, "you are hereby instructed to vacate these premises and return to your place of origin, or, barring that, to accompany us to the Ministry for further questioning." Finishing, he turned with a satisfied nod.
Rookies, Hamed grumbled quietly. Before he could respond, a low moaning sounded in the car. There was little doubt where it came from, as the gray smoke had stopped its slithering and gone still.
"I think it understood me!" Onsi said eagerly.
Yes, Hamed thought dryly. And you probably bored it to death. If it was already dead, you might have just bored it back to death.
♥ "The djinn we're used to generally choose to interact and live among humans. There are others, Ifrit for instance, who we know keep their distance-most not even staying on this plane. Some we can't even communicate with. Those are often the haunting sort, lesser djinn beyond our classification. Likely, this one was drawn to the magic that operates your tram and has made its home there."
The superintendent sighed lengthily. "Djinn haunting my tram and attacking passengers." He finished with the hand gesture and accompanied the all-too-common Cairo slang: "Thank you, al-Jahiz."
It had been some forty years since the wandering Soudanese genius-or madman, take your pick-had, through a mix of alchemy and machines, bored a hole into the Kaf. The opening of the doorway to the other-realm of the djinn had sent magic pouring out, changing the world forever. Now Cairenes evoked the disappeared mystic at every turn, his sobriquet uttered more often in mockery than praise to complain over the troubles of the age.
Hamed had never understood the phrase's ubiquity. Whether the Sufis were right, and al-Jahiz was indeed a herald of the Mahdi, or, as Copts feared, a sign of the apocalypse, seemed irrelevant. So too, he thought, were the continuing debates on whether al-Jahiz was the same as the medieval thinker of Basra, either traveled through time or reborn. Whatever the truth of it, without al-Jahiz there would be no Ministry. Egypt would not be one of the world's foremost powers. Indeed, the British might not even have been pushed out if not for the aid of the djinn. And those same djinn had built up Cairo to rival London or Paris. It often seemed that while the country proudly touted its modernity, it yet yearned wistfully for some simpler past.
♥ At the base of the statue was a group of women, some thirty or so. Many wore dresses reflecting modern Cairene or Parisian styles, while others were in more common loose seblehs. A few were veiled. At least two of their number were djinn-both female as well. Nearly all held signs and placards, listening as one of their number stood atop a ladder and spoke energetically.
"We meet today as a parliament!" she shouted. "A true parliament! Of women! We are half the nation! We helped found the nation! We represent its hopes and its despair! So long as we are not represented among those who vote for its leaders, the parliament of Egypt cannot be a true reflection of its people! We may have freed ourselves from foreign rule, but a nation cannot be liberated while its women are enchained!"
A great cry went up from the group, giving cheers and shouts in answer to her words.
Hamed accepted a leaflet from a young woman in a colourful patterned hijab who couldn't have been more than eighteen. It features a Janus-faced rendition of the pharaoh Hatshepsut: one side with the appearance of a mother holding a child and the other of a factory worker with tools. The words WE DEMAND THE VOTE! were printed in bold beneath.
"Ooh!" Onsi exclaimed, eyeing the handout. "Suffragettes! The bill on granting women the vote is being debated in parliament this week, I believe."
Who didn't know that, Hamed thought. It was one the front of every Cairo newspaper and the topic of debate in every coffee shop. Judging by the flyer, these women were part of the Egyptian Feminist Sisterhood-they had been pressing for reforms for over a decade now. They'd gotten more vocal in the past year, taking to the streets and public spaces. It was little wonder they'd chosen Ramses Station to protest. It was here, after all, that a young writer at the popular Egyptian magazine La Modernité had openly removed her veil back in 1899-causing a national sensation and revitalizing the movement.
"Do you think they'll actually get it?" Onsi asked. "The vote, I mean? In London, women can barely get a hearing in public on the issue."
Hamed shrugged. "Who can say?" He couldn't imagine Englishwomen anywhere near as bold as this. "They've managed to get the queen on their side, so that's in their favor." He watched as another woman rose to speak, this one veiled in a long Turkish-styled yashmak.
"Exciting times," Onsi remarked.
Perhaps too exciting for some, Hamed thought.
♥ "So how did an Edwardian man like yourself end up at the Ministry? I understand you've been off at Enlglish boarding schools since thirteen."
Onsi perked up at that. "My family wanted me to have a proper education," he answered tactfully. Hamed didn't need to inquire as to his meaning. Egypt now boasted perhaps the best universities in the world. But some still insisted on sending their children off to England or France to learn, where blasphemous subjects like alchemy weren't on the curriculum. "It's all great nonsense," the man added hastily. "They're studying enchantments at the Sorbonne now. Both Oxford and Cambridge have opened up schools of the supernatural in the past two years. There's no ignoring the transcendental disciplines any longer."
No, Hamed thought wryly. Not after djinn and alchemy had routed the English at Tel Ek Kebir in '82. Then both the French and English at Sokoto in the nineties. Not to mention the disaster for the German-Italian Alliance at Adwa. Al-Jahiz hadn't just opened the Kaf of the djinn, he had made the walls to the supernatural realms porous across the globe, and the effects were still being felt. No surprise that the old empires had reversed their opinion on the "superstitions of the natives and Orientals."
♥ "But no djinn will accept the paltry sum we're willing to offer." Djinn had taken to the modern world in every way, including demanding proper wages. Many were even unionized. Their abilities didn't come cheap.
"Perhaps," Onsi ventured carefully, "we can persuade a djinn with something other than money? I understand there are a few who still grant wishes-"
Hamed cut him off with a stiff shake of his head. "Never seek a wish from a djinn. They're much better at negotiating than we are and things almost always go badly." Wish-granting hazards accounted for at least a fifth of the Ministry yearly case load, and he'd seen more than his share.
♥ The address on the slip of paper took them along Sha'ib El Banat. It had previously been Soliman Street, named for a French military commander under one of the old pashas. Now it carried the name of the djinn builder who had transformed modern Cairo into an industrial capital. It was also the name of a mountain range somewhere in the eastern desert, as djinn never gave their real names and used such places as monikers instead.
♥ "What did you notice about her earrings?"
Onsi scrunched up his face in recollection. "Earrings? They were gold. In the likeness of an animal of some kind? Perhaps a bird?"
"A cow," Hamed corrected. "A golden cow, with a disc between its horns. An emblem of the goddess Hathor."
The younger man's eyes widened. "An idolater!"
"They don't exactly call themselves that," Hamed pointed out. The entrance of djinn and magic into the world had changed society in some unanticipated ways. It had even sent a few seeking after Egypt's eldest gods, whose temples and statues had remained stubbornly steadfast through time. There were probably dozens of such cults in Cairo alone. Most remained underground, as even the vaunted new religious tolerance laws offered their adherents little protection.
♥ "Sheikha Nadiyaa," he asked, "have you ever ridden on a tram?"
She shook her head, her face contorting. "Watching them speed along above me is dizzying enough. I appreciate the wonders of this age, but I prefer the earth firmly beneath my feet."
"Well, that may explain your misapprehension of the matter," Onsi replied. "Excuse me for my disagreement, sheikha, but I'm not certain the differentiation you are making between a possessed person and this tram is warranted."
"Oh?" she asked, raising an appraising eyebrow. "Please enlighten me."
The man seemed eager to do so. "The tram in question is a design of the djinn," he explained. "It is endowed with a machine mind imbued with magic. The tram is thus capable of thought, which it uses to guide itself and its passengers safely. Those dizzying feats you witness are decisions made by a thinking being. Given that, I submit the tram is little different from a person who suffers an affliction and needs your help. Did not the earliest Sufi masters write that to practice generocity was foremost in achieving spiritual perfection?"
Both of the woman's eyebrows were raised now, as were Hamed's. "I am curious to know how a Copt is versed with the concept of futuwwa," she said, glancing to his tattooed wrist. "You made an intriguing supposition. However, your argument only leads to another trouble. If these trams are thinking beings, as you say, then they exist in a state of slavery. And I will not aid in such an exploitative system."
"Slavery!" Hamed exclaimed, thoroughly perplexed. "How does slavery enter into this?"
The sheikha drew herself up, and when she spoke it was with the practice of rote recitation. "Thinking beings, whether wrought by God or man, should not be bound to serve but have the right of choosing their lot. In the People's Republic, all forms of bondage have been done away with. No man or woman may hold another as property. Neither do we allow sentient tram cars or machine-men made in our likeness to toil to our whims while we profit from their labor. Al-Jahiz himself, as you know, was a slave soldier to one of your pashas. He spoke often on the harm that enslavement does to the souls of those bound by the chain, and the souls of those who wield it. Many djinn would tell you as much, for they abhor slavery perhaps greater than all other earthly vice."
Hamed was somewhat familiar with that history. Slavery had been abolished with the birth of an independent Egypt back in '83. In Soudan, however, the earthly Mahdist movement had sought to revive the practice-until a djinn converted its leadership to Revolutionary Sufism.
♥ Hamed still couldn't stop gaping. Boilerplate eunuchs becoming people? He could already envision the chaos, as machine-men began confronting their owners, demanding wages or work they preferred. If the woman had any such concerns, it was lost behind her self-satisfied expression. You let some people read Marx...
"The sheikha is perhaps optimistic," Fahima put in, tilting her head slightly. "Only a few of my kind share the innate spark to become more. Perhaps it was our particular design. Or some science we do not yet understand. Most are content with their work, and when pressed want little more than perhaps a day to themselves, or two.
Is that all? Hamed thought sardonically.
♥ Wooden shelves arranged in rows of three lined the tiled mosaic walls of the small square room that held the faint scent of recently burned incense. Dolls sat on all of them, their sculpted faces glistening beneath the light of alchemical lamps and smiling down from behind wide-open eyes and thick black lashes. Each one was indeed different, in hair and hue and features-a slight fullness to the lips here, a curly mane there. Their dress was just as varied, displaying the garb of diverse nations and peoples.
In truth, Hamed was a bit discomfited by them. There was something slightly off about dolls. Too close to real people, without ever quite achieving it. And children at that, with freakishly small hands and infantile faces trapped in place. Perhaps he'd drunk too much coffee, but he kept imagining them coming alive with jerking movements and jumping down to grab at him with those tiny hands.
♥ "A baby-eating Armenian spirit is haunting a Cairo tram," Abla repeated. "Well, I have to admit, I didn't see that coming."
♥ "Here's what I think. That spirit was just a formless being minding its own business. Then, it encountered men. And they decided to make it this beautiful woman or this monstrous crone, because that's the only way many men can even view women. Maybe they were looking for a way to explain why their wives died in childbirth, or why infants died in their blankets. Maybe they were just afraid of old women. So, they made up this al, conjured it up as a woman, and blamed it on her!"
Hamed's head was spinning. That people-men, at that-were responsible for some child-stealing spirit boggled the mind. But Abla appeared thoroughly convinced by her reasoning.
"A fascinating theory!" Onsi commended.
"Except," Hamed put in, "if what you say is possible, women could have thought up the al just as easily."
Abla shook her head sternly. "No woman would ever think up something so ridiculous."
Hamed gave up. This was not an argument he was going to win.
♥ Despite his discomfort, Hamed had to admit Onsi's logic had been sound. The spirit would only appear to women. So if they were going to draw it out themselves, they needed to be seen as women. It was commonly known that spirits had a peculiar tunnel-vision when it came to such things. Dress an inanimate object as a person, and they too it for just that. Leave out some rocks instead of food, and they'd dry to devour them. For many spirits, perception was reality. Thus, it only stood to reason that this al would take them for what it sought, if they looked the part.
That was easier said than done.