Um Mabrouk’s venture was going better than she’d ever expected until life in the queue was disrupted by the clashes in the square. As the fighting peaked, the queue was stormed by a few of the “meddlesome riffraff,” as Um Mabrouk had begun to call the protesters, a name soon adopted by others in the queue. The Riffraff cut part of the queue off and held hundreds of people captive behind barriers, which, she suspected, they had constructed out of the garbage and rubble that had piled up in the area. The people at the front of the queue finally glimpsed the Deterrence Force, which was meant to protect the Gate. The guards appeared, new shields in hand, and spread along the outer wall, but they didn’t intervene.
When the people behind the barriers started to suspect that the Riffraff were trying to delay the opening of the Gate, they began to resent them — especially because there were rumors that the Gate’s preparations had ended and it would soon open again. All sorts of evidence against the Riffraff began to appear, implicating them in a panoply of disgraceful acts. Accusations were broadcast all across the media, and serious allegations emerged that they were anti-Gate, followed by claims that they were trying divide and disperse the queue. Hearing this, the people behind the barriers rose up against the Riffraff, accusing them of behavior that was childish, frivolous, and irresponsible, and demanding that they leave immediately.
The Riffraff defended themselves fiercely, arguing that months had passed without the slightest change. People should unite and forget the Gate, they said, but they couldn’t offer any convincing alternatives, so everyone in the queue — those behind the barriers and the rest — refused to give up hope. No one was ready to leave without receiving the resolution they had come for. Life in the queue had been relatively orderly and stable before the Riffraff’s arrival; there were recognized rules and limits, which everyone accepted and everyone followed.
The one person who didn’t join in this consensus was Nagy. He didn’t tell anyone in the queue except Yehya what was on his mind. He wondered what made people so attached to their new lives of spinning in orbit around the queue, unable to venture beyond it. People hadn’t been idiots before they came to the Gate with their paperwork. There were women and men, young and old people, professionals and the working class. No section of society was missing, even the poorest of the poor were there, not separated from the rich by any means. Everyone was on equal ground. But they all had the same look about them, the same lethargy. Now they were even all starting to think the same way.
He had expected there to be exceptions, that someone among them would come out in support of the Riffraff, or even sympathize with their call to resist this absurd and ceaseless situation — but no one did. The queue was like a magnet. It drew people toward it, then held them captive as individuals and in their little groups, and it stripped them of everything, even the sense that their previous lives had been stolen from them. He, too, had been affected — he knew it in his heart. Otherwise, he would have still had his rebellious streak, and would have told everyone in the queue to advance, promising them that if everyone took just a single step, that single step alone could destroy the Gate’s walls and shake off this stagnation. But the queue’s magnet held him captive. Maybe he’d convinced himself that he was helping Yehya by staying in the queue, but the truth was he couldn’t leave it; his body came and went, but his will was trapped here.
Everything ground to a halt. Daily life in the queue couldn’t go on as normal, and it hurt people making a living there, including Um Mabrouk, who was forced to pack up her things and stop boiling water and rinsing out the cups she recycled, out of fear she would be attacked. Like many others, she’d received a threat from the Riffraff — though she wasn’t sure she understood it completely — accusing her of helping to maintain the status quo, and even profiting from it.
Things soon reached a breaking point; there were negotiations and skirmishes, and the man in the galabeya set up prayers for those behind the barriers. People waiting in the queue began to offer compromises to the Riffraff: if the Gate didn’t open within a month, they would sign a cessation of hostilities themselves, or would produce a written contract stipulating that everyone who had been in the queue for more than three months, including time spent away, would leave immediately. But none of these attempts to appease the Riffraff succeeded.
Then one day, they mysteriously withdrew. People simply woke up one morning and realized that the Riffraff were gone. They learned that the people behind the barriers had formed pacts and plans against the Riffraff, together with the microbus drivers, who had sensed impending danger when driving to and from the queue became forbidden. When the Riffraff realized that they would inevitably be driven away, they had rounded themselves up and departed in the night without a word.
The crisis had ended, but it left its mark on everyone in the queue, particularly on those who had received direct threats. It had been a waste of precious time for Um Mabrouk, yet more than that, it had restored her belief that misfortune followed her wherever she went. The drivers returned, supplying the queue with all the news they heard, but it was vague and infrequent. The warring parties had disappeared, but their effects lingered. The ambulance sirens could still be heard, but there were fewer and fewer of them, until finally peace prevailed, and then people learned just how many were injured and how badly.
Ehab stopped by nearly every day and Yehya began to check in with him, asking about the latest information he’d heard, but it wasn’t of any use. The newspaper had no more news than anyone else; nothing — no statistics, no official messages — had been announced at all. The number of microbuses arriving at the corner dwindled, too. When none arrived for a few days, people realized that the gas stations were closed again and that all diesel fuel had been redirected to the arduous cleaning efforts. Scores of bulldozers arrived to clear the debris. They drove past the metal hut on the road to the queue, and some scraped it as they went by. But the soldier inside didn’t reprimand them or even record their number plates. They worked in shifts for days on end, and then at different times at night for weeks, working without pause, lifting rocks and other debris, fallen tree trunks, and even trees still growing in the ground. Sometimes in the dark they picked up people sleeping, by mistake, but the people were always returned the following day, without having suffered significant harm.
A long time passed, and the Events had nearly faded into memory, when one morning the Gate broadcast a public message, declaring that the square was secure again and open to pedestrians. The Disgraceful Events were over, it said, never to return again, and it urged citizens not to be misled by what they had seen, no matter how confident they were in the accuracy of their vision. The broadcast also contained an important announcement: it was shutting down all radiology wards in hospitals, public clinics, and private clinics, confiscating all their equipment and taking it to Zephyr Hospital, which was a subsidiary of the Gate. The Gate had decided to embark on this path of comprehensive reform, the broadcast explained, in the interest of citizens’ physical and psychological well-being. It had conducted follow-ups with patients across the nation, and determined that many of these devices gave false and inaccurate results and printed grainy or misleading images. These devices were being used with no consideration of medical or ethical principles, and any ward or clinic found to be in possession of such would be held accountable and punished accordingly. The message also called for anyone with an X-ray or medical test result of any kind to present it to the Booth immediately, so that it could be inspected and verified, and added that no fees would be collected for this complimentary service.