Yehya's File

Yehya’s file is a concretization of the Gate’s ubiquitous and shadowy forces, intimating by its very existence—and its continual, almost magically precise updates—the power of the Gate to observe every aspect of a citizen’s life. The file also becomes the symbolic object of Tarek’s obsession, a metonym for Yehya’s body in the accuracy with which it represents his symptoms. For Tarek, aspects of the file take on a life of their own, especially the empty box on Document No. 5, which is meant to contain the Gate’s response to Yehya’s request for surgery. For Tarek, “the box merged with the Gate in his mind, the resemblance overpowering. Vast and vague, able to contain so much. Everything in his world was determined by the Gate, bound to its decisions. His future depended on it, as did Yehya’s...