The Silence and the Roar

by Nihad Sirees

  “Not a problem.”

  “But I want to explain the situation first.”

  “All right, what’s the situation?”

  “The reason why I want you to meet him.”

  I put down my cup of coffee to make her feel like I was listening to her very carefully. She held on to hers, moving it closer to her mouth, then farther away. I watched her as she gazed into my eyes.

  “He wants your permission so that we can get engaged.”

  There was no mistake. I had understood completely what she had just said. Still, I asked, “He wants to get engaged … to you … but he wants my permission?”

  “That’s right. I mean, we’re going to get married but because you’re my eldest son he wants to meet you and ask for my hand. Do you understand? Your mother is still a young woman, you know, and five years have passed since the death of your late father and there’s a man who wants to marry me. That’s all clear enough, isn’t it?”

  “This is just such a surprise, Mum,” I said, buying some time to figure out how I felt about it.

  “If I was worried about your reaction, I would have made more of an introduction. I would have alerted you first, but I dived right in instead. Think it over if you want, but you must realize I’m still a young woman and that I’m consenting to this marriage, that is, I simply must get married. Should I set up a meeting with him or do you want some time to think about it first?”

  I smiled, turned my eyes away and moved to pick up my cup because cups of coffee help us hide what we want kept hidden. I smiled because my mother wanted to get married. She was confused and wanted my approval. I had never seen her so confused before and it became even more apparent how confused she actually was when she asked me if I needed more time to think about it. Who was getting married anyway, her or me? I looked at her and saw her eyes darting back and forth between her cup of coffee and me. In that moment I felt sympathy for her because I love her so very much, and in that moment I loved her even more than ever before. I wanted to say something that might reassure her but the television we had left on in her bedroom started broadcasting a poem that was being recited by the poet himself to the masses stuffed into the city square and his voice distracted me. In a loud voice the poet intoned, “Supreme one of the nation, the Leader of men and …”

  “What do you say, Fathi?”

  “Who is this guy?”

  “I’m even more surprised than you are. He’s very well known and I think you know him.”

  “I know him?”

  “I said I think you know him. His name’s Mr. Ha’el Ali Hassan.”

  “I know someone by that name.”

  “That’s the one.”

  The poet continued reciting his poem: “Heap ashes upon them from your fury, O master.”

  I feel I must explain who this Mr. Ha’el is in order for you to imagine my state at that moment. The word dismay is useless because I wasn’t dismayed and the word anger is meaningless because I wasn’t angry; I wasn’t happy or sad or anything like that. Truth be told I didn’t feel much of anything because this Mr. Ha’el who wanted to marry my mother had not left any impression on me, not because he was unimportant—just the opposite—but because he was exceedingly important and because I considered myself so far removed from his milieu that I simply could not feel anything. It was like hearing about some American billionaire who went bankrupt or some anonymous person who came into a great fortune. I always used to feel like I was far from interested in certain people, including Mr. Ha’el Ali Hassan, because they were like destiny or like an addiction indulged in by an addict. Let me try and explain what I mean with another example. Say it so happens that the Leader sacks a particular representative from his post and you read about the story in the newspapers but it has no effect on you, so you hurry on to read the next story. It’s the same thing when you read that the Leader has hired one of his supporters and made him a powerful representative or promoted him. After twenty years of the Leader’s rule this kind of story leaves a person unresponsive. Any news, even when it is about someone who is about to marry my mother—and here he is, an adviser to the Leader—starts to seem like that story you read in the local papers but take no interest in whatsoever.

  Once, when the Leader was visiting a backwater town, he was surrounded by a huge number of cadres. The place was throbbing with the masses that were in turn surrounded by the Leader’s entourage, which prevented them from getting any closer to him than was absolutely necessary. The Leader’s favorite television cameraman was filming every move he made, particularly his right hand as it rose to salute the masses, who were overjoyed by this blessed visit to their forgotten town. Just as all of that was proceeding precisely according to plan, something happened that nobody could have anticipated. The Leader stumbled and lost his balance, and he would have toppled over onto the ground if it had not been for someone coincidentally standing right behind him who was able to grab hold of him, an unknown cadre of no real value. I believe he had been a member of the municipal council in that fair town.

  That man, Mr. Ha’el Ali Hassan, had good fortune. I say good fortune because in his entire life he had never dreamt of receiving so much as a glance or even a smile from the Leader. So how could it be that he should have acquired this exalted honor of saving the Leader from falling and taking a roll in the dirt in front of millions of people, before those who were present and those who sat at home watching this blessed visit on television? The broadcast was interrupted for a couple of minutes and the people did not see what happened during that break thanks to a wise move by the producer (the tape was cut from the moment he stumbled, the section was excised and it was requested that everyone forget all about it as though nothing had happened; it is never mentioned any more and I’m taking a risk now by even bringing it up, may God forbid …). But anyone who was actually there, standing near the Leader instead of busying themselves with the fevered chanting, would have seen this no-name member of the municipal council acting before anyone else (most importantly, the Leader’s private guards) and grabbing him under his armpits with a deft movement at just the right moment. The Leader’s bum never touched the ground. He held him up confidently and quickly, supporting his body from behind. Once he had made certain that the Leader could stand, he backed a few inches away without letting go under his arms because with unparalleled intuition he quickly realized that he should be rewarded for his action. The Leader wheeled around to find that the one who had saved him from falling and who had preserved his dignity, his prestige and the elegance of his clothes was not one of his guards or his shadow, who followed him wherever he went, stood behind him and leaned whenever he leaned and moved whenever he moved. Rather it was someone with an ordinary peasant face, sharp eyes and unrestrained ambitions of getting closer to him in order to serve him. He was looking for his big break, which had finally arrived. He bowed to the Leader, who had turned red in the face from his stumble, as if to tell him that he was the one who had saved him and that he was now the one asking to be compensated. The Leader extricated himself from the hands of the municipal council member and in that moment the Leader’s shadow tried to shove Ha’el away, gesturing to his boss that the man was interfering, but the Leader raised his hand to stop him, then tapped on the municipal council member’s arm and said, with a grateful smile on his face, “I thank you …”

  The television broadcast returned so that the viewers, who are technically every single individual of this nation, could watch the masses saluting the Leader and chanting for him as the weak-hearted swooned from the heat, the dust and the tremendous amount of effort expended in shouting slogans, and could watch the Leader salute the masses with his right hand in return. The Leader was surrounded by bureaucrats, of both high and low rank, in addition to a large number of security guards who had fanned out all over the place. But the viewers, like those surrounding the Leader, were no longer concerned with that municipal council member because his superiors, the security guards, had shov
ed him farther and farther away, behind row after row around where the Leader stood. Even as Mr. Ha’el took up his position in the background his heart beat powerfully and warm as the adrenaline pumping through his blood spiked and his imagination started to drift off into worlds far removed from this celebration. He focused his mind on the image of the Leader smiling at him and saying, “I thank you …”

  The event came to an end. The Leader, his escorts, his bodyguards and the television cameras departed in their 120-car convoy, leaving behind a roar and thick dust. The people went back to their homes and their jobs. The municipal council immediately held a meeting to study the effects of the Leader’s visit on the town and the anticipated benefits that would accrue from that visit. However, and how amazing this was, all the council members, including the president, started looking at Mr. Ha’el in a new light, with some respect but also trepidation. They no longer silenced him or cut him off when he was speaking. The municipal council president stopped interrupting him abruptly and telling him, “Shut up you, what is this bullshit?” Instead, everyone started listening to him with great interest as he enumerated the benefits that were likely to accrue to the town or the personal benefits that some members and the president of the municipal council might acquire. He was not about to let this chance get away from him, so he reminded them several times how the Leader had smiled at him and thanked him “personally.”

  A few days later a car from the capital arrived. Kicking up thick dust as it sped into town, the car screeched to a halt outside the municipal council building and three men in fine clothes got out. One of them seemed to be in charge and they all scurried inside the building, unaffected by the glares coming from the pathetic guard, Masoud, who smoked, coughed and spat, and then smoked some more. As they barged into the council president’s office like holy warriors they kept repeating the name Mr. Ha’el Ali Hassan. But he wasn’t there at that moment because unlike all the other representatives he had not been assigned to any particular work that required his presence. The council president dispatched everyone he could find to go and look for him. After several minutes had passed and they still had not found him, the men from the capital could no longer bear staying put in those chairs where the council president had invited them to sit, and so they set off to search for him themselves, their car kicking up more noise and dust until they found him out in the field feeding one of his calves. They seized him and drove him back to his house, where they asked him to wash at once and put on a dark suit and a yellow tie. As they guided him, he was powerless to resist. Outside the house he nearly wet his trousers from fear when his wife Aisha and their five small crying children surrounded them. The street was jammed with people whose curiosity had led them there, as Mr. Ha’el, representative of that pathetic municipal council, was pressed between two men in the back seat of the car and it set off, leaving behind a cyclone of dirt, flies and hundreds of unanswered questions floating in the dusty air.

  Where are they taking Mr. Ha’el?—What happened, exactly?—Look how his wife, Aisha, and their small children are crying!—Is it true they’re driving him to one of the security branches?—Is it true he pushed the Leader during the blessed visit and nearly knocked him over?—What has he been charged with, exactly?—Why don’t they have Sheikh Said perform the prayer of guidance?—Is it true they took him to be executed?—Some say Mr. Ha’el was part of a conspiracy against the Leader that was uncovered at the last minute, is that true?—Is it true they’ve started punishing the corrupt, because Mr. Ha’el, as everybody know, steals from the municipal council?—Poor Aisha, to be in this situation.

  Lots of questions were asked that day in that backwater town but those who asked them did not get any answers. Mr. Ha’el did not return to put an end to their perplexity. Instead, a less noisy car from the capital arrived two weeks later and stopped outside Mr. Ha’el’s house. Two men got out and ordered Aisha and her children to get ready quickly and come with them. All over again the people were confused about the fate of the father, mother and children; some of them grew even more confused when they saw Mr. Ha’el on TV in fine condition, noting that he even smiled affectionately. So what had happened to him after all?

  The Leader, along with all the bosses of his security apparatus and his bodyguards, had watched the video of his stumble in that backwater town in order to learn exactly what had happened. Why had he slipped? Why wasn’t his shadow behind him at that moment? And scores of other questions that the Leader was careful to ask his assistants after any emergency. The bosses were sitting upright on both sides of the eighteen-foot-long conference table as the Leader presided over the meeting. The engineers began to run that segment of the tape over and over on the wide screen that had been set up on the far side of the room. Everyone came to the same conclusion: the shadow had screwed up by leaving his position, and divine intervention had saved the Leader from falling by placing a quick-thinking person with fast and sure reflexes behind him. Even more important was the fact that this person loved the Leader and was totally dedicated to serving him: it was evident in his unconscious response of catching the Leader at exactly the right moment; it proved his integrity, his qualifications and that he was a reliable person who could be trusted.

  The Leader fired his shadow and appointed someone else to replace him. Then he asked for the stumbling scene to be replayed endlessly in slow motion on the closed circuit television at the palace so he could study it nonstop, wherever he went and in whichever direction he looked. Television screens had been installed all over the palace. There was not a room without one: his bedroom and the bathroom, most importantly, where the Leader could be alone with his thoughts. At night when he lay in bed rewatching that stumbling scene, he felt that he liked this person even though he had never met him. What caught his eye and got him addicted to watching the images of his stumble and ensuing rescue was the movement made so casually by that man who had been standing behind him. As soon as the Leader started to fall that person suddenly thrust his hands out underneath the Leader’s arms and began to fall down with him. His downward pivot along with the Leader’s fall was astonishing, especially in slow motion, and when the two bodies arrived at a certain point the other person’s body stopped falling. The two bodies collided and started to rise again by the strength of that other person alone, and once the Leader was returned to his upright position that man’s body remained attached to his back for a full three seconds, at which point the man pulled away although his hands remained under the Leader’s arms. He watched himself twist around even with those two hands still under his arms in order to look that man in the face. At that moment the two hands were retracted from under his arms and the man bowed out of respect. After watching this other man’s body and face move in slow motion thousands of times, he came to like him. And when the Leader likes someone it’s as if the Night of Excellence, the night the Quran is said to have first been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, has arrived. His underarms still ached after being grabbed from behind so energetically and his back still remembered the warmth of that man who cleaved to him. He wanted to know who this person was; he wanted to meet him and compensate him. He gave his orders at three o’clock in the morning. By two o’clock that afternoon they had brought the man to see him. The Leader was careful to hold their meeting at an unofficial spot, at the lunch table to be precise.

  It is the habit of bodyguards and agents in the security apparatus not to tell a person anything—anything at all—when they take them from their house for a special occasion. This is precisely what happened to Mr. Ha’el, and he nearly kissed the hands of those three men who had come for him in his town in order to find out where they were taking him, what the occasion was and what was going to happen to him, but they silently eyed him with discomfiting looks. Silence is their trademark. Besides, any word could cause its utterer to be punished, so Mr. Ha’el remained ignorant of what was happening to him. He could do nothing more than tremble and turn yellow, which was the state he was in
when they brought him into the Leader’s dining room without his even knowing he was on the verge of meeting the Leader himself. Once inside he did not immediately recognize the Leader seated across the table from him, dressed in run-of-the-mill clothes as he chewed his food, believing him to be one of the ordinary bureaucrats instead. In his fear and disorientation he had forgotten what the Leader’s face looked like and failed to recognize him until the Leader asked him to come closer. As the Leader got up, wiped his hands and mouth with a napkin, welcomingly shook his hand and invited him to sit to his right in order to have some food with him, Mr. Ha’el was the one who nearly collapsed, this time from joy.

  The two of them ate and talked for a long time. After learning everything there was to know about Mr. Ha’el, the Leader invited him to have some tea in his favorite spot, a glass room filled with flowers and strange plants where they smoked cigars. The Leader asked his assistants to show Mr. Ha’el to one of the guest rooms so he could get some rest. In the evening he invited him into his video room to watch a few hours of recordings of the masses chanting for him and killing themselves on his behalf.

  This hospitality in the Leader’s palace lasted for three days, during which time the two of them ate an inordinate amount of many and varied kinds of food, played backgammon together, swam in the private swimming pool, sat in the sauna, ran around the garden and exercised on the workout equipment in the Leader’s private athletic room. In the evening the two of them would watch videos of the masses. On the morning of the fourth day the assistants asked him to meet with the Leader once more before he left. This time he met him in his office, where the Leader asked him which position would allow him to be of the greatest service. Mr. Ha’el could not come up with anything other than chief of police in his hometown. The Leader found this suggestion strange and was touched by his friend’s modesty. He refused to appoint Mr. Ha’el to any position that would take him far away from the capital or from him personally, instead appointing him as head of the apparatus responsible for his own personal security.