The Silence and the Roar

by Nihad Sirees

  I got up and started to shake the dust from my trousers despite the fact that I couldn’t see a thing in the pitch-black darkness. I had expected my legs to be in worse shape. Before I re-tucked my shirt into my trousers I had to undo the belt and the buttons; after re-cinching it I tried to make out the walls of the cell but in vain because of the utter blackness. After the goons marched back upstairs, outside the cell the silence was complete and I could no longer hear any voices or thumps or footsteps. I shuddered from a chill, a chill of terror, but the silence was appealing, the darkness quite pleasant and the coldness of the cell was comfortable enough after an entire day in which I had suffered through so much roaring and heat.

  This was the first time I had ever been detained. I had not even been reprimanded once during my military service. I measured the length and width of the cell by my steps to calculate that it was three by six steps. Then I sat down against the wall, taking pleasure in the quiet and adjusting the bandage around my wrist. About twenty minutes must have gone by as I tried to figure out whether I was truly happy there or had only deceived myself into believing I was. Arriving at the conclusion that I was really quite comfortable, I laughed out loud because the tranquillity had calmed me down. I didn’t regret anything except for the meeting that I would have to miss with Comrade Rashad at Abu Nuwas restaurant. I knew that Lama would find out tomorrow what had happened to me and that my longing for her would only increase, that I would love her even more. After I got out of there we would make up for all the tenderness we had missed. My detention would also make a convincing excuse for my absence from my mother’s wedding.

  As soon as those estimated twenty minutes had passed, I heard similar sounds to the ones the goons had made as they carried me down to the basement, their curses and their spitting. Then the lock on my cell turned, making a sharp and grating noise as the door flew open once again, and the light from the electric lamp flooded the room. The same three goons returned, hurrying over to grab me and stand me up before taking me back out again as they shouted and swore, bringing me right back upstairs to the bureaucrat’s office. When they got me inside they had to carry me because I had stopped exerting any effort. As I said, I was able to laugh at everything that was happening. They sat me down in the chair as the bureaucrat stood by the window smoking a cigarette. Then the two goons left but the assistant stayed behind. I was laughing soundlessly; nothing happened but my trembling from the suppressed laughter increased. When I looked over at the goon standing by the door and saw him threatening me with his eyes and gnashing his teeth, I burst out laughing, very loud this time. The bureaucrat whirled around, surprised to find me shaking with laughter. He started shouting and threatening me and ramming his fist down hard on the desk. He did not sit back down. He remained standing, red in the face, and yelled, “You’re laughing?! Shut up or we’ll teach you a lesson! Shut up! If I send you back downstairs you won’t ever come out! You think you can fool me into thinking you’re not afraid?! You’ll feel my wrath. You don’t matter to me, not at all. I don’t care how well known you are. I’m Inspector Nouri!”

  I stopped laughing and wiped away the tears of laughter with my shirtsleeve. As he sat down, crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray and lit another one, I continued to convulse from my stifled laughter. Puffing smoke out of his mouth in a vile manner, he said, “Now you listen and listen good. You think that if we lock you up the world is going to rise up on your behalf? That the BBC is going to broadcast it? Listen up, we don’t care if the Americans are scratching your back, understand?”

  This little man had now made several mistakes and given himself away. He and his methods were now crystal clear to me. He was trying to intimidate me and he had shown his muscle with the goons. If he really wanted me locked up he would have kept me in the cell until tomorrow at the very least, but what Nooh had told me back at the Party building about how they wanted me to join them helped me to understand that everything they were doing to me was something like an appetizer before serving me the good stuff. Their biggest mistake was using such a puny man who tried to seem bigger than he was. All this and more, especially the comfort I had felt down in the cell, allowed me, once I had finished wiping away my tears, to stand up, rest against the table and lean over it, shaping with my lips that very same word I had directed at Lama’s husband and for which they had dragged me down to the security office in the first place. I had done all of that before the goon even noticed or could hurry over to grab me and force me back down into my seat.

  The bureaucrat was shocked. He hadn’t expected me to direct such an insulting word at him. He wasn’t prepared because he never would have expected me to disrespect him that much. Finding himself in a real predicament, he stood up and said that he was going to teach me a lesson and then left. I adjusted my sitting position, took out my pipe and lit it. I glanced over at the goon and saw that he was still staring at me, as always, but when I asked him to stop looking at me he did.

  There were now two possibilities before me: either they would send me back down to the cell, where silence would overwhelm and envelop me, which I hoped for and would have actually made me very happy; or they were going to let me go, I would regain my freedom and be free to seek out tranquillity wherever I wished, which would most definitely be at Lama’s. The silence I had found in the cell had liberated me from whatever Inspector Nouri might end up doing with me.

  A goon I hadn’t seen before calmly opened the door and peered inside. He gestured at Inspector Nouri’s assistant and the two of them left without shutting the door behind them completely. I heard them whispering to each other but I could not make out a single word. Then they came back in and the second man approached me while the assistant stayed near the door. The expression on the second Comrade’s face had changed; he politely invited me to come with him to see the commanding officer. I got up, intending to follow him, but he asked me to go first, a local custom showing esteem and respect, so I walked outside and then stopped in order to allow him to pass in front of me and show me the way. We walked up to the top floor where everything seemed normal. So now they were going to start offering me carrots. The commanding officer would tell me he had not realized I was there but that as soon as he did he had intervened immediately. All because I was a respected writer and I must have known that they were respectable people as well.

  The goon stopped in front of a door that said “Commanding Officer,” guarded by a large man who opened the door for us at once and shot me an inscrutable look. Then he shuffled me in first and followed me. We were in a room attached to the commanding officer’s office, which was furnished like the living room of a middle-class home. He had me wait there for a moment in order to inform whoever was inside that I had arrived, and then he turned around and ostentatiously gestured for me to enter. I walked through the open door separating the room from the office, and as soon as I got inside I froze in surprise. Sitting behind the desk was Mr. Ha’el! The man who wanted to become my mother’s husband. Two other men who appeared to be high-ranking security officers were sitting there with him. Mr. Ha’el got up and came around from behind the fancy desk, approaching me with a smile and opening his arms toward me. The two men also got up as a sign of respect. To him, of course.

  Everything in the office was extravagant. In addition to the table there was extra furniture—a bookshelf, electronic equipment, curtains, paint, chandeliers all over the place—all of it evincing a refined taste and lofty sophistication. The faces of the three men and their clothes were also sophisticated and elegant; they were hale, clean-shaven, smelling of expensive cologne; they all wore silk ties. In addition Mr. Ha’el had placed a handkerchief in his upper jacket pocket that matched his tie.

  He embraced me and planted three kisses on my cheeks. Then he grabbed my hand and started shaking it as he pronounced words of welcome, introducing me to the other two men.

  “Fathi, please meet Colonel so-and-so and Lieutenant Colonel such-and-such.”

  Ple
asantries of every kind ensued. Then he invited me to sit down in a comfortable chair near the desk and I was just about to do so when the two men excused themselves, saying that they had to go look after a few things (the matter had been arranged in advance, of course). So we returned immediately to handshakes and exchanged smiles once more, all of us wishing to return some other time so that we could see each other again, and then they left. As soon as we sat down Mr. Ha’el began to express how happy he was to finally have the chance to meet me, saying how he had been looking forward to this for a long time, that he had read all of my books and watched my television program and other things like that. His classiness surpassed my expectations. He wore a gold ring on his right pinky, which was continuously visible as he spoke, his collar was crisply starched and his tie was correctly knotted according to the latest fashion. Everything pointed to distinction and vast self-confidence, except his rural mien distorted the image he was trying so hard to cultivate. In the end his mannerisms were not that important.

  He lit a fine cigar with a gold lighter.

  “How’s your mother, Ratiba Hanim?”

  “Very well.”

  “I called her a little while ago and she told me she had spoken to you.”

  “Yeah, she told me something about the two of you.”

  “I hope you approve.”

  “You want my approval?”

  “Naturally, you’re her eldest child and only son and having your approval would make me very happy.”

  He was speaking naturally, as if we were in their family home at that moment and not at the security branch. Honestly, I hated him and found everything that was happening to be completely absurd. I won’t pre-empt matters any more by talking about what my thoughts or feelings were in that moment, I’ll just record here the conversation that took place between us.

  “Mr. Ha’el, couldn’t you have found a better way for us to meet?”

  “I would have preferred for us to meet under better circumstances.”

  “But it seems like you’ve arranged things this way for a reason. Tell me the truth, please, what do you want from me other than my mother?”

  He smiled because I knew his intentions. He started sucking on his cigar and blowing out smoke in order to buy some time and find a convincing answer. He was expecting me to thank him for saving me from the clutches of Inspector Nouri. How do these people think? I wondered. Why had he decided to humiliate me before our meeting? I think he must have orchestrated things after hearing my name mentioned by the military security patrol that had stopped me when I was leaving my mother’s. He must have asked the patrol to order me to go there and then dispatched the Comrades to send my ID over to the security compound. He came out from behind the desk and stood in front of me.

  “What do I want from you other than your mother? I want us to be friends.”

  “You security types are the weirdest people. We could have met at my mother’s house. We could have got to know each other there and you could have offered me your friendship, but you just can’t come out of your security universe. You want to lock people up and force your friendship upon them on your terms. I don’t even know what your terms are. Tell me, please, what are your terms? What kind of a friendship are you talking about?”

  “If you were anybody else uttering those words you would have been locked up for God only knows how long.”

  “Be that as it may, please answer the question.”

  “My terms are that you give up your combativeness, because once you’re my relative I don’t want to get hurt by your actions.”

  “How could you ever allow yourself to even consider marrying the mother of someone so combative?”

  “Because you’re going to stop being combative and then they’ll come around to you.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes. You’re a good person and you come from a good family.”

  He sat down on the chair at the desk, facing me and the entrance, and crossed one leg over the other. He had gained weight since leaving the municipality. In our meeting he was no different from any other man of the regime. I noticed he was wearing socks that didn’t match, again betraying his rural origins. He noticed that I had discovered this so he put his leg back down and the sock disappeared beneath the desk.

  “So now that you’ve helped me see what will happen if I don’t stop being so combative once I become your relative, what now?”

  “You’re a good writer.”

  “Let’s assume I do what you’re asking me to do, and become a good-hearted, exemplary relative. Then what?”

  “We’d reward you. Look, I need you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll make you head of one of the media institutions. Come on. Think about it. Why should you have to be silent when you love being combative, when you could become one of us and get back to writing?”

  “Because I’m an intellectual.”

  “You mean to say the intellectual is combative by nature?”

  “You call things other than what they are. I’m not combative. I just don’t like what’s going on.”

  “You don’t like what’s going on? That’s ridiculous. What’s happening is the law of the land. Join me in the government and you’ll learn to like us, to like what’s going on in every way. You’ll publish your books again and make good money. Enjoy your life, man!”

  “You want to buy me off so I can give your actions a facelift.”

  “The talk of intellectuals.”

  “So you’re forcing me to choose then, between the silence of prison and the noise of the regime.”

  “If I were you, I’d be more worried about the silence of the grave.”

  Saying this he tilted his face up toward the ceiling and resumed puffing on his cigar. He remained like that for a moment as I stared back at him without finding anything to say in response. He had pronounced the word grave in a particular way that sounded more like a threat. I inferred that the implied silence would be one and the same, whether that was in prison or the grave. I was afraid to utter another word and allow him to see me at all weakened or discover any softness inside me. He stared at me as a calculating smile spread across his face. He cast a threatening glare my way, even as his voice belied a hint of someone revealing a secret, and said, “Listen, Mr. Fathi, I’m going to be honest with you, you’d better think long and hard about this. The Leader wants to see you, tonight. At his home to be precise. He doesn’t want you to go against the flow or to remain silent any more. He needs you. And when I met your mother Ratiba Hanim I thought it was a good idea to make you my relative. So now I’m inviting you to work with us. As you know, Dr. Q passed away a month ago, leaving behind an opening. Nobody but you can fill it. Your mother and I are going to be married on Wednesday, and the Leader himself is going to be a witness for the marriage contract. You’re going to meet him at the wedding party and he’s going to invite you to come see him at the palace, where he’ll appoint you to Dr. Q’s position.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  He abandoned his conspiratorial tone but retained the threatening glare. “Don’t do anything rash. You have two options. There isn’t a third. The noise of the regime, as you put it, or silence, and you know now what I mean by that!”

  “But I live in silence now.”

  “We’re standing on the brink of a new age. Don’t forget about your mother.”

  “Why would you bring her into this?”

  With odious wickedness that he hoped would clarify his point, he said, “We love each other, so now she’s part of your two choices.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will. Listen, as I said, either you work with us or it’s absolute silence. I can either get married to your mother or I can fuck her. You must know the difference between getting married to your mother and fucking her.”

  Now I was the one who had to lean back and stare at the ceiling.

  Damn!! So that’s the play then. My
heart pounded violently and I felt suffocated. I needed some fresh air that was unpolluted by his breath. Afraid my eyes would tear up, I shut them tight. I wanted to run away from there, to run away to a calm and quiet place where I could cry. When I opened my eyes I saw that he had got up and was handing me back my ID.

  “You’d better go home,” he said. “Here’s your ID, and here’s my card when you are ready to call me with your answer. I want it by tomorrow night.”

  I took both cards and stood up, immediately turning around to walk out and save myself from having to shake his hand again.