Friendly Fire

by Alaa Al Aswany

  I will never forget the critical moment when I found myself sitting in front of the employee who constituted the reading committee. He had my book before him on the desk and was flipping through it. Suddenly he said to me, with frowning face and hostile tone, “I can’t possibly publish this book.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know the answer.”

  “Please tell me yourself.”

  “Because you insult Egypt.”

  “I don’t insult Egypt.”

  “You make fun of the leader Mustafa Kamil.”

  “I don’t make fun of him. I love and respect Mustafa Kamil. The one who makes fun of Mustafa Kamil is Isam Abd el-Ati, the hero of the novella.”

  “Do you want me to believe that you don’t agree with what he says even though you’re the one who wrote it?”

  I started going through for the honorable member of the reading committee the difference between an article and a story, and how the article reflects the author’s opinion, while the story is a work of the imagination consisting of multiple characters whose opinions do not necessarily represent the author’s point of view.

  The employee said nothing. Fired with enthusiasm for my case, I said, “If we follow your logic, the author would be a thief if he writes about thieves and a traitor to his country if he describes the character of a spy in his novel. That kind of logic demolishes the very foundation of literature.”

  The official manifested a certain embarrassment. Then a crafty smile drew itself on his face and he said, “So you don’t agree with the hero’s opinion about Egypt?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Would you be willing to write a disclaimer?”

  “A disclaimer?”

  “That’s right. I’ll agree to publication if you write a disclaimer in your own handwriting condemning what the hero of the book says about Egypt and the Egyptians.”

  “Very well.”

  I got a piece of paper and a pen from the employee and wrote as follows, under the heading “Disclaimer”: “I, the author of this novella, declare that I do not agree at all with the opinions expressed by the hero, Isam Abd el-Ati. They represent the opposite of what I think about Egypt and the Egyptians.” Then I added as my own contribution, “I would like to affirm that the hero of this book is a crazy and mentally unbalanced person and he gets what he deserves at the end. I have written this disclaimer at the request of the reading committee at the General Egyptian Book Organization.”

  The employee read the disclaimer carefully, sighed with satisfaction, then wrote down the permission to publish on the book and promised me that it would be published soon.

  3

  Why did I agree to write that ludicrous disclaimer? Because I wanted to publish my first book and because I calculated that it would cause a scandal that would reveal the corruption and ignorance at the General Egyptian Book Organization. That was why I added that I was writing the disclaimer at their request. Some weeks passed after this incident and I went once more to the Organization to ask them what was happening with the book. I found a different employee. When I told him what had happened, he took out the book’s file (which had not moved from the drawer in the intervening period). As soon as he opened it and read the disclaimer, his face took on an expression of panic. He questioned me and when I told him the story, he said, “No. That’s nonsense.”

  Then he tore up the disclaimer in front of me and told me quietly, “Listen. We will publish this novella once you have taken out the first chapters. What’s your reaction?”

  My reaction, of course, was to snatch up the manuscript from where it lay on the desk in front of him and leave the building. I have never been back. I was extremely depressed but after a while I pulled myself together and decided to publish the book at my own expense. As I’d completed a collection of short stories during the same period, I put the stories and the novella together in one book, printed just three hundred copies, and distributed these to critics and friends. The book met with an astonishingly warm welcome and was praised by many critics. This put me in a strange situation for a period—that of being a writer without readers. The critics praised my book in the newspapers, but anyone who read those articles and then went looking for the book would not be able to find it. Bad luck, in fact, continued to dog the work. After the great success of The Yacoubian Building, publishers started pressuring me to give them anything I’d written. I took The Isam Abd el-Ati Papers to a major publisher, who read it and said, “I like it very much, but frankly I can’t take on the consequences of publishing it. The opinions expressed in it could get me put in jail.” Indeed, a well-known critic, who hates me for personal reasons, wrote, without the slightest embarrassment or sense of guilt, a long article in which he deliberately confused me with the hero of the story, using this confusion as a base from which to accuse me of despising my country and of being infatuated with the West.

  This is the history of the book that you are holding in your hands, which I wanted you to know before you start reading it. I am confident that the majority of readers will understand that literary characters always possess an existence independent of the writer. As for those who would hold me to account for the opinions of the hero and consider me responsible for them, I repeat to them, with respect, what Dello Strologo, the owner of the Italian cinema said one day to his audience: “This screen is just a piece of cloth, on which images are reflected. In a short while, you are going to see a speeding train…. Remember, gentlemen, that this is only an image of a train, and can therefore do you no harm.”

  The Isam Abd el-Ati Papers

  1

  If I weren’t Egyptian, I would want to be Egyptian.

  —Mustafa Kamil*

  I HAVE CHOSEN THIS SAYING as the first words of these papers of mine because they are, in my opinion, the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. They represent (assuming that the one who said them really meant them) the sort of stupid tribal loyalty that makes my blood boil every time I think of it. What if the good Mustafa Kamil had been born Chinese, for example, or Indian? Would he not have repeated the same phrase out of pride in his Chinese or Indian nationality? And can such pride have any value if it’s the outcome of coincidence? And if Mustafa Kamil could choose—of his own conscious volition, as he would have us believe—to be Egyptian, there would have to be important reasons to make him so choose. He would have to find in the Egyptian people some virtues not to be found in any other. What, then, might such virtues be? Are the Egyptians distinguished by, for example, their seriousness and love of work, like the Germans or the Japanese? Do they love risk-taking and change, like the Americans? Do they honor history and the arts, like the French and the Italians? They have no such distinguishing characteristics. What then does distinguish the Egyptians? What are their virtues? I challenge anyone to cite me a single Egyptian virtue. Cowardice and hypocrisy, underhandedness and cunning, laziness and spite—these are our characteristics as Egyptians. And because we know the truth about ourselves, we cover it over with a lot of shouting and lies—empty, ringing slogans that we repeat day in day out about our ‘great’ Egyptian people. And the sad thing is that we’ve repeated these lies so often we’ve ended up believing them. Indeed—and this is truly amazing—we’ve arranged these lies about ourselves as songs and anthems. Have you heard of any other people in the world doing such a thing? Do the English, for example, sing, Ah England, O Land of Ours! Your earth is of marble made, your dust with musk and amber laid? Such banalities are an integral part of our makeup. Imagine, in the reader set for Second Year Elementary, I read the following words: “God loves Egypt very much and talked about her in His Noble Book. This is why He has blessed her with our lovely clement climate, summer and winter, and why He protects her from the wiles of her enemies.”

  See the tissue of lies that they stuff into children’s heads? That “lovely clement climate” of ours is in fact hel
l. Seven months from March to October the searing heat roasts our skins until the beasts expire and the asphalt on the streets melts under the blazing sole of the sun—and still we thank God for our beautiful climate! And again, if God protects Egypt from the wiles of her enemies, as they claim, how come we’ve been occupied by every people on Earth? The history of Egypt is in reality nothing but a continuous series of defeats inflicted upon us by all the nations of the world, starting with the Romans and going all the way to the Jews.

  All these stupidities get on my nerves, and what annoys me even more is that we—we pitiful Egyptians—like to bathe in the reflected glory of the pharaohs. Under the pharaohs, the Egyptians formed a truly great nation, but what have we to do with them? We are the corrupt, indeterminate outcome of the miscegenation of the conquerors’ troops with their captives from the defeated population. The Egyptian peasant whose land was violated and manhood dishonored at the hands of the conquerors for centuries on end lost everything that linked him to his great ancestors, and from his long acquaintance with humiliation he came to feel at ease with it, surrendered to it, and over time acquired the mentality of a servant. Try to recall the few truly courageous Egyptians you have met in your life. The Egyptian, no matter how high he has risen or how well educated he has become, will cringe before you if you are the stronger, smiling to your face and buttering you up while he hates you and tries to bring about your downfall by some foolproof covert means that will cost him neither confrontation nor danger. A mere servant, that’s your Egyptian. I hate the Egyptians and I hate Egypt. I hate it with all my heart and hope it gets even worse and more wretched. Even though I take care to hide this hatred (to avoid stupid problems), sometimes I can’t keep it in. Once, at the house of one of my colleagues, I was watching a soccer match between Egypt and an African country called Zaire, and when the African player scored the winning goal, I yelled out loud with joy while the others expressed their disapproval at my happiness at our defeat. I paid them no attention, though, and continued watching, with schadenfreude, the faces of the defeated Egyptians. Their expressions were flat and broken and their features exuded sorrow and impotence. This is the way the Egyptians have really looked for thousands of years.

  2

  My mind was freed of delusions at one go, a fact of which I am proud, for I have known many men, some of them intelligent and well educated, who wasted their lives on phantasms—beliefs and theories the dupes spent years chasing like a mirage. Nationalism, religion, Marxism—all those dazzling words revealed their spuriousness to me at an early age. Getting rid of religion was easy. Marxism lasted longer. I acknowledge that Marxism has a rational side that deserves respect, and at the same time it leaves a mark on the soul that outlasts the idea itself. I remained a committed Marxist for two years, but I always felt I’d change. I couldn’t understand why I should make sacrifices for vulgar creatures like workers and peasants. I used to observe the common people exchanging their banal jokes. I’d watch them on their feast days when they surged onto the streets like over-excited beasts, treading everything beautiful under their blind heavy feet, and Marx’s grand words about them would shrivel before my contempt and hatred. Was I going to struggle and die for the likes of those? They were animals who deserved nothing but derision and to be ruled by terror; that was the only language they understood. Try just once for yourself being weak in front of one of them and see what he does to you.

  With the passing of Marxism, I achieved full control over my mind and its liberation, and then I felt lonely. Delusions, much as they deceive you, also keep you company. The cold severe truth on the other hand casts you into a cruel wilderness. My success in taming my mind was directly paralleled by my failure to gain mastery over my feelings. The most complex mental problems pose no challenge to my thinking but any spontaneous simple interaction with people throws me into confusion and renders me powerless. There is a confirmed inverse relationship between awareness and action by which the people most apt to act are the most lethargic mentally and the dumbest, and vice versa. As awareness grows, so the ability to act is disturbed. My head—which never stops thinking and reviewing every single possibility and probability—this same head impedes my correct conduct in situations that most people consider quite ordinary and which they negotiate with complete ease. Before I go to visit a friend at his house for the first time, I am kept awake by the thought that the doorkeeper, whom I don’t know, will stop me and ask me which apartment I’m going to. Worrying over the doorkeeper’s question becomes such an obsession for me that I often insist to my friends that we meet in a public place rather than in their homes (without, of course, disclosing the reason to them), and when I’m forced in the end to face the moment when I have to cross the lobby of an apartment block in which my friend lives, I’m as ill at ease as a child, and I whistle, or look at the watch on my wrist, or fiddle with my shirt sleeve, to show that I am not concerned. On such occasions, the doorkeeper’s call quickly reaches me, for I will have passed him by, ignoring his enquiry and hurrying on without paying him any attention; but he will rush after me, catch up with me, and finally stop and question me; and, despite that fact that I am expecting the question, I feel each time an immense sense of affront at everything that has happened. When I respond, I sometimes do so roughly and harshly and at other times I am totally demolished before him, stammering and producing my words falteringly and agitatedly; and then the doorkeeper draws himself to his full height, his voice rises, and he stares in my face with wide-open, powerful eyes, for he has sensed my weakness. What I am never capable of in such circumstances is to give the impression of being a self-confident gentleman sure of his capabilities, of answering the doorkeeper in a calm voice and with a smile, and saying, “I’m going to see So-and-so Bey.” If I were to answer such a person just once in this fashion, he would back off immediately and be reduced right away to his natural size. This is the poise that I lack and I am incapable of determining if my unbalanced feelings are attributable to my overly developed awareness or to the circumstances of my upbringing. My memories of boyhood and adolescence are imprinted on my mind in a somewhat ‘historical’ way. When I review the events of my life, I feel as though I were a tragic hero accepting the blows of fate with a noble, courageous heart. Heroes, unlike common people, do not meet with ephemeral, ordinary events: everything that happens to them is, of necessity, significant and fateful. Similarly, events are not imprinted on my memory as separate, scattered flashes but as a continuous line of points that are joined in a way that can neither be predicted nor prepared for. I imagine it as being in the form of a cardboard box divided up by partitions into small, intersecting passageways.

  Fig. 1

  Fig. 2

  This is what the box looks like from above (fig. 1). A small wooden doll whose movements are controlled by numerous strings (fig. 2) passes through the labyrinthine passageways of the box; the strings are so thin they can barely be seen, but they are too strong to be cut and they are gathered in a single large hand, outside the box. This hand controls the doll’s movements and the owner of the hand sees the box in its entirety, with all its passageways and turns. The doll, on the other hand, can see only the passage that it is going down and the moment it reaches the end of that passage the strings draw it toward a new one. I am that doll, the cardboard box is my life, and the big hand is the hand of fate.

  Fate holds our destinies just as the large hand holds the doll—with implacable, inescapable control. It plays with our capabilities and our wishes and it plays with us, and its sole motive for doing so is its excessive love of play—not goodness or justice or truth or any of that stuff—and if it ever were to grasp the sorrows that it causes us, were ever to feel the pain that it inflicts on us, it would hide its face in shame at its doings.

  3

  Ever since he was a child, he’d loved to draw—people’s faces, trees, the cars in the streets. Everything his eyes saw was imprinted in detail on his young mind. Then the lines he made would ru
n over the paper to re-shape things into the way he wanted to see them. When he reached fifteen, his love of drawing became a problem because he neglected his schoolwork altogether. Every morning, he’d escape from the school and use his pocket money to buy coloring pencils and a sketchbook. Then he’d go to the municipal garden in Zaqaziq, isolate himself on an empty seat, and draw.* His father dealt with him harshly, often beat him, and often hid his pencils from him and tore up his drawings, but none of it was any use: his love of drawing was stronger. When he was twenty, his father died suddenly and that day his fate was decided. The last barrier was broken and he had soon left Zaqaziq, where he had been born, to live in a small room on the roof of an old house in the Bein el-Sarayat neighborhood of Cairo. Before two years had passed, he was drawing the main cartoon for three weekly magazines, and at age twenty-four he put on his first exhibition of oil paintings.

  These beginnings were worthy, no doubt, of Ragheb, Bikar, or any other great painter, but I’m not talking about any of them.* These were the beginnings of Abd el-Ati, and who has heard of him? Abd el-Ati was my father, and, despite the exciting, promise-packed start, he ended up far from what was expected. Abd el-Ati did not shine and his great hopes as a painter were never realized. He changed nothing in the development of painting, as he had dreamed of doing, and thirty years after his move to Cairo, my father was still an obscure artist earning his living doing drawings for a magazine called Life that nobody read and getting by on other small jobs, such as supervising the wall newspapers produced at certain schools and giving private art lessons to the children of the rich. This was where Abd el-Ati was at fifty, and I ask myself, why did my father fail? Was he lacking in talent? For sure he had more than many painters who succeeded and became famous. Was it laziness and love of pleasure that did for him? On the contrary, my father spent money on alcohol and drugs only during his last years. Before then, he used to produce prolifically and persistently and when I was little I’d often wake in the morning to find he hadn’t slept but spent the entire night on a new painting. I loved him then. His eyes would be exhausted, his face drawn, and his laugh low and satisfied. He’d dry his hands quickly on his paint-spattered smock and bend down to kiss me and his good, coarse smell would take possession of me. Then he’d take me by the hand, pull me back a little, point to the painting on its easel, and ask me, pretending to be very grave, “What think you, my dear sir, of the work? Do you like it?”