Friendly Fire

by Alaa Al Aswany

  That year would be renewed once, and again, after which Dr. Mansour would frequently advise the student to start over with another supervisor because, quite simply, he was not happy with the study and could not agree to put his name to it. The upshot was that, in twenty years, only four students had persevered to the end and obtained a degree under Dr. Mansour’s supervision and the young doctor to whose fate it fell to have Dr. Mansour as an advisor would receive the heartfelt condolences of his colleagues, as though someone dear to him had died. A few days after his appointment, Hisham was invited by Dr. Mansour to attend an operation he was to perform. Hisham was very grateful for this attention, and he scrubbed up and entered with the doctor. The operation was to remove the gall bladder of some wretched peasant from el-Minoufiya and after this had been done, Dr. Mansour asked Hisham to sew up the wound. Hisham focused, controlled the shaking of his hands, and sewed it up as best he knew how. True, his hand was slow, but he made no mistakes, he was certain of that. Afterward, Dr. Mansour asked Hisham to come and see him in his office, invited him to sit, and told him, lighting a cigarette and observing him with the calm of an experienced hunter, “Listen, Hisham. Would you be upset if I told you you’ll never do as a surgeon?” Hisham felt fear and asked him what he meant, to which Dr. Mansour replied that being a surgeon was a matter of feeling before it was one of learning and that his long experience allowed him to judge whether the surgical sense was present in a person or not; he had made up his mind to observe him today during the operation and could assert—and for this he was very sorry—that he would never make a surgeon, for which reason he would advise him to go to some other department—internal medicine, for example, or dermatology—where everything depended on training. Hisham burst, as he was expected to, into violent, and then despairing, attempts to convince Dr. Mansour that he was still at the beginning of the road and that he would learn and improve. Dr. Mansour, however, heard Hisham out with head bowed, refused his arguments with one short sentence, then drove him with another to a further attempt to convince him, and so on, until Dr. Mansour had had his fill of Hisham’s chagrin and despair and stood up, bringing the meeting to a close by saying, in a soft well-mannered voice, “I hope to hear of your resignation in the near future. I’m sorry, but I’m acting for your own good.”

  “A few minutes aren’t enough to judge me, and nobody has the authority to force me to resign,” Hisham told himself. This convinced him and he calmed down and decided to put what Dr. Mansour had said out of his mind and treat it as though it had never happened. Despite this, for weeks he would get confused whenever he was entrusted with a task during an operation; Dr. Mansour’s words would spring insistently into his mind, his hands would shake, and he would have to expend extraordinary effort not to botch things. In any case, Hisham stopped helping Dr. Mansour in his operations after that. Indeed, he started taking steps so that he wouldn’t even see him and if he caught sight of him coming down the hall, would go into a side room and busy himself with something until he had passed. Once it seemed to him that Dr. Mansour saw him, and was smiling. Hisham took to helping the other professors thereafter and was amazed to find that each of them, in his own way, treated him badly. At first, he thought that they must hate him for some reason but he soon discovered that he was not being targeted personally but that relations among everybody were bad: the head sister was always telling the other sisters off and the professors accused everybody—nursing sisters and doctors—of ignorance and poor performance. In a word, everyone had taken it upon himself to expose the ignorance of those who were junior to him, and the quarrels proceeded as in some monotonous soap opera. In the morning, a professor would be rude to a lecturer and tell him off in front of everybody and half an hour later the lecturer would find a fatal mistake made by an assistant lecturer, who would lose no time in his turn in taking it out on a resident or a sister. As Hisham was the most junior, the flood of affronts would always end up pouring down on his head. Fearing a confrontation that Dr. Bassiouni might hear about, Hisham would accept the slights in silence, or, if his tormentor went too far, would direct at him a sad and reproachful smile. He thought at first that this approach would get him out of all the things that he had to put up with, but the actual result was that the insults multiplied and everyone in the department started shouting at Hisham and finding fault with him for the most insignificant reasons. Hisham even caught the sisters, who were beneath him in the hierarchy, winking more than once to one another over him and laughing. This pained him, and each night before he slept, Hisham would put the pillow over his head and remember, with bitter feelings, the events of the day. He would counsel himself to be patient, saying, “It will all change. I will become more skillful. I will make first place in the master’s exam and then they will think hard before doing that. In fact, nobody will dare to speak to me without using my title.”

  The fact is that this poisonous, hatred-charged atmosphere did not prevent Hisham from learning. He read up well on each case and focused his mind during the operations, staring at everything he saw so as to fix it in his memory; thus he inevitably made progress. His diagnostic mistakes gradually grew fewer and he became certain that, were he allowed, he could perform numerous operations with success. As the master’s exam approached, Hisham realized that this was his big chance. He closeted himself with his books, reading, understanding, and memorizing. Often morning would find him still studying, on which occasions he would take a cold shower to wake himself up and then go to the department without having slept. Hisham passed the written exam with virtually no mistakes, did perfectly on the practical, and, as was his custom, won the admiration of the examiners on the oral. When Hisham finished, he was certain of the result.

  An unintentional mistake resulted in the omission of his name from the list of those who had passed, or so Hisham decided. He did not therefore worry too much and went to the Office of Student Affairs, where he explained things to the director. The man was extremely polite and Hisham got to see his grades in the exam. Hisham didn’t argue or say anything, but set off immediately for Dr. Bassiouni’s office. He knocked quickly and hard on the door, opened it, and went in. Dr. Bassiouni was reading. Hisham interrupted him, saying in a hoarse, panting voice (which surprised Hisham himself), “I failed the exam.”

  “Congratulations,” said Dr. Bassiouni without lifting his eyes from what he was reading.

  “I want to know why I failed,” Hisham insisted obstinately.

  “You failed because you didn’t deserve to succeed,” Dr. Bassiouni told Hisham, starting to fiddle with his long sideburns. His tone gave warning of a coming eruption.

  “I had no mistakes on my written or my practical. And the oral….”

  At this, Dr. Bassiouni exploded. “Listen, pig. Do you think I’m taking time out from my many tasks so that I can repeat to you what I tell you every day? I’ve told you a thousand times: there is a difference between the surgery exam and the primary school certificate. We don’t let everyone who turns up become a surgeon, no matter how much he knows. What matters to us is your character and above all your morals. I’ve told you from the beginning, you will never succeed and continue with us unless you please me. Got it?”

  Hisham took refuge in silence.

  “Now, be about your business, pig.”

  And Hisham left. He resumed his work as usual and when he was alone that night he wasn’t exactly sad; it was a feeling of panic that possessed him. Panic is the right word because, for the first time, he realized that his intelligence, that firm base on which he had always confidently depended, was no longer valid. That the doctor had clearly announced that he did not please him (wasn’t that what he’d said?) when he did not know what to do in order to make him pleased further increased his agitation. Days passed, and weeks, and months, and Hisham went on working in the department with his old application but with only half his mind, the other half being preoccupied with the urgent and critical question, what could he do to please Dr. Bassiouni
? When Hisham could come up with no answer, he decided to ask the people he knew, starting with his mother, so he put the question to her. His mother, however—to his amazement—attributed all his problems to his colleagues’ envy of his superiority and took to pestering him every evening to pass seven times over a brazier for which she brought incense from the tomb of Lady Sugar Lump (a well-known saint with a shrine on el-Azhar Street). Hisham’s annoyance at all this was extreme, but he did it to please his mother and shut her up, submitting and passing seven times over the brazier. Time went by, and there were only months to go before the second master’s exam (and Hisham’s last chance). He was desperate to know how to please Dr. Bassiouni and started getting to know every professor in the department, working out the times when he was in his best mood, and then getting him on his own and telling him fawningly, “I would like to benefit from your experience, Professor. What should I do to make Dr. Bassiouni pleased?” To which, as one, they would smilingly reply, “Our professor, Dr. Bassiouni, loves anyone who gives himself wholly and sincerely to his work.” Hisham knew that they were lying and started asking his colleagues in the other departments. He would enter the radiology department or walk to the pathology department, look around for an old fellow student, and put the question to him. Gradually, Hisham started presenting his problem to doctors he didn’t know: he would go up to them smiling, introduce himself, and then go over the matter, posing the question, “What should I do to please Dr. Bassiouni?”

  No one knows exactly how Hisham happened across the answer because what happened then happened so suddenly. On Sunday, Hisham went in as usual to go over the list of operations with Dr. Bassiouni, a process that normally took only a few minutes. This time, however, Hisham stayed…and stayed…until, after an hour had passed since he’d gone in, the doctors in the department started whispering to one another in anxiety and surprise. Eventually, Hisham came out, his face wearing a strange expression that was a mixture of pain, exhaustion, and relief. No one knows what passed between Hisham and Dr. Bassiouni on that day, but equally no one ever forgot that meeting of theirs because it was the beginning of the transformation. After this, Hisham would go in to Dr. Bassiouni every day and spend a long time with him. Indeed, Dr. Bassiouni would send someone to look for him if he did not come, and within a few weeks it was widely reported in the department that the doctor had taken Hisham to help him in his private clinic (which was something Dr. Bassiouni hadn’t done with a resident for years). Thenceforth Hisham became the sole person charged with taking care of Dr. Bassiouni’s appointments and availability and if you wanted to know in what hospital Dr. Bassiouni would be performing an operation tomorrow or whether he was in the mood to allow you to present your request to him, you would have to ask Hisham, and only Hisham. Nor did Hisham any longer have to put up with anyone’s abuse, for the simple reason that no one abused him any longer. On the contrary, everyone, great and small, started treating him nicely; even Dr. Mansour took to making a point of finding him every morning to say hello and he asked him more than once to assist him with his operations, though Hisham would decline, excusing himself on the grounds that his time was completely taken up with “the Pasha” (that is, Bassiouni), on hearing which Dr. Mansour would nod his head as though he completely understood just how busy Hisham must be. It wasn’t long before Hisham gained a reputation as a strict resident who would countenance no slacking where work was concerned and dock days from any sister who made a mistake, after first giving her a dressing down. If the mistake was made by a senior doctor in the department, Hisham would look at him, smile (politely and broadly), and ask him, “Do you think the Pasha would be happy to hear that you are doing that?” (a question that would agitate even the most confident and severe among them). And when Hisham took the master’s exam for the second time, he didn’t bother to closet himself with his books like the time before, but passed and took first place, and Dr. Bassiouni, before the results were made public, congratulated him with the words, “Well done, pig. You’ve come out at the top.” Hisham smiled and bowed, his smile and his movements seeming this time to be of a new and different kind, and said, “I owe it all to you, Pasha.”

  His colleagues and professors made a big fuss over congratulating Hisham but when the time came for him to be appointed, the university administration announced that there were no empty posts. Such a problem could have been enough to destroy Hisham’s future but, as soon as he heard the news, early in the morning, he picked up the phone and called Dr. Bassiouni at home (which is something no one had ever dared to do before) and Dr. Bassiouni quite understood the situation and immediately contacted the relevant people, and before midday, Hisham had received the news of his appointment as an assistant lecturer in the department of general surgery.

  All this happened two or more years ago. Now Hisham is busy preparing his doctoral thesis (under Dr. Bassiouni’s supervision) and we—his former fellow students—are forever delighting in his achievement. Frequently we visit him at the surgery department, where we have a lovely time with him, chatting and recalling old memories, though sometimes, despite the cheerful welcome he gives us, and despite our affection for and pride in him, we feel that something about our old friend has changed. It is, however, a thought that we quickly expel from our minds.

  And We Have Covered Their Eyes

  WHO DOESN’T KNOW MR. GOUDA? Doubtless, most of us do. If someone hasn’t found themself a colleague of Mr. Gouda’s at work or during their studies, they will surely have come across him on a crowded bus or, and this is even more likely, will have seen him with a bag of groceries under his arm breaking up some fight that has broken out in the line at the government food co-op, or perhaps listened to the lecture on soccer that Mr. Gouda is accustomed to deliver every Friday evening at the café.

  At the very least, all of us will have observed Mr. Gouda on his daily morning journey with his three children, each of whom he delivers to their respective school before hurrying to the Ministry of Planning, where he is employed in the Monitoring Department.

  In any case, I’m writing only for those who know Mr. Gouda. Those who haven’t met him will never understand what he represents.

  Never did he feel embarrassed about his shoes. They were made of cloth, but he always claimed that this kind of shoe was easy on his feet. In fact, Mr. Gouda would sometimes express to anyone who might care to listen his amazement at how other people could stand wearing leather shoes in such terrible heat.

  Likewise, thanks to the efforts of his wife, Busayna, his pants always looked fairly smart.

  The problem was the shirts. Mr. Gouda owned three, which he wore in rotation through the week, and the white one was threadbare. If it had been torn, Mr. Gouda could have dispensed with it altogether, but it was merely threadbare, meaning that it had that certain scratchiness that afflicts a shirt once it has become worn out and the little threads that emerge and dangle free of the weave. Despite this, on some gray and gloomy days, Mr. Gouda was compelled to wear the white shirt, and last Thursday was one of those days.

  That morning, Mr. Gouda’s behavior changed completely.

  It may seem an exaggerated reaction, but I have to tell those who have not experienced the effect of a threadbare shirt on a man’s behavior that when Mr. Gouda spoke to his colleagues that morning, it was in almost inaudible tones and when he ordered his morning coffee, he was more than usually polite, saying, “A medium-sweet coffee, if you’d be so kind, Borai,” instead of uttering his normal shout of, “Medium-sweet, Borai!”

  I also have to tell you that Mr. Gouda spent most of the day behind his desk pretending to occupy himself with files of no importance. He responded tersely to the chatter of his colleagues and found himself more than normally predisposed to agree with the opinions of those who spoke to him; even soccer, Mr. Gouda’s favorite topic of conversation, failed to engage his interest that morning. Mr. Gouda felt mortified and was so embarrassed he couldn’t decide where to put his hands, sometimes placing them
on the desk, sometimes letting them hang at his sides, and finally folding them over his chest, in which position he tried his best to keep them for the rest of the day. No one knows why Mr. Gouda yielded to an irresistible desire to examine his colleagues’ clothes so closely but whenever he noticed that one of them was looking shabby, Mr. Gouda would feel a secret, guilty relief.

  It was indeed a wearisome day, and it would have been—I repeat, would have been—possible for the day to have passed without anything further happening to increase Mr. Gouda’s anxiety and distress, but it seems that it is by evil laws that the world is governed, for at about one o’clock a handsome, smartly dressed young man of not more than thirty entered the Monitoring Department and directed his steps straight toward the desk of Mr. Gouda. He was carrying papers that he wanted to have stamped—and stamping papers was about all that Mr. Gouda’s job consisted of—and Mr. Gouda got the stamp out of the drawer, as he always did, and prepared himself to stamp. Mr. Gouda has often, subsequently, thought about what the young man did, and has come up with the following interpretation: the youth belonged to a certain category of men who carry about with them something vaguely feminine, something unshakeable that one does not notice at first but which reveals itself as soon as one asks one of them, for example, about the price of cloth, or he boasts of his skill as a cook or at buying fruit, or takes longer than necessary to polish his glasses. Anyway, Mr. Gouda quickly finished stamping the papers but the young man was polite and friendly—as most men of that sort are—and a delightful conversation sprang up between the young man and Mr. Gouda that lasted some minutes. When the young man got up to go, Mr. Gouda pressed him strongly to stay and the young man sat down again, his face wearing a warm and open expression, and gave Mr. Gouda a cigarette of an imported brand, which Mr. Gouda kissed in grateful acceptance, and the pleasure of smoking the cigarette added still further to the agreeable atmosphere. A warm sensation stole into Mr. Gouda’s heart and he forgot all about his shirt and removed his hands from his chest and found a place to put them on either side of his chair. Eventually, being eager to show his friendliness, Mr. Gouda stood up and made a show of looking for the office boy so that he could order some refreshment for “the gentleman.” All of a sudden one of the young man’s feminine avatars possessed him and, crying out, “Just a moment, my dear Mr. Gouda!” he stood up and gazed intently at Mr. Gouda’s shirt, and then, without saying a word, stretched out his hand and with slender, well-schooled fingers plucked a thread off the white shirt. Then he looked at Mr. Gouda and gave him an innocent smile.