The Republic of False Truths

by Alaa Al Aswany

  Essam grew even angrier and, raising his hand, made an obscene gesture at the workers, who went berserk and started directing ugly insults at him. One of them got so angry that he held up one of his shoes to throw at him, but the soldier in front of him stopped him. When Essam reached the car, he shook the officer’s hand and thanked him warmly, the officer replying in earnest tones, “I’m just doing my duty. This private will ride with Your Excellency until you get to the road.”

  The car set off at speed and disappeared from view. Mazen smiled and said to the officer, “Excuse me. I have to get back to the workers.”

  Calmly, the officer responded, “No. You stay with us. We’d like a few words with you.”

  37

  Over the past few weeks, General Alwany had slept at home on only a few occasions, when he would go at night to make sure his wife and daughter were all right and return early in the morning to the villa in Zamalek. During his meeting with the Supreme Guide, he was surprised to find his office manager approaching and whispering to him, “Dr. Danya is here.”

  His face darkened and he asked in alarm, “Who told her about this place?”

  “Sir, she phoned me half an hour ago and said she wanted to see Your Excellency on a subject that couldn’t wait.”

  “This is a mistake,” General Alwany muttered. He thought quickly, then said, “Have her wait till I’ve finished.”

  The general finished his meeting with the Supreme Guide, saw him to the front door, and returned to find her in the waiting room. He hugged her and kissed her, noting that she was pale and seemed exhausted.

  “What’s wrong, Danya?” he asked.

  She burst into tears and told him what had happened. He remained silent for a few moments, then pulled himself together and said, “Danya, please, think of my situation. The country is going through a difficult period and I bear a heavy responsibility which I could never forgive myself for failing to fulfil.”

  “I want just one word from you.”

  The general interrupted her decisively, saying, “Please go home and rest and at the end of the day we can sit and talk.”

  She seemed unsure but affected a smile. He called his office manager to accompany her to the car, then phoned his two sons, and finally buried himself completely in work. At 7 p.m., while the rest of Egypt was celebrating the victory of the revolution and the fall of Mubarak, a family council was convened in the large living room. The mother sat on the couch wearing the black robe in which she had performed the evening prayer, the Koran open in front of her, holding a string of amber prayer beads and repeatedly whispering “I seek refuge with God” and other prayers. Danya sat next to her and facing the two of them sat her two brothers—Abd El Rahman, the judge, in three-piece suit, tie, and spectacles, and Bilal, the officer in the Republican Guard, with trim body and bulging muscles, wearing a blue jacket and yellow shirt without a tie, his smooth black hair carefully parted and anointed with gel. An atmosphere of gloom and tension hung over the assembly, even though none of them had mentioned recent events. General Alwany was sitting in an armchair next to the window. He took a sip of the coffee brought to him by their Indonesian maid and said, in the same decisive tones he used to run meetings of the Apparatus, “You are aware, of course, of the difficult circumstances through which the country is passing. President Mubarak resigned to preserve Egypt. It is our duty to take our country back from the traitors. I have to be back in the office in half an hour. Your sister has a problem. Tell them, Danya.”

  In a low, exhausted voice, Danya told them what had happened to Khaled Madany, doing all she could to prevent herself from crying. Then she said, “My colleagues obtained the name of the officer who murdered the martyr Khaled and filed a report and I want to testify in court.”

  Silence reigned for a few moments, and those sitting there seemed to be making an effort to absorb the surprise. Then Bilal, the officer, said sharply, “Testify to what?”

  “To the crime of murder.”

  “What made you join the demonstrations in the first place?”

  Quickly, Danya responded, “I was with my fellow students at the field hospital organised by the faculty.”

  General Alwany smiled sadly and said calmly, “That’s incorrect. The faculty administration has nothing to do with the field hospital.”

  Danya said, “You know everything about it, sir. My fellow students set up the hospital to provide first aid to the injured, and it was my duty as a doctor to take part.”

  Bilal, who seemed to be the angriest, shouted, “I can’t believe you’ve joined the traitors.”

  With equal vehemence, Danya responded, “My fellow students who went on the demonstrations aren’t traitors.”

  “No! They’re traitors and they’ve taken money to destroy your country.”

  “You don’t know them. I do, and they love the country and want it reformed.”

  “Did they brainwash you or what?” Bilal exclaimed sarcastically, looking at the others as though calling on them to be witnesses.

  Danya was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “Can we talk about the subject at hand?”

  “What subject?”

  “My testifying against the officer who murdered my colleague Khaled in front of my eyes.”

  Abd El Rahman, the judge, cleared his throat and said quietly, “In which prosecutorial district did you present the report?”

  “Qasr El Nil.”

  “Who presented the report?”

  “The martyr Khaled’s father.”

  “Do you know the name of the officer?”

  “Heisam Ezzat El Meligi, of Central Security.”

  “And who confirmed to you he was the killer?”

  “He killed him in front of our eyes. We all know what he looks like. We couldn’t mistake him for anyone else.”

  There was silence for a moment, then General Alwany said regretfully, “I can’t understand how you could treat your family with such contempt,” which Hagga Tahany followed heatedly with “Danya has always loved her family more than anything in the world” (an intervention calculated to affect her). Danya, however, avoiding her mother’s eyes, responded, “I saw a murder take place before my eyes. Neither my religion nor my conscience permit me to stay silent.”

  Bilal suddenly stood, went up to Danya, and shouted, “You’re aiding the traitors with this behaviour of yours. They stirred up the demonstrations and got rid of President Mubarak. Their only goal is to destroy the country and get into power.”

  “I saw an act of murder take place before my eyes and I must testify against the killer.”

  “The officer you want to testify against is a hero, because he was defending us both.”

  “Anyone who shoots a young man dead for expressing his opinion is a criminal and must be tried.”

  “If I’d been in his place, I’d have done the same.”

  “Then you would have been a criminal like him.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Bilal shouted.

  He stared into Danya’s face, and she looked back at him defiantly. Abd El Rahman rose and pulled his brother away, returning him to his seat. Then he sat down again and said, “Everyone, please, let’s talk calmly.”

  “There is no god but God!” the mother exclaimed. “What else have You in store for us, O Lord?”

  Judge Abd El Rahman looked at Danya and asked her, “How many are willing to bear witness to the incident?”

  “Six.”

  “Fine. So make it five.”

  “You want me to suppress my testimony, Abd El Rahman? Do you know the punishment for suppression of testimony in Our Lord’s eyes?”

  Everyone kept quiet, as though awaiting the result of Abd El Rahman’s attempt to answer. Then he smiled and said, “God forbid! I would never ask you to do something forbidden by religion. As you know, I fear God, Glorious and
Mighty, in everything I do. I want you to calm down and listen to me. Given that there are five other witnesses to the incident and given your family’s situation, you could make do with your colleagues’ testimony.”

  “It’s my duty to testify, regardless of the number of witnesses.”

  “I can assure you, based on my experience, that the judge will never hear more than four witnesses for the prosecution.”

  “Even if the judge will hear only four, I have to be one of them.”

  General Alwany had been following the conversation in silence. Now he said, “Danya. I’ve been silent from the beginning and let you speak. Will you listen to my opinion now?”

  “Please.”

  “First, you were wrong to go out into the streets with those little saboteurs, and your argument that you were giving aid to the injured is unacceptable because your family’s situation should have prevented you from putting us and yourself in that position. Second, your not testifying will have no impact on the trial. Third, and most importantly, from the religious perspective, you will have committed no sin: so long as there are other witnesses you are not obliged to testify.”

  “We could phone Sheikh Shamel and ask him,” the mother said.

  “Sheikh Shamel will say whatever is asked of him, as always,” Danya said.

  “Be respectful when you speak about Sheikh Shamel!” General Alwany said angrily.

  “It’s the truth!” Danya responded defiantly. “That Sheikh Shamel of yours isn’t a man of religion. He’s a businessman.”

  This was something Khaled had said, and she uttered it proudly, the words ringing in her ears and moving her. There was silence for a moment, during which General Alwany appeared to be making an effort to master his irritation. Then he said, “Danya, I have every sympathy for your sorrow over your colleague but please try to think without emotion. Your testimony will add nothing to the case but it will certainly harm Bilal and Abd El Rahman.”

  “If I don’t testify, I’ll live the rest of my life with the guilt.”

  “What is it you want, girl?” Bilal shouted angrily, and she raised her head, looked at him, and shouted back, “Talk to me politely!”

  “You will do as your father tells you!”

  “I won’t go against my conscience.”

  “Just you try testifying!”

  “Just you watch!”

  Bilal rushed at her to hit her, but their mother threw herself at him, wailing, “Enough! Shame on you all!”

  General Alwany took a stance in the middle of the room and said, “Bilal, I’m warning you, do nothing to hurt Danya in any way! Do you understand? Danya, do what your conscience tells you. Don’t think for a moment that the Egyptian state is finished. President Mubarak gave up power to save the state. The security services are unchanged, and everything is as it was. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will take power and you have a father who holds an important position in the state, a brother who is an officer in the Republican Guard, and another who is a judge. Your testimony will have no impact on the case but will certainly hurt your family. If your conscience allows you to do us harm, go ahead. If we’ve done something to deserve injury at your hands, go ahead and testify. I swear by God Almighty I won’t stop you.”

  38

  An aura of mystery surrounds Hagg Muhammad Shanawany, above and beyond the distant, uncommunicative, glassy presence that characterises millionaires in general. He wears a fixed, minimal smile that never broadens and never disappears. He fastens on those around him a strong, enquiring gaze from his wide blue eyes but speaks only when necessary and generally uses only expressions capable of more than one interpretation. His overall appearance harks back to the seventies of the last century—three-piece suits in summer as well as winter, ties patterned in the same colour as the handkerchief that he places in his breast pocket, gold cufflinks fastened in the wide, rigid, old-fashioned cuffs. Shanawany still uses a blow-drier, making his black, dyed hair stand up so that it conceals the bald patch in the middle of his scalp, which two hair implants have failed to cover to the desired degree. Who is Muhammad Shanawany? No one knows anything about his childhood or boyhood beyond the fact that he was born in Alexandria, obtained an industrial diploma, and went to Italy where he spent thirty years, returning with immense riches. The stories are many and there is no way to check them. They say that, with his slickness and good looks, he was able to seduce a rich Italian lady, the widow of an Italian businessman from whom she had inherited a ceramic tile factory; that he married her so as to obtain Italian nationality, acquired from her a large sum of money with which he set up a tile factory in Egypt, and then divorced her. Sometimes they say that he joined the Mafia and used ceramic powder to smuggle drugs. Be that as it may, within a few years of his return he’d become one of the pillars of Egyptian industry. Shanawany became intimate with the family of the president of the republic and partnered with the president’s son on a number of projects, which it is said he initiated specifically as cover for the vast wealth that he bestowed on the president’s family. Similarly, he donated vast sums to the charities presided over by the president’s lady wife. Thanks to the good offices of the presidential family, he was able to acquire thousands of acres of state-owned land at low prices, which he then resold at the market price, making him profits of mythical proportions. He also used some of the land as collateral for loans in the millions that he secured from banks and that he repaid only irregularly (but what bank employee could hold a man close to the president to account?). At the meeting called by General Alwany the day the president stepped aside, Shanawany was one of those most affected by emotion: he waited in the hallway after the meeting and, the moment he caught sight of Alwany, said to him enthusiastically, “Allow me to assure Your Excellency that I am prepared to give up all my wealth to save the country.”

  The general smiled and said, “Just what I’d expect from a patriot such as yourself. Spend time with the assigned officer and keep him up to date with every step.”

  Shanawany met with the officer and they agreed to set up a major television channel, which Shanawany suggested be called Authentic Egypt. Over the next few weeks, four flats in a luxury block overlooking the Nile in Garden City were bought to serve as the channel’s administrative offices, and a huge studio was equipped in Egyptian Media Production City. Work on the new channel proceeded apace, officers from National Security and the intelligence services taking charge of the appointment of all broadcasters and performers who worked there. Hagg Shanawany was careful to attend all interviews with the candidates, which was how he met Nourhan for the first time. The morning of the interview, Nourhan had stood in front of the mirror and hesitated only slightly before deciding to adopt a natural look. She put on a green silk dress, long and modest, that covered her body completely, arranged her hair in a bouffant, and applied light make-up appropriate to the workplace. As soon as she came through the door, she smiled and uttered the Islamic greeting: “Peace be upon you!”

  The interviewing team was a trio—the channel’s director, his assistant, and, seated between them, Hagg Shanawany, whose eyes gleamed for an instant, as though an idea had suddenly crossed his mind. Resuming his normal smile, he said, “And peace be upon you, and God’s mercy, and His blessings! Welcome, Mrs. Nourhan!”

  Nourhan let out a shy, low laugh, but then her mascara-ed eyes widened in surprise and she said, in comic disbelief, “Don’t tell me you remember my name, sir!”

  “Of course I do. You’re a celebrated broadcaster.”

  “A thousand thanks, Hagg!”

  “What for?”

  “Well of course, Hagg. You, sir, God aid you, have taken it upon yourself, with your mega-projects, to take care of thousands of people who could never otherwise have set up homes…so when you remember a simple person like Nourhan, obviously I have to thank you.”

  “Well and good. But what would you s
ay if I were to tell you I watch you every night and love your programme?”

  Nourhan released a medium-modest laugh and said, “In that case, I could only say that God had been more than kind to me.”

  At this moment, the channel’s director suddenly recalled an urgent matter that he had to take care of and excused himself, and his assistant likewise, the hagg giving them permission to leave without even turning to look at them. Then he extracted from his pocket a piece of the imported gum he’d taken to chewing after the doctor, in the wake of the hagg’s recent heart operation, had forbidden him to smoke cigars, and repeated his welcome to Nourhan, who responded, in a soft voice, “Go easy on me, Hagg, please! I still can’t believe that I’m sitting here with you, just like that.”

  The way Nourhan pronounced “go easy” and “just like that”—or, to be more precise, the breathy way she pronounced, specifically, the heavy letter h that occurs in both phrases—seemed to have a noticeably heating effect on the hagg, evidenced by a widening of his smile and a change in his expression, and he required a few moments to recover his former self. He asked her what her goal would be in working for the new channel, and she said enthusiastically, “My goal would be to expose the conspiracy, so that every Egyptian understands that they have been duped and that they committed a terrible crime when they allowed President Mubarak to step aside.”

  “Excellent.”

  “I obey God and His prophet, God bless him and give him peace. Our Lord has commanded us to obey the ruler and forbidden us to indulge in schisms. Learned Sheikh Shamel has ruled that Islam forbids us to demonstrate or go on strike. These are all forms of schism that the Jews and Freemasons have foisted on us by stealth in order to break apart the Islamic community.”