At Turah, everything changed. The torture stopped, even though the deputy director would slap me from time to time just to assert his authority, as though telling me, “Essam Shaalan may have intervened on your behalf but I can still hit you anytime.”
After Essam, I was visited by my mother and my sister Maryam. I was impressed by my mother’s toughness, Asmaa. Can you believe she didn’t cry? Can you believe that she told me, “Hang on, Mazen. You’re in the right.”
Can you believe she told my sister off when she cried? She asked her in a loud voice, “What are you crying about? Don’t give these criminals a chance to insult us. Your brother’s a hero.”
Of course, I’m sure she’ll cry for a long time at home, but she was fantastic. She held up in front of me so as not to affect my morale. When I thought about it, I realised she must have learned this toughness from her life with my father, who spent years in detention. Two days after my mother’s visit, Karim the lawyer came, and it was he who told me everything. He told me what happened to you at the cabinet building and the hospital. I felt great pain for you, Asmaa. I wish I could have been with you but I was detained a few hours before the sit-in was broken up. Essam Shaalan visits me every Friday, and he will send you this letter once I’ve got your address from Karim. Essam has assured me that I’ll be referred to the public prosecutor and be released on bail. After a while, they’ll arrest me in another, major case, and I’ll get a heavy sentence. Essam says, “Don’t think that there’s such a thing as a prosecutor’s office or a judiciary. It’s the security forces that rule Egypt. They want to get rid of you forever. We have to be cleverer than them. The moment you’re released, you have to go abroad. I can get you a visa quickly and as soon as you get out, go to any country in Europe.”
I refused, of course. I told him I’d rather die than flee but he keeps going on at me. Once he even yelled in my face, “Are you going to be your own worst enemy, boy? I tell you, I heard about this set-up from a general in National Security. They’re putting together a case charging leadership elements like you with seeking to overthrow the state, and you’ll get life sentences. Would you mind telling me what heroism there is in staying and waiting for them when you know they’ll throw you in prison for twenty-five years? Be sensible this once, if only to show you can!”
Of course, I’m smiling as I write this because I know I can’t flee. You know me. I don’t know what the circumstances were that made you decide to go abroad, Asmaa, but I cannot leave Egypt, even if I have to spend all my life behind bars. I’m still optimistic, Asmaa. I’ll tell you something that happened so that you can understand how the officers think. The prison director is a kind-hearted, traditional type, even though that doesn’t stop him from torturing people if need be. I asked if I could meet him and I told him, “I’ve noticed that some of the criminal prisoners are illiterate. With your kind permission, I’d like to hold literacy classes for them.”
The director looked at me in astonishment and said, “I don’t understand. You want to teach the prisoners to read and write?”
“Exactly.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
“Every educated person in Egypt owes a duty to the illiterate.”
“Forget the empty slogans. What exactly do you want to get from the prisoners?”
“I want to help them.”
“Go help yourself first, son,” he replied sarcastically.
All the officers make fun of me for the literacy project. I feel a kind of rage behind their mockery. They’re angry because we haven’t been broken. I’m optimistic. The revolution will be victorious in spite of everything we’ve been subjected to and in spite of all the murder, torture, violations, and defamation campaigns, because they’ll never be able to break us. Even the Egyptians who were misled by the media will soon discover the truth. The revolution continues and will be victorious. Don’t doubt our victory, Asmaa, for an instant. You’ll find Essam’s address inside the letter. Send your letters to him and he’ll deliver them to me at our meetings.
I love you more than ever.
Mazen
71
The surprise left Ashraf confused for a few moments. He hadn’t seen Butrus and Sarah for more than a year. He gave them a warm and emotional reception, hugging them and patting them and gazing at them at length. Sometimes, he felt that they were he. He saw himself in them. Sarah was a slim young woman, with smooth black hair that hung down over her shoulders, and had inherited her mother’s beauty. Sometimes, though, when she turned, or looked hard at something, he would see in her something of himself. Butrus, on the other hand, was a copy of his father—“with improvements,” as Ashraf would say jokingly.
“Would you like something to drink?” Ashraf asked them, after the greetings.
Butrus muttered “No thank you,” and Sarah shook her head in a tense way that brought Ashraf back to a thought he’d been trying to dismiss from his mind since the beginning. There was silence for a few moments and then Sarah said, “We’ve come to make sure you’re okay, sir, and Mummy too.”
“You’re most welcome,” Ashraf said.
In English, Sarah went on, “Can we speak English, so that the lady who opened the door to us can’t understand?”
Ashraf nodded, the situation now perfectly clear to him.
With the fluency of one who has prepared her speech beforehand, Sarah said, “You know how we love you, and Mummy. To be honest, we’re worried. We were saddened when we heard of the differences between you. You were always such wonderful parents. What happened?”
Ashraf’s voice, speaking in English, sounded strange to him. He said, “I don’t know why you’re asking me that. Your mother’s the one who left the house and I invited her to come back more than once but she refused.”
Butrus said nothing but Sarah, who seemed to be leading the opposition, replied, “She says that the house isn’t safe now.”
“If the house isn’t safe, that’s all the more reason for her to be with her husband, if she loves him.”
Sarah looked at Butrus as though urging him to speak, so he said, “Mummy says that the youths you’re hosting are wanted by the police…”
Ashraf interrupted him sharply by saying, “Listen. I’m not going to let myself get dragged into any discussion of the revolution. I’ve explained my position to you both over the phone and I’ve explained it at your grandmother’s house. How often do I have to repeat myself before you understand?”
Silence fell once more. Sarah cleared her throat, then passed her hand over her hair and said, “To be honest, I think your problems with one another go beyond politics.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that there’s another woman,” Sarah responded without hesitation.
Ashraf answered angrily, “You have no right, Sarah, to hold me to account.”
“I have a right to know.”
“Your mother and I were never happy. I think you know that. If it weren’t for the complications created by the church, we would have divorced long ago. That’s the truth.”
Sarah looked at Butrus, who said nothing this time, so she went on, “You have the right to manage your marital affairs as you please, and you have a right to love another woman and Mummy to love another man. The problem is that when I learned who the other woman was, I was shocked.”
Ashraf smiled bitterly and said, “You’re contradicting yourself. If you believe I have the right to love another woman, then the identity of that other woman shouldn’t matter. Anyway, I have nothing to hide. I love Ikram and I’m living with her and her daughter.”
“Ikram the maid?” Butrus asked, sounding upset. “Do you think that’s normal?”
“You’re still young,” Ashraf said. “When you get older, you’ll realise that a man can love a woman irrespective of her job.”
“She’s a Muslim, rig
ht?” Butrus said.
Ashraf said firmly, “Yes she is. She was born a Muslim just as we were born Christians. Neither she nor we chose our religion. But I chose her because I love her. She makes me happy and I shall stay with her because she’s the only woman I have ever loved.”
“I can’t believe it!” Sarah cried out. “She’s a maid and a Muslim and married!”
“It’s clear your mother has given you all the facts.”
“Everyone knows.”
“I have no interest whatsoever in other people’s opinion.”
“Such behaviour angers Christ.”
He laughed bitterly and said, “You believe that Christ only gets angry when you do. Leave Christ and me to one another. I love him, and he loves me and understands me and blesses me.”
Trying to control herself, Sarah said, “Naturally, we don’t have the authority to separate you from that woman, but we do have the right to inform you of our feelings towards the situation. We feel shocked.”
Ashraf was silent for a moment. Then he lit a cigarette and said, “If you’re here to inform me of your feelings, then I shall inform you of mine. I disapprove extremely, in fact, of your position because you have adopted your mother’s position against me, as you always do.”
Butrus muttered some objection, but Ashraf shouted, “Don’t interrupt me! I’d understand if you’d come all the way from Canada to make sure I was okay during the days of the revolution, when people were getting killed every day. You were aware that I was taking part in the demonstrations and might die at any moment. I’d understand if you’d intervened to persuade your mother to come home and not leave me alone in those difficult circumstances. But you come now, to rescue me from my madness? The truth is you have only come now, at your mother’s request, to rescue my money, which you will inherit after I die. You dropped everything and came to get to me in time, because you’re afraid for my money, afraid I’ll play the role of the old man who squanders his money on his mistress and her daughter. The fact is you’ve come to defend your own interests.”
“That’s not true,” Butrus said.
“Very unfortunately,” Ashraf responded, “it is. You think like your mother: you’re incapable of understanding life in any terms but numbers.”
Sarah, who was now furious and looked like a copy of her mother, said, “We aren’t obliged to prove to you that we love you.”
“You love me in your own fashion, which is Magda’s fashion. There’s another way to love. This woman whom you despise because she’s a maid and a Muslim, this woman who opened the door to you—did you notice that her hand is wrapped in a pressure bandage? Do you know why? Because she defended me and took a blow for me from a metal shovel which would have killed me on the spot if it had landed on my head. That kind of love is different from your kind.”
Sarah stood and so did Butrus, and Ashraf rose, went closer to them, and said, “Fine. You want to leave because your mission has failed. By all means, go. Despite everything, I’ll go on loving you and I’ll be happy to see you any time.”
72
My darling Mazen,
I can’t describe how happy I was to read your letter. I’m sure the people sitting around me in the café must think I’m mad, because after I’d read the letter I took to sniffing it and kissing it, more than once. How I’ve missed you! I used to phone Karim every day to find out how you were. I’ll be indebted to Karim for the rest of my life. Sometimes I ask myself how a young man of no more than twenty-five can behave with such wisdom and courage. I was in the hospital, utterly destroyed both physically and in spirit. They had chained me to the bed so that I couldn’t escape, even though I was unable to move anyway. Then the attorney from the prosecutor’s office came. I could tell at first glance that he was an arrogant young man and a client of the regime. I didn’t ask him to make an official record of my injuries and he didn’t ask to do so, of course. I answered all his questions with the single phrase “It never happened.”
Provoked by my replies, he asked, “Is that the only thing you know how to say?”
I was released on bail of three thousand pounds pending trial. Our colleagues collected the money and Karim paid it. Then I left the hospital, after signing a statement to the effect that further treatment would be my responsibility (as though they really cared that I get treatment). Karim was of the opinion that the public prosecutor was going to issue an order at any moment banning me from leaving the country and that I should, therefore, go abroad quickly, because there’d never be another opportunity. Fortunately, I had a five-year visa for Britain that I’d obtained two years before so that I could visit my uncle who lives in London. Asmahan paid for the ticket on British Airways and Karim and Asmahan went with me to the airport. Can you believe that I travelled with a face still swollen from the beating and my right arm in plaster, and that I could walk only with difficulty? Every part of my body hurt and I was exhausted and so completely unable to concentrate that, in retrospect, my time at Cairo airport feels like a dream. The pain attacked me when I was on the plane and I took painkillers that I had on me. Can you believe that the moment I reached London, the British air hostess informed the management at Heathrow and they brought me a wheelchair and a doctor to examine me, and a hostess went with me to help me complete the immigration procedures? I never asked them for anything. It was just that as soon as they noticed that I was injured and in pain, they offered me this service. Can you believe that the British doctor said, as he examined me, “You’re going to be fine, and it’ll be the last accident you ever have”?
He said this jokingly, to make me feel better, but I burst into tears. Really, Mazen, I wept. I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t had an accident and that the ones who’d done it to me were Egyptian soldiers. I wanted to tell him, “This is what my country, which I loved more than anything else in this world, did to me—my country for which I’d faced death, never fearing and never hesitating for an instant.” Yes indeed, it was my country that had violated me and abused me and humiliated me. Believe me, Mazen, I didn’t leave the country because I was afraid of the big legal case that they’re faking up against us. I left because I knew the truth, because the officer who abused me with his soldiers had said to me at the end, “Now do you understand, Asmaa, that you’re nothing?”
It’s the truth, Mazen. I really am “nothing” and all the young people who took part in the revolution are “nothing.” They did to us, and will go on doing to us, whatever they want. They will kill us and abuse us sexually and put out our eyes with shotgun pellets and no one will bring them to trial and no one will hold them to account. Do you know why? Because we’re “nothing.” Because we mounted a revolution that nobody needed and nobody wanted. I know you still believe in the People. I, though, will never believe in them. This people, whose freedom and dignity the best among us gave their lives to defend, doesn’t want freedom and dignity. You used to ask, “Why the hatred that we see on the faces of the officers as they kill us?” Because they hate what we represent. Because we’re demanding to be citizens, not slaves. The people for whose sake we rose up, Mazen, hate us and hate the revolution. I shall never forget the hate-filled look on the face of the chief nurse and how she accused me of treason. I shall never forget how she wanted to kill all the young people of the revolution so that the country could cleanse itself, because we’re agents and traitors. I shall never forget the comments of the teachers and the accusations of Mrs. Manal. I shall never forget the taxi driver’s abuse of the revolution and the suspicions of my father, who believes that we held sit-ins in Tahrir so we could have sex. You will tell me, of course, that that’s all the effect of the media, but I will tell you in turn, “I will never let myself be fooled again.” The Egyptians were influenced by the media because they wanted to be influenced. The majority of Egyptians are happy to be oppressed. They consent to corruption and have become a part of it. They hated the revolution from the beginn
ing because it embarrassed them in front of themselves. They hated the revolution first, then the media gave them reasons for their hatred. The Egyptians live in the Republic of False Truths. They live in a mass of lies that they treat as if they were true. They practise the rites of religion, so they look “as if” they were religious, though in reality they’re totally corrupt. Everything in Egypt appears as if it were true but it’s all lies, starting with the president of the republic who holds power through elections that are fixed but which the people congratulate him for winning, all the way to my father, who pours out praise by the bucketful for the Saudi sponsor who humiliates him and abuses him and robs him of what he’s owed, to the headmaster of my school who halts teaching for the noon prayer but is the most corrupt of people, and to the supposedly pious teachers with their beards and their headscarves and face veils who fleece poor girls for their private lessons. Everything in Egypt is a lie, except for the revolution. Only the revolution is true, which is why they hate it, because it shows up their corruption and their hypocrisy. Egypt is the Republic of False Truths, and we presented the Egyptians with the reality and they hated it from the depths of their hearts. I left the country because I will not agree to live in a country where I am treated as though I were “nothing.” In London, I’m a human being with dignity and with rights. No one will ever abuse me, no one will accuse me of treason, and no one can force me to take off my clothes so that they can play about with my body. I’ve now discovered that, when I was in Egypt, I was never a human being, Mazen. I was a “nothing.” The officer who abused me taught me the truth.
In London, I went to live for two weeks with my uncle, his Scottish wife, and their daughter. Then I found a cheap, clean room in a small hotel in Paddington. The owner of the hotel is an Egyptian called Medhat Hanna, an elderly and very kind-hearted man who reminds me of Mr. Ashraf. I will never go back to Egypt, Mazen. I shall work and study here, because I prefer to be a human being in a country that is not her own to being a “nothing” in my own country. I know, of course, that you’ll never agree with what I’m about to ask you, but I still have to: please, do as Mr. Essam says and leave the country the moment you’re released. Doing so isn’t running away from the battle at all. We’ve lost the battle, not because we weren’t brave enough but because the Egyptians let us down and abandoned us—the Egyptians for whom we rose up and for whom thousands of us died or lost eyes while defending their rights. These same Egyptians watched us being detained and killed and abused, and they clapped with joy and enthusiastically encouraged the massacre. I will never again make a sacrifice for those people, for one simple reason: they don’t deserve sacrifice. They love the dictator’s stick and don’t understand any other kind of treatment. The mighty revolution was an impetuous outburst, a single, strange, beautiful flower appearing out of a swamp. Our revolution was a sudden unexpected divergence from the path determined by Egyptian genes, after which everything quickly went back to normal and we found ourselves out of context, disowned, wanted by no one, sympathised with by no one and regarded by everyone as the cause of all their problems. Congratulations to the Egyptians for aborting the revolution and congratulations to them for discovering that we are agents of foreign powers and traitors! They will never know that the revolution was their sole chance at justice and freedom, which they thwarted with their own hands when they let us down. They regard us as traitors just for demanding the trial of the soldiers who committed murder. They organise demonstrations in support of the Military Council that murdered us and abused us and ran us over with armoured personnel carriers. No matter how much we explain, they will never understand that we do not hate the army but we do hate injustice. They will never understand because none of them gives a damn if the army kills other people’s children, so long as it doesn’t kill his. They will never understand that we prefer dignity and freedom to life itself, while they are prepared to give them up for a crust of bread. They are perfectly willing to let any authority run over them so long as they survive to raise their children. The Egyptians will never understand us and we will never be like them. What is the meaning, or the benefit, of your sacrificing your liberty and your life to defend a people who hate you and consider you a traitor? Leave them to their own devices, Mazen, and come to a country that respects your humanity and where you can feel you have some value, that you are not a “nothing.”
The Republic of False Truths Page 41