Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter

by Saeida Rouass

  XIII

  The Battle of the Camels

  Wednesday 2nd February

  Over the next few days I continued to bide my time. Eventually I would get what I wanted. I just had to wait and play along with my father the same way I did when gaining his approval to study literature at university. It was a process and by the time my father agreed, he had already unknowingly been subjected to a whole host of hints and innuendos. I had to make him think that my going to Tahrir was OK and to do that I had to plant the seed in his mind and speak to it in soft loving words until it fruited or I would have to force the issue, possibly through the use of my mother as a second pressure point. Either way, I had a strategy and a purpose and that was invigorating. It meant I missed the Million Man March, but what is one woman amongst a million men?

  In the end the camels put a stop to the possibility of me visiting Tahrir Square immediately. For a moment a window opened and I was given a millisecond to prise it wider. But it was slammed shut before I could. The regime had a trick up its sleeve, and the sleeve was billowing enough to fit a camel.

  Camels in Tahrir Square were not something I or anyone expected to see. There was a contrivance in it that made it impossible to believe camels had just strolled into Tahrir Square and happened upon a revolution. These camels were being driven by men with swords, clubs, rocks and whips. I had visions of them riding into the Square on the camels’ backs, charging the crowd like an Arabian gladiator movie scene. The idea was comical, but the reality was not.

  The camels, the horses, the Molotov cocktails and the glint of a sniper’s weapon on a rooftop being caught by the sun were a dire warning. The situation had escalated. They were a warning that even the army couldn’t protect you. The regime would see this city, this country, turn to civil war rather than walk away.

  The battles commenced, all over the city, all over the country. The Mubarak supporters unleashed rocks from rooftops, watching them fall onto protesters’ heads. Bribes started to be offered, protesters in Tahrir Square handed food to switch sides as though all it would take was a hearty meal. A carrot in exchange for a principle. Stand-offs between pro-Mubarak and protesters, and the Museum increasingly becoming the location of a bitter feud.

  I received a text message telling me to join the Mubarak supporters and confront the disloyal criminals. Was the sender talking directly to me? Calling me to take up arms? Sitting in my pink bedroom, I was encouraged by the regime to throw rocks at unsuspecting people below.

  But at least it meant the network was working again. I had a glorious hour surfing the internet and talking to my friends, a lot of whom were at Tahrir Square. I read about us on blogs, in online newspapers. I filled in the gaps of my knowledge and later shared the details with Mustafa. He was thrilled to have acquired another news source, though he already knew much of what I told him. He had moved now to under our communal staircase for good it seemed. At night the bowab locked the building door with Mustafa and his packed-up stall inside, minus any fruit as it had all sold by now. It just happened, he didn’t ask anyone if he could and no one suggested he should. One night he packed up his stall and rolled it to its position under the stairs. He stayed there and everyone pretended he had always been there.

  Later as the day turned to one of Departure, I read about Shahira Amin. I told my mother about her. I described how she walked away from a position she must have earned through every pore of her skin because she was sick of being part of the problem, a messenger of lies. I told her on the Day of Departure, another Friday, how the Muslims had knelt down to pray in Tahrir Square and how the Christians had formed a protective chain around them so they could have their moment with God. Religious differences becoming irrelevant when we are all fighting the same devil.

  To my surprise my mother was inconsolable. I know she saw the beauty, I know she saw the courage, but she also saw a city she didn’t recognise. She could still not see a way out. None of us could.

  She turned to my father, after hearing about the camels, rocks, death and defiance. ‘Maybe we are paying for the sins of our privilege,’ she said.

  My father looked at her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Fatima,’ he said. ‘And what about the homeless and beggars? What about the million people living in a grave yard? What privilege are they paying for? What sins have they not already paid for?’

  XIV

  Sunday is for martyrs

  Sunday 6th February

  I fell into a depression. My mother’s words stayed with me. She wasn’t referring to the homeless and the beggars. I understood that. She was referring to us. She was asking if our shame was the price we would pay for choosing to protect our privilege. I knew the answer was yes. I knew our choice to protect ourselves, our home, our community would stay after the protesters left, and so did she. We, as a family, were not at Tahrir Square when the protesters chanted ‘We are one’.

  We were not there when they drove off Mubarak supporters, when they pulled the injured away and helped them the best they could. We stayed away. Why? Were we supporters of Mubarak? No!

  The idea of staying away seemed absurd to me now. I racked my brain to understand why we didn’t go and not a single argument stood up to the counter-arguments I had made. I felt like we were the last people in a village to realise it was time to relocate, that the water supply was contaminated and if we didn’t find another spot to build our home we would be left behind with the mosquitoes and rats. The whole country was relocating, finding its way through an unknown terrain to a new home. Yet we held on tight to our apathy, our hope, like a group of climbers hanging onto the bottom of a rope, a long drop beneath them. Perhaps it would take the person at the other end letting go of the rope, telling us to look up, not down.

  The depression was mixed with frustration. Frustration at my father, my mother, my brother for his persistent silence, and Mustafa in his pathetic corner under the stairs. But I knew that wasn’t fair, I knew I was no better or worse than them.

  What was stopping me? A fear of defying my father? I had defied him before for less worthy gains.

  I stayed in bed most of that Sunday refusing to come out of my room. I didn’t want to face them, didn’t want to walk with my father on his patrol, didn’t want to share food. No one pushed me to come out. They just left me there, glad my reaction to a realisation they may have already come to was without fuss.

  A feeling descended on the house, one of complicity. We all seemed to agree that fuss was unwanted, that we would carry the guilt if we had to, together carry the shame through the years.

  At some point my brother joined me in my room. I looked at him and wondered where he had been all this time, what he had been thinking. I thought of asking him where he had gone on that first day, how far? I didn’t though. I didn’t want to pollute what he had done with my own aspirations, to lighten my load by taking away from his courage. And he appreciated that, appreciated not being asked. If the time was ever right he would tell me or not.

  ‘They are calling today Sunday of Martyrs.’

  ‘Are they?’ I asked indifferently. Who were ‘they’? The protesters or another group altogether, the group who stayed away.

  ‘They are remembering the dead today.’

  ‘Someone has to.’

  ‘The Muslims are protecting the Christians while they say mass now,’ he continued.

  ‘That’s nice of them,’ I said, hoping he would get the hint and leave me alone.

  ‘The death toll is 300.’

  ‘Really, 300 just today? We are done for.’

  ‘No, since …’

  ‘Since when, Salem?’ I tried to hold back on my anger and not take it out on him, but where else could I vent it?

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘They say the regime will increase pensions and salaries,’ he continued, ignoring my bait.

  ‘Huh, they still think people can be bought. They don’t get it, we don’t get it. Those people, those protesters are here to stay. They are pas
t negotiation. There is only one outcome to all of this.’

  ‘What is that outcome?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s the point, no one knows. Whatever it is, people have committed to seeing it through without knowing. They have committed to the process come what may. That takes courage, more than we have.’

  ‘You know what I think about the revolution, Sophia?’

  I looked at him. An 11-year old boy consumed with American music and computer games was about to give me his analysis, while I, an 18-year old university student, sulked on her bed.

  ‘No, tell me,’ I softened.

  ‘It has changed everyone. It’s not one revolution, but a collection of smaller revolutions.’

  ‘And?’ I asked, not quite understanding.

  He got up and made his way to the door. Turning to me he said ‘Maybe ours is just the smallest one, the one not being reported.’

  XV

  ‘I was asleep for twelve days’

  Monday 7th February

  The next day I continued to mope around the house. I was feeling a little better, but still uninspired. My mother dragged me into the kitchen to help with lunch. My father invited me again on his patrol. I refused. Choosing to hang around in my room waiting for those golden moments when the internet was suddenly working. I watched a bit of television, I avoided my brother. For a kid who packed his bag to join the revolution he seemed to be more absorbed in his own world than before. The revolution seemed to be just information to him now. Bits of information he picked up from the television and the internet when he could. And yet last night what he said made sense to me in some way. Maybe he was just saying what I was thinking. That it’s OK to not be there. That it is possible to be a part of it but not participate. But how? There were people risking their lives everyday, how could anything I do in my small little world compare? What he talked about didn’t seem like it would be enough for me.

  And it showed in the moping. So I avoided him. I tried to avoid my father too. He was grumpy. I could tell his frustration. My father is the worst person to go on holiday with. After about three days he gets grumpy. He misses being in theatre, operating, it’s where he belongs, where he is at his most relaxed.

  Neither of my parents had been to work. Appointments were cancelled, operations postponed, or relocated where they could be. They became neighbourhood doctors: checking temperatures, blood pressure, sugar levels. Having them barricaded in the neighbourhood meant suddenly everyone’s warts and sores came out of the woodwork.

  My parents often visit sick neighbours. They visit partly because that’s what you do when someone is sick and also partly because the neighbours feel reassured by their comforting words as doctors. That alone would often heal them; a doctor friend saying everything is going to be OK. Now they seemed to do it a lot more.

  By the evening I was also feeling sick. Sick of my room, sick of the lack of Internet, sick of the clothes I was wearing. I regretted not going on patrol with my father.

  We all sat around the living room, all together before curfew. All slouched around the television. It felt like a movie moment. Like there were other people watching us on television wondering what the hell we were doing. We looked a state. We looked like we were living through groundhog day and we had done it so many times we had lost all hope of anything being different.

  Suddenly, we heard a wail. That was different. It wasn’t the usual cries and noise you hear in our neighbourhood, those you know. All of us could tell the difference. My father went to the front door and listened for a while through the peephole. There was no other sound than the howl of pain. He opened the door slowly and instantly the wail got louder. It was in the staircase. My father stepped out to follow the sound. I jumped to join him, but my mother grabbed my arm to stop me. I pulled away from her. It happened so fast, I didn’t realise I had done it until I was at the door. She didn’t try to stop me again. Salem was watching from his seated position, paying attention to what was happening in his usual silent way. I followed my father into the staircase and we peered over. I could sense the other neighbours behind their front doors, listening through their peepholes too. No one opening the door, saying to each other ‘It’s OK, Dr Ahmad is seeing to it.’

  Down at the bottom Mustafa was rolling around on the floor, his clothes wet, holding his head, wailing. There was blood on his hand. My father rushed down to him on seeing the blood. He blocked my path midway. ‘You’ve come far enough,’ he told me.

  I stopped there as my father knelt down over Mustafa. He softly removed Mustafa’s hand away from his head to look at the wound. It was only now the neighbours started leaving their apartments, some rushed to help and eventually they prepared to carry Mustafa upstairs.

  Before they lifted him my father called for my mother. She also came rushing down. Kneeling on the opposite side of Mustafa, my father handed her a towel that was handed to him a moment ago. She took it and needing no instruction folded it efficiently and placed it over the wound with the right amount of pressure. With her other hand she stroked Mustafa’s hair and standing up with the others, she made herself small as they carried him to our apartment. I leant against the wall as they passed me, my mother completely ignoring me. It said enough.

  The neighbours hung around for a while offering my parents towels, cotton wool and thanks. One even offered my father a needle and thread. He laughed of course, ‘What, you think we are in a movie?’ My father loves his rhetorical questions. ‘That won’t be necessary, thank you,’ he said, closing the door to the offers and spectators dressed as Good Samaritans.

  The wound was deep, but thankfully didn’t require stitches. They cleaned and bandaged Mustafa up. They talked about concussion, gave him a cup of hot sweet tea and laid him on the sofa until he began to slowly say what happened.

  ‘I was pushing my stall out from under the stairs to take onto the street. You know I have no fruit or vegetables left to sell. But, I thought “Let me wash the stall before curfew.” I like to keep it clean. You know the dust in this city. If I don’t keep it clean the customers won’t buy. If they see it is filthy, my fruit rots. And besides, my cousin said he will bring me some apples tomorrow … inshallah.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ my father snaps, wondering like the rest of us when this man will say what happened instead of going over every detail like he was reporting to a Chief Constable. Did we really need to know about the apples and the cousin?

  ‘Anyway, so I was washing it and these thugs, I don’t know them, they didn’t tell me their name, I didn’t ask. They came and threw the bucket of water over me and started shaking my stall and laughing. Now I may be old, but I’m not a coward. I started pulling them away from it, fighting them but they were three. One smashes the bucket over my head and the next thing I remember is waking up at the bottom of the stairs. Did no one hear the shouting?’ he asked, looking around him, wondering where all the neighbours had gone.

  My father stood up. ‘What is the use of a neighbourhood watch if no one is watching?’ he boomed. Another rhetorical question and Mustafa looked like he wanted to answer, but decided it was better not to.

  Then my father stormed out of the house and banged on the door two doors down. A man slowly opened it. ‘Dr Ahmad, something wrong?’ he asked with an innocent smile.

  ‘Yes, there is something wrong. Where is the patrol schedule?’ he asked, stretching out his hand demanding a paper trail. The man looked at my father’s hand like he didn’t know what to do with it. Shake it? Twist it? What?

  ‘We decided the patrol wasn’t necessary today,’ he offered as a meek explanation.

  ‘We?’ my father asks.

  He stormed back into the house, slamming the door. ‘We?’ he asked us, the word refusing to sink in. ‘How can this country have a revolution if it’s still “We”? We can’t agree on anything. We try to establish a neighbourhood watch which is beneficial to everyone and by the end of the first week it has fallen apart.’ He said this dropping his
hands to his sides, as though a weight dropped from them. In my imagination that weight rolled along the floor and stopped at my feet, waiting for me to pick it up and carry it on my shoulders.

  ‘And what about you Mustafa? Are you not part of the neighbourhood?’

  Mustafa affirmed that he was indeed.

  ‘So why was nobody watching? Why are you under the stairs? Is it enough for us that you are under the stairs?’

  I wished he would stop asking so many questions. Everything he said, he said in a question. I could see Mustafa moving to answer the questions, but not being able to keep up, not knowing if he even should.

  My father sat down on the armchair. And Mustafa awkwardly pulled his legs from off the sofa to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’ my father noticed.

  ‘I should go,’ he replied. ‘Thank you for your help, but I don’t want to bother you. Thank you.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ my father exploded again. Mustafa sat back. ‘Did you just not hear what I said?’

  My mother leaned into Mustafa and put her hand on his arm. ‘You will stay here with us,’ she told him softly.

  ‘Of course he will,’ my father announced. ‘I can’t let him out there to face those thugs on his own.’

  I wondered if he was talking about the three men that beat him or the neighbours.

  Later we all calmed down. Mustafa settled as best he could, conscious of the fact that he took up the whole sofa in a family home. Still, not totally relaxed because intruding into a family’s home is considered very rude, even if you have concussion. Of course he wasn’t intruding, but it was difficult for him to not think that.

  We all drank sweet tea again. My father had a whisky. He drinks sometimes, but very rarely, usually when he thinks he has earned it. My mother doesn’t drink, she used to but stopped when she became pregnant with me. Mustafa stuck with the tea, not because he didn’t drink, he probably did and could have done with a double shot. But the offer to share whisky was too hospitable for him. He didn’t want to disrespect my mother. My father accepted his offer of abstinence with grace.