Blue Lorries

by Radwa Ashour

  No more friends of mine died on New Year’s Eve, nor did I see a crow making auguries toward the College of Engineering. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred. That is to say, I spent the night in front of the computer, and then, at a polite quarter of an hour before midnight, I moved to the sitting room, where Hamdiya was watching television, and sat down with her. When the clock struck twelve, announcing the end of the year 2002, I said to her, ‘Happy New Year, Hamdiya,’ and kissed her. She kissed me back, and said, ‘Happy New Year.’ Then the phone rang, and it was Nadir ringing us from Dubai; this was followed by another call, from Nadeem, who was spending the evening with his friends.

  ‘What would you say to a cup of mint tea, Hamdiya?’

  ‘What an excellent idea!’

  I made tea and arranged some pieces of cake on a plate with two sprigs of fresh mint and then on the side I added a handful of almonds and raisins. The plate looked pretty – smiling, I brought the tray to Hamdiya and placed it before her. ‘Chef Nada,’ I said, ‘wishes you a nice night and a happy year!’

  Hamdiya laughed and replied, ‘You really have style, Nada!’

  ‘A little treat on New Year’s Eve!’

  We drank our tea and ate the sweets, and it seemed as though the new year, like our shared company that night, would be calm, routine, perhaps pleasant.

  That is not what happened.

  The first two months of the new year brought cares and troubles that were only the preamble, the dry-run, for what the third month would bring.

  Nadeem said that he was going to move to Dubai to work. Despite the care he took over completing his paperwork, and even though he received a travel visa for the Emirates and signed a contract with the same firm for which his brother worked, he didn’t seem happy. He didn’t express whatever was going on inside his head, although it was not difficult for me to read the look in his eyes. His decision to travel meant that he had to accept the way things were and resign himself to them. He wanted to study architecture, and he did; he applied himself seriously and conscientiously to his studies, acquiring knowledge that pleased him, and the door of his imagination had opened on to a dream he must now relinquish – raise a white flag before the age of thirty, and admit, ‘I give up.’

  In the background beat the drums of war, another war, bigger than all the rest. We followed the Security Council debates, and the unfolding scenarios of imminent conflict. ‘They’re going to attack Iraq,’ Nadeem said, while I clung to the possibility that it was just scare tactics, an attempt at verbal terrorism. The memory of the previous war was as present as if more than ten years hadn’t elapsed since then, the first war that the boys had been old enough to pay attention to. In 1982 they had been little, more preoccupied with football games, the cartoons on television, a half-point more or less on a test at school, or a goal scored in a game in which a girls’ team had defeated the boys. On that day I confined myself to telling them that Israel, which had attacked us in 1956 and 1967, was attacking Lebanon. I wouldn’t have approved of their watching the news broadcasts with me, and when the occupation forces moved into Beirut, with the ensuing massacre, I summarised what had occurred in an expurgated statement: ‘The Israelis have been behind the killing of a great many people – when you’re a little older, you’ll learn how terrible Israel is.’ I concealed from them, though, the videotape I had acquired, about the massacres at Sabra and Shatila – images of bloated corpses and flies. I also concealed the elaborate tale of the Phalangists and the Lebanese forces that had perpetrated the slaughter as Israel’s proxies. I thought, ‘Two little boys not eight years old – why poison their imaginations with images of bloodshed, the complicated relationship between invading forces supported by locals, and a resistance supported by part of the populace, while the other part wants to crush it?’

  But on the day of the first attack on Baghdad, in 1991, they were in high school, and they followed the reports on television, read the daily newspapers, and discussed the course of events with their schoolmates, agreeing or disputing.

  This war now looming over Iraq would be Nadir and Nadeem’s second war, and the second one to affect their lives.

  Four days before the war began, there was a telephone call from one of my former classmates. ‘Siham died,’ the caller said.

  I was about to ask him, ‘Who is Siham?’

  I must have been quiet a long time, for he thought the line had been disconnected. ‘Hello? Hello?’ he said.

  ‘Siham Sabri?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Three days ago. Her obituary appeared in yesterday’s Al-Ahram.’

  ‘Was it suicide?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What does her family say?’

  ‘They’re saying she was struck by a car. We want to organise a ceremony for her. We want to publish a collective obituary in the newspaper in all our names, and we want . . .’

  I rang off.

  I went back to the previous day’s newspaper. The announcement appeared at the top of the obituary page, in the third column from the right.

  Siham died on Thursday the thirteenth of March 2003, corresponding to the tenth of Muharram in the year 1424 of the Islamic calendar. She was struck by a car in a place not very far from her home near the flyover exit to Orouba Street, which leads to the airport. Was she walking along distractedly when she crossed the road – was it just one of those accidents, like so many that preceded it, brought about by Lady Fortuna when she chances to spin her wheel at random? Or was Siham ill, and unaware that she was crossing a busy thoroughfare on which the cars hurtled along too fast to stop easily should a driver be surprised by a woman in the middle of the road? Or did she dash into the path of a car, having decided to die on that particular day? Had she wanted her death to take place on Ashoura, or had she specifically wanted this moment to pass in silence, unnoticed by anyone amid the violence and turmoil, that her disappearance might itself vanish behind the collective fear of an impending invasion? Or had she chosen to anticipate the terror by her death because, though she had endured illness and pain, she could not face what was coming?

  She was struck by a car – that much her family confirmed. How and why? I don’t know.

  In three days the news of her death would settle into some secret place – buried, invisible, or erased – where I would not see it or stumble across it. The air strikes on Baghdad, and the attack on Iraq by ground forces, began. Then came a telephone call at ten o’clock in the morning: ‘Two streets away from your house there’s a battle going on between students and security forces. The students are trying to reach the American Embassy, but the security forces have surrounded them and are beating them up. Some have been wounded – we’re going to Tahrir.’ A belated and hopeless effort to protest – so be it. Nadeem said he would go with me to the square. Hamdiya tried to dissuade him, then decided to accompany us.

  We remained in Tahrir Square from one in the afternoon until eleven in the evening; the security forces left us alone to hold our demonstration there, interfering only when some protesters made renewed attempts to get to the two embassies – the British and the American – in Garden City. At that point fierce battles were waged with truncheons, tear gas, and fire-hoses on the part of security, and on the people’s part the usual weaponry: such stones as were to hand. At eleven o’clock, the number of protesters dwindled, while that of the soldiers encircling the square increased. I went home with Hamdiya, but Nadeem went with his mates to a coffeehouse in Bab al-Louk, a few metres from Tahrir Square. I wanted to go home to listen to the news, because even while standing in the square or walking through it or chanting or talking to some of my old comrades, inside me the thought kept repeating itself ceaselessly that the event taking place there was far from a demonstration consisting of twenty or thirty thousand: merely a voice on the sideline, it would change nothing in the greater scheme of things.

  I sat up until dawn, watching the scenes of battle being broadcast live
on television via satellite. When I awoke at noon, Nadeem was not at home. Hamdiya said he had gone to Friday prayers at Al-Azhar Mosque; I guessed that he was going to join the demonstration that would follow the prayers.

  Hamdiya said, ‘Today is Mother’s Day. Nadeem forgot to tell me “Happy Mother’s Day”. Nadir didn’t ring, either.’

  I was about to scold her for her foolishness, but I didn’t. I said, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, Hamdiya – Happy Mother’s Day three times: from me and from each of the boys until they give you their wishes in person!’

  I made myself a cup of tea and then sat down by the telephone. I looked at my watch, with its hands creeping toward one-thirty. All at once I stood up as if I had an appointment, and got dressed. I told Hamdiya, ‘I won’t be late – an hour or two at most, and I’ll be back. Nadeem will have come home and we’ll have lunch together.’

  I walked to Kasr al-Aini Street and headed from there to Tahrir Square. The square was peaceful, cars streaming through it as usual, although greater numbers of security vehicles had been stationed there of late. I turned right on Tahrir Street, making for Bab al-Louk Square, then went left toward Talat Harb Square. As soon as I got to Sabri Abu Alam Street I took note of the dense ring of soldiers blocking access to the square. I could hear, but not see, the large demonstration in Kasr al-Nil Street, apparently coming from the direction of Ataba, and Opera Square. Loud chanting. I tried to get closer, but the soldiers told me to back off. I moved aside, off the pavement, with a throng of pedestrians – they, too, were concerned about the demonstration and the invasion of Iraq.

  The demonstrators proceeded toward Tahrir from the direction of Mahmoud Bassiouney Street or Kasr al-Nil Street. The security forces opened up the blockade and allowed us to move in the direction of the square. The two streets I had speculated the demonstrators were coming from – from one of them, that is – were still closed off. I reached the square, then turned left into Talat Harb Street. At the door of the Café Riche I saw one of my father’s colleagues in a wheelchair and his wife standing next to him. I greeted them. The woman smiled at me, and the man wept. Perhaps he had been weeping before he saw me. Others were standing near him on the pavement. Then an officer came and ordered everyone to disperse. He said, ‘Standing here is prohibited.’ The woman pushed her husband’s wheelchair, and I moved toward Tahrir. Before I reached the next intersection – the junction of Al-Bustan and Talat Harb Streets – I saw a row of security vehicles on the opposite side of the street from the Nasserist party headquarters, and I noticed the ground was wet, that there was in fact a great deal of water, along with a residue of stones – large ones, small ones, crumbled ones. Then I saw the dogs: big dogs, and with each dog a special guard holding it leashed by an iron chain. I carried on in the direction of the square and found the way to it blocked by a circle of helmets and truncheons. I retraced my steps to Al-Bustan Street. Traces of battle were in evidence there: stones on the ground, and water. My heart raced strangely, and I leaned against a car. I took a deep breath, then tried to breathe regularly. Suddenly I said to myself that something dreadful must have happened to Nadeem. I began to run.

  How could I run, when moments before I had felt as if I was about to faint? How can I have paid no attention to the fact that any of the officers might have considered my running a sign that I was a demonstrator who should be arrested? And what route did I take home from Bab al-Louk Square? Falaki Street, or Mansour Street, or else I penetrated the neighbourhood as far as Noubar Street and went by a circuitous route that took me to Kasr al-Aini Street and home from there.

  ‘Where is Nadeem?’

  Hamdiya said, ‘He didn’t mention anything about having lunch with his friends. He’s late!’

  By nine o’clock in the evening Nadeem had not appeared, so I began ringing up such friends of his as I knew. Some of them said, ‘We haven’t seen him in days.’ Others said, ‘We were together when the march set off from Al-Azhar Mosque. It was a big demonstration – security couldn’t break it up until they set the police dogs on us and brought in special forces. We started running – we spread out into the alleyways and neighbourhoods, then came back and regrouped. When we moved from Al-Azhar Street to Ataba Square and from there to the city centre, we didn’t see him – nor when we got to Tahrir Square. It was a big crowd, and we thought he must have gone in a different direction, away from the square.’

  I rang up contacts of my own who I thought might have news about arrests or injuries. No news yet.

  Hamdiya would not stop crying. ‘Maybe they beat him at the demonstration,’ she said, ‘and he fell and got trampled. Or maybe,’ she added, ‘he was wounded and the police took him to the hospital. We must ask at the hospitals,’ she said, and then, ‘We should call Nadir to come and look for his brother.’ She went on and on, and I shouted at her, telling her to be quiet so I could carry on with my telephone calls and inquiries.

  She wouldn’t calm down. I decided to go look for him. I went out with her, muttering to myself that she was an insufferable woman. We stopped in at the hospitals, starting with the Es‘aaf Hospital and ending with Kasr al-Aini. At the first hospital Hamdiya lost no time asking about the wounded youths who had been beaten by the security forces during the demonstrations. I took her forcefully by the arm and whispered in her ear, ‘They’re not going to answer that question for you. We should ask whether a young man came to their emergency room hurt or wounded. We’ll give them his name and description.’

  We checked the emergency rooms from one hospital to another, in Al-Azhar, Ataba, and Ramses, and then we moved on to Kasr al-Aini.

  When we got home I said to Hamdiya, ‘Your idea wasn’t a good one, Hamdiya.’ She was still crying.

  I went back to telephoning people I imagined might have information. After that there was nothing we could do but wait. I made two cups of tea and turned on the television to see whether there was any fresh news. Around noon the telephone rang. It was one of the friends I had rung up earlier. He said, ‘Nadeem was one of the young men who were arrested. We sent several lawyers to the stations to find out where each person had been taken. We were told that they may appear before the investigator tomorrow afternoon. I’ll get confirm­ation and let you know. We’ll stay in touch.’

  I conveyed all this to Hamdiya.

  What happened then was the last thing I expected. It would never have crossed my mind that it could come to such a scene as what ensued upon that conversation. Hamdiya’s face, already flushed from weeping, turned a still deeper red, and she began yelling at me, ‘It’s your fault! This is what comes of your talking to the boys about politics, all your droning in their ears. You’ve destroyed our household and lost us Nadeem. As soon as he comes home safe and sound and goes to Dubai I’m going to move in with my sister. Then we can go our separate ways.’ She blew her nose, wept, and kept up her bizarre talk. I didn’t know whether I should slap her across the face, shout at her the way she was shouting at me, or go out and leave her.

  I ignored what she had said. I turned up the volume on the television and started watching the first press conference with Tommy Franks, the leader of the operations. He was saying, ‘. . . this will be a campaign unlike any other in history, a campaign characterised by shock, by surprise, by flexibility, by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen, and by the application of overwhelming force . . . Our troops are performing as we would expect – magnificently.’ A column of armoured vehicles crossing the desert. Huge balls of fire against a background of smoke and palm trees. American soldiers on the deck of an enormous battleship, cheering at the launch of the opening volley of tomahawk missiles. Tony Blair declaring that the Iraqis were an oppressed, humiliated people, and that Britain and her allies would bring them democracy and prosperity, and would protect their oil wells and refineries.

  The following afternoon, we were unable to see Nadeem or any of his mates who had been brought in transport lorries to the national security courthouse, even thoug
h Hamdiya and I, along with other family members of the detainees, had gone early to the courthouse and spent two hours waiting on the pavement opposite the building. The blue lorries arrived, and queued so as to reverse in the direction of the door through which the boys would pass; thus they exited the vehicles and entered the building without anyone on the street seeing them.

  It was then that I remembered, and knew that I had had a premonition of this moment when, months before, I had been following the transport lorries. My heart had told me. I would be following a lorry and staring through the opening and the heavy grillwork covering it, that I might catch sight of Nadeem’s face, or he might see my face smiling at him.

  The families were permitted to enter the building and wait in the lawyers’ chamber. We saw the boys climbing to the upper floor to be interrogated, and then we saw them coming back down, toward the lorries. Then we were allowed to stand near the lorries, where we waved farewell to them, and they waved back at us, each one raising his two hands together to wave, for their wrists were shackled together by an iron cuff.

  By the time Nadeem and his mates were released, Baghdad had fallen, and the Americans and the British had occupied Iraq. Two weeks later Nadeem left for the Emirates to work in Dubai and join his brother. He travelled on Tuesday afternoon. Hamdiya followed through on what she had said when she was shouting and crying like a madwoman, on that sad Mother’s Day: she collected her things and moved in with her sister. On Thursday evening I got dressed and went to the New Generation Centre in Ain al-Sira to attend a belated ceremony that had been organised for Siham.

  The hall was jammed with her friends and acquaintances, most of whom had taken part in the student movement, some from the College of Engineering or from other colleges, as well as cohorts from the period when she had studied in the Soviet Union, and others whom she had met at one time or another, leaving an impression upon them that drew them – despite the passing of the years and her protracted seclusion – to come and bid her a final adieu. Life in general – in our part of the world, at any rate – combines the funny with the sad, mixing the momentous with contrasting humour and whimsy, and so it was that a bunch of middle-aged people entered the hall, bearing the unmistakable signs of lives lived in trying and difficult circumstances. They were not shy about introducing themselves: they were the students who worked for the government, in the nineteen seventies, against the student protesters. Some of them had partaken in that mem­­orable event at the College of Engineering, the day they surrounded Siham with clubs, insulted her, and told her, ‘Get out, and don’t open your mouth in this college’; whereupon she sat down on the floor and said, ‘This is my college, and I’m not leaving. And I’ll speak up here whenever I like. You want to beat me, then beat me.’