by Amjad Nasser
In fact you’re not sure whether the story your old comrade told you about the Grandson is true. It may be true, it may not. But that’s not the whole story. And it’s not a matter of people but rather, probably, of a corrupt elite. There are two sides, maybe more, to every story. It would be difficult to dispute the fact that your old comrade, by holding the highest media position in Hamiya, reflected only one side of the story.
Mahmoud’s enthusiasm hadn’t changed, and his inner energy hadn’t diminished. Only the orientation had changed. Your old comrade, whom you had nominated to join the Organisation and for whom you then became responsible, had a unique distinction that rapidly caught the attention of the leadership: his capacity to speak fluently and coherently and his almost instinctive ability to persuade. What he said was not just talk. It came from deep inside, as with a character actor. You thought Mahmoud, driven by an extraordinary sense of competition, tried to follow your example in everything, to get involved in politics like you, to fall in love like you, to write like you. He wrote poetry but you made fun of it and he gave up. He tried short stories. He wasn’t a great success at that. Finally he became an incendiary newspaper columnist. In this he succeeded. Perhaps it was precisely that, you reckon, that brought him to his current position in Hamiya. He knew how to aim his blows. He would vent his wrath against successive governments, the bureaucrats, the Grandson’s aides, but not against the Grandson himself. You’re now trying to recall a single strongly worded article attacking the Grandson, but you can’t. Neither can you recall any article he wrote about the dreaded National Security Agency. And here he is, trying to win you over to his choice, to triumph over you, for once to gain the upper hand over you. Look out.
You have to admit he’s clever and knows how to get what he wants. In fact you’ve long considered him clever and perceptive, with qualities you don’t have. You might be a more talented writer, but you don’t have his ability to persuade, nor his flexibility, let alone his patience and persistence. But you should remember the following: the difference between you may not lie in these traits, but perhaps in your objectives. What he wants is not exactly what you want.
From what your old comrade said you understood that the new officials in your country no longer considered your organisation, or other leftist organisations, as hostile to them. Their enemy was now the religious forces that were infiltrating society, that almost controlled the street and that called almost everyone infidel. You also understood from him that, unlike in the past, the new officials were encouraging ideas. They wanted liberal, enlightened ideas, open to the modern age. The very same ideas they used to describe as imported. The funniest thing he told you in this respect was that the head of the National Security Agency had called together the leaders of all the secular and leftist parties, people he used to chase from one hiding place to another, and told them off for being lazy, and failing to be active among the masses!
We kept striving for the freedom we held dear, even though we knew we might have to sacrifice our lives for its sake.
In the City of Siege and War people repeated those words enthusiastically. You laughed. But your old comrade didn’t notice you laughing, fortunately. You drank three or four cups of coffee brought with increasing surprise by a blonde waitress. Mahmoud Abu Tawila couldn’t keep his hand off her shoulder and complimented her in a manner unknown, if not downright offensive, in the City of Red and Grey. You don’t recall how the conversation ended between you and Mahmoud but you do remember how he used his hands, his eyes and facial features in his usual manner as he talked, so much so that he drew the attention of the other customers to the strange language he was speaking and to the rhythmic, undulating tone of his voice. Because you were distracted or completely detached from the scene, perhaps you felt you were watching a play or having a dream that had gone on longer than it should.
V
Hamiya is a real place, to the extent that places are real in the lives and imaginations of those who live in them. It was given the name because originally it really was a ‘hamiya’, a military garrison, a small fort made of black rock, with weapons and lean horses, set up on the caravan route that crossed this forlorn tract in the age of the far-flung empire. The area was rife with bandits and tribes that lived off raiding, and Hamiya deterred their deadly attacks for some time. Hamiya did not change, either in appearance, size, function or demographics, until the time of the ginger-haired general, but even then its name did not change. It survived in the same role until the empire declined and disintegrated. Hamiya’s system of government is hereditary, or so it became. The constitution doesn’t specify that the reins of power should pass down through a particular family. People hear about the constitution, the elite talk about it at length and the newspapers refer to it and even quote it, but it has no real substance. They say it was printed once, in complicated legal language that ordinary people couldn’t fathom. But this probably falls into the category of things said about Hamiya that seem so exaggerated that they make its very existence subject to doubt. It was your father who told you, when you started to take an interest in public affairs, that the system of government in your country was not in fact hereditary, but more consultative, and when you asked him why power was confined to the family of the ginger-haired general, he told you they were the founders and guardians of present-day Hamiya and that their role as heads of state was in effect a tradition that no one contested. But those who reject this interpretation say the source of their power is the armed forces and the National Security Agency. That’s how they have remained in power and monopolised it for so long. These divergent views on whether the system is constitutional or not do not appear to concern ordinary people, who have never seen a ruler other than a member of the ruling family, and do not expect to see one in the future. That’s what they are familiar with and what is customary.
Only our ancestors remember how the ginger-haired general came to this area. Although they are long gone, they passed on their memories to those who came after them. The general chose the dilapidated fort of black rock as his base after scanning the surrounding expanse. After that, with help from the commanders of his small army, he set about drawing up an ambitious design, starting with about two thousand acres of land and ending up at about twenty thousand acres, or some say two hundred thousand acres. It was in the nature of Hamiya that it could expand beyond its core, or contract according to need or in response to the challenges it faced. The ginger general was a former officer in the imperial army and what he did was not unusual in those days. Similar things happened in other parts of the empire as it collapsed. They used to say that Hamiya’s borders did not extend to the sea until a later stage, but this is not certain. A military man such as the ginger general could not have been unaware of the importance of having an outlet to the world. That’s hard to imagine, especially as the old trade route originally led to the sea and this route was still used, intermittently, at the time Hamiya was founded.
When you escaped, Hamiya’s physical appearance had already been stable for many years: there was the wall of volcanic rock, the lookout towers, the encampments of the various branches of the armed forces, the shooting ranges, the vaulted barrack blocks, the housing estates for each service, the large public park, the tall trees that lined the streets, the central market built in the traditional style, the public library with its dome, the sports halls, the polo field, the military airport, the large dam, the power plants, the model farms with their vegetables and livestock, the schools, the star-shaped headquarters of the National Security Agency, the devices that blocked the dust, the glare reflectors that tracked the sun as it crossed the sky, and so on.
Alongside the walls were massive cannons with long barrels and wide mouths, brought back by the ginger general from bloody wars overseas and painted a black colour that shimmered in the sunlight. The sight of them, next to the adjustable glare reflectors, struck fear into the hearts of the last remnants of tribesmen, whose only weapons had been short sw
ords and single-shot rifles. In a way that left no room for doubt, the textbooks assigned to schoolchildren such as you asserted that the ginger general came from ancient martial stock, but this did not prevent a minority of troublemakers from casting doubt on aspects of the ruler’s family tree, which was dominated by people with military decorations. Whatever the truth about his origins, the ginger-haired general, who was known among the people of Hamiya as ‘the Commander’, behaved like a father to all – a tradition continued by his son and grandson, the subsequent commanders.
In more recent times, when the cypress, poplar and cinchona trees had grown tall in the streets, in the military camps and housing districts, which were divided into square blocks, those who knew Hamiya attributed the decrease in raids and the disappearance of armed tribesmen to the awesome establishment that had begun life as a vague glint in the eyes of the ginger general. Others said the reason was the influx of traders, labourers and artisans, and the lighting of the streets, while others trace the decline and eventual disappearance of the tribesmen’s attacks to the tribesmen’s progeny, who were no longer as fierce as their fathers and did not have the same hunger in their bellies.
Anyway, Hamiya gradually subjugated the tribal raiders, with their swords and rifles, and took control of the surrounding area.
The population around Hamiya increased as people came in search of the work and security that Hamiya provided to the surrounding area. They moved into shanty towns that did not have the planning accorded to the square blocks, equal but different, of Hamiya’s residential districts and barracks. The population increase on the outskirts began during the reign of the commander known as the Grandfather. It started to accelerate in the reign of his son and became a troubling phenomenon in the early years of the Grandson. These areas had no formal name but with time they came to be known as ‘the town’. The districts that proliferated had no central authority. They were just communities governed by elders and strong men competing for dominance. Then, in the reign of the Grandson, they submitted to Hamiya’s authority and together the two formed a combined political entity. But the name Hamiya still prevailed in common usage, while the official name was confined to government transactions. There must have been numerous debates in Hamiya about extending its sovereignty over these scattered communities. This is clear from the fact that there are contradictory versions of the relationship between Hamiya and ‘the town’. Some people say it was the elders of these communities who asked to come under Hamiya’s authority after a struggle between them came to a head and no one of them could resolve the conflict in his favour. Others say it was objective necessity that intertwined the needs of Hamiya and of ‘the town’ so closely that it was difficult to keep them apart, while others say that ‘the adviser’ suggested the idea to the Grandson, who – as a man descended from warrior stock – was not enthusiastic about it at first. The military life enthralled him. Discipline was his creed. According to this version, he seems to have feared that chaos, instability and the disruptive ideas characteristic of civilian life would seep into the heart of Hamiya. The Grandson knew it was his duty to safeguard Hamiya’s supreme interests, whatever the circumstances. This was the family legacy, which would be in danger of extinction if he let down his guard and slept too soundly. Unlike his father and grandfather, he did not have friendly relations with civilians. He did not feel comfortable in their presence. There were civilians in Hamiya, running the municipality and the public services, but they were subject to military discipline. They even wore military-style uniforms, each according to his profession. Those who favour this version of events say ‘the adviser’ gave the Grandson sleepless nights with his warnings of the consequences that could arise if a powerful elder or an adventurous thug managed to unite the communities scattered around Hamiya into a single entity. The adviser’s background in the social sciences, anthropology and astrology, before he started working for the Grandson, enabled him to detect social movements and rebellions, and to foresee the outcome, from his observation of the conduct of a single individual. No one knows for sure which is the correct version, because the minutes of the meetings of Hamiya’s Supreme Council occupy a special corner in the Commander’s archives, marked Top Secret. Anyway, the relationship between Hamiya and ‘the town’ probably began at the start of the Grandson’s reign, and produced a single political entity. The Grandson was at the head, followed from the protocol perspective by the prime minister, who was traditionally from the elite of ‘the town’. He was largely nominal and everyone knew that the Grandson was the de facto prime minister. But neither the Grandson nor his prime minister had as much influence over people’s daily lives as the National Security Agency. Although it was certainly the head of state who initially gave the agency its authority it later became hard to tell who had the upper hand. No other institution penetrated every aspect of life as much as the National Security Agency, including the Grandson’s office itself. This, at least, was the consensus among the opposition forces, both the armed and the unarmed, and it was almost the only point of agreement between them.
In your youth you had a chance to see the precisely geometric layout of Hamiya’s extensive core, which you had not previously grasped. Only a minority of people, as far as you know, were aware of all Hamiya’s facilities, because there were restricted areas, above and below ground. Once, and only once, you were one of the top students at the Upright Generation Secondary School. The Grandson, in line with the practice of his father and grandfather, was in the habit of receiving outstanding students in his office to honour their scholastic performance, or perhaps to prove that he really existed and was after all a person of flesh and blood. There you saw a large photograph of Hamiya’s heartland, taken from the air and filling a whole wall of his office. You were so amazed at how regular, how extensive and elaborate it was that you thought the photograph was a fabrication or a photograph of somewhere other than Hamiya, which you thought you knew like the back of your hand. The settlements that surrounded Hamiya and that had started to expand even further had left the eastern side untouched. They lay to the west, the north and the south, whereas the eastern side was open to the desert, to the howling wind, and to the remaining wolves and hyenas that roamed at night across an ancestral home haunted by beasts like them, and tribesmen on the alert for anything that moves. This dreadful void was no accident, and some people thought it was deliberate. A kind of strategy. The purpose was not to let Hamiya be surrounded, to leave one side open as an eerie space that would strike fear of the unknown into the hearts of all.