by Ahmed Mourad
It was only logical, therefore, that he should say, ‘I’m with you.’
Ahmed stood up. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Where to?’
‘I’m going to show you Egypt.’
Inside the car Ahmed summarised for Alaa all that had happened in the last month, from the time he moved to the casino to the moment he sent Galal Mursi his poison pen letters.
Then Alaa told him about his life.
It was an ill-starred tale of constant struggle. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts with a degree in journalism in 1989. He was destitute, but soon managed to get the opportunity to train at a well known national newspaper. He started moving from door to door like a bee, trying to settle on a vision of his future career. His only obstacle was his principles, an obstacle that left him crashing, stumbling and falling flat on his face in the world of third-rate journalism, the home of the troublesome hack. More than once his articles were pulled, failing to tally with the tastes of an editor who took his news from the very people Alaa was attacking, until he was surprised to find himself laid off.
He spent three months living hand to mouth before he found a job at one of the independent newspapers. He didn’t last more than a month. It was a desperately yellow rag, but he needed the wage it paid him for his efforts. After that he worked for three more newspapers, the last of which was Freedom.
It was at Freedom that he found himself, and his name started to appear and get noticed. He trod shadowy backstreets but was not afraid because he did not write news without sources or evidence. He penned wide-ranging reports on corruption in state agencies and an extensive piece on the corruption that had transformed Egypt into a sponge: outwardly impressive but hollow within. He attacked the actresses who had turned cinema screens into a slave market where they displayed their bodies only to shamelessly turn up on chat shows during Ramadan. He was an ever watchful eye. He was an irritant.
Then one day the position of editor changed hands; an unexpected decision by the editor, quickly endorsed by the head of the paper’s board of directors: I am happy with what I achieved. I can leave with a spotless reputation …
Thus did he speak and thus did he leave and thus did Galal Mursi come to inherit the job.
Nobody knew anything about Galal Mursi. He appeared suddenly, as though he had materialised out of nowhere.
All the evidence suggested that he was an active journalist. In his first week he made sweeping changes at the paper: form, content, even the colours. His articles seemed powerful and strident, heedless of government and officialdom. He was like a stinging whip. He raised his paper up to compete with the nationals and he came out on top.
No one knew who his sources were. It was as though he had befriended a group of well-informed demons.
Then he started wielding his power over the journalists. He began to reject articles without offering any intelligible explanation. He changed the paper’s editorial line, attacking those he had previously courted and making peace with enemies. He became isolated. He discussed nothing and entertained no opinions other than his own, flying into a rage for the most trivial of reasons. Rumours circulated about his hidden links to senior officials. He spiked more than one article by Alaa that he would never have turned down before. The tension between them rose and their arguments intensified, though none were ever as bad as their final encounter.
Alaa was not the only one who caught the stench of something suspicious, but he was the only person who would confront Galal, pulling out old articles from the paper that dealt with the same subjects he was now rejecting. Indirectly he was saying, ‘You are a hypocrite.’ Galal was unable to quash him: Alaa was provocative but he was in the right; a chronic headache. And then Alaa handed Galal his head on a silver platter by attacking Habib Sherif Amin. The final confrontation had been planned in advance and he was sent home to share his dreams with the battered furniture.
It had gone half past two in the morning when Omar parked the car at the entrance to Zamalek. He had made the rounds of every public square and street in Downtown as he listened to Alaa and Ahmed, who now got out and opened the boot. Inside lay a laptop and Ahmed’s camera, which he recovered before getting back into the car next to Alaa. Opening the laptop, he set it on Alaa’s legs.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Alaa.
‘We’re not going anywhere. We’re staying in the car.’ He opened the image files as he spoke. ‘Before I show you Galal’s pictures I want to ask you something. Do you remember the Bar Vertigo incident?’
‘Of course. It was the subject of a major disagreement between myself and Galal.’
‘Why?’
‘Basically, I was going to write the article, then without any explanation Galal suddenly took over the report. Of course he changed everything I had written. Why do you ask about that case in particular?’
‘You never received an envelope at the paper containing pictures of the incident?’
‘Never. Just the one picture that Galal got from a source at the forensic office and then based his entire report on it.’
‘OK, well, look at this.’
Ahmed opened the first picture of the hotel.
As one picture followed another, Alaa’s jaw sagged until it reached his knees.
‘How did you …? Where …?’
‘I sent these pictures to Galal, and I’m the one who sent him the picture at the time of the incident as well. Galal has some interest in keeping these pictures hidden, just like he has an interest in covering up that business with Habib Sherif Amin.’
‘I was sure of it, but I never imagined things were this bad. You’ve got photographs of a murder that took place more than two years ago and the investigation’s been closed.’
‘And some yellow rag that pulls news out of thin air doesn’t want to publish them. Isn’t that peculiar?’
‘Have you tried sending these pictures to another paper?’
‘No response.’
‘Then there’s a blackout: an order from on high not to talk about the subject. Galal can’t publish them. He won’t give up. What you’ve done is great but it’s not enough.’
‘That’s why I called you.’
Then Ahmed opened the storehouses of his secrets; a veritable Aladdin’s cave. Alaa saw Galal the lover with his girls and without his mask. He saw Habib and Sally and Fathi el-Assal and many more, and he saw them all naked. He recognised all the faces that Ahmed hadn’t known, all those whose pictures never appeared in the press or on television. He was stunned, his mind in a whirl, scarcely able to believe what he saw.
‘What do you think?’ asked Ahmed.
‘About what? Do you realise what these pictures could do?’
‘That’s if someone agreed to publish them.’
‘They would cause an earthquake, Ahmed. Sordid scenes that would shake people’s faith. Take Counsellor Farouq el-Bassouni. Who would imagine he was in a relationship with Ola Zayed? A man as important as he is photographed sitting at a table with someone like her stroking his hair. You realise there’s nobody that hasn’t had Ola Zayed. She’s a tough girl. There’s a great recording of her talking to some guy on the phone. He’s criticising her for her seedy relationships and she’s swearing at him. Calls him “faggot”. Galal Mursi wrote an article on Amr Hamid making him out to be Dracula, and he lets Khaled Askar take chunks out of the guy at his leisure, and all the time he’s up to his eyeballs in little girls! Fathi el-Assal, the food importer who’s taken over the world: I’ve got a file on him that would be the end of him if it got out. The guy feeds us rubbish. He’s importing us into the cancer ward! It’s back to the eighties: remember the dog and cat food they used to sell as canned beef? But who was going to believe me, with nothing but the documents and papers I had? It was bad enough when I worked at the paper, so what chance do you think I have in my current situation, with me on the street? Habib Amin is the son of the third most powerful man in the country. Where did you acquire this? as they ask in the courts.
It’s too much: billions in the banks and tourist resorts in Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada and along the North Coast. And then there’s Sally: pimped out to the highest in the land and making herself out to be a nun, wailing whenever anyone reminds her of her video with Hisham Fathi. These people are making fools of themselves first, before they’re making fools of us.’
‘What do you think we do?’
‘We take them out.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘These pictures aren’t going to expose their crimes of exploitation against the people, they’ll only lose them people’s respect, shake their trust. Our dozy countrymen love a ruckus. Let’s turn the tables on these people. We’ll give the population a scandal to wake them up: let’s whip the towel from their masters’ waists; show them who’s feeding them and watering them and where their money’s going. They see the whore who shakes it for thousands and takes them seven at a time while our scientists and scholars are living on dry bread. They’ll believe there’s no point. They’ll understand that there’s a conspiracy afoot to make fools of us; to milk us. What kind of people are we? Don’t we want to wake up?’
‘Will you help me?’
‘Do you even need to ask? I’ve got information and documents and papers about every one of the people in these pictures. You might say I’ve got evidence. But I need garnish if I’m going to serve the dish up. Information needs pictures to open the way: something to scare a paper into thinking they might lose the scoop. I’ve got stuff on Habib and Fathi el-Assal. Did you know they were partners? But Habib stays out of the limelight. There’s a source at the company who got me documents that prove irregularities with the quality control and expiry dates of their food products: milk, cheese, honey, the lot. The man uses substances not safe for human consumption in his food production – formaldehyde powder’s the least of it – then he calls it “organic”. I prepared a complete file and showed it to Galal. Know what he did? He took the whole file, with all the documentation and certificates, and promised to read it through, then a week later I was shocked to see an attack on Nutrimental, their only competitor and a large advert for the Assal Group on the back page. There were quotes from my article, but against Nutrimental not el-Assal. Now they’ve monopolised the market; there’s no competition. I lost it, and that’s what got me earmarked for dismissal by Galal. Tomorrow I’ll start looking for someone decent who’s prepared to show these files to the people. This can’t wait any longer. These pictures of yours will get a huge response: they’d give any paper the courage to run my articles. It’s the pictures that will sell and attract readers.’
‘There’s something else.’
‘What?’
‘Where are you supposed to have got these pictures from?’
‘I can never reveal my sources.’
‘You’ll sing after the first slap,’ said Omar, looking at Alaa in the mirror.
‘You don’t know me. Besides, who told you I haven’t been tested before? Many’s the time I’ve been hauled in by state security. The situation’s different this time, though. This is a scandal with photographs. It’ll be all over Egypt in less than an hour. You’re forgetting what Sally and Hisham’s tape managed to do, and these pictures are much worse. The scandal will run on its own.’
‘But aren’t you scared?’ asked Omar.
‘Didn’t I tell you? I can’t lose more than I already have.’
‘OK, and what about the pictures of the incident at the bar?’
‘That’s the icing on the cake. In a few days the whole of Egypt will know who killed Hisham Fathi and whose interests are behind the crime. But only after Galal takes the first slap so he gets out of the action and disappears.’
He was fervent, charged. With his dark skin, his sinewy build and broad brow he was like one of the revolutionaries of 1919 who roared fearlessly in the face of corruption, full of principles and faith in the cause.
The three of them went on debating, finally reaching an agreement in the early hours of dawn. Alaa was to prepare a response to Galal and his claims, and publish it in the Free Generation newspaper. In Alaa’s view this was the most appropriate newspaper for the job: balanced, with a bias towards the truth, it was the moral opposite of Galal Mursi’s paper and would be delighted to play host to his scandals. Next, Alaa would run an extensive report illustrated with pictures on the Bar Vertigo incident, followed by a campaign against the influential figures in the pictures from Gouda’s legacy.
Ahmed and Omar would keep out of the spotlight to avoid any suspicions.
The long night was over. The car came to a stop in a Downtown side street. Alaa got out and was about to say goodbye to Ahmed and Omar when Omar stopped him.
‘Just a second.’
Omar took out the camera, aimed the lens at Alaa and took a full-length picture of him.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘I’ll make you an ID,’ Omar replied sarcastically.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Ahmed. ‘I’ll call to check you’re OK. And I made this CD for you: all the pictures are on it.’
Alaa took the CD. ‘Don’t worry. Leave this to me, and pray for me.’
That night, Ahmed slept for three hours: the happiest three hours sleep of his life. He awoke full of energy and headed for the studio. He had a sensation of some onerous care shifting off his chest after threatening to break his back. He did not have Alaa’s journalistic talent or experience, nor the desire for vengeance and the powerful motivation of restoring his honour that would make the pictures an unstoppable weapon in his hands.
On his way he passed a news kiosk where he bought a copy of Freedom. He saw nothing with even the remotest connection to the Bar Vertigo pictures. He wasn’t surprised; he had been expecting a response like this from Galal. The entirety of page four, however, was taken up by a large article discussing computer-manipulated images: faked photos on the Internet of foreign and Arab actresses, their heads placed on naked bodies. It was the start of Galal’s pre-emptive strike, paving the way for the appearance of his pictures on the scene. But it was no longer his mission, in any case. Alaa had asked him to disappear: the ball was in his court. He had asked for two weeks for things to settle down and to prepare his response to Galal. The sense that he was rushing a critically ill patient to hospital to save his life seized Ahmed, though his fears and doubts continued to assail him, ever-present day and night despite his screaming in their face.
Would Alaa succeed?
He had two weeks to wait, and five days until Sunday: the day he would meet Ghada.
18
The week passed extremely slowly, the pace felt by somebody waiting for the results of their secondary school exams, with the restlessness of the hungry man as he waits for a meal or the tedium of the student trapped in patriotic education class.
The time had been broken up by the opening of a case on the theft of Hassan’s car, then it’s closure on the discovery of the vehicle beneath El-Malik el-Salih Bridge, plus a couple of phone calls to Alaa, the first of them two days after their meeting.
‘What’s the news?’ Ahmed said once they had greeted each other.
‘You’re not going to believe it. I spoke to the people I told you about. Just as I expected.’
‘Meaning?’
‘There’s a meeting tomorrow.’
‘They agreed?’
‘Our offer wasn’t turned down.’
‘Aren’t they scared?’
‘They’re champing at the bit.’
‘Watch yourself.’
‘Don’t worry: leave it in God’s hands.’
‘Goodbye.’
Then again, two days later: ‘What’s the news?’
‘Buy a copy of Free Generation next week. You won’t believe it: all our friend’s scandals on the front page. There’s an article that will wipe him off the map.’
‘Will your name be on it?’
‘Of course not. I explained to them that I’d been sent the pictures anonym
ously and made it a condition that my name didn’t appear.’
‘I’m worried. I don’t know why.’
‘Worried about what? Them bashing their heads against the wall? Their only concern is finding a way to respond to the article and defending him. This time, it will be difficult for him to defend himself.’
‘Call if there’s anything new.’
‘Sure. Goodbye.’
On Saturday, at ten thirty in the morning, Ahmed passed the newspaper vendor on his way to work. He bought five copies when he saw the front page: a picture of Galal hugging one of the girls, a black strip placed over her eyes to prevent her being identified, and a headline in red font that read: ‘Is this “Freedom,” Mr Editor-in-Chief?’ Beneath this were a few lengthy sentences:
Where does Galal Mursi go every evening? He claims the moral high ground and argues with preachers in the morning, but at night he parties in the casinos of El-Haram Street. His female companions are never older than eighteen and he takes his stories from drunkards and third-rate performers. Pictures are from an anonymous source sent by an individual who has been following Galal Mursi, the editor-in-chief of Freedom newspaper. Details of Galal Mursi’s dark side. Free Generation opens the first file on the wild nights of society’s stars. Next issue’s surprise: remember the Bar Vertigo incident? Exclusive details and pictures to be published for the first time.
‘The kid’s come up trumps,’ Omar declared.
‘Didn’t I tell you? The world’s about to be turned upside down.’
‘And no one knows who’s behind this?’
‘Alaa’s name isn’t on it, and we’ve nothing to do with it,’ said Ahmed. ‘Galal will be thinking of committing suicide as we speak.’
‘I give you my word, if I was in his place I’d down a couple of bottles of bleach, a bit of roach poison, gurgle with water from the toilet bowl, then jump off a diving board into an empty pool.’