The Automobile Club of Egypt

“The police are here,” I said in a low voice. “They want to search the apartment and arrest me.”

  My mother looked down, and her breathing became labored.

  “Have you done something wrong?” she asked hoarsely.

  “No.”

  “Then why do they want to arrest you?”

  “It’s political.”

  Either she could not take in the answer, or she realized that it was not the moment to ask any more questions. She got out of bed and put a black galabiyya over her nightdress. She fixed a scarf over her head and glanced at herself in the mirror.

  “Where do they want to search?”

  “Your bedroom, and then Saleha’s and Mahmud’s.”

  For as long as I live, I will remain in awe of my mother’s strength of spirit that night, of how she took the shock, regained her composure and behaved with determination. The agent came in, ransacked the room and went out again. They found nothing. That night, Mahmud was staying over at a friend’s. I went into the corridor and found Saleha sobbing. My mother had woken her up. The agents searched Saleha and Mahmud’s rooms and then took a long time searching mine. They went over to the officer carrying the material they had seized. The officer looked at it carefully and then asked me, “Are you reading books on Marxism?”

  “We are studying Marxism at the law college.”

  “And books on political agitation?”

  “I bought them from the book stalls in the Ezbekiyeh Gardens. I like reading about lots of things.”

  The officer smiled and gestured toward the shredder, which one of the agents was holding.

  “All right then, sonny. Perhaps you can explain the purpose of this machine…”

  “A paper shredder.”

  “So you have to shred your lectures?”

  He gave a sarcastic laugh and then stood up and said, “Come with us.”

  The man whose cigarette I’d lit came over to me, grabbed my hands and cuffed me. Saleha screamed, but my mother calmed her down. I did not resist, perhaps because it seemed as if I were watching this happen to somebody else. The agent pushed me along in front of him, with the others following behind, and my mother running along behind them calling out, “Where are you taking him?”

  “We’re inviting him over for a cup of coffee,” the officer said.

  “I think,” I told the officer, “that my family at least have the right to know where you are going to be holding me.”

  The officer mulled it over for a moment and then told my mother, “Kamel will be held at the Sayyida Zeinab police station.”

  I looked at the two of them, my mother and Saleha, and tried to give them a comforting smile. At the very bottom of the staircase, I suddenly heard Saleha sobbing out my name as if she had managed to restrain herself until that moment. They took me off in a big black police van, with the officer sitting in front next to the driver while I was in the back between two plainclothes officers. The third had not got into the Black Maria with us. The second we started moving, one of them grabbed my head while the other put a blindfold on me. I tried to struggle but was subjected to a rain of slaps and punches.

  “All right, motherfucker. We’ve got you now. You’ll do as we say, if you know what’s good for you.”

  I was already in a new state of mind. I could hear voices around me but could see nothing. After about a quarter of an hour, the Black Maria stopped, and they took me out. We went into some sort of building, up about ten steps and then down a corridor and into a lift. It felt like the second or third floor. We walked down another cold corridor and went into an office. An agent uncuffed me and then removed the blindfold. I felt dizzy, and it took me some time to be able to focus. I saw a bald, corpulent man in his fifties, smartly dressed but there was something unpleasant about his face.

  “Nice to have you here, Kamel,” he said quietly.

  “By law,” I retorted, “without a warrant I cannot be arrested and my house cannot be searched. Moreover, I will only answer questions in the presence of a lawyer.”

  The man laughed as if I had made a joke. He gestured with his hand, and the two agents standing on either side of me started punching me in the stomach and in the head until the man made another gesture and they stopped. Then they dragged me over and sat me down on a bench, sitting beside me on either side.

  “So,” he smiled, “would you like to contact anyone in particular?”

  I said nothing.

  “For example,” he continued, “would you like to contact Prince Shamel, head of the organization? Sad to say, he’s no longer in a position to save you. Prince Shamel himself has been locked up by royal command. All your chums have been locked up too. Abdoun, the Jewess Odette and that Communist Atiya.”

  He was trying to break me by intimating he knew everything. But I said nothing. I knew that a single wrong word might be enough to get me another kicking. The investigator leaned forward on his desk and asked sotto voce, “Tell me about your girlfriend, Mitsy.”

  “I will not talk about such things.”

  The punches started again. The man on my right was aiming his punches at my head. I started to feel dizzy.

  “When did you join the organization?” the investigator asked.

  “What organization?”

  “Kamel. Wise up! Don’t throw your future away. We have many means at our disposal. We can do what we want with you. If you make a confession, I promise you I will let you turn witness for the state, and you’ll walk scot-free.”

  SALEHA

  It would have been natural for my mother to break down and for me to comfort her, but the opposite happened. My nerves were shattered, and it was my mother who made light of the catastrophe. I could not stop imagining Kamel with his hands shackled and the policeman and security agents standing there with him. In the days that followed, I did not do a moment of studying. I just sat at my desk, unable to stop crying and unable to concentrate. I was astounded at how composed my mother managed to remain. I went with her to the police station in Sayyida Zeinab. The officer in charge took our names. He was a polite man and gave an embarrassed smile.

  “Kamel was not brought to this station,” he said.

  “But the officer who arrested him,” my mother told him, “stated he was taking Kamel to the Sayyida Zeinab police station.”

  “Look, madam,” the officer replied, “it sounds like Kamel has been arrested by state security. They generally give out misleading information to the family of the accused.”

  He said nothing for a moment and then wrote something down on a sheet of paper. “I would advise you to go and ask at the directorate. I will give you the name of a friend of mine there.”

  I still remember the name of the officer at the directorate. Fathy al-Wakil. He made a few telephone calls and then told us that Kamel was being held in the foreigners’ prison. It was far away, and they would not allow us to see him, but finally al-Wakil managed to wheedle permission for us to go and see Kamel on Friday, the weekly visit day. We went home and found Mitsy waiting for us in Aisha’s apartment. My mother and I both hugged her. Then we went over to our apartment along with Aisha. We sat in the sitting room sipping tea. Mitsy was nervy and pale. My mother told her and Aisha what we had been doing that day.

  “I’m coming along on Friday,” Aisha declared.

  Mitsy decided to sleep over with us that night, and then she started spending whole days with us, only going back to her apartment to sleep. As for Aisha, yet again she showed her devotion. She did not leave us for a single moment. She sent a lawyer called Gameel Barsoum to see Kamel. He was a kind-looking fat man who came to visit us that evening.

  “Did you manage to see Kamel?” my mother asked him apprehensively.

  He did not know where to look. He removed his glasses, took out a handkerchief and started wiping the lenses.

  “I saw him, and I was present during the interrogation,” he said.

  “How is he?” Aisha asked him.

  “He’s all right, thank God
.”

  “I’ve heard,” she said tremulously, “that they torture them there.”

  Gameel looked down and then went on in a low voice, “Unfortunately, there are signs of bruising on his body, and I have verified this during questioning.”

  My mother mumbled a few words that I could not make out, and then Aisha shouted, “They’ll answer to God, those criminals!”

  “Unfortunately,” Gameel continued, “torture is a matter of course with state security, but once I have shown the presiding officer evidence of bruising, the interrogators generally ease off.”

  “And could you tell me,” Mitsy asked him sharply, “on what charge he is being held?”

  The lawyer gave a wistful smile and said, “Kamel is accused of membership in a secret organization which aims to overthrow the government.”

  Aisha beat her arm against her breast, shouting, “He’s done for! He’s done for!”

  My mother grimaced and seemed to be expending a huge effort to keep her composure. “My son,” she enunciated carefully, “is an honorable man. He has never hurt a fly.”

  Mitsy gave the lawyer a serious stare, looking for all the world completely English at that moment.

  “Has Kamel confessed to membership in this organization?” she asked him.

  “No.”

  “Do you think his legal situation is bad?”

  “Definitely. The accusation is serious, and he could get life. The person accused of heading the organization is Prince Shamel, the king’s cousin. The king even had his cousin arrested. That’s how grave the matter is.”

  “But you said that Kamel hasn’t confessed?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Even if he were to confess, wouldn’t they have to take into consideration that it was extracted under duress?”

  “Of course. But unfortunately, they have evidence against him. They can connect him to a paper shredder and books on political agitation, and I still don’t know whether his colleagues in the organization have confessed or not.”

  We all sat there in silence, as if every last bit of energy had left us. Gameel tried to lighten the atmosphere a little by smiling and saying to my mother, “Please God, we’ll see him on Friday, and we’ll be able to see how he’s doing then.”

  Although I was longing to see Kamel, I was afraid at the same time. I would not be able to bear seeing him in a prison uniform with bruises on his face. I could not sleep all Thursday night. I said the dawn prayers with my mother, and we started to get things ready for the visit—underwear, clothes, new pajamas, fruit and lots of food. Aisha had contributed the mulukhiya with rabbit that Kamel loved so much. Gameel and Mitsy joined us, and we took two taxis to the prison. We sat in the waiting room as Gameel went to the prison office. Then he came back for us.

  I walked down the corridor trying not to faint. The frightening moment was getting closer. My brother Kamel. The best person I knew, the support of my life: now I was going to see him looking like a criminal behind bars. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I could hardly see.

  Outside a door, the lawyer stopped and whispered to us all, “You need to control your emotions now. If you break down in front of Kamel, it will have a harmful psychological effect on him. You are his nearest and dearest and you need to keep his spirits up. Do your utmost to help him.”

  I excused myself and went to the bathroom to rinse my face and then went back to the others, and we went in. In the large room an officer sat at a desk at the far end. I looked to the left and saw Kamel. He was pale, and his eyes were sunken. I could see blue bruises on his face. Mahmud shook his hand and then stood there saying nothing. My mother ran over to him, hugged him and burst out crying. Then Mitsy and Aisha and I shook his hand, and we all sat down in a circle with him.

  The officer cleared his throat and announced pleasantly, “I wish I could leave you alone, but prison regulations do not allow that.”

  My mother forced a smile and said, “It’ll all turn out all right, Kamel. Mr. Gameel has told us so. Please God, you’ll be out soon.”

  “Uncle Ali,” added Aisha, “sends you his greetings and says keep your spirits up, lad!”

  I just kept looking at my brother, trying not to cry.

  “Kamel,” said Mitsy, “never forget that you are struggling to achieve your country’s liberation. We’re proud of you.”

  Kamel was looking at us and smiling, but something in his smile made me want to cry, something oblivious, distracted, fragile. The visit lasted half an hour, during which we exchanged trivialities and spoke of nothing important. But our words were simply a cover for another silent and more honest exchange.

  At the end of our allotted time, the officer announced, “I’m sorry. The visit is over now.”

  Kamel said good-bye to us the way we had greeted him, with hugs and instructions to look after ourselves. Aisha burst out crying as my mother hugged him and said, “Good-bye, my hero. Keep your spirits up.”

  Mitsy and Kamel held hands and stared at each other. When it was my turn, I shook Kamel’s hand and he kissed me on the cheek and told me, “Don’t forget to study, Saleha.”

  41

  Despite having drunk so much that evening, thanks to their regular workouts, Mahmud and Fawzy still retained their agility, and their terror made them flee at full speed from the shouting doorman.

  “Stop them! Catch them!”

  A soldier on patrol appeared and sounded off a long wailing siren to let all other soldiers in the area know that a pursuit was taking place. The two boys kept running, almost tripping over themselves. Fawzy noticed the Seif al-Din Building, which he knew from other amorous adventures, and ran toward it with Mahmud following. They ran through the front door into the lobby, and as luck would have it, the doormen were either away or asleep. Fawzy stopped and grabbed Mahmud’s hand.

  “The building has two entrances,” he panted. “We’ll go out the other door.”

  They crossed the wide gloomy lobby and went out of the other door, finding themselves in Qasr al-Ayni Street. They ran toward Ismailiya Square, and then Fawzy stopped and instructed Mahmud, “Just walk normally now.”

  As usual, it was Fawzy who set the pace. They walked down the street and then made their way through side streets back onto al-Sadd Street. From time to time, Fawzy stopped and looked back to make sure they were not being followed. After half an hour, the front door of their building loomed into view. They ran inside and up the stairs. When they reached the front door of Mahmud’s apartment, Fawzy whispered, “Come up to the roof with me. We’ve got to talk.”

  Mahmud was beyond the point of being able to argue. He was trying slowly to understand what had happened, ending up with the sight of Tafida lying naked and dead on the bed. Fawzy unlocked the room on the roof and took out two chairs and a small table. They sat, as they always did, next to the wall that looked onto al-Sadd Street. Fawzy took a lump of hashish from his pocket and started rolling a joint.

  “I need something to get my head back together. The alcohol has worn off.”

  That was the way he dealt with a difficult situation, but his cheeriness seemed forced and meaningless. Mahmud sat there saying nothing, looking straight ahead but seeing nothing and occasionally letting out a sigh and banging his fists against his thighs or holding his hands on his head. Suddenly, he stood up and shouted out, in a voice raucous and strange, “The police’ll catch us and throw us in prison…”

  “They’ll never find us. The doorman doesn’t know my name or yours.”

  “But he knows what we look like.”

  “Even if the police question us, we haven’t done anything. Life and death are matters for God, may he be praised. Tafida’s time was up. She would have died in any case, whether we were there or whether she was alone.”

  “Tafida died in bed with you.”

  “All right, we had a relationship with the deceased woman, but she died a natural death.”

  Mahmud gave Fawzy a look of anger.

  “Don’t say
‘we’! You’re the one who was screwing Tafida. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “We were both there when she died.”

  At this point, Mahmud could no longer control himself, and his voice reverberated in the silence of the night, “You were the one screwing her. I told you from the very beginning I didn’t want the job, and it was you who said that we had entered into a sort of traditional, oral marriage with them and that they were like the concubines of the Franks. You got me into this mess.”

  Fawzy went over to Mahmud and put his hand on his shoulder, but Mahmud brushed it off.

  “Get away from me. I’m going downstairs.”

  Mahmud turned to leave, but then he stopped as if he had just remembered something. He turned toward Fawzy.

  “I don’t want to see you again!” he shouted. “Understand?”

  As soon as he got to his bedroom, Mahmud lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking. After a while, the sound of the dawn call to prayer reached his ears from the Sayyida Zeinab mosque. He got out of bed, took a shower and washed his mouth out well to remove any remnant of alcohol before dressing in his white galabiyya and saying his prayers. Seated on the prayer rug, he started reading from the Quran, but then his massive body started shaking, and he gave himself over to a fit of violent sobbing. He was beset with regret and fear. The meaning of what had happened was clear in his mind. He had been committing fornication with Rosa and Dagmar, but God Almighty had been merciful with him and was protecting him. God had given him chance after chance to return to a righteous life, but that devil Fawzy had turned his head, and so he continued committing debauchery, and now divine retribution had fallen upon him. He was mixed up in the death of a lady of some standing. He would have to prove that he had not killed her. Tafida al-Sarsawy’s family would now be able to ruin his future, not to mention the stain of scandal that would forever stick to his family. He stretched out, full of regret, before sinking into a worried sleep, in which he dreamed he was watching the naked Tafida running along behind him as he was trying to get away from her, screaming in terror.