The Republic of False Truths

by Alaa Al Aswany

  Egyptians, as they grow older, turn to religion in the hope of a happy ending. Essam, however, was incapable of self-deceit. He could not practise the rites of a religion he didn’t believe in. Despite, therefore, the overwhelming pleasure that Nourhan gave him, he still felt lonely, as though loneliness were his fate. He had lived alone and would die alone. He accepted the idea of death, but feared illness. He didn’t want to be in pain or become a burden on people or the object of their pity. He hoped he would die quietly in his own bed and had resolved, in his heart of hearts, to commit suicide if afflicted with a serious disease.

  Essam poured himself a fresh glass of whisky, listened to the voice of Umm Kulsoum, and decided to put everything that was worrying him out of his mind. He’d suffered greatly in his life, he thought to himself, and deserved to enjoy what was left of it. By the time he reached Nourhan’s building, he was tipsy and had phoned to make sure that little Hamza had gone to sleep. The sound of her voice on the telephone had excited him, and he got out of the car in a hurry, entering the towering building and taking the lift to the tenth floor. Nourhan was waiting for him, the scent of perfume wafting off her, wearing the pink dressing gown that he loved. And the moment she closed the door, she turned to face him, suddenly threw off the dressing gown, which fell to the floor, and revealed that her body was totally naked. Essam stared at her for a moment, then lost control of himself and pounced. She pretended to be taken by surprise and whispered in a weak voice, “Be careful with me. Please don’t hurt me.”

  The melting tone in which she said this so kindled his desire that his erection became almost painful. He took her to the bed, where his performance was strong and rough, and she shuddered twice before he reached his own climax. He went out into the living room, smoking a cigarette, and she went into the bathroom, then passed by Hamza’s room to make sure that he was asleep. After she returned, she sat down next to Essam on the sofa and said, “Darling, have you thought about it?”

  “I have.”

  “And have you made a decision?”

  “I need to think about it some more.”

  “Beloved, this is an opportunity that won’t come again. You’re an expert in cement. If we open a company to trade in cement, we’ll make millions.”

  “The problem is that it’s not legal.”

  “I told you, the company will be in my name.”

  “You’re my wife, which means that the law forbids you to trade in cement.”

  “It’s a common-law marriage.”

  “It makes no difference.”

  “No one knows I’m your wife.”

  Essam smiled and said, “There are lots of wonderful people about. As soon as we open a company, anyone could inform the Administrative Control Authority.”

  “You’re afraid of a man-made law? I acknowledge only the law of God.”

  Sarcastically, Essam asked her, “Did God really make a law for cement trading?”

  Ignoring his sarcasm, she said seriously, “I asked Sheikh Shamel and he said a company like that was acceptable religiously.”

  “You must have taken him out for a good dinner.”

  “Essam…please speak of our religious scholars with respect.”

  He held his tongue. He would have liked to maintain the happy mood and was preparing himself for another bout of love, but Nourhan began a new manoeuvre. She snuggled up to him, kissed his neck, and whispered, “Tell me frankly: Are you going to form a company?”

  “I’ll think about it and let you know.”

  “Give me a specific time.”

  “In two weeks.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  She reached out and played with his white hair, then sighed and said coquettishly, “Dearie me, I do love you, you old man, you!”

  He felt the blood course through his veins at the touch of her soft, plump body. He kissed her slowly, his hands roaming. Suddenly the phone rang and he left her to answer it, uttering a few words that she didn’t hear before ending the call. Then he kissed her on her forehead and said, “Sorry, Nour. There’s a big problem. I have to go back to the factory right away.”

  8

  Danya prayed the evening prayer plus the two supererogatory prostrations, put on her pyjamas, and stretched out on the bed. She pressed the button next to her and all the lights went out. Closing her eyes in the darkness, she went over what her father had said. She felt oppressed and her head filled with questions.

  Wasn’t Islam the religion of God, who was just and merciful? How could He allow people to be tortured, their dignity treated as though it were worth nothing? Had she done her father a wrong? Was she really a headstrong girl who acted on her emotions with no thought to the consequences?

  The tragedy of Khaled Said had made a strong impression on her and she’d been keen to visit his mother, with no thought other than to console her. The impact of the visit on her father and her brothers was something she hadn’t considered. She couldn’t bear the idea that she’d been a cause of harm to them: they were the people she loved most in this world; there was nobody more tender or generous than her father. She prayed God one day to allow her to repay him for even a part of his kindness to her.

  Was his reward to be that she caused problems for him in his work? Why had she begun sometimes to overreact and argue with him in an unbecoming way? When she remembered that her father was having her watched, her growing sense of guilt became mixed with anxiety. He must surely have found out about Khaled. It looked that way from his angry face. Hadn’t he said that her riff-raff fellow students at the university had poisoned her ideas? Was that just a passing comment, or had he meant Khaled specifically?

  Danya couldn’t get to sleep, so she got out of bed and made herself a large glass of hot mint tea and lay down on the sofa. Despite her anxiety and exhaustion, a smile escaped her when she recalled that Khaled Madany stood accused of poisoning her ideas. How true was the charge? Khaled had been her fellow student since the medical prep year. His name began with the letter of the Arabic alphabet that came before hers, so they were together in every review group and in the practical and oral exams. She knew him by sight and would say hi when she saw him, as she would to any other colleague. She’d never thought about him much and her relationship with him might have remained as superficial as this till they graduated, but one day she’d read an article of his in the wall magazine where he said that morals without religion were better than religion without morals. At that time, she was an enthusiastic disciple of Sheikh Shamel. Khaled’s article had provoked her so much that she’d thought of writing a rebuttal that would refute all the arguments he’d put forward. The following day, she’d seen him at the review group and hadn’t been able to contain herself. Angrily, she’d asked him, “Are you the one who wrote the article on religion and morals?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a very bad article and you had no right to say any of it.”

  He looked at her calmly from behind his black-rimmed spectacles, then smiled and said, “You have the right to believe that.”

  His calmness provoked her, so she said vehemently, “How dare you say rude things about religion like that?”

  “I didn’t say anything rude about religion.”

  “You said that morals are more important than religion.”

  “I said that morals without religion are better than religion without morals.”

  “You can’t have morals without religion.”

  “You can, and the proof is that lots of atheists have morals and a conscience.”

  “If a person refuses to believe in God, God forbid, how can he have morals?”

  “A person can put his morals into practice via his conscience rather than via religion.”

  His immediate, confident answers confused her somewhat and she asked him, “Are you a Muslim?”

/>   “I am, thanks be to God.”

  “God says, ‘The true religion in God’s eyes is Islam’ and He says, ‘If anyone seeks a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him’ so all the ideas you wrote in your article are displeasing to God and His prophet.”

  His smile grew broader and he said kindly, as though talking to a child of whom he was fond, “Will you hear me out without interrupting?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I pray and I fast and I perform my religious duties, but I believe that the true religion lies in what I do, not what I believe. Religion isn’t an end in itself. It’s a means to teach us virtue. Our Lord, Glorious and Mighty, isn’t in need of our prayers and our fasting. We pray and fast to discipline ourselves. Islam isn’t just a matter of outward form and acts of worship, as the Salafists believe, and it isn’t just a means to gain power, as the Muslim Brothers believe. If Islam doesn’t make us more humane, then neither it nor we are worth anything.”

  She looked at him without answering. He continued excitedly, “Why do we learn medicine? To treat people. In other words, there’s no point to our studies unless we practise medicine. By the same logic, religion is an exercise in the doing of good. What is the point of performing its rites if they are not reflected in our morals?”

  They talked a lot that day. Even though she fought him, deep down, she was impressed by his powers of analysis and his ability to express his views. He told her he was a poet. She asked, so he recited to her a poem of his called “The Pharaoh.” When she asked him what some of the things in the poem meant, he said, “You can’t explain poetry.”

  “Even if you’re the one who wrote the poem?”

  “I can’t explain it precisely because it’s my poem. Poetry has to explain itself.”

  He spoke to her in a lovely, simple way. After that, they continued to meet often, and each time she discovered how meagre her store of knowledge was compared to his abundant supply of information. In each conversation, he would draw her attention to some new thing she’d never thought about before. Thanks to Khaled, her views on many things changed. He left such an impression on her that she could remember sentences he’d said word for word. Indeed, more than once she caught herself speaking just like him, and once she said to him, “You know, when I listen to you, I can’t believe that you’re the same age as me.”

  “I’m five months older than you.”

  “Sometimes when we’re talking I feel as though the soul of a sixty-year-old has passed into your body.”

  He laughed loudly and said, “So you think I’m possessed by a demon?”

  She answered seriously, “Really. Your ideas are far beyond your age.”

  “I thank you, but they’re not my ideas. They’re all things I’ve read.”

  “When did you read all these books?”

  “The credit should go to my father, who noticed that I liked to read when I was small, so he gave me a subscription to the Palace of Culture. I began borrowing books, reading them and returning them. Imagine—that a simple, uneducated man could value reading so much!”

  When he spoke of his father, a mixture of tenderness and pride appeared in his face. She respected this in him, that he wasn’t at all embarrassed by the humbleness of his family. Once he told her, “I’ve been very blessed. God gave me a father who was poor and honourable. I couldn’t have borne it if my father had been rich and corrupt.”

  She often wondered what the secret of this inner peace might be, which was always apparent on his face, as though he was completely certain as to the future. He took everything simply, even the class difference between them. Once he said to her mockingly, “You know what? Sometimes I’m afraid of our friendship.”

  “Why?”

  “Your father could destroy me and my family in a second.”

  “My father only goes after terrorists and spies.”

  He laughed and said, “Thank God I’m an upstanding citizen!”

  Then he went on, jokingly, “In any case, Madame Danya, I thank you for befriending someone like me who has exactly ten pounds and sixty piastres in his pocket and has to hop on a minibus every day to get to class.”

  She appeared annoyed and said, “Have you ever felt I lord it over my colleagues?”

  “You’re a modest person, but your modesty doesn’t change the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “That you are Danya, daughter of the aristocracy, and I’m Khaled, son of a driver.”

  “Khaled, please…that kind of talk upsets me.”

  He apologised and they spoke of something else. After this, she told her driver not to bring the Mercedes onto the college grounds and took to leaving on foot through the Qasr El Eini Street gate and getting into the car in the street. She even stopped wearing very expensive outfits and took to going to college in simple clothes, as far as possible. She tried to make friends with fellow students to whom she’d never spoken before and to divest herself of anything that might distinguish her from any ordinary female student. It upset her when he spoke of the social difference between them because it reminded her that their friendship had no future. Another year and they’d graduate. Inevitably, they’d go their separate ways. Her attachment to Khaled wasn’t viable under any circumstances. Even if he graduated with top marks and was appointed a teaching assistant at the faculty, even if he got a contract to work in the Gulf and became rich, his father’s job as a driver would remain an insuperable barrier. She couldn’t even bring the matter up with her family. Despite all of this, from time to time, she was seized by an obscure hope that some unexpected event would occur (like in the movies) and that she’d marry Khaled and bear his children. She thought about it all the time. She went over him in her mind bit by bit: his clean, slender body that gave off a nice smell of soap; the thick hair on his chest that showed through the opening in his shirt; his beautiful, calm smile; his honest, trusting look from behind his spectacles; his smooth black hair, full lips, and even, shiny white teeth; his long, tapering fingers, like a pianist’s. Often, she dreamed of him. She’d see herself sitting next to him on a sofa in a resplendent garden, surrounded by flowers more beautiful than any she’d seen before; she was whispering words that she couldn’t hear to him and holding his hands. Then she’d embrace him and put his head on her breast and be shaken by an overwhelming pleasure, and the dream would end. In the morning, though, she’d feel guilty, and she’d shower, ask God for forgiveness, and pray.

  Every day that passed brought her closer to Khaled. She told him everything she did, listened to his opinion, and asked him about everything that was on his mind. They spent long hours together at the faculty. She had asked him—to avoid gossip—that they not sit anywhere together, insisting that they talk while walking in the college grounds. Khaled made fun of her misgivings, saying, “If being together is going to cause rumours, it won’t make any difference whether we’re walking or sitting.”

  “There is a difference,” she said, seriously. “If they see us when we’re walking, we could be going to a lecture. If we’re sitting on our own, though, we’re proclaiming to everyone that we have something special.”

  “Don’t we have something special?”

  “Of course, but it’s not in our interest to announce it now.”

  “Our friendship is honourable and respectable.”

  She replied with affectionate sarcasm, “Dr. Khaled, we’re living in Egypt, not Holland!”

  “Meaning we have to submit to the rules of a backward society?”

  “If I really matter to you, then you have to be concerned for my reputation.”

  Khaled nodded and said, “I’m not convinced, but I’ll do whatever makes you comfortable.”

  Every day they’d roam the Qasr El Eini grounds, talking. They called their meetings of this kind their “strolls.” Despite her attachment to him, she felt no gu
ilt. When she prayed, she stood before God with a clear conscience. She’d thank God that she hadn’t committed any sin with Khaled (apart from the dreams, which happened involuntarily).

  In two years, he had never touched her. He had never tried, and she wouldn’t have let him.

  Lying on the sofa now, she dozed off, waking the following morning with a headache and a pain in her neck. The moment she reached the college, she started looking for Khaled but couldn’t find him. She rang him but found his phone was off. He appeared at the end of the day, and she asked him, “Where were you?”

  He said quietly, “We’ll talk on our stroll.”

  Once they’d begun their daily round, she asked him angrily, “Is it normal for you to hide all day?”

  He smiled and said, “I had a meeting at the National Association for Change.”

  “Your phone was off.”

  “During the meetings, we have to turn our phones off and put them somewhere else or they can be used to listen in on us.”

  She thought of her conversation with her father about surveillance. Somewhat calmer now, she said, “You ought to have told me, Khaled. I was worried about you.”

  “Sorry.”

  Silence reigned for a moment, then she said, “I wanted to ask you about something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Does Islam permit torture?”

  “Of course not. Islam forbids torture.”

  “But Islam commands punishments such as flogging, stoning, and the cutting off of limbs. Aren’t those all forms of torture?”

  Khaled looked at her in amazement and asked, “Who told you that nonsense?”

  “A relative of mine who has read deeply on the subject of religion. He told me that there is a punishment in religious law called ‘castigation.’ It gives the ruler the right to imprison anyone and torture him if he considers him a danger to society.”