The Republic of False Truths

by Alaa Al Aswany

  One of Khaled’s colleagues tried to drag him away, but Madany pushed his hand aside roughly and raised his voice again.

  “Answer me, Khaled! Get up and speak to me, son!”

  Silence reigned for a moment, then Madany cried out, “Why don’t you answer me, Khaled?”

  His voice sounded strangely hoarse and he turned around suddenly to face the door, as though he’d decided to leave. After a few steps, however, he stopped and suddenly fell to his knees, screaming, “Khaled! My son!” and began sobbing loudly, his body shaking hard. Khaled’s colleagues gathered round him offering their condolences, and some embraced him. Madany then stopped weeping, and his face took on a hard expression that never again left it, as though what had happened had taken him beyond the range of any expression, as though he’d retreated to a mysterious inner world that absorbed him totally. Hind now arrived and screamed and beat her face, and those present gathered around her and the nurses pulled her aside and, when she began to scratch her face with her nails, held on tight to her hands. Khaled’s colleagues took care of everything. They obtained the forensic doctor’s report and the burial permit and brought in the undertaker, with whom they settled up, and prepared everything for the funeral. Madany attended the washing of the body and its wrapping in a shroud but remained silent, neither weeping nor saying a word, though from time to time he would bend over Khaled’s body and stroke it, running his hands gently over his chest and hands and feet. His look remained unfocused, as though he was unaware of what was going on.

  Once the formalities had been completed, the funeral procession exited the Salah El Din mosque next to Qasr El Eini, attended by tens of thousands of the youth of the revolution, the cries ringing out like thunder:

  “Sleep, Martyr, and Rest! We’ll Do the Rest!”

  “Revenge or We Die Like Them!”

  Madany hugged the bier hard as they lowered it into the grave, then took a step back and said, in a loud voice, “Goodbye, Khaled! I’ll see you again soon, son.”

  Madany failed to turn up for work for about a month, and when he came back Essam Shaalan had been fired and the four-man committee had taken over the running of the factory, so he presented it with a request to be transferred back to the ambulance department, after which he sat in the garage continuously reading the Koran and neither looking around him nor speaking to anyone, totally absorbed in his inner world until such time as a call should come, when he would get into the ambulance and take care of it. Every attempt by his fellows to involve him in conversation failed. He would answer them curtly, or sometimes just look at the person who spoke to him and not reply. Khaled’s colleagues took him to the public notary, where he gave power of attorney to the lawyer who would follow up on the complaint against the officer implicated in the murder until it reached the courts. On the eve of the trial, Uncle Madany didn’t sleep. He took a day off from the factory and went to the Sayeda Zeinab mosque, where he prayed the dawn prayer, and then to the courthouse, which hadn’t yet opened its doors. He sat in the café next door and began drinking coffee and smoking until the lawyer came, along with Hind, Danya, and Khaled’s other colleagues, and they took him into the hearing. Madany insisted on sitting next to the prisoners’ dock and asked Khaled’s colleagues to point out his son’s murderer when he arrived. The officers accused of killing demonstrators entered the courtroom and the guards escorted them to the dock. Madany then devoted himself to gazing at the officer who had killed his son. He was young, not more than thirty, and smartly dressed. He had placed sunglasses over his eyes, was well-built, and had a small patch at the front of his head where the hair was thinning. Madany was gripped by a strange urge that made him stare at the killer’s right hand. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. It was a plump hand, its fingers short and stubby. This was the hand that had killed Khaled. This finger was the one that had pulled the trigger, releasing the bullet that had lodged in his head. Couldn’t the officer have arrested Khaled instead of killing him? Couldn’t the officer’s hand have misaimed? Couldn’t Khaled have bent forward, so that the bullet struck him in the shoulder or the arm and didn’t kill him? Madany continued to gaze at the officer until the hearing ended and the lawyers told him that the case had been postponed. Madany left the courthouse with Hind and shook the hands of the lawyers and his son’s colleagues, but Danya insisted on taking him home in her car, saying to Madany in a low voice, “I need to talk to you about something important.”

  Madany got in next to the driver and Danya and Hind sat in the back seat. They didn’t exchange a word throughout the trip. Madany had met Danya with the rest of Khaled’s colleagues after he was killed. He loved them all, and whenever he saw them, an affectionate expression would appear on his face, though it would soon fade and make way once more for the hard expression that so rarely left it. Once, it occurred to him that Danya’s sorrow over Khaled was different. His thoughts took him no further than that, as he’d lost the ability to concentrate on anything. Thoughts crossed his mind like broken fragments, only for him to be brought up sharply against the same fact: his son Khaled was dead. He would never see him again. He’d never rejoice at his graduation, never need the money that he’d saved up to buy him a practice. Khaled would never marry and he’d never rejoice in his children as Madany had so often dreamed of doing. Danya’s driver took on a somewhat displeased look as he asked Madany for directions through the lanes of Maasara. Hind answered the driver and in the end they arrived. It was the first time Danya had seen Khaled’s house. She looked about her and was swept by such a rush of affection that she almost smiled. This was where Khaled had come from, this poor neighbourhood where small children played barefoot. From this crumbling staircase, from this flat painted with peeling whitewash, Khaled had come to her at Qasr El Eini, full of confidence. How had he put up with all this poverty without being broken or despairing or hating the world? How had he kept up his confident smile and enquiring glances from behind his spectacles when he was leaving such misery behind him? Danya remembered how he’d talked about his father and recalled the humour in his voice as he said, “Our Lord loves me, Danya. He gave me a poor, decent father instead of a rich, corrupt one.”

  Utterly absorbed by her thoughts, she gazed around the flat once again till she heard Uncle Madany saying “I seek the forgiveness of God!” He’d finished the noon prayer and now sat down in front of her on the couch, running his long prayer beads through his fingers as though waiting for her to begin.

  In a low voice, she said, “I’m sure you know, sir, that the late Khaled was close to us all. He was very dear to me, specifically.”

  Something like a smile appeared on Madany’s face, breaking out and then vanishing immediately. Danya told him everything. Strangely, she wasn’t embarrassed and she left nothing out. She told him in detail what had occurred at her confrontation with her family and how guilty she would feel whether she testified or not. Madany lit a cigarette and said in decisive tones, “Of course you shouldn’t testify.”

  She looked at him in amazement and then he said, “Khaled wouldn’t want you to lose your family. We have enough witnesses. All the lawyers confirmed that we have enough witnesses.”

  Hesitantly, she said, “So you mean, sir…”

  Uncle Madany interrupted her. “Don’t testify, my dear. I’m Khaled’s father and I’m telling you not to testify.”

  Danya didn’t raise the matter again, but in her heart of hearts was embarrassed that she’d felt relief. She took her leave, and when she asked Uncle Madany if he needed anything, he looked at her, hesitated for a moment, and then pulled her to him and hugged her. To his amazement, she threw herself into his embrace and he felt her arms encircling his back, then became aware that her body was shaking as she wept. He led her to the door of the house and Hind accompanied her to the car, then went back in and asked her father if she should make him lunch. Entering his room, he said he wasn’t hungry but would sleep
for a little. He threw his body down onto the bed and quickly surrendered to a deep sleep from which he awoke to find himself being gently shaken. Opening his eyes, he found Hind whispering softly, “There are some people outside who want to see you.”

  He took an instant to gather his thoughts, then asked her in a low voice, “What people?”

  “I’ve never seen them before,” she answered. “They say they want to see you about Khaled.”

  41

  TESTIMONY OF SAIDA AHMAD

  I was arrested at the 9 March sit-in. As soon as I arrived at the museum, I was met by an officer whose identity I don’t know. He told me, “Hello, Saida! Finally made it? I’ve been waiting for you.”

  The first thing he did was give electric shocks to my belly. They said, talking about us, “We got them from a brothel.” They poured water over us and gave us electric shocks and cursed us with very disgusting words. Imagine—people spitting on you and cursing you and hitting you on the face with their shoes! They wanted us to be sorry for 25 January. They wanted us to be sorry we’d done the revolution. Then they took us to the place called S28. I thought they’d interrogate us and then send us home. What more could they do to us? They’d done what they’d done at the museum, and it was over.

  They put us on buses. Of course, our hands were tied, and they didn’t beat us, they dragged us over the ground. When they got us inside S28, they made us stand in a line and fetched empty bottles that really did look like Molotov cocktails and set them all out in front of us. They photographed us with them as though they belonged to us and we girls were prostitutes and the boys were thugs. Imagine—after that they put us on the bus and left us in it till morning. All this happened without anyone interrogating us. It was just them talking dirty. They kept cursing us and saying, “You’re the ones who ruined the country—what do you expect back from the country?”

  This was how they started, with different shifts taking over from one another all through the night. Like, four soldiers would go and four more come and beat us. All night long we were beaten. As soon as they brought us in, they said, “If anyone opens her mouth or says a word in here, we’ll bury her in the sand. There’s no one to see and no one to hear.” They treated us so badly that all of us left prison messed up psychologically, physically, and in our morale. In the end we got to the military prison. They took us and made us stand in a line. They said, “Anyone who’s got anything on her, hand it in.” They’d taken my bag and my things, but I had my ID card in my pocket, and I had fifty pounds on me for expenses. I handed in my ID and stuff. They’d taken my bag and everything, but it wasn’t a problem, I didn’t care. Any girl who was wearing anything, anyone who was wearing a gold ring, had to take it off. We handed our mobiles in to them. We handed our ID cards in. We were standing in this line and I swear to God I saw a new picture of deposed president Hosni Mubarak hanging there. I asked the officer, “Excuse me, sir. What’s Mubarak’s picture doing here?” and he told me, “What’s it got to do with you?” with insults, of course. He said, “We love him. You don’t want him to be your president any longer but he’s our president. What have you got to do with him?”

  The officer told us, “Let’s go. You’re going to be examined. Which of you has any injuries?” I told him, “All of us have injuries, sir, from all the beating and the slapping.” They took the first in line, then the second, then the third till it was my turn. I went into a room, a kind of chamber, with a window a metre and a half long on each side—a large window, and the door was open, and the soldiers could see you from the other side. There was a woman there whose job was to search me. I thought she was just going to search me the way we get searched at the airport, like the way they do when they do an ordinary search. I heard her say, “Take off your clothes.” I took my jacket off. I heard her say, “Take off all your clothes.” I said, “Okay but if you don’t mind, ma’am, could you close the window and close the door and then I’ll be with you.” She told me no and brought someone in who kept hitting me. I was forced to undress against my will.

  Of course, the soldiers who were standing at the window were laughing and winking and I was naked, and the people at the door could see me, the ones coming and going and the officers. In other words, they were coming and going and taking a look at me and I was naked. Seriously, I wanted to die that day and I kept saying to myself, “Some people get heart attacks, why can’t I have a heart attack like them and die the same way?” It doesn’t matter what I tell you about what happened that day…I wish that had been enough for them and we’d been finished with. They took us out. I sat on the ground and they divided us into two groups. One group went into a kind of cell and the other into another cell. They humiliated us. You know what I mean? You wanted to die. I mean you started saying to yourself, “All those people died, how come my turn never came, how come I didn’t die?” A little while after that, the officer came in and he had a master sergeant with him, the one called Ibrahim who was with us at the beginning and gave us the electric shocks. They started cursing us using very foul language, like they were showing off, seeing who could curse better. The officer said, “The married ladies stand on their own and the girls on their own.” I stood on the side where the girls were. The officer said, “So we can see if you’re prostitutes or not.” A girl would get up and go out, first girl, second girl, third, fourth. My turn came. I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t object and I couldn’t speak anyway. I heard her tell me, “Lie down on your back and open your legs so the bey can examine you.” This “bey” was a lieutenant wearing an olive-green uniform. I took off all my clothes in front of them. It was like a wedding party. A bunch of officers and soldiers were watching us. I said to her, “Okay, please, if you don’t mind, close the window.” The private began giving me electric shocks to my belly and cursing me with disgusting words so I gave in and lay down and opened my legs. A doctor spent about five minutes examining me. What for? How should I know? I was lying down naked with my legs open and the lady was standing at my head. Can you believe it? The doctor left me like that and picked up his mobile phone and started playing with it. I mean, see how humiliating it was? See how far they’ll go to humiliate you? They’ll break your soul just so you won’t think of saying, “I want this country to have its rights,” so you won’t think of going out on a demonstration again or protest against any injustice. After his examination, I heard him saying, “Get up, then, so you can sign the report that you’re a virgin.” It’s lucky perhaps that I hadn’t got married. If I’d been married, I’d have faced a charge of prostitution. Now, you know, they didn’t have the right to do anything, but you couldn’t say a word. You just did what you were told to and that was it. I saw that he’d left a large space under the report, and he wanted me to sign leaving, like, several lines. I told him, “No, if you don’t mind, sir, I’ll sign right underneath the report.” Right then, it was like, “Over my dead body!” meaning I felt that if I signed a few lines lower down, something might happen, and I might face a charge. I signed. After this, they put us into two cells. After they’d finished the examinations, they took us in groups, returning each person to her cell. I was sitting there in shock. I couldn’t believe they’d do such things. It never occurred to me that they would do that. The shocking thing I want to tell you is that these were commandos who were being trained on us. So the girls who left and went home and didn’t say anything were right to do so, given what they’d suffered at their hands. Personally, after what I saw them do, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything they did. Listen to the charges they brought against me—attempted aggression against officers of the army during the performance of their duty; second, possession of ten Molotov cocktails; third, possession of knives; four, breaking the curfew. The curfew at that time was two o’clock at night and I was arrested at three thirty in the afternoon. The traffic jams, the cameras, and everyone knew that the traffic was coming and going just like normal. Those were the charges. When I went to the
public prosecutor, I said to him, “Please, sir, I’m a virgin, really. None of that’s true.” The public prosecutor was supposed—I expected from him, that he’d ask me, “Who did all that to you?” He’s the one who’s supposed to defend me. The public prosecutor came to me and he cursed me and made fun of me and had someone give me an electric shock right in front of him. I really didn’t expect anything like that from them. I never expected anything like that would happen. I’d hoped that the public prosecutor would get me my rights. Instead I found he was just like them, and he told me, “This is a document from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces accusing all of you of such and such.” Then we went downstairs to the judge. They brought in a few lawyers of their own, just to make a show, you know what I mean? The judge began by reading all the charges and at the end, he said, “You must have been part of the sit-in at Tahrir because you look so beat up.” I thought, “Good, in a moment I’ll be able to speak and tell him it was the officers from the army who did this to us.” I found myself being pulled out. I held back. The army officers dragged me before the judge. At the same hearing as me, there were boys thrown on the ground who couldn’t speak—the public prosecutor would say, “So-and-so!” and the boy would just about be able to kind of wave his hand because he couldn’t speak because he’d been beaten and thrown on the ground. There were people who couldn’t walk from the torture who they carried in and put down on the ground so they could appear at the hearing. I personally say to the Egyptian people, “Save me from their hands! Save me from them!” It’s the Egyptian people who will save me from them, it’s them who will get me my rights, not a court case, not a judge, not a public prosecutor. None of those will confess or give me my rights. The ones who will give me my rights are the Egyptian people.