Arab

by Jim Ingraham

“I have some cash. I’m all right.”

  “You sure?”

  Sitting there watching his friend, Bashir realized that, although Foad was worried for him, he was also concerned about himself. If the police found him harboring Bashir, he could lose his job. He could go to jail. Who would look after his mother?

  “You know how many old woman sitting in windows watching what goes on around here?” Foad said. “There’s any one of them would call the cops. They’d love to give me trouble. They think my mother’s a witch.” That brought a spasm of giggles. “So do I,” and the two of them rocked in laughter. “So we’ll sit here a while and shoot the shit. But it’s too dangerous to stay here. He shook his head and laughed. “An assassin? You?”

  “I never should have told that lie,” Bashir said.

  *

  That evening, long after nightfall, the two friends were on the beach dragging a dingy down the sand under softly illuminated clouds that hovered over the distant city. The air smelled of sewage and dead fish and the salty sea.

  Bashir had put the crutch into the small boat and was limping in dry sand, then in wet sand, then in warm sea water.

  “How you doing?” Foad yelled as they pushed the boat into shallow waves.

  “No problem,” Bashir said.

  “Get in,” Foad said, suddenly alarmed. “Look out there! It’s them!”

  Bashir saw several fixed red and white lights with one blue light coming toward them. The blue light was blinking on and off.

  “Get in, get in!” Foad yelled. “They won’t wait!”

  As Bashir pulled himself over the rail of the boat, he saw a flash of headlights way down the road near a graveyard of abandoned fellucas. A spotlight swept the sand. Foad rammed the dingy stern first into the waves, pitching Bashir to his knees, banging his head on the rowing thwart.

  “Go!” Foad yelled.

  “It’s the police!”

  “Never mind! Grab the oars! Get out there! They won’t wait for you!”

  Up to his waist in water, Foad pulled the dingy around, heading it outward, giving it a shove just as Bashir was changing seats. Bashir teetered in the rocking boat, nearly going over the side. Foad rushed to grab his leg and steady him onto the rower’s seat. He told him to push the oars, blades first, out through the thole pins.

  “Go!” Foad yelled, giving the boat a final shove.

  The automobile headlights now were shining directly down the beach. Someone was running toward them yelling and waving arms.

  As Bashir pulled on the oars, he watched Foad wade ashore, then run from the lights. The yelling man told him to halt. Foad came back into the lights, hands in the air. They were now no more than shadows moving slowly up the sand into the glare of the headlights.

  Bashir hated himself for bringing this on his friend. But it was more important now than before that he get away. If he were caught and the police were looking for Faisal Ibrahim or something worse, they would put Foad in jail for obstruction.

  His arms ached as he pulled on the heavy oars, his good foot braced against the stern seat. The trawler was coming close. He thought he heard someone from the darkness yelling at him.

  Now he could make out only distant images on the beach, shadows moving in front of the headlights. He saw a red flash and heard a snapping sound like a firecracker. He couldn’t tell who was shooting, but he knew Foad didn’t have a gun.

  His oar struck something. A light shined on him. Behind the light someone yelled in Arabic.

  “Stand up! Reach up!”

  Two men grabbed his arms and lifted him out of the dingy.

  “My crutch!” he yelled, falling against the deckhouse. He scrambled to the rail but could see nothing. The dingy had drifted off. He saw red flashes on the beach, shadows moving across the headlights.

  As the trawler surged forward, Bashir’s weight went onto his bandaged foot. He grabbed the rail. Worried about Foad, he looked back at the beach, two columns of light from headlights shined across the sand toward the water.

  “What’s happening in there?” one of the crewmen asked.

  Bashir was too frightened to answer.

  The men tugged him into the open doorway of the deckhouse, an air-conditioned cabin ten by twenty feet made mostly of plywood.

  When he told the crewmen he couldn’t walk without his crutch, they carried him forward and up a step into a small wheelhouse where a man in a Greek sailor’s cap, presumably the captain, was perched on a stool at the ship’s wheel.

  “I couldn’t see nothing back there,” he said. “What the hell was going on? Somebody shooting?”

  “I don’t know,” Bashir said. “It had nothing to do with me.”

  The man didn’t believe him but wasn’t greatly interested. He was a clone of Anwar Sadat—the same brown face, the same eyes, the same slanty forehead, everything but the famed prayer callous.

  “How much money d’you bring me?”

  “I lost everything back there,” Bashir said, staring at dirt under the man’s fingernails, a smudged tattoo on his forearm. “He told me you were paid.”

  The trawler was rolling on ground swells and he had to grab the wheel to steady himself.

  “See what’s in his pockets, Ahmed,” the captain told one of the men.

  The man found a wallet, removed cash and handed it to the captain. In another pocket he found the vial of antibiotics.

  The captain didn’t hesitate. “Throw that shit overboard.”

  “Wait! It’s my medicine!”

  But in five long steps Ahmed was outside the cabin.

  “Drugs!” the captain roared. “You bring drugs on my boat?”

  “It’s medicine for my foot! I have an infection!”

  The captain didn’t even glance at the bandaged foot.

  “You’re a naughty boy,” Ahmed said, standing below the step looking up at Bashir, grinning.

  “You got a gun?” the captain asked.

  “I don’t have anything,” Bashir said. What kind of morons was he dealing with?

  “Hey, Garcia!” the captain yelled, counting the money. “Show the man his bunk. If he’s hungry, fix something for him. Not too much of the good stuff.”

  He gave Bashir a dirty smile. “I don’t have to do this, you know. I’m taking a hell of a risk. I could have you tossed over the side, who would know?”

  “I’m sure Foad appreciates what you’re doing.”

  “Who?”

  “My friend, Foad Shikt,” Bashir said.

  “Who the hell is he?” He swiveled the stool around and stared out the windshield. “Show him his bunk, Garcia. And watch he don’t steal anything.”

  Bashir didn’t dare undress or even take off his shoe. He wanted to examine his wounded foot, aching now in the soaked towel, but decided to wait until morning. There was a man in a bunk next to his, mouth open, snoring. Bashir lay there for hours, lulled into a heavy drowsiness by the rolling of the boat, tormented by fear of infection, annoyed by the snoring.

  Why had the captain denied knowing Foad? What happened on the beach? The shooting. My God, what have I done to my friend? He thought of the many times Foad had defended him at the camp, stood up for him when the police threatened to send him back to Gaza, a boy who had nothing back there, who had lied to join the group of detainees in some kind of exchange thing.

  *

  It was dark in the cabin when the man called Garcia shook him awake. The man next to him was still snoring. The air smelled of unwashed flesh and foul breath.

  “The captain wants you off the boat,” Garcia said.

  Bashir didn’t understand. He said, “I don’t have my passport.” He had no idea where he was or what time it was. Had they crossed the border?

  “You won’t need it.” Garcia said, tugging at Bashir’s arm. He was joined by a second man who put an arm behind Bashir’s back, an arm behind his knees and carried him outside. They were near a beach. He saw lights on a jetty, people waving and yelling.

  “
What are you doing?” Bashir screamed. His flailing elbow struck the man’s face. The man cursed him, rushed him to the rail and threw him overboard. He sank in a massive splash but was buoyed up by air under his jacket. He drove both feet into the moving hull, terrified of getting caught by the propeller.

  Waves of froth from the boat’s wake spilled over his face as he watched the stern lights move away. He was only a hundred yards off the jetty where young voices yelled at him. In a kind of delirium he made his way to a float, pulled himself onto it and sat there, feet dangling in the water, young voices calling to him.

  “You all right down there?”

  He couldn’t see who was calling, only dark forms moving above the railing, lights shining on the float.

  “Come up the ladder,” someone yelled.

  He got up, took off his soaked jacket, searched the pocket for his wallet, found it and limped across the moving float. He slung the wet jacket across his shoulder and began to climb, unable to avoid thrusting upward with his bandaged foot. He grabbed two posts and pulled himself to his knees onto the jetty.

  “Get back, get back!” a man yelled at the gawkers, squatting next to Bashir. “You all right?”

  “Yes,” Bashir said, aware of legs and feet crowding around him. “I fell off that boat,” waving vaguely.

  “More like you were thrown off,” the man said.

  “No, it was an accident. We were fooling around.”

  “But the boat kept going.”

  “Where is this?”

  “Marsa Mutruuh,” the man said. He caught Bashir’s arm and helped him to his feet.

  “Aah, thank God,” Bashir said. He was still in Egypt. He knew this city. He had been here many times.

  “Can you help me to the hospital?” he said. “My foot.”

  The man half carried him to the end of the jetty. A boy, apparently the man’s son, ran into a parking lot and held open the passenger door of a small sedan.

  “I’ll get it all wet,” Bashir said.

  “Just get in,” the man said.

  With the boy in the back seat, the man drove away from the beach. Bashir lowered his face into his hand and wept.

  Chapter Twelve

  In freshly laundered clothes, thanks to a sympathetic nurse, Bashir stood in the doorway of the hospital on Alexandria Street in Marsa Mutruuh, across from the railroad station. A uniformed policeman smiled at him and was now looking at the extended leg of a young woman emerging from a taxi. A brossard on the policeman’s arm read in English TOURIST AND ANTIQUITIES POLICE, symptomatic of Egypt’s never-ending friendliness to well-heeled foreigners.

  Not looking for me, Bashir told himself. He felt good. He had drawn money from the bank. He had been treated well. He had just enjoyed a fine breakfast. His foot had been cleansed and dressed with some kind of ointment. An attendant had brought him leather sandals with adjustable straps for his bandaged foot. Although he still limped, he was a new man. Maybe he should buy a cane; it would make him look distinguished.

  He smiled at the policeman and made his way across the street, reaching the sidewalk just as an army truck swept past carrying a squad of solders, probably heading for the border town of As-Salum.

  An old man apparently noticing Bashir’s interest in the truck said,

  “Soldiers and sailors all over the place. Can’t trust those people over there.”

  “In Libya?” Bashir said, to be friendly.

  “Their president is crazy,” the old man said. “I heard he’s got a bomb, one of those atomics. You ever hear that?”

  “Yes,” Bashir said. He excused himself and walked into the station.

  He had a lot on his mind. While in the hospital he had read a newspaper story about “an incident at Abu Qir.” Nothing was mentioned about Bashir’s escape, but Foad had been shot and was accused of smuggling aliens into the country. He was being held in a hospital as a ‘person of interest,’ not charged with a crime, but he could be held indefinitely, the article said.

  Bashir was sickened to the core. I should go to him. But if I do, will it help? Will they free him? They’ll imprison me! They’ll connect me to Faisal Ibrahim and imprison me for life. And it will strengthen their suspicions of Foad.

  Later, seated on a hard bench in a passenger car, he told himself he could not go to Alexandria. I can’t help Foad. I’ll get help from Esmat Bindari. He has influence. He’ll tell the police in Alexandria to release Foad. It will cancel my promotion, but what else can I do?

  I’ll say Foad is a friend. I won’t have to say I was with him, but if Foad has given the police my name, Mr. Bindari will find out I have lied. He’ll find out I have worked for Faisal Ibrahim! I’ll be fired! Everything I’ve worked for will be lost. I’ll go to jail!

  But I haven’t done anything wrong! I’m just trying to get ahead! Why is this happening? Why has the world turned upside down?

  Feeling a sudden wrenching in his belly, he put his hand to his mouth and hurried down the aisle to the lavatory and barely reached the toilet bowl before he fell to his knees and vomited.

  *

  Foad was in a bed in a room of white walls and chemical odors. Fluorescent lights in the ceiling hurt his eyes as he tried to focus on the face that hovered over him—squinty, bloodshot eyes boring into him, the vile odor of cigars on heaving breath.

  “Your fingerprints are all over that crutch, Mr. Kishk.”

  The surgeon said the bullet had pierced the bone. He could feel a heavy weight of pain in his shoulder. Frightening smells came from the bandages. He remembered running from the lights, voices yelling, a policeman shooting. He didn’t know whether Bashir had escaped in the trawler. That captain was a selfish, unscrupulous man who might not have stopped for Bashir. But they found the boat with the crutch in it. They didn’t find Bashir. He must have escaped—or, God help him, he could have drowned.

  “You should have volunteered his name, not forced us to obtain it through fingerprints.”

  “He’s my friend!”

  “And he was at your house. He was seen with the crutch by your neighbors.”

  “I helped him.”

  “Why is he wanted by the police in Cairo?”

  “I don’t know that he is. He needed help. I got him away. I didn’t know it was the police chasing him.”

  “You’re being very foolish! He was with you for hours. He must have told you.”

  “Somebody was chasing him.”

  “The police?”

  “No. Somebody he worked for. I don’t know.”

  “He’s a mechanic at Cairo airport. What did the police want with him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Aah, stupid!”

  Foad closed his eyes, expecting to be slapped. But the man backed away. He said to a guard, “Let nobody talk to this man.” He left the room.

  Foad closed his eyes. They will hold me. They will take me to jail. Maybe they will torture me. What will become of my mother?

  *

  Miraculously Bashir’s car was in the parking lot near the airport. He feared it had been impounded by the police. Suddenly a boy crossed the lane and started wiping the windshield of his car with a scrap of newspaper. It’s what he used to do, hoping to earn a few piasters. For some reason it angered him.

  “Leave it alone!” he said. “Get away!”

  “I’m trying to help,” the boy said.

  “Help someone else.”

  Sitting behind the wheel, he stared at the boy who had retreated to a doorway and was looking sadly at him. But he wasn’t thinking about the boy. He didn’t know what to do. He started the engine and drove south to Ma’adi, a haven for resident Americans where he had sublet an apartment from an English student. It’s where he practiced his inglizi. As he turned onto his street, he saw two policemen leaning on a fender of a cruiser parked near his building. He drove slowly past them, averting his face.

  He drove to a park on the river, got out of his car and sat on a wooden bench with his face
in his hands, elbows digging into his thighs, breathing the fetid odors of the Nile.

  *

  Fayyum Oasis is about an hour’s drive west of Cairo, a sprawling agricultural community on a tributary of the Nile. What remained of Faisal Ibrahim’s training camp was a mile or so down a sandy road west of Lake Qaruun, a fresh water basin at the edge of the desert. It was late afternoon when Bashir reached the three wooden buildings that made up the camp, originally temporary barracks erected by the army and abandoned in the late seventies.

  A scrawny man under a floppy hat leaned on the wall of the sentry shack smoking a cigarette. He looked up from a folded newspaper when Bashir stopped.

  “Looking for Diab,” Bashir said, lowering the passenger-side window. He noticed a girl sitting on a table inside the doorway of a building just down the street, barefoot with a faded skirt draped over her knees.

  “Farouk’s down there,” pointing, getting up. “Maybe he knows.” He seemed to recognize Bashir, although Bashir didn’t know him. Called himself Omar.

  He climbed inside the car and quickly raised the window. “You bring us our pay? It’s getting hungry here,” and he grinned. “Feels good,” palms raised to the AC grill. He slapped his knees, dust rising through brown fingers.

  “I’m just looking for Diab,” Bashir said, taking in the cigarette odors.

  “You didn’t bring us money? How we going to live? We got babies here, women. How we going to feed them?”

  “I’m sorry,” Bashir said. “Faisal—”

  “He dead yet? Someone said he heard—”

  “No, he’s fine. But the police are looking for him. That’s why I want to find Diab.”

  The man gave that a knowing grin. “And they looking for you.”

  “They’ve been here?”

  “Once in a while,” Omar said, vaguely. “You go talk to Farouk maybe knows where Diab is. That’s his car down there,” pointing at a green Pontiac parked under a canvas shelter outside the third building. “He brought a woman here. I don’t like that. Offends my family. Two young daughters. What they going to think?”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Bashir said, affecting an authority he no longer possessed—in fact, had never possessed. It made him feel good, pretending to be part of Faisal’s inner circle. Every one of Faisal’s soldiers had to know he was in disfavor. The story would have spread like a disease, especially now that the organization was falling apart. They were all looking for clues of disintegration.