"They have been writing essays, poetry. And these are the reason for the arrests. Camelia and Dahiba were writing some controversial articles."
"Was she at the newspaper office when they were arrested?"
"No." He bit his lip. "They were in Camelia's apartment. They were alone, and it was past midnight."
Before Amira could respond, they heard Omar in the salon, his booming voice saying, "Where is Uncle? I heard the news from my supervisor who is a friend of Ahmed Kamal! Are we off to El Kanatir then, by God?"
Amira said quietly to her son, "We will speak of this later. Don't tell the others."
When Omar saw his grandmother, he said, "God's praises and blessings upon you! Do not fear, Umma, we'll get our cousin and auntie out of that filthy jail!" At nearly forty, Omar had grown heavy from knowing too well the nightlife of Damascus, Kuwait, and Baghdad. And because he had spent eighteen years shouting orders at men in oil fields, he was loud even in the privacy of his home. "Where is that son of mine? It's time he was of some use around here. I want him to go to the office of Mr. Samir Shoukri, the finest lawyer in Cairo—"
The eighteen-year-old came in, dressed in the long white galabeya and skullcap of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization which President Sadat had recently banned. "What is this costume?" Omar said, cuffing his son on the arm. "Are you trying to get us all arrested? By God, your mother must have been sleeping when you were conceived! Get into some decent clothes!"
Nobody was alarmed by the abuse, least of all Mohammed himself, who went off to change, for how else was a man to gain respect from his son if he didn't show him who was boss? Ibrahim could remember many times when his own father, Ali, had boxed him and called him names.
As they started to get into cars, some to pay calls on government officials to start working on their relatives' release, Ibrahim and Omar to confer with Mr. Shoukri, the lawyer, and the rest to go directly to the prison, Amira drew her son into the vestibule off the foyer and said, "Bring me these writings for which my daughter and granddaughter were arrested. And find out what you can about the man who was arrested with Camelia—his name, his family. We have to see that this information does not get out, especially the fact that they were alone in her apartment when they were arrested. Camelia's honor is at stake."
Camelia and Dahiba had been placed, with six other women, in a cell designed to hold four. Only one of the others had been arrested, like them, for political reasons; the rest, although charged with different crimes, shared a similar history: abandoned by a husband, left without means of support, reduced to survival by begging, theft, or selling their bodies. One was in for murder, a prostitute who had slain her pimp and who would have been executed had it not been for the prison psychiatrist who, appealing to the president, had gotten her sentence commuted to life. Her name was Ruhiya and she was eighteen.
On the night of the sweeping political arrests, Dahiba and Hakim had been taken first, at their apartment. Although the police had burst in and ransacked the place, confiscating papers and books, they had granted them permission to send Zeinab with Radwan to Virgins of Paradise Street. Dahiba last saw her husband at the police station, where they were booked and fingerprinted without formal charges. She was taken away in a car, leaving Hakim shouting his protestations into the indifferent night. At dawn she had arrived at the prison where, once again, she had been processed without explanation, stripped of her clothing and jewelry, handed a rough gray tunic and a single blanket, and then rudely pushed into the cell she now occupied with seven others. In the twenty days since, she had received no word from the outside, had not even spoken with an attorney, or a prison official.
Camelia had been brought in later that same morning, having been separated from Yacob at her apartment, and then the two of them had been taken away in separate cars. She had been relieved of her beautiful gold-embroidered galabeya and given the rough tunic and blanket. Her one consolation during the past agonizing weeks was that her daughter was safely with the family. But what of Yacob? she had wondered every wakeful moment in the stone cell that contained only four cots and nothing else. Was he in a similar situation, in a prison cell with other men? Or had he perhaps already been tried and sentenced? Was he now serving a term of life imprisonment for treason? Was he still alive?
And what had become of Uncle Hakim?
In the first confused, terrifying hours, Camelia and Dahiba had drawn strength and comfort from each other, reassuring themselves that they would be released at any moment. The family would not leave them here, they said, Ibrahim and Amira had many important friends.
But then the hours had turned into days, and as the two had continued to assure themselves that their release was only a matter of time—despite the fact that one of their cellmates was also a political detainee who had been in for over a year without communication from the outside—they nonetheless realized that they must place their trust in God and the family, make the best of a terrible situation.
The other prisoners, recognizing the two newcomers, thought they should receive deferential treatment because they were celebrities. "They're real ladies," Ruhiya told the others, her voice filled with awe. "Better than us." And everyone agreed. But the fellaheen guard on their cell block, who believed that the evil eye had cursed her the hour of her birth, saw no reason to treat the new arrivals any differently. Let them come up with money, she decided, like everyone else. But Dahiba and Camelia had been stripped of everything of value and so had to live like the other prisoners.
At night, when lights were extinguished and fear or anger kept sleep away, the women filled the hot September darkness with quiet, desperate talk, and Camelia and Dahiba gradually came to know their cellmates, outcasts denied legal justice simply because they were female. From their stories, the Rasheed women had learned that the law executes the woman who kills a man, even in self-defense, but rarely even arrests the man who kills a woman, because he is considered to be defending his honor.
The law goes after the prostitute, but never after the man who solicits her service.
The law is blind to the man who abandons his wife and family, but punishes the abandoned woman for stealing food to feed her children.
The law is severe with a wife who leaves her husband, but grants a husband the right to leave his wife at his pleasure, with no warning, no provision for her care.
The law dictates that when a girl reaches the age of nine and a boy reaches the age of seven, they are the legal property of the father, even if he is no longer married to the mother, and he may take them away from her and not permit her to see them again.
The law permits a man to beat his wife or to use any means to keep her submissive.
Of the six sharing the cell with the Rasheed women, five were illiterate; they had never heard of feminism, and could not imagine why the two film stars were there.
"What arrogance men possess," Ibrahim read out loud, "to assume lordship over us. An arrogance which, compounded by their ignorance, makes bullies of them. A child, when feeling helpless, will lash out at the nearest innocent victim. Men do this, too. An example is the husband who beats his wife for giving him only daughters. But the sex of a child is determined in the husband's sperm, not in the wife's egg; it is therefore the husband's fault if no sons are produced. Yet does he berate himself for this? No, he turns his feelings of rage and impotence to the innocent." Ibrahim put the newspaper down.
Amira got up and went to the steps leading down from the gazebo, paused there and looked out over her garden, where trees still grew that had already been old when she had arrived here, sixty-five years ago.
She closed her eyes and inhaled the exotic fragrances that filled the air, and she thought: My granddaughter is a brave woman.
"Why was I never told of this?" she asked, turning to Ibrahim. They were alone in the gazebo; the rest of the family was either at the prison, trying to get food and money to Camelia and Dahiba, or muddling through Cairo's bureaucratic mazes, trying to secure their relatives'
release. "How could this have gone on without my knowing?"
"Mother," Ibrahim said, joining her beneath the rose arbor that formed the entrance to the gazebo, "my daughter belongs to a new generation of women. I don't understand them, but they are finding their voice."
"And you were afraid to tell me of these writings? Ibrahim, when I was young, I had no say in anything, I was treated like an object with no mind, no soul. But my daughter and granddaughter possess a courage that fills me with pride. And now, this man who was arrested with Camelia. Where is he?"
"I don't know, Mother."
"Find him. We must know what has become of him."
Dahiba and Camelia were awakened from their afternoon siesta by the sound of keys jingling in the corridor, and then the warder's face appeared at the small opening in the solid iron door. Because it was neither mealtime nor the exercise hour, the women were suddenly alert—sometimes a prisoner was taken away without warning, never to return, her fate unknown. The door creaked open and the warder, a squat woman with fellaheen features and a stained uniform, said to Dahiba and Camelia, "You two. Come with me."
Dahiba took Camelia's hand as they left the cell, and the women called after them, "Good luck! God go with you!"
To their great surprise, they were taken to a cell at the end of the corridor, large enough for four occupants, but empty, with two neatly made beds, a table and chairs, and a window that looked out on palm trees and green fields. When the warder said, "This is your new home," Dahiba said, "Thank God, the family has found us!" A few minutes later, baskets of food were brought in, as well as clothes, linen, toiletries, writing materials, and a Koran. Inside the Koran was an envelope filled with ten-and fifty-piastre notes, and a letter from Ibrahim.
As there was far too much food for the two of them, Dahiba selected a loaf of bread, cheese, cold chicken, and some fruit, then turned to the warder and, handing her a fifty-piastre note, said, "Please distribute the rest of this among the women in the other cell. And send word to my family that we are well." When they were alone, they read the letter from Ibrahim. Hakim Raouf, he said, had also been arrested, but he was all right and Mr. Shoukri, the lawyer, was already working on his release.
What had become of Yacob Mansour, who had been arrested with Camelia, no one knew.
The family kept a vigil at the prison, arriving every day just after sunset, parking outside the gates in the hope of getting to see Camelia and Dahiba. Occasionally one of the prison administrators would admit Amira or Ibrahim, there would be a polite dialogue with apologies—"Political detainees are not permitted visitors"—and assurances that tomorrow the news would be better, inshallah. And so notes were transferred back and forth between the family and Camelia and Dahiba, at great expense, and freshly cooked food was conveyed inside each day.
Ibrahim and Omar worked relentlessly for the women's release, making the rounds of government offices, calling in favors, meeting with well-connected men in coffee shops or in their homes. As Camelia and Dahiba had not been arrested on criminal counts—for which there existed certain procedures and protocol—but on undefined political grounds, their defense rested on shakier territory. To petition on their behalf placed the petitioner himself in a dangerous position; everyone knew of lawyers who had pleaded on behalf of state prisoners and then themselves ended up in jail. Those men who were most afraid to speak to Ibrahim passed him off with, "Bokra. Come back tomorrow." Others, sympathetic with his plight, but afraid, said, "Ma'alesh. I'm sorry. Never mind." And those who saw no profit in helping the Rasheeds shrugged and said, "Inshallah. Accept it. It is God's will."
Even Mr. Nabil el-Fahed, wealthy antiques dealer and friend of high officials, had become suspiciously unavailable after Camelia's arrest.
Amira led the women in prayer. They spread small rugs on the broken pavement of the prison parking lot and knelt facing Mecca. Despite the October heat, they went through the prostrations in perfect unison, twenty-six Rasheed women, ranging in age from twelve to eighty; two wore Islamic dress, Amira was in the traditional black melaya, the rest in skirts, blouses, or dresses. Omar's oldest daughter by Nala knelt in blue jeans and a Nike T-shirt.
After the prayer, they returned to their cars and chairs and umbrellas, taking up knitting or homework or gossip while Amira returned to the chair that had been set beneath a cottonwood tree, and fixed her eyes on the ugly yellow walls of the prison. Today marked the forty-sixth day of her daughter and granddaughter's incarceration.
She recognized her son's car pulling into the lot. "I have found Mansour," Ibrahim said quietly, so the others couldn't hear. "He is in prison, on the road leading out of the city. It is the same place where I was held, back in 1952."
She rose and held out her hand. "Take me there," she said. "I wish to speak to him."
Camelia was ill. As she lay on her bed, fighting down the nausea, memories of the cholera outbreak came back in chilling clarity. Although she had taken care to avoid prison food, the hands of the fellaheen warder who delivered the meals sent in from outside were never clean.
Dahiba sat by the bed and felt her niece's forehead. "You're warm," she said, her eyes filled with worry; she, too, was recalling the cholera.
"Whatever it is," Camelia said weakly, "why don't you also have it?"
"It's clearly something you ate that I didn't. Something spicy that is giving you a temporary upset. It is nothing, I'm sure—"
Camelia suddenly rolled over and vomited.
Dahiba ran to the door and shouted for the warder. "We need a doctor! Quickly!"
Expecting baksheesh, the woman came promptly. She looked at Camelia and said sourly, "He doesn't come to the cells. He is an important man. I'll have to take her to the infirmary."
As she helped Camelia through the door, the warder shoved Dahiba back. "You stay here," she said.
The superintendent of the men's prison on the Ismailia Road was more receptive to allowing prisoners' visitors, under certain circumstances. In Yacob Mansour's case, generous recompense from Ibrahim Rasheed.
Amira asked her son to remain in the superintendent's office; she was escorted by a guard to a grim room with tables and chairs, and signs in Arabic on the walls which she could not read.
When a pale, ragged man was brought in, limping on bare feet, his hands and ankles manacled, she looked around to see who his visitor was. And when he was thrust into the chair opposite her, Amira was stunned.
His face was bruised and cut, the wounds left to fester; when he opened his mouth to speak, she saw that two teeth had been knocked out. Immediately, tears came to her eyes.
"Sayyida Amira," he said in a hoarse voice, as if he were parched, or had shouted too much. "I am honored. God's peace upon you."
"Do you know me?" she said.
"Yes, I know you, Sayyida," he said quietly. "Camelia told me about you. And I can see the resemblance, the same power in your eyes that is in Camelia's." When he realized he was squinting, he added, "Forgive me, they took away my glasses."
"They have mistreated you," she said.
"Please, what of Camelia? Is she all right? Have they released her?"
His soft-spokenness startled her, his gentle manner, the kindness in his eyes despite his suffering. She looked at his hands and saw a cigarette burn on one wrist; at its outer edges there appeared to be remnants of a tattoo.
"My granddaughter is in El Kanatir prison," she said. "We are working to get her released."
"But have they treated her well?"
"Yes. She writes us notes and tells us she is well. She has ... asked about you."
His shoulders slumped. "You granddaughter is a brave and intelligent woman, Sayyida. She wishes to correct injustices in this world. She knew she was doing a dangerous thing, and yet she was determined to speak out. I love Camelia, Sayyida, and she loves me. We are planning on getting married. Just as soon as—"
"How can you speak of marriage when what you offer my granddaughter is a life of danger, of fear of arrest, fear
of the police? And furthermore, you are a Christian, Mr. Mansour, my daughter is Muslim."
"I am told that your own son married a Christian."
"That is true."
He tilted his head. "Are we not all People of the Book, Sayyida? Aren't we first Arab, and then Egyptian? Your Prophet, peace upon him, spoke of my Lord in the Koran. He tells how the angel came to Mary and told her that she, who had never been touched by a man, would soon bear a child who would be called Jesus, the Messiah. If you believe what is written in the Koran, Sayyida, then do we not believe in the same things?"
She paused, in which she heard distant prison sounds—a gate clanging shut, men laughing, an angry shout. "Yes, Mr. Mansour," Amira said. "Indeed we do."
Dahiba paced the small floor of the cell, stopping to listen for Camelia's return.
When a warder finally came, she was surprised to see that it was not the usual fellaheen, but a woman she had never seen before. "Is my niece all right?" she said in alarm.
"Get your things together," the warder said crisply, looking at her watch.
"Where are you taking me? Is there to be a trial?"
"No trial. You are free to go."
Dahiba stared at her. "Free to go!"
"On the president's orders. You have been pardoned."
"But it was Sadat who had us arrested in the first place! Why has he now pardoned us!"
The woman gave her a surprised look. "Did no one tell you? Sadat was assassinated five days ago! There is a new president now, Mubarak, and he is granting pardons to all political detainees."
Quickly gathering their possessions together, dropping things in her haste to get out before the warder or Mubarak changed their minds, Dahiba collided with Camelia, coming back from the infirmary.
"Are you all right?" Dahiba said, thrusting a bundle of clothes into her niece's arms. "What did the doctor say? Why are you ill?"
Virgins of Paradise Page 48
