Yet amid his tales, Shalaby didn’t mention — because of respect for the dead, his own reserve, and the idyllic image he had proudly painted — that Mahfouz had made a mistake or two. The last time was when the world turned upside down and he was tasked with guarding a hospital. Mahfouz said he’d struck a deal with a patient suffering from a bad liver to spend the night with her. But then she screamed out in fear, and when the doctors and nurses on duty arrived to find him at the edge of her bed, about to take his clothes off, they grabbed him and dragged him outside. He fought back, saying she wanted him, saying she was the one who called to him from a window in the empty ward, and when they couldn’t calm him down they tied him up and informed his unit. That was where the Commander found him — bound with rope in the medicine storeroom. Shalaby also didn’t tell Ines or Um Mabrouk what happened next: that the Commander ordered Mahfouz to strip off his clothes and stand naked as the day he was born, while he blasted him with a hose and beat him with shoes and whips for disobeying orders.
He was supposed to have followed the orders he’d received before mobilizing toward the hospital, orders to stand on the mark the Commander had drawn on the ground, just like his fellow guards, and keep a safe distance from the sick ward. They told him not to abandon his post, under any circumstances, for any reason, but his lust for this woman had overpowered him. He was young, after all, and these things happen. Mahfouz was spotted later that day with his head hanging low, his bushy beard brushing against the hair on his chest. He groveled at his Commander’s feet, saying again and again: “Do what you want with me, ya basha, I’ll obey, sir, I swear.” But Mahfouz was mahzouz—lucky — that it didn’t go to trial and he wasn’t summoned to the Gate. The woman wanted to protect her reputation, and in the end she didn’t submit an official statement. Shalaby smiled, remembering that just a week after this incident Mahfouz survived that horrible accident, when their transport vehicle caught on fire and eleven of his fellow guards died. And then when the barracks collapsed with everyone inside, Mahfouz had emerged from the building without a scratch. But luck had betrayed him that final time during the Events, and now he lay like a stone at the bottom of the river.
Um Mabrouk lamented the loss of the young man and comforted Shalaby, patting him on the shoulder as tears filled her eyes. She had a sense that such a tragic situation was the perfect opportunity for her to tell her own story, about her daughter, and thereby win a bit of sympathy, but Ines seized her chance with an outburst, objecting to Mahfouz being called a martyr. She found herself opening her mouth without thinking again, and casting aside all virtues of silence, caution, and restraint. It was as if she’d left them all outside the classroom door and sauntered back into her Arabic lesson, where she’d always commanded attention.
Mahfouz had begun the attack and so he was to blame, said Ines. He’d killed someone first and paid a fair price. And what’s more, the people who commanded him to kill should be punished too. Didn’t people have enough to deal with every day, with their sorrows and troubles, and the anxiety of waiting, without people’s lives being lost, too? And for what reason?
Um Mabrouk warily tried to silence her — you were never safe these days, not even from your own brother — and when she didn’t succeed she edged away, said goodbye, and started to fiddle with her things. Ines continued her speech for a moment and then stopped, surprised with herself. For the first time in her life, she was speaking her mind in front of others, on a subject besides the lessons she taught her students. She was secretly pleased with what she’d said, and began to play it back to herself, word by word, carefully weighing up the meaning. Yes, she was confident in everything she’d said. Shalaby had provoked something in her, that ignorant fool who thought he was the only one among them who understood anything. He spoke as if his cousin were a gallant knight at war with evil, and not a hapless soul plucked from his land against his will to serve in the security forces, when no one even knew what his unit did. Yet even so, Um Mabrouk was right. If anyone had heard her, or if Shalaby was well connected, he could report what she’d said to an inspector or the courts right away. She could be fired, not just reevaluated, and at that point not even the Certificate of True Citizenship she’d come for would be enough.
Shalaby turned on her like a lion, and would have slapped her across the face were he not so shocked. He could barely process everything he’d heard. No one had attacked Mahfouz’s story before; the whole town remembered him proudly and considered him a hero for God and the Gate. People began to call Mahfouz’s mother “Mother of the Hero,” even “Mother of the Martyr,” and she’d quickly adopted her new name. Shalaby spoke about Mahfouz every chance he got. “Oh, bless him,” some would say; others would offer to help his family, and others shared his grief for his cousin. Still others praised Mahfouz’s courage, bravery, and willingness for self-sacrifice, and some even cursed the men who had hounded him. But this woman standing before him understood nothing. Was she so ignorant that she didn’t know the difference between a filthy criminal and an honorable man? Even if Mahfouz had made a little mistake here or there, he didn’t endanger the country or its people like those rioters did. He’d sacrificed his life for it, and he was brave, maybe braver than all the other guards put together. He’d been a real man, while the man he’d killed — probably without even intending to — had been just a troublemaker, a saboteur, out to frighten people and make their lives more difficult than they already were. That man had ground the country to a halt, he and others who shut down the streets while so many honorable citizens were just trying to earn their daily bread. All of Shalaby’s cousins, and everyone he knew, had come home to the village and were now unemployed.
If he’d been in Mahfouz’s shoes, he would’ve done what Mahfouz had done and more, and if Ines had been defending the nation in his place, she’d know how to obey orders. She would’ve learned that when you’re given an order there’s no discussion, no question, and barely enough time to carry it out — and even if there were time, the Commander wouldn’t let you waste it with stupid questions. If he’d ever heard the things she said from one of his men, he would teach him a thing or two and then lock him up. If this woman had any honor, she would know that to obey your Commander was to obey God, and that insubordination was a sin greater than any mortal could bear and would lead to her own demise. But she was probably corrupt, morally and otherwise — no scruples, no religion, not even wearing a respectable headscarf; he could see a strand of hair hanging down beneath that pitiful scrap of fabric on her head. Yes, she was definitely one of the people the Commander had warned him about, just talking to her was dangerous, she might mess with his mind, try to brainwash him. If she wasn’t one of them, why was she defending them and insulting his cousin, why was she happy that he was dead? She wouldn’t agree that Mahfouz was a martyr, didn’t think his family deserved to be compensated or that he was worth anything at all. It was possible that she had participated in the Disgraceful Events, too; he’d heard rumors that there were women saboteurs.