Was the paper that Um Mabrouk had stumbled upon the only record of that conversation, and had she unintentionally recovered it? Maybe she should take all possibilities into consideration and search for a lawyer among the people in the queue.
Amid all the debates and discussions that Shalaby had sparked, not a single person was aware of her predicament. She stood firm in her place, nervously fidgeting with her new, more conservative attire, making sure that her neck and hair were completely covered. Then she went to the man in the galabeya to ask if she could use his phone, claiming that hers had broken when she’d accidentally dropped it on the ground.
Nagy grabbed Yehya’s arm and dragged him away from the people who had gathered around Shalaby and his leaflets. Nagy wasn’t concerned with Mahfouz or whether or not he’d actually shot someone. Something in the article had roused a question in his mind. The newspaper acknowledged that bullets had been fired during the Disgraceful Events — did that mean the Gate also acknowledged that people had been injured by gunfire? Or was it still covering that up? The wording was so vague that they had nothing to grasp. They didn’t spend long discussing what this might mean for them, and just agreed to forge ahead with their plan, unswayed. Yehya knew where the bullet moving around in his pelvis came from, he’d seen who shot him, and nothing could deny or change that, not as long as he was still alive.
Um Mabrouk gradually secured more space for her stand and set up two plastic chairs in front of her, as well as a big rock she’d dragged over from the sidewalk opposite. With a young man’s help, she turned it on its side to make a little table and put out drinks for her favorite customers. She told Mabrouk to collect the newspapers and magazines that people left at the coffee shop, on the street, and around the Booth every day. She also had him collect things that people in the queue didn’t need — anything that could provide a bit of distraction and entertainment. She told him to ask around at the front of the queue in particular, as that was where the more distinguished and wealthier people stood.
The woman with the short hair settled next to Um Mabrouk, figuring that the constant flow of customers would be a good opportunity to recruit for the campaign. Her discussions with customers went further, branching out beyond the Violet Telecom boycott to address people’s livelihoods and other issues that were affecting them. Meanwhile, her radio, which had been on constantly since she’d arrived, remained a steadfast source of news.
Little discussion groups sprang up and slowly grew larger, frequented by students, lecturers, and ideologues alike. Soon they became social meeting points that attracted everyone with a desire to hear and debate the latest on the Gate, or with questions on more distant developments. Um Mabrouk’s gathering place became the mouth of a river that filled the queue with news and rumors. Sometimes they were invented from within and shipped upstream, while other times the queue accepted rumors arriving from far-off places. Either way, they inevitably churned through Um Mabrouk’s stand before being passed along.
Um Mabrouk soon put all her skills to use to invent a series of excuses and apologies to defend the woman with the short hair, and evade the threats from the man in the galabeya. He harassed her relentlessly now that the woman with the short hair had attracted an audience whose size rivaled — sometimes even exceeded — that of his own weekly lessons. Several times he advised Um Mabrouk to distance herself from the woman and to stop providing space for her meetings, and when she didn’t obey him, he berated and shamed her, and ordered her to throw the woman out right away. But Um Mabrouk — who had raised nearly enough money for her daughter’s treatment — was unshakable and faced him brazenly, refusing to get rid of her new friend. Encouraged by the people around her, she disobeyed him and got rid of her free phone, and bought a cheap one instead. When he realized how outright rebellious she was being, and that she was no longer under his control, he forbade her from attending his weekly lesson. Gathering for any purpose other than to pray and understand religion was hateful, he repeatedly announced; it caused people to lose God’s favor, brought His wrath upon them, and was tantamount to apostasy.
But despite the best efforts of the woman with the short hair, a few months later the Violet Telecom boycott campaign waned. The issue was hard for people to fathom, especially as fewer and fewer citizens had been disappearing recently. Yet there remained a prevailing belief that a new wave of disappearances was yet to come, and people stayed on their guard. They left their phones in empty rooms at home, afraid that their important or revealing conversations would be transmitted, and kept their calls to short social pleasantries, congratulations, and condolences. No one was able to change phone networks to avoid such precautionary measures. Again and again other networks explained that they were completely subscribed and couldn’t take on any more customers. Meanwhile, Violet Telecom continued to hold its lottery twice a month, and no one ever heard of someone who’d won a free phone declining it.
Under Um Mabrouk’s protection, the woman with the short hair strengthened her popularity and defied a string of threats and countless fervent prayers from the man in the galabeya. He had singled her out in group prayers, claiming that the path she’d chosen led to an abyss of corruption, and that she was planting seeds of evil among people by urging them to think, and ask questions, and engage in other such undesirable activities. But she paid him no attention. Instead she developed a daily program: she would take all the flyers that Um Mabrouk collected, decide which news was the most important (anything to do with the Gate came first, of course), and then mark those in red for people who could read, and read them aloud to those who could not.
One day, in a departure from this routine, she spent the morning reading out corrections and clarifications in The Truth. Apparently, investigations had revealed that the foreigner previously accused of orchestrating the Disgraceful Events was a medical officer implicated in certain war crimes. He had fled his homeland years ago and reappeared here, changed his religion, married, and settled down under a new name in District 11. He’d stayed out of political activities and hostilities, despite what he’d done in his own country under a powerful regime that fell shortly after he left. The piece added that his embassy had released a statement stating that his country’s judiciary had halted prosecution after confirming that he had died a natural death. After the judiciary’s arms had searched for him for half a century, the man’s case had been closed. This brief redaction took up just a few lines at the bottom of the second-to-last page, while the front page was plastered with a large headline about spies in the country and an article on the long history of unrest that they had stirred up while undercover.
The truth was clear for all to see, and Shalaby was thrown into confusion. His pride was broken, his shoulders sagged, and he didn’t say another word about his story, though before that day he’d never tired of rehashing the details, which few people were actually interested in. At noon, he gathered his resolve and, despite their history, asked Ines to save his place for him. She immediately agreed, without asking any questions. In those brief hours, he seemed to have changed from his usual self, so much so that she pitied him. His voice had become hollow, his face was filled with weariness, even shame.