“You’re right.”
“Tell me what’s bothering you, Hagg.”
“As though you don’t have enough problems of your own!”
“Go on with you! Are my problems more important than yours?”
The Hagg smiled and looked at her gratefully. Then he moved closer, planted a kiss on her cheek, pulled his head back a little, and said in a serious voice, “God willing, I intend to put myself forward for the People’s Assembly.”
“The People’s Assembly?”
“Yes.”
She was taken aback for a moment because it was so unexpected, but she soon pulled herself together and wreathed her face in a happy smile, saying gaily, “What a wonderful day, Hagg! Should I whoop for joy or what?”
“Let’s just hope that things go well and I get elected.”
“God willing.”
“You know, Souad, if I get into the Assembly… I can do business worth millions.”
“Of course you’ll get in. Could they find anyone better than you?”
Then she puckered up her lips as though talking down to a child and said to him (using the words one would to a little girl), “But I’m scared, sweetie, that when you appear on television and everyone sees you looking so cute, they’ll go steal you away from me!”
The Hagg burst into laughter and she moved up close so he could feel the warmth of her excited body. Then she reached over with her hand in an unhurried, practiced, long-lasting caress that finally yielded its fruits, and let out a ribald laugh when she saw that in his enthusiasm and haste, he had got his head stuck in the neck of his gallabiya.
It was just like when you watch a film — you get engrossed in it and you react to it, but in the end the lights go back on, you return to reality, you leave the cinema, and the cold air of the street, crowded with cars and passersby, strikes you on the face; everything returns to its normal size and you think of everything that happened as just a movie, just a lot of acting.
That’s how Taha el Shazli recalls the events of the day of the character interview: the long corridor of luxurious red carpet, the huge spacious room with its lofty ceiling, the large desk raised enough above floor level to make it seem like the dais in a courtroom, the low leather seat on which he sat, the three generals with their huge flabby bodies, white suits, shiny brass buttons, signs of rank, and glittering decorations on their chests and shoulders, and the presiding general, who welcomed him with a precisely measured, disciplined smile and then nodded to the committee member on his right. The latter propped his arms on the desk, stuck his bald head forward, and started asking him questions, the other two watching him closely as though weighing every word he spoke and observing every expression that appeared on his face. The questions were what he’d expected, his officer friends having assured him that the character interview questions were always the same and well known, the whole test being no more than a formality carried out for appearance’s sake, either to exclude radical elements (based on the National Security Service reports) or to confirm the acceptance of those blessed with influential friends. Taha had memorized the expected questions and their model answers and proceeded steadily and confidently to give his answers before the committee. He said that he had obtained high enough marks to qualify for one of the good colleges but preferred the Police Academy so that he could serve his country from his position as a police officer. He stressed that the job of the police was not simply to maintain order, as many thought, but social and humanitarian (giving examples of what he meant). Next he spoke about preventive security, in terms of definition and methods, approval appearing clearly on the examiners’ faces and the presiding general even nodding his head twice in confirmation of Taha’s answer. The former then spoke for the first time and asked Taha what he would do if he went to arrest a criminal and found him to be one of his childhood friends. Taha was expecting the question and had prepared the reply, but he made a show of thinking a bit to increase the impact of his answer on the examiners. Then he said, “Sir, duty knows nothing of friends or relatives. A policeman is like a soldier in battle — he must carry out his duty irrespective of all other considerations, for the sake of God and his country.”
The presiding general smiled and nodded with frank admiration and the silence that comes before the end reigned. Taha expected that the order to dismiss would be given, but the presiding general suddenly looked hard at the papers as though he had just discovered something. He raised the sheet of paper a little to make sure of what he had read, then asked Taha, avoiding his eyes, “Your father — what’s his profession, Taha?”
“Civil servant, sir.”
(This is what he had written on the application form, after paying the Community Liaison Officer a bribe of a hundred pounds to sign off on it.) The general searched through the papers again and said, “Civil servant or property guard?”
Taha said nothing for a moment. Then he said in a low voice, “My father is a property guard, sir.”
The presiding general smiled and looked embarrassed. Then he bent over the papers, carefully wrote something on them, raised his head with the same smile, and said, “Thanks, son. Dismissed.”
His mother sighed and quoted the Qur’anic verse, “It may happen that you will hate a thing which is better for you .”
Busayna cried out vehemently, “What’s so special about being a police officer? Police officers are as common as dirt. How happy I would have been to see your officer’s uniform, when you were earning pennies!”
Taha had spent the day roaming the streets till he was exhausted and then come home to the roof and sat with his head bowed on the bench, the suit that he had put on that morning stripped of its glamour, baggy now and looking cheap and wretched. His mother tried to cheer him up.
“Son, you’re making things too complicated. There are lots of other good colleges apart from the police.”
Taha remained bowed and silent. It seemed it was beyond his mother’s words to deal with the matter and she disappeared into the kitchen, leaving him with Busayna, who moved over to sit next to him on the bench. She drew close to him and whispered, “Please don’t upset yourself, Taha.”
Her voice set him off and he cried out bitterly, “I’m upset because of all my wasted effort. If they’d set a particular profession for the father from the start, I would have known. They should have said ‘No children of doorkeepers.’ And what they did is against the law, too. I asked a lawyer and he told me that if I brought a case against them, I’d win.”
“We don’t want a court case or anything of that sort. Know what I think? With the grades you’ve got, you should enter the best college in the university, graduate with top marks, go off to an Arab country and earn some money, then come back here and live like a king.”
Taha looked at her for a while, then hung his head again. She went on, “Look, Taha. I know I’m a year younger than you, but I’ve worked and work has taught me a few things. This country doesn’t belong to us, Taha. It belongs to the people who have money. If you’d had twenty thousand pounds and used them to bribe someone, do you think any one would have asked about your father’s job? Make money, Taha, and you’ll get everything, but if you stay poor they’ll walk all over you.”
“I can’t let them get away with it. I must make a complaint.”
Busayna laughed bitterly. “Complain about who and to who? Do as I say and no more useless ideas. Work hard, get your degree, and don’t come back here till you’re rich. And if you never come back, better still.”
“So you think I should go to one of the Arab countries?”