It had happened one night a few months ago that drunkenness got the better of Hatim and an implacable urge to have sex had swept over him. He left his apartment and wandered the downtown area. It was ten o’clock (the hour when the police privates change guard, one known to every Downtown homosexual as the hour at which they rush to meet their lovers among them) and Hatim was looking over the simple conscripts as they prepared to quit their shift when he saw Abd Rabbuh (who looked a lot like Idris). He got him into the car, gave him money, and kept fondling him until he succeeded in seducing him.
Later Abd Rabbuh made many violent attempts to put an end to his relationship with Hatim, who was well aware from his long experience in homosexual love that the active homosexual who is just starting out, such as Abd Rabbuh, is usually possessed by a terrible sense of sin that soon develops into bitterness and black hatred for the passive homosexual who seduces him. He was also aware that the homosexual experience when repeated and the savoring of its sensual pleasures turn bit by bit into genuine desire on the part of the active partner, however much he may hate it and shy away from it at the beginning. As a result, Hatim and Abduh’s relationship swung from attempts at separation to reunions.
Yesterday Abduh had left Chez Nous to escape from Hatim, but Hatim had caught up with him and insisted until he went with him to the apartment, where they had drunk a whole bottle of strong French wine together before making love — and now here was Hatim the next morning lying stretched out in the bathtub, surrendering himself to the jets of hot water spurting from the showerhead which felt to his body like armies of delicious ants, while he recalled, smiling, his passionate night with Abduh, whose body, its lust inflamed by the wine, had been wrung by numerous, successive spasms. Hatim stood up to dry himself in front of the mirror and clean his private parts with care, applying scented cream, then wrapped himself in a rose cashmere dressing gown, left the bathroom for the bedroom, and settled down to watch Abduh as he slept — his dark brown face, his thick lips, his snub Negroid nose, and the heavy eyebrows that gave his face its stern cast. He bent over him and kissed him and Abduh awoke and opened his eyes slowly.
“Good morning! Bonjour!” whispered Hatim gently, smiling at Abduh, who sat up a little and leaned against the back of the bed, revealing his broad, dark chest covered with a forest of thick hair. Hatim pursued him with kisses, but Abduh pushed his face away with his hand, then looked downward and said bitterly as though breaking into a lament, “Hatim Bey, I’m in a real mess. Any day now the officer will refer me for punishment.”
“Abduh! Do we have to start talking about the officer again? I told you not to worry. I’ve found someone who can put in a good word for you with him, a very important general in the Ministry.”
“By the time you talk to him, I’ll have been flung in prison. My wife and little boy back in the village live off what I earn, Excellency. I wish I could get out of the army right away — if I go to prison, my family will be done for.”
Hatim gazed at him tenderly and smiled. Then he got up slowly, went over to his small purse, took out a hundred-pound note, and thrust it toward him, saying, “Here. Send this to your wife and son, and if they ask for anything from me, I’ll take care of it for you. Tomorrow I’ll meet my relative the general and we’ll put in a word for you with the officer. Just please, for my sake, don’t upset yourself, Abduh.”
Abduh looked down and whispered words of thanks. Hatim moved up to him until their bodies were completely joined and said to himself in French as he approached Abduh’s thick lips, “Quelle belle journée! ”
To: Taha Muhammad el Shazli, Citizen
Yacoubian Building 34,
Talaat Harb Street
Cairo
Greetings:
With reference to your complaint presented to the Presidency of the Republic concerning your rejection by the acceptance examination at the Police Academy: We have to inform you that the matter has been reviewed with the director of the Police Academy and it is evident to us that the complaint is unfounded. We wish you success.
Please accept the assurance of our highest respect, General Hassan Bazaraa
Director, Public Complaints Administration
Presidency of the Republic
The neighbors were used to hearing the sounds of Zaki el Dessouki and his sister Dawlat quarreling. It happened a lot and no longer aroused their surprise or curiosity. This time, however, the quarrel was different — more like a terrible explosion. Screams, ugly insults, and the loud sounds of hand-to-hand fighting reached the residents, who opened their doors and came out to reconnoiter. Some murmured nervously, preparing to intervene. Dawlat shouted in an angry voice, “You lost my diamond ring, you shit?”
“Talk decently, Dawlat!”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t give it to one of your prostitute friends!”
“I’m telling you, talk decently!”
“I am still decent, in spite of you! It’s you that’s the laughingstock everyone despises! Get out of my house, you son of a bitch, you junkie!”
“This is my apartment,” shouted Zaki Bey in an exhausted voice.
“Not so, sweetheart. It’s the house of my father, the respected basha, which you have defiled with your filth!”
Sounds of slaps and a battle followed, the door of the apartment opened, and Dawlat pushed Zaki outside, shouting, “Get out! I don’t ever want to see your miserable face again!”
Zaki Bey came out and, catching sight of the throng of neighbors, turned around and said, “As you wish, Dawlat. I’m going.”
Dawlat slammed the door and the sound of the bolt was heard as she locked it. The neighbors went up to Zaki Bey and said that what had happened just now was quite inappropriate and that whatever differences there might be, it was shameful for respectable people such as Zaki Bey and his sister to fight like that. Zaki Bey nodded, smiling sadly as he withdrew, and before entering the elevator told the neighbors in a conciliatory, apologetic tone, “Sorry to have disturbed you, everyone. It’s just a misunderstanding. God willing, everything will get sorted out.”
The numerous, oft-repeated stories about the politician Kamal el Fouli assert that he grew up in an extremely poor family from Shibin el Kom, in the governorate of El Minoufiya. Despite his poverty he was extremely intelligent and ambitious, obtaining a general secondary certificate in 1955 with one of the top placements in the nation, and he plunged into politics the moment he joined the Faculty of Law. Kamal el Fouli became a member of each of the regime’s political structures in succession — the Liberation Organization and the National Union, followed by the Socialist Union and the Vanguard Organization, then the Center Platform, the Egypt Party, and, finally, the Patriotic Party. Throughout these shifts, he was always the most enthusiastic and loudest voice in support of the principles of the governing party. During Nasser’s era he gave lectures and wrote works on the necessity for and historical inevitability of the socialist transformation. And when the state switched to capitalism, he became one of the greatest supporters of privatization and the free economy, mounting from beneath the parliament dome a fierce and celebrated campaign against the public sector and totalitarian ideas in general. He was one of the few Egyptian politicians who had managed to keep a seat in parliament for more than thirty consecutive years.