“Who’s there?”
She woke from sleep at the sound of movement and muttering outside the room. She thought that a thief had slipped into the apartment, and, quaking with terror, decided to open the window and call to the neighbors for help.
“Who’s there?”
She screamed again in a high-pitched voice and strained to hear as she sat on her bed in the dark; the sounds, however, had ceased and quiet reigned. She decided that she would investigate herself and put her feet down on the floor, but fear paralyzed her limbs. She convinced herself that it was just her imagination and got back in bed and put a pillow over her head and for a few moments tried to plunge back into sleep. Then suddenly the door of the room opened so forcefully it banged against the wall and they fell on her.
There were four or five of them. Their faces didn’t show in the dark. They pounced on her and one of them smothered her mouth with the pillow while the others grabbed her hands and feet. She tried with all her strength to slip out of their clutches and to scream at the top of her voice and she bit the hand of the man who was gagging her, but her resistance failed because they had tied her up tightly, completely paralyzing her movements. They were strong and well trained and one of them rolled up the sleeve of her pajamas and she felt something like a sharp thorn being stuck into her arm. Little by little her body began to weaken and relax. Then her eyes closed and she felt everything around her moving away and dissolving into nothing, like a dream.
The newspaper
When Hatim Rasheed graduated from the Faculty of Humanities, his French mother was able to find him work on the newspaper. He proved his aptitude for journalism and was quickly promoted till he was appointed to be editor-in-chief at the age of forty-five. He introduced sweeping changes to the newspaper and added an Arabic- language section aimed at the Egyptian reader. During his time distribution rose to thirty thousand copies daily, which was a huge number in comparison to the other small local newspapers. This success came as a natural and just result of Hatim’s efficiency, his assiduity, his effective contacts with varied milieux, and his amazing capacity for work, which he had inherited from his father.
If one remembers that over seventy individuals (administrative staff, reporters, and photographers) work under his direction at the newspaper, the first question that comes to mind is, Do they know about his homosexuality? The answer, of course, is yes, because people in Egypt are interested in the personal lives of others and delve into them with persistence and focus. Homosexuality is impossible to hide and all the employees at the paper know that their boss is homosexual. Despite the revulsion and contempt this arouses, Hatim Rasheed’s perversion remains merely a distant, pale shadow to his forceful, compelling professional image. They are aware of his homosexuality but do not feel it in any way in their daily dealings with him because he is serious and stern (more perhaps than is necessary) and, while he spends most of the day with them, not the slightest movement or glance that might hint at his tendencies escapes him.
A few vulgar incidents have of course occurred during his time as head of the newspaper. Once there was a lazy and unsuccessful journalist on whom Hatim made a number of negative reports in preparation for his final removal from the newspaper. The journalist knew the chief editor’s intention so decided to get his revenge and exploit the presence of all the reporters at the weekly editorial meeting. He asked for the floor and when Hatim gave him permission, he addressed him, saying in a sarcastic tone, “I wish to propose to you, sir, the idea of an investigative piece on the phenomenon of homosexuality in Egypt.”
There was a tense silence and the writer could not conceal a smile in his eagerness to insult Hatim, who said nothing but bowed his head and stroked his smooth hair (as was his custom when surprised or nervous). Then he leaned back in his chair and said calmly, “I don’t think the subject concerns the readers.”
“On the contrary, it concerns them a great deal, because there’s been a major increase in the number of homosexuals and some of them now occupy leadership positions in the country, and scientific studies show that the homosexual is psychologically unfit to lead the work of any institution because of the psychological aberrations that homosexuality causes.”
The attack was harsh and sweeping and Hatim determined to respond with violence, so he said firmly, “Your outmoded style of thinking is one of the reasons for your failure as a journalist.”
“Has homosexuality now become a progressive behavior?”
“Neither that nor is it the national issue in our country. My dear educated gentleman, Egypt has not fallen behind because of homosexuality but because of corruption, dictatorship, and social injustice. Likewise snooping into people’s private lives is a vulgar way of behaving that is inappropriate for a long-established newspaper like
The writer tried to protest, but Hatim cut him off sharply: “The discussion is closed. Kindly remain silent so that we may discuss the other topics.”
Hatim thus won the first round deftly, demonstrating to all his strength of personality and refusal to bow to blackmail. On the other embarrassing occasion, which was even more vulgar, a trainee journalist harassed him. Hatim was standing among the workers in the print shop supervising the production of the paper when the journalist, on the pretense of talking to him about something, came up to him and pointing to something among the papers on the table pushed himself against him from behind. Hatim immediately understood the meaning of the act and moved away, quietly, resuming his rounds of the print shop in a normal way. When he got back to his office, he sent for the journalist, dismissed the other people in the room, and then left the man standing for several minutes while he looked through his papers in front of him without letting him sit or paying him any attention. Eventually he raised his head, looked at him for a while, and said slowly, “Listen. Either you behave decently or I throw you off the paper. Understand?”
The journalist tried to make a pretense of surprise and innocence, but Hatim said in a decisive voice before going back to his papers, “That’s a final warning. No further discussion is called for. Get out. The interview’s over.”
Hatim Rasheed is not merely then an effeminate but also a talented and inquiring individual who has learned much from experience and whose competence and intelligence have brought him to the pinnacle of professional success. Moreover, he is an exquisite intellectual, who speaks a number of languages (English, Spanish, and French, as well as Arabic) fluently and whose wide and deep reading has introduced him to socialist thinking, which has influenced him greatly. He has made efforts to become friends with the leading Egyptian socialists and as a result at the end of the 1970s was once summoned to an interview with National Security investigators, who interrogated him; however, he was released after a few hours after they had recorded in his file that he was “a sympathizer and not an organizer.” His socialism has caused his name to come up several times for enlistment in the secret communist organizations (the Workers’ Party, the Egyptian Communist Party) but his known homosexuality has dissuaded those in charge from going ahead.
Such is Hatim Rasheed’s genuine but public persona. His secret life, on the other hand, is a kind of locked box full of forbidden, sinful, but pleasurable, toys that he opens every evening to play with, then locks again and tries to forget. He strives to reduce the homosexual space in his life to the narrowest possible, living his daily life as a journalist and an executive and practicing his pleasure for a few hours in bed at night. He tells himself that most men in the world have some special pastime that they use to relieve life’s pressures. He has known men in the most elevated positions — doctors, councelors, and university professors — who were devoted to alcohol or hashish or women or gambling and this never lessened their success or their self-respect. He convinces himself that homosexuality is the same sort of thing.
This idea appeals to him greatly because it brings him relief, balance, and respect. This is why he is always looking for a stable relationship with a permanent lover so that he can satisfy his needs safely and restrict his homosexuality to his nighttime hours in bed, for when he is alone, without a lover, temptation seizes him and his
