She nodded her head, looking at the ceiling.
“I can’t fathom your generation. In my day, love for one’s country was like a religion. Lots of young people died struggling against the British.”
Busayna sat up and said, “You made demonstrations to throw out the British? Okay, they went. Does that mean the country’s all right?”
“The reason the country’s gone downhill is the absence of democracy. If there were a real democratic system, Egypt would be a great power. Egypt’s curse is dictatorship and dictatorship inevitably leads to poverty, corruption, and failure in all fields.”
“That’s big talk. I dream in my own size. I want to live comfortably and have a family. A husband who loves me, children to raise, and a lovely, comfy little home instead of living on the roof. I’d like to go to a decent country, where there’s no dirt, no poverty, and no injustice. You know, the brother of one of my friends failed the general secondary exam three years in a row. Then he went off to Holland, married a Dutch woman, and settled down there. He tells us that overseas there’s no injustice and doing people out of what’s theirs, like here. There everyone gets what’s his and people respect one another. Even the sweeper in the street gets respect. That’s why I want to go abroad. I want to live there and work and become really respectable. Earn my living from my work instead of going to the storeroom with someone like Talal so that he’ll give me ten pounds. Just think — he used to give me ten pounds a time, the cost of two packs of Marlboros. I was really stupid.”
“You were in need and when you’re in need you don’t think. Busayna, I don’t want you to live in the past. Everything that happened to you is a page that’s been turned and is done with. Think of the future. We have each other now and I’ll never leave you.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Zaki went on gaily, to dispel the gloom, “A month or two from now I’ll be getting a big sum of money and I’ll take you abroad.”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“Where will we go?”
“France.”
She screamed and clapped her hands like a child. Then she said, joking slyly, “But you just pull yourself together and watch out for your health so you don’t flake out on me there. That would be a real mess!”
When she laughs, the muscles of her face contract, sweat stands out on her forehead, and she looks somewhat wild and strange as though she’d been taken by surprise by happiness and decided to grab it hard so it couldn’t get away. Zaki took her in his arms and whispered, “Okay? Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
He started with her hands. He began kissing her fingers one by one, then moved to her palm and arms and full, smooth chest. When he reached her neck and raised her thick hair to take her lovely small ears in his mouth, he felt her body burn with desire beneath his.
It started with a whisper. “Whisper” is the right word — a very slight sound that came suddenly and then was cut off while Zaki was devouring Busayna’s lips in a heated kiss. Seconds passed while they embraced, and then the sound was repeated, clearly this time. The door to the room in which they were sleeping was open and it came to Zaki’s mind in a flash that someone was moving around in the reception room. He leaped up naked from the bed and Busayna let out a high-pitched scream, leaping to put her clothes on any old how over her naked body. Then followed terrifying, nightmarish scenes — tense moments that Zaki and Busayna would never forget. The light went on in the room and a uniformed police officer appeared, police goons behind him. Dawlat came forward from among them, a malign, gloating smile on her face. In a moment her voice was raised, high-pitched and hateful as death: “Scandal and shamelessness! Every day bringing a prostitute and spending the night with her. Enough filth, my good man! Shame on you!”
“Shut your mouth!”
Zaki shouted this in his first reaction. He had gotten over his astonishment and appeared extremely agitated, his whole naked body shaking and his eyes bulging with rage. Unconsciously he put out his hand to take his pants, shouting as he put them on, “What’s going on? What’s this farce? Who gave you permission to enter my office? Do you have a warrant from the prosecutor?”
Zaki shouted this in the face of the young officer, whose features from the start were hostile, and who replied in a calm, challenging tone, “Are you teaching me how to do my job? I don’t need a warrant from the prosecutor. This lady is your sister and lives with you and she presented a complaint against you for practicing indecency in her house and requested an official inspection as she’s bringing a case for sequestration against you.”
“Nonsense. This is my private office and she does not live with me here.”
“But she opened the door with her keys and let us in.”
“Even if she has a key, it’s my office, in my name.”
“Then you can prove that in the report.”
“Prove what? I’ll see you get hell! You’re going to pay the price for violating the sanctity of people’s homes.”
“The sanctity of prostitutes, if you want the truth!” cried Dawlat, her eyes staring, and she moved toward him warily.
“Shut your mouth, I tell you!”
“You shut your mouth, you dirty old man!”
“Silence, madame, if you please!” shouted the officer at Dawlat, faking anger to mask that he was on her side. Then he turned to Zaki and said, “Listen, mister. You’re an old man and there’s no need for unpleasantness.”
“What exactly do you want?”
“We’ll just make our inspection and take a couple of words from you.”
“What’s to be inspected? Tell me you’ve been put up to this. That lizard put you up to this.”
“You seem to be a rude person. Listen, because I’m telling you for the last time. Give yourself a trouble-free evening.”
“You’re threatening me. I just have to talk on the telephone and I’ll teach you your place.”
“Is that so? Okay, I apologize,” replied the officer furiously. Then he said, “Come along, momma’s boy, down to the station, you and your prostitute.”
“I warn you not to use words you’ll be held to strict account for later. And you don’t have any right to arrest us.”
“I know whether I have the right or not.”
The officer turned and said to his goons, “Bring them.” The goons had been waiting for these words like a secret code and fell on Zaki and Busayna. Zaki resisted and started uttering threats and shouting in protest, but the men grabbed him firmly, while Busayna screamed, beat her cheeks, and pleaded with them as they dragged her outside.
In the beginning Taha felt constrained, but this went away as the days passed and as he got used to the camp’s strict regime — rising at dawn, performing the prayer, reciting the Qur’an, breakfast; then three hours of nonstop, demanding exercise (physical fitness and martial arts). After this, the brothers gathered to take classes (jurisprudence, exegesis, Qur’anic sciences, hadith) given by Sheikh Bilal and other scholars. Afternoons were devoted to arms training. The brothers would board a large bus (on which was written Turah Cement Company of Egypt) and go into the heart of the mountains where they practiced shooting and making and using bombs. The camp’s rhythm was exhaustingly rapid and Taha had no time to think. Even in the hour set aside for chatting, after the evening prayer, the conversation of the brothers usually turned to discussion of religious issues, during which the legal proof for the infidel nature of the regime and the necessity of fighting and destroying it would be presented.
When the time came to sleep, the brothers separated. The married ones went to the family dwellings at the
