He patted my hand and said, “Live your life, Nadia. Time flies and our lives pass by so fast. You must have heard this before, but it’s real. We blink and find ourselves old. Live your life and don’t let anyone imprison you in their issues.”
“Yes, sir! Now let’s eat before the food gets cold.”
We finished our plates and went on with the day—another day on which I did not shed a tear.
25
Radwa always hated politics. She only talked in the most cursory way about what was happening in the country. Of course we shared the same political beliefs, but she always thought it was futile.
“It’s too messed up, Nadia,” she would say. “There’s no point in trying.”
I used to find this “no point” declaration extremely annoying. I heard it from so many people around me. So many had views about the hopelessness of the situation, but from Radwa it made me feel like I personally had failed. Her bitterness pained me.
Galal was exactly the opposite. He was more politicized than me and Radwa. So was Rima. They both believed there was a point in trying; that of course there was a point in trying. Layla stayed on the fence, hesitant and confused. She wanted nothing to do with politics. She was the oldest of our group and the furthest from street politics. She just thought, “For my son’s sake there must be hope. I can’t accept that there isn’t.” As for me, I tended toward pessimism. When I thought about things rationally, I found myself on the same wavelength as Galal. I could see promising signs. But when I thought about “us” as examples of the people who live in this country, I found us lacking. We weren’t able to see anything through. We and most of those around us in the square belonged to a social class that didn’t really have to work for anything. I think that if we had done a survey of everyone in the square, we would have found that the majority had parents who had worked in the Gulf in the seventies, during the ugly days of open-door economic policies, only for the sake of returning with a small car, an apartment in the suburbs, and a few gadgets. We, their children, didn’t have to work for anything. Our lives were a mediocre compromise. Our demands were a mediocre compromise. We were mediocre at our jobs. We were not at the top of the ladder, like the big shots that my father often included in the bastards category, but neither did we have to struggle to put food on the table like those who might as well be living on a different planet—those whom we discussed with compassion, then forgot as we smoked our imported cigarettes.
We did nothing with our hands. We didn’t produce anything. Our achievements were limited, as were our ambitions. We never went hungry, and when our salaries were depleted toward the end of the month, we bought local cigarettes and ate at cheap curbside sandwich shops. Our entire lives were a mediocre compromise. So I didn’t understand the secret behind this uprising—or perhaps I should say ‘revolution,’ to avoid being chastised by Galal. This was not how I imagined a revolution. I didn’t think revolutions were started by those who had mediocre lives, but by those who had no lives to begin with. Maybe this revolution was the first exception.
I wasn’t pessimistic so much as surprised. The exaggerated civility of the square; the sudden good manners that seemed to have mysteriously descended on the middle classes. Why weren’t we—Layla, Rima, I, and other women—being harassed? Sexual harassment was a norm that, every day, men on the streets treated as an acquired right. All of a sudden a flood of good manners was sweeping everyone along. It was as if an invisible airplane were spraying the square with a magic potion that made people nice to each other and made men respect women. I received this with suspicion and apprehension. I heard other girls say, “Wow, the revolution is changing people for the better,” and I replied, “I’m not convinced. After ten years or more of being groped in public transport and hounded by men in the street, I don’t buy this manners-utopia thing.” They’d look at me in disgust and pronounce me bleak and unable to see the good side of life.
I can’t deny that through the two weeks of the sit-in, the square really maintained itself admirably. Men and women were constantly cleaning, and a high degree of organization reigned. There was a corner for everything: newspapers, bloggers, food and drink, making signs and posters, so many of which used the power of sarcasm to attack the regime. There was a place for everyone. Layla, Rima, Galal, and I were almost always together. Galal left us at intervals to attend meetings and discussions, and when he returned he was sometimes quiet and downcast, but more often lively and optimistic. We sat in our place on the sidewalk and waited—I, despairingly, for the moment I anticipated when the military was going to attack and shoot us all dead; Rima and Layla for the fall of the regime; and Galal doing all he could to keep morale up.
There were so many rumors. Some were never verified even after the sit-in was over. Most revolved around stories of people being arrested as they left the square, military police cars that picked up demonstrators and took them in for interrogation. There was also the recurring rumor of trucks carrying state-hired thugs approaching the square. We would suddenly see people running toward one of the square’s entrances and shouting, “Watch out! The thugs are coming!” But after the running and panic, nothing would happen. It was true, though, that many—not all—of those leaving the square were arrested, but the rumors
