On the third day, my father decided that he would spend the night in the square. This made me anxious, because of his age and health. But arguing with him about it would have only stressed us both out. I scanned the square, looking for a relatively safe spot for both of us to settle for the night, and told my comrades that tonight was an emergency; my father was joining us and they all had to be ready to receive him. Galal reassured me with a pat on the back. Layla and Rima smiled. God help us!
My father had a victorious smile on his face all the way to the square. He didn’t say a word, just looked out of the window of the taxi, and his smile got wider and wider. I fidgeted. I kept taking things out of my bag and putting them back in. I had brought a blanket and one of those airplane pillows. I couldn’t carry an extra blanket, so I would use my coat. I had his medication, a bottle of water, and a small plastic container with low-salt cheese sandwiches in it. The kind of food being sold in the square would have raised his blood pressure.
Once in, we embarked on the customary tour around the peripheries, stopping whenever we met friends. He bumped into many of his friends that day, and every five minutes I would hear the same comment: “What are you doing here? What about your health?” To which he confidently replied, “I had to be here. After all those years, I couldn’t possibly miss the revolution.”
I took him by the arm and we circled the big central island. He paused every now and then to watch, from behind his glasses, the young people holding their signs. Many of the slogans were comical. There were very young children carried on their fathers’ shoulders and shouting revolutionary chants in their childish voices. I generally don’t like the idea of getting children involved in politics, but the square’s children seemed different. We were all wondering how these children would grow up after having experienced a revolution. We walked around with big smiles on our faces. A band was playing Shaykh Imam songs on a makeshift stage. I motioned to my father to sit for a bit. We sat down together on the ground. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He was looking steadily at the stage, his eyes not moving.
Egypt is the suns rising from prisons
The blossoming gardens in our blood
I saw his eyes tear up. He was probably being taken back in time, remembering the sixties when he may have sung the same song with his comrades at al-Wahat Prison. Perhaps he was told to stop singing by a prison guard and received a lashing or two if he refused. But this was a different place and a different time. He would not have been bitter or resentful because of the injustice he suffered or the years he spent in exile. He definitely wasn’t begrudging these young people their revolution. It might have felt strange, but it wouldn’t have made him bitter like it did for many of his generation. That night I was certain that my father was happy and expectant, like me and millions of others.
We lay down on the ground to sleep, he on the small blanket I had brought, I on my coat. I saw him close his eyes with a big smile on his face, directed at the sky. For the first time in years, I didn’t hear the wheezing sound coming from his chest; nor did I worry about the irregular quivers of his heart.
26
I got up early to cook breakfast for Ali. When I was little, my father used to let the fuul beans soak in water from morning till sundown. After sunset he would go into the kitchen, dice one onion, two garlic cloves, and one tomato, and put everything with the fuul into its cooking pot, the qidra. He’d cover the ingredients with water and place the pot on low heat on the stove. I would sit close by so I could smell the aroma as it filled the house. Hours later, possibly around midnight, he would switch off the stove and empty the pot into a big bowl. The fuul had to be tasted, fresh from this complicated process, which at the time I thought was simple. My father handled the ingredients with the accuracy of a scientist—he would measure everything and tell me that one rogue milliliter could spoil the dish. He instilled in me a respect for the process of making fuul. We would sit together to dip baladi bread in a shared bowl of fuul, mixed with diced fresh tomatoes, corn oil, cumin, and maybe some crushed garlic. My father was also the one who taught me to add white cheese to fuul and mash it in with a fork. I thought everyone ate it like that, but years later discovered it was a custom that belonged only to us.
I never dared to slow-cook fuul at home. It was my father’s territory and I couldn’t compete. A packet of dried fuul has a permanent place in my kitchen cupboard, but I can never bring myself to use it.
I wondered what I should make for Ali’s breakfast.
We usually got up together in the morning after a quick kiss and maybe a morning cuddle. When I heard the water in the shower, I knew that I had exactly twenty-five minutes. There was no time to think. I squeezed some orange juice and put the bread on the stove. I would time myself by putting one song on
