He regarded me in silence and then turned to follow the horror show on TV.
I called Galal again, but this time he didn’t answer. I felt my chest tighten. I called Rima and Layla, but they didn’t answer either. I was dressed and ready to go, but it would be impossible to get into the square now. It was surrounded from all sides. I had to go. There was no other way. I wasn’t going to sit around feeling helpless.
My father’s face went pale when, around seven p.m., I announced that I was going. I couldn’t wait longer than that. He didn’t try to stop me. “Take good care of yourself. If it’s too dangerous, turn back, or go to one of your friends who live close to the square. Keep the phone on. I’ll call you. Don’t you dare not answer! If you don’t answer, I’ll think something’s happened to you, and then you’ll be sorry!”
“OK, OK! Don’t worry.”
I took off for the square. No taxis wanted to take me there. I decided to walk over from the direction of Qasr al-Nil. People I didn’t know on the street waved to me to turn back. From a distance I saw thugs occupying Qasr al-Nil Bridge. I turned around and went through Abd al-Moneim Riyad, where I walked confidently among the thugs. I called Galal and told him I was nearing the Abd al-Moneim Riyad entrance. He screamed down the phone: “Have you lost your mind? You’re coming from the worst direction! Go back if you can! Come through Qasr al-Aini.” But before he finished, I had arrived at the armored vehicle that blocked the entrance. I saw strange things that hadn’t been there when I left. There were metal barricades where the protestors stood. I turned my back on the unfriendly enemy lines and walked toward them. I was stopped by a young army officer who was covered in dust and looked exhausted. I thought I could make out a shoe print on his face, and I could definitely recognize a look of hysteria.
“What are you doing here?” he said in panic. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the square,” I replied haughtily.
“The square? What world do you live in? There’s a war in there, a war! If you try to go in, you’ll get your head knocked off by a rock. And if you think I’ll protect you, let me tell you, it’s nothing to do with me. No one here is going to protect you.”
“So what do you want me to do? I have to get in.”
“I’ll tell you what to do. Go and stand with those people behind you”—he pointed to a group chanting for the long life of the regime—“and start chanting with them. Because if they find out you’re from inside the square, they’ll eat you alive. That’s the only thing you can do.”
“Over my dead body! Fine, I’ll get in through Champollion Street.”
He gave up on me. “Do whatever you want. Just get away from here.”
I turned back and started to walk toward the Champollion entrance to the square. Once again I tried to call Galal. I walked as fast as I could. Suddenly someone yelled, “Iraqis! Iraqis over there! Come on, guys!” I looked around and found a group of men heading in my direction. I didn’t get it. What Iraqis? Where were they? Then I realized they were coming for me—that I was one of the “Iraqis.” The next moment the back of my collar was in someone’s fist. I was outraged, but before I could protest, they all started talking at the same time.
“I saw her talking on the phone. She has an Iraqi accent.”
“She must be reporting back to whoever sent her here.”
“I heard her with my own ears.”
“I caught about four Iranians earlier.”
“There are spies everywhere!”
“It’s all because of those traitors inside the square.”
I tried to explain that I wasn’t Iraqi. I raised my voice to let them hear my Egyptian accent. But my naive attempts got me nowhere. They were hell-bent. I was finally saved by a taxi driver who appeared like a guardian angel. He stuck his head out of the window and shouted, “What did she do, guys?”
“She’s one of the traitors from inside. She’s a spy.”
He raised his voice. “Oh, then we must turn her in! No need to beat her up. Let’s do the right thing and hand her over to the army.”
He motioned to me surreptitiously to get into the car. My captor’s fist had loosened a bit on my collar while he talked to the driver. I slipped away and jumped into the taxi, which drove off immediately before they gathered that the driver was helping me escape.
I burst into tears the moment I got into the car. The driver looked at me in the mirror. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. He said sympathetically, “Don’t cry, miss. It’s not worth it. If you make yourself ill, do you think this country will help you? It won’t. And nothing’s more important than your health. Take it easy, please.”
He drove away from the square. I kept repeating, between sobs, “There’s no point in anything, no point at all.” Still regarding me in the mirror, he said, “Of course there is, miss! Don’t you give up! You were just in the wrong place. You know what, I go to the square every day. I don’t stay the whole day, but I go and see what I can help with—medication, cigarettes. I set aside thirty pounds every day to bring stuff to the kids who spend the night. It’s not much, but every little bit helps, right? There’s hope, miss. Those people who wanted to beat you up are just slaves to those in power. They’ve been brainwashed.”
I said through my tears, “Don’t call them
