You didn’t remember the moments we had, Ali, while I chose to forget everything else and remember my moments with you.
30
Things quieted down in the square. Two days had passed since the big battle. The protestors’ good humor was on the rise. There were nights of singing till morning. We made our beds on the sidewalk, I wrapped in my heavy coat to avoid using the blankets with their gas smell and their fleas, while Galal would wrap himself up in a filthy blanket and sleep like he was lying in the most comfortable bedroom. His easy sleep annoyed me, so I decided to punish him: “Galal! Galal! Wake up, I need to talk to you!”
“Shut up, Nadia, and let me sleep.”
“Galal, Galal, Galal, get up!”
He finally sat up angrily and said, “What do you want, Nadia?”
Acting like a spoiled brat, which was entirely inappropriate, I said, “I’m cold. I can’t sleep.”
“Cover yourself with a blanket and you’ll be able to sleep.”
“The blankets aren’t clean. They’re infested,” I said coldly.
“Do you think you’re at the Hilton? You’re sleeping in the street. Cut the attitude and sleep.”
“Galal, please get up and let’s go for a walk. I’m fed up. Please come with me.”
Our voices woke Layla, who said, “Just settle down and sleep, everybody! You woke me up. Nadia, take a blanket and sleep and let’s just get through the night, please.”
“I won’t sleep. If no one gets up to go for a walk with me, I’ll keep waking you up every time you fall asleep,” I said stubbornly.
Finally Galal relented and stood up and pulled me by the arm. “Come on, then. You’d think we were on the beach. You want to go for a walk. You do realize we’re in the middle of a revolution?”
As I walked triumphantly away with him, I heard Layla murmur, “Good riddance!”
We walked around the square. The dawn prayer hadn’t been called yet. I watched the many tents on the traffic island in the middle of the square. Most protestors were asleep after another tiring day. But there was light in the field hospital by the Mugamma building, and a few young people sat in a circle by it. The oldest must have been twenty. I pulled Galal in their direction. We stood at a distance and listened to them sing old Muhammad Munir songs. I started humming along, then suggested we join them.
They welcomed us and sang with rising enthusiasm. I looked at their faces and smiled. When I was a teenager, I was a temperamental, unfriendly girl. I had my headphones on all the time and never sang aloud. I was difficult to get along with and would never have welcomed strangers into a circle like this one. I used to practice scowling in the mirror, ready to repel anyone who dared to come close. I watched these kids and smiled spontaneously. My heart beat in tenderness toward them. I thought they would never have to deal with bitterness like me, or fear like Layla, or uncertainty like Rima. Only Galal resembled them. He would still have his fresh-faced spirit when he was seventy years old. Galal was born with a cheekiness, a spontaneity, and a youthful sense of hope that would always stay with him. That was what I loved about Galal: his faith, his enthusiasm, and his excitement about life were intact.
I looked at his tired face, laughing and singing with the kids, and envied his faith and his clarity. I didn’t know what to do, so I reached for his hand, and he spontaneously squeezed mine back, all the while singing and swaying his head with the tune. I left the singing circle and walked around the square. At every entrance there was a checkpoint. Familiar faces called “good morning” to me, and I smiled and answered. I stood watching a group of soldiers washing a tank at one of the entrances. There was a deep container with some cleaning liquid or solvent. Each soldier would dip a filthy rag into the liquid, squeeze it, and use it to rub one part of the tank. They did that every morning. The tanks would be covered with revolutionary graffiti and obscene curses directed at the regime, which would have angered their senior officers. So at the start of each day, before their superiors woke up, the soldiers would clean the tanks, which would just acquire new writings and drawings in the course of the day, while the soldiers looked on in frustration and prepared themselves to clean them again the next morning. As I walked past I called to them, “Don’t clean so diligently. They won’t stay clean.” Time passed. Galal must have gone back to sleep.
I called my father. “Morning. Do you want to come here or shall I come home?”
“No, I’m coming to you. Wait for me at the Qasr al-Nil entrance,” he replied quickly.
I laughed. “You obviously can’t wait to be here! OK, call me when you’re close. Let’s have breakfast together.”
I bought fuul and falafel sandwiches, then went to the field hospital to ask for an indigestion tablet to take after breakfast. My colon was acting up, and without the tablet I’d be sick all day.
Twenty minutes later, I met my father at the Qasr al-Nil entrance. He immediately started to explore the square with his eyes. He said the numbers weren’t as high as the first few days of the sit-in.
“Don’t be greedy,” I joked. “Do you not remember the protests you used to drag me to, where all of you together didn’t make up a hundred? Now you don’t like that we’re six hundred thousand instead of a full million?”
“I’m not complaining,” he replied. “But the truth is it’s the large numbers that will protect you from violence.”
He
