I surrendered to the flow of the march that was now certainly leading us to the Ministry of Interior. My heartbeat quickened, with fear but also with an inexpressible joy. I was in a demonstration along with thousands of people, and I was walking by my father’s side.
7
Years ago my father took me to Talaat Harb Square during a small protest. There was a man with very white hair, and a man who was being carried on the shoulders of another and leading the chants. I remember that day well, and that the lead chanter’s voice held more bitterness than zeal. His chants were directed against specific names. My father held my small hand in his and held his other hand up with the victory sign. He had tears in his eyes. There weren’t that many protestors that day: twenty, or maybe thirty. They stood on the sidewalk outside Madbouli’s Bookstore. The white-haired man was trying to stir people up; he spoke ardently and angrily. Within minutes the riot police were there: seven or eight lines of them surrounded the small group. Things started to get tense. My father held my hand tightly. “Scared?”
“Of what?” I answered boldly. “I’m never scared, you know that.”
“Just so you know, it’s OK to be scared,” he said. “You just don’t need to be scared when I’m with you.”
I clung to his arm. “I said I’m not scared.”
“Why don’t we leave now? Let’s go get an ice cream at Groppi, then go home.”
“But I don’t want to leave!” I said stubbornly. “Please, let’s stay a bit longer.”
“OK, but only fifteen minutes, then we have to go—before the beating starts.”
He was firm about this. I didn’t get it at the time. What beating? And why? I didn’t see anything that called for a beating. The man chanting made me sad, for a reason I didn’t quite understand. He himself seemed sad. His voice was hoarse from all the chanting, but still loud. I imagined myself in his place, carried on someone’s shoulders, my thin voice convincing no one. The names they repeated in their chants must have been those of bad people, or, as my father put it, “bastards.” My father’s foul language used to make me blush. Only years later did I realize that his language was not foul enough to describe those bad people.
That day, we waited until my father—the omniscient god in my small world—sensed that the beating was about to start. He dragged me toward Groppi Café.
We sat at one of the old and rusty metal tables. People were gathering by the windows and the door, whispering to each other as they tried to see what was happening outside. My father ordered a mastic ice cream for me and a medium-sweet coffee for himself. I was not scared. I was ten years old. Nothing scared me, and I had my father’s hand to hold on to. How could I be scared then? My father did not look out the window; he knew exactly what was happening outside. Every now and then we would see someone run toward one of the surrounding buildings. We heard muffled noises. My heart sank. Cautiously, I asked, “Baba, has the beating started?”
“Yes, but don’t be scared. No one is going to harm us.”
“I told you I’m not scared.” I hit the table with my open palm. “I just want to know who’s beating who. And what they did.”
He answered, “Well, sweetie, the policemen outside are beating the people who were yelling. And the people who were yelling don’t like that there are bad guys in our country. And they also don’t like that when they say that the bad guys are bad guys, they get a beating.”
I found all this very strange. “But why don’t they call the police? The police would handle the bad guys.”
He looked at me with something close to pity. “Didn’t you see the policemen outside? They’re the ones doing the beating. They work for the bad guys. It’s ugly, I know. The people outside want to change all those ugly things.”
I frowned, beginning to sense the gravity of the situation. The bad guys were vile and the police were vile. The people outside were getting a beating because there weren’t many of them. I reached this conclusion as I got ice cream all over my face at Groppi and a small battle raged outside. I wasn’t scared; I had my father’s hand.
We left and got into our blue Fiat 128 and drove over the big bridge, my father talking the whole way. Sometimes I got confused: was he talking to me or, as was more often the case, to himself? He was talking about prison.
“In the sixties, when I was arrested during the big crackdown, we were taken to al-Wahat, a very big prison near the Western Desert oases. It was rough. We were beaten often. I’ll show you the scar I still have on my leg when we get home. They sometimes used a whip, which wasn’t even the worst thing. Everyone was beaten, left and right.”
I later understood he meant the political left and right.
“We couldn’t stand each other, but I felt sorry for them. I felt sorry for myself too.” The next car veered too close and jammed us up against the sidewalk. “You call that driving, you moron!”
I listened, swaying between apprehension, fascination, and anger. I imagined a big room where one of the bad guys made the good guys line up on both sides—left and right, as my father had said—and gave them a beating with the whip, which in my mind was a thick red hose, not unlike the one we had in our bathroom and which my mother often put to similar use when I did something she didn’t like.
“Baba, keep going. Then what?”
He was still looking at the other car in the rearview mirror. “Well, not much. They kept moving us
