“Please, sir, keep in mind that they are young and angry for their country.”
“We also are patriotic Egyptians, but we don’t demonstrate and wreak havoc.”
“I hope Your Excellency would treat them as a father.”
“Not father nor mother. I am carrying out orders!” the officer shouted loudly as if resisting an internal sympathy. Then he moved back two steps and gave a signal whereupon the troops moved aside, letting him through. The campus was dark and the January cold was boring into his bones. He buttoned his overcoat tightly and put his hands in his pockets. Posters and wall newspapers covered the buildings. He couldn’t make out what was written on them in the dark, with the exception of a large picture of Sadat smoking a waterpipe. He saw hundreds of students sitting on the grass and on the steps. Many were asleep, some were smoking and talking, and some were singing Sheikh Imam songs. He looked for her for a while until he found her. She was standing in front of the large Assembly Hall arguing enthusiastically with several other students. He got close and called out to her. She went toward him and said in that warm way of hers that he couldn’t forget, “Hello.”
He answered tersely, “You look tired.”
“I am fine.”
“I’d like you to come with me.”
“Where to?”
“To your house and your family.”
“You came to take me by the hand to Mama’s bosom? You want me to wash my feet and drink my milk so that she will put me in bed, cover me, and tell me a bedtime story?”
He realized from her sarcasm that his task was not going to be easy. He looked at her reproachfully and said in a firm tone of voice, “I am not going to let you hurt yourself.”
“That’s my business.”
“What exactly do you want?”
“I and my colleagues have specific demands, and we will not end the sit-in until they are met.”
“You think you’ll change the universe?”
“We’ll change Egypt.”
“Egypt will not be changed by a demonstration.”
“We are speaking for all Egyptians.”
“Stop these illusions. People outside the university don’t know anything about you. Please, Zeinab, come with me. The officer said they will arrest you.”
“Let them do what they want.”
“Would you like the soldiers to beat you and drag you on the ground?”
“I am not leaving my colleagues, no matter what.”
“I am afraid for you,” he whispered anxiously. She fixed him with a derisive glance and then turned around, going back to her colleagues. She started talking with them again and ignored him. For a while he stood where he was, looking at her. Then he left angrily and told himself that she was crazy and would never be good for him, and that if he married her their home would turn into a battlefield. He thought that she was conceited and obstinate; she had treated him insolently and scornfully. He had warned her, but she persisted in her foolishness. Let the soldiers beat her or drag her on the ground, let them violate her. From now on he would not feel any sympathy for her. It was she who chose her fate. He went to bed exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. He kept tossing and turning until he heard the call to the dawn prayers. He got up and bathed, put on his clothes, and went back to the university. He found out that the soldiers had stormed it and arrested the students. He made strenuous efforts to contact his acquaintances until he was able, finally, to visit her at the security directorate in the afternoon. She was quite pale, her lower lip swollen, and there were blue bruises around her left brow and on her forehead. He extended his hand and touched her face, saying sadly, “Does it hurt?”
“The whole of Egypt is wounded,” she replied.
After all this time he still remembered Zeinab Radwan. In fact, he had never stopped thinking about her for a single day. The old pictures were appearing in his mind with amazing clarity. The floodgates of memory opened, came over and swept him away, as if the past were a gigantic genie let out of the bottle. There she was, standing before him, with her petite figure, her beautiful face, and her long black hair that she gathered in a ponytail. Her eyes were gleaming with enthusiasm as she talked to him in that dreamy voice of hers, as if she were reciting a love poem, “Our country is great, Salah, but it has been oppressed for a long time. Our people have tremendous abilities. If we have democracy, Egypt will become a strong, advanced country in less than ten years.”
He would listen to her, hiding his indifference with a neutral smile. How she tried to win him over to her side! But he was in a different world. For his birthday she gave him Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti’s complete history book, saying, “Happy birthday. Read this book to understand me better.”
He read a few pages then got bored. So he lied and told her he’d finished it. He didn’t like to lie and rarely did, but he didn’t want her to get angry with him. He wanted to keep her at her best and most beautiful. When she was in a good mood her smile shone and her face lit up. During their splendid moments of harmony they would sit next to each other in the Orman Garden. She would put her books aside on the round white marble bench. They would sit there oblivious to the passing of hours, talking and dreaming of the future, whispering. As he got closer to her he would smell her perfume, which he was now recalling vividly. He would hold
