Shouts of anger went up. Fatma’s eyes strayed to the policemen, whose hands hovered above batons. She shot a meaningful look to Aasim, who turned to hiss something to his men. Whatever he said was carried down the line, and their hands relaxed. Atop the mausoleum, the man raised a chain-mailed hand, and the crowd quieted. Fatma didn’t let the silence go wasted.
“I do not name the great al-Jahiz a murderer,” she said, addressing the crowd. “I name this charlatan a murderer who has chosen to carry out this fraud upon you, this falsehood. A man who would kill so many cannot be trusted. A man like that does not deserve your praise.” A few faces looked troubled. Good. She whipped her head back to the imposter. “I ask you again, is al-Jahiz a murderer?”
There was a long quiet. It seemed everyone was now waiting on an answer, eyes fixed on the figure above. At last, he replied, “I am many things to many people. Teacher. Thinker. Inventor. I have been called other things. Saint. Madman.” He paused. “And to those of whom you speak, who perished in fire, I was vengeance.”
Fatma released a breath. There it was. Beside her, Aasim cleared his throat and shouted: “Sounds like a confession to me.”
“I confess only to doing what had to be done,” the man replied. He turned his burning gaze on the crowd, who stared back uncertainly. “What they do not tell you is who died that night. Right here, on the very earth I once walked, foreign men create a mockery of my name. They do not tell you, that one of these men, the claimed English Basha, formed a deceitful cabal of other Englishmen, who poisoned my teachings. They do not tell you that these men practiced foul arts—even daring to call themselves the Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz. That they consorted with idolaters! Worshippers of false gods!” New murmurs, and Fatma looked to find more than a few scandalized faces. Still, that wasn’t enough. Doubt still filled the air.
“That is no reason to murder!” someone shouted.
Fatma looked about, searching for the voice. Another spoke.
“We are a nation of laws!”
“There is no call to kill even idolaters!” came a third shout.
“Or foreigners!” said another. “We are not to kill those who do not make war against us!”
More voices now. Even arguments. Breaking out here and there among the crowd. One old man was quoting hadith on nonviolence to a knot of young men who listened respectful even while disagreeing. Others looked as if they were making to leave, returning to their homes. Fatma looked up to the imposter with triumph in her eyes. If he thought he could wrap his crimes in some sense of righteousness, he’d been sorely mistaken. Your move, she thought silently.
“War has been made against you,” the imposter thundered, cutting across the din. He waited for silence to settle again as all eyes returned to him. “What they will not tell you, is that these foreign men committed theft. Pilfering what they would from our land. They seek to take what was yours by right, to make themselves a new power. They seek to corrupt our country, corrupt your children, debase our society—using my name, and perverting my teachings for their own greed! Their aim is nothing less than to weaken Egypt, to make us once again a vassal to Western powers! To place us under the rule of the very tyrants from whom we escaped!”
New gasps now. And true looks of alarm. Fatma frowned. What was he getting at?
“Tell us!” someone shouted. “Who would do this?”
“The very ones who keep you in this slum,” the imposter answered. “Those who call themselves your leaders. Who sit in the halls of government.” His arm shot up, gesturing down toward Fatma and the others. “And they knew! These authorities, charged with protecting you, they allowed this desecration! Why? Because the English Basha walked with the wealthy, the powerful, who use their influence to bribe the quiet of your statesmen, to even silence your newspapers to keep you blind!”
He paused, waiting for his words to sink in. And to Fatma’s discomfort, she could see that many were listening. Not all were convinced, but they seemed open to hearing more.
“Traitors!” a voice shouted. She thought it was one of the young men. It was quickly picked up, buzzing through the crowd like a set of wasps.
“Traitors!” the imposter pronounced in unison. “Traitors in league with these idolaters and Englishmen, conspiring to allow the foreigners to take root again on our soil! To undo the work I had done to help free Egypt! So yes, I burned them! I let the fires consume them! To end their plot to once again shackle our land and bind us all in chains!”
A chorus of assent from the crowd rang out in the night.
“That was actually good,” Aasim admitted. “I’m hoping you have a rebuttal?”
“Of course she does,” Hadia said. Her eyes flicked nervously. “You do, don’t you?”
Fatma set her jaw. This wasn’t going as she’d planned. She’d gotten a confession, but he’d turned it into a badge of honor. And weaved the most ridiculous conspiracy. The Egyptian government was part of a plot to help make the country a colony of England? Preposterous! Yet she could also see that it struck a chord, with people who had little reason to trust authority. There were some in the crowd who looked genuinely shocked, even worried. What he was playing at here was dangerous, very dangerous. Fortunately, not all were swept up by that speech. Open skepticism played on many faces. A few even glanced her way, waiting, as if willing her to make a worthy rebuttal. Well, time to give them the full show.
“Take off your mask!” she shouted. That cut through the exultation, which slowly faded away. “Al-Jahiz never wore a mask. He never concealed his face from his followers, like some criminal or robber. So why one now? I’ve found that men
