Between Two Wars - Novel - Chapter (1)

Saber Mazloom the fifty-year-old high rank governmental clerk was too sad. In the living room he was sitting on his usual chair wearing his pajama. He was showing the TV that he had bought few months ago. He stood suddenly, but his knees failed to bear his body and he collapsed on the chair he just left. His dry mouth and throat increased the stinging pain he had and his tongue was stick to his palate. The heart ran as fast as a crazy horse. He buried his face in his hands. He felt suffocated, and then he rested his back on the seat back and started to cry spasmodically.

´It can´t be,´ he cried it out. ´The devils did it to us.´

´How come that happened to us?´ Amina Rashed, the primary school teacher came from the kitchen to see her husband cry for the first time since his father had died.

Nagwa their elder daughter, the twenty-two-year-old student in the faculty of Economics and Political Sciences hurried with bare feet, rushed into the living room, and cried loudly, ´what happened to Ibrahiem?´ She asked about her cousin. He was also her husband-to-be and he was a captain in the Egyptian army. They tied the knot but postponed the wedding until he would return victorious.

Gamal Abd El Naser finished his famous speech of 9 June 1967, announcing the setback and his resignation. Few days ago, they had been talking about the time the Egyptian army would enter Tel-Aviv. They had no doubts that their heroes in the army would do the job. They had a great faith in Naser.

Emad the twenty-year-old student in the Faculty of Engineering was listening to the same speech from a transistor radio in the balcony looking at Ramsis street in Abbassia district in Cairo. He saw the first waves of the demonstrations less than a quarter of an hour after Naser´s speech.

´People refuse the resignation of Naser and they want to fight again,´ Emad rushed to the living room to tell his parents and sister. ´I´ll go down to see the demonstrations.´

´No, you don´t go!´ Amina said to him.

´Let him go,´ Saber said before Amina could clear her point of view, and then added as if he found something to do, ´I must be in the committee now.´ Saber was the secretary of the Abbassia district committee of the Arabic Socialist Union, the only political party in Egypt then days. He wore a black suit and a black tie as if someone dear died.

´I´ll go with Emad,´ Tamer the twelve-year-old pupil said to his mother.

´No, never you go. Emad is big enough to take care of himself,´ Amina said sharply.

´I´m not young. I finished the primary school certificate exam and you promised me that I can go alone when I finish it,´ Tamer started to cry.

´If you don´t stop you´ll have a good beat,´ Amina threatened.

´Come with me and we´ll listen together to the radio,´ Salwa the sixteen year old girl came to the risqué of her young brother as she knew that in those circumstances the threatening of her mother was no joke.

´No!´ it was Nagwa who cried and fainted when Saber and Emad went out and found that nobody answered her question about Ibrahiem. Her mother and sister carried her to her bed and tried to tone the transistor radio to listen to the BBC or the VOA to know what had really happened.

On his way to the district committee Saber met a neighbor.

´The demonstrations block the whole Queen Nazly Street. Do you think that Naser may return?´ the neighbor asked.

´It´s called Ramsis street or you prefer to live in the royal era before the revolution,´ Saber said.

´Ramsis is a king also,´ the neighbor said sarcastically.

´Naser will continue as a leader. The situation is much like what happened in 1956 and at last we were the victorious,´ Saber said ignoring the sarcasm of his friend.

´I hope so but I´m afraid that I think the situation is different from 1956,´ the friend said.

All the way Saber was trying to convince himself that it would be a matter of days and then the world would be against the aggressors but something deep in his brain cast doubt on that possibility. When he reached the committee, he had his usual seat beside Noor Sultan the chief of the committee.

´Of course it´s a great success that we could mobilize people to demonstrate and to insist on Naser as a president. What we did is a historical step that history will record it proudly. Our sacred duty is to support the command-ship and there will be no leader but Naser,´ Sultan said finishing his speech.

´We sacrifice the soul and blood for Naser,´ one of the members shouted. Others repeated the slogan.

´But I think that we´ve to ask for a special committee to investigate the cause of the defeat,´ Saber said.

´This isn´t a defeat,´ Noor shouted with a very high voice. He looked at Saber and added, ´this is just a setback.´

´What so ever you call it but we´ve to know exactly what had happened,´ Saber defended his point of view.

´I think our sacred duty is to liberate the land not to condemn each other,´ Noor shouted at Saber then he looked at the members and shouted, ´no voice should be louder than the battle´s voice.´ A pause of silence followed then Noor gave Saber a sharp look and started to expose his second man and competitor in the committee, ´I think one of the main causes of the setback was that some of the supposed responsible persons were not present in their places. I think you´ve to be with the civil defense groups right now.´

´Well, I went there the moment the war began to find that they don´t have a plan and all they do was to shout at people to switch off the light,´ Saber felt cornered and his gradually fading voice exposed him more.

´You´d report to us to tell the higher level to take actions,´ Noor continued reprimanding Saber. At last, he ignored Saber and said to the members, ´we shouldn´t return homes until Naser accept to withdraw his resignation.´ He stood up leaving the place without shacking hands with saber as usual or even biding him farewell.

The early morning of 10 June was the saddest day the Egyptians lived in the twentieth century. For Mazloom family it was both the saddest and the unforgettable. In the dawn just half an hour before sunrise, heavy knocking at the door annoyed Saber and Amina.

´It must be Emad forgetting his key as usual,´ Saber said opening his eyes after failed trials to fall asleep due to the sadness that inhabiting his heart and the sorrow overwhelming his mind, and the hot humid summer of Cairo.

´I´ll open the door for him,´ Amina got off the bed. While she was wearing the slipper, the knocking at the door continued and was accompanied by a harsh voice of non-comprehensible words. Her transparent nightgown exposed more than covered her body and showed her underwear, so she looked at her husband and said, ´I don´t think it is Emad who is at the door. You better go to see who´s knocking at the door.´

Saber went to open the door while he was wearing the trousers of the pajama on his way. The knocking on the door did not stop.

´Open the door,´ a harsh voice ordered and followed by louder knockings.

´Who´re you?´ Saber's loud and sharp voice expressed his anger about the rudeness of the visitor.

´Are you Saber Mazloom?´ the voice was louder and sharper.

´Yes, but who are you?´

´Open the door or we´ll break it.´

´If you do not tell me who are you, I will call the police at once.´

´What the police will do for you. You are son of a bitch. We´re from the intelligence service,´ the voice shouted angrily as if it was humiliated.

´What´s the matter?´ Saber asked the first giant he faced when opened the door.

´Sorry to disturb your intimate pleasure Mr. Saber but you´re wanted,´ the black suit and the black eyeglasses the giant wear in spite of the darkness and the hot summer beside the masked face and the rude language were the ID of the dawn visitors as Egyptians called them.

Three other lower rank men wearing yellow coats rushed into the flat and before Saber could warn his wife and daughters, the females found them in their bedrooms. Amina and her two daughters in the nightgowns accompanied by the young Tamer fled for the reception and stood by their helpless man.

´There should be some mistake or misunderstanding,´ Nagwa said to the giant.

´I am Major Hussein Yousry from the intelligence service and we do not do mistakes,´ he lit a cigarette and let his eyes run over the pretty girl´s body under her transparent gown.

´Have you got permission from the prosecutor general to be here and to arrest my father?´ Nagwa insisted to show him that she knew the rights of citizens, the very same rights her father did not care about when he as a member in the Socialist Union defended all human rights violations as excuses to safeguard the revolution.

´What's permission? I don´t need permissions.´ Hussein took two steps toward Nagwa, caught the gown touching her breasts with his fingers, and added, ´you may wipe your ass with those permissions. I´m the law. You could use the books of laws that you´ve read in the university as toilet papers´ He pulled the gown suddenly and tore it exposing her flesh.

´Oh,´ Nagwa screamed. She threw herself into her mother´s arms. Salwa ran and brought a robe for her.

´We found nothing,´ one of the men came from inside.

´Go with this queer,´ Hussein pushed Saber to be picked by the man, who wrestled the poor man´s arm. ´Let him wear something and bring him back in less than five minutes.´

´Could you tell us please, where we can ask about him,´ Amina asked the arrogant officer.

´Of course, the dawn visitors have only one place that is behind the sun,´ Hussein said smilingly.

While the three men in the military jeep were accompanying Saber, Hussein was on his way to Heliopolis, the affluent Cairo district where his second wife Shahinaze Al-Sharbatly was. She lived in the palace of her father the Pasha (the equivalent to a Lord) who lost his title after the revolution along with most of his properties. Dr. Kamal, her brother fled to London after graduation and married an English woman. She failed to follow him. She found a job as a presenter in the Radio English Program. She met Hussein in the Heliopolis Sporting Club. When he admired her, she had two options, either to be his second wife or to be his mistress. She predicted that the first choice might protect her and her relatives from the harassment of the new influential revolutionaries and her predictions proved to be right. Even her career, was favorably developed after they chose her to present the TV English news and to present some other programs. Hussein needed her as a stylish wife to be beside him in the parties and social events where his first wife Safia, a daughter of an Omda (a farmer property owner and a governor of a village) might be a source of embarrassment in front of his colleagues where the farmers´ habits of talking and eating had no popularity. Shahinaze had never asked him to divorce his first wife and the few hours he spent every three or four days, in the main bedroom of the palace were more than enough for her. The last time she saw him was one day before the war. That day he told her confidently that he would take her to Tel-Aviv in the near future to spend a holiday there after the Egyptian army would liberate Palestine.

He parked his car in the garage of the palace in Beirut Street off Oroba Street that leads to Cairo international airport.

Shahinaze was in her bedroom when he entered and took off his jacket and threw it on a chair.

´High,´ he said.

´High,´ she was semi-sitting in her bed. Her sad voice was strange to him.

´What´s wrong with you? Didn´t you sleep well?´ he asked.

´I didn´t sleep at all. I spent the whole night listening to the transistor radio trying to know anything,´ she said. She was astonished that there is no any sign of sadness in his voice.

´About what?´ he asked.

´About the war, the army and the land,´ she said angrily.

´Everything is okay, our agents told that they had cooperated with the members of the Arabic Socialist Union and had arranged the demonstrations with a non-precedence success. Moreover, this is just the first step. The second step will be the army´s taking the Israelis by surprise,´ he said it confidently as if there was a secret plan to liberate the lost land. He took off his shoes and lay beside her.

´I don´t think so,´ she was about to scream.

´For you knowledge Naser will withdraw his resignation and nothing will change,´ he said smilingly.

´I don´t think that there is anything may make one happy after we had lost the war,´ she was disgusted.

´We didn´t lose the war. It was a conspiracy to topple Naser but as long as he´ll continue to be the president, then the aggressors failed,´ he said proudly.

´As simple as it is,´ she said ironically.

´Of course,´ he said as if he was lecturing on an idiot.

´What about the land that we´ve lost,´ she said furiously.

´We´ll liberate it,´ he was so confident.

´When does this happen?´ she asked. She desperately needed hope.

´In time,´ he said indifferently. He picked a block-note that she kept beside the bed, and with his Parker pen, he drew the Sinai map. He gave her a lesson about the geo-strategy of the peninsula. He explained how armies lose and retake it easily. ´So there is no problem at all.´

´What the rubbish you´re talking about. These words may help the system to absorb the people´s rage who fed up with the dictatorship and atrocity. They sacrificed their freedom and rights hoping that the system may liberate Palestine one day. Nevertheless, anyone who knows little about policy knows that it is a regime of liars and deceivers who are corrupt. They expelled his majesty the king to crown several kings instead,´ her voice was loud.

´Naser is not a king. He is a great nationalist,´ he shouted back.

´But the great fault he did was leaving those sons of bitches do to us what they have done? If they had the slightest signs of dignity they would suicide,´ she left the bed.

´Don´t forget that I´m member of that regime,´ he grabbed her from hair.

She knew that his sadistic drive turned on. ´That is what you do all, you beat women and flee when real men are needed.´ She knew how to put more fuel on his sadistic drive. Humiliating him verbally excited the monster that always overwhelmed his soul and body.

´Don´t ever talk to me like this,´ he said while he was wrestling her arm. He threw her on the bed.

´Since when slaves tell their masters how to talk,´ she said. She faced him and kicked his chest with her bare leg.

´We´re the masters of this country, you bitch.´ He caught her leg and turned her on her abdomen. Then he pulled up her gown and beat her buttocks. He pulled down her underwear and whipped her bare buttocks with his belt. He sodomized her and he felt the satisfaction of overcoming her. He did not care about her being satisfied. After ejaculation, he pulled up his trousers. He never let her see him naked. He took underwear, a shirt and another black suit from the closet and went to the bathroom. He bolted the door.

While he was having a shower, she masturbated herself.

He came from the bathroom dressed fully. He picked his eyeglasses and was ready to leave.

´Do you make the same thing to Safia, beating her before sleeping with her or sometimes you sodomize her?´ she asked.

´No, she is a farmer. She does not know much about sex games. She lay on her back and parting her thighs. If she does not want to have a boy as we have only two girls, she will never sleep with me. Do you believe that I forgot the shape of her buttocks?´ He laughed at his last statement. ´I only beat her when I´m angry with her. I give her a good beat then. That´s nothing to do with the sex.´

The threatening voice and the merciless face he wore when finishing his words made her feel pity for the woman with whom she shared her husband. ´Have a mercy on her. You leave her alone most of the times. You never take her out and in spite of all that she grows up your girls.´

´When there is something wrong I´ll never be merciful,´ he shouted at her. He stared at her for a while but his mind thought of his father beating him when he was a child. His father always used his shoes to beat him and if the mistake had been unforgettable then his father would have bound him to the bed leg after been beaten by a whip. He might have stayed for a whole day with no food. ´I may stay in office for days investigating this son of a bitch Saber Mazloom who thinks like you and he asked for an investigation to know the causes of the setback.´

She felt pity for Saber Mazloom whose name in the Arabic language means the man of patience who justice had never done to him.

Hussein returned to his office from Saber´s cell after he gave the innocent prisoner a good beat. He phoned Safia his first wife and told her that he might stay for about two weeks or more in the office as he thought that the man would need a special treatment to confess.

Dr. Kamal Al-Sharbatly the physician had fled the country after their properties had been confiscated leaving his sister Shahinaze with Bahgat Pasha their father who was forbidden from traveling abroad. She failed to follow him after their father had died. He received the news of her marriage to Hussein with much disgust. He married Joan, an English doctor and they settled in London. Since the news of the defeat, he went into a sad mode and sometimes he could not control a teardrop falling from his eyes.

´How come you´re the Egyptians insist on Naser and refuse his resignation instead of try him for what he had done?´ Joan asked.

´What´s most important to us all is to fight again as soon as possible to liberate Sinai,´ he said.

´Even after what he did to your family?´ she wondered.

´Yes, many families had the same fate, but what´s matter now is the country itself,´ he said.

´You are the Egyptians have the greatest tolerance and you may forgive anything your rulers do to you,´ her words were somewhat sarcastic.

´Please stop it. After all I know that you are the British hate him because he could force you out not only from Egypt but also from the whole Africa and other third world countries,´ he was angry enough that both kept silent. It was the first time they disagreed about something and he used a higher tone than a gentleman might use.

Ten days after they arrested Saber, Amina and Nagwa went to Abd – Allah Mazloom´s house to see if he could ask anyone to know the whereabouts of Saber. He was the brother of Saber and the father of Ibrahiem.

´How come they do that to Saber and he´s one of them?´ Samira Yehia, the wife of Abd–Allah exclaimed. She looked at her husband and added, ´he always was at odds with you when you criticized any decision of the government.´ Her husband was a publisher and had a private publishing house and she ran her own clothes shop.

After two weeks of investigations, there were no data against Saber. Hussein was not convinced. Hussein took his seat in his office and as if he was a command starting a battle, he shouted at the soldier standing at the door.

´Let that queer in,´ Hussein´s fist knocked at the desk.

Three men surrounded Saber; one of them pushed him. He fell on the ground.

´Won´t you tell us about other conspirators?´ Hussein said to Saber.

´I´m no conspirator. If I knew that there would be any plot against the revolution, I would be the first to tell the police.´ Saber said.

´Bring the two sluts,´ Hussein ordered one of the men. He kicked Saber and said to him, ´Your wife and your daughter are the price for you hiding the abettors.´

Amina and Nagwa saw Saber at the ground. Nagwa threw herself on her father. ´Dad, what did they do to you?´ she said crying it.

´I´m ready to sign any blank paper. You may write what you like. But I don´t know anything about any plot,´ Saber said as a last proposal to save his wife and daughter.

´I don´t damn care about satisfying the prosecutor general who is interested in papers,´ Hussein said.

´I may kiss your shoes to have a pity on them not on me,´ the panic-stricken father caught Hussein´s shoes and started to kiss them and repeating his words.

´Will you tell me?´ Hussein said. When Saber continued on begging him to leave the woman and the girl, Hussein gave his order to the men surrounding them, ´fuck them.´

´God will take our revenge on you,´ Saber shouted.

´Shut up,´ one of the men hit Saber´s head with the fist. Saber lost consciousness.

In less than two minutes, the three men tied Saber to a chair. Saber´s protruding tongue and dropped arms showed that the God´s mercy saved him the worst sight a father and a husband might see. Saber died. Amina lost her consciousness when she saw a man over her daughter and another one catching her arms. She regained her consciousness to find her daughter´s lower half-naked while a man was on top of her. Saber´ corps was not in the room. As soon as the man finished his job with Amina, the three men left the room. Nagwa and Amina remained sitting on the floor in a corner of the office embracing each other and crying. Hussein entered the office and looked at them in an ecstasy and satisfaction as if he won a great battle.

´Saber confessed then he committed suicide,´ Hussein said.

´You killed him,´ Nagwa shouted, cried and screamed.

´If I did, I would tell you. I am not afraid of anybody. Nevertheless, I will forgive you, as I know that you are sad for him. We will give you a death certificate stating that the cause of death a heart attack. He was a cardiac patient and it´s normal for these patients to die suddenly,´ Hussein said.

´Can we go now?´ Amina asked.

´Sure,´ he said. He took two personal cards from his wallet and gave every woman a card. ´You may contact me at any time if you need any service.´ He put a hand on Nagwa´s buttocks while she was wearing her skirt, ´I know you´re a good girl. You do not worry about what had happened. I will help you. I know you are faithful to the regime. Of course, the funeral will be too limited and there will be no condolence service. You know that the country passes a critical path now.´