Between Two Wars Chapters (17 & 18)

(17)

Nagwa went to the Cairo Telephone Central in Ramsis Street for the third day since she had sent her article to the Lebanese newspaper. Her trial to publish it in Lebanon came as a response to the Chief Editor´s refusal to publish it in the women´s magazine in which she was working.

´Hello, it is Nagwa Mazloom the Egyptian writer,´ Nagwa said to the man on the other end in Lebanon.

´Yes I´m the Chief Editor Madam. I saw you telex today because I was in a holiday. I received your article that you had sent to your friend in Lebanon who works in this journal. Tomorrow we´ll publish your article and I´ll send you a copy with an air stewardess in the Middle East Airways. But to be honest I have to tell you that this article will cause you big troubles. You attack the president himself. You don´t have such freedom in Egypt until now. Sadat is a kind man but not to this extent,´ the Editor in Chief said.

´Never mind, publish it please,´ Nagwa said.

She drove her car to the magazine.

In her boutique, Salwa was too nervous. She tried not to talk to her assistants and confined herself to her office in the top level of her two levels boutique. The coffee boy brought her the cigarettes she had asked. She was a non-smoker but all of a sudden, she started to smoke three packs three days ago. She took a sip of her morning coffee.

´Shit,´ she shouted and pushed on the ring button to call the coffee boy again. ´Since when you idiot I drink my coffee sweetened.´ She threw the cup towards his face. She called the senior sale assistant. The girl came to her and was too anxious.

´Yes, Madam. Any problem?´ the girl said.

´No. I shall be out for a week. Please be sure that everything is going on normally. I have zero tolerance to faults now,´ Salwa said.

The coffee boy brought another one to her. It was sugar free.

´I think I have been here for about two years and I know that you trust me,´ the girl said.

´Os course, I consider you one of the family. I know what you want to say. It is a personal crisis and I´ll manage it,´ Salwa dried up a teardrop.

´Are you crying madam?´ the girl asked.

´I think that I humiliated the boy. Give him ten pounds and comfort him. I´m going now to Nagwa´s flat. Tomorrow I´ll be in our village in Upper Egypt. It may take a week or even ten days to be here again. The money is in the safe. Take any decision you think that it is right,´ Salwa stood up and before leaving desk she added, ´Oh My God, I was about to forget. Give the new girl twenty pounds I was too rude to her yesterday.´

´You´re too kind Madam,´ the girl said.

´Not too kind as you think,´ Salwa said.

It was dawn when Nagwa heard the knocking at her door. She was reading her article in the Lebanese journal that was sent to her with an air stewardess.

´Use your key Salwa. I´m in bed,´ she shouted.

´Open the door,´ a man shouted back. She opened the door, ´who are you?´

´Would you come with us please?´ the security officer said.

´There is no need for please. I know I have no choice,´ she smiled. She expected them. They did not go with her inside her bedroom to change.

In a small room they left her about three hours alone. A soldier opened the door.

´Are you Nagwa Mazloom?´ he asked.

´Yes,´ she responded indifferently.

´Come with me!´ he said.

´Is it time now?´ she asked.

He looked at her wondering what to say. He did not respond.

She was allowed to enter an office of a high rank officer. In less than two minutes, she unzipped the dress she had chosen to be easily undressed. She wore no bra and no panties.

´I´m ready to be raped,´ she said.

The shocked officer stood up, left his desk, and turned to see the window. ´Put on your cloths,´ he said quietly.

´Why? This is what you do here. It happened to me here before. You may know Hussein Yousry. He ordered his soldiers to rape me. You may do and don´t worry. I´ve no witnesses,´ she said.

The officer left the office. She cried in silence. She stayed in the office for about an hour. Then he came to discover that she was still naked.

´Please put on your cloths and the General wants to see you. We don´t torture or violate the rights of human beings now since the Corrective Revolution,´ he said.

´Then why did you come at dawn like the old times?´ she asked.

´It was a mistake. You are not wanted. We want to tell you that you are not allowed to write in foreign journals without permission. You had to be told through your work place,´ he said.

The General was waiting for her at the door of his office. He extended a hand for her, ´sorry for the misunderstanding. You may have a seat.´ He sat beside her on the sofa. ´I studied your case personally and I know that you have the right to be too angry. This Hussein Yousry was a monster.´

´Then why did you release him? I know he has no illness. They raped my mother in front my father also. Is it justice to reward him forgetting his victims,´ she cried uncontrollably.

´Sometimes political decisions need other calculations. Sometimes we release a person to follow him up. Moreover, I can tell you that he will flee and this may help us to expose a hostile net taking a base in a foreign country. Their foreign bank accounts may be of value to us. I tell you that confidentially and I do because I feel that you need an explanation and you deserve that,´ he said.

´Thank you,´ she said.

´Before you leave may I ask you about your new novel? I´m one of your readers and I think you let readers wait long for a new one,´ he said smiling.

´Next month it will be on shelves of libraries. I´ll send you a copy,´ she said.

´It will be a pleasure if you do. These are my phone numbers.´ He gave her his personal card.

Sidi Al-Mazloom village was a small one in Minia Governorate. Salwa hired a car from Minia city to the village. There she did not know where to go first. She had distant uncles and cousins. Nearly all of them were used to come to her father´s house when they have something to do in Cairo. She thought twice about going to her eldest distant uncle Mahmood, as she was not sure that it was the correct step. She asked him to take her to the Omda (the landlord) who was an uncle also but younger than Mahmood. On their way to the Omda, they were ridding two donkeys. A boy was running beside her to save her if the donkey decided to run or she was to fall. The skirt she wore exposed a great deal of her thigh and the boy could not prevent his eyes from having a look. Mahmood hit the boy with his stick and decided that they should return to his house to wear one of decent dresses of his wife. At last, they reached the Omda´s home.

´Welcome to your home,´ the Omda extended his arms and hugged her. ´You are the daughter of a beloved man and beloved woman. You had to come to the Omda´s home immediately but Mahmood is our biggest man here. Going there is the same as going to the Omda.´ The Omda said.

´I need four men,´ she said.

´I´ll tell the Omda,´ Mahmood said decisively.

´You tell me Mahmood after dinner,´ the Omda said.

´Salwa will have dinner with her aunt, my wife,´ Mahmood said.

´Then your wife and daughters should have come with you here. Today here and tomorrow we come to your home. Send for them to come here,´ the Omda said.

´Then tomorrow you and your family will have lunch with us,´ Mahmood said.

´It will be an honor to do,´ the Omda said.

´The honor is ours,´ Mahmood responded.

It took two hours for the dinner table to be set. Mahmood and the Omda invited Salwa because she was their guest from Cairo to have dinner with them. Other women waited for them until they finished before they would dine.

After dinner, the Omda asked Salwa and Mahmood to have tea in his office and ordered that nobody would come in.

´What do you want my daughter?´ the Omda said.

´I want to kill Hussein Yousry,´ she said.

´I told you that I shall tell the Omda,´ Mahmood interrupted her.

´We don´t kill my daughter,´ the Omda said.

´It is taking revenge,´ Mahmood said.

´Tell me the story,´ the Omda said to Mahmood. He looked at Salwa, ´you go to spend sometime with your aunt and cousins.´

´But I want to discuss the subject in more details,´ Salwa said.

´Taking revenge is men´s business. Mahmood will tell me and we shall decide. That´s all,´ he said decisively.

(18)

Nagwa continued her routine writing in the women´s magazine but the relations between her and the Chief Editor went form bad to worse. As a Nasserist, the Chief Editor did not like what Nagwa wrote and she did her best to prevent many of Nagwa´s articles. In the evenings, Nagwa spent much of her time in a small café in the downtown where she was used to meet her friends from the press and media. Her new novel was about to be ready for publishing but the problem was that the publisher asked her to make some changes. She used offensive language that was not usually used in literature. She decided to publish it as serials in the magazine but the Chief Editor refused. Instead of going to the café, she drove to Zamalek where a producer´s office was in one of its buildings.

´I´ll be happy to transform this to a film. But do you think the censorship will agree to the idea?´ the producer asked her.

´Then I understand that you refuse it,´ Nagwa said.

´No, if I refused it I would say it. But leave a copy to me and I´ll do my best and you start writing the script,´ he said.

´Agreed,´ she said.

Nagwa returned that day to her flat very happy. She found her sister Salwa in the reception listening to one of the legendary singer Om Kolthom.

´I´ll have a shower then let´s have the dinner out,´ Nagwa said.

´Why?´ Salwa said.

´Today I agreed with the producer to transform my new novel to a movie,´ Nagwa said.

´First I will tell you that Ibrahiem is angry with me,´ Salwa said.

´Why?´ Nagwa was too astonished.

´Men came to him from the village and told him that the Omda is angry because he did not tell him before about Hussein,´ Salwa said.

´Who told the Omda about Hussein?´ Nagwa asked.

´I went there to hire some men to kill Hussein. They knew and they considered the revenge is theirs,´ Salwa said.

´What did you tell them exactly?´ Nagwa asked.

´I told them everything happened in the detention site. Of course I did not tell them about you being his mistress because they will not understand that you were forced to do,´ Salwa said.

´What did they say to Ibrahiem?´ Nagwa asked.

´I don´t know exactly but he came to the shop in Zamalek and shouted at me a lot then he left too angry,´ Salwa said.

´Do you think I phone him now?´ Nagwa said.

´Yes please, you know that I don´t like to have a row with anyone especially Ibrahiem,´ Salwa said.

´I did not talk to him for about three months now. I´ll try to invite him for the dinner not mentioning you and when he comes I think we can discuss the matter,´ Nagwa said.

Hussein and Nesreen lived in Noor´s house. The three felt that their destiny is just the same. Noor asked Hussein to find a way so that they might go to Libya where Magid was leading a comfortable life there. Both Noor and Hussein had bank accounts in Switzerland and they just wanted to be abroad. Hussein was looking through the window after he had promised Noor that he would find a way. He saw two villagers looking at the house and going around it several times.

´They sent their men after us,´ Hussein said.

Nesreen did not know what her father and her husband´s plan responded, ´who sent whom?´

´The intelligence sent men to know what we are up to. The stupid officer who sent them had to know that I would notice them. I think they are not well trained. In old good days I had much better agents when I was in charge.´ He said.

´Please stop talking about the old good days because they were not good at all. After all, we spent years in the prison. Let´s discuss what we are going to do now. I feel imprisoned again in this house,´ she said.

He looked at her but he did not respond.

Noor came carrying a cup of café. He did it himself because he wanted to do anything. There were not servants in the big house. They closed most of rooms and lived in two bedrooms and the reception. The telephone did not ring at all. They had used it to call family members or friends when they came to the house after the imprisonment years but their trials did not open the closed social circles with those who once had welcomed them. Noor had a seat near to the old white and black TV.

´I think the 6 o´clock news is now,´ Noor said.

Nesreen stood up, ´I´m going out for a walk.´

Hussein did not respond but closed the window´s rapier and looked through the slits of slivers to see what the two men would do when Nesreen would walk in the street. His young pretty wife did not draw the attention of the two villagers.

´You may go out Noor,´ Hussein said.

´Why?´ Noor asked.

´Because I want to see what these stupid guys will do,´ Hussein said.

´Do you think they are following us?´ Noor said.

´Yes and I want to put a sound plan for fleeing the country,´ Hussein said.

Noor went to a nearby café but the two men did not follow him. Hussein knew they were after him personally. When Noor returned, he found Hussein irritated.

´Why are you nervous?´ Noor asked.

´I´m not nervous. They are after me because they know that any plan to flee the country depends upon me. I should stay here while arranging the escape. We have to tell Nesreen,´ Hussein said.

At about 10 pm Nesreen returned. She went mad when she saw ashes of cigarettes on the carpet around Hussein.

´Why didn´t you use the ashtray? I´m the woman who cleans here. We have no servants. The slums that you came from are different from houses in which we live now. Do you understand?´ she said.

´Then you do the job of the servant. This is the rule here. I put the rules. I´m the law in this fucken house. It happened that you and your father in my group. It is your bad luck that I´m your husband,´ Hussein shouted at her.

´You have to be more decent when you talk to your wife especially when I´m present,´ Noor shouted.

Hussein was dependant upon the money Noor was hiding. Noor depended upon Hussein to flee the country. Hussein stopped.

´And you have to talk to your husband more decently as well,´ he said to his daughter.

They told her their plans. Hussein spent all night observing the two men. By dawn, he went to the bedroom. The humiliation that he received from Nesreen was turning him on. He thought about Shahinaze who had understood when he needed further insults. Nagwa understood that as well. He approached his wife and decided to insult her so she may retaliate to his pleasure. He caught her arm firmly. She got up.

´You are just a slut whom had been fucked all around when you were in the collage,´ he said.

´You are just an animal who does not know how to treat ladies,´ she said. She tried to force him with the other arm.

He started to build up what he wanted. ´I´ll teach you a lesson,´ he said. He turned her on her belly and took off her panties. He forced a finger into her anus. ´This is the ass that had been fucked continuously.´

´It hurts. You are an animal,´ she tried to liberate herself.

He sodomized her. He calmed down. ´I love you Nesreen. Really I do love you.´

She looked at him. She saw a tortured face. She took his head on her breast and emotionally she said, ´tell me your story. I think you suffered a lot. I´m your wife. Let´s have a chance to live together. I understand something now, which you need for pleasure. Tell me about yourself.´

Tears dropped on her flesh between her breasts.

´My father and mother tortured me a lot when I was a child,´ he said. He cried. It was the first time he felt sympathy from a woman. Safia was just obedient. Shahinaze and Nagwa gave him the impression of being forced to do. Nesreen found no way but to live with him and wanted to be understanding. ´When I had got bad marks in the school I had been beaten severely by my mother´s slipper and my father´s belt until mother would have brought the whip. He had been whipping me until she would have brought the fire hot fork to burn me. I have permanent marks in my back. Sometimes he deprived me of the food for a day or two. It had been too important for my father to make me an officer because all our family men had been farmers except him. He had not had a university degree and had spent all his life waiting for a governmental promotion. We had been living in the city and in the village everybody had been considering us of a higher social class. He had been dreaming about marring me to the Omda´s daughter Safia and he had achieved his dreams.´ He cried loudly.

She understood him. She had studied psychology in the faculty and she knew how parents might make sadist.

Ibrahiem parked his car in front of the restaurant where he would have a dinner with Nagwa. He took few steps then he stopped when he saw Salwa. Both women smiled and he continued. He had a sit beside Nagwa facing Salwa. Two half-filled bottles of beer were on the table.

´First time I know you drink beer,´ he said to Salwa.

´Sometimes I do,´ she took a cigarette from her Kent cigarette box.

´I think you asked me to come to discuss what Salwa did in the village,´ he said to Nagwa.

´I feel tortured. When Nagwa told me about what happened to mom I wanted to revenge,´ she said.

´How come you want to kill? You will be just a criminal. God revenges for your mom and dad. And I think there is a law in this country,´ he said.

´But the law needs witnesses. They torture people behind closed doors and the judge needs witnesses,´ Nagwa said sharply.

´I understand that you agree to what Salwa tried to do,´ he said.

´No,´ Nagwa said firmly. ´But please don´t tell about the law anymore,´ Nagwa said.

´Ibrahiem, we are from Upper Egypt. Our revenge is our honor. I went there to spare you and Tamer my brother the duty of taking revenge,´ Salwa said.

´I completely refuse this and I think vendetta will end gradually. We are the intellectuals should start that,´ he said.

Salwa stood up and spat on his face and left.

´I´m sorry. I did not think that this girl is crazy,´ Nagwa said. She took his hand between her hands.

´The Omda did the same when I tried to clear my point of view but he did it in the phone,´ Ibrahiem said.

Hussein told Noor and Nesreen not to switch on the lights in the room in which he spent most of time observing the two villagers who were observing him. He was waiting for Nesreen. He sent her to buy something and to contact some persons.

´Well this is the farmer´s cloths you asked me to buy. I think they will fit you.´ Nesreen said before she had a sit.

´Did you meet to my assistant?´ he asked.

´Yes,´ she said. ´He says that tomorrow he will tell me the final arrangements.

´Good job,´ he said indifferently.

´Will this man come with us to Libya?´ she asked.

´If he likes that he may come. Why do you ask?´ he said.

´I did not like him. He is very ugly and rude,´ she said.

´But he does fine jobs. He is faithful,´ he said.

Nagwa returned to the flat to find Salwa drinking her fourth whiskey glass and smoking her second pack.

´It is good that you did not marry this queer,´ Salwa said. She was drunk.

´What´s the problem with you Salwa? You are used to be smart, decent and understanding,´ Nagwa said.

´They fucked mom,´ Salwa tried to stand up to go to the toilet to bring up. She fell again on the sofa and vomited on the floor.

´It is all right. You drank a lot,´ Nagwa said.

´You know if you died I would take your revenge even if I did not know what had happened to mom. But you just failed to take your revenge and hers. Someone should take the revenge. Your brother Tamer is just another queer. I phoned him to kill Hussein. I did not tell him that I told the Omda who considered it his responsibility first to know the response of Tamer. Your brother is just another queer. He did not accept to kill the monster,´ Salwa said. ´We have no men.´ She laughed hysterically. Then she cried.

Nagwa helped Salwa to go to the bathroom. She filled the tub and the cold water helped the drunken woman.

Safia was in her father´s house setting the table for the lunch. Her father´s driver came annoyed.

´Dalal and Maysa disappeared,´ the driver said.

´My daughters!´ she cried.

Her father Sheikh Abd El-Gawad the ex-Omda came to her risqué but it was too late.

´I knew he would kidnap them. Hussein is not a human. He has no heart. I feel that I won´t see them again,´ she cried.

´How come he kidnaps an eighteen and twenty years old girls,´ Abd El-Gawad said. He looked at the driver, ´tell me the whole story.´

´I was waiting for them at the train station as I do everyday. When they came, I opened the door for them and they rode into the car. Then someone hit my head from behind and I fell. I tried to stand but I saw four men jump into the car and one of them hit me several times on my head and I fell unconscious. When I brought back I did not find the car,´ the driver said.

Hussein wore farmer´s cloths and he was sitting beside his daughters. They knew him but were just scared. The car stopped at a desert road and they were transferred to a lorry where Nesreen and Noor were at the back. The driver of the lorry was chosen by Hussein´s assistant. He was a man of the desert. His job was to carry anything through the desert away from the police´s eyes. The three men who accompanied Hussein to kidnap his daughters drove back after being well paid. The assistant accompanied Hussein and his family. By the night, the lights of Ben-Ghazi the Libyan city became nearer gradually.

Nagwa read the first articles written by Noor and Hussein few days later when the communicating officer brought the Libyan newspapers to some journalists to respond. He asked them to write attacking the Libyan regime. She heard Noor´s sound in the Libyan radio that night. She phoned the Omda and told him. He sent for his men to be back.

After few days, Salwa knew. She read an article in the newspaper accusing Noor and Hussein of betraying the country. She went mad. She phoned the Omda.

´He escaped. Your stupid men stood in front of the building like stones and he escaped. When you say that you will do something, I think this is a promise Omda. You have no men. You have queers,´ Salwa shouted at the Omda.

´The idiots said that when they asked the porter he said that the devil went out wearing a farmer´s dress and covering his face with a shawl. I gave them a good beat. The revenge is mine even if we shall go after him to the end of the world,´ he said.

´Bullshit,´ she said and threw the receiver.

Next day Nagwa read in the classified ads that Olalla boutique in Zamalek was for sale. She phoned Salwa.

´What do I read about your boutique?´ Nagwa said.

´I´ll quit,´ Salwa´s voice was too sad.

´Can we have lunch together?´ Nagwa said.

´But don´t say to Ibrahiem or Tamer. I deleted them from my life,´ Salwa said.

Amal heard Salwa telling Nagwa that she did not want to see any of Tamer and Ibrahiem. She noticed the tense relations between Salwa and Tamer and failed to know the cause. She entered Salwa´s bedroom.

´What happened Salwa?´ Amal asked.

´Nothing,´ Salwa said.

´My daughter, sometimes one thinks that his or her point of view is right and other persons are terribly mistaken. But after a while things change,´ Amal said.

´Why did not you tell me that they had fucked mom as well as Nagwa? Don´t answer. I´ll tell you. Because everybody thought that, the small decent Salwa is so delicate that she might be severely hurt. But you will know how this delicate woman will just revenge. How the family dignity will be preserved.´ Salwa said. Suddenly she screamed. She stood and threw a vase breaking it then she cut her gown then fell unconscious. Tamer came, carried her, and called a doctor. The doctor asked Amal to transfer her to a hospital to be treated from a nervous collapse