Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter (4 page)

The following morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we all showered, dressed and got into the family car. The next hour was total chaos. The noise of the traffic was insane. A consistent beep. There was just a persistent hum with sudden bangs to the side for the entire journey. Sometimes it was my mother beeping or my father stretching his hand from the passenger seat to partake in the conversation.

The car horn in Cairo is not used only to alert people to danger. It is a language. The beep can mean: go; stop; come; hello; goodbye; watch-out; you donkey; amongst other things. It is a vocabulary and therefore a permanent presence on any car journey in Cairo.

By the time we all got to my uncle’s we were frazzled. The airconditioning in the car meant we still looked decent. Make-up still in place, no sweat patches on the back. But, we did have to compose ourselves before stepping into their block.

Uncle Ali is so different to my father. Though brothers, their personalities are wide apart. They are both doctors and in that respect have a lot in common. But, if my father gets a joke, my uncle looks puzzled; if my uncle takes offence, my father is the last to notice. They do both have moustaches though.

Regardless, everyone is happy to see each other and there are hugs and kisses at the door. By getting there early we can spend the entire day with them, leaving just after dinner. A long dragged out visit with time for a host of conversations.

It makes me laugh how my father always calls the household Uncle Ali’s. It is also Aunt Nora’s.

As soon as the hellos and kissing are done my mother and father switch what we usually hear them call each other. They go from ‘your mother’, ‘your father’ to ‘your brother’, ‘your sister’.

My father started, ‘Nora, your sister here, she almost killed us on the road,’ pointing to my mother. Aunt Nora laughed, because my mother is actually her sister. She continued the joke, turning to her husband and saying, ‘Tell your brother he says that every time,’ now pointing to my father. My uncle then turns to my mother, passing on the banter like a sprinter in a relay, ‘Tell your sister …’

They could go round and round like this forever it seemed to me. This family ritual of theirs was so old to me now. It bored me to tears and as a younger grumpier teenager I often prayed they would try to be original for once when they saw each other. I remember standing in their corridor once screaming at them, ‘We get it, get over it.’ They all looked at me as though I had finally lost my teenage mind, as expected.

But having a paternal uncle and a maternal aunt married to each other has its advantages. When they were all together, the four of them, they seemed happy. My mother and father would laugh and joke. Later they would splinter off into sibling pairs, brother with brother, sister with sister.

I could hang out with my cousin, with whom, though a year younger than me, I got on well. And Salem kept
himself occupied with whatever game or music entertainment he brought with him. Sometimes he would hang out with us in Bushra’s room, but rarely spoke.

The day progressed and my father and uncle went for a walk, to talk protests no doubt, and my mother and aunt settled on the sofa with coffee, also to talk protests and family. Salem, my cousin and I hung out in her bedroom.

I asked her how her last year of high school was going and whether she was looking forward to going to university. She was going to King’s College in London the following academic year to study Economics, if she got the right mark on her IELTS. I wondered what her chances were of being able to take the test any time soon. We chatted like that for a while and caught up on various things. I told her how university was, my friends and studies.

We talked about the coming Day of Rage. She talked with excitement. She intended to go. In her description it sounded more like a festival. She almost infected me with her enthusiasm. I asked her how she could be so positive about a day named after a destructive, violent emotion. She just shrugged her shoulders.

‘You two need to wake up,’ my brother said while continuing to play on his gadget. We looked at him in surprise that he had even spoken. Only later did I remember his rudeness. He took our shocked silence as a sign to continue. ‘This Day of Rage that you are soooo excited about, Bushra and that has you fearing for your life, Sophia,’ – he was being so cruel – ‘everyone is going. It’s an organised protest. Unions are striking, there are marches and sit-ins planned, civil disobedience. This is legit.’

‘How the hell do you know all these words?’ I ask, stunned.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Sophia. I may be a kid, but I’m not an idiot. You’re the one who goes around with your head up your ass.’

‘Excuse me?’ I blurt, hurt now.

‘You seem so shocked by everything. You need to get your
face out of your fictional books and start looking up at the world.’

‘And another thing,’ he continued ‘people have been talking about this for a long time. The only reason you are not talking about it is because you are too busy matching your nail polish to your shoes.’

‘That’s not true,’ I reply, feeling the salt.

He ended the conversation by returning to his console.

I was speechless anyway.

Later, after the fuss of getting dinner ready, eating and clearing up, and mother and aunt dedicating ten minutes to argue over who should do the washing up (‘I will do it,’ ‘No, I will do it’), we said our goodbyes. I waved to Bushra and felt envious that she would be getting a taste of freedom soon, not just at the protests but also as a university student.

We drove home in silence. Salem fell asleep, his console just slipping from his hand. I sat in the back and watched Cairo go by. I drowned out the noise and just looked up at what passed my window with curiosity. I wondered if I even knew the city at all. This city that I was born and raised in, did I really know it? Oh sure, I knew how to get around it, I knew the best hang-out spots, but did I really know what it was feeling in that moment? While I sat in the car, it refused to tell me. I needed to get out and feel its breath on my skin if I really wanted to know.

I turned to my father and I asked him a question. A question that had been bubbling for a long time. One that his reactions to what was happening fed. I asked him; ‘Baba,’ he looked at me through the rear mirror, ‘do you support Hosni Mubarak?’

He didn’t answer straight away. He waited until we got home. He put Salem in his bed, made us both some hot milk and sat me down on the sofa, my mother quietly going to bed to give us our time.

‘You asked me if I am a supporter of Hosni Mubarak,’ he said. The answer is no. But, does that mean I have to support those protesters, this revolution, if that’s what it really is? No, it doesn’t. I support my family and I support the good people around me. They are who I try to support. If Hosni Mubarak was a good man I would support him too. But, he is not.

And who is to say those protesters are good people? Do we know them? Can we trust them? I don’t mean what they will do on the streets on Tuesday, but what they will do when they topple Mubarak. I fear for my people, but do they fear for me?’

And I realised that my father and I were exactly the same.
The conflict I felt, he also felt. My hesitations showed themselves in his attempts to keep us safe. I looked at him and knew he would walk us through this.

Still, is it fair? Is it fair that because of his instinct to protect his family I would be denied the opportunity to walk alone through whatever was ahead? I felt old enough, experienced enough and smart enough to know that whatever happened on Tuesday and beyond, our lives would be changed. Some small thing in our family would be forever changed. And I feared what that change might be. Would it mean the head of the house expressing his sense of responsibility towards us in a more authoritative way? I saw life, my insignificant life, slip away, drop out of my hand and roll into the gutter. Soon followed by the bodies and filth of the revolution.

Whatever political end the revolution would bring, what it did to how we lived our daily lives would count the most. The average person just wants to live their life. I am as scared of terrorists as anyone else. The thought of people living in the same city as me plotting to destroy it fills me with sorrow. Regardless of the noise and the smoke and the buildings and the people, Cairo is a beautiful city.

I stood on the bridge when they moved the statue of Ramses from the front of the train station to its new position at the Museum. They say it took them twenty-four hours to make the short journey because of the lorry’s speed. The lorry was cheered along the route and it was televised across the country. That is the beauty of Cairo. Despite its multiple personalities, it has moments of pure clarity. Moving Ramses was a moment of clarity where everyone understood, from the road sweeper to the surgeon with his family on the bridge watching; it was necessary in order to save it.

Cairo knew what she was when the first people settled on the banks of the Nile, and she knows who she is today. We know our history, and we know how important it is. Would we still, after Tuesday?

‘You know, revolutions are not new to this part of the
world,’ my father said, calming. ‘We have had them before. Revolutions are just a shift and there is always an adjustment time that follows.’ He could read my fears.

‘A shift in what?’ I ask.

‘Well, some say a shift in consciousness. That a revolution is part of our social evolution. Do you understand what I mean? That the world is always changing around us, we are always changing and a revolution is part of that change process.’

‘And what if the change is bad?’ I ask, feeling like a kid.

‘Then eventually it will change again.’

‘Baba, are you a Socialist?’

He laughs at this, gives it the good laugh he feels it deserves. ‘In the car you asked me if I supported Hosni Mubarak and now you ask me if I’m a Socialist?’ Capitalist, Socialist, Communist … do you even know what these words mean?’ he asks.

‘You’d be surprised, baba,’ I say.

‘Surprise me!’ he encourages. I laugh.

‘Besides, I am nothing,’ he says, with pride in his voice. ‘I don’t have to give myself a label to be something. I can be something without a label … or nothing,’ he shrugs.

He smiles at me now like he used to do on the rare occasions he tucked me into bed. Smiling more at my innocence than anything else.

As he made his way to leave I called, ‘Baba …’

‘Yes?’ turning to me slowly.

‘I didn’t fall for your trick.’

‘What trick?’ he asks.

‘Hosni Mubarak
is
a Socialist.’

‘You do surprise me,’ he concedes.

‘Yes I guess I did,’ I reply, confident now. ‘So really I have asked you the same question, I didn’t change my question. Do you support Hosni Mubarak? And you still haven’t answered it,’ I say teasingly.

‘Ahhh,’ he says, ‘I haven’t! You are right, Mubarak was a Socialist and maybe he isn’t any more. Maybe he has lost
his way or was never on it in the first place,’ he riddles, ‘and maybe I am just a politician.’

‘Everyone’s a politician in Egypt!’ I call out to him.

I can almost feel the twitching of his moustache as he leaves and I know I am one step closer to being who I want to be.

The day arrived. We awoke later than usual. I had almost hoped the protests would wake me as the neighbourhood mobilised itself towards Tahrir Square, but our street was no busier than the day before. It seemed the residents were in agreement with my father.

There was no chance of my mother and father working. I found my mother still in her nightgown, sipping coffee with the laptop on the breakfast bar, a foreign newspaper open next to it.

My father came in soon after and peered over my mother to read the news.

‘Please wake your brother’ she said.

I walked back down the corridor to the end room, dragging my feet and tapped on his bedroom door. There was no reply. I tapped harder, annoyed that he could sleep through anything. Still nothing. I slowly pushed the door open.

His bed was empty. My first thought was that he was in the bathroom, but looking down the corridor I saw its door ajar. He always locks the door when he is using the bathroom. What boy his age doesn’t? I walked into his room. On his unmade bed was a folded piece of paper. I opened it and stumbled backwards, almost tripping over his blasted gym shoes.

I made my way back to the living area. I wasn’t sure how to tell them without causing instant panic. Maternal intuition seemed to have got there first. I stepped into the living room only to find mother walking towards me with a worried frown across her face.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked in the way she might ask a patient – give me the facts, no embellishments, so I can assess the situation. I handed her the piece of paper. I am not sure how long she stood there reading it … longer than it would normally take for someone to read one sentence. Eventually, my father took the paper out of her hand.

‘I have gone to join the revolution,’ it said in slightly childlike writing.

My parents sprang into action. My father grabbed his shoes from the cupboard and pulled them on. My mother began to do the same, but he stopped her by taking her arm. ‘No, you are not coming.’

My mother looked at him with a hate so quick to appear it took a moment for both me and my father to hide our surprise. ‘Are you mad?’ she screamed. ‘Have you really lost your mind to think I am not coming? I don’t care about a stupid revolution, I am going to find my son,’ she said, snatching her arm away.

‘Fatima, you are not …’

‘Don’t you Fatima me,’ she interrupted, ‘this is not your choice. I am going, this is my choice.’

‘No, it is my choice. I am the man of this house,’ my father said, ‘stay here in case he comes back.’

My mother stopped. The burn from her eyes for being born in her body, in that place, left a new scar on their
marriage and a deflation in her spirit that meant she gave up the fight.

‘Sophia, get dressed, you are coming with me,’ he ordered, as my mother’s eyes glazed over and she sat back in her seat.

And in that moment all I could feel was flattered. I rushed to my room and got dressed as quickly as I could. I threw on the first clothes I touched, not so much concerned by whether they matched. I grabbed a scarf as I left my room and was standing back next to my father with it wrapped around my head in one smooth movement. As I put on sandals and headed towards the front door I looked back at my mother. It was as though we weren’t even there, as though she had lost her entire family.

It was not easy leaving her there. Since then I have berated myself for not sticking up for her, insisting that yes, it was her choice. But, I didn’t stand up for her. I was confused, the worry for my brother was now mixed with regret for my mother, and going with my father, actually doing something, was the only thing that felt right.

If there was one thing I could change about those eighteen days it would be that I would have stood by her and insisted that, man of the house or no man of the house, my father had no right to veto her wish: it was her choice because Salem was her son too.

Yet, I was heading to the protests. Maybe not as one of the demonstrators, but nevertheless I would see it all with my own eyes and be a part of it. The sudden turn of events left me conflicted, not sure who I should feel for the most: my brother, my mother or myself. By the time we made it out of the building I had already justified my betrayal and tempered my excitement, replacing it with a conviction that I would be more useful with my father and my mother would be more useful at home.

We were heading towards Tahrir Square. It took a long time to find a taxi driver even willing to go in that direction and in the end he refused payment, explaining it was the least he
could do for his fellow freedom fighters. I looked away in shame and my father didn’t seem to hear him.

I wondered how my brother had managed it. It hit me that he might not have even gone to Tahrir Square. ‘What if he went somewhere else?’ I asked my father, seeking reassurance more than anything.

‘No, he went to Tahrir Square. He said he was going to join the revolution. If a revolution is going to happen, it will happen there. He knows that and I know my son.’

‘But there are demonstrations happening all over the city, even in our suburb. They will be convening at Tahrir Square. What if he decided to join the Nasr City demonstrators?’

‘We can’t waste time walking around our neighbourhood. Those demonstrators are well on their way to the Square. If he is in the neighbourhood someone will see him and bring him home.’

I felt reassured.

‘At uncle’s the other day he was acting strange, being almost cruel, and he seemed to know things that a boy his age shouldn’t know.’

‘What things?’ my father asked.

‘Political things. Things about the protests.’

‘I have been stupid. I have tried to keep you both away from all of that, to control how much you hear about it. It is so stupid of me. How can you stop it?’ As though I really had any answers. I had just betrayed a woman who loved me to look for a boy who had more courage than I could ever hope to have. I was the last person to seek answers from or to give credit to.

Where the taxi dropped us was nowhere close enough to the Square, but it was as far as the driver would or could go. We got out and walked. We continued walking along big roads, cutting out sections by slipping down smaller roads. And people walked with us. Everyone walked … in the same direction. The normal people of Cairo walked in one single direction, in unison towards a plot of concrete named Liberation. Families, teenagers, old men, young women alone and
in groups. And they smiled. They smiled at each other and some even smiled at me. I had to remind myself I was there to find a missing boy, one maybe not as oblivious as I had thought.

Eventually we reached Tahrir Square at around midday. We looked everywhere we could look. We circled the Square, sometimes walked against the flow of people; we stepped over people sitting on the pavement, past quick-thinking food stall owners. We walked to a higher point where we could look down at the Square from above and scanned the immense crowd, misled into believing we would spot him amongst them. We couldn’t see him, though I saw many boys his age who reminded me of him.

At some point we stopped and stood back against a wall. I noticed for the first time what my father was wearing. Still in his house
galabeya
he looked like one of the
fellaheen
he had warned us about not long ago. And in his eyes sat a wildness I hadn’t seen before.

We watched the crowd. We watched families sit down on the floor and lay out a picnic. We watched them share their food with young men sitting next to them. I watched a group of young women, much like me, arrive and prepare their banners. Lifting them into the sky, they told the world they will stay, the regime should go.

I tapped my father on his shoulder as he stood next to me, captivated much like me. ‘Listen!’ I said, ‘It’s so quiet.’ It was probably the quietest I had ever heard the city. Car horns had been silenced and on this day of rage I saw calm in the sea of faces.

We stayed for a bit longer. It was I who insisted we go home. I had seen so much, I didn’t want to spoil it with anything else. The betrayal over my mother also crept back and grew stronger as I realised we had stopped looking for Salem and instead allowed ourselves the guilty pleasure of being part of the crowd without her.

It took a lot longer to get home as we were suddenly going against the traffic of people. We had to weave through groups
as we left the Square and made our way up one of its main artery roads. At the top of it we hailed a taxi. It seemed taxi drivers had already figured out the best Square drop-off and pick-up points. The driver charged us triple the normal fare and we both managed to smile at the irony. We got back to our neighbourhood in the early evening. It too was a mini hive of activity. Residents stood around talking, windows were open and people peered out of them. Men nodded and smiled at my father as we passed them, trailing us with their eyes. No doubt, they already knew.

We had come back empty handed. Climbing the stairs, I didn’t want to face my mother. I didn’t want to explain to her we hadn’t found him. Calling the police in the circumstances was laughable. We had to fix this ourselves, as with so many things now.

Opening the front door we saw my mother sitting on the sofa, my brother wrapped around her sobbing. She looked at us with relief. Fear of her anger had prevented me from considering that while we were out she would worry about not just her son, but her daughter and husband too.

No one spoke. In fact to this day we haven’t spoken of it as a family. I still don’t know where Salem went, why he cried and if he did join the revolution. The right moment to ask never presented itself.