The Automobile Club of Egypt

KAMEL

It was almost three o’clock in the morning as I made my way home…I had left work at the Club to go to a meeting at the prince’s and then went to check on Mitsy. After that, I went to study with a friend in al-Rawda Street. I was exhausted. I had a splitting headache and could hardly put one foot in front of another. Dying for a hot shower and a good, deep sleep, I reminded myself that I was off work the next day.

Al-Sadd Street was almost empty. Before I had passed the tram stop, I was surprised to find a man I did not recognize standing in front of me, barring my way. He gave me a strange look and then took out a cigarette and placed it in his mouth.

“Can you give me a light?” he said.

I put my hand into my pocket to fish out my lighter. As he brought his head closer in order to get a light for his cigarette, I felt that something dodgy was going on. The man thanked me and went on his way. When I reached our front door, I climbed up the stairs, letting myself in with my key. I did not want to wake my mother. I took a shower, put on my pajamas and threw myself on the bed. I had hardly put my head on the pillow when I heard a knock at the front door. It was loud and incessant. I hurried to the door, and as I turned the handle, I was startled to feel the door being pushed open forcefully, almost knocking me to the ground. There were four of them: three men in plainclothes and behind them a uniformed police officer. He scowled as he gave me a cold, searching look.

“Are you Kamel Abd el-Aziz Gaafar?” he asked in a loud voice.

“Yes.”

“We have an order for your arrest and to search the apartment.”

“Do you have a warrant?”

“I don’t need a warrant,” he smiled ironically.

It was then I noticed that the man standing next to the officer was the very same one who had asked me for a light. I saw there was no point provoking the officer and asked him calmly, “What do I have to do?”

“Go inside and wake up your family members. Then we’ll start the search.”

The officer strode over to the sofa in the sitting room, sat down and lit a cigarette. I went down the corridor, followed by the secret agents. When I reached my mother’s bedroom, I turned to face the agents, and they moved back a few steps. To this day, I do not know why my mother had not woken up from the knocking on the door. I turned on the light and sat at the edge of the bed. I stroked her face gently and she stirred and opened her eyes. She looked at me worriedly.

“Is everything all right, son?” she asked.

“The police are here,” I said in a low voice. “They want to search the apartment and arrest me.”

My mother looked down, and her breathing became labored.

“Have you done something wrong?” she asked hoarsely.

“No.”

“Then why do they want to arrest you?”

“It’s political.”

Either she could not take in the answer, or she realized that it was not the moment to ask any more questions. She got out of bed and put a black galabiyya over her nightdress. She fixed a scarf over her head and glanced at herself in the mirror.

“Where do they want to search?”

“Your bedroom, and then Saleha’s and Mahmud’s.”

For as long as I live, I will remain in awe of my mother’s strength of spirit that night, of how she took the shock, regained her composure and behaved with determination. The agent came in, ransacked the room and went out again. They found nothing. That night, Mahmud was staying over at a friend’s. I went into the corridor and found Saleha sobbing. My mother had woken her up. The agents searched Saleha and Mahmud’s rooms and then took a long time searching mine. They went over to the officer carrying the material they had seized. The officer looked at it carefully and then asked me, “Are you reading books on Marxism?”

“We are studying Marxism at the law college.”

“And books on political agitation?”

“I bought them from the book stalls in the Ezbekiyeh Gardens. I like reading about lots of things.”

The officer smiled and gestured toward the shredder, which one of the agents was holding.

“All right then, sonny. Perhaps you can explain the purpose of this machine…”

“A paper shredder.”

“So you have to shred your lectures?”

He gave a sarcastic laugh and then stood up and said, “Come with us.”

The man whose cigarette I’d lit came over to me, grabbed my hands and cuffed me. Saleha screamed, but my mother calmed her down. I did not resist, perhaps because it seemed as if I were watching this happen to somebody else. The agent pushed me along in front of him, with the others following behind, and my mother running along behind them calling out, “Where are you taking him?”

“We’re inviting him over for a cup of coffee,” the officer said.

“I think,” I told the officer, “that my family at least have the right to know where you are going to be holding me.”

The officer mulled it over for a moment and then told my mother, “Kamel will be held at the Sayyida Zeinab police station.”

I looked at the two of them, my mother and Saleha, and tried to give them a comforting smile. At the very bottom of the staircase, I suddenly heard Saleha sobbing out my name as if she had managed to restrain herself until that moment. They took me off in a big black police van, with the officer sitting in front next to the driver while I was in the back between two plainclothes officers. The third had not got into the Black Maria with us. The second we started moving, one of them grabbed my head while the other put a blindfold on me. I tried to struggle but was subjected to a rain of slaps and punches.

“All right, motherfucker. We’ve got you now. You’ll do as we say, if you know what’s good for you.”

I was already in a new state of mind. I could hear voices around me but could see nothing. After about a quarter of an hour, the Black Maria stopped, and they took me out. We went into some sort of building, up about ten steps and then down a corridor and into a lift. It felt like the second or third floor. We walked down another cold corridor and went into an office. An agent uncuffed me and then removed the blindfold. I felt dizzy, and it took me some time to be able to focus. I saw a bald, corpulent man in his fifties, smartly dressed but there was something unpleasant about his face.

“Nice to have you here, Kamel,” he said quietly.

“By law,” I retorted, “without a warrant I cannot be arrested and my house cannot be searched. Moreover, I will only answer questions in the presence of a lawyer.”

The man laughed as if I had made a joke. He gestured with his hand, and the two agents standing on either side of me started punching me in the stomach and in the head until the man made another gesture and they stopped. Then they dragged me over and sat me down on a bench, sitting beside me on either side.

“So,” he smiled, “would you like to contact anyone in particular?”

I said nothing.

“For example,” he continued, “would you like to contact Prince Shamel, head of the organization? Sad to say, he’s no longer in a position to save you. Prince Shamel himself has been locked up by royal command. All your chums have been locked up too. Abdoun, the Jewess Odette and that Communist Atiya.”

He was trying to break me by intimating he knew everything. But I said nothing. I knew that a single wrong word might be enough to get me another kicking. The investigator leaned forward on his desk and asked sotto voce, “Tell me about your girlfriend, Mitsy.”

“I will not talk about such things.”

The punches started again. The man on my right was aiming his punches at my head. I started to feel dizzy.

“When did you join the organization?” the investigator asked.

“What organization?”

“Kamel. Wise up! Don’t throw your future away. We have many means at our disposal. We can do what we want with you. If you make a confession, I promise you I will let you turn witness for the state, and you’ll walk scot-free.”