The Automobile Club of Egypt

42

The orders were plain enough: arrest the strikers with as little fuss as possible in order not to disturb His Majesty inside the Club. The soldiers succeeded in doing so and dragged the staff down the street, waiting until they had them in the police vans before raining down on them a torrent of punches and kicks. Those not detained remained busy at work, but some had caught a glimpse of the sorry scene. They would always remember their colleagues’ futile attempts to wriggle out of the soldiers’ grasp and would forever hear the screams and calls for help issuing from the police vans. Alku had sent orders to the staff not to go home after the end of their shifts, and so at four in the morning, they all assembled on the roof in their work caftans. As they stood there waiting, those who had seen the arrest operation told their colleagues about it in low impassioned tones. It had all been child’s play until that night. Abdoun protesting the beatings and Alku’s stance, his no-tips regime. It was as if all the foregoing events had been no more than a pantomime. All those who had opposed Alku were now under arrest, and no one knew what their fate would be. After a while, Alku appeared, followed by Hameed, and the staff all bowed and kowtowed. Alku stood there looking like a triumphant hero.

“Abdoun and that lot are getting what they asked for,” he announced.

“Send them to the gallows!” some of the staff called out. “They can go to hell! Slit their throats! We don’t want to see them again!”

Alku let them go on a little, allowing them to disown the strikers and declare their loyalty to him. He was staring into the distance as if gathering his thoughts. And then he asked them, “Does anyone here object to anything I do?”

They all stayed silent, so he asked again in a louder voice, “Speak up. Is there anything you’re not happy about?”

“You are like our father, Alku,” they started muttering submissively. “We’re here to serve you! You’re too good to us. May God bless you.”

Alku scrutinized them, as if trying to make sure that he was back in control. Then he took two steps forward and announced, “From tonight, I am lifting your punishment. I am allowing you to have your tips again.”

Shouts of joy rang out, the staff showering him with prayers for his well-being, and, when he turned to leave, clustering around him to express their gratitude. The next day, it was as if a new leaf had been turned over. They went to work with gusto, putting their all into the job, serving the customers as if performing for the camera, doing their best to show their loyalty and devotion, to affirm that they were the children and servants of Alku, who would never disobey him and who had nothing to do with those upstarts, already on their way to oblivion for their just reward, never again to sully the benevolent atmosphere of, or created by, their master, Alku, to whom they pledged themselves.

Their joy was boundless at having their former life back. After three months of hardship, finally they would be able to provide for their families. However pure their delight about the tips, about their arrested colleagues, they remained ambivalent, the way one feels when something awful happens to a close relative, with great sympathy for the one affected but, deep down, a guilty sense of relief to have been spared, a feeling of self-justified schadenfreude at the downfall of Abdoun and his bunch. Hadn’t they made themselves out to be heroes, standing up to Alku and demanding their rights? Hadn’t they accused the staff of being subservient and cowardly? Now the subservient cowards were getting their rights restored, not by rebellion or pretense to being high and mighty but by doing as they were told, by perfect subservience and acceptance of Alku’s strictures and punishments, no matter how harsh. They had put up with the hard times, bent with the wind, and in the end, they came out on top. They had their tips again, whereas that bunch of upstarts had ruined their futures and destroyed their families. The staff wanted to see Abdoun, if only so that they could gloat. They would appear sympathetic to him and then ask, “See, Abdoun? Are you happy with what you’ve done to yourself and your colleagues? If only you’d listened to us, you wouldn’t be in this sorry state.”

Days later, as they were sitting in the café, Abd al-Rasoul, who worked as an assistant to Rikabi the chef, came and told them that a relative in the Ministry of the Interior had confirmed to him that the detainees were being subjected to horrendous torture and that the state had even arrested their wives. The staff all started muttering about the will of God, their expressions ranging from shock to glee. They stammered out phrases of sham sympathy as they sipped their mint tea and enjoyed their water pipes, as if the dire fate of their colleagues simply made them more appreciative than ever of the good life, which they owed to a beneficent protector. They were safe and could earn a living again, whereas those upstarts and their wives were being beaten or worse, according to Abd al-Rasoul. He also told them that charges were being trumped up against the detainees and that they would spend years in prison. At the Automobile Club, their daily work became more organized, and things returned to such a state of normality that soon the incident became but a distant memory, an anecdote to be recounted when a lesson seemed appropriate. Abdoun was a deluded young idiot who had incited some of his colleagues against their master, and they all got what they had coming. It became a cautionary tale.

Then one morning Hameed came to the Club on his own and went to the telephone cabin. Labib jumped to his feet. “What can I do for you, Hameed Bey?”

“Abdoun and the other guys are coming back at nine o’clock in the morning,” he said curtly and then turned and left.

Labib stood there dumbfounded for a time before rushing off to tell his colleagues. The news spread like wildfire. The detainees were coming back tomorrow? The news made everyone excited and inflamed their dormant anxieties. Hameed had not elaborated. He had just uttered one cryptic sentence: “Abdoun and the guys are coming back in the morning.” Coming back where? Coming back to work or coming home? And was the police van going to bring them and then take them away again? Had Alku pardoned them, or was he having them brought to the Club to parade them before the staff as a reminder of the wrong way before having them returned to prison? Gradually, the staff became convinced of one interpretation:

“Good God! Alku must have forgiven them.”

“By God’s will, they are being let out of prison so they can look after their families.”

“They made some mistakes, that’s undeniable, but they’re still our brothers and didn’t mean to do us any harm.”

Thus they went on to each as if trying to form a new consensus, as if they were colluding to forget their former derision and abandonment of their brethren. They were rehearsing their new role for the following day — that of devoted colleagues who had not been able to sleep a wink out of worry and who were brimming with joy now that the whole sorry episode had come to an end. The next day, the day shift staff turned up early and were joined by the night shift staff, who had spent the early hours in the café before rushing back over to the Club. They all stood in the doorway, silently waiting. There was nothing to be said — they had already prepared themselves for the welcoming formalities. Each one had gone over how he would react when he saw the freed men, how he would shriek with joy and embrace them one by one, repeating the words prepared to express his happiness at seeing them again. They waited there for almost an hour with nothing happening and then started mumbling and whispering among themselves, wondering about the delay. Karara went over to Labib, who was sitting behind the glass window of his booth, and as if speaking on behalf of everyone, he asked out loud, “Any news, Labib?”

“They were supposed to turn up any second,” the telephonist answered, smiling nervously. “I hope nothing has happened.”

Karara turned around and went back to stand with his colleagues, when he heard a siren and some of the staff started shouting.

“They’ve arrived!”

The transport consisted of a black Cadillac carrying Alku and Hameed, followed by a blue police van, which was completely windowless apart from two small grilles. Suleyman rushed over to the car and opened the door for Alku, and Hameed jumped out of the other side. Alku looked serious and resolute, like a man about to carry out an urgent and delicate mission. He did not walk over to the entrance to the Club but strode slowly over to the door of the police van and gestured with his hand. As it was opened, the van door’s hinges screeched, and the first person to appear was a thin soldier who jumped down the metal steps onto the sidewalk, and then, a minute or so later, the detainees started coming out. The scene was so shocking that the staff standing in the doorway were unable to take in what they were seeing. Coming out of the van were women, with black abayas covering their bodies and heads. They were moving slowly, with their heads held down. They walked toward the entrance of the Club, and gradually their faces could be made out in the light of day. It was at that moment that the reality struck the staff like a thunderbolt. Beneath the black abayas, they saw their colleagues: Abdoun and Samahy, then Bahr, Nouri and Banan, then Fadly, Gaber and Basheer. The staff were so shocked that not a single one could utter a word, so dumbfounded they could do no more than stare, as if hoping against hope that the scene was a hallucination. But it was the hard cold truth that they were seeing before them.

Alku took a few steps forward and shouted at the men, “Can’t you act like men? I’ve brought you back to the Club, but you’re all dressed up in ladies’ clothing!”

They said nothing, standing there in their black abayas with their heads hung low. Alku laughed and then gestured with his hand.

“Go on up to the roof.”

The procession formed spontaneously. The abaya-clad men went on ahead, followed by their colleagues, with Alku and Hameed bringing up the rear. They climbed the stairs in a silence broken only by the sound of their footsteps on the marble. They lined up on the roof, with the guilty men in black next to the wall and the other staff standing around them. Alku was in the middle of them and announced to the freed men, “There is no work for you today. You will stay here until the end of the day. I want everyone to be able to see you wearing your nice abayas.”

Alku enunciated that last sentence as if savoring it. He turned around and cast a glance over the dumbfounded staff, then went downstairs, Hameed springing after him. With Alku gone, the staff now found themselves having to deal somehow with this supremely bizarre event. The colleagues, whom they had been waiting to welcome back, were now standing in front of them, heads bowed, faces emaciated and ghostly pale behind their abayas. Who would be the first to speak? What could men in abayas say? What could those who were supposed to greet them say? There was nothing to celebrate, and it seemed pointless to say anything. So no one said a word. The two groups of men stood there, rooted to the ground until Samahy wailed out, “Look! Alku has dressed us up in veils like women.”

That sentence broke the ice and let the men vent the violent emotions which had initially been suppressed by shock. The staff rushed over to the freed men and embraced them. They tried to comfort them, but as they all started speaking at once, no one could make out exactly what they were saying. Tears ran down Bahr’s cheeks, and Abdoun grimaced and bit his lower lip as if trying to suppress a sharp pain, the groans of the other men turning into shouts and wails.