The Silence and the Roar (6 page)

It is the habit of bodyguards and agents in the security apparatus not to tell a person anything—anything at all—when they take them from their house for a special occasion. This is precisely what happened to Mr. Ha’el, and he nearly
kissed the hands of those three men who had come for him in his town in order to find out where they were taking him, what the occasion was and what was going to happen to him, but they silently eyed him with discomfiting looks. Silence is their trademark. Besides, any word could cause its utterer to be punished, so Mr. Ha’el remained ignorant of what was happening to him. He could do nothing more than tremble and turn yellow, which was the state he was in when they brought him into the Leader’s dining room without his even knowing he was on the verge of meeting the Leader himself. Once inside he did not immediately recognize the Leader seated across the table from him, dressed in run-of-the-mill clothes as he chewed his food, believing him to be one of the ordinary bureaucrats instead. In his fear and disorientation he had forgotten what the Leader’s face looked like and failed to recognize him until the Leader asked him to come closer. As the Leader got up, wiped his hands and mouth with a napkin, welcomingly shook his hand and invited him to sit to his right in order to have some food with him, Mr. Ha’el was the one who nearly collapsed, this time from joy.

The two of them ate and talked for a long time. After learning everything there was to know about Mr. Ha’el, the Leader invited him to have some tea in his favorite spot, a glass room filled with flowers and strange plants where they smoked cigars. The Leader asked his assistants to show Mr. Ha’el to one of the guest rooms so he could get some rest. In the evening he invited him into his video room to watch a few hours of recordings of the masses chanting for him and killing themselves on his behalf.

This hospitality in the Leader’s palace lasted for three days, during which time the two of them ate an inordinate amount of many and varied kinds of food, played backgammon together, swam in the private swimming pool, sat in the sauna, ran around the garden and exercised on the workout equipment in the Leader’s private athletic room. In the evening the two of them would watch videos of the masses. On the morning of the fourth day the assistants asked him to meet with the Leader once more before he left. This time he met him in his office, where the Leader asked him which position would allow him to be of the greatest service. Mr. Ha’el could not come up with anything other than chief of police in his hometown. The Leader found this suggestion strange and was touched by his friend’s modesty. He refused to appoint Mr. Ha’el to any position that would take him far away from the capital or from him personally, instead appointing him as head of the apparatus responsible for his own personal security.

My mother waited for me to open my mouth.

“How did you meet him?” I asked.

“It’s a long story. Actually I’m a friend of his office manager’s wife. She told me he had been asking about me and asked if I had any objections to meeting him. It turns out they had talked the matter over before he ever asked me out for coffee.”

“And you said yes?”

“Yes.”

“Everybody knows he’s married to some woman named Aisha.”

“He divorced her. Now that he’s a big shot in the government she’s no longer right for him.”

“Does he know that I don’t like them and that they don’t like me?”

“He knows you very well and says he’s even read some of your work.”

“How can you marry someone who mistreated your deceased husband, who even now is messing with your son and keeping him from writing?”

“That was all in the past. As for you, I think you’re going to get some powerful backing, that you’ll be able to go back to writing for the newspaper.”

“I can see you’re set on this marriage.”

“I’m still a young woman. I deserve this.”

“What does Samira think?”

“She doesn’t care.”

So I’m the only person in this entire family who cares. My mother has forgotten all about how she used to describe them to my father and make up jokes about them. Her “not giving a shit” had caused her to unintentionally fall into line. I saw fit to emulate my sister’s approach, so I stood up, getting ready to leave. My mother saw me to the outer door, where, after shoving some money in my hand, she asked me what I thought.

“You can marry anyone you want,” I said. “You’re a free woman.”

“Will you come to the wedding?”

“Do you think you could keep me away from that circus?”

“Circus?”

“When do you plan on having it?”

“The wedding? Ha’el wants it to be on Wednesday.”

“In three days? He is in a hurry, but why Wednesday in particular? Why not Thursday?”

“Because he wants to get married on the twentieth anniversary of the Leader coming to power.”

“I never dreamt they would occupy my mother’s bedroom on that day as well.”

“Go think it over and try to get a hold on yourself. You’re coming to the wedding whether you like it or not. You’re my only son. I’d simply die of shame if you weren’t there. Anyway, I’ll figure out the best way for you two to meet beforehand. I’ll give you a call.”

“Do you love him?”

“Not yet, he’s just a fiancé.”

Just a fiancé? As I stared at her, she seemed weaker, lonelier. Here was this amazing woman thinking about marriage in spite of all those wrinkles on her neck and her face. She wanted to get married in order to prove to herself first and foremost that she was still a young woman. I wanted her to be happy. She stretched her neck and offered me her cheek, which I kissed and then left.

I
T WAS A LITTLE
past eleven fifteen when I made it back out into the street. I walked along the sidewalk even though there was no traffic on the asphalt road, instinctively making my way downtown, where I saw hordes of human beings occupying the squares and the main streets. I could hear the sounds of the march coming out of television sets in homes nearby. The Leader has a straightforward rule: housewives not taking part in the march must watch it on TV. People have to raise the sound on their sets and leave the windows open if they do not wish to be accused of being unpatriotic. The poet had finished reciting his poem and the announcer moved on to describe the feelings of the masses, their patriotism and love for the Leader.

“Hark, O Leader, at the mass of masses, how they chant your name with strength and determination until their chants reach the clouds in the sky so that your name can embrace the stars. If there are any other life forms in the universe we’ll find them chanting your name too, chanting with their faces upturned toward our God-given homeland. Observe, O Leader, how the masses thank God for having been born in your era. The Era of Dignity and Freedom. The Era of the Leader. So lead us, O Leader, lead us to
victory. This is what the masses chant. Lead us to incomparable victory!”

The broadcaster’s raspy voice blended in with the chanting and the brass band music being broadcast through megaphones lining the squares and the streets, rousing the enthusiasm of the masses.

Ever since the Leader took power music had been transformed into a national art. There is no longer
l’art pour l’art
. Even those rare intellectuals who were once seen on television and heard over the radio began to assault the theory of
l’art pour l’art
. Music is not for savoring, for burnishing the soul and improving the self; it is not for contemplating or luxuriating the senses; it is for the purposes of enthusiasm alone. “Music must play its role in stirring up the masses,” the Leader says. Therefore classical Arabic music and the
muwashahat
are relegated to the back rows, replaced with military marches. What we call authentic art vanishes in the marching crowds, the pounding drums and the screeching horns. Nothing can be heard out of that noise except for the sound of military brass bands, as the instruments of the Arabic orchestra get lost in the shuffle. They have no place in our present. The
kamanche
? A silly and worthless instrument when played to the beating of drums. The same is true for the
qanun
and the nay. The
nay
or the horn? The
nay
is insignificant, reactionary and unpatriotic because it drives the listener to contemplation and sorrow, befitting the silence of the grave, whereas the horn renders people more awake and enthusiastic, more patriotic because they will be ready to sacrifice spirit and blood on behalf of the Leader.

But who ever said that military marches are not art? Tchaikovsky is considered one of the greatest composers of the nineteenth century and he wrote a piece entitled Slavonic March in which the music swells to a crescendo at the moment of victory. The very same Tchaikovsky also wrote the 1812 Overture, which is the year that witnessed Napoleon’s defeat in Russia. Meanwhile the German musical giant Beethoven wrote his Third Symphony (the
Eroica
) and dedicated it to Napoleon Bonaparte. These symphonies are based on the rhythm of the heroic military march so loved by the Leader. When the Russian Ambassador learned of the Leader’s passion (for music), he invited him to Moscow at once, packing his schedule with trips to the Bolshoi and other theaters, where both the Seventh Symphony (Leningrad) and the Eighth Symphony (Stalingrad) by Shostakovich were performed for him.

After the Leader staged his coup twenty years ago the first thing he did was to occupy the radio station and force them to interrupt their programming to broadcast military marches. Those marches still remind him of that glorious day. State functionaries always make sure to whistle them while they march or carry out their tasks—see one of them as his cheeks expand and contract to the rhythm of the marches that he recalls in his mind; now imagine him as he purses his lips and blows, imitating the horn.

In reality they are emulating the Leader, who has become accustomed to whistling marches. Those who whistle sappy love songs have no place in the Leader’s entourage. What good does it do for the radio to play songs about romance and infatuation? It’s pointless, really, and just makes the
masses more frustrated. If it ever became necessary to play a song about love, it would have to be a song about love for the Leader. All feelings must be oriented toward the Leader. Love, ardor and rapture, infatuation and affection, passion and ecstasy: they must all be reserved for the Leader. Wasting such emotions on a worthless young woman is nothing less than moral decay itself. Abandonment and estrangement, heartsick weeping on ruins, isolation and death—all are strictly taboo because they could be understood as unpatriotic. Estrangement could be misconstrued as coming between the masses and the Leader or be taken to mean that the masses have given up on their Leader—God forbid—so such words have passed out of popular music. For those who stay up past one in the morning one song was permitted just before the television signed off for the night, “Up Late Alone,” by Umm Kulthum, but it could only be played on the condition that a picture of the Leader appear at the same time. Even staying up late must be on the Leader’s behalf, in order to secretly confide in his image, or else. But citizens should not stay up late. They should go to bed early with the goal of waking up in the morning to get a fresh start to build the homeland with ardor and vigor under the inspirational leadership of the Leader.

I heard a car approaching from behind me but I didn’t turn around because I could tell by the rev of the engine that it was being driven in a herky-jerky manner, a hallmark of the military security goons. My intuition did not fail me. The clumsy driver slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt beside me. It was one of their unmarked
cars, which they would drive around without any number plates. Three goons in civilian clothes hopped out of the back seat wielding machine guns. Their stubbly chins, rumpled clothes and bodies reeking of sweat gave them away. They looked as if they had just been awakened from troubled sleep. I did not stop for them the way that a citizen is expected to do. Instead, I kept walking and made them hurry after me, calling, “Stop … I’m coming … for you!!” I stopped, and by the time the three of them surrounded me, I noticed women and children were watching us from their windows.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Come see the boss for a minute,” one of them said.

He was referring to the olive-skinned man with a thick moustache sitting in the passenger seat. The boss watched me with inquisitive eyes as I moved closer. The three goons surrounded me, placing me at the center of a triangle. The boss addressed me from inside the car. One of the three goons squeezed my neck and forced me to bend down to the window.

“What are you doing around here?”

“Just visiting someone in the neighborhood.”

“And who is this someone?”

“My mother.”

“Why aren’t you at the march?”

“I’m not an employee or a student, not a Party member or a union rep, not—”

“Identification,” they said, interrupting me abruptly.

“Some Comrades took it away from me about an hour ago.”

“Name.”

“Fathi Sheen.”

He raised his eyes toward me, stared at me hard and demanded, “The writer, Fathi Sheen?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Switching on the walkie-talkie and moving it to his ear, he told me, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Why’s that?”

“Don’t talk back when the boss is talking to you,” one of the three upbraided me.

The boss made a gesture and two of the three men yanked me away from the window. Apparently he didn’t want me to hear the conversation he was conducting in a hushed voice. From the movement of his lips I could see him mention my name more than once. After he switched off the walkie-talkie they moved me back closer to him. He remained silent for a moment and then said, without looking at me, “You have to come down to military security at nine o’clock.”

He gestured to his men to let me go and they got back inside the car. Before they took off I asked him, “What about my ID?”

“You can sort out your situation with the Comrades later on.”