Joaquín
Mª Aguirre (UCM)
El
señor Pedro Morenés, ministro de Defensa español, estuvo en Egipto, según la
prensa egipcia. Según la prensa española... no lo veo por ninguna parte. En El
País, Ricard González —desde Túnez porque le hicieron salir de Egipto, según su
propia versión—informaba ayer —con bastante retraso— de que hace una semana (en realidad más)
comenzó un conflicto con los
periodistas. Lo titulan de forma absurda: "Periodistas egipcios lanzan
campaña contra el acoso policial", que es para no enterase de nada. Como
las noticias se dan aisladas y tarde, no hay forma de entender lo que ocurre.
Pero no veo nada de la visita de Morenés. Recorro El Mundo, que contiene mucha
información sobre el Estado Islámico y de la zona, incluso una
entrevista en España con la feminista egipcia Nawal al Saadawi, pero no veo nada de
Morenés y El-Sisi. En ABC tampoco hay nada.
Para
encontrar algo debo ir a la nota emitida por el Ministerio de Defensa español*,
en cuya página web se encuentra colgada la noticia junto a cuatro fotos en
Flickr. La nota —más extensa— coincide con lo publicado por Ahram Online.
Tampoco la prensa egipcia le da demasiada importancia a la visita y se centra
en otros aspectos que les interesan. Además de hacer ver que Egipto es esencial
para la defensa de Occidente y que todos vienen a decírselo al presidente,
Ahram Online cierra recordando el acuerdo firmado en España en 2015 sobre
seguridad y la posibilidad de que una empresa española se haga con el contrato
de un tren de alta velocidad entre la capital y Luxor. Algo tan escueto como: "Both countries
also agreed to study the feasibility of a high-speed train that would run
between the capital Cairo and upper Egypt's Luxor."** Y se acabó.
El silencio respecto a Egipcio puede tener muchas explicaciones,
pero una sola realidad. Las noticias son escasas y poco informativas. No es fácil que lo sean porque se encuentran
totalmente descontextualizadas y cuando aparecen en la superficie se ignora la
conexión con la realidad, su secuencia. Eso tiene a producir noticias que
acaben y terminen en ellas mismas. Se huye de la continuidad.
La falta de secuencias informativas impide la evolución de
los casos, por lo que estos quedan incomprensibles provocando el abandono de la
noticia o su reducción simplificadora. El titular de El País antes citado —"Periodistas egipcios
lanzan campaña contra el acoso policial"— es una buena muestra de ello.
A
veces, cuando comento cosas de Egipto o algunos compañeros me preguntan sobre
lo escrito, comentan "¿cómo es posible que no se entere nadie de esto?, no hemos visto
nada". La respuesta no es fácil en muchos casos.
Nadie había oído
hablar, por ejemplo, del caso de la muerte asesinado de Giulio Regeni. El caso llegaría después al
Parlamento Europeo, como sabemos. Y más tarde la retirada del embajador italiano,
etc. Apenas ha salido nada en la prensa. El silencio es el mejor cómplice de las situaciones de injusticia.
El
silencio en el caso de la visita de Morenés a Egipto tiene muy fácil
explicación. Aquí no le interesa a nadie que se haga una visita incómoda. Las
visitas a Egipto no son problemáticas solo para el turismo; las visitas oficiales
también se ven comprometidas. Las declaraciones de El-Sisi diciendo que a
Egipto no le importa mucho ese invento occidental que son los Derechos Humanos
no ayudan a crear un clima favorable a la foto. Si se aprueba lo del tren, hay
alguna justificación. Pero el peculiar sentido de la "seguridad"
desarrollado en Egipto no es suficiente motivación para romper el interés de los medios.
Pero
hay cosas que deberían tener más repercusión. Un ejemplo: mañana, día 12, se celebrarán
en muchos países y lenguas lecturas de fragmentos de las obras del novelista
egipcio Ahmed Naji, condenado a dos años por haber publicado unos fragmentos
pertenecientes a una de su novelas que algún piadoso y servicial egipcio le aparecieron
escandalosamente atrevidos y que los jueces confirmaron con incompatibles con
la mente y moral nacional. Los jueces se ofendieron y fueron implacables en su
rechazo.
Aquí
hemos informado varias veces de ello. Mañana, como decíamos, es el día en que
se harán lecturas en muchos países del mundo. La publicación en Wordpress destinada
a mantener información sobre el destino del novelista, 30 años, recoge los
países: Italia, Líbano, Holanda, varias lecturas en los Estados Unidos...
ninguna en España. ¿No no importa o no estamos enterados? Probablemente una
combinación de ambas. Muchas cosas no nos interesan porque no nos informan de
ellas. No pienso que la gente salga a la calle, pero sí ciertos actos que pueden
realizarse en lugares que mantengan un vínculo de algún tipo. Hay causas con mucho menos que no dejan de
salir en los medios porque saben llamar la atención.
En
Egipto, lógicamente, el caso sí tiene trascendencia. Ahram Online, con el
siguiente titular "Woody Allen among 120 renowned int'l artists, writers
calling for release of Egyptian writer Ahmed Naji", nos contaba el otro día:
Freedom of expression advocacy group PEN
America sent an open letter on Sunday to President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Egyptian
MPs – signed by over 120 renowned writers and artists, including American
filmmaker Woody Allen, Paul Auster and Orhan Pamuk – urging the release of
jailed Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji.
The letter was sent by PEN America a few days
before its annual Literary Gala, which will be held in New York on 16 May.
The organisation will honour the author in
absentia with the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award in recognition of his
struggle in the face of adversity for the right to freedom of expression, according
to the organisation's website.
In the letter, petitioners denounced Naji’s
jailing, saying that "writing is not a crime."
The list of the petitioners include American
literary icons Robert Caro and Philip Roth, bestselling authors Michael Chabon
and Chimamanda Adichie, cultural luminary Stephen Sondheim, Turkish Elif
Shafak, Nigerian-American Teju Cole, Indian Siddhartha Deb, among others.***
La lista de personalidades del mundo del arte y la literatura
de todo el mundo muestra que se ha dado importancia al caso... menos aquí. Si no
le importa a nadie que Morenés vaya a Egipto, ¿por qué les va a importar lo que
allí ocurra?
Aquí hay una Asociación de Escritores, un PEN-Club, una Federación
de Asociaciones de la Prensa —con sus sedes locales—, diversas asociaciones de
Derechos Humanos, etc. No les interesa el caso porque tampoco les trae
notoriedad o público a la sala donde se haga. Es una pescadilla que se muerde
la cola: no interesa porque no se conoce. Y a fuerza de no interesar, acaba no interesando nada. Solo lo trivial,
ingenioso, escandaloso, anecdótico..., es decir, lo contrario de lo informativo. Lo que no
tiene sentido es universal e intemporal; solo puede cometer el pecado de ser
repetitivo, en cuyo caso deja de ser útil.
Trataremos
de cubrir el hueco producido por la ignorancia general reproduciendo hoy el
fragmento que se leerá en inglés de la obra de Ahmed Naji, novelista de 31
años, encarcelado en el país que visitó Morenés para seguridad de Occidente, y
del que nadie parece saber nada más que algunos desarticulados hechos.
Si
usted tiene interés en salir de la ignorancia sobre este tema y ser solidario
con una persona que no ha cometido ningún delito y cuya acusación por
publicar una novela confiando en la libertad de expresión que la constitución
de su país ampara, pero que quienes lo gobiernan pisotean cada día, puede comenzar por leerlo mañana.
La mala información y la falta de ella tienen consecuencias. La ignorancia es la primera, lógicamente. Pero después la prolongación, al amparo del silencio, de las circunstancias negativas. Es esta segunda cuestión la verdaderamente grave.
Cuando
lea el texto de Ahmed Naji, le parecerá absurdo que se le haya condenado a dos años de
cárcel y que el presidente del país diga que los derechos humanos están pensados
desde la perspectiva occidental y no son para los egipcios. La condena a Naji es una versión práctica de la teoría presidencial, una demostración de que no habla por hablar.
Un magnífico chiste —titulado presidential hobbies— de Andeel en Mada Masr nos lo muestra con una camiseta en la que pone "Amo la libertad". De la boca del enfadado presidente sale un claro "en mi tiempo libre". Un chiste que es algo más que un juego de palabras.
Usted pensará que es injusto que Naji esté
encarcelado, que los derechos humanos son para todos y que el discreto ministro
Morenés podría haber aprovechado la ocasión para comprarse un libro de Ahmed Naji,
por ejemplo, en cualquier librería de El Cairo y darse una vuelta por la ciudad
con él bajo el brazo.
Eso sí hubiera sido una noticia, elevando el paseo a un acto con sentido. Pero hay hechos, demasiado fantásticos, que nunca pasarán de la imaginación.
*
"El ministro de Defensa se reúne con el presidente de Egipto, Abdelfatah
Al-Sisi" Ministerio de Defensa-Gobierno de España 10/05/2016
http://www.defensa.gob.es/gabinete/notasPrensa/2016/05/DGC-160510-Viaje-Egipto.html
**
"Egypt's Sisi discusses military cooperation with Spain's defence minister
in Cairo" Ahram Online 0/05/2016
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/216483/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-Sisi-discusses-military-cooperation-with-Sp.aspx
***
"Woody Allen among 120 renowned int'l artists, writers calling for release
of Egyptian writer Ahmed Naji" Ahram Online 9/05/2016
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/18/211431/Books/Woody-Allen-among--artists-calling-for-release-of-.aspx
________________
Para el Día de Lecturas
de Ahmed Naji, 12 de mayo
The novelist and journalist Ahmed Naji — along
with his editor, Tarek al-Taher — was re-tried for the publication of an
excerpt of his Using Life in Akhbar al-Adab, convicted, sentenced to two years
in prison, and jailed:
Naji was acquitted in the public-morals trial
on January 2. But then, on January 12, he announced on Facebookand Twitter that
prosecutors had challenged his and al-Taher’s acquittal in the case of whether
the excerpt of Using Life had “harmed public morals.” The trial resumed
February 6, and while al-Taher received a fine, Naji received a two-year prison
sentence.
Specifically, the original accuser complained
that his “heartbeat fluctuated and blood pressure dropped” while reading the
chapter.
Naji wrote the experimental novel in
collaboration with illustrator Ayman al-Zorqani, who drew for the book. The
translation below is by Ben Koerber.
Chapter 6
That’s not
to say life in Cairo was completely miserable.
There were good times to be had year-round: some during our long summer,
and quite a few during our short winter.
Such times were, invariably, either days off work or days without it. They say the city never sleeps, they say it
bursts at the seams. The city rotates
and revolves. The city branches out. The city beats, the city bleeds.
In their
places of work and worship, the people of this city swarm. They shop and scurry and go for a piss, so
the Wheel of Production might go on spinning despite the traffic. That’s how it all looks, if you’re an eagle
soaring up above. But if you’re just a
little mouse of a man spinning inside that great Wheel, you never get to see
the big picture. You go to work and do
your job, and might even earn a reasonable salary. If, by some great fortune, you manage to see
the fruit of your labors, it still won’t move you an inch. Whether you work or not, the Wheel of
Production keeps on spinning, and the current carries you along.
Which
brings me to the time Mona May and I went over with a group of friends to
Moud’s apartment in Garden City. This
was after a party at Youssef Bazzi’s place.
We stayed up until the morning smoking hash and competing to finish a
whole bottle of vodka. I remember seeing
the music dissolve into monkeys that clung to the ceiling. There was a blonde German tapping her leg to
the beat. Erections popping around the
room. A young Palestinian-American, with
poor Arabic, talking a lot about racism.
Smoke, cigarettes, hashish. And more smoke.
“Bassam,”
says Kiko, turning to me with a totally bloodshot look. “I’ve got smoke in my
eyes.”
“Go easy on
’em, baby.”
I pull a
tissue over her eyes and blow gently.
The German girl watches with a confused look. As I pull the tissue away, my palm drips with
the dark freshness of Kiko’s face. I
plant a light kiss on her lips.
“Did you
know there’s a kind of sexual fetish called ‘licking the pupil’?” says the
German girl in English.
“How
exactly do you mean?”
“Yeah, I
read about that once,” interjects Moud.
“That’s
disgusting,” objects Kiko, wrapping her arms around me.
What are
your typical twenty-somethings to do in Cairo? Might they go for pupil licking?
Are they into eating pussy? Do they like to suck cock, or lick dirt, or snort
hash mixed with sleeping pills? Or one
might ask how long it would take for any of these fetishes to lose its
thrill. Are they good for life?
Everyone
here has done lots of drugs, both during and after college. Yet here we all are, little islands unto
ourselves, with no greater aspiration than to hang out together. We manage to stay alive by sucking our joy
out of one another.
Mona May is
standing next to the speakers. Her eyes are glazed over as though her soul’s
been sucked up by the music monkeys on the ceiling, and her body sways to the
beat.
After a
while, taking drugs clearly got old. Or
they were just not enough. And if one of
us ever gave in to total addiction, his life would be over in a few months:
this we know by trial and experience.
Those of us left in this room are too chicken to end our lives in this
or any other way, maybe because we still cling to some sort of hope, some sort
of love or friendship.
For all
that Cairo takes from its residents, it gives nothing in return – except,
perhaps, a number of life-long friendships that are determined more by fate
than any real choice. As the saying
goes, “He who goes to Cairo will there find his equal.” There’s no such thing as smoking by
yourself. And the food’s only got taste
if you have someone to chow it down with, happily, carcinogens and all.
In this
city, you’ll be lucky if you can get over your sexual tension, and appreciate
sex as just one of the many facets of a friendship. Otherwise, your horniness will make you a
testy bitch. Kiko rubs my back, and I
feel a heat between my legs.
As dawn
came up, Moud went to his room, and everyone else went home. Too lazy to head back to 6th of October City,
I lay down and fell asleep on the couch.
I woke up early with a slight headache, an army of ants marching in the
space between my brain and my skull. I
went to the bathroom and took one of the pills Moud had brought from overseas
to fight hangovers. After taking a warm
shower, I called Lady Spoon and agreed to breakfast at Maison Thomas in
Zamalek.
On the way,
the streets were washed over and empty of traffic. It’s a holiday: perhaps the Islamic New Year,
or Victory Day, or Revolution Day, or Saltwater Catfish Day. Whatever it was, the city looked drowsy and
everyone was checked out. At moments like
this, I barely recognize the place. When
I’m able to get from Qasr al-Aini to Zamalek in under 20 minutes, I almost feel
like she’s decided to warm up to me. But
I know that wicked smile on her face: She’s telling me, “At any moment, I can
have you stuck in traffic for over an hour, with nothing to do but sit back and
feel sorry for yourself as the noise of the streets slowly sucks the life out
of you.” Open veins spewing blood all
over the bathroom.
I met Lady
Spoon outside the restaurant. She had on
a long white dress showing her arms and a bit of cleavage.
“You smell
really nice,” she said, kissing me on both cheeks.
“It’s
Moud’s cologne.”
It was her
neck that made me fall for her. She’s
nine years older than me, but she knows how to stay youthful, exercising
regularly and always eating healthy.
She’s pretty, cheerful, and has a successful career in advertising. Unfortunately for her, she’s a Protestant and
happens to love Egypt, and her chances of meeting someone with both these
qualities in Cairo are slim at best. She
studied overseas before spending quite a long time being terrified of getting
married or settling down. Sometimes,
she’d like to have children. She had
been used to dating men who were older than her, but suddenly, they had stopped
showing an interest. Those that did show
interest didn’t interest her. This was
the first time that she would be dating someone younger than her, which made
her embarrassed to tell her friends.
The name
“Lady Spoon” was given to her by Mona May.
She saw her once at a concert wearing a pair of spoon-shaped earrings.
These were
the same earrings she had on now. They
swayed with the movement of her hand as she chopped a loaf of bread. In spite of the dryness in my throat, I’d
been smoking since I woke up this morning.
Cigarettes have a different sort of taste with the morning breeze in
Zamalek: something resembling bliss, desire, a softness in violet and orange.
Our
breakfast was eggs, along with slices of the finest quality pork, imported from
abroad. After honey, jam, and a glass of
orange juice, I’m back to life. As the
poet says, “You ain’t you when you’re hungry.”
At Maison Thomas, her smile nudges me awake under a white bed.
We walked
around the streets of Zamalek in the direction of her apartment. She had a thin silver bracelet around her
ankle and toenails painted red.
Sometimes we would walk hand in hand, and sometimes with my arm around
her waist. Under the shade of the trees,
we laughed. We shot smiles at the
officers standing guard outside different embassies, but their solemn demeanor
didn’t change.
I thought …
Do I love her?
Of course I
love her. I can’t touch a woman I don’t
love. But then, what is love
exactly? It’s a relaxing of the heart, a
tranquility in your soul, a warmth in your stomach. It’s like any love in Cairo, always ready to
disappear. A lover of companionship.
In her
apartment, we smoked a joint of hash. I rubbed her knee as she played around on
her computer looking for an old Madonna song.
I lifted her dress above her knees and slid to the floor. Nestling between her legs, I lifted up her
foot and started licking her big toe. I
walked my tongue in gentle taps along her leg until I reached her knee, which I
pummeled with kisses.
“It
tickles,” she giggled in English.
I gave her
knee a parting kiss, and continued my tongue’s journey up her thigh. I planted a kiss, soft as a butterfly, on her
thinly lined underwear and pulled it away with my hands. I plunged my tongue into her pussy. I drank a lot that night. I drank until I felt thirsty. I gave her a full ride with my tongue before
she took me into her room, where we had slow and leisurely sex. She turned over, and I put my fingers in her
mouth. Wet with her saliva, I stuck them
in her pussy. Slipping and sliding. I stuck them in from behind. I grabbed her short hair and pulled it
towards me. I humped her violently and
then lay on top of her for a few seconds.
I got out of bed and threw the condom into the trash. As I gave her a smile, the phone rang.
“Hey dude,
where you at?”
“Mona …
What’s up. I’m in Zamalek.”
“So, you
still up for a beer tonight?”
“Maybe ..”
“I’m with
Samira. We’re going up to Muqattam
Mountain.”
“So you’ve
got a car?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay then.
Why don’t you come pick me up in Zamalek?”
“When?”
She climbed
out of bed with a gentle smile. Sex was
over now. We’ve still got some
friendship and goodwill on our faces.
People are eating each other alive out there, so why can’t we keep
things civil?
“How about
in an hour or so.”
“Let’s make
it an hour and a half. Outside Diwan
bookstore.”
“Okay.”
“Bye.”
“See you
later.”
After a
quick shower, I gave her a kiss and a pat on the ass, which was my way of
showing gratitude, or something like that.
My hair was still wet as I went out.
On the way to Diwan, I whistled to myself those words, “Okay … Bye … See
you later.” I had a smoke in front of Diwan’s
display window, which was full of those trashy English books that sell best in
airports and supermarkets – the kind that soak your mind in grease and fry your
heart in oil. It won’t be long before
they start selling them with Kentucky Fried Chicken. I tried calling Mona, but she didn’t
respond. Then I caught her sticking out
her head and waving at me from Samira’s car.
Her hair blew in the breeze, or maybe it was just the loud music
spilling out of the radio. Flags
fluttered along the street, the car stopped, and I hopped in.
In order to
get to Muqattam Mountain, we had to pass through the decaying remnants of the
Old City. Oddly enough, it took us only
seven minutes to get from Zamalek to Abd al-Khaliq Tharwat Street. On a typical day, it might take us a full
hour and a half to get to the Azhar Bridge at the end of Abd al-Khaliq Tharwat,
but on an atypical day, like this one, Cairo seemed to be liberally bestowing
her gifts on all those traversing her streets.
All this
emptiness was due to a lack of spare change on holidays like today. The streets, especially downtown, take on a
completely different appearance. Mona’s
wearing a long skirt of some light fabric. I stick my head between the seats
and see she’s bunched up her skirt in her lap and is rolling a joint. I’m distracted by the glow of her knees, and
Samira’s turning up the music. Jimmy
Hendrix’s guitar shrieks like a hen laying its first egg. I open the window as we pass over the Azhar
Bridge, and imagine I catch a whiff of cumin, pepper and spices. As we exit the bridge and enter the Husayn
district, I smell some burnt coffee beans which, without being an expert, I can
tell are of poor quality. The scent
fills my nostrils. Among the tombs in
the City of the Dead, the smell of liver fried in battery acid lingers like a
rain cloud. We finally emerge from the
torrent of odors that fills Cairo all the way to the edge of Muqattam
Mountain. We go to Bar Virginia and
order some beers.
We only
talked about things that would lighten the mood: films we’d seen recently, some
interesting new music, tales of the wonders and oddities recited by taxi
drivers, the jesters of the city.
The sun is
about to set, and Cairo’s laid out before us like a grid, a two-dimensional
image from Google Earth. In the middle
of this mess of satellite dishes, horrendous looking houses and high buildings,
there appears one of the city’s old ponds.
It’s a small spot of water, the last that remains of the many pools left
over from the Nile after it was circumcised by the Aswan High Dam. In the background there echoes the voice of
Muhammad Muhyi, singing a song by Hafni Ahmad Hasan.
A gentle
breeze blows. Condensation collects on
the green bottles of beer. A moist
handshake of appreciation between the beer and its connoisseur.
Samira’s
fooling around with her phone. Mona
takes her beer and clinks it with mine.
Her smile, a lock of her hair blown by the wind, and Cairo at sunset in
the background. For a few moments, I
feel something resembling happiness.
Revenge Has
No Place in Modern Life
I made only
two visits to the secret bunker underneath Garden City. The first time, it was just me and Ihab
Hassan. The second time, Madam Dolat
joined us too, as the three of us took shelter from the evil spirits that
prowled the streets above. It was the
beginning of the Storm.
The
location of our bunker was a secret even to many in the Society of
Urbanists. The Society – or should I
call it the Organization? I don’t really know the difference – kept a
well-maintained archive of the mysteries and truths it had discovered over the
millennia. Yet its contents remained
scattered and dispersed beyond the control of any single member: were it all to
be assembled, no mortal could withstand its blinding light.
Ihab only
found out about this place by chance. He
had been investigating the construction of Cairo’s sewer system when he learned
of an obscure faction within the Society that, long ago, had obsessively set
about constructing complicated networks of tunnels under major cities. These tunnels led only to empty rooms. With time, many of them disappeared. Some became rivers, or filled up with ground
water. A few, however, remained
intact. In the 1950s, this information
was brought to the attention of one of the Organization’s leading members, who
went on to form a secret sub-committee dedicated to the maintenance of the
tunnel networks in several locations around the world: Cairo; the suburbs of
London; Washington, D.C.; Rio De Janeiro; several boroughs of New York City,
with the exception of Manhattan; Port Said; Santiago; and so on. Ihab became privy to these networks as well,
but the other members of the administrative council – including Paprika herself
– remained totally unaware of their existence, save for the more famous ones
such as the catacombs of Paris.
It was
during my first visit to the Garden City bunker that Ihab unloaded on me his
whole family history, beginning with the story of his grandfather Hassan and
the “idealistic crazies” – his words – of Egypt’s nineteenth-century
Renaissance. He wound it all up by
lamenting his current plight as the Organization’s chief administrator. He was at war, and defeat for his side meant
nothing less than global apocalypse.
I didn’t
get why he was telling me all this. When
I asked him, he replied with the simplicity of a man peeling a peanut: “Because
you’re an intelligent young man, someone I can trust. Besides, you’re not one of them.”
He paused,
before confessing, “I want you to make me a website.” After repeated attempts to explain himself,
he suggested we create something similar to WikiLeaks.[1] Being an intelligent young man, it wasn’t
difficult to guess what he was after.
“So you
want to expose the Organization?” I asked.
“You want
to play this game with me?” he countered. “I mean, like most kids your age,
you’re not easy to impress. I get
it. But don’t you want to make something
of yourself, to have your own story to tell to future generations?”
I accepted
the offer, perhaps because I really was worried about turning twenty-five
without having a good story to tell. My
life might pass by in a single shade of misery.
This “game” opened a new window and gave me the energy to jump through.
Mona had recently
been telling me about how disgusted she was with her job at some local
programming company, so I shared the offer with her as a possible way out. Ihab had promised to pay cash, out of his own
pocket. She was unimpressed at first.
“Dude, I
don’t do websites. I’m in IT. You know what IT is?”
“But you’ve
done websites before, no?”
“Way back,
when I was in college.”
“Alright,
why don’t you come over and meet this guy.
Just to make his acquaintance.”
I can say
without a doubt that the look on Mona’s face when she first met Ihab was unlike
any I’d ever seen. She was actually
impressed. This guy was legit. It was love at first sight, and when Ihab
brought out a bottle of aged wine, it was like he’d tickled her clitoris with
his tongue.
“I’m
screaming with excitement,” she said with a voice as soft as honey.
I wanted
some excitement too, and getting my cock sucked wouldn’t quite do the
trick. I needed to discover a whole
different erotic zone. I needed someone
to dig a well in my side and accidentally hit upon a site of pleasure long
buried under layers of skin, spleen, and bullshit. I needed, not so simply, Mona May. I don’t totally buy everything Ihab’s telling
me, but I wouldn’t totally reject any of it either. What he has to say blows like a gentle breeze
on my face, and I can sense something new on the horizon.
“Let’s
follow the light,” Mona says, “and catch fire like a bunch of moths.”
And so she
returned to her old hobby of web design.
Of course, this meant she would meet Ihab often, alone, without me. Of course, they developed something of a
relationship. Was I jealous?
Of course
not. The whole thing was so cute it was
enchanting, and I was content to see the joy on their faces each time they were
together. To see her finally regain her
appetite for life was enough to make me feel optimistic. “Someday I’ll get what I want,” I started
telling myself. “Someday I’ll succeed.”
I only
wished, sometimes, that I could be part of their relationship, something of a
third rib.
I wished
the same thing with Reem and Paprika. I
wanted only to exist in their presence.
I realized for the first time that this was the kind of love I needed:
to be that sort of “third party,” suspended somewhere between reality and
delusion.
When I met
with Reem to be briefed on the topic of the third film, I felt for the first
time that Society had swallowed me whole.
It was as if my whole life were a puzzle, a network of mazes designed by
one the Society’s architects, sprawling underneath the city of Cairo.
***
This time
we met at Cilantro in Dokki. The first
surprise she had for me was arriving all alone, without Paprika. The second surprise was a red scarf wrapped
around her head, which I would later realize was a hijab. And the third and final surprise: this was to
be a 45-minute film about her, the one and only Reem Saeed.
“I’ve been
trying to quit,” she said, asking me if I could spare a cigarette. I gave her a light. She puffed out a thin cloud of smoke as the
waiter took away our coffee.
[1] A website that came out not long before
“the Storm,” dedicated to publishing leaked documents about American military
operations in Iraq.
