Ahmed - January 28th, 2011

I watched the cat scan screen in front of me as they moved my father’s heavy body into the tunnel.

The screen showed a butterfly of his brain, shapes growing and fading as the technician touched buttons and pointed gruffly at a circle.

He wasn’t wearing a doctor’s coat, and he addressed me casually like an old friend. I’d been here too many times not to be.

I watched the butterfly of his brain, my heart twisted and curled, and I knew I had never loved anyone as much as my father; and I never would.

And there it is. That shape. I never will.

Every Friday, I attended the Friday prayer with him out of courtesy, and then we’d meet my grandfather by the tennis courts in the Gezirah Club. As he always had every Friday for the past 30 years of my life, my father dressed in a wine red v-neck sweater over a pinstripe grey shirt and trousers. He frowned upon my lax choice of jeans and a hooded cardigan, so I changed into brown shoes and black trousers to please him.

We always ordered beef escalope and lemon juice, the kind where they throw the rind into the blender so it’s twice as strong, and they pile on the sugar. My father and grandfather talked about the other Cairo, the one they remembered. They relished the faded memories of our summers in Switzerland, our land in Belbes full of ripe oranges and tangerines that we had to sell last year, and my father’s dreams of playing tennis again.

‘When I’m well again,’ he would smile. I smiled back and bit the inside of my lip.

When you’re running from tear gas, your mind is intricately clear. Through the suffocating fumes, your eyes detect a passageway and you immediately head there, battling between the thoughts of ‘Shall I stand back against a wall to avoid the stampede?’, ‘How many seconds can I last without breath?’ and ‘How can I outrun them all?’

I’m not a fast runner, and I learn that today when I trip and fall, and someone falls on top of me. His heavy body punches whatever breath I have left out of me, and my mind goes into survival mode, where I push him off me, even though he’s clinging onto the collar of my shirt and somehow I drag my way towards the open street.

I realize, within seconds, that I’m dragging a limp body with me; so I turn and take his gripping hands off my collar. And in that second there’s a decision to be made. I see the whites in his eyes, the spit spewing from his hanging mouth, and I pick him up and carry him in my arms.

I run towards what I think is the Metro exit at the opening of the square. Somehow, we’re there, I throw him onto the tiled stairs and crouch down as we hear firing shots. They’re shooting at us. The fucking bastards are shooting at us.

Where is Asma? And Hadeer? What about Hamed? Of course my phone is not fucking working, there’s no coverage in this area. In fact, there seems to be no coverage anywhere.

We knew they’d be cutting the lines today. A rumour spread like wildfire last night; a friend who works with one of the network companies called me at 8PM and said: ‘Remember your landline. Write down everyone’s landline.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just do it,’ he answered. ‘I have a feeling. Please.’

I’m cowering next to limp bodies as others pile down onto the staircases, crying, coughing, wretching from the bottom of their stomachs. We’re unarmed, and the motherfuckers are shooting at us. I watched a young man’s head being beaten by three batons, over and over again. There was blood. I ran. What was I supposed to do? He was surrounded. I ran. I hate myself, fully and completely. And this fury breaks me into a cold sweat. Or maybe it's the tear gas. I stand up and look at the square before me. I’m supposed to be brave. Brave men don’t run.

There are crowds running in all directions, riot police with visors, shields and batons running after them. Screams mixed with calls to prayer from the mosque nearby and chants of ‘Esbat! Esbat!’ Stand your ground. Regroup.

A line is forming a few metres ahead of me. Young boys and old men have wrapped their faces in scarves, coughing against the insufferable fumes. They’re linking arms, calling on those behind them to join. I walk towards them, my eyes stinging like a motherfucker. Brave men don’t run. They smile as they die surely but slowly; talking about tennis. I am not my father. I need to be.

I grab someone’s hand, he links his arm in mine, and suddenly we’re walking straight towards the line of riot police facing us at the mouth of Kasr El Eini Street. We’re walking into the mouth of hell. What am I doing?

I look at the man whose arm I’m clutching. He must be in his forties. He’s wearing what may be his best suit. He has a beard, possibly a devout Muslim, maybe even a Muslim Brother. He’s crying, and his forehead has a bloody gash. There’s something in his expression, a complete conviction and resolute determination that he’s right, that this path is his right, and he will claim it, no matter what.

With at least twenty other men, he’s walking towards the police. And I with him. And then we’re hundreds. And then we’re chanting. The people want the downfall of the regime. And I believe every word. For the first time in my twenty nine years of life, I’m part of something worthy. I know it fully. And so I walk with them.

Hamed had told me earlier in the morning about a flat around the corner from Tahrir.

‘If we get separated, we regroup there,’ he said.
‘Her name is Mona and she’s got a few of my friends staying there. You can recharge your battery or call a landline if you need to.’

I need to call my family. My mother is a frantic worrier. And my sister is only fifteen. They need to know I’m ok. They’ve probably seen the footage on TV now, but maybe only on Al Jazeera, or CNN. Channel One, or another other state TV channel, is showing an empty corner of the square and calling us ‘dozens of protesters’.

We’re not dozens, you fucking assholes; we’re hundreds if not thousands. I can’t see the gravel from the number of feet pounding it now, marching in our clumsy, resolute route towards the enemy.

It’s been hours, and I’m exhausted. I’ve been coughing up, I need my inhaler and I need to call my family. I need to find Hamed. Knowing him, the bastard’s probably got arrested already. Hamed has a flair for trouble with the police.

She opens the door and asks a silent question.

‘Mona?’ I reach out my hand, ‘I’m Ahmed, a friend of Hamed’s. He said you’d be expecting me.’

She shakes her head.
‘I’m Leila, Mona’s not here; but please come in.’

She opens the oak door wider and as I walk in, I find at least ten other people in the living room, all wrecked remnants of today’s attack. A young man is having his head clumsily bandaged, another is groaning as a woman pours what smells like vinegar onto his face.

‘Keep your eyes open, don’t blink!’ she yells.

‘But it stings!’ he yells back.

Leila quietly drags me by the sleeve to another room, a bedroom, where a girl is sleeping in fetus pose. She points at the en-suite bathroom.

‘You need a shower,’ she says simply. ‘There’s a towel in there that’s only been used once or twice. Have you been tear-gassed?’

I laugh and point at my swollen face to state the obvious.

‘Well, you’d better avoid hot water then,’ she answers, ‘We’ve googled the side effects, and hot water opens up the pores so it only makes the pain worse.’

She reaches over to a counter and hands me a half-empty can of Pepsi.

‘Throw this on your face, and you’ll be fine.’

‘You have got to be kidding.’

‘I swear; it works. An online resistance movement sent us a link today with all the guidelines to dealing with tear gas.’

I do a double-take.

‘You have internet?! But they’ve cut all the cables.’

Leila smiles mischievously.

‘Mona has Nour; it’s a small company that no one thought of cutting. We have ADSL but it’s really weak, and all these journalists keep popping by to use it so it’s overloaded but it works. And a guy from BBC came with his satellite phone so we can connect to that if it’s an emergency.’

‘What exactly – other than this – constitutes an emergency?’ I ask.

Leila throws a damp towel at me and literally pulls me towards the bathroom. This seems to be a routine she has practiced several times today.

‘I’ll make you tea,’ she offers. ‘Sugar?’

I stop and stare at her. There is something birdlike in her tiny feet and open face, her brown hair pulled back like a schoolgirl. She looks barely 18. What is she doing here?

‘Are you a doctor?’ I ask.

‘No,’ she laughs, embarrassed. ‘I wish I was. I’d be useful at least.’

‘Do you own this place?’

‘No,’ she repeats slowly, as if she’s talking to an impaired person, ‘I don’t live here. Mona does.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’

She looks at me, offended I think. And says ‘Same thing as you. I’m doing something.’

She walks off to make me tea.