Friendly Fire, Alaa Aswany [10 ebook reader .TXT] 📗

her or take another wife because she was rich and supported him. This, supposedly, was why he satisfied his lusts far from home, in his office at the Chemistry Authority. Dr. Sa‘id was particularly smitten with the department’s cleaning women and female workers—a taste no doubt attributable to his early experiences. When one of these women pleased him, he would keep calling her to his office, where he would treat her quite informally and press gifts on her until, little by little, he’d start coming on to her by making jokes of a sexual nature, which he’d toss out to her quite confidently, roaring with laughter. When the day came for him to make his move, Dr. Sa‘id would invite the woman to his office and order her to close the door (which had a special lock that could not be opened from the outside). After she’d closed the door, he’d ask her to get something from the cupboard, and then he’d get up and place himself behind her and stick his huge body against her back, hugging her and having his way her. When this was going on in the office, the workers in the unit would know and would whisper and gossip and laugh about it, or express their disapproval. Under no circumstances, however, would they express their opposition openly.

Years passed and Dr. Sa‘id practiced his private life at the research unit in peace. Only once did something happen to disturb its even tenor, which was when Umm Imad appeared in the department—a beautiful young woman with green eyes who’d moved from Tanta after her husband died and joined the department as a worker on a temporary contract. Dr. Sa‘id fancied Umm Imad from the first day. He promised her he’d do his best to get her appointed on a permanent contract and started arriving every morning at the department with his pockets full of different kinds of chewing gum and candies that he gave to Umm Imad for her children. Did Dr. Sa‘id make his move too early or had he misjudged her from the beginning? He called for her and ordered her to close the door and she closed it. As usual he got up and tried to stick himself against her but she put up serious resistance. He didn’t care and tried to get closer and she growled warningly, in a voice that was clear but still not loud, “Shame on you!” Wisdom required that he desist, but he kept on going, either because he was so aroused or because all he saw in her refusal was a crass kind of coquetry. He threw himself on her with his whole body and put his arms around her, but she screamed and went on screaming, her cries resounding through the Research Unit. In a second, the employees had gathered outside the office and when the screaming went on, one of them plucked up his courage and knocked on the glass pane in the door. Minutes of silence passed. Then Dr. Sa‘id’s heavy footsteps were heard and he himself opened the door to them and they burst inside, hoping for the scene of a lifetime. Umm Imad stood in front of the cupboard, struggling to catch her breath, her hair disheveled and her gallabiya pulled tight and torn in more than one place. Everything about her indicated that a violent struggle had just taken place and she started repeating in a tearful voice, clasping her head with her hands as though lamenting at a funeral, “Shame on you! I’ll make you pay for this, you’ll see. Do you think if I was that kind of woman I’d be living the way I do? But the Lord knows all. I work to take care of my children. Shame on you!”

For one minute, or two, Umm Imad was on the verge of having an effect on the employees, but Dr. Sa‘id recovered his poise, lit a cigarette, went up to Umm Imad, and took a strong grip on her shoulder. Then his angry voice rang out like thunder while he waggled his middle finger in a vulgar gesture.

“Listen, you silly little girl! Keep that stuff for saints’ carnivals! ‘Woooooh! Blessings, Holy Master! Wooooooh!’ I’m no fairground sucker and I’m not some dumb wog. Forget the ‘This happened and then that happened’—I know how that crap works. I’m telling you for the last time, in front of these men, you either return the hundred pounds that were in the drawer or I call the police, I swear. Got it?”

There were exclamations and whispers as the employees listened first to Dr. Sa‘id’s version of events and then to Umm Imad’s, and there was some attempt to bring about a quick reconciliation, but Dr. Sa‘id refused. He refused the very idea and shouted at them, “What? What’s going on here, my friends? Is a hundred pounds a joke to you? You want my supplementary benefits to go for nothing?” He struck one palm on the other and muttered furiously, “That’s the limit!”

Umm Imad swore by the greatest oaths and prayed she be struck blind and her son Imad run over by a streetcar if she’d touched or even set eyes on the money but in vain. Dr. Sa‘id continued to insist that she return the money that he’d been paid the day before, left forgotten in the drawer, and not found this morning after Umm Imad had cleaned the room. The employees were all well aware of the truth but they made a silent pact to respect Dr. Sa‘id’s version and oppose Umm Imad, feeling that a victory for Umm Imad over Dr. Sa‘id would be, in some sense, a defeat for them too. The following day, delegations went to her to scare her, force her to accept a reconciliation, and return the money but she seemed to have lost her wits and kept screaming and cursing herself and swearing on the Qur’an. The business ramified and meetings were convened and broke