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

the morning. When the investigator asked him if he had noticed anything abnormal about me, he replied that he had noticed that I was talking to myself in English in a loud voice and laughing but that at the time he had considered the matter quite normal, attributing it to my extreme drunkenness.

15

The circle closed tight around me. There wasn’t a single gap through which I could escape. All of them—all of those who knew my worth and were infuriated by my superiority—conspired against me. Everyone who hated me and whom I despised, Dr. Sa‘id and Shaaban and the waiter, even my mother and Huda and my aged grandmother—all of them had united to prevent a recognized danger that would have crushed them had I become united with Jutta, I who had drawn close and seen. They conspired and succeeded and then they isolated me in a special place, dressed me in special clothes, and tightened their grip upon me, and I could find no alternative to surrender, at which point they pretended to be sorry for me, and now they visit me and bring me roses and boxes of chocolate. They talk to the doctor about me and draw expressions of anxiety and pleading on their faces, then tell me goodbye with a glance that reassures them that I will never be able to slip from their clutches, and leave.

The Kitchen Boy

FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON, intelligence is associated in people’s minds with brightness of eye, and anyone who wants to prove he’s brilliant stares into others’ faces, focusing on their eyes. This way, they may witness for themselves how brightly his own flash and the inordinate acumen with which they shine. Hisham’s eyes, on the other hand, did not shine at all, and were small too. Similarly his brown complexion, unremarkable features, meager body, and natural tendency toward shyness and introspection made him appear simply one of those undifferentiated thousands who throng the streets and buses. As soon as Hisham began to speak, however, you would be amazed, because he would grasp what you were saying immediately and comment on it before you’d finished. Then he’d fall silent and quietly smile, as though apologizing for having left you behind. They say—though God knows how true this is—that Hisham learned to speak very early and that before he was three years old he knew how to wind the old Grundig tape reel, put it in place on the machine, thread it, and finally press the button to make the music come out. Because Hisham and I were at the same secondary school, I myself had the opportunity to observe his talents, which carried everything before them. Hisham wasn’t one of those who would plod away at his studies for hours and hours; he would understand the lesson in class and read it once at home, after which he might do a few exercises. Then he would effortlessly achieve the highest marks. In math, he’d often stand up and explain to us, in his quiet voice, how he had solved a problem that had defeated us all, and when he had finished and the teacher had thanked him, we would stare at him, in admiration or with envy. He, however, hated being the object of attention, so he’d busy himself by searching for his pencil, or lean back and start a conversation with the student sitting behind him. Hisham came first in the school in the Secondary General exam. He wanted to go into engineering but his mother wept and pleaded with him in the name of his dead father, reminding him that he was her only child and that all her hopes were pinned on his becoming a doctor, and Hisham submitted and spent five years studying medicine, during which he maintained the highest marks. They say that his grasp of the material at his oral exam extracted the grudging admiration of even the grimmest and most savage of the examiners, and they also say that after Dr. Mandour, the celebrated professor of anatomy, had finished examining Hisham, he stood up, went over to him, shook his hand, and ordered him a cold drink (a gesture of respect rarely granted anyone by the great professor). Because Hisham was so outstanding (but also because he wasn’t the son of a professor at the university or a relative of a minister), he placed twentieth in his class on graduating.

Hisham was appointed a resident in General Surgery, an outcome with which he was genuinely pleased. When his mother got the news (she was peeling potatoes in front of the television at the time), she was thrilled and gave whoops of joy, then wept, blessed the Lord, and performed two prayer prostrations in thanks to Him. She quickly spread the news by telephone to relatives and friends, got dressed, and went out to buy sherbet and pastries. When the first people, some neighbors, arrived to offer their congratulations, his mother (who had now assumed the grave and dignified air befitting the mother of a surgeon) related to them how Hisham hadn’t made any effort to win the appointment; on the contrary, it was they who had insisted on appointing him, in view of his excellence. And on the second day, when more well-wishers came, the mother recounted a whole dialogue that had taken place between the chairman of the surgery department and her son in which the former had urged Hisham to agree to work with him, while Hisham had asked for a chance to think it over, as he wasn’t quite sure.

Hisham knocked on the door, opened it a little, politely, and advanced a very short distance into the room. Dr. Bassiouni, the chairman of the department, was sitting talking with three members of the teaching staff. When Hisham appeared, they paused and looked at him attentively, and he felt his heart beating hard. He took a deep breath, smiled in a politely friendly way, and said, “Good morning.”

They didn’t