Chicago, Alaa Aswany [first e reader .TXT] 📗

life that we have not touched upon: power and women. After many years in which he had absolute power over and control of the destiny of thousands upon thousands of detainees, he acquired a mysterious, well-established, instinctive power that would be hard to explain fully. The nature of his job enabled him to see people at their weakest, made it possible for him to penetrate the most private secrets between a man and his wife, and taught him to crush the manhood of the strongest fighters, to make them prostrate themselves in tears, begging him, kissing his feet so he wouldn’t order their wives to be violated before their very eyes. That deep-rooted, perverse human experience gave him an extraordinary power over those around him. It was as if he had broken the bounds of that invisible domain where all humans moved, acquiring a superhuman authority that no one could withstand. He no longer needed to speak much, and there was nothing that surprised him or made him hesitate anymore. To that should be added his stonelike features, hard chiseled as if they represent implacable fate; his strong, terrifying look that penetrates the heart; his dignified, always unhurried movements that are controlled by a rhythm all their own and which make light of any tension around him; his few words, which he delivers slowly and distinctly; and his very presence, which in itself creates a state of impenetrable anxiety around him. All of those elements magnify his power to the utmost, to godlike dimensions. When he makes a decision, it is irreversible, carrying out the dictates of fate without being subject to them. He decides, with one word or gesture, the destiny of a whole family for several generations to come. The stupendous power that he has would impel one to wonder: Can our wishes change the course of events? If we really and strongly wish for something, can we make it happen somehow? If that were true, then Safwat Shakir’s power is caused primarily by his very strong awareness of it, as evidenced by the fact that he instantly imposes his will on those who do not know his position.

That power took a different mode with women, the love of whom Shakir inherited from his grandfathers. (Most men in his family had two or more women at the same time as either wives or mistresses.) He remembered from his childhood many quarrels between his mother and father because of his relations with other women. He even remembered that, as a student at the police academy, he had had a relationship with a servant in their house. When he slept with her every Thursday upon his return from spending the evening with his friends, he felt that her body was already fulfilled and content, which created in his mind a strong suspicion, supported by other indications, that she was sleeping with both him and his father. The wild sexual vigor, in both desire and performance, that Safwat Shakir maintained despite being fifty-five, was not due only to heredity but also to the nature of his work. For those who live on the edge of danger—such as soldiers in combat, bullfighters, and gangsters on the run—have burning, insatiable sexual desires, as if they voraciously partake of that pleasure because they might lose it (together with their lives) at any moment, or as if by sexual activity they intensify their awareness of every moment of their threatened lives.

One of Safwat Shakir’s major peculiarities was the way he went about pursuing and having his way with women. After years of detention without trial, the wife of a detained man would lose hope that her husband would be freed and would devote all her efforts to improving his conditions as much as possible, or getting him transferred to a nearby detention center, or getting medications to him regularly. Under such circumstances, a detainee’s wife would have no choice but to beg the State Security officers, who alone would be able to make the lives of their husbands less miserable. Thus one of the familiar scenes in front of State Security headquarters would be that of a crowd of women, clad in black, standing since the early morning in front of the gate, waiting for hours in silence or chatting in low voices or crying, until finally they would be let in. When that happened, they’d begin passionate supplications accompanied by crying and begging the officers to agree to their modest requests for their husbands’ well-being. The officers usually looked upon these requests coldly and in a bored, almost exasperated manner. Most of the time they rejected them and threatened the women with being detained and tortured themselves if they didn’t leave. Only if the detainee’s wife was beautiful would the treatment be different: they would tell her to meet Safwat Bey Shakir. When they said that, their eyes would gleam with a hidden sarcastic meaning. They knew that their boss loved women and they made jokes about it secretly among themselves, but they still sent him the beautiful ones to curry favor with him. Thus a detainee’s beautiful wife would enter Safwat Shakir’s office, stumbling over her fear and misery. From the first glance he would be able to tell what kind of woman she was and whether she would accept or refuse. He would evaluate her response with one long, unhurried look, scrutinizing her body with obvious lust and at the same time measuring her reaction. The woman would stand in front of him in anguish, complaining, crying, and begging him to grant her requests. If Safwat Shakir realized from his experience that she would say no, he would send her papers back to his underlings to take the necessary measures. But if he felt she was available, he would grant her requests immediately. In the midst of the thanks and prayers on the woman’s part, Safwat Shakir would once again feast his eyes on her charms and say slowly, “You’re a gorgeous