Ahmed Khalifa - Imagining Liberty - Volume 1

The Sabah I remembered would have rolled her eyes and kicked her brother in the back. This Sabah moved towards the tiny kitchen in the back, her eyes lingering on mine. Ismail turned back to us and licked his lips. I averted my gaze, aware as I was of the rules of friendship and siblings of the opposite gender.

“I want to hear about work. You passed the bar?”

I put a hand to my head and feigned a melodramatic swoon. “Please sir, don’t even bring up that horrible time. People say lawyers bring misery but how can we do anything but, considering the misery we ourselves have been put through?”

We spoke at length about our terrible jobs that didn’t appreciate us, our futures that seemed bleak at best and our precious intellects that were going to waste. Truly, our generation was rife with good-for-nothings. Sabah went outside to ask Amm Attia to pick some fresh mint for our tea. When she opened the door a dry breeze swept into the dank room, scattering ash from the charcoal and sending a cold chill up our spines.

Our grumbling grew more shameless as the hash took control of our senses. Omar complained that the newspaper was never going to let him write anything but fluffy pieces on music and art and festivals.

“Art isn’t fluff,” Youssef said, his voice quiet and his gaze fixed to the floor. He drew his arms tight across his knees. “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

“Those words aren’t yours,” I mocked, jabbing him with the end of the hose and gulping a deep mouthful of brown.

“Picasso,” came the curt reply. “What, you don’t agree?” His eyes followed a speck of ash threading its way across the floorboards.

I laughed. “Why so melancholy, master of mysteries? You’re too young and pretty to furrow your brow like that.” I slapped him on the back for good measure and he managed a weak smile.

The tea came and sat and went cold. Our words came slow and our thoughts slower still, until our conversation was treacle. Sabah sat behind her brother and to the left, still trying to catch my eye out of the corner of hers. The ever-thickening hash smoke made me bolder and I ventured a wry smile out of the sight of Ismail’s prying eyes. She looked away, a demure Victorian miss.

“Enough of this stupor, gentlemen,” I said and got to my feet. There was a chest of drawers in the corner of the room and I made a beeline for it. “It’s time to relinquish your wallets. Poker or blackjack?”

Youssef’s smile split his face, and he took a last, desperate pull at the shisha . “This thing is almost out as well. I’ll ask the pile of skin and bones out front to pick up another block of hash.”

Ismail stood up abruptly. He spoke politely but his face betrayed a sour disappointment. “That shall be all for me, I think. Ramy, my prayers for your safe return have been answered. I will see you tomorrow.”

A clamor of protests arose, mine first among them. “Ismail, you have not even touched the hose. Let me at least deprive you of your cab fare in an honest game of cards.” He did not drive, he’d never learned how. It was, to him, unnecessary.

“Our friend has just returned from a long absence,” Omar followed. “It would be the height of impropriety to leave so soon.”

Ismail forced a smile, a tiny insignificant thing, and pulled on a thick black overcoat. “I really must excuse myself. I must be at the mosque first thing in the morning and already I can see dawn approaching. Come, Sabah.”

Omar sighed, resigned. “If you truly insist on this farce, I’ll drive you home.” He waved away Ismail’s protests and turned to me. “I’m sorry. I can’t let a girl take a cab at this hour.”

I told him I understood, that the night was winding down anyway. Would he be okay driving with the hash in his system? He laughed like a bear and grabbed me in a destructive one-armed hug. I let the question lie. I wondered for a moment about my own departure, then decided I could open up my musty apartment in Heliopolis in the morning; tonight, I would gossip like a housewife. The musketeers filed onto the gangplank in an orderly line, where they bid goodnight to Amm Attia and made their way up the stone steps. Or so I imagined, as I made my way to the balcony where Youssef was lighting the first cigarette of a shiny new pack.

His face, when I left it long ago, had been shining with the reckless confidence only youth can bestow. His face, when I returned to it, was haggard and drawn. “Surely you’ve noticed by now.”

The United States had instilled in me a haughtiness that left me angry with myself for not noticing whatever it was I hadn’t noticed. I stayed silent.

“Ismail. Since the elections…” He trailed off. The beard had thrown me off, but I had guessed that it was a fashion statement. That perhaps Ismail was readying himself for hibernation. I had, apparently, guessed wrong.

“He voted Morsi?”

Youssef nodded and took a deep drag. There is something inherently unsettling about the compulsion Egyptian men have, the need to always keep our mouths occupied. I had learned to treat Freud as dated and irrelevant during my studies, but I began to wonder. “That’s not all bad. My uncle-”

He cut me off. “You know me Ramy. You know my views. Do you think it’d matter to me, who he voted for? There’s more.”

He handed me a cigarette. I handed it back. I’d stopped smoking. Cigarettes in the Big Apple were prohibitively expensive, and the habit had faded. Youssef shrugged and went on. He told me about how Ismail had been spending his free time. Shady mosques with bad reputations. Visits to the countryside, and not the picturesque kind. Even visits to the Sinai, which often took a lot longer than they should and from which he returned withdrawn and edgy, disappearing for days on end.

“The things he says sometimes, Ramy, I’m not even sure he realizes what he’s saying. Stuff about the Coptic Church, and how they’re plotting the downfall of the country,” he trailed off, fingering the cross around his neck. The circles we ran in, religious discrimination was not normally an issue.

I was taken aback. Ismail was our friend, and had been for as long as we could remember. This sounded nothing like him. I asked Youssef whether he was sure, whether there could have been a communications mix-up.

He turned to me, fire in his eyes, and viciously stubbed out his cigarette. Which was somewhat theatrical, seeing as how he’d just lit it. “Does it sound vague to you?”

“Point taken.” His intense gaze made me uncomfortable, and I turned back to the still goop of the Nile.

“It’s not going to end well,” he said after a lengthy silence. “Something’s coming, something big. He’ll be on the opposite side. I can feel it.” He looked at me, expecting some sort of reaction.

“Feel it? Really? Doesn’t that sound a bit… histrionic?” I regretted the words even as they floated between us.

The contempt drew its way across his face in deep creases. “What would you know,” he said, the words slow and deliberate. “About anything at all?”

The burning embers atop the shisha had breathed their last as Youssef walked back outside. I took a few fruitless puffs before resigning myself to a sleepless night amidst the earsplitting snores of Amm Attia in his wicker chair.

I awoke with searing fingers tapping at my skull; a sign that I had not smoked hash in too long. The thick smog of the drugs had not yet evaporated and I struggled to breathe for a moment before fumbling in the shuttered darkness until I found my glasses and my phone. The harsh white light of the screen was almost unbearable, but the ten or so unread text messages had an irresistible pull. My shiny new iPhone was a blank slate, so I had to guess who had sent which message.