Alaa al-Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt

Several of them then retorted:

“Even you, even your brain has gone soft!”

“If you go on like that, you’ll go down with him!”

“That Abdoun’s a spy. You’ll see soon enough.”

During the third week, they refrained from discussing the subject of Abdoun. Whenever they got together, they would talk about everything under the sun, tell each other jokes and have a laugh, but something inside them had changed. Except for Bahr and Samahy and a few other sympathizers, the staff now resented Abdoun. He was pushing them toward the unknown. He was upsetting the equilibrium. If he could speak up against Alku and get away with it, then why, for all those long years, had they been so submissive and put up with all his bullying? Their lives had been based on one truth: that Alku was a tyrant about whom they could do nothing. If their faith in that truth was shaken, then nothing was sacred.

As much as their image of Alku as a bully terrified them, it also gave them a sense of security. However harshly he might deal with them, he also looked after them and made them feel safe. At times of crisis, they looked to him the way a child clings to its mother in a crowded room. They derived their strength from him. They knew that he would always put things right. You could say that Alku was a husband, and they were his obedient wives. If they were in a predicament or felt something was going wrong, they would tell each other, “Alku won’t like it. He likes everything to go like clockwork. Just wait and see what he does.”

But now the ground rules were changing, and it perturbed them. Cause was no longer leading to effect. Something fishy was going on behind the scenes. How was it that Alku could know about Abdoun’s outspokenness but not punish him? Moreover, Bahr and Samahy and maybe even others were publicly supporting Abdoun. What would Alku do to them? It would be a mockery if he left them unpunished, but it would not be logical to punish them and not Abdoun. Why would you punish the small fry and not the big fish?

As if the staff’s anxieties had been communicated to Alku, he responded with a series of brutal daily inspections of the Club. From out of his black face, his eyes flashed like those of a wild animal about to savage its prey. He was no longer investigating a complaint or checking up on their work. He was searching for the slightest reason to punish them. If someone looked at him wrong or if there was the tiniest delay in carrying out his orders, he would gesture to Hameed, who would seize the victim for a slap and a few good kicks. The staff usually accepted the punishment mutely as if it was their inexorable fate or else cringed before Alku begging forgiveness. Now, a strange phenomenon could be noted. When a worker was being beaten by Hameed, he would make some sign of protest. He might mutter a word or make a gesture with his hand like someone who’d been wronged. These almost imperceptible and trifling objections bore a hidden message, an unspoken grudge: “You’re having me beaten for the flimsiest of reasons while Abdoun rails against you in front of us all, and you haven’t done anything about that.”

Alku understood the message, and he would glower, gnash his teeth, ordering Hameed to beat the man harder.

Rikabi the chef, Maître Shakir and Yusuf Tarboosh in turn each oversaw a state of terror in their respective departments. Their pent-up anger made them snap if one of their subordinates made the slightest error, leading to reprimands and curses and confiscation of tips. Yusuf Tarboosh slunk around behind his staff in the casino, and if he noticed something not right, he would say quietly to the man, “That’s two days’ salary gone. You’ll learn.” Maître Shakir was likewise pronouncing punishments and then walking off, ignoring the poor waiter’s pleas. In the kitchens, Rikabi the chef, having meted out punishment to one of his staff, would look at the rest, hold up one finger in an obscene gesture and snarl at them, “By God, I have to put up with you bastards every day. If you think you’re Abdoun’s boys, you’ve got another thing coming.”

The daily inspections continued, and the random bullying left the staff in a state of dejection. They now all worked in anxious silence, expecting the worst at any moment. The happy atmosphere that had existed as they cleaned the Club each morning was a thing of the past, dispelled by thought of the dark day to come.

In the midst of this misery, Karara the waiter surprised them all by rushing over to Abdoun when he walked through the Club door. “Who sent you,” he shouted at him, “to cause such problems and turn us all against each other?”

Karara tried to slap his face but missed and hit his shoulder. Abdoun made no attempt to evade him but grabbed him by his waistcoat, pulling it so violently that he ripped it open at the neck, exposing his chest. Abdoun made the most of the moment of Karara’s surprise to direct a punch at his nose.

Looking down at his ripped waistcoat, Karara touched his nose, incredulous that it was bleeding. “I’ll rip your fucking clothes to pieces, you bastard!” he roared at Abdoun like a wild animal about to lunge.

But Abdoun anticipated him and jumped backward, landing another punch on Karara’s nose, making him scream. Then Abdoun kicked him, and he fell to the ground. It was clear to all that Abdoun would have killed him were it not for three of their colleagues, Suleyman the doorman, Mur’i the lift operator and Labib the telephone operator, who had come out of his cubicle when he heard all the commotion. The three threw themselves between the two men rolling around on the floor, using their every ounce of energy to pry them apart. Karara carried on screaming obscenities, whereas Abdoun turned around calmly and walked up the stairs to the changing room.

The next day, some well-intentioned colleagues tried to get them to make peace with each other.

“We know that Karara slapped you,” they told Abdoun. “But you ripped his waistcoat and punched him.”

“He started it, so talk to him.”

“Don’t be like that, Abdoun. Karara is older than you. Come on; let’s make it up.”

Abdoun allowed himself to be led to the restaurant, where Karara was busy setting the tables.

“Peace be upon you,” one of the men said to Karara.

“Peace and God’s mercy be upon you,” he murmured, realizing straightaway the purpose of their visit. The men started their attempt at reconciliation, saying, “Karara, Abdoun is your younger brother. You’re like family to each other.”

“It was a moment of madness, Karara. We’re back to normal now.”

“Both of you are in the wrong.”

“For God’s sake, Abdoun, shake hands with Karara.”

They pushed Abdoun toward Karara, and he held out his hand as the others urged them on. Karara looked at Abdoun and, breathing heavily as if trying to contain himself, firmly shook his hand. A sense of relief descended, and some even cheered. Karara, unconvinced by the reconciliation, forced a half smile. He turned around and went back to laying out the cutlery, signaling that he wanted the parley to be over. The men decided that they had gone far enough and led Abdoun back out of the restaurant, feeling that they had done their good deed for the day. Except that what had transpired between Karara and Abdoun sent a message to everyone: no one should mess with Abdoun. That changed the way they spoke to him. When they disagreed with him, they expressed themselves without sarcasm or derision. The afternoon of the following day, they found him in the café and started firing the usual aggressive questions at him:

“So Abdoun, do you really think that you can fix the world?”

“Are you happy that our tips have been confiscated and we have blows raining down upon us?”