Bahaa Taher - Sunset Oasis

Then I shouted, 'Come in!'

Ibraheem's knocks on the door woke me with a start from my doze.

His words mixed with the remnants of the dream so I couldn't concentrate on what he was saying. I understood from his sorrowful tone that he was reproaching me because I hadn't allowed them to wake him. Was he no longer of any use in the station? I mollified him and asked him to bring me a large mug of tea. Then I fell fast asleep and didn't even notice the bustle of the start of work at the station or the morning light that entered the room though the shutters were closed. Eventually I got up and opened the shutters and started walking rapidly about the room to restore some warmth and energy.

When Ibraheem returned he remained standing in front of me as I sipped my tea from the mug, my hand trembling and causing a few drops to fall on the desk in spite of myself. I put the mug on the desk and asked him, 'Do you want something, Sergeant Ibraheem?'

He looked hesitant for a few instants, then told me that Sheikh Sabir had come that day before dawn and met the captain.

'I know,' I said. 'I met Sabir and he said he was checking the tax accounts with the captain,'

'Accounts? And why would they check them in secret, Excellency? It's not the first time. The sheikh often comes in the middle of the night and they go into the office on their own where no one can hear them, and he leaves before anybody in the station is awake. Is that "checking accounts"?'

'You're dismissed now, Sergeant, and stop spying on the captain or anyone else. If there's something going on, we'll find out about it in due course.'

'How can that be, sir?' he protested. 'When will the due course be? We have to take steps before it's too late.'

'We shall, God willing, take steps. Dismiss now, Ibraheem.'

He left, grumbling. How can I tell him, 'These things are of no importance to me. Anything that might befall me has already happened'?

* * *

I spent the day working at the station, inventing things to do. I inspected the storerooms and started writing letters to the ministry about the supplies and the ammunition they needed to send with the next caravan to make up for what had been used. Captain Wasfi came to review the accounts concerning the amount of taxes collected. He said that he'd gone over them with Sheikh Sabir that morning and that they were in conformity with the ministry's requests. I deduced that he'd heard about my encounter with Sabir and come to review the accounts, which he should have done long before. He sat in front of me following me with his eyes, which never stop moving and get on my nerves, so I cast a glance at the lists and thanked him, setting them aside. He also had other papers in his hand, however, which he presented to me, saying, 'These came to me with the last caravan. Your Excellency might care to take a look at them.' They were old issues of the newspaper el Muqattam, which I hate. I read a few headlines quickly and then handed them back to him, saying, 'It seems the young Khedive is not like his father. It seems he doesn't like the British a great deal.'

'He will!'said Wasfi.

He spoke with great confidence, so I asked him, 'How so?'

'Our government cannot do without the British. We need them.'

I said, smiling, 'But the other night you were extolling the greatness of our ancestors the Ancient Egyptians and praising their remains. Cannot the descendants be as worthy of ruling the country as their grandsires?'

'Not at present. First we have to learn many things from the British. See, Your Excellency, how it is the British who reveal to us the Ancient Egyptian antiquities and their greatness, while we know nothing about them. Mrs Catherine almost sacrificed her life in pursuit of knowledge, and what did the ignoramuses whom she was trying to serve do to her?'

I said nothing, so he continued heatedly, his eyes jumping around even faster than usual, 'I wasn't able to explain my point of view to Your Excellency the other night because Miss Fiona interrupted me. I wanted to say that the strife caused by the mutineers prevented us from progressing. Your Excellency must have seen with your own eyes the chaos that the country lived through during those days and which my father told me about.'

'What exactly did your father see and tell you about? What was his position at the time?'

'He was a brigadier general in the army.'

'And did he preside over a commission of inquiry with the Urabists?'

He said in surprise, 'No. No, I don't think so. Anyway, he's now on reserve, but he remembers every detail of the riots and the strife. He told me that one of those traitors, I think his name was Mohamed Ebeid, went so far as to contemplate murdering Our Master the Khedive! Imagine, Your Excellency, the ruination that could have overtaken the country!'

With a quiet laugh, I said, 'I do, Captain!'

Then I went on in the tones of one who wants to bring the conversation to an end, 'So, to be brief, you can see that the Urabists committed crimes against Egypt because they wanted the people of the country to rule it.'

He pursed his lips in distaste and said, 'That, sir, is the sickness that brings ruin in its wake! When the common people interfere in government, chaos follows, and weakness. Just look, Your Excellency, at France! Since the day the revolutionary upheaval began there and the common people participated in government, the country has gone to the dogs. Even when God gave them unequalled military geniuses like Napoleon, the British were able to defeat him and crush him because the government of France was at the mercy of the mob. England, on the other hand, was administered by strong politicians.'

'Masters.'

'Politicians, sir.'

'Exactly, masters who are politicians.'

I stood up saying, 'We must discuss these matters some other day, Captain.'

He too stood and said, 'That would give me great pleasure. I shall learn much from Your Excellency.'

He saluted with his usual correctness and when he opened the door to go out, I said to him quietly, 'Listen, Wasfi.'

'Sir?'

'Urabi Basha had more honour than ten khedives put together. And Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Ebeid had more honour than all the traitor khedives and bashas who sold us to the British.'

He stood at the open door looking at me as though stunned. Then I said quietly, 'Dismiss!'

I sat back down at my desk, a voice inside me mocking me and saying, 'But it's twenty years too late to say that, my dear major! And you should have said it to someone other than Wasfi!'

Why, though, had his words revived that memory? What takes me back, at this moment of hopelessness, to the days of glory? The fact that I was there!

I was there, in the house of Sultan Basha, Speaker of the House of Representatives, along with Captain Saeed and Lieutenant Tal'at, providing security for the meeting. The whole of Egypt was there — the members of parliament, the high officials, the sheikhs of el Azhar, the priests of the Church, the notables from the countryside, even the princes of the khedivial house. I was close and saw the tall handsome peasant officer standing, his face red, its muscles working as he brandished his sword.

The Khedive was far away in Alexandria and had accepted the notice the British had given him to exile Urabi from Egypt and dismiss the revolutionary government. Urabi spoke and said that there was no solution but to remove the Khedive, and those present applauded him. Tal'at took out his revolver, intending to fire it in the air as a salute to Urabi, but Saeed told him off and pulled the hand holding the gun down. When Urabi said, 'Anyone who's with us, rise!' most of the people there stood up, though Sultan Basha and the rural notables remained in their seats. At that moment I caught a whiff of the betrayal that was coming, and Mohamed Ebeid felt it too, and waved his sword and said, in the heat of his fury, 'I will kill him myself, Urabi Basha, and then you can execute me afterwards!' Urabi, also furious, said, 'Make that madman shut up!'