Egypt Rising Read online

  Egypt Rising

  By

  Stan Schatt

  Credits Page

  Eternal Press

  A division of Damnation Books, LLC.

  P.O. Box 3931

  Santa Rosa, CA 95402-9998

  www.eternalpress.biz

  Egypt Rising

  by Stan Schatt

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-62929-021-8

  Print ISBN: 978-1-62929-022-5

  Cover art by: Amanda Kelsey

  Edited by: Kim Richards

  Copyright 2013 Stan Schatt

  Printed in the United States of America

  Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights

  Worldwide English Language Print Rights

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication page

  This book is dedicated to my wife, Jane, who always has and always will be my inspiration.

  Chapter One

  Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be one of those perfect girls? You know the ones I mean—tiny noses that never cry out for a nose job, perfectly white teeth—straight as an arrow, and hair that doesn’t frizz when you walk out into the Cairo sun. Well, I don’t know because I’m definitely in the other group, the one boys never look at twice. The one who popular girls laugh at and whisper about. I have only one friend, and she’s not even American. Taylor and her friends don’t think she counts because she’s Egyptian.

  I love Saturdays! Thank God for weekends! Aasuma promised she’d meet me downtown and help me shop for a new dress even though her parents won’t let her wear anything that shows any bare skin. It’s not as if Aasuma wants to wear something cut to her belly button. She just wants a dress that doesn’t make her look like one of those mummies in the Cairo Museum.

  Tahrir Square is the most fun place in the world to shop. I’ve never lived anywhere else, so for sure it’s the best place in Cairo. Imagine a huge square that can hold thousands of people and hundreds of stores and peddlers with everyone talking at once. It’s easy for me to get out of the house because Dad always buries his head in a book.

  Poor Aasuma has to tip toe past her father who thinks she’s going to ruin her family’s reputation every time she leaves the house. Then she has to hope her brother isn’t home because he’s even worse than her father. He orders her around like a servant. Finally, there’s her mother who thinks girls should never leave their home except to get married or buried.

  Assuma and I made plans to meet in the lobby of the Nile Hotel, since it was right across the street from the shops. All Egyptians think of Tahrir Square as the heart and soul of the city. Besides the shops, the square includes the Egyptian Museum, the old campus of American University, and the headquarters of the country’s most important political party. It’s also one of the Cairo subway’s major stops.

  My hand brushed against my hijab. I always feel more comfortable when I cover my head while in downtown Cairo because that way I attract less attention. Men treat me with more respect if they think I’m an observant Muslim woman rather than a Westerner.

  Sometimes it helps to be short and dark. If I talk street Arabic and keep my sentences short, Cairo natives hear my accent and think I’m an Egyptian from the countryside visiting the big city. Sometimes I wish I could cover myself like the Muslim girls, so the clothes would cover my pooch. I know I never would, though, because I rebel at the very idea. Why dress that way just because some Islamic mullah woke up one morning angry with his wife and decided to punish all women?

  Dad looked over the top of the book he was reading and asked me when I’d be back because we were having dinner with Emily. God, I hate her! She’s what happens to the too perfect girls when they grow up. You know the type. She wears designer outfits that fit her perfectly. She always wears makeup even when she’s not going out. She even has her hair and nails done every week because her “business clients expect it.” She’s trying to make me her charity project. “Just try on this dress, Olivia,” she says. “It’s very slimming.”

  I know she’s after Dad. Who wouldn’t be? Did you know he’s famous? I still have a newspaper clipping from the Cairo Times that called him “Egypt’s own Indiana Jones.” That’s pretty cool, if you ask me. As far as mothers go, I’ve never had one, but the two of us are doing just fine. I gave Dad my biggest phony smile and told him I’d be back in plenty of time.

  I’m a fanatic when it comes to being on time, so I arrived first, wearing my hijab and a conservative dress that ran down to my ankles. The hammering and sawing in that hotel sounded like someone was trying to tear it down.

  Management never stops renovating that place. A group of German-speaking tourists milled around in the lobby while they waited for their guide. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for those foreigners. If they were lucky, they’d spend a couple of hours at the pyramids; meanwhile, hawkers shouted at them to buy their fake papyrus scrolls and plastic camels. It’s only after they were back home in Des Moines or Minneapolis that they’d look on the back of their treasures and see “Made in China” stamped on them.

  The tour guides rush their customers through their tours and then pose them for the expensive but obligatory picture of them atop a camel. I silently blessed Dad for choosing to live in Cairo and for teaching me so much about the real Egypt. I watched a mother try to stop a boy from crying after she refused to buy him a plastic pyramid that the gift shop featured in its window.

  I walked by the coffee shop and thought about buying a Coke. My heart stopped. I saw Emily sitting very close to an older looking European man and holding hands. I saw their faces turn as they kissed. Now, that’s something that just isn’t done in public in Cairo, especially now because of the growing power of the Islamic fundamentalists. I saw some men frown as they looked at the couple. One man said something in an angry voice, and I caught the Arabic words for ‘Western’ and ‘impure’. I moved away from the open doorway. Deciding I must have made a mistake. I stepped back and saw the couple still kissing. I didn’t know what I’d do, but I knew Dad would never believe me. I felt like someone stabbed me in the chest. I had trouble breathing.

  How could she kiss that guy? He was gross! He wasn’t just pale; his face was fish belly white to go along with a graying beard and gray hair. I estimated he was at least twenty pounds overweight. How could she do it? I had to get out of there before I’d scream.

  I moved closer to the front of the hotel’s entrance and waited for Aasuma; now I was anxious to get out before Emily saw me. I saw a flash of brown out of the corner of my eye. Assuma waved as she came through the double doors.

  Aasuma took a moment to catch her breath. Her flushed face told me that she probably had run up the subway stairs. Aasuma was always late. I never blamed her, though, because every time she managed to get out of her house was like she had broken out of prison.

  “My father says he heard there will be a demonstration today. He almost didn’t let me go. I promised I’d come home if I see a crowd gathering.”

  Aasuma wore a traditional Egyptian dress known as a tob sebleh along with her head covering. Still, anyone could see she was beautiful.

  “It looks like your mom dressed you,” I said.

  I said it with a smile because I knew Aasuma loved stylish clothes. She
hated covering herself like a sofa draped with sheets.

  “Good guess, but at least it wasn’t my father choosing my clothes,” Aasuma said.

  She shrugged as if to say that she didn’t have any choice in the matter. Aasuma’s rumor surprised me. I hadn’t heard anything about a planned demonstration on the morning news. Then again, the Government wouldn’t promote such a gathering. More important, though, I was relieved that Dad hadn’t heard the rumor and tried to stop me.

  Dad often lost himself in his books. I saw the title of the book he was reading and knew it was on one of his favorite subjects. The author claimed that the Holy Grail was really an artifact that went back to Atlantis times. It explained its strange power to destroy, as well as, the reason the Israelites kept it hidden in their Ark of the Covenant. That subject could keep him glued to his chair for hours.

  Right now, I could care less about stuff that happened so long ago. I was far more interested in finding a dress for our class formal. I promised myself I’d go stag if no one asked me. That was almost a certainty. I’d look like a balloon anyway, but maybe I could find something that would help. At least it would give Taylor something new to criticize. I wished Assuma could go with me to the dance, but that wasn’t going to happen. She enjoyed helping me shop for my dresses even though her parents banned all mixed social events as inappropriate for an observant young Muslim woman.

  We stepped out of the hotel, arm in arm. I tried to hide my shock over seeing Emily. I decided I wouldn’t let myself think about it until later. As we turned the corner onto Tahrir Square, we saw a huge crowd facing members of the state police. One officer had a bullhorn and shouted something in Arabic. I turned to Aasuma who was listening intently.

  “Did he tell the crowd to disperse? I couldn’t make out some of what he said.”

  Aasuma nodded. “He says they will give everyone five minutes to leave.”

  I know it sounds crazy, but my stomach always tingles just before something bad is going to happen. I had that feeling now in the pit of my stomach when I saw the crowd didn’t disperse. Some young men who looked like they were college students passed out napkins. One guy with stringy long hair handed some to me. The napkins were wet so I smelled them and then wrinkled my nose in disgust.

  “It smells like vinegar.”

  The student nodded and pointed to my nose.

  “Keep it close to your nose and eyes when they start firing tear gas. It will protect you.”

  “My father will kill me if I get involved in this,” Aasuma said.

  She turned away from the square and then recoiled at what she saw. The police had closed off that escape route as well. Aasuma looked toward the hotel and saw an employee closing the shades to the lobby and locking the front doors. We were trapped.

  The crowd counted down and began demanding that President Mubarak step down. My curiousness overcame any fear I had. I never saw a demonstration even though they were becoming very common during what people were calling the “Arab Spring.” Several governments including Tunisia had fallen and given way to more democratic governments. Now it was Cairo’s turn. The crowd looked peaceful, even jovial. One person joked about Mrs. Mubarak and her infamous land-grab.

  The story had spread throughout Cairo. The President’s wife noticed construction workers building an emergency hospital on the banks of the Nile and decided that the location was perfect for some very expensive residential housing that she owned. The leaders began chanting for the crowd to move towards the television station. People behind us began pushing them forward, and soon we were caught in the mob’s mass movement.

  I wished I were taller so I could look over the heads of the people in front of me. I heard the sound of tear gas canisters before I actually saw the gas. I tried holding the napkins as close to my face as possible, but my eyes began to smart and my nose hurt. I grabbed Aasuma by her arm and tried to run down a side street, but then I saw several police vans blocking the street. When we tried to turn around, we were pushed forward to the front of the crowd.

  The police now were swinging batons. I saw a college student wearing an American University sweatshirt groan and fall when a baton struck his head. Some demonstrators were trying to roll on the ground and cover their faces and vital organs. The police took that as an invitation to strike their arms and legs. Men and women were groaning and screaming. I heard a crack and assumed that the police had broken someone’s leg.

  One man dressed in the uniform of Mubarak’s goon squad turned towards us. He swung his baton at my head. Instinct took over, or I should say instinct and all the self-defense lessons Dad made me take with Mister Tanaka. I ducked and then landed a rabbit punch on his neck and saw him collapse.

  I pointed to a slight opening in the crowd and grabbed Aasuma’s hand, but it was too late.

  “You two, stop right there!” A police officer’s gruff command in Arabic caused both of us to freeze. The man pushed us towards some of his fellow officers who used plastic handcuffs to cuff our hands together. They pushed us towards a large black van and then shoved us inside. We stumbled and fell on our stomachs.

  “My father will kill me!”

  Aasuma’s face turned white as she spoke. I thought I needed to be brave for my friend.

  “They won’t keep us, especially when they learn I’m a khawaga,” I said.

  I used the Arabic word for Westerners who settled in Egypt. The truth was that I really wasn’t sure that anything I said would make much difference.

  Some people in the van moaned, and one man even threw up. I surveyed the group and saw a woman bleeding from a wound on the side of her head, while a man’s bloody nose looked broken. My back was sore, but I didn’t think anything was seriously damaged. I turned and studied Aasuma. She didn’t look injured, although I knew she was scared out of her mind.

  The van drove for around twenty minutes and then pulled into a side entrance of the central police station. A guard whose stomach stuck out well beyond his belt pushed us through a door that led to a large holding cell. A man wearing a guard uniform removed our handcuffs and closed the jail cell door behind us. There were no chairs. Some men and women were sprawled on the floor. We stood close together.

  Aasuma couldn’t stop shaking. I put my arm around her and whispered that we’d be fine. After several minutes I felt her relax a little, and start breathing normally again. A couple of Egyptian men in their mid-twenties were whispering to each other and looking at us. I stared at them until they turned away. Egyptian men, particularly the religious ones, weren’t used to women who didn’t drop their eyes and act like they needed to apologize for being alive. I hated that.

  Finally, the same guard appeared again and pointed at us. He opened the cell door and led us down a long hall and knocked on a door. A man’s voice told us in Arabic to enter, so the guard opened the door and directed us in.

  The small room had two chairs facing a large middle-aged man who sat at his desk. He wore an officer’s cap with a brim that reflected a glow from the single light bulb over his desk. His crisp uniform showed absolutely no wrinkles. He polished his shoes until they shone like glass and groomed his mustache as if he wanted to make a fashion statement. I thought this officer’s attention to detail spelled trouble because he probably was a stickler for rules and wouldn’t listen to any explanation.

  He asked us our names in a gruff voice, using street Arabic. He wrote Aasuma’s name without looking up. When I answered, he stared at me for a long time.

  “You are a foreigner?”

  “I’m an American. This is a terrible mistake. My friend and I were just shopping.”

  “Let me see your identification.”

  I pulled out my school ID card. It showed I attended Cairo University’s International High School.

  He frowned. “What about your friend? Are you going to tell me that she also is an American?”

  I tried to make my voice sound strong and firm, but it came out in a high-pitched squeak. “No, of cou
rse not. She’s Egyptian, but she also attends my school. We were going shopping, but the crowd blocked us from leaving. My father teaches at the school. You have to let us go!”

  “I don’t have to do anything. Perhaps it would teach you both a lesson if we keep you here for a while.”

  I knew I had to say something to make him free us. Suddenly I remembered Kahlu Hamza. He was a quiet boy in my class who only cared about one thing, computers. He had come from the peasant class, so most students ignored him. I had befriended him and once had even met the boy’s father who had thanked me for helping his son fit in. The man had radiated power, reflecting his position as a Colonel in President Mubarak’s elite palace division.

  “I know Colonel Hamza. You can call him and check. If you don’t let us go, he’ll be very upset.” I tried to sound confident.

  The police officer stared at me, trying to gauge my words. He picked up a phone and whispered something into it. He hung up and looked at me. “We’ll just see. It would be a very good thing for you if your friend, the Colonel, calls me back and tells me that he knows you. If he doesn’t bother to return my phone call, both of you will face charges for participating in an illegal demonstration. You will face additional charges for assaulting an officer. I’m sure your parents will be very unhappy.”

  I thought of answering, but I realized everything hinged on Colonel Hamza. If I said anything more and made this guy angry, I’d be toast.

  The man turned to Aasuma. “I expect more from an observant girl. At least you dress like one. You should know better than to associate yourself with hoodlums and foreigners.”

  Aasuma was breathing very rapidly and biting her lip to keep from crying. She clearly was terrified. I forced myself to take slow breaths. I looked at the officer and tried to appear to be calm as if I didn’t have a care in the world. My heart was beating so fast that I thought I’d faint.