She still remembers all the little details: how she received the news that she was pregnant, how her son seemed as tiny as a toy when he was born. She still remembers how happy he made her: his first words, his laughs, his cute little fingers, his first clumsy steps and his constant falls, her worries when he had bouts of diarrhea and a high temperature, how he would cry every morning as she washed his face, combed his hair carefully, then put on his uniform and took him to school before she went to work herself. She remembers how naughty he was at primary school, how rebellious in middle school after his voice broke and he showed signs of puberty, and the struggle to get him through secondary school exams; she borrowed money from her relatives to pay for private lessons.
She still remembers how happy she was at his high marks and that yellow slip of paper saying he had a place to study engineering at Cairo University. She remembers how proud she was as she watched him from behind the shutters, going off to college with his long ruler in his hand, and how she would say prayers to protect him and ensure that God was pleased with him. She had already had a son and a daughter, and this son was an “accident,” she sometimes whispered to her women friends, but he was her favorite child and the prettiest. Her elder son and daughter grew up and married, and her husband had died two years earlier, but her son was still with her, bringing back her own youth and making her happy again. On Friday she did not wake him; she deliberately left him to sleep so that he would not go out. She was worried for him, but at the same time she could not stop him. He woke up late, jumped out of bed and told her off for letting him sleep. She lied and said she’d forgotten. He washed hurriedly and got dressed. How strange this all seems now? Why was he in such a hurry to go out and why did she stand in his way and shout out, “Where are you going? Prayers are over.”
He wasn’t angry. He just smiled and there was a glint in his eyes and he gave her a big hug. Why did she give in and forget her fears? Why did she cling to him and smother him with kisses until he pushed her away gently, kissed her hand, turned and left? She can still hear the door closing and see herself going into the kitchen. She stood there preparing his favorite dish. She dipped pieces of chicken in breadcrumbs and then threw them in hot oil. She did it almost cheerfully, imagining him devouring them while she watched him with satisfaction. She thought she heard a noise from another room and she remembered she had left her mobile phone in the sitting room. She took the chicken out of the oil and turned off the gas, dried her hands quickly and rushed to answer the phone. It was an unfamiliar number and a young man answered, saying he was a friend of her son’s and that her son was fine but sick and in Kasr el-Aini hospital. The last thing she remembers is the pattern on the material on the chair she was staring at, and how she got dressed and stopped a taxi, and what the driver told her about Hosni Mubarak and how she replied. All these details are impressed on her memory, mixed up like an unintelligible haze. She’ll never forget the face of the receptionist at the hospital. She gave him her son’s full name and added, “I’m his mother. A colleague of his called me and said he was sick and had been brought here.” The receptionist took his time looking through the register, then looked up slowly and said, “Your son passed away. My condolences.”
She didn’t scream. She looked at the receptionist as if she hadn’t understood. She didn’t believe it. She was sure there must be some mistake. That can’t have been what happened. “Passed away”—what does that mean? He had gone out and he was going to come back, and she had cooked him chicken pieces the way he liked them. They had made a mistake, no doubt about it. Kasr el-Aini was like all public hospitals, totally in competent. This time she shouted, “Could you check the name please?” The receptionist looked at her sadly, then turned the register so that she could read it. Her son’s name was listed on a page headed “Deceased” in large letters written in haste. Only then did she scream. She screamed and slapped her face until the workers and relatives of patients gathered around her. Women she didn’t know came to console her and hug her, weeping.
A few minutes later she was in the mortuary. A man whispered condolences and she followed him to the door of the cold room. He opened the door and pulled out a long tray on which her son was laid. The man uncovered his face. He looked asleep, just as she had last seen him, wearing the same clothes he had bought for the Eid holiday: jeans, a white shirt, and a dark blue sweater. His face was calm, almost smiling. The only difference was that hole: a strange black hole that looked as if someone had drawn it right between his eyebrows.
Later she found out what had happened. Her son had taken part in the demonstration and the protesters came under attack with live ammunition. Some of the protesters fell near her son and he ran to help them. He dragged the first casualty to a private car to be taken to hospital, then he stood up and went off to bring another casualty. When the sniper had a clear line to his face through his sight, he aimed at a point between his eyebrows and pulled the trigger. The bullet penetrated his skull and it was all over. Her son fell, dead. One bullet for a whole life. A pull on a trigger making an end of memories and dreams. After that sadness and joy, the past and the future, are all the same. The person who killed her son was not part of an enemy army, but an Egyptian who had trained for years to kill Egyptians with precision and professionalism.
Reality was her son’s face with the bullet hole; everything else was dust swirling before her eyes: the death certificate, the burial permit, washing the corpse, the funeral and the burial, the tents to receive condolences and the tranquillizers she took every night, the ceremonies honoring the mothers of the martyrs and all the well-dressed speakers with their pompous rhetoric, certificates of appreciation and crystal ornaments engraved with her son’s name and the title “Martyr of the Revolution.” All these events are just echoes, shadows. The only reality is that her son no longer exists. He will not come home in the evening and whistle as he opens the apartment door. He will not sit at his desk again to study. He will not sleep in his bed and she will not wake him up to go to university. She will not hear his voice or see him again. At night she lies in bed and wonders: “Couldn’t he have lived? Was it impossible for him to survive? Might he not have been late for the demonstration for some reason or, even if he did go, might he not have caught the attention of the sniper or stepped aside suddenly so that the bullet missed him? Why did the sniper choose him to kill? Would the cosmic order change if her son could live with her for a few more years, even for one year, even a few months? Mightn’t she see him just one more time, speak to him a little and put her hand on his head and hug and kiss him; then he could go back to being dead?” She felt guilty about having such thoughts.
For five full months she did whatever she could to obtain justice on her son’s behalf. She submitted petitions and hired lawyers. She went to many offices and wrote new petitions. She answered all their questions and summoned witnesses who all confirmed the same details. She attended the trials of police officers accused of killing demonstrators in faraway places, thinking she might find among them the sniper who killed her son. She couldn’t accept the idea that her son’s murderer was free, going about his life as normal: eating and drinking, sleeping and laughing, and living with his family.
The martyr’s mother would like to meet Field Marshal Tantawi, the head of the military council, and she promises not to waste his time. She would merely ask him, “Field marshal, where are the snipers who killed our children? The Interior Ministry knows who they are, so why have none of them been arrested and tried? Not a single sniper has been tried. Is this justice, field marshal? My son is a martyr, thank God, and hopefully he is in heaven, but his killer must go on trial. Egyptian law has penalties for people who steal chickens or poison livestock, so is my son’s life worth less than the lives of animals? Field marshal, how can officers go on trial for killing demonstrators and keep their jobs? Why aren’t they suspended so that they can’t exploit their positions and influence the witnesses and the conduct of the trials?
“After four months, what does it mean when the Alexandria criminal court sets free policemen accused of killing demonstrators until the next session of their trial? What should we expect from senior Interior Ministry officials accused of killing demonstrators when they are free and still in leadership positions? What will matter most to them—to maintain law and order or to find any way to avoid conviction? Why is former Interior Minister Habib el-Adli being tried before a judge whom many people want questioned on suspicions about his relationship with State Security? Why are security men forming a cordon around Habib el-Adli so that no one can see him in the dock? If they are still wholly loyal to him, how can we expect them to put an end to the breakdown in law and order?
“Why does Interior Minister Mansour el-Eissawi insist on exonerating officers accused of killing demonstrators, saying they were engaged in legitimate self-defense? Is it right that the minister should prejudge the outcome of the trial? Did the demonstrators begin attacking police stations, or was it the police who started killing demonstrators in order to disperse them? Were the snipers acting in self-defense? Were the police trucks that ran over protesters acting in self-defense? Why is it that everyone who calls for justice for the martyrs is accused of maligning the police? There are many upright policemen but the officers who murdered people must go on trial and receive fair punishment. In this revolution Egypt sacrificed the finest of its young for the sake of freedom. They died so that we might live in dignity. Isn’t it the most basic justice that we should punish those who killed them?”
The mothers of the martyrs and all Egyptians await the field marshal’s response.
(Photo credit: Sherif9282)
