Every Man in This Village Is a Liar_ An Education in War - Megan K. Stack [93]
“We just have to keep going now. Forget about your camera. Forget it. We’ll think about it later. This is not about us, okay? We’re not the story here.”
“Bastards,” he said. I patted his back awkwardly; it felt stiff as stone under my fingers. He didn’t want my consolation; he was seething. This was his fight, his future, his broken promises. It was his country, not mine.
We were joined on the streets by our friend, an American analyst with the International Crisis Group, shaking his head from side to side. When he finally spoke, the words came out slow and matter of fact:
“I’m not convinced that if the Muslim Brotherhood took over, imposed sharia, and started chopping off heads in Tahrir Square, it would be worse. If there were some justice to how they were chopping heads, it might be better.”
Dusk smeared the steely sky. APCs loomed on the streets; the army had deployed artillery to keep the people out of the polling stations. Darkness injected the crowd with new recklessness. The promised day of justice and retribution had been wasted; the hours burned off like fog, and people were crazy with rage.
Men snatched up chunks of broken lumber. Little boys lobbed rocks at the steel swell of armored vehicles. “I can’t believe we’re in Egypt,” I told Hossam. He shook his head, eyes darting around. The pop of tear gas canisters rang in alleys, then a dull hiss as chemical clouds swallowed the butcher shops, cigarette stands, and teahouses. Children squeezed themselves flat against the buildings and wept. We buried our noses in the crooks of our arms, eyes streaming, throats clenched. Out of the haze stumbled Sayed, our driver, hacking and choking. I couldn’t tell if he was coming to fetch us, or looking for shelter from the gas. He didn’t seem to know either; he just wept and coughed. People were shredding rags, soaking them in water, pressing them to their mouths. Egyptian hospitality unflagged, they kept offering me their rags because I was a foreigner.
“May God avenge me!” screamed a nearby man, tripping down the street with tears coursing down his face. “Take a picture of me while I’m crying,” he sniffled.
“I can’t,” Hossam snapped.
The tanks loomed like dinosaurs through the haze. Forms stumbled forth, scattered words at our feet, and lurched onward. Rubber bullets slammed through the air.
“We are determined to vote in spite of this,” said Reda Shamma, a twenty-three-year-old engineering student who washed up at our side like something tossed from the sea. He raked his hands through his hair. He didn’t seem to realize he was screaming.
“We won’t elect somebody with liquor at his place,” he ranted on. “He’s against God’s choice and we can’t elect this guy, we just can’t.”
In the square the men chanted: “Fiqi, you fucking pimp; Fiqi, you fucking pimp …”
“Look at this!” another man shouted. He handed over one of the spent tear gas canisters. He pointed to the block lettering. MADE IN THE USA, it said. He looked at me, waiting for an answer.
I had none to give.
Cold darkness fell over the town. The polls closed. A drizzle began. A long winter sat ready to swallow the countryside. Boys wheeled on bikes; women wandered along the edges of the canals. When you passed people in the street, they muttered his name: Gamal Heshmat. But they didn’t look at you, and they kept walking.
Judges packed the padlocked ballot boxes into taxicabs and drove them to the military academy, where they would be counted by hand. The street in front of the counting station writhed with bodies. It was the kind of crowd so big and mad that it forces you to cede control; it will bear you along, but if you resist it can crush you. The Brotherhood representatives who worked for Heshmat tried to follow the taxis toward the school. They had a right to monitor the vote count. But the police turned them away and hauled out metal barriers.
A chant rose