Issue No. 606
Living
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3 - 9 October 2002 Issue No. 606 Living |
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Mood Swings:
A conscript on my bonnet
If you have been driving for years, you're likely to have developed the knack for not running pedestrians over. And I thought I had, until the night when I was driving along the 6th of October Bridge, taking a friend back home after a lovely dinner. For some mad reason, some pedestrians voluntarily choose to risk their lives crossing the bridge's eight lanes. Often, they are young men, firmly holding a girlfriend by the hand in a supreme display of manliness and courage. My victim was not one of those.
He was a 19-year-old army conscript who had been standing for eight hours on the thin ridge separating the two sides of the bridge, this being another of 6th of October Bridge's anomalies. What exactly could policemen (usually young men performing their compulsory military service) be doing, standing all day on that thin ridge watching the endless traffic go by? They have no guns to chase criminals, no radios to inform their superiors of accidents or bottlenecks. They simply stand there, inhaling the pollution, occasionally helping to push aside vehicles that break down.
Around 11pm, Mohamed Abdel-Alim, far away from his home, a small village in Minya, was standing on that ridge, waiting, at the end of his shift, for the police truck that would take him back to the camp; or, in hindsight, for me. No sooner had the officer pointed to him from inside the truck, than he leapt off the ridge, towards the colleagues who were waving for him to hurry up, and practically flopped onto the bonnet of my car. I was not, luckily, driving fast. But by the time I stopped, Abdel-Alim was sprawled in front of the car, trembling and groaning. My heart almost stopped.
The police officer ordered a number of soldiers to carry their colleague to the truck and instructed me to follow him to a nearby police hospital. There, I was greatly relieved when the doctors told me that Abdel-Alim was safe. He was apparently shocked, and suffered a minor injury to the head when he hit the ground. I thought it was all over. But I was wrong. The police officer said we should go to the nearby police station to file a report.
At the station, I informed the duty officer that I was a journalist, and launched into an impassionate speech about how these soldiers should not be there in the first place, pointing out that pedestrians, by law, are not allowed to cross the bridge. The officer smiled, and agreed, and told me I had to spend the night in the station's detention room. The next morning I would be taken with other suspects to the prosecution's office for questioning, he said. Questioning, over what? Wasn't it all over? Abdel-Alim is OK. We even shook hands while I offered my sincere apologies and willingness for any assistance. The officer explained that hitting someone by car was a misdemeanour and that I must be interrogated by the prosecutors. I almost broke down, and begged the officer not to place me in the detention room along with common criminals. It was almost 3am, and the compromise the officer accepted, after I made a big fuss, was to let me spend the night in his office. I was grateful. But the worst was yet to come.
Around 8.30am, following a sleepless night, a few sergeants arrived to escort the suspects to the prosecution's office in Imbaba. Nearly 20 people, including a young boy of around 14 or 15, came out, all handcuffed to each other. The sergeant came to me and told me that I had to be handcuffed as well. I pleaded, desperately, and the sergeant made what he thought was a generous offer: he would handcuff me to a suspected prostitute, and would allow us both to sit next to him, rather than inside the prison car. Great. What if one of my sources or colleagues saw me? After a short drive, we reached the prosecution office in Imbaba. We were ordered to form a queue, two by two, and climb the stairs, to the top floor of the building, where dozens of other suspects from nearby police stations were also brought up for questioning. We were made to sit on the floor until our turn comes. The mother of the juvenile who came with us arrived and tried to give him sandwiches. The sergeant took them, picked one, nonchalantly, and devoured it, in one reassuring bite.
My name was called, and I went into a room where two young prosecutors sat, with an empty chair in front of their desks. I took a seat, and soon realised my mistake. "No suspect is allowed to sit down," one of the prosecutors yelled. To punish me for this faux pas, the prosecutor ordered my release, on the condition that I was not wanted for other crimes. This meant more hours of suffering, for I had to wait for all my fellow suspects to get interrogated, go back to the police station, and wait until 10pm to be taken to the Cairo Security Department, where the "supercomputer", I was told, would confirm that I had no criminal records. What if it does not? I wondered for a paranoid moment. What if someone has a similar name?
As it turned out, I was cleared. My first reaction was to sob, uncontrollably, for a few minutes. One officer saw me and was genuinely surprised: "Why are you so soft? Nothing happened!"
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