Resist thyself

Niran Sadiqa (Friendly Fire), Alaa El-Aswani, Cairo: Miret, 2004. pp210

---

With the book collectively entitled Niran Sadiqa ( Friendly Fire ), the subtext of historical critique informing these 10 short stories begins to unfold on the cover. Alaa El-Aswani's long awaited follow-up to his best-selling novel ' Imarat Ya'qoubian ( The Ya'qoubian Building ) -- a violent critique of contemporary society and one of the last two years' most talked about books -- the present volume immediately conjures up those overtones of bitterness that are fast becoming synonymous with this author's consistently oppositional take on contemporary life. Yet after turning the last page one is left wondering whether the title should be read as a double-entendre, whether El-Aswani, in depicting the fire to which his contemporary Egyptians are subject, is in fact opening his own fire on the reader.

In these stories the bitterness assumes lethal dimensions, so much so that Ahmad El-Labbad's cover art features a can of insecticide directed at an ancient Egyptian relief of funerary offerings. Most protagonists set out to resist oppression, or at least to reject the intolerable traps in which they end up being caught. Yet despite the affirmative stance of such characters as Essam in "He who came close and saw", or Mohamed El- Dawakhli in "The Sports Class", or indeed Izzat Amin Iskandar, perhaps the most courageous personality in the book, their minor freedom movements are invariably aborted, their survival, when they do survive, betraying an inglorious submission to the status quo.

Of the 10 short stories "He who Came Close and Saw" is the first and the longest -- at 102 pages it is almost a novella, a kind of Bildungsroman of premature demise. It follows the fate of Essam through his college years and in the light of his peculiar family situation. The son of a gifted cartoonist who failed to achieve fame or fortune, Essam graduates from university to occupy a bureaucratic job at "the chemistry agency". His unusual upbringing and the influence of his father's circle of frustrated talents soon begin to manifest themselves in his harshly existential stance. Highly educated and well read, he makes a conscious decision to forgo social integration, openly rejecting both populist nationalism and orthodox religiosity and refusing to conform to the moral standards of his colleagues at work -- a process that leads to complete alienation. While there is admirable courage in his consistency and determination to stay his own course, the reader cannot fend off a sense of hopeless disappointment at the end when Essam, by now clearly disturbed, is institutionalised.

Equally bleak is "The Drudge", a story of inglorious survival. An excellent student, Hisham graduates from the faculty of medicine only to realise, on beginning his residency, that intelligence and hard work are no longer necessary for a successful career as a surgeon -- his life's dream. What is needed, rather, is aptitude in drudgery, the role he must now perform vis-ˆ- vis his supervisor, the department director, being that of drudge. Unlike Essam, Hisham plays the game and wins, but he loses a piece of himself in the process. When he inexplicably fails the exam for his master's degree, he realises he must appease his supervisor if he is to pass at all. He does not question the imperative but, rather, immediately seeks to find out how he might do so -- a paradox that remains unresolved.

"He started explaining his problem to doctors he did not know; he would come up to them, smile and introduce himself. Then he would explain the issue and throw out the question, What do I have to do to make Dr Bassyouni like me? And no one knows for sure how Hisham found the answer in the end, because what happened next was a surprise. On Sunday, Hisham went in as usual to review the schedule of operations with Dr Bassyouni, an affair that did not usually require more than a few minutes. But this time Hisham was late -- so late that other doctors started whispering in worry and amazement. Hisham finally came out, his face reflecting a mixture of pain, exhaustion and relief. No one knew what happened that day, yet no one forgot this meeting either, for it was the beginning of the transformation. Afterwards Hisham would go in to see the doctor every day, spending a long time with him. In fact, the doctor would send for him if he didn't come."

Hisham also assists Bassyouni at his private clinic and, as the director's right hand, becomes an important figure within the department's hierarchy. He even comes out first the next time he sits for the exam and is given a secure official position at the faculty. The narrator, a friend of Hisham's, comments on how proud his peers are of him, and what wonderful time they spend together. And yet, he says, "despite his smiling face when he meets us, despite our loving him and holding him dear, sometimes we feel something has changed in our old friend, but we quickly brush that thought off our minds."

"The Sports Class", "Izzat Amin Iskandar" and "A Look at Nagui's Face" are all set in schools, with adolescent boy heroes acting out the same themes of power, oppression and resistance. In "The Sports Class" Mohamed El-Dawakhli, an obese child, has developed a strategy for avoiding ridicule: he obtains leave not to join in the games. His body concealed in uniform, he sits on the stairs watching his friends play football and occasionally keeping the score. When a new teacher insists that he should participate, in shorts and T-shirt, Mohamed becomes the laughing stock of his schoolmates. Laughing along with them, he tries to act the clown, but this only fuels their excitement -- and cruelty. His disgrace is compounded when they start beating him up. Izzat Amin Iskandar likewise stares his disability in the face when he throws aside his crutches and rides a bicycle, only to come down with a crash, his prosthetic leg dislocated and his thigh severely wounded.

It is Nagui's transformation from a beautiful, ideal pupil into a reckless autocrat that constitutes the most disturbing drama of power. Having dared to challenge the authority of his teacher, pointing out that corporal punishment is not allowed in front of the whole class, Nagui is quickly co-opted, assigned the task of watching over the class in the teacher's absence and reporting any wrongdoing. The terrifying part is that, to his friends' disbelief, he does not flinch from exercising his newfound power.

"Nagui stands over us, his hands joined behind his back. His eyes widen and examine us slowly. Everyone is careful, they fold their arms before them, and put their heads in their books while casting sidelong glances at me as if to warn me to be careful now that the times have changed. But I am not careful. Why should I be careful of Nagui when I am his [best] friend? I find myself calling out suddenly, Nagui, as if to hold on to him. But he pushes me away. He turns to the blackboard and chalks out my name [so I am given] 10 strikes before class. Tears wetting my face, my hands burning with pain, I turn to Nagui: perhaps if our eyes meet he would drop his head in shame."

Women by and large fail to arouse the reader's empathy; they are rarely seen as independent moral agents. A striking example is Essam's mother in "He who Came Close and Saw." She comes across not as a victim of breast cancer but as a repulsive embodiment of selfishness clinging unaccountably to life. Dependency is her excuse for unkind treatment of the housemaid, Hoda, yet another example of futile resistance, for despite the power she commands over the family, Hoda remains a helpless victim of sexual exploitation, struggling to raise a child as she puts up with her employers.

In a thinly veiled sermon on current social morality, El-Aswani contrasts two "types" of woman in two stories printed together under the title "An Old Dress and a Head Cover." In the first a kept woman, realising that her lover's offer of marriage is insincere, courageously goes through with an abortion. In the second a veiled, thus supposedly upright girl from a good family, lures her colleague into marriage on allegedly moral grounds for fear of their relationship generating a scandal even though in reality nothing scandalous has happened. Unlike the oppression- resistance dynamic through which much of the book operates, this take on contemporary morality is somewhat clichéd: the upright woman of ill repute as opposed to the scheming manipulative girl of good family.

Once again El-Aswani presents a disappointed, disappointing view of historically specific humanity, with his stories leaving a bitter taste in the mouth. Intent on stirring up ugliness and distress, he has produced a kind of companion volume of partial studies to the holistic picture he paints in 'Imarat Ya'qoubian, divulging more of the psychic drama behind the social disintegration that novel depicts. Perhaps it is from the depths of pessimism that new routes to the beautiful and the good are meant to emerge.

By Amina Elbendary