Rebels by Accident (4 page)

When we get back to customs, Deanna's rude friend from the airplane is there in his wrinkled blue suit, with a pushcart full of suitcases. I'm hoping to God she doesn't see him.

Deanna walks right over to him. “Hi,” she says.

“Deanna, please don't start,” I mutter under my breath.

The man turns to us. “Hello, girls from the plane,” he says. “Would you look at this?” Now his accent sounds less New York and more Upset Baba. “Ridiculous. It's like we're moving backward. Look at all these people just pushing ahead; no respect for order at all. I guess this is Egypt. What can I expect?”

“Where are you from?” Deanna asks.

“Excuse me?”

“Where are you from?” she repeats.

“I'm an American citizen. I live in Detroit.”

“You have a Brooklyn accent.”

“That's where I lived when I first got to the States.”

“So you're not American?” Deanna asks, surprised.

“I just told you, I'm an American citizen.”

“I don't mean your citizenship. Where were you born?”

“Why? Do you work for the Egyptian security forces or Homeland Security?”

“Deanna, let's go.” I pull on her arm. It's clear this man doesn't want us bothering him.

“I just think when American citizens travel to other countries where we are guests, we should be respectful and not act like jerks.”

“Deanna!” I say. “Sir, please excuse my friend. She's just—”

“No.” He puts the palm of his hand in front of my face. “Don't make excuses for her.” He squints at Deanna, and she looks back at him like they're in a staring contest.

“Giza,” he finally says.

“Giza?”

“That's where I'm from.”

“You're from where the pyramids are?” It's like Deanna just met King Tut himself.

“That's the place.”

“So why are you complaining?”

The man doesn't respond, but he looks at Deanna like he's thinking over her question. Finally, he says, “Well, it's hard to get used to a place when you've been away for a while.”

“How long have you been away?” I ask, thinking about Baba.

“Haven't been back since 9/11.” He looks into Deanna's eyes like he knows she's going to ask why. “It's a long story, but mostly life has a way of stealing time.”

“Didn't you miss your family here?” Deanna asks.

“The questions. All the questions,” the man says. “What's your name?”

“Deanna.” She extends her hand.

“Ahmed,” he says as he shakes her hand. “My pleasure. I like a person who speaks her mind—usually.” He smiles.

Obviously, Deanna doesn't smile back, but I can see in her eyes she's starting to like him.

“This is Mariam,” Deanna offers. “We're visiting her
sittu
.”

Ahmed speaks to me in Arabic, but I just stare at him.

“Oh, you're the girl who thinks English is good enough.” He looks past me a moment, then says, “What stupidity!”

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“No, not you. Them.” Ahmed lifts his chin toward the row of customs officers in front of us.

“Why are you coming into this country?” he imitates. “Do you hear the stupidity of that question? Why? Who cares why? And if it were a bad reason, would the person tell them?” Ahmed sounds even more irritated than he did on the plane. Isn't this guy just doing his job? “And look, see that man?”

“The one whose suitcase they've opened?” Deanna asks.

“Watch the trouble they give him.” A customs officer takes everything out of the man's luggage. “There goes his underwear.”

“I don't want some stranger looking at my underwear,” Deanna says.

“They might?” I ask him.

“No worries. They don't stop everyone.” Ahmed's smile looks so forced, if I wasn't worried before, I am now.

We stand there for what seems like forever, inching our way forward, not saying a word, watching men, women, and children move through customs and out a set of sliding glass doors.

“What's happening there?” Ahmed stares at the far end of the customs tables. Deanna and I look. A man in a brown suit, more wrinkled than Ahmed's, is carrying a little boy no older than two. Standing next to him is a woman with dark hair like mine. A customs officer moves his head back and forth between his computer screen and some document, probably a passport. The man in the wrinkled suit is speaking rapidly in Arabic. He sounds scared.

The officer is now motioning to one of the security guys in tight pants. He walks toward the table, carrying a machine gun.

The man in the wrinkled suit hands the little boy over to his wife and begins shouting.

“Ahmed, what is he saying?” Deanna asks quietly.

“Shush.”

With the butt of his gun, the soldier pushes against the man's back. The man refuses to move. Another police officer rushes over, yelling in Arabic, then the man starts to walk. His wife tries to follow, but the first soldier's gun blocks her. She shouts in Arabic, and her little boy begins to cry. The soldier doesn't say a word.

The man is escorted to a green metal door. The police officer bangs the butt of his gun against the door, and it opens. The officer pushes the man inside. The wife begins to cry louder than her child. She reaches after him. The soldier still won't let her by.

Then, out of the mob in front of us, a woman in a black cloak marches around the barrier and right up to the soldier, stepping in between him and the wife. She shouts at the guard, gesturing with her black-cloaked arm, and the mother slips around her and runs to the green door. She bangs and bangs until it opens to let her inside. The door slams shut behind her.

The guard looks at the door, then the woman in the black cloak. He shouts at her, gesturing toward all of us on the other side of the customs barrier. Without saying another word, she goes back to her place in the crowd.

“Wow, that took guts,” I say. What I don't say is how shocked I am that someone who would cover herself up like that could have the courage to stand up to a soldier with a machine gun. She's the invisible hero.

“Look.” Deanna nudges me. “Pink shoes.”

Oh my God. It's the cotton candy lipstick lady.

“What's on the other side of that door?” Deanna asks Ahmed.

“Always wanting answers. You know, you should be careful what you ask.”

Deanna glares at Ahmed. She's not going to let it go.

“An interrogation room,” Ahmed says.

“What did he do wrong?” I ask.

“Maybe he's one of those bloggers who criticized Mubarak,” Ahmed says.

“It's illegal to blog here?” I say. This country is worse than I imagined.

“Only if you say something the government doesn't like.”

“I read about this,” Deanna says. “Most of the bloggers are older, like in their early twenties—”

“That's young to some of us,” Ahmed says, and smiles.

“Whatever you say.” Deanna flips her hand at Ahmed. To me, she says, “All they did was write about the rich people who live so well while others are starving in bread lines in this country. It was so depressing.”

“Yes, it's very depressing,” Ahmed says. “But starvation is not the problem in this country. We are not respected by this government. Mubarak—over thirty years he's been in power, and he kicks us like dogs.”

“Why do people keep voting for him?” I ask.

“Mar.” Deanna rolls her eyes. “You can't be that naïve. It's all fixed. The elections here aren't real.”

“But that man they arrested looks too old to be a blogger,” I comment, just to say something. I'm embarrassed that I really don't know anything about Egypt's government.

“Older people can't blog?” Ahmed says.

“I just mean…” I stop myself. I don't know what I mean. I guess I just can't believe someone would be arrested or stopped from visiting a country or returning to his country because of a blog post. Ahmed glances at another soldier. “That man may not have written anything, but maybe his cousin who he hasn't spoken to in years did. Or maybe he doesn't know why they are giving him this hard time, and maybe he will never know. All I do know is that man will be in that room a lot longer than we will be in this line, unless he's able to put more than a few dollars in those soldiers' pockets or throw around a few big-shot names of people he knows. But if he could do that, he probably wouldn't have been pulled aside in the first place. This is what it's like here. Harassment. Always harassment.”

“But the woman and the boy—are they going to be sent to jail too? They didn't do anything.”

“The officials probably thought it would be easier to let her in than to have her scream out here. You don't want to upset the tourists. They probably would've arrested her and the woman in the
burka
if they were men.”

“
Burka
?
” I say.

“The one all covered up.”

“Weren't there women bloggers who were arrested too?” Deanna asks.

“True,” Ahmed says.

“Deanna, we have to call your mother. She's a lawyer. She'll know how to help these people,” I say.

“My dear girl, that is very sweet, but American lawyers are not what those people need right now. Prayers are what they need,” Ahmed tells me. I know if my face is showing how I feel, he can see how freaked out I am. “Look, don't worry. In a few hours,
insh'allah
, they will probably let them go. Like I said, it's just harassment. People are used to that sort of thing here.”

“How can they take it?” Deanna asks.

“Some protest—mostly on campuses—but security in Egypt is very good at containing dissent.”

A soldier—the same guy Ahmed was just looking at—walks over to us. He stares at Deanna and me for what feels like forever, then says something to Ahmed. A question, maybe, it's hard to tell. Ahmed shows him his passport, waves toward us, and nods a lot. The soldier looks at the passport, glances at us again, then clicks his tongue and says something else in Arabic. What is he saying? Is Ahmed in trouble? Deanna grabs my hand. Her palm is sweaty but so is mine. If they take Ahmed into that room, I don't know what we'll do. What can we do? I want to go home.

“
Shukran
,” Ahmed says as the soldier gives him back his passport and walks away.

“What was that about? Are you in trouble?” Deanna asks Ahmed, letting go of my hand.

“We are all—”

“In trouble?” I shout.

“We're in the wrong line. We need to be over there.” Ahmed lifts his chin to the sign that says “Foreign Visitors.” “We're in the line for the Egyptians. Come on.” He starts off without looking back, his long legs taking him quickly away from us.

“I thought you and Mariam were Egyptians,” Deanna says as she drags her two rolling suitcases behind her.

“I'm American. I was born there, and I'm proud to be one,” I correct her, scurrying to keep up with her and Ahmed.

The “Foreign Visitors” line is straight and orderly, like the cafeteria lines at school.

Ahmed whispers to us as we fall in behind him, “This is good he noticed you. They treat you better if you're American.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Deanna says.

“It doesn't seem fair,” I add.

“Welcome to Egypt.” Ahmed pulls out a handkerchief that's the same blue as his tie and wipes his forehead.

“Are you feeling okay?” I ask, now noticing how much sweat is dripping off his face.

“The air conditioner is not working too well in here. No surprise.”

“I guess,” I say, though I'm actually feeling a little cold.

“Hey, is that your
sittu
?” Deanna asks, pointing toward the glass doors behind the customs officers. Standing next to a man holding a cardboard sign with Arabic letters written on it is a thin woman with white hair. “Maybe. How do you know what Sittu looks like?” I ask.

“There are pictures of her in your living room.”

I had forgotten about them. But in the pictures, Sittu's hair has very little gray in it.

“Wave, Mar. Wave,” Deanna says, swaying her arms back and forth. “Mariam's
sittu
! Mariam's
sittu
!” she yells until the doors slide closed. “Maybe that's not her. She didn't wave back or anything.”

Now I'm sure it's her. Sittu doesn't seem like she'd be the waving type.

“What am I thinking? Of course she didn't wave back,” Deanna says. “She doesn't even know me. Mar, when the doors open again, you wave.”

“I don't want to,” I tell her, but as soon as the doors slide open again, Deanna lifts my arm in the air, shouting, “This is Mariam!”

The woman shakes her head like we're embarrassing her or something, and I'm sure the expression on my face matches the one on hers, which tells the world, “I'm only here because I have no choice.”

“Your
sittu
is a very attractive woman,” Ahmed says, looking better than he did a moment ago.

“Aren't you married?” Deanna asks, looking down at his gold wedding band.

“Please excuse me. My comment was not meant to be in any way, uh, sleazy.” His accent sounds like Baba's again. “I was only commenting like one comments on a work of art.”

“Oh brother,” Deanna mutters.

“In this case”—Ahmed smiles before he gives us the punch line—“it would be more appropriate to say, ‘oh sister.'”

“You're a funny guy,” Deanna says.

I shake my head and look toward the doors again, but Sittu is no longer standing there.

“Next.”

It's our turn to meet the customs officer. “It was nice meeting you.” Deanna extends her hand. She and Ahmed shake, and Deanna dashes to the officer.