The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz Page A

lesson, where she’d always commanded attention.
    Mahfouz had begun the attack and so he was to blame, said Ines. He’d killed someone first and paid a fair price. And what’s more, the people who commanded him to kill should be punished too. Didn’t people have enough to deal with every day, with their sorrows and troubles, and the anxiety of waiting, without people’s lives being lost, too? And for what reason?
    Um Mabrouk warily tried to silence her—you were never safe these days, not even from your own brother—and when she didn’t succeed she edged away, said goodbye, and started to fiddle with her things. Ines continued her speech for a moment and then stopped, surprised with herself. For the first time in her life, she was speaking her mind in front of others, on a subject besides the lessons she taught her students. She was secretly pleased with what she’d said, and began to play it back to herself, word by word, carefully weighing up the meaning. Yes, she was confident in everything she’d said. Shalaby had provoked something in her, that ignorant fool who thought he wasthe only one among them who understood anything. He spoke as if his cousin were a gallant knight at war with evil, and not a hapless soul plucked from his land against his will to serve in the security forces, when no one even knew what his unit did. Yet even so, Um Mabrouk was right. If anyone had heard her, or if Shalaby was well connected, he could report what she’d said to an inspector or the courts right away. She could be fired, not just reevaluated, and at that point not even the Certificate of True Citizenship she’d come for would be enough.
    Shalaby turned on her like a lion, and would have slapped her across the face were he not so shocked. He could barely process everything he’d heard. No one had attacked Mahfouz’s story before; the whole town remembered him proudly and considered him a hero for God and the Gate. People began to call Mahfouz’s mother “Mother of the Hero,” even “Mother of the Martyr,” and she’d quickly adopted her new name. Shalaby spoke about Mahfouz every chance he got. “Oh, bless him,” some would say; others would offer to help his family, and others shared his grief for his cousin. Still others praised Mahfouz’s courage, bravery, and willingness for self-sacrifice, and some even cursed the men who had hounded him. But this woman standing before him understood nothing. Was she so ignorant that she didn’t know the difference between a filthy criminal and an honorable man? Even if Mahfouz had made a little mistake here or there, he didn’t endanger the country or its people like those rioters did. He’d sacrificed his life for it, and he was brave, maybe braver than all the other guards put together. He’d been a real man, while the man he’d killed—probably without even intending to—had been just a troublemaker, a saboteur, out to frighten people and make their lives more difficult than they already were. That man had groundthe country to a halt, he and others who shut down the streets while so many honorable citizens were just trying to earn their daily bread. All of Shalaby’s cousins, and everyone he knew, had come home to the village and were now unemployed.
    If he’d been in Mahfouz’s shoes, he would’ve done what Mahfouz had done and more, and if Ines had been defending the nation in his place, she’d know how to obey orders. She would’ve learned that when you’re given an order there’s no discussion, no question, and barely enough time to carry it out—and even if there were time, the Commander wouldn’t let you waste it with stupid questions. If he’d ever heard the things she said from one of his men, he would teach him a thing or two and then lock him up. If this woman had any honor, she would know that to obey your Commander was to obey God, and that insubordination was a sin greater than any mortal could bear and would lead to her own demise. But she