Free The House of Jasmine by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

me to repeat the story, and then laughed at it again. I said that although I shared their laughter, I felt afraid every day when I went to work. At the very least, the chairman could force me to pay back what I had taken of the workers’ money. In that case, I would have no choice but to return the apartment to ‘Abdu al-Fakahani and become homeless.
    Hassanayn said that people quickly forgot scandals, and Magid said that there might even be some people who secretly approved of what I have done. Then Hassanayn reminded me that it had been two weeks since my meeting with the chairman, and that if he were planning to do anything about it, he would have done it by now.
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    I opened my first bank account with the three hundred pounds. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the news in the Al-Ahram newspaper on the bus one morning. I remembered our meeting, and how the chairman had seemed really shaken, even while he was threatening me. He must have known it then. The poor man!
    â€œYou’re lucky, Shagara,” said al-Dakruri when he came to my office later that afternoon. I hid my smile.
    â€œThe chairman of the board has been in a difficult situation since the January demonstrations. The national security police discovered that the shipyard was a communist den, and that there was no record of a worker named Sayyid Birsho, and by the way, they have not found him yet. This week, they arrested three workers who were affiliated with secret organizations.”
    â€œDid the chairman write a report about me? Does the new chairman know anything about it?”
    He smiled and said, “No. I just came from a meeting with him. He invited me and the department managers to meet with him on his first day.”
    I’m saved, I thought, then said to al-Dakruri, “I will not take part in any more rallies.”
    I added forty pounds to the three hundred after we received a bonus of one month’s salary on the occasion of inaugurating a new ship. A picture of the new ship appeared in the newspapers, with the new chairman standing next to it and smiling. Alexandria was blanketed in winter weather, so I didn’t go out in the evening. I thought of visiting my mother as soon as the weather cleared. She was buried with my father in the cemetery of ‘Amud al-Sawari, in a public graveyard for the people from the town of Dalgamon who had emigrated to Alexandria. I have never seen that town, but I know that it is in the al-Gharbiyya governorate, and that it is between Kafr al-Zayyat and Tanta, and was the home town of ‘Umar Lutfi, founder of the cooperative movement in Egypt. When the weather cleared, I forgot about visiting my mother, maybe because I hate cemeteries.
    At the café, Hassanayn said, “I heard rumors that the new chairman of the board was appointed to punish the workers.”
    â€œHe said it himself in a general meeting! His first decision was to cancel the temporary exemption from military service, which used to be granted to technicians in the shipyard because it serves as a strategic resource. Now more than three thousand technicians have been drafted in one month. Production has dropped dramatically.”
    Magid was busy playing backgammon with ‘Abd al-Salam. After pushing his glasses up on his nose, he said, “It isn’t a matter of demonstrations. The shipyard was a Soviet project in the first place.”
    â€œThank God that Bata is Italian!” Hassanayn joked, and we all laughed so loudly that we startled the people around us.
    â€œIf Bata were Soviet,” Magid said, “they would have beaten all of you with shoes. They would have beaten you especially, Hassanayn. Look. Imagine it!” He started pointing at Hassanayn and pantomiming the scene in the air with his hands, while ‘Abd al-Salam and I couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re standing in the middle of a crowd of soldiers. The soldiers are all barefoot, holding their shoes