Mama suddenly excused herself I didn't want to be left alone with them. When Bu Nasser wasn't looking at me I watched him and his young daughter staring up at the photograph. He was too old. He will probably never see her marry; her children will probably never see their grandfather. I ran after Mama.

She was kneeling before the safe, dialling the code, mumbling the words Bu Nasser had told her: '"The catastrophe has fallen. I called you yesterday to prevent it." Why come, then? What do you expect me to do?' The safe didn't open. She was dialling it too fast. There is no margin for error: any slight variation on the secret code and the safe wouldn't open. She tried again, repeating what she had said before in front of me and Moosa, 'Children playing with fire.' The heavy steel door swung open, indifferent, mighty. She took out a stack of ten-dinar bank notes and rolled them up tightly into her fist.

They were still staring up into the photograph of the Colonel. But when we walked in the old man stood up and said, 'We must leave now.'

'Stay for lunch,' Mama said with such insincerity the man didn't even feel the need to reply. 'Honestly,' she said. 'Stay.' But the old man, holding Siham's hand, was already walking towards the door. 'Honestly,' Mama repeated, following them out. The old man shook his head and patted his chest. Siham mimicked him. Seeing her imitate such an old person's gesture saddened me. Then Mama quickly reached for the man's chest pocket. With amazing speed the old man clinched her wrist. His quick reflex was surprising, as if he had lived his whole life ready for attack. Then the usual argument ensued:

'I swear you must/

'No.'

'But for my sake.'

'There is no need.'

'OK, then, if not for my sake, for Siham's.'

Siham looked up at the two adults and, closing one eye against the sun, she patted her chest again. The gesture inappropriate now.

The man hesitated. Mama saw the opening and stabbed the money into his pocket. 'I swear by what you hold dearest…'

The old man froze for a moment, then, like a man defeated, he shook his head dejectedly.

'You have no idea how dear you all are to Bu Suleiman,' Mama told him.

He walked beside his daughter to their old black car. As they drove off they revealed the Revolutionary Committee man, Sharief, sitting in his white car, not minding the heat, loyal to his cause, his gun probably still occupying the passenger seat beside him. His confidence and youth were in stark contrast to the sad old man. Sharief seemed beyond age and need, a man calling for the world to keep up with him.

Mama pulled me back into the house. Every time I turned around she said, 'Come on, come on.' Before she closed the door, I caught Sharief waving at me. Mama turned the bolt twice.

The following day Mama woke up not so much happy as certain. She began to make a cake. She was silent the whole time, moving quickly and precisely. I thought, at last she and Auntie Salma are going to make up. But after she decorated the cake with strawberries she took it across the street to Ustath Jafer and Um Masoud's house. I stood in the doorway, watching her. Sharief, too, watched her from inside his car. He had become a fixture, it no longer surprised me to find him there. She pressed the doorbell, quickly glancing at Sharief, and with her fingers outstretched rubbed a flexed palm against her dress. As if she was at a loss what to do, she waved to me to come. Just before I took hold of her cool and moist hand Um Masoud opened the door.

'Hello,' Mama said, a soft quiver in her voice. 'Is Ustath Jafer in? Please, I need to talk to him. About a very important matter.' Then, handing Um Masoud the cake, Mama said, 'I made you this.'

That visit has remained with me ever since. Whenever I am faced with someone who holds the strings of my fate – an immigration officer, a professor – I can feel the distant reverberations from that day, my inauguration into the dark art of submission. Perhaps this is why I often find a shameful pleasure in submitting to authority. Even

in prayer – bowing down, my forehead pressed against the ground, my back arching beneath its own weight, my chest falling between my shoulders, my hands flat against the ground, fingers pressed tightly together, hearing my own whispered prayers – I am often overcome with regret and, yes, shame that I am gloating in it, enjoying my own deprecation. And this is also why, when 1 finally think I have gained the pleasure of authority, a sense of self-loathing rises to clasp me by the throat. I have always been able to imagine being unjustifiably hated.

Ustath Jafer, like most government officials, kept us waiting. We sat in the reception room, where the face of the Guide stared down at us from a photograph that was much smaller than the one Moosa hung in our house. The room was done up in the colour of the revolution: the walls pale green, the furniture upholstered in darker green fabric, still covered in plastic, so that when you squirmed it made the sound of a fart and you had to squirm again to prove that you hadn't farted. A small coffee table stood in the middle, where it couldn't be easily reached. On it there was an empty ashtray and a tissue box with one pink tissue shooting out of it, closely followed by a yellow one. The curtains were drawn – they were also green – and a weak light burned in a small chandelier above the coffee table. A huge television stood in one corner; it was perhaps as large as my piano. Mama sat upright, her knees touching, her hands wrestling with each other: every time the blood rushed back into one she would rub it out again. Um Masoud walked in and sat beside her.

'He's coming,' she said.

Mama looked at her and nodded.

'Why trouble yourself with the cake?'

'It's nothing.'

'We are neighbours…' Um Masoud started, but then to my astonishment Mama began to cry. Um Masoud didn't seem surprised; she must be used to this, I thought. 'In fact I have been thinking, saying to Jafer,' she went on, '"Why doesn't she come when she knows we can help?" I know we haven't always seen eye to eye but…' She leaned towards the coffee table and plucked the pink tissue.

'I wanted to…' Mama said, taking the tissue from Um Masoud's swollen fingers.

'Never hesitate, we are sisters.'

'I swear to God,' Mama said, 'I have always liked you.' Her eyes wide open, eager to convince.

'Don't worry,' Um Masoud said lazily. Her confidence was repulsive. 'Men are like that. They like adventure. The Guide knows this and he is very forgiving.'

'Really?'

'Yes,' Um Masoud reassured her, then, lowering her voice to a whisper, added, 'Let me tell you this. Once a man was fixed on killing him.'

'Really?' Mama said, assuming disbelief.

'Yes. What can you say? Mad. His mind had left him. When he was caught the Guide sat with him and asked, "Why did you want to kill me, my son?" They say the man melted like ice in fire, weeping for forgiveness, and the Guide forgave him there and then.' Mama looked astonished, hopeful, ridiculously naive. Um Masoud plucked the yellow tissue and handed it to Mama. 'I don't mean to brag, but Jafer has a special place in the Guide's heart. And Jafer is, of course, heart and soul devoted to him. Yes. After all, isn't all of this good fortune we are in,' she said opening her hands towards the ceiling, 'because of his generosity? It wouldn't be right to bite the hand that feeds you.'

'Of course,' Mama said, adding in the way people do at weddings, 'May God nurture the goodwill and keep the envious at bay.'