(exasperated) God forgive you! How can you talk about a salary increase when people are already criticizing and excoriating us for the little work we do and the piles of money we get for it? Even so, if there’s to be substantial benefit gained from it all, then it will be in shares in English companies which are now at our disposal.
MAẒLŪM (revealing a set of pearly white teeth) Whom do we know who is au fait with companies and shares?
BUṬRUS Don’t you realize that those companies will only be able to colonize the country if the Egyptian government gives them permission? As long as the Egyptian flag is flying over the Sudan, you can impose restrictions through the Finance Ministry.
0.1.4
FAKHRĪ (distressed) Please don’t mention “flags” in my presence; the very word makes me shudder in horror. As it is, your hopes and expectations and my own anxieties are quite enough. God has willed that I should twice hold ministerial office: once as a real minister for a single day, and once as a deputy minister for several days. When I was a real minister, fate decreed that Egypt was not able to make a single move or change any ministry without consulting the occupying power, and this was recorded in the Blue Book.6 When I was a deputy minister, the English flag was raised over the Sudan, as everyone knows full well.
BUṬRUS (trying to console him and make light of the situation) Calm down, my friend! Some people who have no idea of the difficulties involved may look on your two ministries as you do, but those of us who know the real situation can acknowledge the great expertise that you possess. It’s because of you that this ministry has carried on for so long without incident, that is as long as the occupying powers has been happy with it. But then, it’s so easy for our ministers to keep the occupying forces happy; they’ll stay on forever, as long as the occupation lasts. Actually the English flag was only raised during the memorial service for Gordon and not on the occasion of the annexation of the Sudan to England. There’s nothing for you to be ashamed of on either count; your twin ministries did not cause us any grief.
MAẒLŪM (leaning forward attentively) Where did you both get the news about the English flag being raised over Khartoum? We haven’t received any official word.
BUṬRUS From the telegram which the Sirdar sent to the General commanding the occupation army. Then the papers picked it up. As usual, they started denouncing it at length, and so we got to hear about it.
FAKHRĪ My dear Ministers, can’t you both see how determined and prudent the English are? In everything they do, they abide by the dictum: “To get what you want, make full use of secrecy.” Just like ants crawling noiselessly around, the English run the Egyptian government among themselves in such secrecy that the only way we get to hear about things is when newspapers get information and start croaking. Then people start maligning us by suggesting that we’re involved in the secret sessions too.
MAẒLŪM Why do we need to know such things as long as the minister among us gets paid his salary?
FAKHRĪ (with a sigh) How can you possibly know as much about it as I do?! If you’d tasted, as I have, the sweet savor of absolute authority that we had in our ministries before the occupation, you’d realize that being starved of government news, when we are supposed to be in charge, detracts from the respect which simple ignorant people feel for us.
MAẒLŪM (baffled) What was that sweet savor you used to taste?
0.1.5
FAKHRĪ Delegations would crowd your door, and people with petitions would head for your ministry.
MAẒLŪM (horrified) Stop, stop! Spare me such sweet delights! In actual fact it’s all bitterness and loss.
FAKHRĪ The horror that you envisage from all those delegations and people with petitions that seem to aggravate you so much are nothing when compared with the pleasure to be gleaned from the way people bow and throw themselves at your feet. They crane their necks to make their pleas and strain their ears to hear a single word from your mouth. I don’t want either shares in companies or a salary raise. I’m quite content with my small house in al-ʿAbbāsiyyah which is like a primitive place in Omdurman when compared with the huge mansions all around it. I’ve no desire to have it lit by electricity, or to have asparagus and chicory on my table. My own worldly pleasures now reside in more spiritual realms.
MAẒLŪM Your withdrawal from worldly affairs like some ascetic and your obsession with spiritual pleasures gives me the impression that they surpass all other pleasures. So, tell me, how can we find it and make use of what they have to offer?
FAKHRĪ The days of absolute authority are over. All that remains is for us to hear about what is going on in the government before anyone else. All we can do is to ask God to inspire the occupying power to let us know about our government’s affairs before the newspapers get hold of it.
EVERYONE Amen to that!
BUṬRUS (as he takes his leave, he is talking to himself and shrugging his shoulders) This flag business is very serious. It’s a difficult problem to shrug off. But then, we’ve heard and seen a good deal. How often have we managed to save ourselves and others?!
(Since Buṭrus Paulus was in charge of the Khartoum treasury when Gordon and his men were killed and was the only one to escape the Darwīsh slaughter, it should not be too difficult for Buṭrus Ghālī to rid himself of silly games like these which people in politics call “difficulties.”)
Miṣbāḥ al-sharq 23, September 22, 1898
0.2.1
War engenders its own folk whom God leads astray;
When it summons them to its turmoil, they leap.
I am not of such people; I abhor what they wreak;
Neither conflict nor plunder give me pleasure.7
0.2.2
ʿIsā ibn Hishām told us: I heard that a newspaper correspondent spotted one of our senior ministers walking around the courtyard in a spa abroad. From his prancing gait he gleaned that it was the Minister of War. As the common expression has it: such a gait is detested everywhere except in the sphere of conflict. So this reporter went up to beg him for something: not for money, but rather for information. He told himself that he would now be getting the news from the very source. At the same time he kept thinking about his fellow reporters who would be roaming around in the deserts of the Sudan, wandering in the steaming heat of the midday sun, far away from their families and relatives, as they sweated in seas of humid air—their only water a mirage; their only food bitter-tasting colocynth. They would be sleeping on prickly thorns, and their only shade would come from flags fluttering over the army. They would be doing the rounds of caves and forests, just like anemones in plant-life and chameleons among animals as they encountered the sun’s disk hovering over the horizon until evening sunset. Then conflict would erupt, fighting would flare up, heroes would battle each other, and men would confront their foes. Fates would rush in to snatch away hopes and put an end to all activity. The reporters meanwhile would be eager for news, like insomniacs craving the light of day. The entire saga would then proceed to recount its tales of dead and wounded, those slain and maimed. But fate has indeed been kind to me, he told himself, and my lucky stars have come to my aid.
