I started to study them more carefully as I racked my brain for an explanation for what was obviously an administrative trial over a serious matter. Apart from the senior official, a secretary sat in the corner, taking minutes. This time too, I could not detect any irregularities. I raised my head and looked at him; my look must have betrayed my feelings about him because Mr Waterfield, who was always kind to me, gave me a light smile as if to say “Be patient”.
Mr Waterfield, as I told you earlier, was a writer and the post of head of the Arabic Service was too junior for him. Deep in his heart, he detested bureaucracy and rigid administrative rules and had waged several battles against this man in particular.
The controller said to me in a cold tone, as perfectly cool as the English tone would sound when it lacked cordiality: “These signatures here are yours, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Did you check the papers carefully?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you notice any irregularities?”
“What do you mean by ‘irregularities’?”
“The remuneration, for instance.”
“What about the remuneration?”
“How much would you pay a grade-A actor for taking part in a 30-minute play?”
“We would pay x amount.”
“And if that actor is a BBC member of staff?”
“We pay one third the standard remuneration.”
“See the amounts paid to Mr Bastawrous.” He handed me the papers again.
Looking again, it was full pay.
“Were you aware that Mr Bastawrous – or Mr Ahmed, or whatever his name – was a BBC member of staff, working as an editor in the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Unit in Caversham?
I kept silent as I started to realise the grave mistake I had committed. I cursed Mansi secretly. But I did not give it much thought. I was too young, too inexperienced. Perhaps I said to myself: “If this khawaja4 is arrogant, I should outdo him in arrogance. Worst case scenario, I will resign and go back to where I have come from, and rid myself of all these contradictions and heartache. So I decided to stand up to that challenge as “a true Arab” would do when things got really rough.
“Yes,” I said.
Suddenly, the assistant head of department turned to me and repeated the question, cynically and slowly: “Were you aware that Mr Bastawrous was a BBC member of staff, working as an editor in the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Unit in Caversham?
This khawaja, too, was not one of my best friends. At its best, our relationship fluctuated; improving sometimes, plummeting most of the time. He was not one of the “Pro-Arabs” like Mr Waterfield and Mr Whitehead, those men and women who had spent their youthful years in the Arab world and had known the Arabs in and out and loved them. This one was a specialist in German affairs, a brilliant man with a brilliant academic record to his credit. It seemed, though, that he had experienced some difficult circumstances that played havoc with his life. He had worked largely in the East European broadcasting service, which we considered more relevant to the Foreign Office than to the BBC. At that time, we the Arabs, supported by Mr Water-field and Mr Whitehead, fought hard to keep the Arabic service away from the yoke of the Foreign Office, and to make it a proper broadcasting service.
He was mired in contradictions and provocative, would induce you into discussion but once you spoke your mind he would show you his hostile face. He would always present himself as a liberal and would tell his Arab visitors: “I am a radical thinker, affiliated to the fundamentalist left wing of the Labour Party.” My comment on this was always: “Mr X claims he is a liberal when he is actually an imperial colonialist.” That comment apparently annoyed him, for he summoned me one day to his office and said: “You are causing me tremendous embarrassment with what you are saying.” Drawing on the English “rules of the game”, I said: “But Mr … it was just a joke. Can’t you take jokes? Don’t you English people claim that you outsmart all other nations with your sense of humour?”
I can see now that I was too indifferent at the time – perhaps I was self-conscious of the delicate position I was in, particularly during those years of heightened sensations of nationalism that were sweeping the Arab world. It was as if any career success I achieved with the British would further complicate my position. I was like one bent on demolishing what he himself had built the day before. No one could appreciate, or tolerate, that attitude except great people like Mr Waterfield and Mr Whitehead.
“Yes,” I said.
They looked at each other in a way that only later would I understand.
“And was Mr Kinani aware of this?” asked the controller, with a false tone of kindness, thinking that he had led me into his trap.
Gamal al-Kinani, may God rest his soul in peace, was the most senior Arab in the department at the time, enjoying a free hand with the full support of Mr Waterfield and Mr Whitehead. No wonder, the controller hated him more than me, and it was obvious he wanted to kill two birds with one stone.
“I don’t know.”
“How come?” Aren’t you his assistant who takes charge in his absence? Haven’t you discussed this?”
“No.”
They looked at each other again. The assistant department head said to me in his usual unkind tone: “Mr Bastawrous is your friend, isn’t he?”
At this point, Mr Whitefield came to my rescue. “Take it easy,” he said to his assistant, giving him a stern look.
4 A nickname for a European
7
I wish I were a servant of Sayyidina Abdullahi ibn Omar holding his camel’s rein. It was reported that a man hurled abuse at him while he was walking on the road. Sayyidina Abdullahi went ahead silently but the man followed him with successive curses. Only upon arriving home did Abdullahi turn to the man. “You Mr,” he said, “my brother Asim and I do not hurl abuse at others.”
What strikes me most about this story is that he said “My brother Asim and I …” He clearly did not want to attribute all the credit to himself or it could be that he mentioned his brother in this context out of deep affection for him. Asim, as we know, was to become the grandfather of Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz, the grandson of that Bedouin lady who had refused to adulterate milk and said to her mother: “If the Caliph can’t see us, surely God can.” On hearing that, the Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab selected her as wife for his son, Asim; one of their descendants was Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz (Bani Marwan) who filled the land with justice during his short-lived reign.
For even though I was not known to be a curse hurler or troublemaker, Mansi drove me to the point of losing my temper that day. He interrupted my life to tarnish my fancy dream. Now I was accused of administrative delinquency, an accusation that hardly needed substantiation but was nonetheless tolerable. What was not was that my personal integrity, hitherto beyond suspicion, was now at stake.
“Mr Bastawrous is your friend, isn’t he?” asked the assistant department head. Although Mr Waterfield kindly came to my rescue, the damage had already been inflicted: an accusation, true or false, had been made against me.
Even worse, I came to know later that they had interrogated the department head, Gamal al-Kinani, ahead of me. Despite his maturity and long