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W
hen Adah awoke at 10:07 a.m., John was already up and waiting for her, the smile in his eyes lit the entire kitchen as bright as the morning sun that filtered through the cellular window shades.
I could so easily fall in love with this man. “I’d kiss you good morning except I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.” She smiled at him with drawn lips and hypnotic blue eyes. “I shan’t be a minute.”
She brushed and showered in the bathroom, threw a robe on, and went back to the kitchen.
“You’re not a Muslim, so I assume you eat ham. How about I cook us up some ham and eggs? I make fantastic omelets.”
“A simply marvelous idea.” Having persevered yet another nightmare, she’d awakened refreshed and feeling simply marvelous. John had a way of bringing out the best in her.
He said he’d looked in her frig and she didn’t have any eggs. He said he’d take a quick run to the store.
“OK, I’ll feed Fatima and put on the coffee.”
The omelet was excellent: ham, eggs, cheese, mushrooms and assorted fresh herbs. But, of course, he ruined his by smothering it ketchup.
“John, this is fantastic. Why are you killing it with a condiment?”
He shrugged. “I like ketchup?”
She smiled. This man was becoming more and more endearing. When he asked her about last night’s bad dream, she decided to give him more than a piece of herself; this would be a rather large chunk.
***
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Adah Ameen boarded a train at the main station in Cairo. Her destination was Heliopolis, a Cairo suburb where the field headquarters of the Central Military District Region was located. She had come to ask a big favor from “Uncle” Ahmad, an old family friend. The man was a high ranking general in the Egyptian army, so she dressed appropriately: navy blue, pleated skirt that rode just below her knees and a high-necked white blouse. On her feet she wore a comfortable pair of basic black flats. At five foot nine, she still towered over most Arab men.
Oh well, it was not her fault she was born to a nation of pigmies. Even her father and Uncle Ahmad were shorter than she.
On this particular morning in early September, 1973, the heat and stink of Cairo was as oppressive as usual. It was no better in Heliopolis. Nevertheless, in a few weeks Egypt would be at war with Israel. Despite her nation’s many faults, Adah wanted to do her duty.
“My name is Adah Ameen,” she announced to the guard at the main gate. “I have an appointment to see General Ahmad Ismail Ali,” she said in a girlish voice, a voice that had not yet been hardened by life.
The guard checked his list, and when he found her name, he let her pass through. The General had given her directions. But a young girl strolling in an army base, even in unadventurous clothing, drew angry stares along with leers and verbal asides.
Aw alhamir (sons of donkeys)! thought Adah, her head held high.
She easily found her way to the large building where the Egyptian General Intelligence Service was headquartered; it had a prison in its basement. An old friend of the Ameen family, Uncle Ahmad was a flag officer appointed director of Egypt’s intelligence service, the GID, by President Anwar Sadat. She was led to a large conference room where the General’s aid served her Turkish coffee and pastries while she waited. The army and its intelligence arm was preparing for war, so Adah to be granted even a small piece of her uncle’s time was an honor to his old friend, Adah’s father. Sitting alone in a very large room, when she saw the Egyptian national and Army flags crossed near the window, her heart swelled. She wanted so much to be part of the fight to come.
General Ali entered and threw open his arms. She stood up and ran to him as she had done so many times as a child. After they hugged, he held her by both shoulders and said, “Look at you, my little Adah. All grown up; your papa and mama must be so proud.”
“They certainly are not pleased with me coming here, Uncle.”
He nodded and motioned for them to sit. “I’ve known you since you were a young girl, Adah. You and your sisters played with my daughters. You are all like beloved nieces. Why do you want to do this?”
“Because Egypt is going to war; my brother has already been conscripted. I am as patriotic as any man, Uncle.”
“Your brother is a doctor,” the General reminded her. “God knows, soon enough we’ll need plenty more like him. But you? A teenager? In the army? Officially there are no women in the army.”
“But Uncle, I want to join. Unofficially, women do serve. Other women have told me.”
“Your father has spoken to me about your crazy idea, he does not approve.”
Sounding a bit angrier than intended, “I am seventeen, Uncle. I’m not a little girl anymore.” She loved this man as much as any of her blood uncles. And then, with respect of course, she calmly tied him in a knot: “If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone who will.”
The General leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. “My sweet Adah, you’ve given your beloved uncle a terrible headache.”
“I do not mean to hurt you, Uncle Ahmad,” she said, but inside, she smiled. She knew she had him. All male elders in her family — father, uncles, siblings, and cousins — Adah knew exactly how to bend them to her will.
He sighed. “All of seventeen and such a stubborn young woman; I will help you, Adah, but only to keep you out of trouble. Can you drive?”
“Of course Uncle! I’m a proud Egyptian woman not a Saudi.”
He laughed. “I will see to it that you are assigned to the women’s auxiliary. You will serve here in Cairo. You will drive for senior officers; including me, so you will drive carefully, please. No speeding.”
Adah jumped up and wrapped her arms around the General’s neck, nearly choking the old man. “Easy, Adah, your great enthusiasm is cutting off my oxygen.”
She laughed. “It’s just that I love you so much Uncle Ahmad.” She sat down again.
The look in his eyes now was quite serious. “Dear Adah, I am a senior flag officer, the director of intelligence. I have served many powerful men in both politics and the army. Please tell your father that I pledge on my honor to protect you. I do not want him to hate me.”
A flippant, “Oh, he’ll hate you, Uncle Ahmad, but not for long.”
He shook his head and chuckled. Then, “Remember, Adah, if anyone gives you any trouble you are to call me immediately.”
“And I’ll tell them that you are my dearest, most beloved uncle.”
That night, when the Ameen family sat down for the evening meal, Adah announced that she had joined the army’s women’s auxiliary. Her three younger sisters squealed in delight, ran to her, and smothered her with kisses. Her three elder brothers and their wives were shocked. Her mother, Sofia, the most dramatic one in the family — even more so than Adah — grabbed her chest and wailed like she was about to drop dead from a heart attack. Her father, Ezra, though extremely angry with his daughter, told his wife not to worry.
“I’ve already spoken to Ahmad about this,” he said, glaring at Adah, “and he said he would personally see to our silly daughter’s safety. She will remain in Cairo driving for army big-shots. She will be far away from the fighting.”
“That’s no fun, Adah,” said Fatimah, her youngest and favored sister.
Sharply, “War is not a game, Fatimah,” growled her father. “In church this Sunday we shall all light candles for our brave, young soldiers.”
Defiantly, “That includes Adah,” said Fatimah, hugging cheek to cheek her big sister.
After everyone finished eating, her eldest brother, Dr. Augustus Ameen, pulled her off to the side and out of hearing. “Adah, for such a smart girl sometimes you do the stupidest things.”
Sharply, “I want to serve my country, Augustus. Why is that wrong?”
She loved him deeply, he was her favorite brother, but because he was eleven years older he thought he could rule her life. (Even back then, no one ruled Adah Ameen.)
“You want to serve Egypt? Then stay in school and become a scientist. God has blessed you with a brilliant mind, Adah. You’re even more brilliant than either Father or me.”
“I know that. Not to worry, Auggie,” she knew he hated being called that, “I’ll be in Cairo, miles from the front lines.”
“I know you too well, little one. As soon as you become bored driving big shot muckity-mucks around, you’ll find a way to the front.”
“Then the Lord will protect me. And so will Uncle Ahmad,” she shot back.
He made dismissing motions with his hands and stormed off.
“Maluus zobr, (he has no dick)” she grumbled, a bit too loud.
He turned around and called, “I heard that, Adah!”
She called back, “You weren’t meant to, Auggie!”
The War began on October 6th, and Augustus proved to be right. Driving army staff officers around Cairo was more than just boring. She had to endure verbal harassment and grabbing hands, but pride would not let her run to Uncle Ahmad — until the day a senior colonel whom she detested above all others rode with her.
Adah, an innocent, teenage virgin, knew what masturbation was, but she thought it was only a sport for thirteen-year-old boys not grown, married men. She watched this awful man in the back seat of the Soviet Lada through the rearview mirror. He grunted while making the most hideous faces she’d ever seen.
“Moxxu gazma!” (Your mind is as low and dirty as a shoe!) Adah screamed at him as she pulled off sharply to the side of the road. “I will report you to General Ali immediately! HE IS MY UNCLE!”
The pervert’s face went pale and his eyes went as wide as twin moons. He jumped out taking his flapping thing with him. She sped away. When she reported him to Uncle Ahmad, he went purple with rage.
“Not in my army!”
***
“GEEZ!” SAID JOHN. “THAT’S fucking sick!”
“He (the colonel) found himself at the front lines the next day,” said Adah, smiling at a fond memory.
John looked like he wanted to run out and thrash the pervert right now. And she loved him for it. “Geez! How did a shit like him ever become a colonel?”
“Who knows? Hopefully, he was killed in action.”
***
NO SENIOR OFFICER DARED offend the General’s “niece” after that. But growing bored with duty in Cairo Adah used her charm to manipulate her way to a forward position; without telling her uncle of course. She dared not tell her family, either. They had enough to worry about with her brother, Dr. Augustus Ameen, so close to the fighting. As for her other two brothers, one had enlisted in the navy and the other in the Egyptian air force. Adah was glad that after the war all the Ameens had survived.
The army base where Adah was assigned sat east of the Suez Canal. It was far enough from the fighting that only occasionally did it come under attack by Israeli jets. After surviving her first aerial bombardment, Adah felt proud that she was finally in the war.
Further east, however, those damn war planes swarmed like killer bees.
Sergeant Joseph Khoury, a thirty-one-year-old Christian, and Corporal Jalut Nassar, a thirty-four-year-old Muslim, stood next to the grumbling metal monster. Jalut means Goliath in Arabic, but even Corporal Nassar, a huge, muscled, bear of a man, looked like he’d have difficulty taming this beast. Joseph and Jalut had taken it upon themselves to be Adah Ameen’s big brothers. All the other enlisted men on base knew this and dared not disrespect her. The officers were kept in line by another of Adah’s protectors, Imam Kfir Essa the base’s Muslim chaplain.
The truck was a 1965 Soviet-made ZiL-131 with a canvas top. It sat there on its axles contemptuously awaiting its female driver. When Adah saw her two favorite noncoms, she smiled and waved. She looked confident, thrilled, and anxious to be off. This was her first mission. The Egyptians had no one else to make this trip; all the other drivers were ferrying troops to the front. Imam Essa had strictly forbidden that Adah should be placed in harm’s way. Even the base commander, a devout Muslim himself, bowed to the cleric’s wishes. So the truck driven by Adah was to a supply base about one-hundred kilometers north of them. The Israelis had not yet struck that road.
“That’s a very big truck, Adah,” said Sergeant Khoury. “Are you sure you can handle it?”
“It’s a Zil not a Lada,” added Corporal Nassar.
Her smile burst with overconfidence found only in the young. “Oh yes, Sergeant Khoury, Corporal Nassar. I’m so looking forward to completing my first mission.” Then she climbed into the metal monster and adjusted the seat until her feet touched the pedals. Good thing Adah was a tall girl.
She grabbed hold of the steering. “I’m off!” said Adah. The Zil groaned and its gears grinded as it slowly began to move. Even though the truck had power steering, Adah began to wrestle with the damn wheel.
“Dear God!” said Jalut. “She’s headed for the latrines!”
Still fighting the wheel, somehow she managed to steer clear of the shit holes. She slowly turned the monster and headed for the main gate. But her aim was slightly off.
Sergeant Joseph added, “She’s going to make another exit in the fence, Jalut!”
Luckily, she did not crash through the barbed wire fencing. Both sergeants let loose their deeply held breaths once Adah was finally on the road headed north.
“Now I know why the Saudis won’t let women drive, Jalut.”
***
HIS FACE BEET RED, John laughed so hard coffee ran out of his nose. Then he grabbed a napkin and apologized for being so gross. “You almost single-handedly wrecked an Egyptian army base,” he said, coughing back another laugh.
She chuckled at the memory: “Almost but not quite.”
***
BY LATE OCTOBER, 1973, the Israelis were driving deep into the Sinai. And Adah’s tale took a grim turn.
She along with the rest of her unit had redeployed fifty kilometers, but this time west of the Suez. The Third Army to the northeast of the Canal was slowly being strangled. Every driver was now crossing the Suez and heading north to bring the troops supplies and ammo, and then bringing back the wounded. Adah had been assigned a smaller truck, a four axle GAZ-66-40. But because of the Imam Essa’s orders, Adah was only allowed to drive west and never east of the Canal.
“But, sir, I am a qualified driver!” Adah protested to the Muslim cleric. He reminded her so much of her stubborn older brother Augustus. “It is my duty.”
“Little niece,” the Imam replied. “You are as brave as any Egyptian soldier on this base. But as soldiers we are proud too. We are not so desperate that we will send a young girl into danger.”
***
“WOW, ADAH! YOU WERE so brave. And I really like this Essa guy.”
She smiled warmly. “Yes, he protected me as if I was his blood niece.”
“Do you still keep in touch?”
“Not so much anymore. His daughters were children then; now they’re teenagers. Outside of my own family, there’s no one in Egypt I’m close too anymore.”
Sadness in his voice: “Sounds lonely. Are you lonely, Adah?”
She did not answer.
***
IMAM KFIR ESSA WAS back in Cairo visiting his wife and five daughters. The base’s supply of drivers had been dwindling due to Israeli jets. The Israelis continued to tighten their stranglehold on the Third Army. Orders from Cairo were to get the troops out of the Sinai and take up new positions west of Suez. Despite protests from Sergeant Khoury and Corporal Nassar, Adah was pressed into service.
There was no traffic on the highway heading northeast, so Adah, face set as grim as the Sphinx, had the GAZ-66-40 plodding along at a steady thirty m.p.h. Intense fear, exhilaration and sense of duty wrestled for supremacy in her mind. There was a red crescent stenciled on the truck’s canvas topper that marked it as an ambulance and, therefore, a non-combatant. Her mission was to bring back the dead, the dying, and the wounded. Adah’s heart swelled: there was nothing nobler than to help save lives.
About twenty kilometers outside of the base, a large convoy of many large ZiLs came up behind her, moving along at fifty. She pulled off to the side of the road to let them pass. The ZiLs were loaded with ammunition, fuel oil, and food stuffs. The drivers all looked exhausted. She waved encouragement at each passing truck; no one bothered to wave back. Then Adah got the big GAZ back on the road more determined than ever to carry out her mission. Her truck was marked as an ambulance, but it was not empty. It contained food rations, medicine, and medical supplies.
Two hours into the long journey and the truck’s bumpy ride had played havoc on Adah’s bladder, but she dared not stop. How many soldiers might die while she took a pee break? Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a streak that passed on the driver’s side window. The object was a dot on the horizon by the time the roar of its jet engines split her ears. In her rearview mirror she saw the dot turning into a wide arc. Then it followed straight along the road. Its target: Adah Ameen’s truck, this despite her truck’s medical markings!
***
“DIDN’T THE PILOT SEE the red crescent?”
“I’m sure he did. He chose to ignore it.”
“What did you do?”
“Screamed loudly and pissed myself. I pressed down on the accelerator.” Then she chuckled darkly, “As if a six ton truck was going to outrun a fighter-bomber.”
***
IT WAS NOT ONLY TO the Virgin Mary she pleaded: “JESUS SAVE ME! PLEASE! I AM A GOOD GIRL!” Adah screamed, letting go of the wheel and frantically making the Orthodox Sign-of-the-Cross. In those last seconds, Adah imagined inhaling flames into her lungs as fire swept across her body and burnt deep into her internal organs in unimaginable agony.
By a miracle of faith the jet silently passed over. She grabbed hold of the steering wheel again and watched the jet streak straight up the highway at low altitude. It was stalking other prey, the convoy. Within seconds she heard a huge explosion; then balls of fire and black smoke mushroomed into the cloudless blue sky. And then, off to the right, she saw the jet circling back towards her like a hawk with blood already dripping from its talons. It was going to come up behind her again, but this time she expected it would shred her with cannon fire.
Adah screamed out the open window, “THE GENEVA CONVENTION!” as she lost control of the truck. It flipped over onto its side in a ditch. She crawled out and ran from the sitting duck as fast as she could. Behind her the jet tore the GAZ apart with gunfire.
Adah lay off on the side of the road grateful for two things: 1) that she was still alive; and 2) that there was no wounded Egyptian soldiers in the truck.
***
ADAH HAD ALWAYS KNOWN that her fuse burned too close to the TNT. She exploded at John, shooting off her chair and glaring down at him like she wanted to rip his throat out with her teeth. All he did was note that sometimes armies marked trucks with red crescents or red crosses as a cover.
“You fucking Americans are always making excuses for those fucking Israelis! Because we’re Arabs, we must be lying, right? You’ve been programmed to believe Zionist propaganda!” She sat down, folded her arms across her chest while her eyes smoked hatred.
“I’m just glad you’re OK,” he said.
The smart thing to do was to let her chill out in her own way, but this stupid man made a typical stupid male mistake of trying to explain:
“I’m not excusing what the pilot did, but in war people make mistakes.”
Smirking, “You Americans, you lead such safe, cushy lives... Friends and enemies, love and hate, it’s the way of the world, John! Grow up!”
He leaned closer into her space about to let her feel his burn: “That’s not how I see it, Adah. The world is a place of conflicting interests. Hate should have nothing to do with anything. Hate is fear, and fear is irrational thinking.”
Smugly, “So, John, you’re telling me that you don’t hate your enemies?”
“I don’t have enemies, just people I’m at cross purposes with. And I don’t hate them. That’s too primitive an emotion. I just want to beat them.”
A snarky: “The complex reflections of one who hammers on nails for a living — impressive.”
“I may not be as complex as you — God forbid! — but neither am I a simpleton. And sometimes it’s better to be simple and happy than complex and angry all the fucking time! Like you!”
Her nostrils flared and her eyes radiated hatred through violet slits. She stood up like she wanted to attack him. He stood up and faced her straight on. No doubt, if it got physical things would not turn out well. She managed to subdue her rage and be the adult in the room. She turned, stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. She began to fill the tub. A hot bath might soothe her nerves.
“Helluva time for a bath, Adah!” he shouted from the kitchen.
“You’d best be gone by the time I get out of this tub, you son of a shoe!” she yelled from the bathroom.
“A shoe? A son of a shoe?” he called back. Then a snarky, “I think I’m deeply offended — but I’m not sure.”
“If you knew more about Arab culture, you hammer-headed peasant, you would be insulted.”
“Maybe I don’t give a rat’s ass about Arab culture!”
Sliding beneath the soothing hot water, she heard the front door slam shut.
Passed gas bubbled up to the surface, her last salute to John Tettouomo.