Freedom of the Press

Freedom of the Press

          Sami slammed himself into his chair and punched the buttons that would bring up his screen. He was in no mood to see what awaited him there.

          Hannah had been, well, unreceptive the previous evening. She’d tried to put him off, but he’d insisted on his conjugal rights and demanded that she do her wifely duty, so she’d given him a look of disgust – not hatred, disgust – and had done her duty with all the love of a woman being juked with a shit-stained bottle, keeping her arms in front of her with her elbows at her waist and her fists at her chin.

          At least she hadn’t been around for breakfast, which the servants had managed adequately. Barely. They were as sullen as usual. They showed no gratitude for having their jobs, never enthusiastic and always whinging about their pay.

          The best days were either gone or yet to come.

          His pride demanded that he divorce Hannah and her barren womb and her loveless attitude, but her father’s position and power and money made that impossible. Sami enjoyed his position in society and at the Ministry, and had to admit to himself that he enjoyed it due to that obese, pompous fraud.

          He took his fingers from the keyboard and straightened his tie, which was already straight.

          The screen told him that he had to see Nadir ‘first thing’ – whenever that was. Certainly not before coffee and maybe, yes!, some asabi gullash, with plenty of cinnamon. He pushed the button for Tahira.

          Tahira, his receptionist, was a middle-aged bag of bones wearing a hijab. Her pleasingly deferential manner failed to disguise her clear dislike for him. He saw nothing he could do about that. It wasn’t worth the bother, anyway.

          For some reason, the pastry – wherever she’d obtained it – failed to improve his spirits.

          Nadir’s face was always baggy and tired-looking – from age and too much sweet wine from Portugal. His body was baggy, too, and bulged out the tail of his loose cotton shirt in front. The fuckwit didn’t even have enough respect for his office to wear a suit and tie. At least, being a wino, he was free from suspicion of sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood.

          That morning Nadir’s eyes were bagging down to cover his cheekbones. Somehow this failed to improve Sami’s spirits any more than his pastry disappointment had.

          ‘Okay, Nadir – what the fuck do you want?’

          ‘We need a decision from you.’

          ‘A decision?’

          ‘A decision.’

          It wasn’t like Nadir to spice things up with a bit of snottiness, not that sack of sadness. No, he couldn’t have replied, ‘What the fuck did it sound like I said?’ Sami would have liked that. A chance to let his hostilities soar would have gone a long way. Shit.

          ‘What the fuck about?’

          ‘We picked up this crisp-cotton cunt French reporter when we smashed that airy-fairy demo last night.’

          Students. When Sami had been a student he’d fucking studied.

          ‘So?’

          ‘What do we do with her?’

          ‘Fuck her.’

          ‘I’d like to very much, but we’re in the wrong century and she already has consular support – not to mention the potential sympathy of every newspaper, TV network, social-media network, and tourism-package travel agent in the Western world.’

          ‘Shit.’

          His asshole began to itch, but there was no way in hell he could scratch it with Nadir sitting across from him.

          ‘What evidence do we have?’

          ‘She was there.’

          ‘That’ll go over like a wingless airplane.’

          Nadir just looked at him with those baggy eyes. The French had been dipping their wick in some neo-colonialist shit lately. Banks. Sami himself had lost a packet speculating in a French high-tech startup. Maybe they needed a lesson.

          ‘Let me see the file.’

          The top sheet was a photo. Shit. Sure enough. Different ethnicity. Different a whole lot else. But there it was in the different-coloured eyes, in the attitude that screamed outward from the still image. Another Hannah.

          ‘Was she by herself?

          ‘Nah. Had some camera-drudge with her.’

          ‘He French too?’

          Nadir shook his head. ‘One of us.’

          Sami just wanted that bag of maggots to leave so that he could scratch his asshole.

          ‘That does it, then.’

          ‘Huh?’

          ‘Tell Gamal that I said to charge ’em both with espionage and terrorism and insulting state institutions and, uh, moral turpitude.’

          He loved that last charge. It’d drive the fucking French nuts.

          ‘Manufacture some evidence. We’ll let the courts decide whatever whoever pays them the most to decide and then the President’s people can sift through the mess. That ought to keep the bitch occupied for a year or two. Now, just get out of here.’

          Nadir gathered up his files – why wouldn’t he join the rest of the world and go digital? – almost saluted, and shuffled off.

          As soon as the door shut behind him Sami stood up, put his hand down beneath his undies, and scratched like crazy. It felt good. He even sniffed his finger when he was done.

          He had to think of a way to take his father-in-law down so he could divorce that cunt Hannah, and divorce her favourably. He considered going to the café just around the corner from the Ministry to get a decent coffee – not that gut-napalm that Tahira made for him – while he came up with a plan. A plan was always possible. Maybe the café’s asabi gullash would be more satisfying, too.

          The world wasn’t as awful as it sometimes seemed.