Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter

By Saeida Rouass

The Egyptian revolution of 2011 took just eighteen days to bring down the country's president of thirty years.

Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter follows the life of Sophia, a literature student in Cairo. As the revolution begins to stir across Egypt, each member of Sophia's family is affected differently. Her father remains worried and sceptical, her brother is quiet at home until he leaves to join the protesters, and Sophia discovers a new-found political consciousness as the revolution unfolds.

This first novel by author Saeida Rouass explores the impact of the revolution on a family home and the changes the protests bring to a young Egyptian woman's perception of herself. It shows the challenges Sophia and her family must face in order to emerge from the revolution with continued hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Impress Books
• Release date: Sep 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781907605741

Book preview

Prologue

Someone once told me never to make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings. It took me a long time to realise all feelings are temporary and no decision is permanent. It took me eighteen days.

At the end of those eighteen days I stood on the streets of Cairo and realised what we do is a forever unfolding narrative, always in transition, always changing. Everything unravels, slowly, part by part. It rarely explodes spontaneously. To watch it unravel means to be also a part of the unravelling, as it sucks you in, pulls you apart. And then slowly merges you with something else, putting you back together again.

The potential of human imagination surpasses both fact and fiction and a revolution does not happen because of a flick of the finger … though many say it depends on what finger. The layers of dried and crusted blood in dungeons beneath one of the oldest cities in the world have been threatening to come back to life, to bubble out onto the streets for generations. To ooze out of the antiquated sewage system and consume the entire world. In the end, it took fresh blood spattered on graffitied walls, caked in the fumes of a million exhaust pipes. It took someone like me, willing to fight for small victories in the hope they would amount to something, in the end.

I do not claim to be a spokesperson of my generation. I am not a poster girl of the revolution, nor its victim. But you should read my story so you can see the big picture in all its glorious detail. After all, what is a big picture except a collection of smaller ones? And what is a grand narrative, except a thousand threads pulled together to make a tapestry of fantasy?

You see, beneath the din and commotion is a collection of hopes and screams and between the laments of joy and pain the weary walk. These are my screams. This is my dream … this is my lament.

My story is an Egyptian cliché. It is a story of forbidden love and youth’s defiance against the traditions of its ancestors. But who wants to live a life of clichés? Who wants to speak of themselves in stereotypes? I wish I had a different story for you, one not wrapped in ancient legends of love and tragedy. Because then you could not judge me as insignificant.

But, I don’t. This is the only story I know to tell. So I ask you to suspend your preconceptions, to fight your cultural intrusions and accept that while the words may sound familiar, the voice is a unique battle cry of love.

I

An Egyptian love story

But first, let’s open at the start. Because that is, after all, where all things begin.

I grew up in Nasr City, a suburb of Heliopolis, which is in itself another suburb of Cairo. Built in commemoration of another long-forgotten revolution, it was designed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, a president loved by the people. ‘Nasr’ means victory in Arabic. A fitting name for a neighbourhood with aspirations of rising like a phoenix from the ashes of its own making. But like all victories, the rush of adrenalin, hope and brotherhood is soon replaced by mediocrity and an uncivilised grab for the spoils of war.

Today, Nasr City is no different to any other Cairo suburb. Consumed by car fumes, the once whitewashed buildings now look like a plague of anaemia has descended from the heavens as a curse for our sinful prematurity. And of course the modern apartments, built in large blocked rows with identical interiors, are now home to more people than anticipated. The families taking up illegal residency on the rooftops and the bowab, the building caretaker, with his six mouths to feed, turning a blind eye for a monthly black market salary that surpasses his yearly wage, all contribute to a feeling that what was meant to be a quaint neighbourhood with a holiday feel has been overrun by all-inclusive tourists. The roads, designed with visions of families of 2.4 children taking evening promenades, are now filled with extended families of seven, SUVs and taxis that look as tired and ill as their drivers. Even the odd donkey and cart can be spotted on some days. And as the weekend descends the chaos amplifies with the socially mobile from all over Cairo making their way to City Stars or one of the various other modern malls dotted around. All there to taste the American dream in one of the many American coffee shops.

And that is where you will find me this Saturday afternoon, on a comfy couch in Starbucks, slowly sipping a latte and talking university gossip with my girlfriends. A Mango shopping bag proudly displayed at my feet.

Position yourself standing outside Starbucks staring at me through the large glass window. The noise of the mall behind you. What do you see? There may be a number of things you pick up on at first glance.

Perhaps you will notice my carefully coordinated outfits. The red headscarf, modestly covering my hair, is wrapped so that the end drops delicately onto the right side of my face. I have pinned the end to resemble a flower in bloom. The scarf, by no coincidence, complements my flowing skirt, which is dotted with flowers of different hues of red. The light cotton white shirt is held in place by a belt hanging loosely on my hips accentuating my midriff, but not too much.

I am fashion conscious. I have to be. I spend as much mental energy on colour coordinating my outfit as I do on my weekly assignment. But I do not say this with pride. The truth is, balancing modesty and fashion, ensuring you never fall on the wrong side of decency, while simultaneously avoiding a grotesque fashion faux pas can be the make or break of a young woman’s prospects in modern day Cairo.

When you look from your position, with the large glass window between us, look closer still. Beyond the red and white, behind my dark brown eyes, deepened with black kohl, you will also detect a silent determination, a wisdom that far surpasses my number of years. Like the Nile waters, my thoughts run deep and beneath the still surface flows a deceptively strong current.

My parents are both doctors. My father a neurologist and my mother a general practitioner. In Egypt a doctor commands respect, but not a salary. My father often tells the story to anyone caring to listen of his time spent as a junior doctor at the government hospital. He describes the time he observed a well-respected