I lost it then. I couldn’t hold them back and the tears streamed. To hear this complete stranger talk about his devotion to the country I’d abandoned four years prior, even as rivulets of blood snaked down the wreckage of his eye stirred a burning passion in the pit of my stomach, equal parts love and hate. Love both for this man who dismissed the nearly-mortal beating he’d received as uncharacteristic and the country that inspired him, and hate for those who’d repaid his love with barbaric brutality.
I pulled him towards me and wept at how unfair it all was. He winced- I must have squeezed a bruise. Then, somehow, he found the strength to laugh.
“Get off me, you sentimental sod,” he joked. “We’ve only just met.”
Youssef slapped me on the back of the head and joined him in his laughter. Soon, we were all laughing, clutching our sides and gasping for breath. We took leave of our senses and our laughter boomed through the room, magnified a hundredfold.
It didn’t last long, despite my fervent prayers. Our revelry died down and sober reality set in once again. Youssef told Benjamin the best course of action was to go directly to the British Embassy. The hospitals would be unpleasant and the streets would be downright hostile. It was agreed he would spend the night on the houseboat, under the watchful eye of Amm Attia, and take a cab straight to the Embassy first thing in the morning.
It wasn’t as intimate as I expected, the conversation between us and the man whose life we saved. He was polite, of course, and treated us like old friends, promised us the world and more. Some part of me had expected unabashed gratitude, tearful proclamations of eternal indebtedness and yet here I sat with the red eyes while Benjamin clapped me on the back and told me to ‘grow a pair’. It would have been comical had his nose been pointing in the right direction. As it was, it just made me queasy.