From Mohamed Mansi Qandil’s ‘The Country Doctor’s Tale’
At this point in The Country Doctor’s Tale, the titular country doctor is returning from a house call when he suddenly discovers political posters everywhere, even on the walls of the clinic. He is startled to hear from the local ma’mour about this “performance,” as the ma’mour calls it. After all, it isn’t the ballot boxes that choose the president, the ma’mour says; “it is God alone who chooses.” At this point, the ma’mour turns the ballot boxes over to the doctor, telling him that they are his responsibility. He is thus made a de facto election judge and the clinic a polling place. Yet on voting day, nobody passes the two policeman who stand at the entrance and comes to vote, and the ma’mour suggests that the doctor fill out the ballots while the ma’mour marks off the names of the voters. After, the ma’mour informs the doctor that it is his responsibility to deliver the boxes to the judge.
Here, they arrive at the secondary school where the election headquarters are located.
From The Country Doctor’s Tale
By Mohamed Mansi Qandil
Translated by R. Neil Hewison
We entered the courtyard of the aging building, which looked like it had not been renovated since the British Occupation. We climbed out of the paddy wagon and the conscripts followed us carrying the boxes: it was as though we were on our way to present offerings to an unknown god. From the school corridor we entered a hall crowded with tables, boxes, and many clerks sitting, as if embalmed, behind old, faded desks. We headed for the largest desk, in the middle of the hall. It was dark brown and shiny, the only one that reflected any light in the hall’s general gloom. Behind it sat a large man, apparently half-asleep, his hands clasped over his belly as he watched us approach. The ma’mour stopped directly in front of him, stamping his feet as he gave a military salute. “Sir!”
The judge shook slightly, as if waking up, and said offhandedly, “Finally. You’re the last box. We were about to close the constituency without you.”
“Doctor Ali, head of polling station number 40,” the ma’mour intoned officiously, “is pleased to present to you the final box.”
The judge didn’t bother to look at me. He signaled to one of the clerks. “Remove the red wax and open the box, count the ballots, inspect a sample of them, and write the report so that we can finish up.”
He didn’t invite us to sit down, so we remained standing in front of him like a pair of suspects. He sat still and the sound of his breathing became audible. The clerk started by removing the seals and emptying out the contents of the box, sorting them speedily into five piles and counting them quickly and carefully. Another clerk came to work beside him, and they began to examine a sample of the ballots, screening them rapidly. I was bored and wished that I could leave them and go. I would spend the night in any hotel—I didn’t want to ride in the paddy wagon again with that unpleasant ma’mour. Suddenly, the clerk cried out, “There’s one marked Disagree!”
The judge woke up with a start, while the ma’mour shuddered with the enormity of the shock. Despite his great weight, the judge stood up quickly and snatched the ballot from the clerk’s hand. He peered at it closely, then screamed, “Check all the ballots!”
All the clerks sitting at the faded desks came to life, phantoms rising from the dead. They pounced on the ballots, as I watched them in silence, and the judge remained standing. I turned toward the ma’mour, who was giving me furious looks and seemed to be having difficulty breathing in his excess of wrath. He surely wanted to kill me, but he couldn’t do that in front of the judge and all those witnesses. Another of the clerks held up a ballot and shouted, “This one has Disagree too!”
Not a moment later another clerk held up a third ballot: Disagree . . . Disagree . . . Bedlam! It was a nightmare visited on them all, and everyone was screaming hysterically. I was the only one who was calm, but the whole situation was on the point of erupting. The judge turned to me with fire in his eyes. “How did this happen!?”
I shrugged my shoulders dismissively. “It’s normal. Like any election, not everybody has to agree. There must be a minority who disagree. That’s the natural way of things and that’s what makes the result more authentic.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“It’s a tiny number of votes that won’t have any effect on the final result, or on the absolute majority.”
The judge exhaled and sat down again in his place—whether convinced by my logic or tired from standing up for so long. Panting, he said, “Let’s finish with this. Count all the votes and record the number of Agrees and Disagrees in the official report. I want to sign off before I leave.”
For a minute, I thought the crisis was over as quickly as it had begun, but I was mistaken. The ma’mour’s voice rose to a screech. “This will not stand! Not while I’m ma’mour of this district!”
He turned, poked a finger into my nearest shoulder, and went on angrily, “No one will pull the wool over my eyes or make a fool out of me!”
I moved my shoulder away from him and said, “I only did what had to be done.”
“Wrong!” he screamed. “What you did was totally wrong! There’s no substitute for an absolute majority, for complete consensus! This is what I have to accomplish.
That’s my responsibility as a loyal officer.”
The judge paid no attention to his refractory tone, only saying coolly, “This doctor did the right thing. It’s logic.”
This further inflamed the ma’mour’s outburst. He immediately reached and pulled his pistol from its holster, waving it high in the air and shouting, “To hell with logic!
I decide what’s right . . . and what’s logic.”
Suddenly, the place was in uproar. Chairs hit the floor; ballots fell from the table. I stepped back in alarm until I was pressed against the wall. I could see that all the clerks had dived under desks. The judge didn’t move, but his face had turned pale. More than once, he opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. The ma’mour turned in a circle, pointing his gun at everybody, probably looking for me. I retreated farther to disappear into the shadows. Finally, the judge found his voice. “Calm down and tell us what you want.”
Firmly, he said, “These Disagree ballots will be torn up, completely obliterated. They will be replaced by others marked Agree. I want the report to be one hundred percent Agree.”
The judge signaled to the clerks, who emerged cautiously from under the desks. With trembling fingers, they went through the ballots again. I felt I was in danger and there was no longer any reason for me to be there, so I began moving slowly toward the exit. But I heard the ma’mour’s voice call out, “Stop right there! We’re not finished with you yet. Come back to where you were.”
I went back to stand against the wall, while a feverish activity was ignited in the hall—opposing ballots were torn up, new ones were brought out and inked as Agree, and the final report was written up—all as he gripped his gun and looked daggers at everybody. He didn’t let go of his anger, even though things were going as he wanted.
The clerks came and placed some papers in front of me, which I signed without knowing what was in them. I watched the judge as he signed every sheet before finally raising his head and looking in my direction. He avoided looking at the ma’mour. At last, my voice escaped my throat. “Is everything finished?”
The judge was still panting. “You can leave now.”
Also read:
On Translating Egyptian Village Life: in conversation with R. Neil Hewison
Award-winning Egyptian novelist Mohamed Mansi Qandil worked as a physician before becoming an author and literary critic. He is the author of several short-story collections and novels, including A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore.
R. Neil Hewison served as editorial director of the American University in Cairo Press until his retirement in 2017. He has translated works by Egyptian writers Yusuf Idris, Yusuf Abu Rayya, Gamal al-Ghitani, and Naguib Mahfouz. He lives in the village of Tunis in the Fayoum.