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Salem in his bed, made us both some hot milk and sat me down on the sofa, my mother quietly going to bed to give us our time.
    ‘You asked me if I am a supporter of Hosni Mubarak,’ he said. The answer is no. But, does that mean I have to support those protesters, this revolution, if that’s what it really is? No, it doesn’t. I support my family and I support the good people around me. They are who I try to support. If Hosni Mubarak was a good man I would support him too. But, he is not.
    And who is to say those protesters are good people? Do we know them? Can we trust them? I don’t mean what they will do on the streets on Tuesday, but what they will do when they topple Mubarak. I fear for my people, but do they fear for me?’
    And I realised that my father and I were exactly the same.The conflict I felt, he also felt. My hesitations showed themselves in his attempts to keep us safe. I looked at him and knew he would walk us through this.
    Still, is it fair? Is it fair that because of his instinct to protect his family I would be denied the opportunity to walk alone through whatever was ahead? I felt old enough, experienced enough and smart enough to know that whatever happened on Tuesday and beyond, our lives would be changed. Some small thing in our family would be forever changed. And I feared what that change might be. Would it mean the head of the house expressing his sense of responsibility towards us in a more authoritative way? I saw life, my insignificant life, slip away, drop out of my hand and roll into the gutter. Soon followed by the bodies and filth of the revolution.
    Whatever political end the revolution would bring, what it did to how we lived our daily lives would count the most. The average person just wants to live their life. I am as scared of terrorists as anyone else. The thought of people living in the same city as me plotting to destroy it fills me with sorrow. Regardless of the noise and the smoke and the buildings and the people, Cairo is a beautiful city.
    I stood on the bridge when they moved the statue of Ramses from the front of the train station to its new position at the Museum. They say it took them twenty-four hours to make the short journey because of the lorry’s speed. The lorry was cheered along the route and it was televised across the country. That is the beauty of Cairo. Despite its multiple personalities, it has moments of pure clarity. Moving Ramses was a moment of clarity where everyone understood, from the road sweeper to the surgeon with his family on the bridge watching; it was necessary in order to save it.
    Cairo knew what she was when the first people settled on the banks of the Nile, and she knows who she is today. We know our history, and we know how important it is. Would we still, after Tuesday?
    ‘You know, revolutions are not new to this part of theworld,’ my father said, calming. ‘We have had them before. Revolutions are just a shift and there is always an adjustment time that follows.’ He could read my fears.
    ‘A shift in what?’ I ask.
    ‘Well, some say a shift in consciousness. That a revolution is part of our social evolution. Do you understand what I mean? That the world is always changing around us, we are always changing and a revolution is part of that change process.’
    ‘And what if the change is bad?’ I ask, feeling like a kid.
    ‘Then eventually it will change again.’
    ‘Baba, are you a Socialist?’
    He laughs at this, gives it the good laugh he feels it deserves. ‘In the car you asked me if I supported Hosni Mubarak and now you ask me if I’m a Socialist?’ Capitalist, Socialist, Communist … do you even know what these words mean?’ he asks.
    ‘You’d be surprised, baba,’ I say.
    ‘Surprise me!’ he encourages. I laugh.
    ‘Besides, I am nothing,’ he says, with pride in his voice. ‘I don’t have to give myself a label to be something. I can be something without a label … or nothing,’ he shrugs.
    He smiles