Challenge
Challenge by Asmaa Nada ch 1
Chapter 1
Life is not always beautiful, clear, and stable. Life is like the sea that you see from afar, wonderfully beautiful, wide, and calm and its waves are clear. But sometimes it gets angry and its qualities are reversed, so that calm becomes an eruption of anger and beauty turns into hell, and that clarity narrows down on those inside it, and that serenity becomes disturbed. With the blood of many, yes, this is how life smiles at us at times and raises us to the sky where we believe that there is no pain at all, and suddenly life blows upon us, we are separated, destroyed, in pain, to the point that we believe that there is no joy and that it is just illusions.
In many families, their lives are stable. The father works hard to secure the family’s financial income, and the mother helps him sometimes, but most of the time the responsibility of caring for the children falls on the mother’s shoulders. This is how that family was. It was composed of the father, the pregnant mother, and a child who was not more than six years old. They live in a small two-story house in one of Alexandria's residences, located near the sea.
The mother was the first to wake up. She would prepare breakfast and arrange it on the table. Then she would go to wake up the father, who would go to work after eating breakfast. As for the mother, she would start preparing her young son and then take him to the nursery next to the house, and then she would go to the law office. She works as a criminal lawyer for The largest law firm in Alexandria, “A small, happy, stable family.” This is how the sentence was formulated by the woman sitting in front of me, inside the filming location of the “Life Story” program. The woman said while trying to hide her tears.
I felt that I owned the world and that there was no pain in my life, and what increased my feeling of happiness was the day we gave birth to my daughter. She was a beautiful child, despite the slightly dark color of her skin. Her eye color was like the sky, blue. Yes, my family was the happiest family for five years. For years, life took us to heaven, and I became the most famous lawyer who could solve the most difficult cases, remove the accused, and acquit him. My husband worked in the field of medicine. He was a famous surgeon inside and outside Egypt. My family’s life was happy and stable to the point that friends, neighbors, and close people whispered.
Until that day, which I had never imagined, my family's situation turned from happiness to misery, destroying everything. I was close to succeeding in one of the cases, but I discovered that the accused was guilty, but the evidence was not sufficient to prove the crime against him. I could not fight my conscience and continue with that case. So I withdrew from it, and even submitted papers and records to the judiciary condemning that accused, and he was convicted and thrown into prison for twenty-five years. Therefore, he became angry and threatened to kill me or destroy my family. Days after the court’s ruling, my husband and I decided to travel outside Egypt and reside in another country. For fear of carrying out that criminal’s threat, we closed the house prepared the papers, and said goodbye to my family and my husband’s family, then we set off in our car heading to Cairo International Airport, but a large transport vehicle blocked our way, and I was placed in a hospital for several months, and when I woke up I could not find my daughter or her. My son, and to this day, despite the passage of twenty years, my husband and I are still searching for them. I hope that God will send me a path that will lead me to them.
The time for the program ended and that woman vowed to try to find her children, and she began searching magazines and newspapers for news of car accidents. She searched for the accidents that occurred on the date that that woman said until she came to several articles talking about an incident of attempted premeditated murder of a famous lawyer. She grabbed the evening newspaper that I used to work there before and read about the incident.
Before I tell you about the accident, and afterward, and what I discovered, I want to tell you who I am, as I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Mahmoud Al-Zayat, a broadcaster on the Al-Hayat channel, and my specialty before working on television was in the field of crime. I used to work as a journalist in a newspaper. This is what made that woman and her husband turn to me, and now I will tell you what I discovered in the newspapers and my research on these children.
Crowds, rising smoke, the sounds of car horns interspersed with anger, traffic officers spread out to arrange the cars in rows, they slowly pass through a small corridor designated by the traffic officers, and the sounds of anger subside as soon as they pass by the accident. Some of them are shocked when they see what happened, and some of them mumble Praying that the injuries will be minor, the ambulance team quickly approaches, trying to get out and help those inside the small car, whose front may be destroyed under the trailer of a huge car. This car, which came at an insane speed from a bend to cross the main road, collides with the front of a small car and climbs onto it, so the first part of it passes and is concentrated. The front of the small car is underneath the trailer that the huge car was pulling.
The paramedic's voice shouted
"The driver of the car is in a dangerous condition and half of his body is trapped between the curves of the front of the car from the inside"
The voice of the second paramedic shouted as he tried to grab the woman sitting next to the driver, who was severely damaged by the pressure of the front of the car towards her and scattered wounds to the face, neck, and chest from the destroyed windshield that flew towards her despite the curvature of the body which suggested that she was trying to look back to protect her children.
"Hurry and get oxygen. The children in the back are in a state of suffocation. The smoke is thick here"
Thanks to the quick action of the paramedics, they were able to get everyone out of the car, then the man was placed in an ambulance and the pain in another car, but unfortunately for the children they were taken to the hospital in a passerby’s car with a paramedic doctor.
This is due to a shortage in the number of ambulances. This resulted, due to poor organization, in restricting the children in a hospital anonymously and with incorrect information about the incident from which they came. The man and the woman were restricted with a different medical report and inside another hospital. Therefore, after treating the children, they were placed in a nursing home. Until their families appeared, which caused the disappearance of any trace or relationship of the children with the father and mother, whose comatose state lasted for more than two months.
This is how the last thing that was written about this incident was in magazines and newspapers. I could not find a single piece of information that would lead me to the whereabouts of both children, but by searching, I was able to find out that the boy had been adopted from one of the families, but the adoption papers had disappeared. I did not give up, and I kept searching again among the magazines, and after the search. Many times, an article appeared before me that attracted attention, talking about the same incident. I cited what had been written in the other newspaper and wrote:
Due to the lack of ambulances, at the scene of the accident, a disorganization resulted in sending the father and mother to a different hospital than the hospital to which the children were sent. The children were tied up anonymously and with incorrect information about the accident from which they came. The man and woman were also tied up with a different medical report. Therefore, after treating the children, they were placed in two childcare homes until their parents appeared, and this caused the disappearance of any trace or relationship between the child
ren with the father and mother.