Naguib Mahfouz - Karnak Café

“His frank admission came as a total surprise to me. I dearly wished that I’d not gone to his home.”

“I can well understand your feelings.”

“I immediately thought of the force that was in control of everything. I was overwhelmed by panic and started worrying about Isma‘il.”

Aha! So there was Isma‘il assuming they had used special methods to find out that he had failed to communicate with them, when all the time it had never even occurred to him that it was Zaynab who had given Hilmi away. So she was the one who had revealed his secret, assuming that by so doing she would be sparing him even greater agonies.

We stared sadly at each other.

“So I’m the one who killed Hilmi Hamada,” she said.

“No, you’re not,” I replied. “He was killed by whoever it was made the decision to torture all of you.”

“I’m the one who killed him. And they arrested Isma‘il even so. Why? I don’t understand. This time he spent even longer in prison than the two previous times. When he came out, he was even more crushed than before. Why? I don’t know. In my report I’d put down that he’d argued with his friend and advised him to abandon the project. But any appeal to logic in these circumstances is obviously futile.”

“At the time you were out of prison, weren’t you?”

“Oh yes. I was free to enjoy my liberty to the full, along with all the suffering and loneliness that went with it. And then, along came the precursors of war, bringing their threats to our very existence. Like everyone else, I had a limitless trust in our armed forces. Everything would go on and on, I told myself, both good and bad. But then came the disaster and.…”

She fell silent; her expression was one of total dismay.

“There’s no need to explain,” I assured her. “We all went through it. But did you support the demonstrations on the ninth and tenth of June?”

“Yes, I certainly did, and to the maximum extent possible.”

“So your basic faith has not been shaken then?”

“Quite the contrary, it has been completely uprooted from its foundations. I’ve come to believe that it’s a castle built on sand.”

“I have to tell you that I don’t understand your attitude.”

“It’s all very simple. All of a sudden, I found I could no longer tolerate having to shoulder responsibility. After relying on a laissez-faire attitude for so long, I found that I was actually afraid of genuine freedom. How about you? Were you for or against the demonstrators at the time?”

“I was with them all the way, clinging desperately to a last spark of national pride.”

“When I heard that Isma‘il was going to be set free,” she went on angrily, “I told myself that I had the defeat to thank for letting me see him again.”

As I thought about what she had just said, the entire idea made me feel utterly sad and miserable.

Then she told me about her first meeting with Isma‘il after his release, and the confused babble of their conversation.

“You know, when we first graduated and got jobs, we talked all the time about getting married, that being a requirement enjoined by traditional notions of modesty. We talked about it over and over again. It’s not so strange for me to have changed and abandoned the dreams of the past, but what has caused such a change in Isma‘il? What really happened inside that prison, I wonder?”

So, at this point, each one of them acknowledges that they have changed, but keeps asking himself or herself about the other one. They’re both convinced that they can’t live a normal life now; on that score I tend to agree with them — at least, with regard to this wretched period we’re now living through. All of us need time so we can bandage our wounds and purify the collective national soul. In fact, the process may even involve a recovery of self-confidence and self-respect as well. But by the very nature of things matters like that could not be discussed in this particular context.

“If humanity simply gives up or waits,” I commented, using generalities as a smoke screen, “it will never change — for the better, I mean.”

“It’s so easy to philosophize, isn’t it!” she retorted angrily.

“Maybe so,” I said, “but these days Isma‘il seems to be edging toward the fedayeen.”

“I know.”

“And what about you?” I asked after another pause. “What are your thoughts?”

She said nothing for a while. “Before I give you a reply,” she said, “I must first correct something that I said about Imam al-Fawwal and Gum‘a. Actually they knew nothing about the details of the arrangement they made between Zayn al-‘Abidin ‘Abdallah and me after our second period in prison; they had no idea what was going on.”

“Do you mean they’re innocent of what you accused them of doing?”

“No, I don’t. But they’ve only given in to temptation recently, not before. Things are still really confused in my own mind, and I want you to keep in mind that I’m telling you my own story from memory. I can’t guarantee that all the details are accurate.”

I nodded my head sadly. “What are your thoughts now?” I repeated.

“Do you really want to know?”

“I assume you’re not still.…” I stopped in spite of myself.

“Being a prostitute, you mean?” she said, completing my sentence for me.

I said nothing.

“Thank you for thinking so well of me,” she said.

Again I did not comment.

“At the moment,” she said, “I’m living a very puritan existence.”

“Really?” I asked happily.

“Certainly.”

“And how did that come about?”

“Quickly, through a counter-revolution, but also because I still feel a sense of utter revulsion.”

“Where, oh where have those former days of innocence and enthusiasm gone?” I asked affectionately.

These days there’s only one topic of conversation at Karnak Café. It dominates all other subjects, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. We talk about nothing else, and by that I mean all of us: Muhammad Bahgat, Rashad Magdi, Taha al-Gharib, Zayn al-‘Abidin ‘Abdallah, Isma‘il al-Shaykh, Zaynab Diyab, ‘Arif Sulayman, Imam al-Fawwal, Gum‘a, and some new folk who represent the ever renewing cycle of generations. Qurunfula has now stopped wearing her mourning garb. She sits there, watching and listening, but never saying anything.

Often we find ourselves getting bored with the whole thing, at which point someone will suggest changing the topic before we all go absolutely mad. All of us enthusiastically support the idea and start on another subject, but discussion is usually uninspired and starts to flag. It’s not too long before it’s on its last legs, at which point we go back to our enduring topic. We’re flogging it to death, and it’s doing exactly the same thing to us, but there’s no letup and no end in sight.

“War, that’s the only way.”

“No, the fedayeen, they’re the way. And we must concentrate on defense.”

“The only feasible solution is one imposed by the Great Powers as a group.”

“Any negotiation implies surrender.”

“But there has to be negotiation. All nations negotiate with each other. Even America, China, Russia, Pakistan, and India do just that!”

“In this instance, the idea of a ‘peace settlement’ means that Israel will gain complete control of the region and swallow it up in one simple gulp.”

“But how come we’re so afraid of a settlement? Did the English and French swallow us up?”

“If the future reveals Israel to be a state with good intentions, then we can live with it. If, on the other hand, it turns out to be exactly the opposite, then we’ll have to get rid of it, just as we did the Crusaders many, many years ago.”