Naguib Mahfouz - Karnak Café

“And then there are the Rightists of a particular stripe,” he continued. “They want an alliance with America and a severance of all ties with Russia. They would be quite happy with a peaceful solution in spite of all the painful and humiliating concessions we would inevitably have to make. Their dream is to get rid of our current regime and return to a traditional form of democracy and liberal economic policy.

“Next we have the Communists — and the Socialists are essentially a subdivision of the same group. They’re interested in just one thing: ideology — strengthening our ties with Russia. They believe that the national interest and progress are best served through ideology, even though the process may involve a very long period of waiting. In consequence, they favor whichever solution anchors the move toward Communism and Russia, whether it’s peace, or war, or the current situation which they’re calling ‘no peace, no war.’ ”

Remarkable though it may seem, his popularity improved after he had left. Many people valued the survey he had just given and admired his rich store of secret information. Some people even went further and defended the man himself, claiming that he was not the one who was responsible for the crimes he had committed; either that, or else he was not the one primarily responsible.

It was Qurunfula who finally felt compelled to react. “Go on then!” she said angrily. “Shift the blame from one person to the next. It’ll finish up with Gum‘a, the bootblack!”

However, once Khalid Safwan did decide to join the café community, he found a ready welcome.

In just three months we forgot all about the person he had been. He used to appear on the arm of his helper at the same time every evening. He would be accorded the same kind of welcome as everyone else; it was almost as though there was absolutely nothing unusual about him. However, he felt somewhat isolated, so he was the one who opened the conversation.

“Are you all still talking?” he inquired, thus intruding on our general disinterest.

“As usual,” was Zayn al-‘Abidin’s reply.

“Earlier I told you about what other groups are thinking these days,” he said, continuing his intrusion. “But I haven’t told you what I think myself.”

“About the war, you mean?” asked Munir Ahmad.

“That seems to be the point that has everyone baffled,” he responded in a rush. “To me it seems perfectly simple. We were defeated. We were totally unprepared for war. That’s the problem we have to solve, and quickly, even if it involves paying the price. We should be spending every single penny we have making ourselves more advanced culturally. But I really wanted to talk about our way of life in general.”

By now he had everyone’s attention.

“In the minutes I have left here,” he continued, “I’m going to give you all a frank summary of my experiences. I’ve emerged from the defeat, or let’s say from my past life, strongly believing in a set of principles from which I will never deviate as long as I am alive. So what are those principles?

“Firstly, a total disavowal of autocracy and dictatorship. Secondly, a disavowal of any resort to force or violence. Thirdly, we have to rely on the principles of freedom, public opinion, and respect for our fellow human beings as values needed to foster and advance progress. With them at our disposal it can be achieved. Fourthly, we must learn to accept from Western civilization the value of science and the scientific method, and without any argument. Nothing else should be automatically accepted without a full discussion of our current realities. With that in mind, we should be prepared to get rid of all the fetters that tie us down, whether ancient or modern.

“So there is the philosophy of Khalid Safwan,” he said with a yawn. “I’ve learned its principles from within the deepest recesses of hell. I’m proclaiming it here today in Karnak Café, a place to which we have all been driven by a combination of ostracism and crime.”

“Maybe things will turn out better for you and your generation,” I said, leaning toward Munir Ahmad.

“There’s a huge mound of dirt in our path,” he said, “and it’s up to us to clear it away.”

“Truth to tell,” I said sincerely, “your generation — you and your contemporaries — are an unexpected dividend. Out of this all-encompassing darkness a bright light is shining forth, so bright that you might imagine it had been created by magic.”

“You don’t know what we’ve been through.”

“But we’re partners.”

He gave me a doubtful stare.

“Tell me,” I asked him, “what are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Which political label best fits you?”

“Damn all such labels!” he replied angrily.

“From your conversation I gather that you respect religion.”

“That’s true.”

“And also that you respect leftist opinions. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“So what are you exactly?”

“I want to be myself, no more, no less.”

“Is it a kind of craving for cultural rootedness?” I asked after a pause for thought.

“Could be.”

“Does that imply a return to the heritage of the past?”

“Certainly not!”

“So where’s this ‘rootedness’ to be found?”

“Here!” he replied pointing to his heart.

Once again I had to pause for thought. “This idea needs further discussion,” I said.

“I’m sure it needs a great deal of discussion,” he responded in all innocence.

I let the others know how much I admired this young man’s vision, to such an extent that one day Zayn al-‘Abidin lost his patience.

“Listen,” he said. “One day, in two or three years’ time, that boy’s going to find himself as a civil servant with a miserable salary. That’ll leave him with just two choices, no more: corruption or emigration.”

That infuriated Qurunfula. “When are you ever going to make a bad mistake,” she asked, “and actually say something decent? Just for once!”

“O lovely source of all bounty,” he said with a smile of resignation, “the truth is always a bitter pill.”

“But there is a third choice,” she insisted stubbornly.

“And what might that be, my lady?” he asked humbly.

“Whatever our good Lord chooses!”

I was delighted that she had chosen to react that way. In her case I regarded it as a good sign; perhaps she was now ready to start her life again. However, a new and potentially fascinating idea struck me all of a sudden: could it be, I wondered, that she was beginning to fancy the young man? Was he going to take Hilmi Hamada’s place? I’ll confess to not being entirely ignorant of the way that some women of her age can behave, how they can feel a passion for adolescent youths and allow folly and adventure to lead them to extremes. I found myself wishing dearly that, if any of the ideas circulating inside my mind were actually to come to pass, the love affair might follow a level path. I hoped that there would be no selfishness on the one side, and no exploitation on the other. The love might once again discover purity and innocence.

Yes indeed, purity and innocence.

Dedicated to the memory of Naguib Mahfouz, great Egyptian, intellectual, and littérateur, humble, warmhearted, and ever-witty individual. Allah yarhamuh.

Readers familiar with Naguib Mahfouz’s writings will already be aware of the fact that his works handsomely reward those who are prepared to pay the most careful attention to the nuances of the text. In the case of Karnak Café , the English translation of the novel originally entitled al-Karnak , this is particularly so, but, in making that suggestion, I am thinking of one very particular instance: the way in which the novel ends. I am not here referring to the much-investigated narratological topic of the strategies employed by novel writers in order to achieve closure, but to the fact that the printed text ends with a reference to the fact that it was completed in December 1971.