Naguib Mahfouz: Karnak Café

One time Zayn al-‘Abidin had a word in my ear. “Don’t be fooled by his appearance,” he said.

I immediately realized he was talking about Hilmi Hamada. “What do you know about him?” I asked.

“Look, he’s either a world-class schmoozer or a complete and utter phony!” For a few moments he said nothing, then went on, “I’m pretty sure he’s in love with Zaynab Diyab. Any day now he’s going to grab her away from Isma‘il al-Shaykh.”

I was troubled by his comments; not because I thought he was lying, but rather because they tended to confirm what I had recently been noticing myself, the way Hilmi and Zaynab kept on chatting to each other in a certain way. I had frequently asked myself whether it was just a case of close friendship or something more than that.

My friendship with Qurunfula was now on a firm enough footing for me to summon up the necessary courage to ask her a crucial question. “You’ve had a lot of experience in matters of life and love, haven’t you?

“No one can have any doubts on that score,” she responded proudly.

“And yet …,” I whispered.

“And yet what?”

“Do you think your love affair is going to have a happy ending?”

“When you’re really and truly in love,” she insisted, “it’s that very feeling that allows you to forget all about such things as wisdom, foresight, and honor.”

And that forced me to conclude that there is never any point in discussing love affairs with their participants.

And then the young folk disappeared again. As with the first time, it all happened suddenly and with no warning whatsoever.

This time, however, none of us needed to go through tortures of doubt or ask probing questions. Nevertheless we were all scared and disillusioned.

Qurunfula staggered under the weight of this new blow. “I never in my life imagined,” she said, “that I’d have to go through it all again.” That said, the sheer agony of the whole thing drove her upstairs to her apartment.

Once she had left, it was easier for the rest of us to talk.

“I may be totally innocent and old,” said Taha al-Gharib, “but now even I’m starting to worry about myself.”

Rashad Magdi’s expression was totally glum. “Listen,” he said with a jeer, “the leaders of the ‘Urabi Revolt in 1882 may have had some doubts about you, but not this time.”

“I wonder what’s behind it all?” asked Muhammad Bahgat.

“They’re all dangerous young men,” Zayn al-‘Abidin ‘Abdallah chimed in. “Why’s everyone so surprised at what’s happened to them?”

“But they’re children of this revolution!”

“There are lots of people opposed to the goals of this revolution who claim to be a part of it,” Zayn al-‘Abidin replied with a laugh. “When I was a boy and was heading for the red-light district, I told people I was going to the mosque.”

“May God forgive these people,” said Taha al-Gharib. “They certainly know how to scare folk, don’t they?”

A few days after this conversation had taken place, Qurunfula came over and took a seat beside me. She was looking utterly miserable. “Tell me what it all means,” she asked anxiously.

I understood full well what she meant, but I pretended not to follow her.

“Someone around here is passing on secret information!”

“Could well be,” I muttered.

“Rubbish!” she yelled. “It’s completely obvious. Everyone’s talking. The question is, who’s passing it all on?”

I paused for a moment. “You know the place better than I,” I said.

“I have no suspicions about my employees,” she said. “ ‘Arif Sulayman is indebted to me for his very life, and Imam al-Fawwal is a man of faith, so is Gum‘a.…”

“How about those old men sitting there on the sidelines?”

With that we stared at each other for quite a while. “No!” she said. “Zayn al-‘Abidin may be a wretch, but he has nothing to do with the authorities. In any case, he’s so corrupt himself, he’s scared to death of them.”

“There are scores of people who come in here every day,” I pointed out, “but we never pay the slightest attention to them.”

She sighed. “Nothing in the world is safe any longer.”

That said, the same grief-laden silence descended on the place again. She went back and sat on her chair, looking like a lifeless statue.

True enough, things like the ones we were experiencing were happening every day, but the effect is very different when the people to whom it is happening are considered part of the family. We began to be suspicious of everything, even the walls and tables. I was totally amazed at the state in which my homeland now found itself. In spite of all the wrong turns, it was growing in power and prestige, always expanding and getting bigger. It was making goods of all kinds, from needles to rockets, and broadcasting a wonderful new and humane trend in the life of humanity. But what was the point of all that if people were so feeble and downtrodden that they were not worth a fly, if they had no personal rights, no honor, no security, and if they were being crushed by cowardice, hypocrisy, and desolation?

Zayn al-‘Abidin’s nerves suddenly snapped for no apparent reason. “I’m so miserable,” he yelled. “I’m unlucky. I feel wretched. God curse the day I was ever born or came to this damned café!”

Qurunfula studiously ignored him.

“What have I done wrong?” he carried on. “I love you. What’s wrong with that? Why do you bad-mouth me every single day? Don’t you realize that it kills me to see you looking so sad? Why? Don’t spurn my love. Love is not to be spurned. It’s far more exalted and lofty than that. I feel really sorry for you, squandering the rest of your precious life so pitilessly. Why do you refuse to acknowledge that my heart is the only one that really adores you?”

Now Qurunfula broke her silence. “It would appear,” she said, addressing her comments to the rest of us, “that this man has no desire to respect my grief.”

“Me!” retorted Zayn al-‘Abidin. “I respect riffraff, hypocrites, criminals, pimps, and con men, so how could I possibly not feel respect for the grief of the woman who has taught me the way to revere sorrow by feeling sorry for her? Excuse me, please! Grieve away! Surrender to your destiny, wallow in the mire of what is left of your life. May God be with you!”

“Perhaps it would be better,” she said, “if you went somewhere else.”

“I’ve nowhere else to go! Where am I supposed to go? Here at least I can discover a crazy illusion, one that offers an occasional glimmer of hope.”

With that he started calming down and was soon back to normal. He looked very sheepish. As a way of drawing a veil over his outburst, he stood up with all the formality of a soldier, looked at Qurunfula, and apologized. After giving her a bow, he sat down again and started smoking his waterpipe.

Winter arrived, along with its biting cold and long nights. I remembered that the young folk used to meet here even during the wintertime — part of the academic year — even if it was just for an hour or so. Without them around, I thought to myself, this café is unbearable. The only people left now are those old men who have all completely forgotten about the other customers in prison; there they are, pretending to ignore the terror and politics by burying themselves in their own private worries. For them the only job left, it would seem, is sitting around and waiting for their final hour to come. Now they rue the passing of the good old days. Their only secret purpose in exchanging weird prescriptions is to postpone their appointment with death.

“ ‘Eat, drink, and be merry,’ the saying goes. That’s the best slogan for life.”