Naguib Mahfouz - Sugar Street

The officer looked from one to the other. After some hesitation he said, 'You're educated and cultured… and you're both married — aren't you? Fine. Wouldn't it be best if you attended to your personal affairs and kept out of trouble?"

Abd al-Muni'm replied in his forceful voice, "Thank you for your advice, which I shall not follow."

A brief laugh took the officer by surprise and escaped from his lips. Then he admitted, "During the search, I learned that you are grandsons of the late Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. Your lamented uncle Fahmy was a dear friend of mine. I assume you know that he died in the spring of his life and that those of his comrades who survived now hold some of the most important posts."

Discerning the secret reason for the officer's courtesy, which had baffled him, Ahmad said, "Allow me to ask you, sir, what condition Egypt would be in if my uncle and others like him had not sacrificed their lives."

Shaking his head, the man remarked, "Think long and well about my advice. Abandon this lethal philosophy". As He stood up he added, "You will be our guests in this jail until the inquiry is conducted. I wish you luck."

On leaving the office, they were taken into custody by a corporal and two armed policemen. The entire group descended to the ground floor, turned into a dark and extremely damp hall, and walked along it a short distance until the jailer greeted them with his flashlight, as if to show them the door to the jail. Opening the door, the jailer let the new prisoners in and then directed his light inside to guide them to their mats. The torch provided enough illumination for them to see the high ceiling of the medium-sized room as well as the small, barred window at the top of the exterior wall. The chamber had several guests: two youngsters, who looked like students, and three men with bare feet and a repulsive, battered appearance. The door was immediately closed, leaving them in darkness, but the light and the new arrivals had awakened some of the sleeping prisoners. Ahmad whispered to his brother, "I'm not going to sit down, for fear this dampness will be the death of me. Let's remain standing till morning."

"We'll have to sit down sooner or later. Do you have any idea when we'll get out of this jail?"

Then a voice clearly belonging to one of the young men said, "There's no way to avoid sitting down. It's not pleasant, but standing up, day after day, is worse."

"Have you been here a long time?"

"Three days!"

The room was silent again until the voice asked, "Why did they arrest you?"

Abd al-Muni'm replied tersely, "For political reasons, apparently."

The voice said cheerfully, "Political prisoners now form the majority in this cell. Before you honored us with your presence, we were in the minority."

Ahmad asked, "What are you accused of?"

"You speak first, for we have seniority here. Although there's probably no need to ask, since we saw that one of you has the beard of a Muslim Brother."

Smiling in the dark, Ahmad asked, "What about you?"

"We're law students. They say we were distributing subversive pamphlets."

Incensed, Ahmad asked, "Did they catch you red-handed?"

"Yes."

"What was in the pamphlets?"

"A report on the redistribution of Egypt's agricultural resources."

"Newspapers have published comparable material even under martial law."

"There were also a few enthusiastic exhortations."

Ahmad smiled once more in the gloom, feeling for the first time that he was not alone. Then the other voice continued: "We're not afraid of the law so much as of being detained without a trial,"

"There are promising signs of change."

"But we'll always be targets, no matter who is in power."

A gruff voice barked rudely, "That's enough talk out of you. Let us get some sleep."

But these words awakened a companion, who yawned and asked, "Is it morning yet?"

The first man responded scornfully, "No, but our friends think they're in a hashish den."

Abd al-Muni'm sighed and whispered so softly that only Ahmad could hear, "Am I cast into this hole merely because I worship God?"

Ahmad whispered merrily in his brother's ear, "What could my offense be then, since I don't?"

After that, no one felt like speaking. Ahmad asked himself why the three older men had been arrested. Had the charges been theft, fighting, drunkenness, or rowdy behavior? Clad in his overcoat, he had often written about "the people" in his beautiful study. Here they were — cursing or snoring in their sleep. For a few seconds by the light of the torch he had seen their wretched sullen fices, including that of the man who was scratching his head and armpits. At this very moment his lice might be advancing resolutely toward Ahmad and his brother.

"You are devoting your life to people like this," he told himself. "Why should the thought of contact with them worry you? The person on whom mankind's hopes for salvation are pinned should stop snoring and awake to his historic role. Let him rear up and rescue the entire world."

Ahmad advised himself, "Without regard to the differences of taste between us, our common human condition has united us in this dark and humid place: the Muslim Brother, the Communist, the drunkard, and the thief. Despite dissimilarities in our luck and success at looking after ourselves, we are all human beings."

He wondered, "Why don't you busy yourself with personal affairs as the officer suggested? I have a beloved wife and plenty of money. The truth is that a man may be happy with his niche as a spouse, an employee, a father, or a son and yet be condemned to suffer various travails or even death by virtue of the fact that he is a man."

Whether Ahmad was sentenced to prison this time or released, the heavy, glowering prison gates would always hover at the horizons of his life. He asked himself again, "What is pushing me down this dazzling and dangerous road unless it is the human being that lurks deep inside of me, the man who is conscious of himself and aware of his common, historic, human condition? What distinguishes a man from all other creatures if not his ability to condemn himself to death by his own free will?"

Ahmad felt dampness coursing through his legs and weakness penetrating his joints. Snores echoed through the room with a regular rhythm. Then, between the bars of the small window, the first feeble rays of delicate light were visible.

Kamal despondently followed the physician out of the bedroom. Catching up with the man in the sitting room and gazing at him with questioning eyes, Kamal heard him say calmly, "I'm sorry to inform you that the paralysis is total."

Feeling miserable, Kamal asked, "Is that serious?"

"Of course! And she's also suffering from pneumonia. I'm prescribing an injection so she can get some rest."

"Isn't there any hope she'll recover?"

The doctor was silent for a time and then replied, "Our lives are in God's hands. For what it's worth, my judgment as a physician is that she has three days at the most."

Kamal received this prediction of death resolutely and escorted the physician to the door of the house before returning to the bedroom. His mother was asleep or so it seemed. The thick blanket revealed only a pale face with lips closed but slightly awry. Aisha, who was standing by the bed, walked toward him, asking, "What's wrong with her, brother? What did the doctor say?"

From her station by the head of the bed, Umm Hanafi observed, "She's not speaking, master. She hasn't said a single word."

Kamal reflected, "Her voice will never be heard again". Then he told his sister, "An attack of high blood pressure combined with a slight cold. The injection will help her rest."

Aisha commented, perhaps to herself, "I'm afraid. If she lies in bed like this for a long time, life in our house will surely be unbearable."