“But there is one thing that I need to tell you: when suffering pushes someone too far, he can still get the better of it. Even in moments of the direst possible agony, he can still leap up and express his concerns with a level of recklessness that can be regarded as a sign of either despair or power — both are equally valid.
“So I surrendered myself to the fates and decided to allow the very devil himself to come if that was indeed what destiny had determined was to be my lot, or even death if it came to that. I stopped posing myself questions for which there were no answers, but made up my mind to take the lead from the way influenza behaves, countering antibiotics by creating whole new generations of bacteria that are resistant to medicine.”
“Did you stay on your feet for a long time?” I asked.
“When the strain of it all really got to me,” he said, “I squatted and then sat cross-legged on the floor. I slept as much as I could. Can you imagine? When I woke up, I remembered where I was. I realized that I had completely lost all sense of time. What time was it when I had fallen asleep? Was it daytime or night now? I felt my chin and decided to use its growth as a very inaccurate timepiece.”
“Did they leave you there for long?”
“Yes.”
“How about food?”
“The door used to open, and a tray would be pushed inside with some cheese on it, or else something salty with bread.”
“What about the toilet?”
“At a specific time each day, the door would open again, and a giant man the size of a circus wrestler would call me outside and take me to the latrine at the end of the corridor. As I followed him, I would have to keep my eyes almost closed because the light was so bright. I had hardly closed the door behind me before he would start yelling, ‘Get a move on, you son of a bitch! Do you think you can stay in there all day, you bastard?’ I’ll leave you to imagine how I was managing inside.”
“Have you any idea how long you were there?”
“God alone knows. My beard grew so long, I couldn’t tell any more.”
“But they cross-examined you, for sure?”
“Oh yes,” he replied with a frown. “There came the day when I found myself standing in front of Khalid Safwan.”
For a moment he was silent, his eyes narrowing with the sheer emotion aroused by the memory. Inevitably I now felt myself being drawn into the intense feelings he was experiencing.
“There I stood in front of his desk, barefoot and wearing only a shoddy nightshirt. My nerves were completely shot. Behind me stood one person, or maybe more. I was not allowed to look either right or left, let alone behind me. For that reason I couldn’t tell where I was and had to stare blearily straight at him. Whatever vestiges of my humanity may have been left at this point dissolved in an all-encompassing sense of terror.”
For just a moment his expression was etched with suppressed anger. “In spite of everything that happened,” he went on, “his image is indelibly recorded deep inside me. Of medium height, he had a large, elongated face with bushy eyebrows that pointed upwards. He had big, sunken eyes and a broad, prominent forehead. His jaw was strong, but he managed to keep his expression totally neutral. I can vividly recall all those details. Even so, I was feeling so utterly desperate that I managed to create an illusion of hope for myself concerning his role.
“ ‘Thank God!’ I said. ‘At last, I find myself standing before someone with authority.’
“A sharp cuff from behind cut me off, and I let out a groan of pain.
“ ‘Only speak when you’re asked a question,’ he said.
“He proceeded to ask me for my name, age, and profession, all of which I answered.
“ ‘When did you join the Muslim Brothers?’ he asked.
“The question astonished me. Now I realized for the first time what it was they were accusing me of being. ‘Never for a single moment have I belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood,’ I replied.
“ ‘What’s the beard for then?’
“ ‘I’ve grown it in prison.’
“ ‘Are you suggesting that you haven’t been well treated here?’
“ ‘My dear sir,’ I replied in a tone that was tantamount to an appeal for help, ‘the treatment I have received here has been appalling and utterly unjustified.’
“ ‘God forbid!’
“I realized at once that I had just made a dreadful mistake, but it was too late.
“ ‘So,’ he asked again, ‘when did you join the Muslim Brotherhood?’
“ ‘I never …,’ I started to reply but never finished the sentence. I started falling to the floor in a crumpled mass; it rushed up to greet me in a manner that seemed almost magical. Khalid Safwan soon disappeared into the gloom. Later on, Hilmi Hamada told me that one of the devils standing behind me had hit me so hard that I fainted. When I came to, I was back in the same place they had taken me from — on the asphalt floor in the cell.”
“What an ordeal!” I said.
“Yes, it was,” he replied. “The whole thing ended suddenly and unexpectedly. What’s more, it was actually in Khalid Safwan’s own room.”
“ ‘We now have proof,’ he told me as soon as they brought me in, ‘that your name was recorded on a list because you had donated a piaster to build a mosque. You never had an actual connection with them.’
“ ‘Isn’t that exactly what I’ve been telling you?’ I asked in a voice quivering with emotion.
“ ‘It’s an excusable error,’ he replied. ‘But contempt for the revolution is inexcusable.’ With that he proceeded to deliver his lecture with the greatest conviction. ‘We are here to protect the state that manages to keep you free of all kinds of subservience.’
“ ‘I am one of its loyal children.’
“ ‘Just look on the time you have spent here as a period of hospitality. Always remember how well you were treated. I trust that you’ll always remember that. Just bear in mind the fact that scores of people have been laboring night and day in order to prove your innocence.’
“ ‘I thank both God and you, sir.’ ”
The sheer memory of that moment led Isma‘il al-Shaykh to let out a bitter laugh.
“Were other people arrested for the same reason?” I asked.
“There were in fact two members of the Muslim Brothers in our group,” he replied. “They interrogated Zaynab and learned of her relationship with me, so they released her as well. It was because of us that they had arrested Hilmi. When they discovered that I was innocent, they did the same for him too.”
It was all a very bitter experience for him. As a result he had come to totally distrust a government agency, namely the secret police. In spite of that, his belief in the state itself and the revolution remained rock-solid and unshaken; neither doubt nor corruption could alter his opinion on that score. As far as he was concerned, the secret police were using techniques of their own devising, but the people in authority remained in the dark.
“When I was released,” Isma‘il said, “I thought about complaining to the government authorities, but Hilmi Hamada used every argument he could to stop me.”
“He obviously didn’t believe in the very state itself, wouldn’t you say?”