“Yes.”
After the dreadful defeat of June 1967, Isma‘il set himself to study modern Egyptian history for the first time.
“I have to tell you,” he said, “that I’ve been constantly surprised by the power and freedom that the opposition always had and also by the role played by the Egyptian judiciary. It wasn’t a period of undiluted evil. Quite the contrary, there was a whole series of intellectual trends that deserved to continue, and indeed to grow and flourish. It is the very fact that such features have been systematically overlooked that has contributed to our defeat.”
Next he told me about his second period in prison.
“I was visiting Hilmi Hamada’s house,” he told me. “I left at around midnight, and they arrested me on the spot. With that I found myself back in the dark and empty void.”
Once again he found himself forced to ponder what the accusation might be this time. He had a long time to wait before he was to find out, and once again he went through all the tortures of hell. There he was yet again facing Khalid Safwan.
“I stood there silently,” he told me. “This time I could benefit from my previous experience. Even so, I was still expecting trouble from all the same directions as before.
“ ‘You cunning little bastard,’ Khalid Safwan said, looking me straight in the eye. ‘Here we were, thinking you belonged to the Muslim Brothers.…’
“ ‘And I turned out to be innocent,’ I replied emphatically.
“ ‘But what was lurking just below the surface was even worse!’
“ ‘I believe in the revolution,’ I said fervently. ‘That’s the only true fact there is.…’
“ ‘Oh, everyone believes in the revolution,’ he said sarcastically. ‘In this very room, feudalists, Wafdists, and Communists have all avowed their belief in the revolution!’ He gave me a cruel stare. ‘So when did you join the Communists?’
“A denial was immediately on my lips, but I suppressed it. In a purely reflex action I raised my shoulders as though to hide my neck, but said nothing.
“ ‘When did you join the Communists?’ he repeated.
“I felt as though my neck were becoming increasingly constricted. I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing.
“ ‘Don’t you want to confess?’
“I remained silent, using it in much the same way as I had adopted misery inside that dark prison cell.
“ ‘Okay!’ he said.
“He gestured with his hand. I heard the sound of footsteps approaching, and my body gave a shudder. All of a sudden I became aware that someone was standing right beside me; out of the corner of my eye I could make out that she was a woman. I turned toward her in amazement. All the terror I was feeling was completely obliterated by another sensation. ‘Zaynab!’ I yelled, unable to stop myself.
“ ‘So you know this woman, do you?’ he asked. ‘It seems to matter to you what happens to her.’ He looked back and forth between the two of us with those sunken eyes of his. ‘Does it matter?’
“For an entire minute I felt utterly shattered.
“ ‘You’re an educated man, and I’m sure you’ve some imagination,’ he went on. ‘Can you imagine what might happen to this poor innocent girl if you refuse to talk?’
“ ‘What is it you want, sir?’ I asked in a mournful tone that was actually addressed to the world as a whole.
“ ‘I am still asking you the same question: when did you join the Communists?’
“ ‘I don’t remember the exact date,’ I replied, thereby burying any last flicker of hope, ‘but I confess to being a Communist.’
“My confession was recorded on a sheet of paper, and I was taken away.”
He was taken back to his cell. Contrary to his initial expectations, he was not tortured any more. Even so, he was convinced that now he was lost.
An unspecified amount of time went by, then one day a guard came along and took him to a locked door. “Perhaps you’d like to see your friend, Hilmi Hamada,” he said.
He removed the cover from the peephole and ordered Isma‘il to take a look inside.
“I looked inside. What I saw was so grotesque that at first I couldn’t take it all in. It was just like some surrealist painting. What I could make out was that Hilmi Hamada was hanging by his feet, silent and motionless; either he had passed out or else he was dead.
“I was so shocked and disgusted that I staggered backwards. ‘That is in …,’ I started to say but then the words stuck in my mouth as I noticed the guard staring at me.
“ ‘What were you saying?’ he asked.
“I felt utterly sick.
“ ‘This is in—,’ you said, ‘in … what?’
“He pushed me ahead of him. ‘Inhumane, is that what you meant?’ he asked. ‘And what about all those blood-filled dreams you all had, were they supposed to be so humane?’ ”
This was followed by a further interval of time during the course of which he had suffered a bad attack of influenza in the wake of a particularly cold spell of weather. While he was still recovering, he was summoned to Khalid Safwan’s office again. At that particular juncture his greatest desire was to be transferred to any other prison or jail. As it turned out, Khalid Safwan spoke first.
“ ‘You’re in luck,’ he said.
“I looked at him in amazement.
“ ‘Once again you’ve been proved innocent.’
“All my resources of strength deserted me, and I felt an overwhelming desire to sleep.
“ ‘Your visit to Hilmi Hamada’s house was entirely innocent, wasn’t it?’
“I was terrified and had no idea what to say.
“ ‘He’s confessed, but luckily for him too we’ve proof that he never joined any organization or party. It’s the real workers we’re after, not the amateurs.’
“With that my hopes of being released perked up again.
“ ‘You’re still not saying anything,’ he continued, ‘out of respect for the sanctity of friendship, no doubt.’ For a moment he just sat there, but then he went on, ‘It’s that same faith in the power of friendship that makes us want to be your friends as well.’
“When was he going to order my release? I wondered.
“ ‘Be a friend of ours,’ he said. ‘You told us you were devoted to the revolution. I believe you. So why don’t you be one of our friends? How do you like the idea?’
“ ‘I’m delighted, sir.’
“ ‘We’re all children of the same revolution. We’re honor-bound to protect it with all due vigor, isn’t that so?’
“ ‘Of course.’
“ ‘But there has to be a positive attitude as well. The friendship we require has to be a positive one.’
“ ‘I’ve regarded myself as a friend of the revolution from the very beginning.’
“ ‘So how would you feel if you learned that the revolution was being threatened? Would that make you happy? Would you keep your mouth shut about it?’
“ ‘Certainly not!’
“ ‘That’s exactly what we’re asking for. You’ll be going to see a colleague of ours who’ll tell you the proper way to do things. But I’d like to remind you that we’re a force that is in complete control of things. There are no secrets from us. Friends are rewarded, and traitors are punished. That’s the way it is.’ ”
Isma‘il’s face clouded over as he recalled this particular incident. If anything, he now looked even more miserable than before.
“Could you have said no?” I asked, trying to relieve his misery a bit.
“You can always find some excuse or other,” he said, “but there’s no point.”
So that is the way he emerged from his imprisonment, an informer with a fixed salary and a tortured conscience. However hard he struggled with himself to conceptualize his new job in terms of his strong ties to the revolution, he always ended up feeling utterly appalled at what he was doing.