“We represent a conservatism that is deliberately dressed in the guise of progressivism,” she said. “That’s why, within the framework of the revolution, I’ve found things that to me seem both comforting and reassuring.”
She loved Isma‘il very much and fully understood the way he thought as well. She believed that they shared the same set of attitudes. Even though he might pretend to say things that he didn’t really believe in his heart of hearts, she realized that he would never forgive her if she were to look down on him in any way.
“At the time,” she told me, “old Hasaballah, the chicken seller, was eager to get me at any price. When I turned him down, he wasn’t put off. He used an old woman who worked with him to get to me again. But I certainly taught her a lesson.”
“You mean, he wanted to have you out of wedlock?”
“That’s right. And he was prepared to pay a high price for it too!”
She was saying all this in a listless tone that seemed strangely inappropriate to the situation. At the time I had no idea what lay behind it.
“Zayn al-‘Abidin ‘Abdallah tried the same game later on,” she said.
“Never!” I exclaimed in surprise.
“Oh yes, he did,” she replied emphatically.
“But he was crazy about Qurunfula!”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Maybe he was just pretending to be in love with her,” I suggested. “He wanted to hide the fact that he was really after her money.”
“No,” she replied. “He was genuinely in love with her; he still is. He just needed a bit of diversion for consolation’s sake. Maybe the old rogue thought I was one of those girls who fools around.”
“When did he let you know what he was after?”
“Many times, but I’m referring to the first time, immediately after our first spell in prison.”
“In spite of his stubbornness I believe that he’s given up hope about Qurunfula.”
“Why should he give up hope? He’s simply sitting around waiting for the time when he’ll get his dues.”
She decided to put an end to this chatter about affairs of the heart. “There were many others as well,” she said.
“Was Hilmi Hamada — God rest his soul — one of them?” I asked with a great deal of hidden concern.
“Certainly not!” she replied in amazement.
“I must tell you in all candor that I’d thought there was something between the two of you.”
“We were close friends,” she replied sadly. “But Isma‘il’s the only man I’ve ever loved.”
“Are you still in love?” I asked.
She ignored my question.
The story of her attitude toward the revolution was exactly the same as Isma‘il’s. “They arrested me because of my connection with Isma‘il,” she said, talking about her first arrest. “There was not even the slightest suspicion of a case against me, and I told them I’d never been a member of the Brotherhood. I was only held for a couple of days, then released unharmed.” She gave me a sad smile. “The real trouble was at home. My mother told me that those were precisely the kind of difficulties I should have expected to find myself in because of my being with Isma‘il. It so happened that my own arrest came one week after my father had been taken in; he’d been accused of rowdiness and assaulting a police officer.”
“In such circumstances,” I commented admiringly, “the way you have managed to move ahead is remarkable.”
“I asked Khalid Safwan why they were badgering us like this. We were all children of the revolution, I told him; we owed it everything. How could they accuse us of being opposed to it? His sarcastic response was to the effect that the very same excuse was being used by ninety-nine percent of the people who were genuinely opposed to the revolution.”
She talked to me about her former belief in the revolution and about the fact that their imprisonment had done nothing to alter or take away their core belief in its values. “However, whereas we had previously thought that we had all the power in the world, that feeling had been severely jolted by the time we’d emerged from prison. We’d lost much of our courage and along with it our self-confidence and belief in the workings of time. We had now discovered the existence of a terrifying force operating completely outside the dictates of law and human values.”
Zaynab told me that she had discussed with Isma‘il the agonies she had gone through when he had suddenly disappeared. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea,” she had suggested, “for us to keep to ourselves for a while and avoid meeting friends and other groups?”
“It was my fault that they were all arrested,” he had replied sarcastically, “not vice versa!”
I did my best to console her. “This is the kind of thing humanity has to go through,” I said. “It’s part of the price of all great revolutions.”
She let out a sigh. “When will life be really pleasant, I wonder? Will we ever be finally rid of these dreadful miseries?”
She now started talking about her second prison term. I immediately realized that I was about to hear a tale with some truly awful memories attached to it.
“This time we were accused of being Communists,” she said and then went on nervously, “it’s a period in my life that I’ll never forget.”
She told me how she’d been taken to see Khalid Safwan again.
“So here we are again!” he had said sarcastically. “Our friendship is becoming well established!”
“Why have I been arrested?” she asked. “For my part I’ve no idea.”
“Ah, but I do.”
“Then what’s the reason, sir?”
“It all goes back to those two distinguished gentlemen, Marx and Lenin.” He stared at her angrily. “Now answer my questions, but make sure you don’t use that silly nonsense again. You know: ‘Why do you keep on badgering me?’ ‘We’re all children of the revolution,’ and so on. Understand?”
“We’re not Communists,” she replied, totally despairing of ever being able to persuade him.
“That’s a shame!” he uttered cryptically.
She told me that she had been thrown into a cell and subjected to the most humiliating forms of torture, the pain of which only a woman could possibly appreciate fully.
“I had to live, sleep, eat, and carry out my bodily functions all in one place! Can you imagine?”
“No,” I responded sadly.
“At any moment,” she went on, “I might look up and see the guard leering at me through the peephole in the door. Can you appreciate what that meant?”
“Unfortunately I can.”
“One day I was summoned to Khalid Safwan’s office while Isma‘il was being interrogated. When I saw how humiliated and hopeless he looked, tears welled up in my eyes. From the very bottom of my heart I poured curses on the world. But I was only there long enough for him to hear the threat of my being tortured. I was taken back to my filthy cell where I cried for a long time. Day after day the torture continued.”
She continued her tale by telling me about another occasion when she had been summoned to Khalid Safwan’s office.
“ ‘I hope you approve of our accommodations,’ he said.
“ ‘Oh yes, sir,’ I replied bravely. ‘Thank you very much.’
“ ‘Our friend’s confessed to being a Communist,’ he went on.
“ ‘Only when you threatened him!’ I yelled.
“ ‘But it’s the truth, however the information was obtained.’