“At least in the past, we used to have the law as a haven. That was all we needed.”
“Even during the very worst periods of tyranny, there were always voices raised in opposition.”
“Those glorious days in the past, days of struggle, defiance, and sacrifice! How can we ever forget them?”
They kept going back further and further in time, until eventually they settled some time in the seventh century with the caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab and the Prophet himself. They competed with each other to drag up the past, trying very hard to use the glories of yesteryear as a means of forgetting the present.
Zayn al-‘Abidin ‘Abdallah kept listening to their chatter with a mixture of interest and contempt. “There’s only one country with the solution,” he said, affording us the benefit of his opinion, “and that’s America.”
That seemed to strike a chord with ‘Arif Sulayman, the wine-steward, who registered his agreement.
“Everything will have to start again from scratch,” he declared with a sweeping gesture. “This period of recuperation we’re going through is simply the last twitches before death finally comes.”
The young folk were the only ones who neither gave themselves over to the past nor hoped for some goodwill gesture from America. Once they had all recovered from the blow of the June 1967 defeat, they all started talking, bit by bit, about a new struggle on the broadest possible scale, a conflict on a world-wide level between progressivist forces and imperialism. They said that people needed to be ready for a risky future; they talked about radical transformations in the basic internal fabric of society, and so on and so on.
Apart from large-scale issues, the one thing that drew my attention more than anything else was the obvious change in the relationship between Zaynab Diyab and Isma‘il al-Shaykh. It seemed as if some unknown disease had crept into their hearts, making them act almost like complete strangers. I came to the conclusion that they had both buried their former love for each other once and for all and had decided to go their separate ways, taking their lives and sorrows with them. All of which led me to return to my former opinion, namely that Zaynab was actually in love with Hilmi Hamada. As time went by, I started to believe that more and more.
I was delighted to notice that Qurunfula seemed to be recovering her old energy. Most of the time she was quiet and kept to herself. She would listen to the things we were saying, but would stay out of the discussions. By this time she was starting to look more staid and older.
So time went by, and some faces disappeared, while others alternated between presence and absence. Up till now things have for the most part continued without much change. Most recently, things have worked out in such a way that my own relationships with some of the regulars at Karnak Café have been strengthened. From them I’ve learned things that I did not know before. Inner secrets involving both events and the hearts of men have now become known to me, and I have drained the glass to the very dregs.
Isma‘il al-Shaykh
Yes indeed, I’ve learned things I did not know before. From the very first time we met I found Isma‘il al-Shaykh interesting. He had a strong build, and his features were large and pronounced. I only ever saw him wearing one suit, and he wore it winter and summer long. In summer he used to take the jacket off, but in winter it would be back on, along with a sweater. He was obviously poor, but even so he still managed to win your respect. In spite of intermittent terms spent in prison, he had just recently earned his law diploma.
“I come from a very poor neighborhood,” he told me. “Have you ever heard of Da‘bas Alley in the Husayniya Quarter? My father works there in a liver restaurant, and my mother’s a peddler who also sells sweet basil and palm leaves whenever people go to visit their family gravesite during the Eid festival. My elder brothers are a butcher’s mate, a cart-driver, and a cobbler. Our home consists of a single room that looks out on a tenement courtyard. The whole building feels like one enormous family consisting of over fifty people. There’s no bathroom or running water. The only toilet is in the corner of the yard, and we have to carry the water to it in jerry cans. The women all gather in the yard; on occasion men and women will congregate together. It’s there that they exchange gossip and jokes, and occasionally insults and blows as well. They eat and pray.”
He gave me a frown. “Basically nothing has changed in Da‘bas Alley right up till today,” he said, but then he corrected himself. “No, I’m wrong. Schools have started opening their doors to people like us. That’s an undeniable boon. I was one of the children who went to school, but my father really hoped I would fail; he was anxious to get rid of me like my brothers by apprenticing me off to some tradesman. I thwarted him by doing well in my studies and eventually getting the Certificate of Secondary Education. That made it possible for me to enroll in law school. Once that happened, my father changed his tune and started treating me with pride and admiration. Could his son really turn into a public prosecutor, he wondered? In our part of town, there are always two well-known posts: policeman and public prosecutor. As you know, people have to deal with both types. My mother set her heart on my continuing my studies, ‘even,’ as she put it herself, ‘if it means having to sell my own eyes.’ God knows how much it must have cost her to buy me a suit that would look right for a university student. But for her it was a piece of real estate that needed to be properly looked after: repair it, refurbish, or even replace it, by all means, but never dispense with it.”
He paused for a moment. “These days the place is crawling with boys and girls going to school,” he went on angrily, “but their future is an ongoing problem that nations keep batting back and forth among each other.”
When the 1952 Revolution happened, he had been three years old. Thus he was in every sense of the word a ‘son of the revolution.’ With that in mind, I could see no reason to conceal my amazement at the appalling treatment he had received. “It’s been suggested,” I told him, “that you must be either a Communist or a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“Neither,” he replied. “My only allegiance is to the July 1952 Revolution. But when it comes to the situation today.…” He fell silent and started shaking his head, as though he did not know what to say next. “For a long time,” he went on, “I’ve considered Egyptian history as really beginning on July 23, 1952. It’s only since the June 1967 War that I’ve started looking back earlier than that.”
He admitted to me that he believed in Egyptian socialism. For that reason his faith had remained unshaken.
“But what about your belief in socialist ideas now?” I asked.
“Many people have decided to vent their spleen against socialism as being one of the causes of our defeat. But what we need to realize is that there has never been any genuine socialism in our lives. That’s why I’ve still not abandoned my support for the concept, even though I would dearly like to get rid of the people who have been applying it up till now. Hilmi Hamada — may he rest in peace! — was well aware of that from the very beginning.”
“How come?”
“He was a Communist.”
“So there were some strangers in your group then?”
“Yes, but what did we do wrong?”
He told me a great deal about Zaynab. “I have known her ever since we were both kids growing up in the alley. She lives in the same tenement building. We used to play games with each other and were beaten for doing so. Then she grew up and matured into a young woman. She developed physically; whenever she moved, she used to attract the attention of young men. Youthful passions were stirred, and I took it upon myself to defend her, drawing my courage from old stories about gangs in our quarter. When we were both in secondary school, spies and traditions kept interfering in our lives, but our love was very strong. Our true feelings for each other had flared into the open, and everyone was forced to acknowledge that we were in love. It was when we went to university that at last we found some freedom. We announced our engagement, but, since we both viewed marriage as the final sanctuary, decided to wait before getting married. And now, just look at the way such dreams all come to nothing, and everything dies.…”