“Did you know him well?” I asked. Butrus Samhiri stared at me with a piercing look.
“Yes I did, I did. I met him more than once, but those were casual encounters. We never discussed serious topics when we met, and as a result we did not really connect.” He was silent for a moment, then continued as if he had just remembered, “I was a minor employee, a clerk, as they say. Existentialism was meaningless to me. I was more inclined toward the left, and I found Edmond al-Qushli, the Trotskyite of our time, more to my liking than the philosopher of al-Sadriya. I was not able to understand Sartre’s complicated philosophy, and I didn’t like him.”
“Did you find his philosophy complicated?” I asked.
“I don’t think that anyone in my generation understood the things he used to read. Those who said they did are liars. You can ask Salman and Abbas, if you wish. He used to meet with them in the Café Brazil.”
“But could you understand Trotsky?” I asked. Jawad was trying to take a picture, but I dissuaded him.
“Trotskyism is not a philosophy the way existentialism is. It has a practical side.” He felt uncomfortable now, and it was clear that he didn’t want to go on. He stood up and handed me the documents. “Examine these papers and if you need anything else contact me.”
I stood up. So did Jawad, who, burdened by the camera hanging around his neck, almost tripped and fell onto the sofa. “Where can I find Abbas and Salman?” I asked.
“You’ll find them in al-Camp market. Ask around; everybody there knows them. Just ask for Abbas Philosophy; they’ll direct you to them.” He turned to Jawad and asked, “Hey, Jawad, do you still catch birds on people’s roofs?” Jawad blushed and laughed maliciously. I asked Butrus how he knew Jawad.
“I know him because Hanna asked me to represent him in a few cases.” He laughed loudly, shaking his head like a devil. We left and immediately headed for the Adhamiya quarter to meet two of the philosopher’s old friends who had become merchants in Camp Raghiba Khatun market.
Jawad hurried along behind me, his eyes deep in their sockets. The weather was refreshingly humid. The cool air hit my face, and the sun was warm, especially when we walked on the bright side of the street. We were walking on al-Rashid Street, where the many groceries displayed boxes of toffee, sweets, and all kinds of confections. Boutiques, tailor shops, watch shops, and jewelry stores lined the street, and people crowded into the restaurants for cheap sandwiches.
I was thinking about the philosopher’s companions from the sixties who had turned to selling fruit at al-Camp market after becoming involved in philosophy. I had to see them, to get something from them that I could use — or at least obtain their photographs to include in the book. We walked toward the square and caught a taxi after Jawad bought a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. We arrived as the clock of al-Imam al-A‘dham was on its third ring. The place was crowded with buyers and salesmen. In the fruit market we inquired about the two men and were told that they were in the restaurant at the end of the main street.
The market was humid and stuffy, the ground was muddy, and water seeped from the badly paved street. The restaurant was located at one end of the market, a small place with a low ceiling, painted a cheap white and with a dirty glass facade. All kinds of people pressed together inside — fruit and spice merchants wearing their white dishdashas with belts tied around plump bellies, young men wearing western clothes, policemen in khaki uniforms and boots, their thick walnut billy clubs on the table, and women in black abayas. A large grill at the entrance of the restaurant filled the air with the smell of coal and grilled meat. The servers were rushing about, wearing white aprons and caps bearing the restaurant’s name. We were greeted by the sounds of orders being shouted across the restaurant — kebab, salad without vinegar, bread — the metallic sound of spoons and plates dropped onto the sticky tables, and the clamor of the dishwashers echoing on the wet brick floor.
We inquired about Abbas Philosophy and Salman. They didn’t look like philosophers at all, more like fruit merchants. They were middle-aged men with huge bellies that hit the edge of the table whenever they moved. Their table was filled with all kinds of grilled meat, bread, pickles, grilled onions, and vegetables. They welcomed me and Jawad very warmly and were extremely surprised to learn that someone, finally, had remembered them. One of them said, “You’ve finally remembered the great men of the country. We were afraid to die for fear that our memory and that of the greatest Arab philosopher, the philosopher of al-Sadriya, would be lost forever.”
They talked and ate while I looked over their fat faces and the new outfits they wore, with narrow ties and starched collars, a style that was popular in the sixties. They talked with their mouths full, round, bald heads covered with sweat, and glasses continuously slipping off their noses. When their mouths were too full they would push the food in with their fingers. They took turns talking about the philosopher, while I took notes and Jawad ate — he dug in as soon as they invited us to join them. I reproached him and kicked him in the foot, but he ignored me and kept on eating. He shared their food, making sandwiches of kebab and grilled onions. A piece of celery fell out of his mouth onto the table.
They talked like all those I’d talked to already. I searched for words that would put me on the right path, but to no avail. They embellished the philosopher’s image with made-up stories as if decorating a Christmas tree with random shiny and colorful baubles. They meant well, yet what they gave me were falsifications, perhaps prompted by a desire to hide their embarrassment at having been so long ignored and estranged. They provided me with their information and histrionic comments, played roles, and incongruously arrogated importance to themselves, sometimes obviously, but usually more subtly.
Their comments about the sixties sounded more like crying over a lost Eden that had cast out the philosopher. Nonetheless, I had no choice but to write down everything, both the noble and heroic motivations that I mutely condemn and the ignoble and sordid emotions that I respect. Such feelings prove that the philosopher was a human being, not a legendary hero, that he was weak, mean, and lazy like the rest of us, not a god.
Sitting face to face with these two I felt I was dealing with people who organize their lives into a tight system, believing it to be full and complete, the only life worth living. I’m tempted to say that they can’t conceive of the existence of the lives of others who preceded them or others that followed. They’re unable to view things except through their own glasses, lenses of their own making. The men ate nonstop, leaving me little time for questions. No sooner would one stop than the other would start up. I felt squeezed between them. They imparted both valuable and insignificant information, critical and ordinary remarks, and they kept insisting that I consider everything they were saying very important. I thus found myself writing down mostly what they wanted me to record and not much of what I wanted.
What I was really looking for was the thread that would lead me to the root of the matter. I was seeking highly germane testimonies from people whom I expected to be gifted or endowed with more refined vision than the average person and who could provide me with valuable information that would eliminate the possibility of distortion.
These two men were not distinct from ordinary people in their view of the philosopher. Their representation of the philosopher was the same I encountered everywhere: among his friends he was seen as an amalgam of virtues, and his enemies saw him as an amalgam of vices. Theirs was first and foremost a moral evaluation. They’d say, “He is the Sartre of the Arab World, and Sartre sent him to save the nation and put an end to the life of banditry brought about by the fifties. His life was complete and pure, a model of greatness and beauty because he did not begin it, as others did, with serious weaknesses.”