Read Online Karnak Café by Naguib Mahfouz - Free Book Online Page B

From this point on, our beliefs in the revolution were contaminated by a deep-seated anger. We were much more willing to listen to criticism. The enthusiasm was gone; the spark was no longer there. Sure enough, the basic framework was still in place, but what we kept saying was that the style had to be changed; corruption had to be eradicated, and all those sadistic bodyguards had to go. Our glorious revolution had turned into a siege.”
    One evening they had discussed the subject again with Hilmi Hamada.
    â€œI’m surprised you can still believe in the revolution!” Hilmi had said.
    â€œJust because the body has bowels,” Isma‘il had replied, “doesn’t diminish the nobility of the human mind.”
    â€œAha,” commented Hilmi sarcastically, “now I can see that, like everyone else, you resort to similes and metaphors whenever your arguments are weak!”
    He had looked at them both. “It’s time for us to do something,” he went on.
    He showed them a secret pamphlet that he and some of his colleagues were circulating.
    â€œI was absolutely astonished at his frankness,” Isma‘il told me. “Or, more accurately, I was stunned. I dearly wished I had never heard him say it. I remembered my secret assignment that required me to report him immediately. The very thought of it made my entire universe start to shake. The reality of the deep abyss into which I was falling now became all too apparent to me.
    â€œBy now the two of us had been talking for well over an hour; Hilmi was doing the talking while I sat there or made a few terse comments. I was completely at a loss and at the same time felt utterly disconsolate.
    â€œÂ â€˜Stop those activities of yours,’ I told him, ‘and tear up that pamphlet!’
    â€œÂ â€˜What a joker you are!’ he scoffed. ‘This one isn’t the first, and it certainly won’t be the last.’
    â€œWe left his house at about ten and walked in silence. By now the time we were spending alone together was agonizing and difficult for both of us. We parted company. She needed to go back to the tenement building, while I felt like going to the Karnak Café. I wandered around the streets, unable to make the fateful decision. All the time I was feeling scared, scared for me and for Zaynab as well. In the end I made no decision, but returned to the tenement building at about midnight. I threw myself down on the bench in the courtyard without even taking my clothes off. I told myself that I faced a choice: either make the decision or go out ofmy mind. Even then I couldn’t make up my mind. I postponed things till the morning, but I didn’t get any sleep at all. I’d hardly fallen asleep when they came for me.”
    â€œThe security police, you mean?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat very same night?”
    â€œYes, the same night.”
    â€œBut that’s staggering, unbelievable!”
    â€œIt’s magic. The only explanation I have is that they must have been watching us both and listening in from a distance.”
    â€œBut, in any case, you had decided not to report your friend,” I said, trying as best I could to give him a bit of consolation.
    â€œI can’t even claim that much,” he replied. “After all, I had decided not to decide.”
    And that is how his third prison term came about. Before dawn had even broken he found himself facing Khalid Safwan again.
    â€œYou’ve betrayed our trust in you,” said Khalid Safwan. “You failed the very first test.”
    Isma‘il said nothing.
    â€œVery well,” he went on. “We never force anyone to be friends with us.”
    He was given a hundred lashes and then thrown into the cell again, that eternal darkness.
    Isma‘il then proceeded to tell me about Hilmi Hamada’s final battle. They said he died in the interrogation room. He had both commitment and guts. The answers