Karnak Café (5 page)

It was Zayn al-‘Abidin who one day was the first to share some other news with us. “There appear to be some dark clouds on the horizon,” he said. He used to listen to the foreign news broadcasts and would often pick up rare bits of information.

We discussed the Palestinian raids and Israel's promise to take reprisals.

“At this rate,” he went on, “we may well have a war this year or next.”

All of us had complete confidence in our own armed forces.

“It's nothing to worry about,” Taha al-Gharib commented, “unless, of course, America gets involved.”

That was as far as that conversation went. During this particular period the only event to disturb the atmosphere was a passing storm provoked by Hilmi Hamada that almost ended his long-standing love affair. He developed the idea that Qurunfula was treating him with too much sympathy and that such behavior infringed on his sense of self-respect. He utterly rejected such coddling and made up his mind to leave the café. It was only when his friends grabbed hold of him that he was persuaded not to do so. Poor Qurunfula was totally stunned. She started apologizing to him, although she had no clear idea of what she had done wrong.

“It's unbearable to listen to the same refrain all the time,” he said edgily and then turned angry. “I hate hearing people sobbing all the time.” And, even more angrily, “I can't stand anything any more.”

Everyone saw the problem as a symptom of the general
situation, and so, until things settled down, we all made a great effort to avoid saying anything that might complicate matters. Needless to say, Zayn al-‘Abidin was delighted by the whole thing, but it did not do his cause any good. Hilmi Hamada's anger did not last very long, and he may even have come to regret allowing his temper to boil over. Qurunfula was deeply affected by it all, but did not utter a single word.

“That's the last thing I expected,” she whispered in my ear.

“Do you think,” I asked anxiously, “that he's become aware that you talk to me about him?”

She shook her head.

“Has he ever acted like that before?”

“No, this was the first time and, I hope and pray, the last.”

“Maybe it would help if you stopped complaining and grieving so much.”

“If only you realized,” she sighed, “how utterly miserable he is.”

And then, right in the middle of spring, they all vanished for a third time.

On this occasion no questions were asked, and there were no violent reactions either. We just stared at each other, shook our heads, and said something or other that made no sense.

“Usual story.”

“Same reasons.”

“Same results.”

“No point in thinking about it.”

For a long time Qurunfula sat silently in her chair. Then
she burst into a prolonged fit of laughter, until there were tears in her eyes. From our various seats we all stared at her in silence.

“Come on!” she said. “Laugh, laugh!” She used a small handkerchief to dry her eyes. “Why don't you all laugh?” she continued. “It's more powerful than tears; better for the health too. Laugh from the very depths of your hearts; laugh until the owners of every bar on this cheerful street can hear us.” She was silent for a moment. “How are we supposed to go on feeling sad,” she went on, “when these things keep happening as regularly as sunrise and sunset? They'll be back, and they'll sit here in our midst like so many ghosts. When they do, I swear I'm going to rename this place ‘Ghosts' Café'.”

She looked over at ‘Arif Sulayman. “Pour all our honored customers a glass of wine, and let's drink to our absent friends.”

The rest of the evening went by in an atmosphere of almost total depression.

In spite of everything, we put aside our own petty anxieties, all of which seemed purely personal when measured against the major events that were overwhelming our country as a whole. Rumors started to fly, and before we knew it, the Egyptian army was heading for Sinai in full force. The entire region erupted with pledges of war. None of us had any doubts about the efficiency of our armed forces, and yet.…

“America, that's the real enemy.”

“If the army decides to launch an attack, warnings are going to come raining down on us.”

“The Sixth Fleet will be moved in.”

“Missiles will be launched at the Nile delta.”

“Won't our very independence be in jeopardy?”

Indeed none of us had any doubts about our own armed forces. Certain civic values may have collapsed in front of our very eyes and the hands of my people may have been sullied, but we never doubted our armed forces. Needless to say, the entire notion was not without its naïve aspects, but our excuse was that we were all bewitched and determined to hope for the best. We were simply incapable, it seems, of calling into question the first ever genuine experiment in national rule, one that had brought to an end successive eras of slavery and humiliation.

So for the longest possible time we continued to cling to our zeal and enthusiasm. But then we had no choice but to wake up and endure that most vicious of hammer blows smashing its way into our heads, which were still filled with the heady intoxication of greatness.

I can never forget Taha al-Gharib's reaction, he being the eldest among us.

“Here I am close to death,” he groaned, his expression a tissue of pain. “In a week or so I'll be dead. O God, O God, why did You have to delay things? Couldn't You have speeded things up a bit so that I would never have had to face this blackest of days?”

The hearts of our innocent people were seared with grief. The only hope still left in life was to attempt another strike and recover the land that had been lost. In spite of it all, I still heard people here and there who seemed to be relishing the moment. It was at that point that I began to realize that the struggle we were involved in was not just a matter of loyalty to homeland; even during the country's darkest hours, the national effort was liable to be sidetracked by another conflict involving interests and beliefs. In the days and years that
followed I kept close track of this tendency, until its basic tenets and variegated manifestations were clearly visible. The June War of 1967 was a defeat for one Arab nation, but also a victory for other Arabs. It managed to rip the veil off a number of distasteful realities and usher in a wide-scale war among the Arabs themselves, not just between the Arabs and Israel.

Some weeks after the June War, our friends returned to the café; or, to be more precise, Isma‘il al-Shaykh, Zaynab Diyab, and two others did. Even in the midst of so much grief on the national level, their return was the occasion for some temporary happiness. We all embraced warmly.

“Here we are, back again!” yelled Isma‘il al-Shaykh, and then even louder, “They've arrested Khalid Safwan!”

“Many people have been transferred from government office straight to prison,” commented Muhammad Bahgat.

Qurunfula was standing behind the table. “Where's Hilmi?” she asked.

No one answered.

“Where is he?” she asked again, angry and insistent. “Why hasn't he come with you?”

Still no one said a word. They all avoided looking at her.

“What's the matter?” she yelled. “Can't you speak or something?”

When no one said a word, she realized.

“No, no!” she screamed. She looked at Isma‘il. “Isma‘il, say something, anything, please.…”

She leaned over the table as though she had suffered a stomach rupture and stayed there for a while without saying
anything. Then she raised her head. “Merciful God, have mercy … have mercy!”

She would have collapsed completely if ‘Arif Sulayman had not caught her and taken her outside.

“They say he died under interrogation,” said Isma‘il after she had left.

“Meaning that he was murdered,” commented Zaynab.

During those days that followed the June War, sorrow, just like joy, was soon forgotten. I offered my condolences to Qurunfula, but she did not seem to grasp the significance of what I was saying.

So this totally unforeseen tidal wave spread further and further. We all started following the news again and chewing the fat. As we suffered our painful way through the ongoing sequences of days, we placed the entire burden on our shoulders and proceeded on our way with labored, faltering steps. It was by sticking together that we continued to seek refuge from the sense of isolation and loneliness. It felt as if we had made a whole series of decisions about how to protect ourselves: against the blows of the unseen we would cling to each other; in the face of potential terrors we would share our opinions; when confronting overwhelming despair we would tell grisly sarcastic jokes; in acknowledging major mistakes we would indulge in torrid bursts of confession; faced with the dreadful burdens of responsibility we would torture ourselves; and to avoid the generally oppressive social atmosphere we would indulge ourselves in phony dreams. As hour followed hour, we found ourselves wading through a never-ending realm of darkness and on the verge of collapse, but never for a single second did we veer from our chosen course.

Among the café's clientele, the ones who best managed
to withstand this pestilential onslaught were Imam al-Fawwal, the waiter, and Gum‘a, the bootblack. Both of them adamantly refused to accept that the defeat was a reality; they kept on believing what the radio was telling them. They were still dreaming of Victory Day. But, as time went by, their sense of disaster began to dissipate, to be replaced by an increasing concern with matters of daily life. Gradually they came to adopt a more insouciant attitude, although deep down they both felt a lingering sorrow over what had happened.

The group of old men decided to retreat into the past.

“Never in all our long history have we been in such a sorry state.”

“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.