Karnak Café

by Naguib Mahfouz

  “I may be totally innocent and old,” said Taha al-Gharib, “but now even I’m starting to worry about myself.”

  Rashad Magdi’s expression was totally glum. “Listen,” he said with a jeer, “the leaders of the ‘Urabi Revolt in 1882 may have had some doubts about you, but not this time.”

  “I wonder what’s behind it all?” asked Muhammad Bahgat.

  “They’re all dangerous young men,” Zayn al-‘Abidin ‘Abdallah chimed in. “Why’s everyone so surprised at what’s happened to them?”

  “But they’re children of this revolution!”

  “There are lots of people opposed to the goals of this revolution who claim to be a part of it,” Zayn al-‘Abidin replied with a laugh. “When I was a boy and was heading for the red-light district, I told people I was going to the mosque.”

  “May God forgive these people,” said Taha al-Gharib. “They certainly know how to scare folk, don’t they?”

  A few days after this conversation had taken place, Qurunfula came over and took a seat beside me. She was looking utterly miserable. “Tell me what it all means,” she asked anxiously.

  I understood full well what she meant, but I pretended not to follow her.

  “Someone around here is passing on secret information!”

  “Could well be,” I muttered.

  “Rubbish!” she yelled. “It’s completely obvious. Everyone’s talking. The question is, who’s passing it all on?”

  I paused for a moment. “You know the place better than I,” I said.

  “I have no suspicions about my employees,” she said. “ ‘Arif Sulayman is indebted to me for his very life, and Imam al-Fawwal is a man of faith, so is Gum‘a.…”

  “How about those old men sitting there on the sidelines?”

  With that we stared at each other for quite a while. “No!” she said. “Zayn al-‘Abidin may be a wretch, but he has nothing to do with the authorities. In any case, he’s so corrupt himself, he’s scared to death of them.”

  “There are scores of people who come in here every day,” I pointed out, “but we never pay the slightest attention to them.”

  She sighed. “Nothing in the world is safe any longer.”

  That said, the same grief-laden silence descended on the place again. She went back and sat on her chair, looking like a lifeless statue.

  True enough, things like the ones we were experiencing were happening every day, but the effect is very different when the people to whom it is happening are considered part of the family. We began to be suspicious of everything, even the walls and tables. I was totally amazed at the state in which my homeland now found itself. In spite of all the wrong turns, it was growing in power and prestige, always expanding and getting bigger. It was making goods of all kinds, from needles to rockets, and broadcasting a wonderful new and humane trend in the life of humanity. But what was the point of all that if people were so feeble and downtrodden that they were not worth a fly, if they had no personal rights, no honor, no security, and if they were being crushed by cowardice, hypocrisy, and desolation?

  Zayn al-‘Abidin’s nerves suddenly snapped for no apparent reason. “I’m so miserable,” he yelled. “I’m unlucky. I feel wretched. God curse the day I was ever born or came to this damned café!”

  Qurunfula studiously ignored him.

  “What have I done wrong?” he carried on. “I love you. What’s wrong with that? Why do you bad-mouth me every single day? Don’t you realize that it kills me to see you looking so sad? Why? Don’t spurn my love. Love is not to be spurned. It’s far more exalted and lofty than that. I feel really sorry for you, squandering the rest of your precious life so pitilessly. Why do you refuse to acknowledge that my heart is the only one that really adores you?”

  Now Qurunfula broke her silence. “It would appear,” she said, addressing her comments to the rest of us, “that this man has no desire to respect my grief.”

  “Me!” retorted Zayn al-‘Abidin. “I respect riffraff, hypocrites, criminals, pimps, and con men, so how could I possibly not feel respect for the grief of the woman who has taught me the way to revere sorrow by feeling sorry for her? Excuse me, please! Grieve away! Surrender to your destiny, wallow in the mire of what is left of your life. May God be with you!”

  “Perhaps it would be better,” she said, “if you went somewhere else.”

  “I’ve nowhere else to go! Where am I supposed to go? Here at least I can discover a crazy illusion, one that offers an occasional glimmer of hope.”

  With that he started calming down and was soon back to normal. He looked very sheepish. As a way of drawing a veil over his outburst, he stood up with all the formality of a soldier, looked at Qurunfula, and apologized. After giving her a bow, he sat down again and started smoking his waterpipe.

  Winter arrived, along with its biting cold and long nights. I remembered that the young folk used to meet here even during the wintertime—part of the academic year—even if it was just for an hour or so. Without them around, I thought to myself, this café is unbearable. The only people left now are those old men who have all completely forgotten about the other customers in prison; there they are, pretending to ignore the terror and politics by burying themselves in their own private worries. For them the only job left, it would seem, is sitting around and waiting for their final hour to come. Now they rue the passing of the good old days. Their only secret purpose in exchanging weird prescriptions is to postpone their appointment with death.

  “ ‘Eat, drink, and be merry,’ the saying goes. That’s the best slogan for life.”

  “Swill your mouth out with a cup of water! So much the better if you can squeeze half a lemon as well.”

  “An ancient philosopher is alleged to have said that he was amazed that Egyptians ever became ill when they had lemons.”

  “Modern medical research has confirmed that climbing stairs is good for your heart.”

  “Walking’s good too.”

  “And so is sex, so they say.”

  “So what’s bad then?”

  “Politics, news of arrests and imprisonments, and having to be alive at the same time as great men.”

  “Yoghurt and fruit are terrific. As for honey on the comb, well, no words can possibly describe it adequately.”

  “And laughter. Don’t forget laughter.”

  “A cup of chilled wine just before bed.”

  “Hormones are not to be sneezed at either.”

  “And a sleeping pill, just as a precaution against bad news.”

  “But reading the Qur’an, above all else.…”

  Yes indeed, without having the young folk around, the café atmosphere becomes utterly unbearable. Even Qurunfula is not aware of quite how sad I’m feeling. She does not seem to realize that friendship is something powerful and that my own thirst is like love itself. Here I sit by myself, suffering through the pangs of boredom and loneliness as I stare at those silent, motionless chairs. All the while there is a longing in my heart and a profound sorrow. How much I long to chat with the young folk who normally sit on those chairs and recharge my own batteries on the sheer enthusiasm, creativity, and hallowed suffering that they offer.

  One evening, I arrived at the café to find Qurunfula beaming and happy, unusually so. I was taken by surprise and felt a wave of hope engulfing me. I rushed inside and found myself face to face with my long-lost friends. There they all were again: Zaynab, Isma‘il, and Hilmi, along with two or three others. We all gave each other warm hugs, and Qurunfula’s laughter gave us all a blessing. We kept exchanging expressions of endearment, without asking any of the normal wheres, hows, and whys. Even so, the name of Khalid Safwan kept coming up again, that name which in some way or other had become an indispensable symbol of our current lives.

  “Just imagine,” Qurunfula told me, “there was some kind of misunderstanding at the beginning of winter, but it was only at the beginning of the following summer that his true innocence emerged. But don’t ask any more. It’
s enough for you just to imagine.… Never mind, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “And let’s assume at the same time,” I suggested, “that this café is one gigantic ear!”

  With that we decided to steer clear of politics as far as possible.

  “If we absolutely can’t avoid talking about some topic of national importance,” I suggested again, “then let’s do it on the assumption that Mr. Khalid Safwan is sitting right here with us.”

  But this time what had been lost was even more palpable than last time. They were all so thin; it looked as though they had just completed a prolonged fast. Their expressions were sad and cynical; at the corners of their mouths there lurked a suppressed anger. Once the conversation had warmed up a bit, these outward signs of hidden feelings would dissipate, leaving them with their own thoughts and ideas. However, once the veil was lifted, all that remained was a sense of languor and a retreat from society. Even the steady relationship between Zaynab and Isma‘il was clearly suffering under the impact of some disease that was not immediately noticeable; and that aroused a profound sense of sorrow in me, not to mention a lot of questions. Good God, I told myself, here are the deities of hell concentrating all their attention on the very people with ideas and the will to carry them through. What is it all supposed to mean?

  One time Qurunfula came over and sat beside me. She was looking pleased, but not entirely happy. By now I had realized that she only came over to sit with me when she had something she wanted to tell me.

  “Let’s pray to God,” I said as a conversation opener, “not to let anything like it happen again.”

  “Yes,” she replied sadly, “you should be praying to Him a lot. And while you’re at it, tell Him how desperately we need some tangible sign of His mercy and justice.”

  “So what’s new?”

  “The person who’s returned to my embrace is a shadow of his former self. Where’s Hilmi Hamada gone?”

  “His health, you mean? But they’ve all gone through the same thing. They’ll get their health back again in a few days.”

  “Perhaps you don’t realize what a proud and courageous young man he is. His kind usually suffers more than others.” She looked me straight in the eye. “He’s completely lost the ability to be happy!”

  I did not understand what she meant.

  “He’s completely lost the ability to be happy,” she repeated.

  “Maybe you’re being too pessimistic.”

  “No, I’m not,” she replied. “I wouldn’t feel so unhappy if it weren’t called for.” She let out one of her deep sighs. “Ever since I’ve been the owner of this café,” she went on, “I’ve taken good care of it: floor, walls, furniture, everything is the way it is because I have made it my business to take good care of things. Now these people are torturing their own flesh and blood. Damn them!” She grabbed my arm. “Let’s spit on civilization!”

  For a long time I found myself wavering between my admiration for the great things that we had achieved and my utter repulsion for the use of terror and panic. I could see no way of ridding our towering edifice of these disgusting vermin.

  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 q
uestion 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.