Free Karnak Café by Naguib Mahfouz

he gave them stunned them. They started hitting him and in a rage he tried to retaliate. A guard pummeled him with blows until he fainted. It then emerged that he was already dead.
    â€œI languished in that awful dark cell,” he said. “I’ve no idea how long it went on, but I just seemed to fade into the darkness.”
    One day he was summoned again. He assumed that he would be seeing Khalid Safwan, but this time there was a new face. He was informed that he would be released.
    â€œI’d found out everything that had happened even before I left the building.” He paused for a moment. “From beginning to end,” he went on, “I heard every single detail about the flood.”
    â€œThe June War, you mean?”
    â€œThat’s right. May, June, even the fact that Khalid Safwan had been arrested.”
    â€œWhat a time that must have been.”
    â€œJust imagine, if you can, how it felt to me.”
    â€œI think I can.”
    â€œOur entire world had gone through the trauma of the June War; now it was emerging from the initial daze of defeat. I found the entire social arena abuzz with phantoms, tales, stories, rumors, and jokes. The general consensus was that we had been living through the biggest lie in our entire lives.”
    â€œDo you agree with that?”
    â€œYes, I do, and with all the vigor used in the torture that had tried to tear me limb from limb. My beliefs in everything were completely shattered. I had the feeling that I’d lost everything.”
    â€œFair enough. By now though you’ve gone beyond that phase, haven’t you?”
    â€œTo a certain extent, yes. At least I can now raise some enthusiasm for the revolution’s heritage.”
    â€œAnd how were things for Zaynab?”
    â€œThe same as for me. At first she had very little to say, then she clammed up for good. I can still vividly recall our first meeting after I was released. We embraced each other mechanically, and I told her bitterly that we would have to get to know each other all over again. We were both faced with an entirely new world and had to deal with it. She told me that, in such a scenario, she would be presenting herself to me as someone with no name or identity. I told her that I could now understand the full meaning of the phrase ‘in the eye of the storm,’ to which she replied that it would be much better for us if we acknowledged our own stupidity and learned how to deal with it, since it was the only thing we had left. When I told her that Hilmi Hamada had died in prison, she went very pale and spent a long time buried in her own thoughts. She told me that we were the ones who had killed him; not only him, but thousands like him. Although I didn’t really believe what I was saying, I replied that we were really the victims. After all, stupid people could be considered victims too, couldn’t they? Her reply came in an angrily sarcastic tone, to the effect that it all depended on quite how stupid people had actually been.
    â€œAnd then, as you well know, everyone fell into the vortex. We were all assailed by various plans: plans for war, plans for peace. In such a stormy sea all solutions seemed like a far-off shore. But then there came that single ray of hope in the emergence of the fedayeen.”
    â€œSo you believe in them do you?”
    â€œI’m in touch with them, yes. Actually I’m seriously thinking of joining them. Their importance doesn’t lie simply in the extraordinary things they’re doing; equally significant are the unique qualities they possess, as clearly shown by these events. They’re telling us that the Arabs are not thekind of people others think they are, nor indeed the kind of people they themselves think they are. If the Arabs really wanted it, they could perform wonders of courage. That’s what the fedayeen believe.”
    â€œBut does Zaynab agree with you?”
    For a long time he said