Sugar Street

168

The dawn call to prayer was reverberating through the otherwise silent city when the commanding officer of the police station for al-Gamaliya summoned Abd al-Muni'm and Ahmad to his office. Escorted by an armed policeman, they appeared before his desk. After ordering the policeman to leave, the officer examined the young men with interest. Looking at Abd al-Muni'm, he asked, "Your name, age, and profession?"

Abd al-Muni'm replied calmly and resolutely, "Abd al-Muni'm Shawkat, twenty-five, an investigator in the Ministry of Education's Bureau of Investigations."

"How can you, a lawyer, break the laws of the state?"

"I haven't broken any law. We work publicly — writing in the papers and preaching in the mosques. People who spread God's word have nothing to fear."

"Haven't suspicious meetings been held at your house?"

"Certainly not. There have been some ordinary gatherings, when friends assemble to exchange opinions and advice in order to gain a deeper understanding of our religion."

"Is agitation against allied nations a goal of these meetings?"

"Do you refer to Britain, sir? That deceitful enemy? A state that crushes our honor with its tanks cannot be considered an ally."

"You're an educated man. You should have realized that wartime conditions justify certain restrictions."

"I realize that Britain is our principal enemy in the world."

Turning to Ahmad, the officer asked, "You?"

With the suggestion of a smile on his lips, Ahmad replied, "Ahmad Ibrahim Shawkat, twenty-four, an editor with The New Man magazine."

"I have alarming reports here about your extremist articles. Besides, it is generally accepted that your magazine has a bad reputation."

"My articles have never exceeded the bounds of a defense of the principles of social justice."

"Are you a Communist?"

"I'm a socialist. Many deputies in parliament support socialism. The law itself does not censure a Communist for his ideas, as long as he does not resort to violent means."

"Should we have waited until the meetingsheld at your apartment every evening erupted into violence?"

Wondering whether the authorities had unearthed the secret of his tracts, and nighttime talks, he replied, "I entertain only close friends in my home. There are never more than four or five visitors a day. Violence has been the furthest thing from our thoughts."

The officer looked from one to the other. After some hesitation he said, 'You're educated and cultured… and you're both married — aren't you? Fine. Wouldn't it be best if you attended to your personal affairs and kept out of trouble?"

Abd al-Muni'm replied in his forceful voice, "Thank you for your advice, which I shall not follow."

A brief laugh took the officer by surprise and escaped from his lips. Then he admitted, "During the search, I learned that you are grandsons of the late Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. Your lamented uncle Fahmy was a dear friend of mine. I assume you know that he died in the spring of his life and that those of his comrades who survived now hold some of the most important posts."

Discerning the secret reason for the officer's courtesy, which had baffled him, Ahmad said, "Allow me to ask you, sir, what condition Egypt would be in if my uncle and others like him had not sacrificed their lives."

Shaking his head, the man remarked, "Think long and well about my advice. Abandon this lethal philosophy". As He stood up he added, "You will be our guests in this jail until the inquiry is conducted. I wish you luck."

On leaving the office, they were taken into custody by a corporal and two armed policemen. The entire group descended to the ground floor, turned into a dark and extremely damp hall, and walked along it a short distance until the jailer greeted them with his flashlight, as if to show them the door to the jail. Opening the door, the jailer let the new prisoners in and then directed his light inside to guide them to their mats. The torch provided enough illumination for them to see the high ceiling of the medium-sized room as well as the small, barred window at the top of the exterior wall. The chamber had several guests: two youngsters, who looked like students, and three men with bare feet and a repulsive, battered appearance. The door was immediately closed, leaving them in darkness, but the light and the new arrivals had awakened some of the sleeping prisoners. Ahmad whispered to his brother, "I'm not going to sit down, for fear this dampness will be the death of me. Let's remain standing till morning."

"We'll have to sit down sooner or later. Do you have any idea when we'll get out of this jail?"

Then a voice clearly belonging to one of the young men said, "There's no way to avoid sitting down. It's not pleasant, but standing up, day after day, is worse."

"Have you been here a long time?"

"Three days!"

The room was silent again until the voice asked, "Why did they arrest you?"

Abd al-Muni'm replied tersely, "For political reasons, apparently."

The voice said cheerfully, "Political prisoners now form the majority in this cell. Before you honored us with your presence, we were in the minority."

Ahmad asked, "What are you accused of?"

"You speak first, for we have seniority here. Although there's probably no need to ask, since we saw that one of you has the beard of a Muslim Brother."

Smiling in the dark, Ahmad asked, "What about you?"

"We're law students. They say we were distributing subversive pamphlets."

Incensed, Ahmad asked, "Did they catch you red-handed?"

"Yes."

"What was in the pamphlets?"

"A report on the redistribution of Egypt's agricultural resources."

"Newspapers have published comparable material even under martial law."

"There were also a few enthusiastic exhortations."

Ahmad smiled once more in the gloom, feeling for the first time that he was not alone. Then the other voice continued: "We're not afraid of the law so much as of being detained without a trial,"

"There are promising signs of change."

"But we'll always be targets, no matter who is in power."

A gruff voice barked rudely, "That's enough talk out of you. Let us get some sleep."

But these words awakened a companion, who yawned and asked, "Is it morning yet?"

The first man responded scornfully, "No, but our friends think they're in a hashish den."

Abd al-Muni'm sighed and whispered so softly that only Ahmad could hear, "Am I cast into this hole merely because I worship God?"

Ahmad whispered merrily in his brother's ear, "What could my offense be then, since I don't?"

After that, no one felt like speaking. Ahmad asked himself why the three older men had been arrested. Had the charges been theft, fighting, drunkenness, or rowdy behavior? Clad in his overcoat, he had often written about "the people" in his beautiful study. Here they were — cursing or snoring in their sleep. For a few seconds by the light of the torch he had seen their wretched sullen fices, including that of the man who was scratching his head and armpits. At this very moment his lice might be advancing resolutely toward Ahmad and his brother.

"You are devoting your life to people like this," he told himself. "Why should the thought of contact with them worry you? The person on whom mankind's hopes for salvation are pinned should stop snoring and awake to his historic role. Let him rear up and rescue the entire world."

Ahmad advised himself, "Without regard to the differences of taste between us, our common human condition has united us in this dark and humid place: the Muslim Brother, the Communist, the drunkard, and the thief. Despite dissimilarities in our luck and success at looking after ourselves, we are all human beings."

He wondered, "Why don't you busy yourself with personal affairs as the officer suggested? I have a beloved wife and plenty of money. The truth is that a man may be happy with his niche as a spouse, an employee, a father, or a son and yet be condemned to suffer various travails or even death by virtue of the fact that he is a man."

Whether Ahmad was sentenced to prison this time or released, the heavy, glowering prison gates would always hover at the horizons of his life. He asked himself again, "What is pushing me down this dazzling and dangerous road unless it is the human being that lurks deep inside of me, the man who is conscious of himself and aware of his common, historic, human condition? What distinguishes a man from all other creatures if not his ability to condemn himself to death by his own free will?"

Ahmad felt dampness coursing through his legs and weakness penetrating his joints. Snores echoed through the room with a regular rhythm. Then, between the bars of the small window, the first feeble rays of delicate light were visible.