Kamal shook his head disconsolately and remarked, 'Perhaps it's lucky that she's unconscious and knows nothing of the destiny awaiting her'. When they were seated, he added in an ironic tone, 'But who among us knows what destiny awaits us?'
Riyad smiled without replying. Then Kamal continued: 'Many think it wise to make of death an occasion for reflection on death, when in truth we ought to use it to reflect on life.'
Smiling, Riyad answered, 'I think that is better. So let's ask ourselves when anyone dies what we are doing with our lives.'
'As for me, I'm not doing anything with my life. This is what I was thinking about.'
'But you're only halfway down the road….'
'Perhaps yes, perhaps no,' Kamal thought. 'Although it's always good for a person to ponder the dreams that tempt him. Mysticism is an evasion of responsibility and so is a passive faith in science. There is no alternative to action, and that requires faith. The issue is how we are to mold for ourselves a belief system that is worthy of life.'
He asked, 'Do you think I've done my duty to life by sincerely pursuing my vocation as a teacher and by writing my philosophical essays?'
Riyad answered affectionately, 'There's no doubt that you have.'
'But like any other traitor, I live with a guilty conscience.'
'Traitor?'
Sighing, Kamal said, 'Let me share with you what my nephew Ahmad told me when I visited him at the jail before his transfer to the prison camp.'
'By the way — any new developments concerning them?'
'They've gone with many others to the prison camp at al-Tur in Sinai.''
Riyad inquired jovially, 'The one who worships God and the one who doesn't?'
'You must worship the government first and foremost if you wish your life to be free of problems.'
' [n any case, being detained without trial is, I think, a lesser evil than being sentenced to prison.'
'That's one way of looking at it. But when will this affliction be removed? When will martial law be lifted? When will the rule of natural law and the constitution be restored? When will the Egyptians be treated like human beings again?'
Riyad started to fiddle with the wedding ring on his left hand. Pie remarked sadly, 'Yes, when! Well, never mind…. What did Ahmad say in jail?'
'He told me, 'Life consists of work, marriage, and the duty incumbe tit upon each person claiming human status. This is not an appropriate occasion to discuss an individual's responsibilities toward his profession or spouse. The duty common to all human beings is perpetual revolution, and that is nothing other than an unceasing effort to further the will of life represented by its progress toward the ideal.''
After reflecting a little, Riyad said, 'A beautiful thought… but one open to all kinds of interpretations.'
'Yes, and that's why his brother and antagonist, Abd al-Muni'm, accepts it too. I have understood it to be a call to adopt some set of beliefs, regardless of its orientation or goal. So I attribute my misery to the guilty conscience of a traitor. It may seem easy to live in a self-contained world of egotism, but it's difficult to be happy this way if you really are a human being.'
In spite of the gloomy nature of the occasion, Riyad's face lit up and he replied, 'This is the harbinger of an important upheaval that is about to occur in your life.'
Kamal cautioned his friend: 'Don't make fun of me. The choice of a faith has still not been resolved. The greatest consolation I have is the fact that the struggle is not over yet. It will be raging even when, like my mother's, my life has only three more days remaining'. Sighing, he added, 'Do you know what else he said? He told me, believe in life and in people. I feel obliged to advocate their highest ideals as long as I believe them to be true, since shnnking from that would be a cowardly evasion of duty. I also see myself compelled to revolt against ideals I believe to be false, since recoiling from this rebellion would be a form of treason. This is the meaning of perpetual revolution.''
Ashe listened, Riyad nodded his head in agreement. Since Kamal was clearly exhausted and tense, his friend said, 'I must go now. What would you think about accompanying me to the streetcar stop? Perhaps the walk would help you relax.'
They both rose and left the room. Finding Yasin, who had met Riyad a few times, at the entrance to the first-floor apartment, Kamal invited him to join them but asked to be excused for a few minutes to look in at his mother again. On entering her bedroom, he found her still unconscious.
Her eyes red from crying, Khadija was seated on the bed by her mother's feet. The despair that had never left her face since the government had laid hands on her sons was plainly visible. Zanuba, Aisha, and Umm Hanafi sat silently on the sofa. Aisha was smoking a cigarette quickly and anxiously. Meanwhile her eyes scouted the room with nervous agitation.
Kamal asked, 'How is she?'
Aisha replied in a loud voice that suggested a worried protest, 'She doesn't want to wake up!'
He chanced to turn toward Khadija, and they exchanged a long look of mournful understanding and shared sorrow. Sensing that he might lose control of himself, Kamal darted from the room to rejoin his companions.
They walked slowly down the street and traversed the Goldsmiths Bazaar without saying much of anything. On reaching al-Sanadiqiya, they ran into Shaykh Mutawalli Abd al-Samad, who was hobbling along unsteadily with the help of his cane. He was blind, and his arms trembled as he turned from side to side asking in a loud voice, 'Which way to paradise?'
A passerby laughingly suggested, 'First turn on your right.'
Yasin asked Riyad Qaldas, 'Would you believe that this man is almost ten years over a hundred?'
Smiling, Riyad answered, 'He's hardly a man now, whatever his age.'
Kamal looked fondly at the shaykh, who made him think of his father. He had once considered this man a landmark of the neighborhood like the ancient fountain building, the mosque of Qala'un, and the vault of Qirrniz Alley. The shaykh still encountered many who were sympathetic to him, but there were always boys to plague him by whistling at him or by following him and imitating his gestures.
The two brothers escorted Riyad to the streetcar stop and waited with him until he boarded. Then they returned to al-Ghuriya. Kamal suddenly stopped and told Yasin, 'It's time for you to go to the coffeehouse.'
Yasin replied sharply, 'Certainly not! I'll stay with you.'
Knowing his brother's temperament as well as anyone, Kamal said, 'There's absolutely no need ofthat.'
Yasin pushed Kamal along ahead of him, protesting, 'She's my mother as much as yours.'
All at once Kamal felt fearful for Yasin. It was true that he was brimming with life and as huge as a camel, but how much longer could he endure an existence so dominated by passion's impulses? Kamal'sheart filled with sorrow, but his thoughts suddenly flew to the detention camp of al-Tur.
'I believe in life and in people'. That was what Ahmad had said. 'I feel obliged to advocate their highest ideals as long as I believe them to be true, since shrinking from that would be a cowardly evasion of duty. I also see myself compelled to revolt against ideals I believe to be false, since recoiling from this rebellion would be a form of treason.'
Kamal had long wondered what was true and what was false, but perhaps doubt was as much of an evasion of responsibility as mysticism or a passive belief in science.
'Could you be a model teacher, an exemplary husband, and a lifelong revolutionary?' he asked himself.
When they reached al-Sharqawi's store, Yasin stopped and explained, 'Karima asked me to get some things she needs for the baby, if you don't mind.'
They entered the small shop, and Yasin selected the items his daughter had requested: diapers, a bonnet, and a nightgown. Then Kamal remembered that the black necktie he had worn for a year following his father's death was threadbare and that he would be needing a new one when the mournful day arrived. He told the man, when Yasin was finished, 'A black necktie, please.'
Each one took his package, and they left the store. The setting of the sun was washing the world with a sepia tint as side by side they walked back to the house.
