Prison Hospitality
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was a Palestinian poet from Musmus, a village outside Umm al-Fahm. Like his contemporaries Mahmoud Darwish and Samih al-Qasim, Hussein was a ’48 Palestinian (that is, a second-class Palestinian citizen of Israel). Educated in Hebrew and Arabic, Hussein wrote and translated volumes of poetry. He was also a prolific journalist, writing in the Arabic-language periodicals of the Left Zionist Mapam party. This essay comes from the collection of Hussein’s newspaper columns, Kalam mawzun (Haifa: Maktabat Kull shay’).
(March 3, 1960)
1.
My father had gone to pray. My three-year-old sisters didn’t understand what was happening—she cried her eyes out. For my part, I sat in a car between two detectives when another car full of policemen pulled up behind us. Behind this, there is a story that might provoke a smile at one moment, and bitter silence at another.
The sun had not yet set. I’d been sitting in my room with two friends and my father. Suddenly, there was a banging on the door. No sooner had I opened it than I found myself greeting five policemen led by an officer. The officer wielded his pistol casually as if he expected to find an armed gang in my room. Without wasting a second he said, “Sit here with your father.” Then he demanded that my friends leave the room.
He had orders from the magistrate court in Khudayra to search my house. I didn’t resist. “Go ahead and search, please,” I told him.
He asked, “Do you have in your possession any published materials from Arab countries?”
“Yes.” I produced six issues of al-Ahram from my briefcase, one issue of al-Hayat, and two of al-Sayyad magazine.[1] Then I handed him a bundle of recently published books.
That didn’t satisfy him, and he ordered his men to search. Within moments, hundreds of books, magazines and booklets were heaped about the middle of the room. Then the four drawers of my wardrobe were emptied and every piece of clothing thrown out. The eyes of one policeman flashed when he stumbled across a bundle of letters. His officer asked about the name of someone they imagined I corresponded with. But he didn’t find the signature of that person on any of the letters, so he threw them back in their place. The flash of victory had disappeared from his eyes.
2.
The officer said, “The light’s too weak here. Can’t you get me a brighter light?”
“Sorry. We still haven’t gotten electricity here yet.”
He said nothing, then went back to getting his men to hurry up with the search. Eventually he went to a pile of magazines and books, going through them himself. Each time he grabbed one, he asked, “Where was this published?”
“In Israel.”
Then he’d turn to one of his men who read Arabic and ask, “Is this true?” He went on and on asking, getting the same answer from me, then turning to ask the man if what I’d said was true or not. I felt a wave of anger pour over me and said, “Listen, sir. You keep asking me, and I keep answering you truthfully. Either believe me when I answer, or don’t bother asking.”
He looked me over severely and said, “Fine.” He stopped asking his men about whether what I said was true.
The officer left the room, accompanied by the driver. The policemen continued on with their work. While I sat next to my father, calmly smoking.
It didn’t bother me that the police were doing their assigned jobs. What did bother me was that they put all the Arabic books published in Arab countries to one side. I protested, since these books had been published many years before the establishment of the state of Israel. But they were always searching for one word in particular: Egypt. Whenever they found it, the book was confiscated.
They seized The Epistles of al-Jahiz, The Journal of Juridical Rulings, and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution… and many other books. All of these were born long before I! Their one sin was that they’d been published in Egypt.
The search lasted three solid hours.
The officer returned. I served coffee, and all the policemen drank some. He refused with the excuse that he does not drink or eat in any house he searches. I heard my father tell him, while speaking about me, “Is he a criminal that you can’t drink coffee in his house?”
Once again, he tried to find an excuse. I saw the sergeant biting his lips, trying to explain to him that to refuse coffee is an insult to the master of the home. When I brought out coffee the second time, he drank it without saying a word.
3.
I left the room. The policemen went to the second room. I dreaded to see the courtyard of our house, filled with relatives and friends. I understood from them that when the officer went out with the driver, they took the car to the top of the hill in order to use their walkie-talkies. This was enough to spark suspicions and turn the matter into a big deal.
They found nothing in the second room. We went back to the first room and were surprised to find another car suddenly pull up. Two plainclothes detectives got out, along with the chief inspector of the Khudayra prefecture.
There were now nine policemen. The number frightened the bystanders in the courtyard. People thought my end had drawn near, or that I drew near the end!
The chief spoke, directing his words to the sergeant, “Do they read al-Ahram in your jurisdiction?”
I answered, “They read with legal permission.”
He looked at me without saying anything. I noticed that the two detectives had brought a large flashlight and had begun to look over the confiscated books.
4.
The investigation began, “Do you know so and so?”
“Yes.”
“Did you give him a book on Sa‘d Zaghloul?”[2]
“No.”
“Did you give him a copy of Ruz al-Yusuf?”
“No.”
“Where did you come to possess these recently published magazines and books?”
“From the Arab Book Society.[3] It receives them from abroad by post, all through a legal license.”
Suddenly he studied the policeman who was taking notes. Pointing at the magazine with the profile on Sa‘d Zaghloul, he asked, “How is it that you claim ignorance about Sa‘d Zaghloul?”
“I don’t know anything about your book entitled Sa‘d Zaghloul. As for knowing something about the man, it goes without saying: everyone who lives in this part of the world knows something about him, probably even you.”
He was silent and didn’t respond, and the investigation was over. Almost four hours had gone by since they first arrived. The chief turned toward me and said, “Come with us, please.”
I watched the policemen go up to shake my father’s hand as if they were apologizing. I watched as my father went out to perform his evening prayers. I watched my sister in the courtyard, bawling as much as her three years would allow.
I left with the policemen.
5.
I had no prior conception about the detention jail. I imagined at least that I’d find a dilapidated bunk. I found nothing but a filthy blanket thrown on the floor of a filthy cell. The walls may have been clean, but the floor was rank and stank of a rotten smell.
Before I entered my cell, the policeman told me, “There’s no toilet in there, so if you want to go to the bathroom, go now.”
I thanked him and went in. As soon as he shut the door, I thought I would suffocate. My body shivered from the rotten smell. One a few minutes passed before I banged on the door.
The policeman came and asked, “What do you want?”
“You told me there was no toilet inside the cell. But I would like to inform you that, in reality, there’s no cell inside this big toilet.
I thought he’d be angry, but instead he smiled. He only said, “No matter. Don’t pay any attention to it!”
“Allow me to sit in the hall until morning, if it’s any better there.”
He said, “It’s forbidden,” and closed the door again.
6.
During my short visit to the holding jail, I learned many things. I learned how to wait patiently, sitting for hours without smoking. (And me, who smokes forty cigarettes a day!) They’d bought me cigarettes, but took away my box of matches, saying they’d light my cigarettes whenever I wanted. But whenever I asked, they refused, saying, “We don’t have any instructions that say you can smoke.” As if smoking were also a danger to state security!
I learned something else—that it’s forbidden to detain watches, neckties and pens along with the prisoner.
When I told the policeman, “Don’t worry—I won’t kill myself,” he said, “I don’t get what goes on inside your head.”
I also learned how to kill time on the road to morning by reading a single newspaper over and over.
I sat on the filthy blanket, leaning my back against the wall, trying to doze, all the while expecting the bedbugs and fleas to launch a surprise attack.
I began to think, not about prison, but about what I would write since, along with 50 other “documents,” they’d seized two articles I was preparing to publish in al-Mirsad. As compensation, they’d brought me here, to a place where inspiration descends upon the imprisoned writer at least one hundred times a day!
The two bright lights that illuminated the cell were left on throughout the night. It seems that their lights ruined the fleas’ plan of attack, since they didn’t launch one.
In the locked door, I saw my mother and father and my sister, crying her three-year-old eyes out. Then two sad eyes appeared, asking me, “Why did you go? Didn’t I tell you this would happen?”
The hours went by, one after the other. The two eyes sat up with me until the sun came up.
7.
The sun’s rays crept through the window at the top of the wall. I knocked on the door in the hopes that the policeman might light a cigarette for me. But he refused, saying that he didn’t have any matches on him. A Yemeni man was passing by us just then and heard our conversation and stopped to light my cigarette. The policeman told him sternly, “Get out of here!”
He shut the door again. I knocked on it again, demanding to see the chief inspector. I was told that he hadn’t arrived yet. Then I asked for a light and was told, “It’s against the rules.”
I banged on the door more and they told me the same thing. I kept banging and they kept telling me. Finally, my patience ran out and I kicked on the door with force. Suddenly, three men appeared led by the station officer. He began to scream at me while I calmly asked him to inform me why they’d detained me and why they refused to allow me to smoke. He told me that he also didn’t know.
After a few minutes, they brought me a piece of bread, a cup of tea, and some food prepared to make your whole body gag. Though I was hungry, I spared the bread, the food and the tea, or perhaps I spared my stomach when I refused entry to this food! Who knows? Perhaps this same serving awaits the next guest?
8.
Around 10 AM, the door opened. One of the interrogators took me to the chief inspector’s office. On the way, he lit a cigarette for me. As soon as I entered the room, I registered my complaint about how well I’d been treated. I insisted that I did not deserve such humane treatment nor all the politeness. The inspector and interrogator showed their surprise that I had not been allowed to smoke. They promised to rescind that rule. I understood, from “rescind that rule” that I would be returned to that cell, but I didn’t care, as long as I was permitted to read and smoke.
Before he began the interrogation, the chief inspector watched me smoke and asked if I’d eaten. I replied in the negative, and explained my reasons for sparing the food. He asked, “Would you drink a cup of coffee with me?”
I gratefully accepted the invitation. The interrogation began to resemble the previous one. I was asked to say the name of the person from whom I’d purchased or acquired this or that book that had been seized. My apologies go out to those friends from whom I’d borrowed books and whose names I mentioned!
There were new questions: for which newspapers have I written? For which paper did I write for nowadays? Did a receive a salary from the Ministry of Education?[4] How much did I earn per article? I answered every question. I could have refused, though there would have been no point in rendering secret what was not.
I hereby swear that the chief inspector and his assistant were polite toward me, as were the policemen who brought me back home. But I cannot say the same for any of those from whom I asked for a light or to meet the inspector.
Eventually, I was released. When I reached the souk in Khudayra, I bought a bouquet of lilies and got a shave.
I was fortunate to have stayed one night as a guest at the detention prison. I can still recall the disgusting odor, the filthy blanket, the food that makes you cringe. I say all this to communicate to the authorities at the prison that this state of affairs does not encourage guests to return for other visits unless, like me, they were searching for something to write about that might entertain readers.
But Sirs: not all people are writers or journalists. Most of them are human beings, plain and simple. It’s my wish that at least the health of the guests and tenants would be cared for. For by these guests, you earn your wages. Despite everything they are the source of your livelihood, so take care of that source, and God will take care of you.
Finally, thanks are in order. Thanks go out to all those who gave me this opportunity. Thanks to them, I learned things I had not known before. Thanks to them for giving me the material for this piece!
————
[1] In the wake of the 1952 revolution, the Egyptian daily al-Ahram became the semi-official mouthpiece of the Nasserist state. al-Hayat is a Lebanese daily, and al-Sayyad, a Lebanese political weekly. Ruz al-Yusuf, mentioned below, is a popular political, social and cultural weekly published in Cairo.
[2] Egyptian jurist, politician and hero of Egypt’s 1919 Revolution. As leader of the Wafd party, Zaghloul dominated Parliament from 1923 until his death in 1927.
[3] Founded by Mapam to provide Arabic-language books to Palestinian citizens of Israel. See Sabri Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel, 127.
[4] Hussein wrote for the two Arabic-language organs of the Mapam Party, the monthly literary and political journal al-Fajr, and the weekly al-Mirsad. He also published, under pseudonyms (such as Abu Iyas) in the Communist Party publications, such as the literary magazine al-Jadid (edited by Samih al-Qasim) and the newspaper, al-Ittihad. His first job was as teacher in the Arab school of a neighboring village.