Arabian Nights and Days
Page 23
“Praise be to the Almighty, Who is capable of everything,” whispered Shahriyar.
For forty days the city celebrated the marriage.
V
The time was passed in love and contemplation—and worship too has its time, and it can be expressed in drinking, singing, and dancing.
It appeared to Shahriyar that he was in need of a thousand years to uncover the hidden secrets of the garden, and a thousand years or more to know the reception hall of the palace and its wings. Then, one day, in the company of the queen, he passed by a small door of pure gold, in whose lock was a key of gold decorated with diamonds; on it was a card on which was written in black handwriting “Do not approach this door.”
“Why this warning, my beloved?” he asked the queen.
“We live here in complete freedom,” she answered with her usual sweetness, “so that we regard mere advice as an unforgivable insult.”
“Or does it issue from you as a royal command?”
“The form of the imperative,” she said quietly, “is used with us only in matters of love, which has existed as you see it for millions of years.”
VI
Once when embracing her, he had asked his wife, “When will we have a child?”
“Do you think of this when we have been married only a hundred years?”
“Only a hundred years?”
“No more than that, my love.”
“I had reckoned it as a matter of days.”
“The past has not yet been erased from your head.”
“Anyway,” he said, as though apologizing, “I am happier than a human being has ever been.”
“You will know true happiness,” she said to him as she kissed him, “when you forget the past completely.”
VII
Whenever he passed by the forbidden door he looked at it with interest, and whenever he had been away from the wing where it was, he returned to it. It pressed upon his mind and his emotions and he began to say to himself, “Everything is clear except for this door.”
VIII
One day his resistance weakened and he submitted to a secret call. Seizing an opportunity when the servants were not attentive, he turned the key. The door opened easily, giving out a magical sound and releasing a delightful fragrance. He entered, his heart agitated but full of hope. The door closed and there appeared before him a giant more terrible than anything he had seen. Pouncing upon him, the giant lifted him up like some little bird between his hands. In remorse Shahriyar called out, “Let me go, by your Lord!”
Complying with his plea, he returned him to the ground.
IX
Shahriyar looked about him wildly.
“Where am I?” he asked.
The desert, the night, the crescent moon, the rock, the men, and the continued wailing. Shahriyar and his stick and the polluted air of the city.
“Mercy! Mercy!” he screamed from a wounded heart, and brought his fist down on the rock several times until the blood flowed from it.
But the truth took hold of him and he was overcome by despair. His back became bowed and he became old. There was no choice. He went toward the men with faltering steps and threw himself down at the end of the row. He soon broke into tears like them under the crescent moon.
X
Before dawn the men went away as usual. He did not go nor did he cease to weep. Then someone, walking in the night alone, approached him and asked, “What makes you weep, man?”
“That is no business of yours,” answered Shahriyar crossly.
“I am the chief of police,” said the other, searching his face, “and I have not overstepped the bounds of my authority.”
“My tears,” said Shahriyar, “will not disturb the peace.”
“Leave that for me to judge and answer me,” said Abdullah al-Aqil, as he went on scrutinizing his face.
“All creatures weep from the pain of parting,” said Shahriyar after a silence. It was as though he were heedless of the whole situation.
“Have you no place of abode?” asked Abdullah al-Aqil with a mysterious smile.
“None.”
“Would you like to dwell under the date palm close to the green tongue of land?”
“Perhaps,” he said with indifference.
Said the man gently:
“I give you the words of a man of experience, who said: ‘It is an indication of truth’s jealousy that it has not made for anyone a path to it, and that it has not deprived anyone of the hope of attaining it, and it has left people running in the deserts of perplexity and drowning in the seas of doubt; and he who thinks that he has attained it, it dissociates itself from, and he who thinks that he has dissociated himself from it has lost his way. Thus there is no attaining it and no avoiding it—it is inescapable.’ ”
Then Abdullah al-Aqil went off in the direction of the city.
Naguib Mahfouz
Arabian Nights and Days
Naguib Mahfouz was one of the most prominent writers of Arabic fiction in the twentieth century. Born in Cairo in 1911, he began writing when he was seventeen. Over his long career, he wrote nearly forty novel-length works and hundreds of short stories, ranging from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. His most famous work is The Cairo Trilogy (consisting of Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street), which focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from 1917 until 1952. In 1988, Mahfouz became the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August 2006.
About the Translator
Born in Vancouver, Denys Johnson-Davies began studying Arabic at the School of Oriental Studies, London University, and later took a degree at Cambridge. He has been described by Edward Said as “:the leading Arabic-English translator of our time,” and has published nearly twenty volumes of short studies, novels, and poetry translated from modern Arabic literature. He lives much of the time in Cairo.
BOOKS BY NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
The Beggar, The Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail (omnibus edition)
Respected Sir, Wedding Song, The Search (omnibus edition)
The Beginning and the End
The Time and the Place and Other Stories
Midaq Alley
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
Miramar
Adrift on the Nile
The Harafish
Arabian Nights and Days
Children of the Alley
Echoes of an Autobiography
The Day the Leader Was Killed
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth
Voices from the Other World
Khufu’s Wisdom
Rhadopis of Nubia
Thebes at War
Seventh Heaven
The Thief and the Dogs
Karnak Café
Morning and Evening Talk
The Dreams
Cairo Modern
Khan al-Khalili
The Mirage
THE CAIRO TRILOGY
Palace Walk
Palace of Desire
Sugar Street
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