The Mirage

by Naguib Mahfouz

  But when she happened to glance at my trousers, a look of distress came over her and she murmured softly, “My Lord, you’ve wet yourself!”

  As for me, I burst into sobs, saying, “I’ll never go back to school! Grandpa doesn’t know anything about the place. I hate the principal, the teachers, and the pupils. Tell me I don’t have to go back, and I’ll never leave you as long as I live!”

  Drying my tears and undressing me, she said gently, “Don’t say things like that. You’ll get used to it and like it. After all, how can you stay at home when all the other boys are in school? And how will you become an officer like your grandpa if you leave school?”

  I kept up my crying and my importunate complaints as she spoke soothing words to me in an attempt to alleviate my distress. However, she warned me not to let my grandfather hear me complain lest he be angry with me and look down on me. So, for the first time in my life, she turned a deaf ear to my laments.

  As a way of encouraging me to persevere in my new life, my mother decided to escort me to school every morning. We would arrive there together, after which I would go into the schoolyard while she stood on the opposite sidewalk. Once inside, I would stay glued to the fence, exchanging glances and smiles with her through its iron bars as melancholy descended over my heart and angst gripped me about the neck. I loathed school and everything about it. Nevertheless, I was forced to go, and neither defiance nor tears got me anywhere. Hence, I knew for a certainty that I’d been doomed to a long imprisonment. For the first time I found myself envying adults their freedom, and housewives the luxury of staying at home.

  My love for Thursdays dates back to that time. Of all the days of the week, Thursdays were my favorite. As for the other days of the week, I shrank from them, finding them heavy and tedious. Late on Friday afternoon I’d feel a depression coming on. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday would pass in weariness and boredom until, when Wednesday morning arrived, I’d start breathing more easily. Then I’d waken at dawn on Thursday and turn over under the covers in blissful delight, hardly able to contain my excitement. Consequently I excelled in Thursday’s lessons, which included nothing but memorizing passages and religion classes.

  Even so, that era wasn’t without its happy memories, though at the time they appeared to me against a background of severity and harshness. One of those memories is of the way we used to buy donut-shaped loaves of bread with sesame seeds on top during recess and, if we had no salt to put on them, we would use in its place the lime that came leaching out of the courtyard walls. Our aged teacher used to like to drink a glass of licorice tea during the first period. As he drank it, he would command us to stand up and turn our backs to him for fear that some harm might come to him from our voracious eyes. He came to class one day with a sour look on his face. He said that he’d had a stomachache the night before and that he had no doubt but that one of us had stolen a glance at him as he drank his licorice. He warned us that unless we revealed the culprit’s identity, we’d all get a smack on the hand. And since we were ignorant of who the culprit was, we all got the promised smack. Our other teacher was also an elderly man. However, being a gentle soul, he never struck any of us unless he was at his wits’ end. His favorite method of getting us to be quiet and maintaining order was to frighten us with talk of the goblin that had lived since ancient times under the room’s floorboards. He would tell us that the goblin didn’t like loud ruckuses, and if things got out of control, he would crouch down and tap on the floor. Then, in a tone of meekness and dread, he would say, “Pardon them, master! They don’t realize what they’re doing! Don’t ride their backs, please, and forgive them this time!”

  On the academic plane, I learned nothing whatsoever. I suppose the only thing I mastered at Roda National Primary School was the art of measuring time by watching the sunlight move down the classroom walls as I counted the seconds before the bell rang. If the teacher addressed a question to me, all it meant was that I would get so many smacks with a ruler on the back of my hand, and in the course of an entire academic year, all I memorized were a few short suras from the Qur’an that I used to hear my mother recite during her prayers. When it came time for the final exam, I earned a set of zeros that, if it had come in some context other than that scandalous report card, would have sufficed to make me a millionaire.

  When my grandfather saw the report card he was furious.

  “This is the result of your pampering,” he told my mother sharply. “You’ve spoiled him, Madame!”

  Then, threatening to make the school principal pay the consequences, he went to meet him at the school. An hour later he returned, saying with satisfaction, “Well, sir, you’ve passed by force! And don’t you dare fail next year!”

  I’d entertained the hope that in view of my failure, they might decide not to send me back to school again. So when my grandfather announced the glad tidings of this “success” of mine that he’d wrested by force from the powers that be, I felt disappointed. When the second year rolled around, it was no better than the first. In fact, my misery was intensified by a slip of the tongue that made the remainder of my days at the Roda National Primary School even more loathsome than the ones that had preceded them. One day I raised my hand to request the teacher’s permission to leave the classroom. However, instead of saying, “sir,” I called him, “Mama” by mistake!

  The whole class roared with laughter. The teacher himself laughed, replying sarcastically, “Yes, mama’s boy?”

  And with that, the class broke into loud guffaws all over again. Speechless and mortified, I sat there in a stupor while my eyes filled with tears. I didn’t have a single friend or companion among them, and in fact, it was during that time so long ago that I began suffering the inability to make friends. Not one of them had the least compassion for me. From that time onward they called me “Mama” until they even stopped calling me by my real name. Defeated and helpless, I avoided them, though a fury raged within me.

  At the end of the year, I got another report card filled with zeroes, and this time my mother accused the school of negligence. My grandfather decided to enroll me in a public primary school, but because I’d graduated from a private school, the principal stipulated that I’d have to take an entrance examination. Shortly before the academic year was to start, my grandfather took me to the school, then waited for the results to be announced. In fact, there was nothing to wait for. My grandfather pleaded with the principal to accept me in spite of the test result, and the man wanted to oblige him in view of his advanced age and his eminent standing. Hence, he asked simply that I write my name, “Kamil Ru’ba.” However, I wrote Ru’ba incorrectly, so the man apologized, explaining that it wouldn’t be possible to accept me after all. My grandfather mocked me all the way home. Then, heaving a sigh of disgust, he said to my mother, “It’s no use sending him back to kindergarten. I’ll get him a tutor this year.”

  I could hardly believe my ears. Trying to conceal my delight, I asked, “Will I stay home this year, then?”

  Glowering at me with his green eyes, he said heatedly, “Yes. That ought to make your mother happy!”

  7

  For the first time in my life I had a fruitful year of study, sitting safely and placidly before my venerable teacher and being taught the principles of Arabic and arithmetic. Despite the fact that, as usual, the hours dragged on heavily and miserably, I was at last taking my first steps along the path of learning. In order to ensure that the teacher treated me well, I had my mother sit near the door to the teacher’s room so that I could summon her to the rescue if need be. And it’s no wonder that I felt as I did, since the memory of the two years I’d spent in Roda School—from the teachers’ blows to the pupils’ assaults—were still fresh in my mind. Up to that point, I had yet to comprehend the fact that education was an unavoidable duty that I’d spend a good part of my life fulfilling. Instead, I viewed it as a punishment that had been inflicted on me for some unknown reason, and I still held out the hope that some
day my grandfather would relent and exempt me from it altogether.

  As for my mother, she was no happier than I was. She was enduring torment of another, more brutal sort. She’d grown more dejected during those days, and the minute she found herself alone, she would break into bitter tears. Whenever she was with my grandfather, she would speak to him about the matter that was robbing her of sleep. In just a few months I would be nine years old, and once I reached that age, my father would have the right to reclaim me. In fact, he was certain to do so, just as he had my sister and brother before me. The same danger had loomed over us when I turned seven. However, my grandfather had written a letter to my paternal uncle, who was an influential farmer in Fayoum, asking him to intercede with my father and persuade him to leave me in my grandfather’s care until I was nine years old. By a miracle from heaven, the intercession yielded the hoped-for result. Now, however, I was approaching my ninth birthday, and I was sure to be wrested from my mother’s arms this time unless my father waived his right to take me back.

  One day my mother began weeping in my grandfather’s presence. She said, “I lost Radiya and Medhat, and I haven’t set eyes on them for nine years now. Kamil is all I have left. He’s my only consolation in this life, and I don’t know what I’ll do if the man takes him away from me!”

  My grandfather shook his gray head crossly, as this topic never failed to distress him.

  “And what can I do about it?” he asked. “This is the ruling of Islamic law, and we have no choice in the matter. Besides, the man to whom you’re referring is his father, at least, and not some stranger.”

  “His father!” she cried indignantly. “Do you call that monster a father? Poor Radiya and Medhat, living in the house that drunkard’s turned into a tavern! He doesn’t have a fatherly bone in his body. Kamil has grown up in my care and received my love and affection, and he doesn’t have any experience with perverse creatures like his father. If the man takes him, Kamil will perish there with him, and I’ll perish here alone!”

  Choked with tears, she fell silent. After she’d caught her breath, she continued, “Baba, can you imagine Kamil being able to live away from his mother? It’s these two hands of mine that feed him, dress him, and put him to bed. He’s afraid of his own shadow. He’s scared out of his wits by the chirping of a cricket! How can Islamic law allow such a child to be taken out of his mother’s care?”

  My grandfather knit his brow wearily, seemingly annoyed at her objection. However, his face wasn’t an accurate reflection of what he felt inside. There were many times when he would seem angry or displeased even though his heart was full of tender compassion. All he said at the time was, “That’s enough complaining and crying. If he’s meant to stay with us, he will, and if God wills for him to go to his father, there’s nothing we can do to resist His decree.”

  This is what he said. However, what he did was something else altogether. One day, taking matters firmly in hand, he went to my father to negotiate with him over the matter of leaving me in his care. If the truth be told, my grandfather loved me deeply. He loved me because I was a companion to him in his old age, and because childhood has a way of stirring something deep in the heart of the elderly. He also loved me because he loved my mother, who had stayed by his side after her mother’s death, nurturing him with her affection, compassion, and tender, loving care. He went to my father and we stayed behind waiting, our hands on our hearts. Never as long as I live will I forget the agony my mother endured during that wait. Unable to sit still or concentrate on a thing, sometimes she would talk to me and sometimes she would talk to herself. At other times she would invite me to join her in making earnest entreaties to God, asking Him to crown my grandfather’s efforts with success. I observed her forlornly until, infected with her anxiety, I broke down and cried. We waited for a long time—or so it seemed to us—shrouded in a mantle of sorrow and worry, our eyes swimming with tears and our tongues uttering prayers of urgent supplication. Then at last we heard the ringing of carriage bells. We went rushing to the balcony and saw my grandfather crossing the courtyard with his usual heavy steps. Then we hurried back to open the door for him. He entered without saying a word, eyeing us with a look whose meaning we couldn’t divine.

  He proceeded to his room, so we followed him, but my mother didn’t have the courage to ask him what news he brought.

  “O Lord! O Lord!” she whispered in a trembling voice.

  He took off his fez slowly and deliberately, all the while avoiding my mother’s eyes. He sat down on a large chair near his bed, gave us a long look, then said in that gruff voice of his as though he were talking to himself, “The man’s a criminal! And what do you expect from a criminal?”

  My mother’s faced turned white as a sheet, her lips began to tremble, and there was a look of despair in her eyes. I began looking back and forth anxiously and fearfully between my grandfather and my mother. My grandfather left us in our misery for a little while. Then, taking pity on us, he removed his mask of gloom. Breaking into a raucous laugh, he said triumphantly, “Don’t kill yourself with grief, Umm Radiya. The old devil hardly put up a fight!”

  We were speechless at first. Then our faces lit up with the glad tidings, and my mother’s eyes sparkled with joy. Kneeling before my grandfather and bathing his hand in kisses, she asked fervently, “Really? Really? Has God taken pity on my broken heart?”

  My grandfather began twisting his mustache with satisfaction as my mother asked again with the same fervor, “Did you see Radiya and Medhat?”

  He shook his head regretfully, saying, “They were at school.”

  She uttered an impassioned prayer for them, her eyes filled with tears. My grandfather hadn’t been in the custom of visiting them, since he disliked my father and didn’t expect to be well received in his house. He then related to us how, when he met with my father on the veranda, the latter had had a bottle of liquor and a full glass in front of him. He told us that my father had received him with bewilderment and surprise, and that the only work he had left to do in life was to drink. Perhaps, my grandfather said, this deterioration on his part was what had caused him to go along with the proposal rather than clinging to his old stubborn ways.

  A first he seemed skeptical, my grandfather said. However, when things became clearer to him, he laughed derisively, yet without obstinacy or anger, and said simply, “I’m in no mood to raise anybody or be a wet nurse all over again. Keep him if you want, but don’t ask me for a red cent. That’s an explicit condition! If I’m asked for a single penny in the coming days, I’ll take him away from you, and you won’t lay eyes on him as long as I live.”

  My grandfather agreed to my father’s condition. In fact, he’d had a feeling even before going to see him that he would make this sort of demand. Even so, it came as a shock to him that the man expressed no interest in seeing his son, and that he didn’t even ask about me once.

  Then my grandfather said, “Ru’ba Laz isn’t a human being anymore. The man’s finished.”

  “Poor dear Radiya and Medhat!” muttered my mother glumly.

  However, my grandfather said reassuringly, “Radiya is seventeen years old now and Medhat is sixteen. They aren’t children anymore.”

  Thus, having been rescued from the fear that had loomed so large on our path, we went back to our usual peace and quiet. I carried on with my studies at home, plodding my way laboriously through them. Another year passed, autumn rolled around, and there was frequent talk of school, so I knew for a certainty that my return to prison drew nigh.

  One day I said to my mother, “If you love me so much that you won’t agree to let my father take me back, why do you let school separate us?”

  Laughing that delicate laugh of hers, she said, “For shame! How can you say that when you’re the perfect man? Don’t you want to be a high-ranking officer some day like your grandfather? If you leave school, what can you do but work as a fuul vendor or a tram conductor!”

  My grandfather took me to the
Aqqadin School in Heliopolis, and this time I passed the entrance examination. The academic year began and I began reluctantly attending school. The carriage would take me there in the morning and bring me home in the afternoon. Given this new arrangement, my grandfather forbade my mother to escort me herself as she’d done during my days at the Roda School. Hence, I returned once more to school and suffered anew the lessons, the regime, the teachers’ cruelty, and the other students’ derision. My entire school life was misery from start to finish. Moreover, my misery was reinforced by the fact that at home I was an undisputed sovereign, and at school a dutiful slave. Year after year I lived the confused, schizophrenic life of someone who at home is showered with affection, and at school is the target of his classmates’ ridicule and blows from the teachers’ rod.

  I earned the teachers’ hostility thanks to my stupidity and dullness of mind. Some of them even dubbed me “the first-rate dunce.” Whenever my mathematics teacher finished explaining a lesson, he would ask me about it and keep after me until I’d given him a satisfactory answer. Then, with a sigh of relief, he would turn to the other students and say, “If Mr. Kamil has figured it out, then you must have, too!” And the class would roar with laughter.

  As for the pupils, they made fun of me whenever they got the chance. My inability to make friends is a bitter reality of which there can be no doubt, since it’s something at which I’ve never succeeded in my entire life. The fact is that I’m no worse than a lot of people who enjoy happy friendships. However, I’m painfully shy, I love solitude and isolation, and I’m wary of strangers. What makes my disposition even more unhappy is the fact that by nature I’m withdrawn, unable to express myself without faltering and searching in vain for the right word. Never in my life have I been good even at talking, much less joking or playfulness. For all these reasons the other students accused me of being disagreeable. It so pained me to be described in this way that I asked my mother one day, “Mama, am I disagreeable?”