The Mirage

by Naguib Mahfouz

  One day I told my mother, who was the only beloved, friend, and companion I’d ever known, “I don’t have any friends. The other students despise me.”

  In a fit of anger she cried, “Your shoe is worth a thousand of their heads! They only like people who go along with them in their silly pranks and bad manners. They envy you for your shyness and politeness. So don’t you be sad. There’s no virtue in getting close to other people!”

  “I feel alone sometimes,” I said dejectedly, “and loneliness is hard for me to bear.”

  Horrified by what I’d said, she looked at me reproachfully and said, “And where is your mother? How can you say such a thing when your mother is alive? Don’t I devote my life to your service and care?”

  Indeed, she was devoting her entire existence to me, and she was everything in my life. But who did I have outside our home?

  Meanwhile, my academic life hobbled sluggishly along despite being supported on the crutches of private tutors.

  My grandfather suffered terribly whenever I failed an examination, and he no longer made fun of me the way he had before. Perhaps the fact that he was getting on in years had caused him to be more fearful than ever for our future.

  He would say to me, “Why do you fail this way, Kamil? Aren’t you able to pass a grade in less than two years? Don’t you realize how anxious I am to see you working before I die?”

  His words would fall like a heavy weight on my heart, and I would say, “There isn’t an evening when I don’t study till midnight.”

  My mother would be quick to affirm the truth of what I’d said, whereupon he would shake his white head and mutter, “All things are in God’s hands.”

  For this reason, I would anticipate test season with disquiet, dread, and bad dreams. For this reason also, I would be tempted by a combination of shame and conceit to feign exhaustion and illness during the months leading up to the examination so that I could use them as an excuse for my anticipated failure. As for my mother, she would visit Umm Hashim’s shrine, make vows, and tie protective amulets around my neck. I’ll never forget the time when, not long before my proficiency examination, she brought me a fortune teller, trusting in her ability to bring me success. The woman burned some incense in front of me, then propped a short stick up against the heater and instructed me to jump over it three times. I did as I’d been told, and she said to me confidently, “You’ll pass the test, God willing.”

  When I failed the test, I said to my mother incredulously, “How could I have failed after jumping over the stick those three times?”

  Yet in spite of everything, I kept on studying. And eventually I put the era of secondary school behind me and finished the baccalaureate when I was twenty-five years old.

  15

  Despite my successive failures, I felt proud and manly. Many government employees had nothing but a high school diploma. So, I thought: I’m a man worth his salt! I didn’t aspire to work for the government with it, but I did hope it would enable me to get out of the house. In other words, I hoped to be released from the lasso that had bound me so tightly, I feared it would crush me. Indeed, I was gripped by a headstrong feeling that caused my heart to yearn for renewal and release. No longer was I a boy who could be led around by his nose, and life was inciting me to rebellion and revolution. But what rebellion, and what revolution? Against what or for what? I didn’t find a clear answer to the question, and the truth is that I wasn’t thinking. The turmoil I was experiencing wasn’t an intellectual one. Rather, it was an emotional unrest that arose from somewhere deep inside me and longed for release, change, and the unknown. I didn’t perceive any particular purpose behind it, but I suffered a painful, nebulous yearning that, whenever it stirred within me, plunged me into sorrow and desolation. And whenever these feelings came over me I would fall prey to anger and lose my temper for the most trivial of reasons.

  At that time my grandfather was approaching his eightieth birthday, and my mother was in her early fifties. My grandfather had become a lean old man, but he’d preserved his health and hadn’t succumbed to any serious illnesses. He still enjoyed an enviable share of his God-given vigor, and he hadn’t lost his kind spirit or his understated wit. He still retained his brisk, dignified military gait and his perfect posture. He did, however, find himself obliged to change his lifestyle, since he could no longer tolerate regular long evenings out. Instead he would go in the mornings to the Luna Park coffee shop to meet with a few of his friends, then go to the casino for a couple of hours in the evening and be home by ten.

  As for my mother, she seemed older for her age than my grandfather did. She’d grown thin, and her temples and the part in her hair were visibly gray. She was in good health, however, and her face retained its beauty and radiance. There were times when she succumbed to the temptation to neglect her appearance, a development that caused me no little heartache and displeasure. It disturbed me so deeply that once I said to her, “Meet me looking the way you would if you were receiving guests.” And she didn’t disappoint me, since thereafter she would always appear at the door looking her best, which brought me gratification and joy.

  My grandfather supposed that the time had now come to fulfill the hope he had cherished for so long, namely, for me to become an officer. I was now past the maximum age for enrollment in the military college. However, he figured that a bit of mediation could overcome this obstacle, and he approached numerous senior officers in this connection. Unfortunately, though, he was given to understand that the law allowed for no lenience on this point. Gravely disappointed, my grandfather said to me sorrowfully, “If you’d entered the military college, I could have guaranteed you a good future, and I would have set my mind at rest concerning you and your mother.”

  Shaking his head bitterly, he asked me, “So what do you intend to do?”

  I looked at him uncertainly and made no reply.

  Again he asked me, “Don’t you have a preference for some profession in particular?”

  I felt even more uncertain now. Thanks to my grandfather’s own influence and his faith in the rightness of my joining the military, I’d never felt a leaning toward any other profession. So I didn’t know how to answer his question.

  “I’d been hoping to enter the military college,” I said. “Now, though, all professions are the same to me.”

  “My choice is for you to study law, then, since it’s the best option we have left. I won’t tell you to be diligent, since it’s a disgrace for anyone to fail at the university. But God help us with its expenses!”

  I regretted having missed the chance to attend the military college. However, I only realized the enormity of my loss when I saw that I’d have to go on studying for at least four more years, or eight years if I kept up the pace I’d been accustomed to during primary and secondary school. By nature I detested studying and school, so I looked upon the future with no little resentment. I didn’t know the first thing about university, but I thought it unlikely to be as odious as school. I said to myself: University students are adults, so they couldn’t possibly treat me as badly as certain brothers of theirs whom I’ve known in the past, and who left scars in my soul that have yet to heal. I also thought it unlikely that punishment would be a permissible manner of dealing with men, or those who were as good as men. I thus labored tirelessly to endear to myself my upcoming academic life, glossing over its potential difficulties in order to enable myself to endure it patiently. And in the summer of that year I was enrolled as a student in the Faculty of Law.

  16

  On a Saturday morning in mid-October, I left home shored up by prayers of supplication and headed for the Egyptian University. I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the tram, the same one that used to take me to the Saidiya School. Despite the resentment I felt over having to go where I was going, I wasn’t without a feeling of pride.

  As I stood there waiting, I heard the clattering of a window shutter as it opened forcefully and struck the outside wall. I looked up at the secon
d story of an orange building located directly in front of the tram stop where, up until around a month before, there had been a sign advertising a doctor’s clinic. My glance fell on a girl who stood on the balcony drinking tea, and I realized immediately that a family had moved into the flat that had been vacated by the physician. Fixing my gaze on her, I began following her movements as she raised the glass to her lips and took a sip, then puckered her mouth and blew on the hot liquid once more. She stood there repeating the process over and over, engrossed in the enjoyment of her drink. She was a tall girl with a slender, svelte figure and a wheat-colored complexion. Clad modestly in a jacket and a gray tailored suit, she looked as though she were about to go to school. She had the side of her face to me, and when she held her head up straight, I saw a round face surrounded by a halo of chestnut hair whose appearance from afar suggested a lovely composition, though I wasn’t able to make out its features from where I stood. The sight of her had a joyous effect on me. However, she only remained in view for a short while, and before I knew it she’d turned and gone back inside.

  I kept her image in my mind out of curiosity as the tram approached, then I boarded with a sense that, thanks to the agreeable effect she’d had on me, I’d been relieved of the gloom of this day on which my studies were to begin. At the same time, the Faculty of Law possessed advantages that were likely to relieve me of my fears, though they did nothing to detract from the reasons for my overall aversion to studying. One such advantage was that students generally attended classes for only four hours a day, their school day ending at around 1:00 p.m. Another advantage was that students were unsupervised, and enjoyed the freedom to choose whether they would attend lectures or not. And most important of all was the absence of the notion of punishments. In fact, I gathered from the general mood of the students that the threats that hung over professors were more fearsome than those faced by the students themselves. All this was cause for delight as far as I was concerned, and I consoled myself with the thought that this period of study, like those that had preceded it, would ultimately come to an end, however bitter it turned out to be. It wasn’t new to me to have to drink the bitter cup of academics to the dregs, however much I detested it. And when I came home to Manyal later that day, a sudden elation came over me as I fancied myself to be a man of importance: half a professor, and a quarter of a public prosecutor!

  The following morning as I approached the station, I remembered the balcony. Stirred by a quiet, natural curiosity, I looked toward it, but found it empty. My glance then stole inside the flat, where I saw a mirror on the opposite wall and to the left, a burnished silver bedpost and a ceiling lamp covered with a large blue lampshade. There appeared in the center of the room a fifty-year-old man wearing gold spectacles and buttoning his suspenders. Upon seeing him, I lowered my gaze and began pacing up and down the sidewalk. Then, happening to glance over at the stop where the tram heading for Ataba would come in, I saw the girl again. I recognized her by her height and what she was wearing, and this time she had a book in her hand. She had a dignified bearing that was lovely for her age, as she couldn’t have been more than twenty. She didn’t turn to look at any of the people crowding about or passing by her. Her reserve had a salutary effect on me and filled me with respect and admiration, as a result of which I felt a kind of attraction and affection for her. It was nothing new for me to be affected by women, of course. After all, I would often see beautiful women on the street or in the tram, and in general I would look at them like a passerby tormented by deprivation, loneliness, and desire. After glances of this sort, I would come away with a combination of intense elation and a painful jolt. As for this girl, though, she was something different. My attitude toward her wasn’t that of a mere passerby. Rather, it was the attitude of a resident, or someone who’s on the order of a neighbor. After all, I was seeing her today, and I’d be seeing her tomorrow, and so on indefinitely, a fact that intensified my interest in her, stirring in my heart imagined hopes and a desire for a happiness that could be renewed every day. It was as if my seeing her were a kind of getting-to-know-one-another, a vague hope, and an object of passive delight beyond which a shy, diffident sort like me would entertain no aspiration.

  I went to the university in high spirits, and I wondered: Might she possibly take notice of me? I remembered her again in the heart of the night, in my emotional solitude as the delirium of erotic visions toyed with my imagination. However, I discovered within myself a fierce resistance to the idea of admitting her into this part of my world—indeed, a violent rejection of it. Hence, I banished her from the realm of my vile habit and, turning away from her image, I contented myself there with the lewd creatures that always inflamed the basest of my physical sensibilities.

  On the morning of the third day, I set out for the tram stop filled with such anticipation you would have thought I had an appointment to keep. I looked over at the tram stop across the street and saw her standing in the same place I’d seen her the day before, with her tall, slender frame, her moon-like face, and her charming, dignified bearing, and relief coursed through my whole body. Then it occurred to me to find a way to approach her without her noticing, thereby quenching my thirst to get a close look at her face. Fearful that the tram she was waiting for might come along and rob me of the opportunity, I hastened without further ado to carry out what I had in mind. I headed gingerly in the direction of the other tram stop, my heart sinking in my chest from fright, then walked past her with a stealthy look in her direction. In terrified haste, I saw a pair of limpid, honey-colored eyes that were dripping with sweetness, a dainty nose, and delicate lips. She may or may not have felt the warmth of my gaze, but she happened to look up and our eyes met. No sooner had she looked up than I looked away, since it’s easier for me to stare at the sun at high noon than to bear the weight of someone’s gaze. I strode to the edge of the sidewalk and stood there uncertainly, not knowing how to get back to the other side. It now seemed that I’d committed an act of madness, since I’d gotten myself into a predicament from which it would be difficult to escape. This, however, was how I perceived even the most unthreatening of situations. In any case, I stood frozen in place until the girl boarded the tram and the sidewalk was empty again, whereupon I returned breathlessly to my place. I thought to myself: Who could imagine such loveliness, such grace and modesty?

  I lived the rest of that day in the shadow of her presence, hardly taking notice of the lectures I heard. The more I longed to give free rein to my emotions, the more I detested the lectures that stood in the way of my dreams and aspirations. I was filled with the desire to rebel against this academic life that so tormented my mind and disregarded my heart and feelings. It was as though I were taking notice of my heart for the first time, recognizing it as a living part of me just like my other bodily organs: one that gets hungry like the stomach, that grows tender like the soul, and that longs expectantly like the spirit. I wished I could devote my life to its happiness, giving myself over to the warm contentment from which its springs erupt.

  I sighed from the depths of my being as I sat at the back of the lecture hall, present in body but absent in spirit. A voice inside me told me that beyond this dreary, narrow, constricted life there lay another that was bright, expansive, and free, and my soul went soaring away, anguished and eager, in search of it. My thoughts returned to the girl. This time, however, my imagination wasn’t content with the mere sight of her. Instead, it created whatever suited its fancy. I saw myself attracting her attention. I approached her as I’d done that morning, but I didn’t get flustered the way I had then, and I gestured to her with a rare boldness that got a warm smile from her in return. I whispered to her whatever I wanted to, and she whispered back. We got on the tram together, and somewhere along the bank of the Nile, I told her I loved her, and she, her cheeks aglow, said she loved me too. In response, I planted on her cheek a kiss filled with an admiration, respect, and tenderness that were too sublime for bodily lusts. Indeed, my imagination
refused to summon her image in anything but a long dress, and surrounded by a halo of modesty and decorum.

  On the morning of the fourth day, I went to the tram stop early and found the balcony empty. I shifted my gaze over to a window to the left of the balcony, where I got a side view of the girl’s face. Standing attentively the way a person does when he’s looking at himself in a mirror, she began arranging her hair and giving it the final, self-indulgent touches. Delighted, I began following her hand with my whole body until I imagined myself actually touching her silken hair and breathing in its sweet perfume. Then I saw her turn away from the mirror and look out the window at the street. Judging from the direction in which she was facing, I concluded that her eyes must be on the sidewalk. Given my instinctive shyness, I was tempted to lower my eyes. However, encouraged by the distance between us, I managed with a slight effort to keep my gaze fixed on her. Do you suppose she sees me? I wondered. Does she remember the young man whose eyes met hers yesterday for an exquisite moment? No, I concluded, she doesn’t even know I exist, nor will she ever know it. She tarried slightly, then retreated inside, disappearing from view. I paced up and down the sidewalk, then returned to my place. One tram came, then a second, as I stood there waiting. Meanwhile, a ten-year-old girl whom I knew immediately to be her sister appeared on the balcony wearing a blue school uniform. Then I saw a girl emerge from the building and head toward the tram stop opposite mine. It was the first time I’d seen her walk. She had a calm, measured gait that well befit her delightful poise, her lithe figure, and her tall frame. Admiration and respect stirred within me, and I kept looking in her direction until the tram came and she boarded. Rewarded for my wait with joy and satisfaction, I got on the tram laden with a beautiful bouquet of dreams.