The Mirage

by Naguib Mahfouz

  I wasn’t unaware of my interest in her and the delight I took in her modesty and dignity. I knew that observing this particular household would henceforth be a regular pursuit of mine, and I said to myself: How badly I need a life companion who’s as perfect as she is. My longing was intensified by the fact that thus far I’d lived my life without a single companion. At the same time, it worried me to have given expression to this desire. I also felt terribly embarrassed. It wasn’t the first time I’d expressed the desire for a friend, but on previous occasions it had been in the form of a passing comment, and the longing was a general, ill-defined one, that is, a desire without any particular object. This, however, was a dangerous statement that stirred up a sense of shame and fear. It was a particular longing and a desire that might tempt one to hope. Moreover, it was a yearning that was fuelled anew every morning. And the most peculiar thing about it was that it was a homey sort of feeling, if one may speak of such. From the very beginning it focused around the girl and her house, and never once did I think of her without the image of her house also coming to mind. Consequently, the two images merged in my mind’s eye; they received the same share of my attention, and they appeared equally in my dreams, where she soon began appearing as my wife. And it was no wonder. After all, I was the type who, if he saw a girl on the tram, would let his wandering mind go to work, and by the time the tram had gotten halfway from al-Malik al-Salih Bridge to Abbas Bridge, he’d already imagined asking for her hand. How, then, could I have failed to imagine the “morning girl” as my wife? Overflowing with admiration and respect, all I could think about was the sacredness of home, the sentiments it engenders, and the tenderness of conjugal love. These feelings were connected by a thread of heartfelt attachment. Perhaps it was the love my heart had yet to experience.

  On the morning of the fifth day, I stood longer than usual in front of the mirror before leaving the house, scrutinizing my appearance with the greatest of care. I must confess here to the fact that I was exceedingly impressed with myself. My egotism wasn’t restricted to my behavior, but extended to the way I looked as well. I devoted the minutest, most painstaking attention to those large green eyes, that straight, delicate nose and that long, fair-skinned, well-proportioned face. In fact, my stylishness was legendary both at home and at school. I remember the Arabic teacher once saying to me, “If you mastered Arabic the way you’ve mastered putting on a necktie, you wouldn’t be my worst student!” As I stood there scrutinizing myself at such length that morning, my mother began looking at me admiringly and teasing me with flirtatious-sounding remarks. Ah! I thought to myself, if only she knew who I’m preening myself for! Then I left the house satisfied, confident of the good impression my appearance was likely to make on the girl if fate should happen to direct her glance my way. However, my satisfaction was short-lived, since it wasn’t long before I remembered something that for years had robbed me of my peace of mind, and my enthusiasm began to wane. I remembered all the times I’d been accused of being difficult to get on with, and at that moment, I didn’t rule out the possibility that this was the reason for my life-long failure to make friends. Consequently, my placid waters were roiled and the whole world looked bleak. With heavy steps I walked the rest of the way to the tram stop. My gaze began searching for her until I spied her drinking tea on the balcony the way she had been the first time I saw her. And there I forgot my grief and worry as delight welled up in every drop of my blood. There, too, I realized that she was my delight and joy, that she was my spirit and my life, and that the world without the sight of her face wasn’t worth a pile of ashes!

  For two months or more—day after day, and with utter promptness—I faithfully kept this appointment of which the other party knew nothing. I manned my observation post until my eyes grew weary, gladly giving her my admiration and respect until I had nothing left to give. I luxuriated in happy dreams until I’d forgotten truth and reality, roaming about in the world of ardor until it had robbed me of reason and good sense. I memorized her from tip to toe: her every gesture and sidelong glance, the way she stood and the way she walked, her stillness and her movement. Through the windowpanes of her flat I came to know her entire family: her father, her mother, her sister, and her brother. And all of this without her knowing a thing about me, or even sensing that I existed. It was as if, as far as she was concerned, I inhabited another planet. I was tormented by anxiety and weariness, consumed by the desire to prove my existence, but I was helpless to take a step beyond where I stood. In my daydreams I would imagine myself accosting her or following her or declaring my admiration and respect for her. In reality, however, no sooner would she emerge from the door of the building than my heart would shrink in diffidence and alarm. I would even get ready to look down in the event that she happened to look my way. It would probably have been easier for me to throw myself off al-Malik al-Salih Bridge than to endure a single look from her eyes. I wondered in gloom and desperation: When will she notice that I exist? When will she realize that there’s a stranger who has far more love for her in his heart than even her mother and father? Isn’t it strange that someone can simply brush past a heart that would gladly be the ground on which she treads?

  My thoughts during that time focused on my heart, with its sorrows and its hopes, its fears and its joys, and I felt a tremendous need for someone who could give me counsel and advice. My mother was the only friend I had in the world. But I didn’t go to her with my crisis, of course, since I sensed that my heart’s desires would be met with hostility on her part. However, in some of the magazines my grandfather read I found pages devoted to readers’ questions, and I hoped that here I might find the advisor I lacked. To one of them I sent a question that had been keeping me awake at night: “From an unlikable man: Is there no hope that his beloved might love him in return?” The magazine’s reply was: “Love is a mystery that has nothing to do with likeability or unlikeability. Love may be blind to ugliness and unattractiveness, so don’t worry about your own unlikeability! And if we might be allowed to speculate concerning the woman’s nature, it may be accurate to say that she’s charmed by strength and valor!” I was happy with the reply’s opening, but when I got to the conclusion, I felt let down. I wondered what the writer meant by “strength.” Oh! I thought, I’m not strong anyway, and if the truth be told, my addiction to a certain despicable habit has turned me pale and made me thinner than I ought to be. When I thought of valor, I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly as I enumerated all the things that frightened me in this world, from people and places to mice and cockroaches. And my heart was wrung with despair.

  But I didn’t lose hope. After all, the fire that blazed in my soul was too hot to be extinguished by a blow from despair’s icy hand. I wrote back to the magazine with the following question: “How can I attract the girl I love?” And the reply was: “Go to her father or her legal guardian and ask for her hand, and I guarantee that she’ll love you.” Lord! I thought, how cruel can you get? The people at the magazine don’t know that I’m still a student and that I have four, or possibly eight, years to go before I’m on my own. Besides, they don’t know that it would be easier to storm the gates of hell than to knock on my beloved’s door and ask her father for her hand. Don’t they know what it means to be shy? I guess I’m doomed to go on living with an undeclared, unrequited love while my sweetheart is just a step away from me!

  17

  Then something happened to me that may have been trivial in itself, but that changed the course of my life. My academic life was a never-ending battle between my slothful mind and my itinerant soul. It was a battle that yielded—as it had in the past—acute suffering but very little fruit. My mind’s tendency to wander had become a dominant character trait that had taken over all my mental faculties. I’d even begun worrying that I might be thirty-five years old by the time I graduated from university! At the same time, of the critical things I’d learned about what the study of law involves, there was one thing I hadn’t realized I would
have to face. This thing—to which other students hardly attached any importance, and which they actually took to with gusto, viewing it as a kind of sport—was the study of rhetoric. Once a week in a large lecture hall, all first-year students attended a lecture on public speaking. During the first two months we heard lectures on the theoretical aspects of the art, after which the practical training was to begin. The professor began inviting students to give extemporaneous speeches on various topics. They would speak fluently, with stentorian voices, courage, and aplomb, and I would listen to them with a mixture of amazement and profound admiration. I was taken by their glibness and guts, and astounded at their ability to handle such a frightening situation in front of such a huge gathering. Hence, I volunteered to be shy in their stead, so much so that my forehead would be dripping with perspiration.

  Then one day what should I find but that the professor was calling my name: “Kamil Ru’ba Laz!”

  I was sitting in the very back row—my favorite place, since no one would notice me there—and when I heard my name I rose to my feet in a reflex reaction.

  The sound of my name aroused derisive attention and one of the students whispered, “That’s Lazughli’s grandson.”

  Another asked, “Is ‘Lazughli’ a noun or a verb?”

  Meanwhile, I stood there in a state of shock, my heart pounding wildly.

  “Come up to the podium,” said the professor.

  I froze in place, however, too flustered to move. I wanted to apologize, but the distance between the professor and me would have required me to raise my voice loud enough for everyone to hear me, so despite my desire to speak, I kept quiet.

  Looking at me in bewilderment, the professor said, “What are you just standing there for? Come to the podium!”

  Heads kept turning in my direction until I felt as though I were going to burn up under their stares.

  As the professor urged me to come forward with a gesture of his hand, I asked reluctantly, “Why?”

  My question provoked quite a number of laughs, and the professor said testily, “Why? So that you can give a speech like the others!”

  In a low voice that couldn’t be heard beyond the last two rows of the lecture hall, I said, “I don’t know how to give a speech.”

  Since my voice had quite naturally not reached the professor, a student sitting nearby volunteered to relay the message.

  “He says he doesn’t know how to give a speech!” he shouted sarcastically.

  In an encouraging tone the professor said, “This is a training session, specially designed to help people who aren’t good at giving speeches. Come.”

  So, seeing no way of escape, I moved my feet painfully and with what felt like a superhuman effort, as though I were being led to the gallows. I ascended the podium in a stupor, then stood there with my left side to the students, staring at the professor with a look that bespoke both resignation and a plea for mercy.

  Seeing how ill at ease I was, the professor said kindly, “Look at your classmates, compose yourself, and speak as if you were all alone. One has to get used to these situations, since a lawyer’s life is full of them. Otherwise, it’s a farce. How will you stand in court tomorrow, as either a defense lawyer or as a prosecutor? Gather your courage, then deliver a speech to this audience, urging them to contribute to a particular charity.”

  Everyone looked at me with rapt attention the likes of which even the most eloquent orators wouldn’t receive. I gazed into the faces looking at me without seeing a thing, and I was filled with such dismay and such a deadly faintness of heart I nearly swooned. I was enveloped by that acute sense of despair that grips one by the neck in nightmares, and not for a moment did it occur to me to think about the topic. I may have forgotten it entirely, and the only thing that went through my mind was the question: When will this ordeal be over?

  Weary of waiting, the professor said, “Speak, and don’t be afraid of making a mistake. Say whatever’s on your mind.”

  Lord, when would this torment come to an end? It was clear that no one was going to take pity on me. On the contrary, the students had started winking at each other and cracking jokes at my expense. One of them, as if he were warning the others not to look down on me, said, “This is how Saad Zaghloul started out.”

  “And this is how he ended!” added another.

  A third shouted, “Listen to the eloquence of silence!”

  The place was filled with noisy clamor and laughter. My head spun and I started having difficulty breathing. Then, determined to put an end to the miserable situation, I left the podium and headed for the exit without paying any attention to the professor as he called me to come back. And all the while I was pursued by the demons’ loud clamor as their derisive laughter rang in my ears. I went out wandering aimlessly, frantic and delirious, till I ended up at the tram stop.

  Over and over I said to myself with bitter resolve, “I’ll never go back, I’ll never go back.”

  This resolve was the healing balm I needed for the wound I’d received that day. Indeed, I would never go back. They would never lay eyes on me again, and never again would I expose myself to their contemptuous grins. Besides, what was the use of going back to the Faculty of Law if a lawyer’s life was full of such situations? It would be better to draw the curtain altogether on the era of academics. I’d been a slave to torment long enough. My new resolve comforted me in the face of all the humiliation and embarrassment I’d endured. In fact, it was like a breath of fresh air to my suffocating heart, and it caused me to forget my pain and bitterness. I returned home with nothing on my mind but this same determination.

  After lunch, I told my mother and grandfather about the affliction I’d suffered that day.

  My voice choked with tears, I said, “This is an unbearable life, and I’ll never go back to the university.”

  Shocked by what I’d said, my grandfather rejoined, “Are you really a man? If you’d been born female, you would have made the best of girls! Do you want to quit your education when you’re on the last lap just because you weren’t able to say a couple of words? I swear, if your mother had been in your place, she would have delivered a speech to the people there!”

  My mother began clenching her right hand, then releasing it in a kind of spasmodic motion as she said, “They envied him. O Lord, they envied him!”

  My grandfather tried to talk me out of my decision, sometimes with gentle persuasion and other times with threats, but desperation had entrenched me in my obstinacy, and I wouldn’t bend. When his patience had run out, he said, “So then, the whole year is a loss. There’s no point in enrolling you in some other faculty when we’re already more than two months into the school year.”

  Fearful that I might be cast once again into the educational hellhole, I said, “There’s no use in my going on with my education.”

  Interrupting me in a pained voice, my mother cried, “Don’t say that, Kamil! You will continue your education, whether in this institution or in another one!”

  Clapping his hands together, my grandfather said, “He’s lost his mind. And this is the end of the pampering!”

  However, I was like someone defending himself in the face of certain destruction. Knowing I no longer had it in me to cope with lessons, examinations and other students, I cried desperately, “I can’t! I can’t! Have mercy on me!”

  A fierce argument then broke out which I handled with a strength I hadn’t known I had in me—a strength derived from fear and despair. Finally my grandfather fell silent, furious and exasperated.

  After a period of enervating silence, he asked me, “Do you want to get a job with nothing but a high school diploma?”

  “Yes!” I replied, without looking up.

  When I stole a glance at him, he was calm, his brow was furrowed, and he was fiddling with his silver mustache. I then looked over at my mother, whose eyes were filled with tears. Even so, I felt certain that my grandfather’s opposition was only half in earnest, and that if he had really w
anted to break my resolve, he would have had the last word. The fact was that the matter of our future occupied his thinking a great deal during those days, especially now that he’d entered old age, and he may even have been relieved at the suggestion that he help me find work, since in this way he could set his mind at rest concerning my mother’s fate.

  Thus it was that my academic life drew to a close barely two months after I’d enrolled in the Faculty of Law. However, I didn’t find the happiness I’d dreamed of. It’s true, of course, that not for a moment did I consider going back to the cruel experience of academic life. At the same time, though, I felt an intense need to portray myself as an innocent victim, making up hollow excuses for myself for having withdrawn from the pursuit of knowledge and fled its institutions. Although this attempt of mine succeeded to some extent with others or, at least, with my mother—my true-blue friend for right or wrong—I just barely managed to convince myself. I was filled with a bitterness and discontent that triggered within me a desire to discipline and punish myself. This desire took the form of an offensive launched against myself, and I subjected myself willingly for the first time to an honest confrontation with my faults and shortcomings.

  I saw my life as it was: childish, fugitive dreams, timidity and fear that put aspirations to death, and an utter self-centeredness that had doomed me to an isolation devoid of a single friend or companion and to an ignorance of the world and everything in it. There was no time and no place, no politics and no sports. As for the large metropolis in which I’d been born and raised, all I knew of it was a couple of streets, as though I’d been living in a cell in the desert. A heavy pall of gloom settled over me, and I mulled over my grief in a deadly, heartfelt loneliness. However, my mother didn’t abandon me for a single moment of those dark days, nor could she bear to stand opposed to me for long. Hence, it wasn’t long before she abandoned her opposition and came over to my side, pretending to be pleased and content.