The Mirage

by Naguib Mahfouz

  She sat thinking for some time. Then she said softly, “They’ll come to at least six pounds.”

  Then, as if to mitigate the impact of what she’d said, she added, “I’ll set aside my money for clothing and whatever we need beyond daily expenses.”

  But I paid no attention. Instead, I began thinking about what I’d have left of my salary once we’d covered living expenses, namely, one and a half pounds, how much of that would go toward transportation, and how much I’d have left to spend on entertainment for myself. My thoughts were filled with bitterness and gloom, and my heart shrank in loathing from this ridiculous, meaningless life. Hadn’t I been spending my entire salary on food, drink, and carriages? And hadn’t I, in spite of this, been irritable, unhappy, and full of complaints? Lord! The past had been an era of undeniable ease and comfort, but I’d only woken up to what a blessing it had been now that nothing was left of it but memories. I’d been blind, of that there could be no doubt. I’d been blinded to what I had by frivolous dreams, and people like me are doomed never to know happiness in this life. The whole world looked gloomy in my eyes, my sense of purpose began to fade, and I was filled with such pessimism that I expected evil to come from every step I took. After all, might not the government dispense with my services for one reason or another, thereby depriving me even of the meager salary I now earned? Might I not have a road accident that would leave me handicapped and unable to work for a living? Why were we put on earth in the first place?

  It may have been black thoughts like these that led me to ask my mother, “What am I expected to inherit from my father when he dies?”

  Not pleased with my thoughts, she replied indignantly, “Don’t build your hopes in life on someone’s death. How long people live is in God’s hands, and I beg you to get these thoughts out of your head.”

  However, making light of her fears, I pressed her to answer my question.

  Yielding to my persistence, she said, “Your father has family endowments that bring him an income of forty pounds a month. That’s in addition to the house he lives in.”

  Through some simple calculations I estimated that my share of the house would come to sixteen pounds a month. If this were added to my meager salary, it would amount to quite a bit, and as usual, I gave myself over to dreaming. However, my dreams didn’t do a thing to change reality.

  “How old is my father?” I asked her.

  “He’s at least seventy,” she replied grudgingly.

  Would he live a long life the way my grandfather had? I wondered. What state would I be in if he lived a long life and deprived me of my inheritance for the next ten to twenty years? I recalled what I’d been told about how he’d once been anxiously awaiting his own father’s death, and how anxiety over his future had led him to attempt the crime that doomed him to be deprived of a vast fortune. I was suffering the same feelings he’d suffered thirty years earlier, and perhaps if I’d had some of his pluck, I would have gone the same route he had.

  My mother summoned the elderly cook and Umm Zaynab. Then, sorrowful and ashamed, she informed them that we’d be moving to my brother’s house (she preferred to lie rather than admit to poverty) and that she would have to dispense with their services. She expressed her regret for having to bring their long term of service to an end, commended them highly, and prayed for their future success. Then she presented them both with something to tide them over until they could find other work. Umm Zaynab burst into sobs and the old man’s eyes welled up with tears as he called down God’s mercy and forgiveness on my grandfather.

  Then he said earnestly, “Madame, I would rather have died before this noble household closed its doors.”

  Unable to contain her emotions, my mother cried and, infected by her sorrow, I cried too. I was going through a time of pain and ignominy the likes of which I’d never felt before. Before the month was out we’d moved into a small flat on the second floor of an old three-story house on Qasim Street just off Manyal Street. The house was located halfway between Manyal Street and the Nile. As for the flat, it consisted of three small rooms that we fitted out with some of our old furniture, the rest of which we sold for a pittance. I wondered apprehensively: Will my mother be able to handle the burdens of household service after a lifetime of leisure and comfort? She was approaching her mid-sixties, and all the domestic help she had left was a young servant. How would she endure this new life? As for me, my existence was growing all the more troubled, and I was bitter and angry at everything. Even so, my mother took to her new domestic chores with such gusto that she succeeded in making me believe that she was happy with our new life, as though all her days she’d been suppressing a fervent desire to labor and be of service.

  With a satisfaction that I could sense in her tone of voice and the smile in her eyes, she said, “There’s no greater happiness for me than to serve your household.”

  I drank in the new life drop by drop—this life that had added a new longing to my old ones, namely, the longing to return to the life of ease and, in particular, to drinking. I made up my mind to stint myself enough to be able to afford to get drunk even just once a month. And it’s no wonder, since to me, liquor wasn’t mere amusement and frivolity. Rather, it was an imaginary existence into whose arms I would flee from the pain of odious reality.

  One day when my mother sensed that I was receptive to what she had to say, she commented, “Perhaps you realize now why I’ve refused any marriage that wouldn’t be fitting for you.”

  I understood immediately what she meant. It was as if she were saying, “What would you have done with your life if you’d been the head of a family!”

  I didn’t doubt for a moment the accuracy of her observation. For truly, if I’d been the head of a family, I would have been several times more miserable in life than I was at present. Even so, I didn’t like what she’d said. To my broken spirit, her words sounded like a gleeful “I told you so.” Consequently, I was gripped with bitterness and anger, and it was only with great difficulty that I kept my emotions in check.

  26

  Another autumn rolled around. Autumn was the season I loved, since it heralded the opening of the schools, which meant that my beloved would return to our usual meeting place at the tram stop. My beloved was the only flower that bloomed in the autumn, when trees were stripped bare of their leaves and flowers withered and faded. I noticed that the times when she left the house weren’t regular the way they had been before. Was it possible she’d begun her life as a teacher? The thought gave me pleasure, and my body trembled with joy. At the same time, though, I couldn’t forget that the course of my life had changed and that I was languishing under the burden of poverty and despair. Consequently, my beloved was a lost cause. But hopelessness only caused me to fall more passionately in love, kindling grievous longings in my heart. How quickly an impossible love turns into an uprising against life! Isn’t it a kind of mockery that we should be created for a certain life, only to be prevented from living it? And what made me even more lovesick was that there were many times when I imagined her eyes to be casting me a look filled with life. What life? I didn’t know, but it was sufficient to drive my imagination wild. One such look would inebriate me with a magical intoxication that would stay with me until I was shocked awake again by some bitter reality in my life.

  Meanwhile, the people in her household had begun scrutinizing me with such intensity that I could almost hear them wondering aloud: What do you want? Why do you devour her with your eyes? What kind of a man are you? Isn’t a year and a half enough for you? You’re right, by God. You’re absolutely right. But what can I do? Put yourselves in my place, and tell me what you’d do. Do you have a solution to helplessness and indigence?

  My girl’s two other admirers gave me no rest. On the contrary, they kept hovering about her until I’d come to fear them as much as I feared helplessness and poverty, and until I loathed them as much as I loathed the wretchedness that was tightening the noose around my neck. The most enjoyab
le thing about this sort of life was running away from it. As a result, I found a way to get to the pub no matter what it took. Alfi Bey Street wasn’t a suitable haunt for me anymore. Hence, I sought assistance from my carriage driver—my number two advisor on worldly affairs after my mother. I asked him to take me to a modest sort of pub, and where should the man take me but the vegetable market! He himself, or so he told me, used to go there from time to time, and as evidence of the appropriateness of his choice, he said to me, “The big pubs are just showy places that steal people’s money. But booze is booze, and the best booze is the type that gets you drunk for the cheapest price!”

  I listened to his lecture in a state of pained embarrassment that was echoed by a profound sorrow in my soul, as though he was lamenting my end and consoling me over the loss of times gone by. Taking my leave of him hurriedly, I proceeded in the direction of a small pub at the head of one of the side streets leading to the market. As I did so, I got the distressing feeling that I was descending into the abyss that had swallowed up my father before me. However, neither this nor anything else was going to stop me from doing what I was destined to do.

  The run-down, dingy-looking pub was a small, square-shaped place with just a few tables in it. Its waiter was an old, bleary-eyed Greek, and its clientele were lower-class folk and some down-and-out government employees. But, as the carriage driver had said, booze is booze, and I can’t deny that I brightened at the sight of the bottles that lined the long shelf. In fact, I was so happy to see them, I forgot the sting of the lowliness to which penury had bound me. I also saw a new type of container for liquor. A carafe of cognac sold for ten piasters, a price so negligible that I’d be able to come to the pub twice a month or more. I drank and yielded to wandering dreams in longing and delight. Then coincidence supplied me with new fuel for my dreams when I was approached by a man peddling lottery tickets. “A thousand pounds!” he cried as he waved a piece of paper at me. I reached out and took it from him, paid him for it, then folded it up and slipped it into my pocket. Indeed, new fuel for dreams on a par with liquor’s intoxication. Lord! What would the world be without dreams! I was now the exclusive owner of a thousand pounds! The earth was solid under my feet, unshaken by fear and poverty. The world was smiling, and it was sure to laugh out loud if my father bit the dust! From now on it wouldn’t do to hesitate. I’d meet my sweetheart’s venerable father and tell him straight from the shoulder, “I’d like the honor of being your in-law.” Then I’d give him my card. After all, I thought, who doesn’t know the Laz family? It’s true, of course, that my job is a humble one, but I own a sizable fortune, and I’ll be inheriting another one as well. The man would have no choice but to welcome me. I saw myself being escorted down a candle-lined aisle, my bride promenading alongside me like the moon.

  I couldn’t bear to stay any longer once I’d downed the carafe’s contents, so I left the pub and went wandering aimlessly through the streets, looking about me dreamy-eyed and pleased with myself and the world. I wouldn’t go home until I’d sobered up again. However, before the intoxication had worn off completely, I found myself in front of my beloved’s house, so I didn’t head for Manyal. It was nearly two in the morning. The deserted street was enveloped in thick darkness, and there was a silence so deep you could almost have heard the thoughts going through someone’s head. I stood on the sidewalk looking at the sleeping household. My gaze settled on her bedroom window, my spirit slipped through it, and I imagined myself feeling her rhythmic, fragrant breaths. My faith in the spirit knew no bounds. After all, hadn’t it drawn her glance my way in the past? If so, then it could insinuate itself into her dreams and cause her to see me, and even to hear me if I called out to her.

  So I spoke to her, saying, “I love you, my life! I love you with a love that’s no less a wonder of the universe than the rotation of the heavenly bodies in their orbits. How I long to say, ‘I love you’ when I’m sober, but I can’t. Shyness is dumb, my love, and poverty is a high-walled prison. Someone who owns no more than a pound and a half of his monthly salary has no right to declare his love to a precious angel like you. Yet in spite of it all, I love you, and I can’t bear for you to spurn my affection. I nearly go mad when I see those two nasty men looking at you. So encourage me, my darling. Make some gesture toward me. Smile in my face. There’s nothing wrong with your doing that as long as I’m sincere in my love for you (as you surely know me to be), and as long as I’m helpless and hopeless, as you also, no doubt, realize.… Ahh!”

  I stood there for a long time without taking my eyes off the closed window. Eventually my eyelids grew heavy and I was overcome by a feeling of dizziness and fatigue from my hangover and the strain of walking. Then suddenly I heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Turning fearfully in their direction, I saw the shadow of a policeman approaching. So I stepped back from where I’d been standing and went quickly on my way.

  27

  What was standing between my beloved and me? Poverty. I could see no other answer to my question, since it was the only obstacle I couldn’t be considered responsible for. At least, this was what I believed. How could I get money, then? I pondered the matter glumly. Then where should my thoughts take me but to my father! This was the person whose death I’d long wished for, but wishing had gotten me nowhere. So why not visit him? Why not ask him for the money I needed? The thought seemed bizarre, unbelievable, especially for me, who feared him more than anyone else. Never in my life had I expected anything from him. However, during those days anxiety and fear were taking me to the limits of my endurance, love ran in my blood, and I had a growing, increasingly dismal sense of life having passed me by. I feared that if I got to be thirty years old without marrying, I’d be a goner. Such worries tormented me, and the sweet glances bestowed on me by my beloved brought with them both happiness and a silent rebuke. So in the end I felt I had no choice but to think seriously of visiting my father.

  I went without announcing my intention to my mother, and I found my way to Hilmiya with the help of the tram conductor. When I reached Ali Mubarak Street, I recalled immediately the way I’d come with my grandfather nine years earlier. I glimpsed the large house with the tall treetops looming up behind the wall that surrounded it. I also saw the gatekeeper, so aged now that he was little more than a black specter, sitting in front of the gate. But when I was two steps away from him, my courage failed me, and instead of turning to go in, I kept on walking. Gripped by a sense of futility, I told myself to go back where I’d come from. After all, what was the use of making an attempt that was doomed to failure! I didn’t flee far, however, and perhaps it was despair itself that shored me up with an unanticipated strength. Hence, I headed back toward the gatekeeper with renewed determination, reproaching myself for the weakness of will that would deign to come between me and a house to which I had an undeniable right. I hailed the gatekeeper, and he returned my greeting without rising to his feet.

  In a tone not altogether lacking in self-importance, I said to him, “Kamil Ru’ba Laz. Inform the bey, please.”

  The gatekeeper rose with a smile and invited me into the garden, then left to announce me to the bey. It was the same garden, still redolent with the fragrance of lemon, still roofed with date palm crowns, and still able to infect one’s soul with a sense of melancholy and forlornness. I looked toward the veranda at the end of the garden and saw the gatekeeper beckoning to me, so I came forward, fighting off my tension. As I ascended the steps, I was met with the familiar scene: the man, the ornamented coffee table, the long-necked bottle, and the glass. He extended his hand with a half-smile on his face, and I greeted him. Then he invited me to have a seat, so I sat down on a chair to the right of the coffee table. Casting him a quick glance, I saw that his portly body had grown flaccid and that his full face had grown more bloodshot. His eyes had an absent, dazed look about them, while old age had etched furrows across his forehead and around his eyes and left his cheeks looking withered and limp.

  I wasn’t pleased
by his appearance. However, I made sure that nothing of what I was feeling showed on my face. I looked strangely at the half-full bottle. As I recalled how it had looked to me during the first visit, I said to myself: How quickly corruption finds its way into a person’s heart! He was wrapped in a silk robe to ward off the autumn dampness that would descend at that time of the afternoon, and I was certain that he was up to the gills in liquor. I felt worried, wondering what sort of madness had moved me to undertake such a futile visit. He began looking over at me with interest, or perhaps it was just curiosity. Amazed at this peculiar encounter between father and son after a lifetime of separation, I wondered in bewilderment and disbelief what’s said about the love between parents and children.

  Quite naturally, I didn’t know how to begin the conversation. However, he saved me from my dilemma by starting to talk first.

  In a thick voice he said, “So, how are you? Your grandfather has died. He was a nice man, and I have pleasant enough memories of him in spite of the things that happened. I didn’t attend his funeral, which many would consider unforgivable. But someone my age should be exempted from obligations. The same thing applies to both the elderly and children in that respect. Don’t forget, though, that nobody’s expected to attend my funeral—except, perhaps, Uncle Adam the gatekeeper. And it isn’t unlikely that he himself will be too busy searching my pockets and stealing whatever money he thinks he’ll find there. Will you attend my funeral?

  His question took me by surprise after an anxiety that had gripped me in response to his drunken tone of voice, and I could see that the task before me was going to be arduous and fearsome.

  Nevertheless, I said to him, “May God grant you a long life.”

  He guffawed, and I saw that he’d lost his molars. I was offended by both his appearance and his laugh.