The Mirage

by Naguib Mahfouz

  Medhat fell silent, his eyes betraying signs of pain and distress. Then, in a kind of suppressed outburst, he continued, “What a sight! I don’t know how we recognized him! It was something else.”

  His eyes welled up with tears. I’d never seen him without a smile on his face, so I became more distressed myself, and tears came to my eyes as well.

  He remained silent until he’d regained his composure. Then he told me it had been decided to have the funeral at four o’clock.

  “He’s in his room now, so you can go and look at him for the last time.”

  My heart pounded violently at the thought, and I was gripped by a terrible fear. However, I couldn’t bear to look up at my brother, and so I had no choice but to pretend to welcome his idea. I headed toward the veranda, stumbling along in my fear and confusion, then ascended the staircase with a gulp. As I was on my way up, my sister and I caught sight of each other at the same moment. She seemed to have informed my mother of my arrival. In any case, she came forward hurriedly and met me on the veranda, asking me nervously where I was headed.

  “I want to see my father,” I said.

  “I wish you wouldn’t, Kamil,” she said imploringly. “Your heart is too weak to bear the sight of someone whose spirit has passed on.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief and a heavy burden was lifted from my shoulders. The only thing I was feeling by now was fear. After all, will a heart that trembles at the sight of a mouse or a dung beetle be able to face death in its most hideous, fearsome manifestation? I went back outside and sat down between my uncle and my brother without saying a word. Then, half an hour before the funeral procession was to begin, those who’d come to offer their condolences began arriving. Some neighbors came, as did some employees at the warehousing section. Given the fact that my father hadn’t had any acquaintances and my uncle had no friends in Cairo, the number of those who came to pay their respects numbered no more than twenty. Visibly moved, my uncle said he would hold the wake in his house in Fayoum. We then came to the final moment, at which point my sister Radiya lifted up her voice in a lament that shattered the heavy silence, causing my heart to quake with emotion and my eyes to well up with tears.

  Before long we’d assembled ourselves for the funeral procession. As it began, a heavy gloom descended upon me in response to the sight of the bier, the shadow of death hovering about us, and the memories that had been stirred of my grandfather and his passing. Then the cloud began to lift and I recovered some measure of equanimity. As I looked furtively at those around me, I saw some faces that were serene and others that were smiling for one reason or another, a fact that consoled me and caused me to come back to myself. Suddenly I remembered how I used to walk to the ministry in the morning without a thought for the events that lay in store for me. Yet here I was now, walking behind the bier, and I marveled at this strange life of ours. At that moment, I imagined life sticking out its tongue with mischievous derision and rolling on the floor with laughter, and I wondered to myself which of the two states was better: that of the morning, or that of the afternoon? As the comparison came to mind, I couldn’t resist a subtle wave of joy and relief. However, my profound religious sense objected vociferously, sending a wave of fear and anxiety through the depths of my being till I sought refuge in God from the accursed Satan. Trying now to ward off the feelings of joy and relief that kept pursuing me, I unwittingly furrowed my brow and put on a gloomy, sorrowful face. But it was no use, and it wasn’t long before my mind began mocking these childish antics and I started thinking instead of the anticipated fortune. I remembered the dream I’d had of selling the house and I wondered: Will the dream come true? Will I become the owner of a thousand plus pounds? Has my rival been slow to take the decisive step, or has the matter been settled so that there’s no more hope? And will the awaited fortune be my ticket to happiness, or a new tool in the hands of fate for making sport of weak, helpless creatures? It’s made sport of my poverty and my powerlessness, and it’s no doubtless capable of making sport of my wealth and power. In other words, it may show me that whichever way things go, I’m doomed to misery and affliction. My enthusiasm waned at the thought and I was gripped with worry and distress. Yet I beseeched God to grant me the good fortune of winning my sweetheart.

  I wakened from my reverie to find that the funeral procession had come to a halt in front of the mosque. The bier was taken inside to be prayed over, and those who had kindly come to offer condolences went their way. Then the bier was placed in the hearse that took us and the deceased to Imam, and the occasion came to an end.

  The family gathered that night in the large room where I’d met with my father for the last time. I sat with my uncle, my brother, and my brother-in-law on one side, with my mother, my sister, and my aunt and sister-in-law on the other. My uncle was a practical man whose appearance reminded me of my father, and he talked about the procedures that would have to be followed in order to demonstrate our respective rights to inherit. He offered to introduce us to a friend of his who worked in the Ministry of Religious Endowments and who could help facilitate matters for us in receiving our monthly allowances. My brother Medhat spoke as well, saying that since none of us wanted to live in the house, he thought it would be best for us to sell it. His proposal met with my approval, and I voiced my agreement with an enthusiasm that I forgot to conceal. As for Radiya, she had no objections to the idea.

  Then my uncle said, “It’s a huge, old house that couldn’t be sold for less than four thousand pounds. Consequently, it would only be attractive to a wealthy buyer, who would tear it down and construct some big modern building in its place.”

  Four thousand. Oh, how I hoped my rival had been delayed! It was hard for me to imagine God disappointing my hope after having fulfilled my dreams in this dazzling way. My trust in the omniscient God knew no bounds. I glanced over at my mother and found her silent and immersed in her thoughts. Her thin eyebrows were raised and her lips were parted, revealing her small, glistening teeth. What’s she dreaming of? I wondered. And what are her true feelings toward the deceased? Had this old house taken her back to the past eras of her life? I felt compassion and love for her. Then I remembered the thoughts that had taken hold of me not long before, and my feelings of compassion and affection gave way to anxiety and fear.

  As the hour was approaching midnight, my brother suggested that we all spend the night in the house, but my mother preferred for us to go home and come back the next morning. Hence, we left the old house and walked side by side in the direction of the tram stop.

  As we were on our way she said, “Wouldn’t it have been better for you all to keep the house?”

  Startled, I said, “And what would we do with it? I’m in desperate need of my share of its price.”

  “Your monthly salary is enough for you. As for this huge amount, what in the world would you need it for?”

  A feeling of unease and indignation came over me. Was it possible that she was afraid? I stole a glance in her direction, but it was so dark I couldn’t make out the expression on her face.

  Then, in a fearful-sounding tone of voice she continued, “Don’t you dare rejoice over anyone’s death! Whenever you remember your father from now on, you should say a prayer for God’s mercy on him. I don’t want you to find pleasure in anyone’s death no matter who he happens to be!”

  I was amazed to hear such words coming from the very person who had taught me to hate my father, but it didn’t occur to me to remind her of this fact. Then we returned home without either of us uttering another word.

  33

  I was no longer the indigent, destitute person I had been, and the burden of need and deprivation had been lifted from my shoulders. I now had a reasonable income in addition to the fortune that would begin coming to me within a month or two. Now, however, I’d been afflicted with madness of a kind I’d never known before—the madness of someone in love who isn’t rendered helpless by poverty. Poverty had been a deterrent that put a damper on my a
mbition and turned my love into a prolonged affliction locked deep in my soul. Consequently, I’d conceded defeat to my rival Muhammad Gawdat without even a show of resistance, then gone sobbing down the street like a little boy. However, now that poverty had been dealt the death blow, love was no longer an unattainable desire. So I put other obstacles out of my mind and was afflicted by a new kind of madness, namely, the madness of someone for whom happiness appears as a genuine possibility and for whom all that remains is to overcome his timidity, storm the gates, and try his luck.

  The afternoon after my father died I lingered at the tram stop for an unusually long time. I looked up at the dearly loved window with fervent longing. I no longer saw my sweetheart, and I didn’t know whether what I feared had come to pass. If it had, then all I stood to gain from my fortune was so much deadly poison. If she appeared in the window, what would I do? Would I have the nerve to gesture to her in some subtle way? On the contrary, my heart shrank with fear and alarm. I wasn’t the type to do that sort of thing. If I’d had an iota of courage, I would have stormed the building without further ado, requested a meeting with my sweetheart’s father, and told him what was on my mind. Was such a thing dangerous enough to warrant such awful dread? Supposing, as a worst-case scenario, that he declined to meet with me: Why did I think of such an eventuality as a fate worse than death? Why was it that the minute I so much as thought of taking such an initiative, I broke out in a sweat and my heart nearly leaped out of my chest? O God! Didn’t scores and even hundreds of people get married every day? How did would-be husbands find ways to go after what they wanted? The only thing that stood between me and the object of my desire was to knock on that door. Once that was done, it would either be the bliss of hope or the solace of despair. So why hesitate and shrink from the task at hand? After all, it was a house, not a fortress, and I was a suitor, not a foe. Why was I so terrified? My aim wasn’t to invade a continent or even to go into battle. I wasn’t required to be Napoleon or Hannibal. On the contrary, all that was required of me was that I introduce myself and pose my question. In the meantime, I’d be surrounded by the solicitous attention that’s always afforded a guest by a gracious host. Then let the answer be whatever it was meant to be, since at the very worst, it wouldn’t be more than a polite refusal. This is what I told myself reproachfully, but the minute I imagined the concrete situation before me, my forehead would get hot, my heart would race, and I’d feel a shudder go through my limbs. Suddenly I had a flashback of the ill-fated rhetoric class at the Faculty of Law that cast me beyond the pale of the university, and I heaved a deep, hopeless sigh. It was too much for me. I might easily spend my entire life crying on this sidewalk, I thought, but as for crossing the street and knocking on that door, it’s more than I’m capable of. I worked up such a dread, in fact, that the anxiety that tormented me turned into a fever that burned both heart and head. A few days passed, days spent in a kind of delirium. I forgot about the fortune that had fallen to my lot, and my hope and enthusiasm for life were extinguished. My thinking focused instead on one thing and no other, and I danced around it over and over without daring either to approach it or to move away from it. My mother found me in a state of agony that I made no attempt to conceal, and I said to myself furiously, If I weren’t afraid of her, I’d ask her to go ask for the girl’s hand on my behalf and spare me this ordeal!

  When will this misery come to an end? I wondered. And, indeed, I never would have seen an end to it if it hadn’t been for a certain fortuitous event. I was on my way home from Hilmiya and I got off the tram at Ataba at sunset. Then, as usual, I boarded the tram that goes to Giza via Roda. The tram car was packed with passengers, some seated and others standing, so I made my way through the crowd until I was able to rest my back against the door that led into the first-class compartment. Just after the tram had left the square, I heard a tapping on the door and realized that someone was asking permission to open it. I stepped back from the door slightly, turning on my heels to make room for the person getting on. And when the door opened, who should I find before me but my sweetheart, in the flesh! My heart jumped so violently, my whole chest quaked. I became oblivious to everything in the universe but the happy sight, which caused me to tremble all over in joy and fear. She happened to look into my face, so our eyes met for a brief moment. She seemed to hesitate slightly on the car’s threshold between the two compartments, but she had no place behind her to place her foot, so she had no choice but to come forward. She looked around behind me for a place to stand, but the car was packed wall to wall. People were standing so close together, there wasn’t so much as an inch of space unoccupied. Consequently, she was obliged to occupy the place where I’d been standing, and she rested her back against the door. Meanwhile, I stood in front of her—only a breath away—holding on to the door handle. There she was—she and no other—as though heaven had granted her to me as a balm to my soul. There are realities that are more wondrous than dreams, and this was the most wondrous of them all. What was I feeling? Was it joy, or fear, or a blazing fire? If it hadn’t been for the delicacy of the situation and my appalling timidity, I would have liked to cry! I was insensible to everything, and I no longer felt the people around me despite the fact that they were pressing on me from all sides. I don’t even recall what color dress my beloved was wearing or what she had in her hand. It seems that the heart has its own kind of vision that, when it focuses in on something, so obscures physical vision that one becomes blind even though one is sighted. I don’t know where I got the courage, but I stole a glance at her, and when I saw her, my heart fluttered mercilessly. It seemed to me that my presence was what had produced this charming friendliness and delightful discomfiture. I sighed in spite of myself, and a lock of her hair undulated under the force of my breath. She looked up at me, then quickly lowered her eyes in flight from my gaze. Ah! I’d finally found someone who ran away from me! An intoxication warmer and more delectable than wine’s flowed through my head. Gripped by a madness the likes of which I’d never known before, I fixed my gaze on her face with an extraordinary—and, for me, outrageous—daring. Suddenly I became conscious of a peculiar urge to give voice to what was pressing in on me, and I gulped with a violent nervous tension. Then, in a terrible, angst-filled uproar, I began making ready for the anticipated leap, aided by the madness that was churning inside me and propelled forward by the anxious longing and near-despair that I’d suffered in the preceding days. Then, possessed by a feeling similar to that experienced by someone who’s about to commit suicide as he gathers courage for the final leap, my lips moved with a sound that came out in a whisper as I said, “I want to tell you something.”

  Lord! Do you suppose she’d heard me? Yes, she had! Blushing and blinking her eyes, she stared at me in disbelief.

  A harsh, arduous time ensued. My throat went dry and my heartbeats came fast and furiously. What sort of abyss had my lunacy plunged me into? The suicidal maniac had jumped, and now it was time to cry for help. Even so, I felt a profound relief, since I’d managed to budge the hugest barricade on my life’s path. I’d spoken! The rock had spoken, albeit belatedly. At the very least, I wouldn’t die with my secret still undisclosed. However, the tram wasn’t going to give me much more time, since it was about to reach my sweetheart’s stop. She was looking out the window by now, her hand was on the doorknob in preparation to open it, and once she did that, it would be all over. With madness coming over me once more, I took hold of the doorknob to keep her from opening it. Where on earth had I gotten such nerve? Her pretty face registered a look of indignation and she looked daggers at me.

  Nearly in tears, I whispered imploringly, “Just one thing.…”

  For a few brutal moments, I expected the thunderbolt to descend upon my head and for her to rebuke me or send me away with angry words. This, of course, would have turned the people around us against me, and that would have been the end of me. If it had happened I wouldn’t have had the strength to bear it, and I would have perished
on the spot! When the tram stopped, I still had hold of the door, and when it moved again she was still standing there, frowning and disgruntled, though without making any serious objection. A wild rush of satisfaction coursed through my body, so pleased was I with my conquest, and I imagined myself being transformed into an invincible giant before whom death itself falls prostrate after being dealt a single blow. I waited two more stops, then I opened the door and whispered, “After you.” She turned around edgily, then made her way through the crowd with me close on her heels. It was then that my elation was dampened by a troubling thought: Might she have simply capitulated out of shyness, embarrassment, and the desire to avoid a scene? Wasn’t it most likely that she had restrained her anger on the tram so that she could unleash it on me in the street away from people’s inquisitive stares? My strength about to give out, I got off the tram behind her feeling worried and distraught. Darkness had fallen, and the street was virtually deserted except for cars coming and going. She hastily moved away from me and began to cross over to the sidewalk. Propelled by the fear of letting the opportunity slip out of my grasp and emboldened by the darkness, I came up to her.

  “Pardon me,” I said with a trembling voice. “Please don’t take offense at my forwardness.”

  “What do you want?” she retorted. “And what is this that you did in front of everyone?”

  Now I was more flustered than ever. I was hearing her voice for the first time, and I was stirred by her lovely accent despite the sharpness and anger in her voice.