Naguib Mahfouz - The Seventh Heaven

“And how were his dealings with people?” I pressed him.

“From my point of view, they were perfect,” the man insisted. “He was a faithful renter, always paid his 200 pounds on the first of every month. He gave me absolutely no trouble at all.”

“What about his personal behavior?”

“To my knowledge, it was beyond reproach. He displayed self-respect in every sense of the term.”

“Didn’t you know him well?”

“No,” the owner said. “We met once to draw up the contract, and again to dissolve it — that’s all.”

“Any idea about his financial situation?”

“No, but he certainly seemed solvent. And he was spending 200 pounds for the apartment each month.”

“He gave you no impression of being a queer, say, or a criminal?”

“He was as far away from all that as you can get.”

“Describe his appearance for me.”

“Tall, brawny, and well-built. Tawny-colored skin, with strong, well-defined features. A very elegant man.”

“Any unusual characteristics?”

“Though his skin is dark, his hair and his mustache are both golden blond.”

“How did he come to rent the apartment?”

“By way of Azuz, the flat-finder at the start of our street.”

2

Finding few clues in the landlord’s statements, I decided to try the doorman. He was a Nubian — as usual — but getting on in years.

“I’d like to talk about Makram Abd al-Qayyum,” I told him.

“May God preserve him!” he replied.

“It seems that you like him.”

“How could I not? He’s the best of God’s creatures.”

Straightaway I asked about the taxi that hauled away the suspect’s bags.

“The driver wasn’t unknown to me,” he answered.

I made a special note of this, then queried, “You said he was the best of God’s creatures?”

“He never asked me to do any task without giving me a tip, and not just for the grand occasions and holidays. And he was always smiling; always greeting me whether coming or going, asking how I was doing. I’ll never forget how he helped me when I was preparing my daughter for marriage. He’s a dream for the deprived, and a balm for the wounded.”

“I suppose that he informed you of where he was moving to?”

“No, but he told me he’d be passing by to see me often.”

“You mean, to visit you particularly?”

“Perhaps when he comes to this district for one reason or another.”

“Do you know why he changed his residence?”

“When I asked him about that, he said that he loves to wander.”

“What do you think of his looks?”

“Strong, fearsome, and handsome. At the same time he was emotionally sensitive in a way that didn’t at all match his powerful physique. Once, when he heard wailing over a dead person in our building, his eyes filled with tears. He used to give me money to buy bread for the stray cats that hung around the place. He was so gentle that he would toss peanuts into the stairwell for the mice that scurried there.”

“All that is very nice,” I said. “But you undoubtedly know things that no one else does about his personal behavior. A single man doesn’t rent a furnished apartment for no reason at all.”

“Absolutely no one else entered his flat,” the Nubian insisted. “This is an aspect I couldn’t miss.”

“No friends and no relatives?”

“No friends, and no relatives.”

“He was out all day?” I asked.

“From time to time he would eat lunch in his apartment. He’d order food from one of the local restaurants.”

“Nothing inside his flat caught your eye?”

“I never went into his apartment.”

“What do you know about the time he normally returned to his flat in the evening?”

“He most often came home about ten in the evening. He would then stay up till midnight or even dawn.”

“What if someday it were proved to you that he poisoned innocent people and went around setting deadly fires?”

Startled, the man exclaimed, “That would be a warning that the gates of Hell have opened!”

3

We rounded up all the taxi drivers in the district and filed them before the doorkeeper. He recognized one of them, called Yunis, who the doorman said was the owner of the taxi that carried away Makram Abd al-Qayyum’s bags. The driver had no difficulty remembering the fare: he said that he’d dropped him directly at the Semiramis Hotel.

I set off instantly to the Semiramis with a bunch of assistants. I was able to verify that the suspect spent one night in the place, leaving early the next morning. I asked about the taxi that took him away — and the porter told me that he carried his bags to a white, privately-owned Mercedes. The big, dusky, distinguished-looking gentleman with the golden hair drove the car himself. No one could remember its license number.

Is he the car’s owner? If so, then why didn’t he use it the whole time he lived in the Paradise Building? Did he buy it just yesterday? The more that I cut through the obscure character of his actions, the more the insinuation of his guilt took root inside me, and the instincts to investigate and take up the challenge became more deeply fixed within me.

4

After that I went to the neighbors living on the same floor in his building. The first was an architect named Raouf. He’d barely heard me utter the name of Makram Abd al-Qayyum when he began to scowl.

“Evidently, you don’t find him too agreeable,” I ventured.

“Damn him, he’s a strange man,” Raouf raged. “So wrapped up in himself that he’s practically perverted. I wouldn’t doubt that he hates all humanity.”

“The doorman has another view of him entirely,” I rejoined.

“Pay no attention to what the doorman says; a tiny gratuity makes his head spin. I’ll never forget once when I met Abd al-Qayyum at the building’s entrance. As I began to greet him he replied with a curt haughtiness — my heart sank and my blood boiled. He’s impudent and ill-mannered.”

“What you’re saying is new to me.”

“I challenge you to find one resident in this building who ever exchanged greetings with him. He’s an arrogant crackpot. As for his cruelty …”

“Did you say, ‘his cruelty’?”

“My wife told me that she saw him kick a cat,” Raouf went on, “that he found in front of his apartment. The poor thing smashed violently against the wall, before it landed somewhere between life and death!”

“That’s very strange!” I gasped.

“When a wake was held at the building he neglected his human obligations without concern. He passed by the mourning tent, paying no attention to it whatsoever, nor did he acknowledge anyone there.”

“What about his personal behavior? I mean, the furnished apartment …”

“No, no — no one visited him so far as I know. His type suffers from a hidden inadequacy that turns them into supercilious snobs.”

“But he was well-off, or so it seems.”

“Why not?” he asked. “Are there bigger bastards than the rich?”

5

This had surpassed mere suspicion — it was becoming a full-scale indictment. The doorman was credible, so was Raouf. My rock-solid familiarity with these crimes’ history led me to this view. Who other than Makram Abd al-Qayyum would throw money onto the balconies of the poor, while planting poison in chocolates meant for innocents? Isn’t he the one who provided money to feed stray cats, then kicked one of them to death without mercy?

I approached the second neighbor, an Arabic language instructor named Abd al-Rahman.

“The man lives alone, all right — but insolent, he’s not. The problem is that Engineer Raouf hated him because he reacted dryly to his greeting — but maybe his mind was simply troubled at the time.”