Naguib Mahfouz - The Seventh Heaven

“Listen.” he said. “Remember exactly what I’m about to tell you….”

The bellhop stared at his face in terror as the manager shouted with stark resolve, “Ignore room number twelve and everyone in it!”

“Sir, the men are screaming and the women are crying!”

Bellowing like a beast, the manager railed, “Concentrate on the roof over the guest rooms — but as for room number twelve, leave it alone — and everyone inside it!”

The bellhop tarried for merely a second, and the manager foamed with an even more animal-like fervor, “Carry out my instructions to the letter — without dragging your feet!”

He moved to face the window and watched the storm crashing in the heart of the darkness, waxing more and more perilous with each passing moment. Yet he felt his great burden lighten, as his confidence returned with his clarity of mind.

After long hesitation, I decided to go.

The curtain dropped at nightfall. Engulfed by the waves of gloom that swept Virgo Star Alley, I knew my path by the backlight of memory — the destroyer of darkness and the sojourner’s guide. I squeezed through the iron gate that hung ajar, to be struck by the scent of a familiar incense. To my good fortune, I found no visitors in the house. She appeared to me alone, sitting cross-legged on her Persian divan, wrapped in a robe of many quiet colors embroidered with a pattern of crescent moons and flowers, drawn over the curves of a distinctly firm form. Her eyelids dangling like veils, in her fingertips she held some cards — she never grew bored peering into the Unseen on her own. She did not lift her eyes toward me, as though she knew who was coming by the sound of his footsteps, and as if she intended to pay him no heed. Sensing strongly that I was intruding, I did not offer her greetings, but sat in the chair nearest her, seeking refuge in silence. She continued reading her cards as I contemplated how to open our conversation, when all that I had prepared to say evaporated from my mind under the effect of this room, grave with the remains of days gone by. Suddenly she started, as though the cards had yielded an unusual revelation.

“I see a final assault upon his stubbornness!” she whispered.

She let out an “Oh!” of pleasure, muttering as she completed her vision, “A lead-tipped whip shall scourge his back!”

“What’s passed has passed. I must look toward tomorrow,” I said in recognition of her allusion to me.

“Your indulgence, my master!” she exclaimed, as though surprised by my presence.

“I came to settle my debts and to look toward tomorrow,” I replied, putting a medium-size envelope in front of her.

“He came to settle his debts and to look toward tomorrow,” she declaimed to her cards.

“Bread and salt have brought us together, and you are the mistress of those who know!”

Sounding straightforward at last, she replied, “Such things happen every day.”

“This is the time for but one request,” I said heatedly.

“Security,” she said quietly.

y “Security,” I echoed, feeling encouraged. “Whenever I consult a friend on the matter, they always point to just one man.”

Smiling, she replied, “He is the one who is always pointed to these days.”

“As he is known for his hatred of intermediaries, I have not found anyone to intercede for me,” I said with worry. “Yet they tell me that none of the great ever turn you aside.”

“This is true, if they have been my companions,” she admitted with pride.

Not knowing what to say, I simply sighed, when she said in a kindly tone, “You must find your own way.”

“You’re joking,” I said, a sarcastic laugh escaping my lips.

“If only he came one time to his queen, like the others,” she lamented. “Most of the patrons at the Moon Tavern are my minions — except for him.”

“If only this miracle would occur!” I said wistfully.

We stared at each other for quite a while, until her eyes widened with a dawning insight. She giggled, then asked me, “What do you think?”

I gazed at her questioningly.

“You will undertake a mission,” she declared.

“What mission?”

“That you bring him here to me.”

“But how?”

“He leaves the Moon Tavern at midnight,” she said. “Then he cuts through the Garden Passage to the square, where his car is waiting — the passage is the most fitting place for you to meet him.”

“But he doesn’t know me from Adam!”

“Use your manners as a man of good family to approach him,” she said, drowning in laughter, “and whisper to him, ‘Do you crave a tasty glass? A clean, well-hidden house?’”

I scowled as I turned my face away from her, seething with derision.

“My suggestion doesn’t please you?” she asked.

“Mock my predicament all you want!”

Earnestly she rejoined, “I’m quite serious, if security is truly what you seek.”

“How do you imagine I would accomplish that myself?” I bristled in annoyance.

“What is it but a fleeting adventure that flows from the search for what is sought?”

“Don’t you have many who are professionals in that?” I asked, trying to hide my trepidation.

“I do not need any of them,” she said with disdain.

“Yet I would be your first choice?”

“This is only an escapade — don’t you understand?”

“No, I understand nothing.”

“But it is your duty to understand,” she scolded. “There’s no harm if you pick a spot far from the lamplight, so the darkness might embolden you.”

“And what about my dignity?”

“I’m not calling on you to make this your livelihood,” she protested. “It’s a one-time gambit. If you reject it, then you must know another way to reach your goal.”

On my way back, I was so upset that I could scarcely see what was in front of me. I had absolutely no doubt about the power that woman held over men. Yet, driven by an angry, petulant resolve, I refused to submit, until I imagined that I was no longer obsessed with my quest for security — a person’s last refuge when nothing else remains. It was as though I cared little about having to endure the demon of inflation, the ordeal of survival, the debasement of a time of deprivation. A merciless, ceaseless war broke out in my head. I kept wandering through the cafés and bars in a night that did not want to end. And not long before midnight I found myself standing in the Garden Passage in the furthest place away from the lamplight. What had brought me here? Perhaps I wanted to catch a glimpse from up close of that man whom I had seen only in the newspapers on momentous occasions.

He seemed to move with astral discipline — for at precisely the stroke of midnight his towering frame emerged from the Moon Tavern, tearing the silence with the tread of his heavy footsteps. My heart pounded as I tumbled from my lofty heights, and as he passed before me on his route to the square I took a step toward him. Immediately my mind was shattered by many terrors. I could almost feel the fingers pointed accusingly at me. My memory failed and my tongue froze. Abruptly aware that I was there, the man struck the ground with his cane to scold me for coming too near — so I quickly backed off, while he continued on his way.

All the next day I berated myself brutally. Why did I go to the Garden Passage? Why did I try to approach that man? And what kept me from speaking but my mind becoming scattered and falling prey to fears? The truth is that I am terrified of people — they are the ghosts that relentlessly pursue me. What good would they do me tomorrow, if the struggle to survive and the humiliation should grow even crueler?