Naguib Mahfouz - The Seventh Heaven

But what is really going on? From where did all this corruption come?

Once again, I must confess that times have changed. Every day there is some new miracle or wonder in the world. Indeed, I realize that today I must study economics and politics, public speaking and propaganda, and learn all about science and technology, as well as contractors’ and agents’ commissions, and the ways and means of illegal immigration. I have to become more cultured and change my former ways, if I don’t want my cause to be defeated, to lose my very reason for being. Otherwise, my immortal rebellion would vanish fruitlessly into the void, leaving not a trace behind.

I was in this state of frustration and confusion when my spies informed me that there is still a man of integrity left in this land.

“His name is Muhammad Zayn,” they told me. “A judge by profession, he lives at 15 Zayn al-Abidin Street.”

Immediately I began watching this man with special care. His residence is an old house, ill-suited to his status. That is where he grew up with his family until it was left to him as one by one his kin passed away. Nonetheless, it is considered a great boon from the Lord in an era when people are living in tents and tombs. He is married, with a son at university and another son and daughter in secondary school. He sets off alone for the bus to the courthouse each day, getting off one stop early so that people do not see him riding amidst the crowd, clutching his briefcase under his arm. He starts his court sessions at the scheduled time, following the testimony of the prosecution, the defense, and the witnesses with startling concentration and concern. Other than that, he hardly ever leaves his home except out of necessity, to study his legal briefs sometimes, or to pay his bills. He instills the spirit of hard work and abstinence in his children, who do not hold themselves above the offspring of paupers. Overall, the household abides in an air of plain modesty — in demeanor, in clothing, and even in food. His wife, though, endures this with resentment, easing her feelings by complaining, and by cursing the age from time to time.

“You have my entire salary in your hands,” the judge tells her. “I cannot turn base metals into gold. I do not speculate about the savage cost of living, because I live in the protection of God, who shall preserve me from perdition until my last breath is drawn.”

A great man, but blighted just the same. Temptations surround him from all sides, like water and wind. I found the urge of conquest aroused in me, for right before me were his wife and family. What’s more, it was a household fully aware of what was going on around it. Here you have a conversation that shows the divisions between a husband and his spouse:

“What kind of world is this?” she asked. “Are we doomed to all this torment simply because we’re good?”

He cut her off firmly. “This is the lot of the honest in hellish times.”

“They’re all thieves, as you know very well!” she declared.

“Yes, they are — they’re all thieves.”

“And how will it all end?”

“My sole possession is patience,” he rejoined.

This display was both an objection to the way things were going, and a reproach to her husband’s virtue, as well.

The daughter listens a great deal; she reads the daily papers, and takes time to think about worldly affairs. Shall her marriage take place under these dreadful conditions? I did not shrink from sending her a beguiling young man, as well as a female colleague with know-how in finding furnished flats — yet the young couple stopped at the edge of sin.

“The crooks are safe, playing around as though they’re above the law,” the daughter declared. “Meanwhile, the law itself is wretched — and is only applied against the wretched.”

“All doors are open for their children,” said one of Muhammad’s own. “Only they have good opportunities.”

“All we get is suffering, and honey-coated lies.”

“Our father is an honorable man. An honest judge— but weaker than a wealthy criminal!”

I was delighted by what I heard and prepared myself for work. Everything in my existence is done in seconds. My task seemed extremely easy. I decided to leave the man alone to focus on his children. If one wants to subdue a fortress, then he must first look for a weak point in its walls. There is where he must put his toughest toil.

The ecstasy that precedes effort lit up my heart. Soon, though, it was mixed with something, and — O how quickly and strangely! — this something resembled an odor of dubious origin. The euphoria ebbed away like a wave fleeing the shore. I fell into a state of lassitude, a torpor like a sense of being foiled, as though I were ashamed of myself for the first time in my deep-rooted history. I hesitated, when I had never hesitated before. I flinched, when I had never flinched before. Whatever lust I had had for battle, my victory in it was cause for derision, a defeat sure to bring shame.

No, Satan — this is not mere indolence, it is renunciation. I have never had such a contretemps before. I will leave you, Mr. Muhammad, to your blameless travail, to your trying personal circumstances, and your torturous dependents. You are not happy, but still they envy you. You do not succumb to them, so they try to provoke you. No one loves you. No one empathizes with you. They bear a grudge against you and plot ceaselessly to spite you with the worst of wills.

Now I will bid you adieu. I’ll follow your news from afar. You shall remain a black stain on my being forever.

If ever I’m asked about you, I will reply, “That man stopped the Devil from doing his job.”

All of it happened such a long time ago. The shaykh of our alley told me the story as we sat one day in a garden full of roses….

Hamza Qandil was found after a long disappearance, a stiffened corpse lying out in the desert. He had been stabbed in the neck with a sharp object. His robe was soaked with hardened blood, his turban strewn down the length of his body. But his watch and his money had not been touched— so clearly robbery had not been the motive. As the authorities began to look into the crime, word of what happened spread through the quarter like a fire through kindling.

Voices rang out from within Hamza’s house. The neighbor-women shared in the customary wailing, and people traded knowing looks. An air of tense drama spread out through the hara. Yet some felt a secret satisfaction, mixed with a certain sense of guilt. “Uncle” Dakrouri, the milk peddler, expressed some of this when he whispered to the prayer leader of our alley, “This murder went beyond what anyone expected — despite the man’s pig-headedness and lack of humor.”

“God does what He will,” answered the imam.

The prosecutor’s office asked about the victim’s enemies. The question exposed an atmosphere of evasion, as his widow said that she didn’t know anything of his relations with the outside world. Not a soul would testify that they had ever seen a sign of enmity between the murdered man and anyone else in the quarter. And yet, no one volunteered any helpful testimony. The detective looked at the shaykh of the hara quizzically, saying:

“The only thing I’ve been able to observe is that he had no friends!”

“He got on people’s nerves, but I never bothered to find out why,” the shaykh replied.

The investigation revealed that Qandil used to cut through the empty lot outside of our alley on his way to and from work in the square. No one would accompany him either coming or going. When the traditional question was asked—”Did the folks here complain about anyone?”—the consistent response was a curt denial. No one believed anybody else, but that’s how things were. But why didn’t Hamza Qandil have a single friend in the alley? Wasn’t it likely that the place held a grudge against him?