Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

Feeling a bit befuddled, I began wondering what they were saying and thinking. I had a deceptively impressive appearance, and they may have thought I was some outstanding employee with a bright future ahead of me! Ahhh … I was an outstanding employee in my mother’s eyes alone. I may have felt some regret then for having quit the university, but I consoled myself with the thought that one day I’d be inheriting a sizeable fortune. Be that as it may, I thought, that’s no reason to be afraid of the people in the household. On the contrary, I felt as though it were there that my own happiness lay and I loved it with all my heart: its inhabitants, its furniture, its rooms, and even its servant. I resided there in spirit, and in my mind’s eye I would carry on long, fascinating conversations with the people who lived there. As for my beloved, she filled my heart, my mind, and my imagination. If I saw the laundry hanging on the balcony, wafted to and fro by the afternoon breezes, I would gaze at it with eyes of love and affection. I’d look at its various colors and shapes, enchanted by delicate fringes that would send my heart into holy raptures as though it were feasting on the sweetness of celestial refrains. Time and time again I addressed my beloved’s room, exhorting it to keep her in its care in both wakefulness and slumber, when dreams soared away with her, or when she uttered words I hadn’t had the pleasure to hear.

One day I had an impulse to stay on the tram and escort my beloved to her school, though I was fearful and anxious at the thought of the risk involved. The tram got as far as al-Ataba al-Khadra, and I kept my eyes glued to the ladies’ car so that I could see where my beloved got off. The tram took us across streets I’d never seen before until it crossed the Abul-Ila Bridge, and at the next stop, she got off. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, tracking her with my eyes, I saw her veer right with her towering height and her trim figure. Then she turned onto a side street that ran parallel to the mansions located along the Nile. As she turned she happened to look back and see me as I stood there looking at her. Blushing with embarrassment, I shuddered as though an electric current had gone through me. Presently she disappeared from view, and I took a few steps forward until I was able to see the street. I saw her stepping gracefully away, and then passing through a nearby gate. I stood still for a whle, unsure what to do next, and thought of returning to the ministry, as I was late for work with no excuse. However, I couldn’t bring myself to end the adventure without anything to show for it. Hence, I headed in the direction of the school with a timorous heart. As I passed hurriedly in front of it, I saw a sign that read, “The Higher Education Institute for Girls.” Then I returned to the tram stop and boarded the tram heading back where I’d come from, wondering about the meaning of what I’d read. When I got to my workplace, I learned from an employee there that this was an institute that trained teachers for girls’ primary schools, and that the girls who studied there enrolled in it after finishing their high school diploma. I felt proud to know that my beloved was going to be a teacher. At the same time, I wasn’t unaware of the major discrepancy in our educational levels. I cursed the spinelessness that had moved me to flee from the university, and feelings of dread and dejection came over me. Consequently, I resorted again to my old counselor, the magazine, with the following question: “Is it possible for a highly educated girl to love a young man with nothing but a high school diploma?” In its reply, the magazine mentioned the princess who fell in love with the shepherd!

That night I dreamed of my beloved, and it was the first time she visited me in my sleep.

My aspirations revolved around two things: having a good income — which was coming eventually — and winning a bride. I to be the type that’s tormented by ambition, and if I’d had any ambition at all during the dream days of the past, it had been buried in the warehousing section of the Ministry of War, where a bonus of half a pound was considered a distant hope at best. No, I wasn’t moved by high-aiming ambition. However, my soul longed for happiness and peace of mind, a pleasant life, and a loving, upstanding wife. There was nothing new in my life apart from the fact that I’d begun performing the five daily prayers regularly after having neglected them from time to time. Perhaps it was my lovesickness that readied me for such unsullied communion with God five times a day. At the same time, though, my soul experienced no release from its old pain. In fact, given the moments of frenzied enjoyment that I continued to steal by night, prayer actually caused my pain to increase. I was no longer able to give it up. On the contrary, I surrendered to it more completely than ever before, yet regret had no mercy on me even for a day. There’s nothing more miserable than to be tormented by regret when you’re a person of faith.

It was this ongoing struggle that led me to take a long look at myself and my life. When I did so, I was appalled at first to see what a monotonous existence I led, a day of which was equal to a year, and a year equal to a day. Hadn’t an entire year passed since I began work at the ministry without a single new development? A lifetime was passing by in a boring job to which I’d been doomed, and in a forlornness that was dissipated in only two circumstances: when I was at the tram stop, and in conversation with my mother at home. Even these brief moments of happiness weren’t without a tinge of misery and pain. When I was with my beloved, I was haunted by the specter of my mother; and when I was with my mother, I was frightened by the specter of my beloved. This generated an unsettling angst mingled with remorse, and I was enveloped by a cloud of melancholy that refused to leave me. When I think back to those days, I blame myself, not because there was no good reason for my unhappiness, but rather, due to my usual bad habit of blowing my pains and sufferings out of all proportion, and because never in my life have I faced anything with the required courage and resolution.

As for my mother, she couldn’t pinpoint a reason for the glumness in me that caused her so much anxiety. I don’t know how many times she said to me sorrowfully, “Why do you seem sad sometimes? For the life of me, I can’t imagine what it is that you lack. You wanted to be a government employee, and you’ve become one. God’s blessed you with loving care and concern from your grandfather, who provides a comfortable life for us. And in your service you have a mother who would gladly give you her very life if you asked her to. Not only that, but you have youth and good health, which I pray you’ll enjoy for long years to come. So what do you lack?”

I was amazed that she would be asking what I lacked. It was true, of course, that she’d enumerated for me an abundance of blessings. However, the value of these blessings was lost on me. They were, to me, like the air that we breathe every moment of our lives without it ever occurring to us to be thankful for it. Instead, I thought constantly about what I lacked, blinded to what I already had by what I was bent on attaining. I seemed to have been destined not to know anything about life’s true wisdom, and I’d never gone beyond the narrow confines of my own soul. And herein lay the secret of my malady. It was this that had cut me off from life’s joys and pleasures and all that these entail by way of virtues, meaning, and friendship. Toward others I harbored feelings of alienation and fear. In fact, such feelings caused me to view the entire world as an enemy that lay in wait for me. It may be that the only thing that would have satisfied me would have been for the world to abandon its own concerns and devote itself to making me happy! And since it wasn’t able to do that, I shunned it out of a sense of helplessness and fear and declared myself its enemy. I crawled into my shell, ignorant of the people, hopes, and virtues that filled my soul. Even in the face of love, which was the first noble sentiment ever to inspire me, I stood motionless and terrified, waiting desperately for it to make the first move.