Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

“This is why I devoted myself to taking care of you and sacrificed my own happiness for your sake. And.…”

Here she hesitated for a moment. She may have been about to remind me of the suitor she had refused on my account, but she thought better of it.

“And don’t think I’m trying to make you feel as though you owe me something. Mothers aren’t like that. If only sons felt the same kind of compassion that mothers do. How easily you forget.… Lord! Forgive me, I don’t know what I’m saying. But don’t think bad things about your mother. We give everything gladly, and then when our children grow up, all they think about is turning their backs on us and finding themselves some way of escape. Again, forgive me! Unfortunately, I’m not good at controlling myself. But we’ve had this whole lifetime together, and you’re my only hope in this world. If you turn me out, I will have nowhere to go. Our children are our lives in both our youth and our old age. As for you, you love us when you’re small, but when you grow up you hate us. Or, you love us when you don’t have anyone else to love. What did I say? God forgive me! Forgive me, Kamil, I’m agitated. And I’m no good at talking.”

I was astounded at how talking had sucked her into this downward spiral. It had been bearable at first, but then it had spun out of control. I tried to keep her from going on and on, but to no avail. Consequently, I’d had no choice but to drink the bitter potion to the dregs with all the pain and grief it brought in its wake. We exchanged a long look, with reproach coming from my end and consternation from hers. Alas, she wasn’t entirely in her right mind.

“So is this what a person gets for asking an innocent question?” I asked glumly.

With tears welling up in her eyes and her glance lowered, she said, “There are times when I’m no good at talking and it would be better for me to hold my tongue. Don’t worry about me. And if some day you’d like me to get out of your life, all you have to do is say the word, and you’ll never see me again!”

Clapping my hand over her mouth, I shouted, “May God forgive you! That’s enough talk! I made a huge mistake by asking my innocent question!”

Then she pretended to make light of the matter. In fact, she let out a long laugh as though nothing had happened, while I nursed my wounds in the privacy of my own heart. Her words had a profound impact on me. Indeed, they shook me violently, and I felt a grief the likes of which I’d never felt before. I wondered how on earth she could have allowed her agitation to get the better of her to the point of hurling such cruel accusations in my face. I wasn’t without a feeling of bitterness toward her, not because she’d accused me falsely — after all, anyone could do such a thing in a moment of passing anger — but rather because she’d met my unspoken desires with an outburst that had gone beyond the limits of reason. Giving free rein to my bitterness, I thought: She remembered herself more than she should have, and she forgot me more than she should have. As was my wont, I let my own selfishness have its say by accusing her of the very same fault.

Two days after our bizarre conversation, my mother succumbed to an ailment that left her bedridden, and I stayed by her side throughout her illness except for the times I was at work. Although it wasn’t serious, her face looked haggard and gaunt given her natural thinness, and it pained me no end. I couldn’t bear to see her deprived of her beauty and health. Her appearance and her self-neglect pained me. She would bind her head in a scarf from beneath which strands of her unkempt, neglected, graying hair would peek out, all of which distressed me greatly and caused the whole world to look dismal to me. Then one day, as I was sitting next to her, strange thoughts — prompted possibly by fear and pity — began running through my mind in a kind of stream of consciousness. I put to myself the following dangerous question: What would life be like if this tenderhearted mother weren’t a part of it? A chill went through me as the question presented itself, but my imagination refused to abandon its raving. The scenes kept passing before my eyes in succession and I surrendered to them in a heavy, wordless grief. I saw an abandoned house, and I saw myself wandering aimlessly like someone who’s lost his way in a vast desert expanse. My grandfather, disgruntled and bitter, was venting his wrath on the elderly servant and the cook. As for me, I sensed my inability to carry on with this forlorn existence, so I proposed to my grandfather that I marry so that we would have someone to take care of us. I saw my beloved with her lithe physique and her endearing poise as she came to take over the household and its residents with perfect compassion and boundless love. Then I saw all of us — my grandfather, my wife, and myself — standing over the grave of someone dear and watering it with our tears. When I came to myself in a fright, I felt tears in my eyes ready to fall. Remorse stung my heart and I was filled with resentment and rage. “Forgive me, God,” I mumbled to myself, “and grant her a long life.” Then I bent over and kissed her face tenderly. The memory of those fantasies haunted me frequently thereafter, leaving deep, painful scars. Even after she’d recovered and her vigor and beauty had returned, worry was my constant companion, and I nearly returned to that unwholesome way of thinking that sees life only in terms of what lies at the start and the finish — birth and death — while viewing everything in between as sheer vanity. This was the kind of thinking that had once led me to make an attempt on my own life and, if God hadn’t intervened, would have been the death of me.

Summer had arrived, which meant — as far as my heart was concerned — that my beloved would stop going to the institute, as a result of which I’d only be able to see her on the balcony or in the window. She knew me well by now, as did everyone in her household — the young man who was constantly on the lookout for her, who gazed at her with eyes full of admiration and love, and who had persevered in doing so with astounding patience for nearly a year, yet without making a single move. And what was even more astounding was that I would catch her looking back at me from time to time, and I would go mad with delight. I could almost hear her wondering what I wanted. In fact, I could hear all of them asking themselves this same question, which made me happy and miserable at the same time. The fact is that I love you, sweetheart, with everything in me, and if you should ask why I don’t make a move in your direction, the answer is that never in my life have I known how to make a move in anybody’s direction.

I have a mother standing behind me, as it were, and limited good fortune. So how am I to overcome these obstacles? Tell me, my love, and I’ll come flying to you without wings!

It was a strange day in my life.

I began the morning with my usual ardor-filled pause and impassioned gazes outside her window, after which I went to the ministry, with bliss and desolation doing battle in my heart as they did every morning. As the employees began the day with their usual chatter, the one sitting next to me said, “I got so plastered yesterday, I didn’t know which way was up!”

My interest suddenly piqued, I thought of my father. What the man had said left an impression on me that was lost on those sitting around me. And it was no wonder, since alcohol had written the history of my family and determined its destiny.

Hardly aware of what I was doing, I turned to the employee who’d spoken and asked him in a whisper, “Why do you drink?”

Realizing immediately the error I’d committed in my haste, I was flustered and embarrassed. Never in the entire time I’d worked there had I spoken to anyone in the department about anything that wasn’t work-related. In fact, I was so quiet that they’d nicknamed me “Gandhi,” because he’d been known for his custom of vowing himself to silence one day a week.