Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

But I paid no attention. Instead, I began thinking about what I’d have left of my salary once we’d covered living expenses, namely, one and a half pounds, how much of that would go toward transportation, and how much I’d have left to spend on entertainment for myself. My thoughts were filled with bitterness and gloom, and my heart shrank in loathing from this ridiculous, meaningless life. Hadn’t I been spending my entire salary on food, drink, and carriages? And hadn’t I, in spite of this, been irritable, unhappy, and full of complaints? Lord! The past had been an era of undeniable ease and comfort, but I’d only woken up to what a blessing it had been now that nothing was left of it but memories. I’d been blind, of that there could be no doubt. I’d been blinded to what I had by frivolous dreams, and people like me are doomed never to know happiness in this life. The whole world looked gloomy in my eyes, my sense of purpose began to fade, and I was filled with such pessimism that I expected evil to come from every step I took. After all, might not the government dispense with my services for one reason or another, thereby depriving me even of the meager salary I now earned? Might I not have a road accident that would leave me handicapped and unable to work for a living? Why were we put on earth in the first place?

It may have been black thoughts like these that led me to ask my mother, “What am I expected to inherit from my father when he dies?”

Not pleased with my thoughts, she replied indignantly, “Don’t build your hopes in life on someone’s death. How long people live is in God’s hands, and I beg you to get these thoughts out of your head.”

However, making light of her fears, I pressed her to answer my question.

Yielding to my persistence, she said, “Your father has family endowments that bring him an income of forty pounds a month. That’s in addition to the house he lives in.”

Through some simple calculations I estimated that my share of the house would come to sixteen pounds a month. If this were added to my meager salary, it would amount to quite a bit, and as usual, I gave myself over to dreaming. However, my dreams didn’t do a thing to change reality.

“How old is my father?” I asked her.

“He’s at least seventy,” she replied grudgingly.

Would he live a long life the way my grandfather had? I wondered. What state would I be in if he lived a long life and deprived me of my inheritance for the next ten to twenty years? I recalled what I’d been told about how he’d once been anxiously awaiting his own father’s death, and how anxiety over his future had led him to attempt the crime that doomed him to be deprived of a vast fortune. I was suffering the same feelings he’d suffered thirty years earlier, and perhaps if I’d had some of his pluck, I would have gone the same route he had.

My mother summoned the elderly cook and Umm Zaynab. Then, sorrowful and ashamed, she informed them that we’d be moving to my brother’s house (she preferred to lie rather than admit to poverty) and that she would have to dispense with their services. She expressed her regret for having to bring their long term of service to an end, commended them highly, and prayed for their future success. Then she presented them both with something to tide them over until they could find other work. Umm Zaynab burst into sobs and the old man’s eyes welled up with tears as he called down God’s mercy and forgiveness on my grandfather.

Then he said earnestly, “Madame, I would rather have died before this noble household closed its doors.”

Unable to contain her emotions, my mother cried and, infected by her sorrow, I cried too. I was going through a time of pain and ignominy the likes of which I’d never felt before. Before the month was out we’d moved into a small flat on the second floor of an old three-story house on Qasim Street just off Manyal Street. The house was located halfway between Manyal Street and the Nile. As for the flat, it consisted of three small rooms that we fitted out with some of our old furniture, the rest of which we sold for a pittance. I wondered apprehensively: Will my mother be able to handle the burdens of household service after a lifetime of leisure and comfort? She was approaching her mid-sixties, and all the domestic help she had left was a young servant. How would she endure this new life? As for me, my existence was growing all the more troubled, and I was bitter and angry at everything. Even so, my mother took to her new domestic chores with such gusto that she succeeded in making me believe that she was happy with our new life, as though all her days she’d been suppressing a fervent desire to labor and be of service.

With a satisfaction that I could sense in her tone of voice and the smile in her eyes, she said, “There’s no greater happiness for me than to serve your household.”

I drank in the new life drop by drop — this life that had added a new longing to my old ones, namely, the longing to return to the life of ease and, in particular, to drinking. I made up my mind to stint myself enough to be able to afford to get drunk even just once a month. And it’s no wonder, since to me, liquor wasn’t mere amusement and frivolity. Rather, it was an imaginary existence into whose arms I would flee from the pain of odious reality.

One day when my mother sensed that I was receptive to what she had to say, she commented, “Perhaps you realize now why I’ve refused any marriage that wouldn’t be fitting for you.”

I understood immediately what she meant. It was as if she were saying, “What would you have done with your life if you’d been the head of a family!”

I didn’t doubt for a moment the accuracy of her observation. For truly, if I’d been the head of a family, I would have been several times more miserable in life than I was at present. Even so, I didn’t like what she’d said. To my broken spirit, her words sounded like a gleeful “I told you so.” Consequently, I was gripped with bitterness and anger, and it was only with great difficulty that I kept my emotions in check.

Another autumn rolled around. Autumn was the season I loved, since it heralded the opening of the schools, which meant that my beloved would return to our usual meeting place at the tram stop. My beloved was the only flower that bloomed in the autumn, when trees were stripped bare of their leaves and flowers withered and faded. I noticed that the times when she left the house weren’t regular the way they had been before. Was it possible she’d begun her life as a teacher? The thought gave me pleasure, and my body trembled with joy. At the same time, though, I couldn’t forget that the course of my life had changed and that I was languishing under the burden of poverty and despair. Consequently, my beloved was a lost cause. But hopelessness only caused me to fall more passionately in love, kindling grievous longings in my heart. How quickly an impossible love turns into an uprising against life! Isn’t it a kind of mockery that we should be created for a certain life, only to be prevented from living it? And what made me even more lovesick was that there were many times when I imagined her eyes to be casting me a look filled with life. What life? I didn’t know, but it was sufficient to drive my imagination wild. One such look would inebriate me with a magical intoxication that would stay with me until I was shocked awake again by some bitter reality in my life.

Meanwhile, the people in her household had begun scrutinizing me with such intensity that I could almost hear them wondering aloud: What do you want? Why do you devour her with your eyes? What kind of a man are you? Isn’t a year and a half enough for you? You’re right, by God. You’re absolutely right. But what can I do? Put yourselves in my place, and tell me what you’d do. Do you have a solution to helplessness and indigence?