Naguib Mahfouz: The Mirage

His eyes grew redder and redder until my grandfather thought he was weeping, and he felt he had no choice but to comply with his request. By the time the Victoria took off with him in the direction of Manyal, the streets had begun filling little by little with people coming out in pursuit of their daily bread. As the carriage moved along, he closed his eyes with satisfaction and thought at length about the matter. He wanted to see his daughter become the mistress of a household of her own. That very month, my mother was sent back to her former husband and the family was reunited. However, this new life only lasted for two weeks. In fact, it may not have lasted for more than a single day. As for the remainder, my mother endured it patiently until, fearful that the wild drunkard might do harm to her two young children, she picked them up and fled back to my poor grandfather. In a violent rage, he betook himself forthwith to the phony repentant and raked him derisively over the coals. Ru’ba Laz listened to him in silence. Then he told him that his wife was to blame for not wanting to live with him, and that his only fault was that he got drunk. My grandfather took leave of him in a miserable state, divorce certificate in hand.

It was then that their married life ended once and for all, and I was the fruit of that bogus repentance. My grandfather once said to me jokingly, “You came into this world on account of my stupidity and no one else’s!” Many indeed are those who have come into this world on account of stupidities.

I grew up in my grandfather’s house, which was the only home I ever knew. In fact, the only family I knew was my grandfather and my mother. By the time I was old enough to be aware of what was happening around me, my father had reclaimed my brother and my sister and my grandmother had died. I only learned that I had a father based on the things my mother said about him in bitterness and sorrow, and my hatred for him grew with the passing of the days. Then, as if he hadn’t been cruel enough to my mother already by taking back his son and daughter, he prevented them from seeing her. Year after year passed without her catching even so much as a glimpse of them. At the same time, we heard it said that the man virtually imprisoned himself at home, fleeing from the world and those in it by keeping himself in a state of perpetual inebriation.

My grandfather’s house in Manyal was my birthplace, my playground, and my world. It consisted of two spacious stories, of which the upper one was where we lived, and a small courtyard. I don’t want to talk about the house. At the same time, I long to recapture the past, and what past is there but that it has a house around which its memories hover? My life is inseparable from that house, and will remain so for as long as I live. Of course, a house isn’t just a building. Rather, it’s a tower fixed in time to which the doves of memory repair for refuge, cooing with nostalgic longing for what’s passed of our lifetimes. So let me delve into the depths of the past for whatever waves of memories my head can receive. I close my eyes, disappearing from the world of things tangible, hoping to provide my spirit with the stillness it needs to take off into the eternal past. Let me confess that I long intensely for the past, and that of late this longing of mine has become a veritable ache. Perhaps this is nothing but a yearning for childhood. I realize what a serious thing such nostalgia and longing can be, since herein lies the secret of this regrettable malady of mine. Yet, although I’ve lived my life looking to this past, whether happily or otherwise, and despite my awareness of the powerful bond that draws me back to it, I still stand helpless before its impenetrable veils, and my memory retreats wearily from even its most critical and important eras.

I close my eyes full of anticipation and questions. Out of the darkness my eyes glimpse a faint light. I see my small hand as it reaches for the moon from atop my mother’s shoulder. What a memory! How often have we reached for moons that are no less unattainable? I recall the tremendous effort I once expended trying to take hold of my mother’s nipple, only to be thwarted by something with a bitter taste; tugging with delight on my grandfather’s crescent-shaped mustache; and shattering the flower pots, one of which landed on and nearly broke the Nubian gatekeeper’s arm when it plummeted off the edge of the balcony. Most days I would refuse to go to sleep until I’d climbed onto my mother’s shoulder and had her carry me the length and breadth of the house, and whenever she slowed her pace, I’d spur her on with my feet. I used to strut about constantly in girls’ dresses, my hair hanging down to my shoulders. One day my mother had the idea of making me a military uniform complete with stars and medals, so I put it on gleefully and proceeded to traverse the length of the house with a haughty, self-satisfied gait: the distinguished officer with a braid dangling down his back. My grandfather didn’t approve of such gratuitous pampering. However, he had no time to oversee my upbringing, since he generally didn’t get up till noon and wouldn’t return from the casino until nearly dawn. Besides, he feared upsetting my mother in view of the ill-fortune life had dealt her, and because she was all he had left in his old age. Thus the three of us lived: the father who had no one but his daughter, and the daughter who had no one but her son.

My mother would snatch at memories of my sister and brother with a tearful eye and a broken heart, and she yearned passionately to see them if only for an hour. And since, in her sorrow, she found no solace but me, she would set me in her lap and not want me to leave it. Indeed, she would have liked me to make it my entire world.

Life’s breezes blew gently. Thus, I didn’t realize until after it was too late that it was an unwholesome affection which had exceeded its proper limits, and that there’s a kind of affection that destroys. She had been cut to the quick in that place where her motherly instincts lay, and in me she found solace, comfort, and healing. She devoted her entire life to me. I would sleep in her lap and spend my day on her shoulder or elsewhere in her presence. Even during those brief times when she was busy with household affairs, I wouldn’t leave her, or rather, she wouldn’t allow me to leave her. In the kitchen I’d ride on her shoulder, resting my cheek on her head as I amused myself watching the cook light the fire, cut up the meat, and chop the onions. We would even take baths together. She would place me naked in a washtub, then sit before me nude as I sprinkled her with water. Then I’d take a handful of suds off her body and massage myself with it.

We rarely left the house, since relations with my father’s side of the family had been severed and my maternal aunt lived in Mansoura with her husband at that time. When my mother did go out, however infrequently, to visit one of the neighbor ladies, she would take me with her. The one place we visited regularly was the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab. This may well have been the only visit that we truly looked forward to. There was nothing she disliked so much as having some lady she knew say complimentary things about me, as people tend to do with children. She saw such praise as a bad omen and, with fear and trembling, would recite incantations over me to protect me from the evil eye. Yet strangely, I don’t remember such incantations and amulets with derision or contempt. Instead, I believe in them. In fact, I believe in everything my mother believed in. I acquired a certain degree of culture and finished secondary school. Even so, my faith remained intact. After all, how could my faith in God, His messengers, and His saints, or in the power of supplications, protective amulets, and shrines ever be shaken?