Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

Whenever she looked up at me, I looked down bashfully. We’d finished changing our clothes, but that wasn’t all that had to be done. There seemed to be no end to the night’s problems. My heart longed to embrace her. So what was holding me back?

It was nothing but a step I needed to take. And did a single step need to cause such suffering? My heart was thirsty and full of longing, but my shame was intense and perplexing, and my body was dead and immobile. Was I going to stay this way forever? Why not conceal my sense of lifelessness with conversation? But what would I say? Inner turmoil had tied my tongue, and every minute that passed left me weaker and more agitated. Then all of a sudden and without cause, my thoughts shifted to my mother’s room. Has she gone to sleep? I wondered. Is she imagining what I’m doing now? Shame’s fires blazed all the hotter, and I felt as though I was about to suffocate. For my part, I surrendered to despair and helplessness, wondering: Will we go on in this laughable situation till morning? Deep inside I longed to flee, and I almost wished none of this had ever been!

I was awakened from my gloomy reverie by my beloved’s voice as she said, “It’s hot in here.”

She moved over to the window to open it. Finding the opportunity favorable, I came up behind her and helped her open the window the rest of the way.

This done, my beloved started to retreat. However, like someone crying for help I said, “Why don’t we stand in the window for a little while?”

My beloved answered my cry and we stood side by side only an inch apart. The window overlooked the back of the building, and directly beneath it there was a church garden dotted with tall trees whose rustling sounded like whispers drifting upward in the silence of the night. There wafted over our faces a sultry breeze that I’d longed for the way a little boy longs to reach out and touch the moon. So here we were, separated by little more than a hair’s breadth. I leaned toward her with deliberate slowness and caution, and our clothes touched. Then ever so gradually I began to feel something soft as our sides made contact. I let out an audible sigh that awakened my shyness anew and caused me to slow down somewhat. I was afraid she might resist me or move away from me, which would have caused me to feel defeated all over again and conclude that there was no hope. However, she stayed right where she was, leaning her elbow on the windowsill.

I brought my left hand back slightly, drawing it up behind her until it formed a half-circle around her waist. Then, slowly, cautiously and fearfully, I began narrowing the half-circle until it had come in contact with the folds in her silken robe. The feel of it caused a shudder to go through my heart, and for a second time, I let out an audible sigh. Then, mustering all the courage I had in me, I encircled her waist with my arm. My beloved didn’t move or resist me in any way, so I put thoughts of hesitation and defeat out of my mind. Pulling her toward me with my right arm, I took her into my arms and rested her forehead on my chest as I caressed the part in her hair with my lips.

Then, having gotten beyond my self-consciousness, I murmured, “I love you.”

We remained this way for God knows how long. Then, still locked in our embrace, we stepped back and lay down on the bed without my letting her out of my arms. We rested our shoulders on two downy cushions, with my beloved — still wearing her robe — on my chest and in my arms. Strangely, I didn’t intrude upon her with my eyes. Instead, I looked out the window and directed my gaze heavenward. My soul was filled with an aliveness I’d never known before. As for my body, it remained inert, cold, and unresponsive, as though my soul had soaked up the last drop of my energy. I was filled with a dazzling, spiritual intoxication that was joyous and sublime. And I stayed this way till the break of dawn without knowing how sleep had overcome me.

I awoke to find sunlight filling half the room beneath the open window. My glance fell on the mirror, and in a flash, memories of the previous night came back to me. I looked around the room and found it empty. Realizing that my beloved had left while I was still fast asleep, my heart welled up with affection and I sent her a greeting and a prayer. I told myself that the travails of engagement and nuptials had come to an end and that the future held nothing for me but unruffled tranquility. As I reviewed my memories of the previous day, my soul went roaming through a maze of intoxication and happiness. At the same time, I was aware that I hadn’t even begun yet, and that I had yet to record a single word in the huge tome of married life. I got out of bed and looked at the clock to find that it was past ten in the morning. I was appalled at how late I’d slept, and immediately thought of my mother. I wondered what she would think of such an extended slumber, and I felt pained and embarrassed. What made the embarrassment even more painful was that nothing whatsoever had happened to justify such a late start to my day, and my happiness was tainted with a touch of distress. It was as if I were realizing for the first time that the night before hadn’t been without its failures. Nevertheless, I resisted this treacherous feeling and, refusing to be alone with it, left the room. I was met in the parlor by the servant, Sabah, who had become part of our family. She congratulated me on “the morning after” and informed me that the bride was waiting for me in the dining room. I went there and found her sitting at the table like a rose in full bloom. Delighted to see her, I came up to her, my face beaming, and kissed her on the cheek. We had our breakfast, which consisted of tea and milk, eggs, and cake and as we ate we engaged in ordinary chitchat: I asked her what time she’d woken up, and she told me she’d gotten up at eight o’clock, explaining that she always woke up early no matter how late she’d gone to bed. My mother came in and congratulated us together, then sat with us for a while. Then we moved back to our room and spent the day in sweet conversation without either of us feeling the least bit weary or bored. The forlornness I’d felt earlier took its leave of me, and as I entered into the joy of being with her, I told her the story of my love from beginning to end. We punctuated our conversation with happy kisses, and I asked her when she’d first felt my presence in her world. She said she’d first noticed me hovering around her and looking up at the balcony a year or so earlier, and that her mother had noticed it at around the same time. It was then that I’d become the talk of the household. Whenever the young servant girl caught a glimpse of me from the window as I approached from Manyal, she would say with a laugh, “Here comes Miss Rabab’s groom!” whereupon she would get a stern rebuke. When I’d been slow to take a step, however, they’d become suspicious of me, and her mother had forbidden her to appear in the window or on the balcony at the times when I was at the tram stop.

“Didn’t you feel anything toward me?” I asked her anxiously.

She smiled gently and opened her mouth to speak. However, she sealed her lips again without saying a word. I felt a voracious hunger to hear something that would bring me some solace, so I pressed her to speak.

Then in a voice that was barely audible she said, “I don’t know.… I don’t know when I began to love you.”

With this there came over me a drugged feeling that I wished I could sleep on eternally. I took her face in my hands, drinking in the sight of her lips made fuller by the pressure of my palms. Then I placed my lips on hers and melted in a long kiss. I found my beloved captivating, her conversation sweet, her wit quick, and her intelligence astounding, so much so that my own conversation by comparison with hers sounded dull and insipid. She was so congenial and witty, I knew that her dignified bearing was simply a reflection of her good manners and modesty. For some reason I’d once imagined her to be a paragon of self-control — of aloofness, in fact. But in her kisses I experienced a warmth that would melt the heart, and in her eyes I glimpsed depth of feeling and refined sensitivity. She broke into a natural spontaneity more quickly than I had expected her to, a development that may have been encouraged by the exceeding shyness she saw in me.