Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

Then one night as I lay on my back waiting for sleep to overtake me and as my beloved lay slumbering beside me, my thoughts took me to such faraway places that I forgot what was around me, or nearly so. There came over me a feeling of loneliness that was reinforced by the surrounding darkness. Then, ever so gradually, I felt an energy pulsating in my body, like the energy that used to be stirred up by darkness and loneliness. Beside myself with joy, I nearly shouted out loud. I turned to my slumbering beloved, wakening her with kisses until she opened her eyes with an irritation that soon turned to bewilderment. Several seconds passed before she came to. Then she put her arms around my neck and I drew her to me with passionate longing. However, no sooner had I done so than everything went back to the way it had been before. In less than a second, frigid death had stolen into my body, then taken it over entirely, and I reverted to a state of wordless confusion and humiliation. We exchanged a strange look in the night’s soft glow, and judging from the look on her face, she hadn’t understood a thing.

“Were you dreaming?” she asked.

What a fitting word she’d chosen, however arbitrary the choice. The incident shook me so violently, it put an end forever to the faint hopes I’d occasionally entertained. I experienced similar moments of solitude in the darkness of the night when my beloved was sound asleep and the strange pulsations would come back to me, but I didn’t have the courage to wake her up again. Instead, I found myself descending anew into the abyss from which marriage had extricated me just a month earlier. And without understanding how, I became enslaved once again to the infernal habit that no husband before me had ever known. The confusion and pain I felt were indescribable. How could this happen to me when I worshipped the very ground she walked on? How could it happen, when a single glance at her face was more precious to me than the world and all its consolations? She was my happiness, my world, my very life!

* * *

One day I noticed that she seemed to want to talk about something that was on her mind. My heart began fluttering with anxiety and fear. However, I couldn’t ignore what I saw, and I preferred to meet the danger head-on rather than add something new to the litany of secret worries and obsessive thoughts that were already plaguing me.

“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”

Looking anguished and hesitant, she made no reply.

More worried than ever, I said fearfully, “Tell me what it is, and don’t hide anything from me.”

Then with a frustrated sigh she said, “My mother.”

What she’d said struck terror in my heart. What was wrong with this woman, who refused to live and let live? How I detested her at that moment.

However, feigning nonchalance, I said, “What about her, Rabab?”

With her eyes glued to her feet she said softly, “She keeps asking me if there’s something ‘on the way.’ ”

Amazingly, I caught on right away to what she meant by the figure of speech. I understood by instinct, or perhaps by virtue of an unspoken fear.

Even so, I asked, “What do you mean, Rabab?”

Pointing to her stomach she whispered, “She means: is there anything new here!”

Unnerved, I looked down, grieved and not knowing what to say. What was the woman really asking about? Perhaps she wanted to know about other things indirectly. Be that as it may, I felt unspeakably bitter toward her. I stole a glance over at Rabab and found her looking somber and pensive. Was she really upset about her mother’s question, or did she have some other motive for telling me about it? Had she come to share her mother’s concern and apprehension? And why would she hide behind her mother? Guile didn’t befit someone with her beauty and purity of heart! Besides, there was no need for her to beat around the bush. And thus it was that fear prevented me from appreciating the position that my poor girl found herself in. I was embarrassed to the point of exhaustion. However, I focused my attention on a single aim, namely, determining how much Madame Nazli knew of our secrets.

“What did you say to her?” I inquired.

“I told her the truth,” she said simply.

“The truth!” I cried fearfully, my heart convulsing sharply.

“What’s wrong?” she asked with a bewildered stare.

“Did you really tell her the truth?!” I shouted.

“Yes,” she stammered quickly. “I told her there wasn’t anything new!”

And with that, I heaved a sigh of relief! She’d been referring to a “truth” other than the one I’d had in mind. Yet I was still bothered.

“Rabab,” I said fervently, “is that all she said? Please don’t hide anything from me. You know how much you mean to me!”

I could see the innocence in her eyes as she said uneasily, “What are you wondering about, Kamil? I didn’t tell her a thing more than what I’ve told you. She asked me about the matter, and I had no choice but to answer her honestly. As you know, it’s something it wouldn’t do any good to lie about. Do you think I was wrong? Or did you want me to pretend to be pregnant?”

Somewhat relieved, I said, “Of course not, sweetheart. You did the right thing by being honest.”

To myself, though, I was thinking: I’ll never know a moment’s rest as long as that woman is near me. O Lord! I’m keeping my worries all to myself, without a single friend or advisor to my name. I’ve had it with her mother, my mother, and myself! Then the old question came back to me: Is the thing we lack really necessary for married life? Does my beloved experience the same sorts of animal desires that drove me to take up my iniquitous habit? Is it conceivable that my pristine, chaste beloved would feel that same sort of untamed lust? The possibility was too abhorrent to imagine!

* * *

At last my vacation came to an end and I went back to the warehousing section at the ministry, where the employees gave me a warm welcome back. I didn’t have a single friend among them, but the nature of the occasion — namely, a newlywed husband’s return from his honeymoon — caused them to forget their usual reserve, and they approached me, some of them with congratulations and others with jokes, all of which I received with discomfort and embarrassment. They talked a lot, and one of them warned me against overdoing it. They got so involved in their conversation, in fact, that they forgot all about me. They got on the subject of the nature of man and nature of the woman and started citing examples, incidents, and anecdotes. My heart burdened and my soul in agony, I listened to them covertly while pretending to examine the typewriter. How I wished one of them would cite a case like mine! However, “a case like mine” hadn’t even occurred to any of them. I listened till I thought my head would burst. Rabab was a woman. So, was what was true of other women — if the things I’d heard from the other employees were accurate — true of her also? Might she be getting bored with me? On the other hand, she seemed content. Never once had I seen her face but that it was aglow with happiness. Never once had she looked at me with anything but love and devotion, and surely her face wouldn’t lie. On the contrary, it was like an open book that couldn’t possibly conceal deceit or wrongdoing. They were lying! They were animals, and they saw other people as animals like themselves. However, I wasn’t fully reassured, and I wasn’t going to be reassured no matter how I tried to convince myself that things were all right. After all, the seed of doubt had been planted now.

When I was alone with my beloved that day, I looked pensively at her for a long time without saying a word.

Laughing, she said, “Do you miss your old habit of looking at me without talking?”