Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

“You would know more than I do about such matters, Doctor!”

“The fact is,” he said with a smile, “that I haven’t been back home for very long, and I only opened this clinic of mine a few days ago.”

Now I understood why I’d found his clinic empty, and why I hadn’t seen his sign before. However, I also realized that the trouble I’d put myself through had led nowhere, and I went back to feeling hopeless and despondent.

Then he went on, saying, “You’ve got nothing wrong with you. You’re fully capable of having marital relations, and you’ll do so one of these days, so don’t give in to despair. This is something that happens frequently to newly wed young men, but it isn’t long before they’re back to normal, though the problem may last longer with some than with others. Rest assured that your day will come. Meanwhile, I encourage you to come to me for cleansing to get rid of the slight prostrate congestion you’re suffering from.”

I listened to him with rapt attention, and with hope and despair still competing fiercely for the upper hand. When would my day come? And would it really come? The doctor had finished saying and doing all that he could say or do. However, I made no move to get up. Instead, I clung to my seat, my eyes fixed on him like someone pleading for help.

Then I asked, “What did you mean by ‘psychiatric clinics’?”

“Ah,” he said. “They’re a new type of clinic which I don’t think is available in our part of the world. However, don’t worry about what I said. I don’t think you’re in need of one.”

“You said I might be suffering from a psychological crisis. What did that mean?”

“I told you not to worry about what I’d said. I was overstating the case. At any rate, I’m not a psychiatrist, so I shouldn’t go into areas with you that might do more harm than good. Your healing lies within your own power, so don’t despair or lose confidence in yourself. Overcome your fear and anxiety, then expect recovery with full assurance.”

My last question to him was, “Is your opinion conclusive?”

“Yes,” he said confidently.

I left the clinic better than I’d been when I went in, and I went home feeling hopeful. I said to myself: Doctors don’t lie or make mistakes. And with that I was transported with joy. I returned home on foot, and on the way I passed the building where my wife’s family lived — the building of reminiscences — and my imagination carried me far away. Then, all of a sudden, my enthusiasm waned and I was gripped with anxiety, and before long I’d reverted to a state of sullenness and gloom. However, I kept repeating out loud to myself the things the doctor had told me, searching wherever I could for the confidence I lacked.

In spite of my perpetual anxiety, I cherished the hope of recovery. And as we carried on with our platonic married life, I was spurred on by this expectation. When I felt particularly anxious, I would steal a glance over at her, wondering to myself whether she was really as happy as she seemed, and whether she still loved me. As for her, she did truly appear to be happy and content, loving and devoted. By this time she’d stopped mentioning her mother, though I didn’t know whether the woman had stopped asking her questions, or whether my beloved was keeping from me the conversations that would take place between them. But God, how I loved her! Our shared life together hadn’t lost its magic for me. On the contrary, it had found a place in the deepest parts of my being. I would go into raptures over her as she sat next to me on the long seat or lay beside me in bed no less than I did in the days when she would appear on the balcony or in the window. And it was a miserable thing indeed that ill fortune had tainted those early days of our marriage, filled as they were with the most wonderful opportunities for happiness and bliss.

And as though ill fortune weren’t content to afflict me through myself, it had come to afflict me through my mother as well.

Despite her courtesy, my mother was no good at hiding her feelings. If her tongue didn’t give her away, her eyes did, and if her eyes didn’t give her away, her feelings made themselves known by the peculiar, passive way in which she was conducting herself. She’d become withdrawn, making her bedroom into a prison that she rarely left, and she seemed to have devoted herself entirely to prayer and worship. Nor was this prolonged estrangement lost on Rabab. As any other woman would have done, she — despite her gentleness and mild-mannered nature — would respond to my mother with irritation and anger. She never tired of saying to me, “Your mother hates me!” My mother, unwilling to change her behavior, would justify herself by saying she wasn’t good at mixing and social niceties anymore. Yet if I went to sit with her she would receive me graciously and with a smile, and speak to me with meekness and resignation. So it wasn’t long before I realized that there was something amiss, and that a thick barrier had gone up between us. I could see that I was dealing with a different person than the mother I’d known throughout my youth. Whenever I mentioned to her that my wife was upset by her aloofness, she would say to me testily, “Your wife doesn’t like me, and that’s all there is to it.”

As for me, I practiced being patient and forbearing even though pain was tearing me apart and my spirit was weighed down with sorrow.

Once my mother went to spend a couple of days at my sister Radiya’s house. Then, seemingly happy there, she stayed a third day and was about to stay a fourth. These were the first days we’d spent apart, and her absence weighed heavily on my heart. In fact, I felt an unbearable forlornness with her not in the house. Hence, I went to my sister’s house to bring her back, and she didn’t resist my overtures.

While we were on our way back I told her affectionately, “I couldn’t bear to let you stay away from home.”

Her lips parted in a limpid smile.

She was generally moved by a kind word with the innocence of a little child.

However, she said to me, “It seems to me that my presence in your house is meaningless. In fact, it seems to bother the two of you.”

Angered by her words, I said indignantly, “God forgive you for making such a false accusation! You’ve changed for no reason, Mama, and as a result, your perception of things has changed. All I can say is, God forgive you.”

Looking at me strangely, she said with a calm certainty, “Your wife doesn’t like me. Consequently, she doesn’t want me in the house. I would have thought that whatever your wife wants, you should want, too.”

I felt as though she was being deliberately unkind to me, and if it hadn’t been for my sincere desire to make peace, I would have lost my temper. Suppressing my anger, I said gloomily, “My wife doesn’t dislike you. On the contrary, she feels that you dislike her because of the cold, grumpy way you act toward her and your unwillingness to spend time with her. Shame on you for saying things that make my life miserable!”

Looking disconcerted, she didn’t say a word. Lord, how she’d changed! Couldn’t she grant me that bright smile of hers rather than this anemic one? Would she never go back to opening her heart to me in the confident, assured way she used to do? And I wondered: Is the only way to get her to pardon me and go back to being her old self for me to confide in her about my own sufferings so that she’ll know that, in reality, I haven’t married and I’m the most miserable man alive?

Then one day I came home from the ministry to find my wife in tears. Alarmed, I approached her feeling worried and pained. Sabah was present at the time, and she told me that she’d been working in the kitchen when my mother came in and hurled some scathing criticism at her. She said that my wife had intervened to put things right again, but that my mother had spoken to her sharply, and that she’d left the room in tears.