Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

“I thought you’d gone to visit your colleague!” I said to her in astonishment.

She broke into a smile and said, “She wasn’t that sick after all, and she came back to work today before anyone could go to the trouble of visiting her.”

And I wondered: Will all my suspicions lead to nothing but a handful of wind? I only asked God for one thing, namely, to be able to live with her in peace and assurance.

As I was changing my clothes she said to me, “My aunt called and invited me to visit her this evening, and she asked me to invite you on her behalf.”

“God willing,” I replied unthinkingly.

The minute I opened my mouth I realized I’d spoken hastily, since I remembered the appointment at the Abbasiya Bridge. But did I really want to go? I was far from the window and the balcony and their influence now, so was I still thinking about this woman seriously? What sort of demon was beguiling me? My heart belonged to my beloved and to no one else. So why was the strange woman’s siren song so overwhelming and irresistible? The longer I thought about it, the more I surrendered to the fiendish summons until the only thing left to prevent me from going was the promise I’d made to myself to accompany my wife that evening. But, would she have invited me to visit her aunt with her if she harbored any ill intentions? I thought about it again with considerable effort, since there’s nothing more taxing for me than to have to choose between two different things.

However, after considerable hesitation, I said, “I’m sorry, I just remembered — I have an important engagement!”

In what seemed like genuine distress, she said, “Do you mean you won’t be able to go with me?”

Feeling as though my foot were slipping into a bottomless pit, I said, “Please convey my regrets to your aunt.”

I reached the Abbasiya Bridge a few minutes before the scheduled time. The weather was pleasant and it was quite dark, so I waited under a gas lamp. I’d come in a state of angst and tension that reminded me of the state I’d been in on the day the carriage took me to the pub on Alfi Bey Street for the first time. And all this for the sake of a woman with neither beauty nor grace. In fact, I would have been embarrassed to be seen with her in public. When it was nearly time for her to arrive, I was ridden by the same fear that I’d felt over and over during the wait that had begun that afternoon. What if the tragedy repeated itself? There was still time to flee. But I didn’t budge. This woman was my only chance to reclaim my lost confidence. Besides, I was possessed by a spirit of adventure the likes of which I’d never seen in myself. “Give it a try!” it said to me. “You won’t lose anything. Or, at least, you won’t lose anything new.” I was roused from my thoughts by a medium-sized car that pulled up in front of me next to the sidewalk. The car window opened and through it I saw the face of the strange woman, who was seated behind the steering wheel. She smiled at me and invited me to go around and get in on the other side. Muddled, I did as she said, and in less than a second, I was sitting next to her. I pulled the door closed and remained sitting right up against it, so self-conscious that I was hardly aware of what was around me. I could feel her eyes on my left cheek, but I kept looking straight ahead until she burst out laughing.

Then, in a voice that sounded delicate by comparison with the coarseness of her face and body, she said provocatively, “There’s no need to be shy anymore.”

She took off, handling the car with deftness and ease, and said, “Let’s go to Pyramids Road.”

She was driving so fast I was petrified, and whenever she was forced to slow down by other cars or a traffic light, I breathed a sigh of relief. Yet strangely, she stopped speeding like a maniac when she’d left the busy streets behind. After catching my breath, I looked furtively over at her and got a close-up view of one side of her homely face and her compact bosom. At the same time, I recalled an image of her plump bronze legs. Then I remembered that she was just an inch away from my leg, and my body went into an uproar. I was amazed to find her calm and serene as though she were accompanying her husband or her brother, not a strange man about to die of awkwardness and self-consciousness.

Her eyes still on the road, she asked me, “What shall I call you?”

“Kamil Ru’ba,” I replied briefly.

I contented myself with this rather than adding the title “bey,” which often drew a laugh.

“Nice name,” she murmured.

I felt as though I ought to ask her for her name, too. I’d chosen a suitable phrase to use and was gathering my courage to utter it when she said simply, “You can call me Inayat.”

“Nice name,” I muttered shyly, though all she heard was a whisper.

Then suddenly she turned toward me and said with a smile, “Strange that you’re so shy! Don’t you know that shyness is out of style? Even virgins have given it up without regret. So why are you holding on to it?”

I laughed nervously and made no reply.

“But enough of this,” she went on. “Medicine is only effective when it’s given at the right time. Now tell me, for heaven’s sake, what led you to mix with the Nubians in that filthy coffee shop?”

Wondering what to say, I thought for a while until I hit on a fib that would get me out of my fix.

I said, “One day I was coming back from a long trip, and it was the only place I could find to rest.”

“That’s about the first day. But what about the second and third days?”

A fitting answer came to me off the top of my head. So, overcoming my shyness, I said softly, “You were the reason for the second and third days.”

She looked at me with a laugh and said shrewdly, “Are you telling me the truth, or are you just trying to evade the question by flirting?”

“No, I’m telling the truth,” I said.

Looking back at the road coquettishly, she said, “So then, why do you keep sitting up against the door as though you don’t want to touch me?”

Feeling muddled, I didn’t know what to do.

“But we’re on the road,” I said apologetically.

She burst out laughing, then said, “We’re in the car, not on the road! Besides, even the road wouldn’t keep people like us from sitting up next to each other if we wanted to. Don’t make phony excuses. Now tell me, how old are you?”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“For shame! And how many women have you been with?”

I made no reply, feeling I wasn’t up to her and her questions. Then, as though she were surprised at my silence, she said reproachfully, “Do you mean to say you’ve never been with a woman before? Am I the first woman in your life? My Lord! Haven’t those green eyes of yours snagged anybody yet? If not, then I got to you just when you were about to drown, and may God reward me richly for my good deed! My Lord, who could believe this? How do you live, and what are you doing with your life?”

Again I made no reply, as her words had pained me without her realizing it. However, she may have seen the look of discomfort on my face, since she let up on me and asked me no more questions for some time. Then she asked me about my work, and I replied that I was a government employee. I added that I was on a short vacation, after which silence reigned once again. Meanwhile, she shifted slightly in my direction until her shoulder was gently touching mine. The contact sent life coursing through my cowering heart, whose pulse raced to the beat of my fear and shyness.

When I went on clinging to the door and not making a move, she stifled a laugh and said pithily, “A step from me and a step from you. Now are you still scared?”