Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

I went over to Rabab’s bed and took her hand.

“Didn’t I advise you not to go out?” I asked reproachfully. “What’s wrong? Why didn’t you come home?”

In reply, she pointed to her mother with a smile and said, “I wanted to, but Mama wouldn’t let me.”

“Her condition isn’t anything to worry about,” affirmed Madame Nazli hastily. “However, it could be very dangerous to be exposed to the outside air.”

“I’ll call the doctor right away,” I said decisively.

“We already did that,” said the mother. “In fact, it was the doctor himself who advised her not to go out. It’s nothing serious at all, though, and she’ll be back home within a week or ten days at the most.”

Feeling at a loss, I sat down on a plush sofa between the two beds. However, the mother’s seeming composure gradually made me feel calmer myself.

The mother then went on, saying, “Influenza is nothing serious in and of itself. However, we have to be careful that she doesn’t have a relapse.”

As I listened absently to the mother, I looked over at my beloved with both my eyes and my spirit. Rabab looked over at me with a wan smile. There was a look of exhaustion in her eyes, and a veil had descended over her usual sweet, sunny look. Silence reigned for some time. Then suddenly I remembered Gabr Bey and asked about him. The mother replied that he was on an inspection tour and would be back at the end of the week. When the clock struck eleven-thirty, I excused myself, kissed my wife on the forehead, and left the house.

* * *

The next morning, I left the house twenty minutes earlier than the usual time. Sabah had requested my permission to visit Rabab, so we turned household affairs over to Nafisa and I went right away to Gabr Bey’s house. When I met Muhammad and Rouhiya on the stairs, I greeted them and asked them about Rabab, and the little sister replied that she was fine. Once inside the flat, I went to the room, where I found Rabab in bed and her mother sitting on the couch. She returned my greeting with a gentle smile, but her eyes were so dull, she seemed not to have slept a wink the night before. Seeing her this way, I felt fretful and dejected. However, rather than letting on how I was feeling, I lied, saying, “I see that you’re better!”

With a resignation that made my heart ache, she replied, “Thanks be to God.”

I sat near her on the edge of the sofa and gazed steadily into her face. She’d wrapped her head in a brown handkerchief that framed her face, which looked gaunt and pale, and her eyes were solemn and lackluster. A pall of gloom descended over my spirit, the world looked dismal to me, and her face looked ashen and unattractive.

Noticing my dejection, Madame Nazli said in astonishment, “Is this the first time you’ve seen somebody with a cold? You pamper her too much, Kamil!”

It consoled me somewhat to see that the person who was making light of her condition was her mother herself, since if my wife had been suffering from something truly worrisome, her mother would have been beside herself. I leaned slightly toward the bed and placed my hand on her cheek, which was hot.

However, she smiled at me and said, “If I’m not doing well, it’s because of some insomnia that came over me last night. If I can manage to sleep even a couple of hours, I’ll get my energy back.”

“Try to sleep no matter what it takes,” I said imploringly.

I gazed into her eyes for a long time. She looked at me for a minute, then quietly looked down again. I had to go, so I got up, promising to visit again after coming back from the ministry. Then I left.

I arrived at the ministry at ten past eight and set to work. However, the work wasn’t sufficient to make me forget myself. I went back to thinking about Rabab. I pictured the grave look in her eyes and felt a forlornness I couldn’t explain. I tried valiantly to lose myself in the task at hand, but it did no good. I was defeated by my own thoughts, which have always had a tendency to create fear out of nothing. Feeling more worried than ever, I thought to myself: Here’s Rabab unable to come home and looking gaunt and frail, so how can I be at peace? And how can I leave her? Faintheartedness in the face of the most minor misfortune was nothing new to me. After all, there were countless times when I’d been unable to sleep on account of some minor indisposition afflicting my mother. So, I thought, maybe this fear I’m feeling is an effect of that chronic faintheartedness of mine. But oh, what a terrible, heavy gloom had come over me! My heart shrank in fear and pain as though it were holding back a cry for help that was trying to make itself heard. Why torture myself by forcing myself to endure such a wait for no reason? And with that, I folded up my papers and requested permission to leave, explaining that my wife was ill. I left the ministry at nine-thirty and got to the house a few minutes before ten. The closer I got to the house the more forlorn I felt, and I entered the building in near dread. I rang the doorbell, and before long it opened. But to my astonishment, the person who opened the door for me was Dr. Amin Rida. The doors to the small parlor onto which the front door opened were closed, and he was the only person there. I hadn’t seen him since the day of the luncheon that had been hosted in this same house. What on earth would have brought him here at such an early hour? And why would he be staying alone in this closed room?

I extended my hand, saying, “Peace be upon you!”

“And upon you be peace,” he replied as he extended his hand in turn.

I seemed to notice him looking at me strangely through his spectacles as he said, “Won’t you come in?”

Then he turned away from me, saying, “I’ll wait for you in the reception room.”

Then he headed for the reception room, opened the door, and went in. As for me, I went to the large parlor, opened the door and went in, then proceeded to Madame Nazli’s room. However, I’d hardly taken two steps when my ears were bombarded by an eerie sound that I don’t know how to describe. Was it a prolonged sigh? A muffled scream? Whatever it was, it was clearly coming from beyond the closed door to Rabab’s room. I went rushing toward the door, turned the knob, and went in, my heart aflutter with dismay. I looked over at the bed and saw Rabab lying there. She was covered up to the neck and her handkerchief was wrapped around her face from the top of her head to below her chin. Her eyes were closed and her face looked haggard and sallow, with a frightening whiteness to it. The handkerchief-bound face brought back vague memories that I didn’t have time to clarify. However, it awakened an unspoken terror deep within me. The next moment I became aware of the fact that Madame Nazli was sitting on the edge of the sofa sobbing piteously with her head buried in the bed pillow. As for Sabah, who hadn’t seen me come in, she stood at the foot of the bed weeping and wailing.

Lord! Had Rabab really died?

I cried like a madman, “Tell me what’s happened!!”

Turning toward me, Sabah shouted hysterically, “Sir! Sir!”

The woman looked up in obvious terror and gaped into my face with eyes red from weeping. For a moment she froze and neither spoke nor wept as though my arrival was, to her, a fate worse than death. Then she gasped and burst into tears. I looked back and forth between the two women in a daze, then my eyes came to rest on the handkerchief-bound face. How was I to submit to the verdict of this terrifying reality? My shattered heart made me want to throw myself on my wife and to blubber and scream till I died. But I didn’t move a muscle. A strange force caused me to stay frozen in place and filled me with a ruthless madness. I was overtaken by a wild rage that was willing to defy the power of death itself and the tyranny of Fate. I refused to believe my eyes, and it was impossible to convince me. What did this mean?