Naguib Mahfouz - The Mirage

I made up my mind to flee from my memories, even if it meant facing up to the critical problem that I’d been running away from just a short while earlier, namely, the problem of what I was going to do with my life. I mustn’t leave things to chance, I said to myself. I’d find a way to get rid of Rabab’s furniture, then move to a new neighborhood. But did I really want to move somewhere far away? How badly I wanted to flee, but I was too weak to leave Cairo. This was how I felt; it was a certainty for me. And would I really abandon my mother? Would I be capable of abandoning her? For a long time the desire to leave her had come to me in the form of vague dreams. But could I actually do it? It was a critical step, one that I was well-advised not to take without serious thought and consideration. Why had I been so cruel to her? What was I avenging myself on her for? I knew for a certainty that the mere thought of her could well send me flying back into her arms, weeping and repentant. What an odious love it was, a love from whose grip I didn’t know how to free myself.

I went back to the square a little after three in the afternoon, and I found myself remembering Alfi Bey Street with my usual enthusiasm. Not far from the tram stop I glimpsed a colleague of mine from the ministry, but I ignored him. However, he happened to see me as well. Coming up to me with a solemn, concerned look on his face, he extended his hand and said, “I’m so sorry to hear of your loss, Mr. Kamil.”

A tremor went through my body and I wondered anxiously: How did he hear about it? And what does he know about it?

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

The man squeezed my hand and said, “Excuse me. I’m going to get a bite to eat, then come back to attend the funeral.”

My Lord! I thought the funeral had been held that morning or even the day before, and that my predicament had passed. However, I was still expected to attend, and they’d placed the obituary in the newspapers! What sort of predicament still lay in wait for me?

In a low voice I asked him, “Did you read the obituary in al-Ahram ?”

“No,” he said, looking bewildered. “I don’t think it appeared in al-Ahram . Otherwise we would have found out about it at the ministry. I read about it in al-Balagh .”

He slipped the newspaper out from under his arm, opened it up and pointed to a column, saying, “Here’s the obituary.”

Discomfited and embarrassed, I took the newspaper and scanned the following lines: “Daughter of the late Colonel Abdulla Bey Hasan passes away. She is survived by her son, Medhat Bey Ru’ba Laz, a prominent member of the Fayoum community, her son Kamil Effendi Ru’ba Laz, employee at the Ministry of War, and her daughter, the wife of Sabir Effendi Amin.”

I gaped into my friend’s face like a lunatic. Then I reread the obituary, my entire body trembling.

“That’s impossible!” I shouted. “This is a lie!!”

I went running like mad toward a nearby taxi, threw myself inside it and told the driver to get me to my destination as fast as he could. It was a lie, a story somebody had made up! I’d find out what had really happened, and then I’d know how to punish whoever it was that had played this ridiculous joke on me! The taxi went speeding along, my neck craning toward the road. Then there appeared a large tent that had been set up in front of our house. When I saw it, my chest heaved and my limbs began to tremble. The taxi stopped and I got out, hardly able to see what was in front of me. I wasn’t grieved or pained. I was crazy. I saw my uncle sitting at the entrance to the tent. Then I saw my brother Medhat coming toward me. I rushed up to him in a frenzy and grabbed his necktie.

“How could you keep the news from me?” I screamed in his face.

Freeing himself with difficulty from my grip, my brother cast me a worried, disturbed look. Then my uncle came up to us and said, “Where have you been, Kamil? We looked all over for you, and couldn’t find you.”

I looked back and forth between the two men. Then I looked strangely at the tent and muttered, “Is this real?”

“Get hold of yourself and be a man,” my uncle replied.

In a fearful whisper I asked my brother, “Did she really die?”

“I received a telegram at nine o’clock this morning,” he replied glumly. “This is God’s decree. Where have you been? I was scared to death we might to have go out for the funeral procession without you.”

“And what’s all the hurry?” I shouted angrily. “Why didn’t you put off the funeral till tomorrow?”

“The doctor said that the death had occurred at midnight last night, so we decided to have the funeral today.”

My feverish body shuddered and I muttered in dismay, “Midnight last night? But I saw her sleeping in bed this morning!”

A look of sadness flashed in Medhat’s eyes.

“She wasn’t asleep,” he said mournfully. “It was her heart, Kamil.”

My limbs quaking, I conjured an image of the despondency I’d seen in her face, and I strained my memory to recall what I’d seen. And I asked myself: Was it really the face of a dead person?

Feeling I was about to collapse, I said in a feeble voice, “I want to look at her one last time.”

Placing his hand on my shoulder, my brother said, “Wait a little while till you’ve pulled yourself together. Besides, the room is full of women now.”

However, I shoved him out of my way and went rushing pell-mell into the building, then took the stairs in leaps with my brother close on my heels. As I went into the flat, my ears were filled with the sounds of weeping. To my dismay I found myself surrounded by women on all sides. My eyes stopped focusing and I was overcome with fatigue and awkwardness. However, just then my brother caught up with me, grabbed my arm and led me toward the bedroom, saying, “Don’t resist. You need to be alone for a while.”

He sat me down on the long seat and closed the door. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed in front of me and said sadly, “Be rational, Kamil. We mustn’t be overcome by grief like women. Wasn’t she my mother, too? But we’re men.”

My mind began swinging like a pendulum in a frenzied kind of concentration between two things: the ill-fated argument I’d had with my mother the day before, and my seeing her that same morning. Then suddenly a memory flashed through my mind and I cried, “The doctor lied! She didn’t die at midnight! I heard her calling me as I was leaving the flat this morning!”

With a look of incredulity on his face, he asked, “And did you answer her call? Did you speak with her?”

Heaving a miserable sigh, I said, “No, I didn’t, because I was angry with her! I was so rude and cruel to her!”

Then we both fell into a grieved silence. My head was about to explode with pain and fever.

Then, as though I were talking to myself, I said, “I killed her, there’s no doubt about it. Lord! How could I have allowed myself to say what I said to her?”

My brother looked at me despondently.

Then he said to me in a menacing tone, “Don’t you dare give in to thoughts like that!”

My head spinning like mad, I said stubbornly, “I was only saying the truth. I killed her. Don’t you understand? If you want to verify the truth of what I’ve said, just call the public prosecutor and the medical examiner.”

Groaning, Medhat said uneasily, “You must be delirious. Otherwise, get hold of yourself, because if you don’t, I won’t let you march in the funeral procession.”

I let forth a cold laugh and said, “Our family is afflicted with the ‘parent-killing syndrome’! Our father tried to kill our grandfather and he failed. Then I tried to kill our mother, and I succeeded. And thus you can see that I was more successful than my father.”