Naguib Mahfouz - The Dreams

At the station’s platform, I saw a group of men, their expressions dripping with evil and aggression. My fears mounting, I went back to my cabin. A handsome woman came in, taking a seat not far from me. “Did the men bother you?” I asked her.

“They are extremely polite and well-mannered,” she replied.

Assailed by doubt, I suspected her of conspiring with them to attack me. I went to another car to prepare to defend myself. When the train arrived at the Land of Light, I got off at its first park, where there were endless breaths of breeze perfumed with the scent of roses, jasmine, and henna trees.

Sleepiness slipped through my eyelids, and I surrendered myself to it, forgetting all about my wallet and my fears. I slept a deep, quiet sleep, to the sounds of music welling from within.

This was a production company: here was the managing director informing me that text I had presented to them had been read by the director and that he was satisfied with it.

“Here’s the contract and the check,” he said, “although we have apportioned the text thus: your name is on the story, while the distributor’s name is on the scenario, and my name is on the dialogue. This is all for the sake of the film’s box office success.”

I accepted this grudgingly, when the film’s director entered, and looked over the contract. “Where am I in all this?” he shouted.

“Maybe we can put your name on the story along with the author’s,” the producer replied.

Anger overcoming me, I said, “I give up any claim to the story whatsoever.”

But then the managing director told me, “We’re honest and dependable in how we treat people — so we won’t permit your name to be cut.”

The personal chamber of the Personnel Director. I was standing in front of his office, asking him how could he have passed me over for promotion when the law was utterly on my side? So he told me, “File a court case, and you’ll win the suit.”

I went to the head of investigations and presented my complaint, but he upheld what the administration had done. Yet it confused me that his face was an exact duplicate of that of the Personnel Director.

Straightaway I went to my lawyer and explained my predicament. He promised me that all would turn out well. I paid the fee in advance, but became perplexed again when I saw that his face was also identical to that of the Personnel Director and of the Head of Investigations.

I visited my doctor, who examined me thoroughly. But his face, too, was just the same as those I had seen before him. On my way home at the end of the day, I felt a cold hand gripping my neck. A voice behind me commanded, “Your money or your life.”

I gave him all the money I had with me; he took it and fled. Upset, I stopped and asked myself, Where had I heard that voice before ?

I paused with the foreign general manager watching the wedding, with women ululating joyfully and men pounding drums. He walked with me to his office, asking about this racket that undoubtedly irritated the tourist guests.

“This is the traditional Egyptian wedding, one of the failsafe money-makers for the hotel,” I told him.

But he answered, “The contract stipulates there will be no disturbances.”

“I cannot deliver that,” I replied.

He retorted in fury, “This is an order — you must carry it out.”

Immediately I went to the Central Administration, and presented the matter to the director. “This foreigner’s knowledge and experience have helped us a lot,” he declared. “So you reach agreement with him, on his terms — or you quit.”

At this, I went out, my destiny in doubt.

I restored the old home in which I was born, and when the workers were finished, I went to it and inspected its rooms, marshalling my memories.

I went out onto the balcony. Through the gaps in its latticed windows, I saw Bayt al-Qadi Square, with the Gamaliya Police Station and all else that belonged to it — the public water faucet and the Pasha’s Beard trees.

At that moment, I heard a commotion inside — and saw my childhood companions, whom God had taken away, running toward me joyfully. Afterward, they sang the patriotic hymns of our youth, when an officer accompanied by soldiers broke into the house.

All went silent as the man asked me about who had been singing. I said there was no one there but me. So they searched the house, before taking me to the station — where I was accused of concealing wanted criminals and of incitement to overthrow the ruling regime.

Later, the lawyer told me, “Don’t worry: they haven’t a single thing on you.”

But I was far from reassured.

The employees were relaxing in this reception hall, and I was playing dominoes with the director of my office. Suddenly the minister arrived: he announced that he was appointing my office’s director to my position, while putting me on pension.

My colleagues were alarmed. Thinking the matter over among themselves, they decided it was against the law. But then they were divided into two groups: one group wanted to approach the minister amicably, while the other demanded his removal for scoffing at the law.

The argument between them grew heated, degenerating into the trading of slurs and insults, then blows with hands and feet. When I complained that their behavior had doomed my cause to failure, they pushed me until I fell on my face.

All the while, the minister was watching, guffawing uproariously.

I went to the public bath to remove whatever clung to my body and my soul. As I stood naked in the steam room, waiting for whoever would massage me, a handsome young woman came in.

Exposing all of her charms, she began to rub me delicately and tenderly. This upset the others present terribly.

But I paid them no mind — and thanked Fate for its blessings!

I was walking along with the employees of my office when I saw the ugliest city in existence. The employees suggested we improve the streets and squares, and create gardens too.

Meeting them in my office, I told them I was interested in what would benefit the people, such as public health spending, the provision of schools, water, and electricity. Then I asked the leading citizens to offer ideas of how to tempt themselves to invest their own money to bring all this into reality.

Debating with me, my friend declared, “The Egyptian, by nature, is either a peasant or a craftsman. As for progress in administration or politics,” he insisted, “that is best left to foreigners or naturalized Egyptians.”

“Nature has nothing to do with this,” I told him. “But the foreigners and those who have taken our nationality shared the power and the money and created a vacuum of creativity. Then the situation changed when the native Egyptian participated in the revolution against the French occupation, and then against the British as well, and pledged his allegiance to Urabi, Sa’d Zaghlul, and Gamal Abd al-Nasser.