Naguib Mahfouz - Adrift on the Nile

He answered, in a voice that reminded me of Mustafa Rashid: "Yes."

"What are you doing?"

"I am sharing the throne with my sister Hatshepsut."

Earnestly I said: "Many people ask why you languish in her shadow."

"She is the Queen."

"But you are also the King."

"She is powerful, and she wishes to have dominion over everything."

"But you are the greatest general of Egypt, and the most mighty judge…"

"But I have not yet leaped into battle, or passed judgment!"

"I am telling you what you will become. Do you not understand?"

"And how do you know that?"

"From history. Everyone knows that."

He appeared to my eyes. He was looking at me with the expression people reserve for idiots. I persisted. "It is history. Believe me."

"But you are speaking of a future which is unknown."

And I said, like someone who is speaking in a nightmare, helplessly: "It is history! Believe me!"

SCENARIO FOR A PLAY

The major theme of the drama is the Serious versus the Absurd.

Absurdity is the loss of meaning, the meaning of anything. The collapse of belief — belief in anything. It is a passage through life propelled by necessity alone, without conviction, without real hope. This is reflected in the character in the form of dissipation and nihilism, and heroism is transformed into mockery and myth. Good and evil are equal; and one is adopted over the other — if adopted at all — with the simple motive of egotism, or cowardice, or opportunism. All values perish, and civilization comes to an end.

What must be studied in this context is the problem of religious people who take the path of the absurd. They are not lacking in faith, but still, in a practical sense, they lead futile lives. How can this be explained? Have they misunderstood the nature of religion? Or is it their faith which is unreal, which is a matter of routine — a rootless faith, which serves merely as a cover for the most vile kinds of opportunism and exploitation? This point demands closer study, as does the question of whether I should deal with it in the play or treat it as an independent issue.

As for seriousness, it means belief. But belief in what? It is not enough for us to know what we must believe in. It is also necessary that our belief has the sincerity of true religious faith, plus faith's astonishing power to inspire acts of heroism. If this is not the case, then our belief is no more than a serious form of the absurd. All this must be expressed through situation and action, whether it be belief in humankind, or in science, or in both together. In order to simplify the issue I will say that mankind of old faced absurdity, and escaped it through religion. And today again, man faces absurdity; but how can he escape this time? It is pointless to entertain hopes of communicating with people in a language other than the one they use; and we have acquired a new language, which is science. This is the only language in which we can articulate greater and lesser truths. For they are the old truths after all, once contained in the language of religion; and they must now be re-presented in the new language of man.

Let us look to the scientists for example and method. It seems that they are never trapped by absurdity. Why? Perhaps because they have no time for it! Perhaps also because they are permanently in contact with reality. Relying on a successful methodology of proven worth, they are not assailed by doubt or despair. One among them may spend twenty years solving an equation; and the equation will provoke new interest, and consume new lifetimes of research, and thus another firm footstep will be taken along the path of truth. The abode of scientists smells sweet; it is the smell of progress, of success. Questions like "Where do we come from?" and "Where are we going?" and "What is the meaning of life?" present no temptation for them. They give no intimation of absurdity. Real knowledge provides an ethical system in an age when morals are crumbling. It is manifested in a love of truth; in integrity in judgment; in a monastic devotion to work; in cooperation in research; and in a spontaneous disposition toward an all-embracing, humanist attitude. Is it possible, on the level of the particular, for scientific excellence to replace opportunism in the hearts of the new generation?

In any case, it is best for now that I occupy myself no further with the theme. I shall return to it after a summary of the other elements I need for the work.

I imagine the scenario to unfold in the following fashion:

A young woman launches an attack on a group of men in order to change them. She must succeed in this by way of art — if not, then the play has no meaning. A serious woman and absurdist men. I require a love story. It would be truly interesting if they were all to fall in love with her and she had to choose one of them; or if she should fall, without knowing it, in love with one of them. There must be a dramatic tension between the love interest and the problem of the serious and the absurd, so that the play does not flag. But will it develop as a love story within the framework of an intellectual conflict? Will it perhaps be confined to intellectual discussions and whispered intimacies? And how, and when, will the plot develop to a conclusion in an artistically convincing way? Will it be based on debate or on emotion? I lack some important, essential thing; what is it? How can absurdists find any kind of creed? And what is the extent of this creed? Is it enough for it to be a belief in society? I mean, is that sufficient for heroism to be created anew?

I am at least aware of the ideas that I must crystallize and clarify to construct a plot. I should now record some basic facts and observations about the characters in this scenario — under their own names, for the time being. Perhaps then I will be delivered from confusion, since it is possible that a plot may arise spontaneously if I can analyze them and determine their basic attributes.

CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

(1) AHMAD NASR

A civil servant, by all accounts competent, with great experience in the practical matters of daily life. Happily married, with a teenage daughter, and religious, I think out of habit. All in all a normal person; I do not know how he will serve the aims of the play. But there is one important question: Why does he smoke the water pipe? Leaving aside what people say about sexual drives, is there something he is trying to escape? But in any case he must be created anew in the sense that he is, deep down, not convinced that his job and his family should take all his energy. In a corner of his mind, he feels that he is responsible. That he must be responsible for what goes on around him. And because he is a believer, he is the most well-balanced of all of them — but in spite of that, or perhaps because of that, it grieves him that he is a person of no consequence in life whatsoever. Thus we can consider his well-known concern with small problems — as we can his addiction — as a kind of escape from the feelings of absurdity that gnaw at him. He will entertain this secret misery unconsciously.

On the outside, he will remain the steady person, the believer, the efficient and untroubled man — until the heroine shows him his true self, perhaps through his love for her.

(2) MUSTAFA RASHID

A lawyer. No harm in my leaving him as such in the play, to justify his powers of argument. Charming, and cynical in the extreme. Married to a woman he does not love — perhaps out of a desire for her salary more than anything else. Although he is constantly searching for an ideal woman, he does not in fact pursue erotic liaisons on the houseboat. He is a strange man, doubtless harboring some deep secret. Perhaps it is addiction. He is completely aware of his spiritual emptiness, and finds solace in the water pipe and the Absolute. But he is apparently unaware of the deception that he is practicing on himself. He strives for the impossible without any method or any real effort, relying solely on intoxicated meditations. It is as if the Absolute is simply an excuse for addiction, but gives him even so a feeling that he has risen above his real vapidity. Like many whom I meet at social gatherings, he is apparently exquisitely cultured but inwardly hollow, crumbling, stinking of his own miserable decay.