Naguib Mahfouz - Adrift on the Nile

They met his comment with laughter. "But taking refuge from what, O master of pleasures?" asked Ali.

"From your own emptiness!" replied Anis, and when the laughter had died down, he continued: "You are all modern-day scoundrels, escaping into addiction and groundless delusions…" And he turned and looked at Samara. The demons cackled inside him. A barrage of comments followed.

"At last he has spoken."

"A philosopher is born!"

All eyes were still turned on Anis. "And what about me?" Mustafa asked him.

"Escaping into addiction and the Absolute, you are hounded by the sense of your own worthlessness."

He could make out Samara's laughter among the roars of mirth, but avoided looking at her. He imagined her turmoil; he imagined her face; he imagined her innermost feelings — and then he continued: "We are all scum, we have no morals; we are pursued by a fearful demon by the name of Responsibility…"

"This night," said Ragab, "will go down in the annals of the houseboat."

Mustafa spoke again. "I bet tonight's kif has been smuggled from Moscow!"

"Anis! O philosopher!" It was Khalid's turn. "What about me — and Layla?"

"You are a depraved degenerate because you have no belief; or perhaps it's that you have no belief because you are depraved. As for Layla, she is a pioneer, but only in dissipation and addiction, not a martyour as she mistakenly believes."

"Hold your tongue!" shouted Layla.

But he merely pointed to Saniya, saying: "And you are a bigamist, you dope fiend!"

"You're mad!" screamed Saniya.

"No. Merely half mad. And also half dead."

"How dare you be so rude!"

Ali soothed her. "Now you are really angry, Saniya. He is the master of ceremonies, remember…"

"I will not be mocked in front of strangers!" she retorted.

The thunderous atmosphere threatened to overwhelm the merriment. Ragab, however, spoke firmly. "There are no strangers here. Samara is with us all the way."

"She may be with us, but only _all the way_ with you!"

"No," said Anis. "She doesn't care about a man who flees from his own emptiness into addiction and sex."

"What a night we're having, boys!" cried Ragab gaily.

"Who would have thought that you were Anis the Silent?"

"Perhaps he's regurgitating one of his books — the decline of civilization, for example."

And there is still a bomb inside me — I'm saving it for the Director General. Let the laughter bursting inside me calm down, so that I can see things clearly. Have the mooring chains of the boat parted? The full moon charges at the fragile door of our balcony. As for the midges, I understand at last their fatal fascination with the lamplight.

"You don't seem very happy," Ragab remarked to Samara.

She spoke without looking at Saniya, but her listless tone made it clear whom she meant. "That is how strangers are, in company," she said.

"No, I won't have it," Ragab said. "Saniya is a lovely woman — a kindly mother even when she's in love…"

"Thank you, Ragab," Saniya said benevolently. "You're the best of all of us to make my apologies to sister Samara."

"Let's not tie the knot of peace too firmly," said Khalid. "It might get boring."

The only sound was the gurgling of the water pipe. The ripples of sound spread out in the moonlight. His racing pulse told him that sleep would be hard on this tumultuous night. That he would experience the insomnia of lovers without love. He began to recall all the verses he knew from the poetry of demented lovers. The company disappeared, and he alone remained with the shining night. He saw a horseman, his steed galloping through the air just above the water's surface, and asked him who he was. The rider replied that he was Omar Khayyam, and that he had managed to escape death at last… He awoke to the sight of his outstretched leg next to the brass tray. Long and bony, pallid in the blue light. Hairy. Big toes with nails curved over, so long had he gone without cutting them. He could hardly believe that it was his leg. Astonishing, the way one's own limb could seem like that of a stranger… He realized that Mustafa was speaking. "Are we really as the master of ceremonies described, do you think?" he asked the company.

It was Khalid who replied. "It is not escape, or anything like that. We simply understand what we really are, as we should."

"This houseboat is the last refuge of human wisdom," added Ali.

"Is submerging yourself in dreams an escape?"

"The dreams of today are the realities of tomorrow."

"Is searching for the Absolute an escape?"

"What else can we do, for heaven's sake?"

"And is sex an escape?"

"It's creation itself, rather!"

"And what about the pipe — is that escape?"

"Escape from the police, if you like!"

"Is it escape from life?"

"It's life itself!"

"So why did our master of ceremonies attack us like that?"

"For ten years he's led a quiet life, with no need to make a stir of any kind. He didn't want to push his luck."

"And what a night it is, boys!"

Ahmad called for a little silence, so as not to dispel the delirium. The water pipe made its prescribed and unchanging round.

The moon had risen now beyond their field of vision. He was alone in having read the miserable defeat in Samara's eyes. Their faces appeared pale and sleepy, and serious as well, in spite of themselves. Mustafa fixed Samara with a quizzical look, and asked her her opinion on it all; but Ragab said: "The end of the night was not made for discussions."

What was it made for, then? They all left, save Ali and Saniya. It was not long before he was alone in the room. Amm Abduh came as he usually did and carried out his task without their exchanging a word, and then he left. Anis crawled out to the balcony, and saw the moon again, shining in the center of the studded dome of heaven. He spoke to it intimately. There is nothing like our houseboat, he murmured. Love is an old and worn-out game, but it is sport on the houseboat. Fornication is held as a vice by councils and institutions, but it is freedom on our houseboat. Women are all conventions and marriage deeds in the home, but they are nubile and alluring on the houseboat. And the moon is a satellite, dead and cold, but on the houseboat, it is poetry; and madness is everywhere an illness, but here it is philosophy, and something was something everywhere else but here; for here it was nothing. O, you ancient sage Ibur, summon for us your age, from which everything save poetry has melted away! Come and sing for us. Tell me what you said to the Pharaoh. Come, sage!

And the sage recited:

_Your boon companions lied to you;

These years are full of war and tribulation._

I said: Recite again, sage! And he sang:

_What is this which has come to pass in Egypt?

The Nile still brings its flood;

He who had nothing is rich now;

Would that I had raised my voice before._

What did you say also, sage?

_You have wisdom and vision and justice,

But you let corruption gnaw at the land.

See how your orders are held in contempt!

Will you order till there comes one who will tell you the truth?_

He awoke to a voice whispering his name.

He opened his eyes to find himself lying on his back on the balcony. A shining halo in the sky betrayed the moon, now hidden from his gaze. Where was he — and in what time?

"Anis!"

He turned his head, and saw Samara standing on the threshold of the balcony. He sat up, leaning on his elbows, looking up at her, not fully awakened from the intoxication of his dreams.

"I am sorry to have come back at such an unsuitable time!"

"Is it still the same night?"

"It's only an hour since everyone left. I'm truly sorry."

He shuffled over to lean against the railing of the balcony, and tried to remember.