Naguib Mahfouz: Adrift on the Nile

"Wake up!"

He rubbed his eyes.

"Go to the Director General," the colleague said. "He wants to see you."

He looked at his watch. It was nearly ten. He staggered to his feet, his heart sinking. He went to the washroom and washed his face, and then he went to the Director General's office, and presented himself to him. The man fixed him with a cold look. "Sweet dreams," he said.

Pain and self-disgust prevented Anis from speaking. "I saw you with my own eyes," the man continued, "as I was passing through your department. Sleeping like a baby."

"I am ill."

"You should have taken the day off."

"I did not feel ill until I got to work."

"The truth is that you are chronically ill. Incurable, in fact."

Anis was seized by a sudden anger. "No!" he shouted roughly.

"Are you addressing me in that tone?"

"I said that I am ill! Do not make fun of me!"

"You have gone insane — there's no doubt about that."

And Anis shouted, in a voice like thunder: "No!"

"You madman! This is where your addiction has got you!"

"It would be better if you held your tongue!" Anis retorted.

The man leaped to his feet, his face pale. "You insolent man!" he shouted. "You evildoer — you drug addict!"

Anis, without thinking, seized the blotter and threw it at the Director General. It hit him on the chest, on his tie. Shaking, the Director General pressed a bell.

"If you had said another word," shouted Anis, "I would have killed you!"

Back in his own office, he encountered a heavy silence. He met nobody's eyes. He sat down stony-faced, completely cut off. He did not even feel the pain.

Shortly before the end of the working day, a colleague approached him. He spoke to Anis in a sympathetic whisper. "I am sorry to inform you that there has been an order for your dismissal, and that you are to be sent to the civil service tribunal."

He surrendered himself to the fates. It was the worst calamities that made you laugh.

While he was eating his midday meal, Amm Abduh told him that he had not managed to buy anything from the dealer. They had erred in ignoring his warning. What to do? He would try his luck with another dealer, but he could not be sure of the outcome.

Disasters gathered like winter clouds. He lay down on his bed and skimmed through a few chapters of a book on the age of martyrs. He read for a long time, but sleep did not come. Martyour after martyour fell, but sleep eluded him. Lying there became detestable. He rose, and began to prepare the room for the evening, to pass the time.

When disasters rain down like this, one cancels out the other. A mad joy with a strange taste takes hold. You can laugh from the bottom of a heart which no longer knows fear. And, what is more, the pleasant diversion of the civil service tribunal awaits! What is your full name? Anis Zaki, son of Adam and Eve. Age? I was born a thousand million years after the earth. Job? Prometheus Drugged. Salary? The price of twenty-five kilos of Egyptian beef. A dealer must be found, at least.

He went out onto the balcony. Amm Abduh's voice caught his ear; he was leading the afternoon prayer. He stood there like a mountain, dwarfing the rows of worshippers. There was a night watchman, a villager, a servant… A fleet of sailing boats, loaded with stones, was plying upriver. A wash of greenish-brown waves lapped monotonously, calmly against the houseboat, as if peace ruled the world. Acacia trees stood straight and tall along the bank like blessings, part of a different world.

Amm Abduh came in after the prayer, but found the room already prepared for the evening. Anis returned from the balcony. "You were chasing me, old man!" he said jokingly.

"What?"

"I dreamed that you were chasing me!"

"All's well with you, I hope?"

"What would you do if I sent you away from the boat?"

Amm Abduh laughed. "Everybody loves Amm Abduh," he said.

"Do you love the world, old man?"

"I love everything created by the Merciful."

"But sometimes it is hateful. Is that not so?"

"The world is beautiful, God grant you long life."

"Make sure you don't come back empty-handed."

"Our Lord is present."

The boat began its familiar shaking. Anis looked toward the door, to see who was coming early. Hardly had Amm Abduh left when Samara appeared. She looked harried and pale, her eyes full of apprehension and worry. The bloom of youth had dulled in her face. She shook his hand mechanically. Then they sat down, at some distance from each other. She noticed the room, prepared with extraordinary care for the evening. "Can life really go on as before?" she murmured.

"Nothing is as it was."

She closed her eyes. "I did not sleep for a minute."

"Neither did I."

She sighed, and then said: "Something irreplaceable has died in me."

"I have been hounded by death as well."

She held out the evening paper to him. "The body of a man in his fifties," she said. "Half naked. Sustaining fractures to the spine, legs, and skull. Hit by a car. The perpetrators fled. His identity, and therefore next of kin, have not been discovered."

He read the article, and then threw the newspaper aside. "We are back in hell again," he said.

"We never left hell," she replied.

"We never left hell," he echoed.

"We are really murderers."

"We are really murderers. And what is more," he continued, looking out at the Nile, "I am as good as jobless now." And he told the story of the Director General. They exchanged lifeless looks as she said how sorry she was.

"Have you any other source of income, apart from the Ministry?" she asked.

He laughed, in a way that dispensed with a reply. "Our friends pay the rent on the boat, and the expenses of our evening parties, but…"

"It is rare that someone is actually dismissed."

"He will tell every living person that I am a degenerate. A drug addict!"

"How dreadful! One catastrophe after another."

They withdrew into themselves.

And then the houseboat shook, again and again. The friends all came in together, and their faces were strange.

They fear trouble from Samara, Anis thought. Ragab asked him, pointing to the water pipe, why it was not filled and lit, and he replied that there was nothing to put in it. He thought: He's trying to make light of it, but in vain. It seemed that they all knew about the newspaper report, and it was not long before they also learned of his downfall at the hands of the Director General. "What disasters!" sighed Ali.

"We must get rid of the pipe immediately," said Ahmad earnestly.

They glared at him.

"The Director General could well organize a raid on the houseboat!" he argued; and then and there he rose to his feet, and hurled the pipe and the tobacco into the Nile. Then he threw himself down on a mattress. "We should consider this place a danger zone until things clear up," he said.

They looked at each other in undisguised misery. "Paradise has gone," said Anis.

And when no one replied, he spoke again. "That trip was doomed from the start. Why did you think of going out?"

"We must forget what is past," Ragab said sharply.

Samara snorted. "How can we forget, when there is a murdered man behind us!"

"That is why we must forget!" said Ragab harshly.

"It's beyond the bounds of possibility."

Ragab looked at her for a long time. No one knows what is going on in his head; no one knows about the trials of love. Could things get even worse than they already are? Ragab looked at everyone in turn. "I guessed what would happen here before I came," he said. "Now that we are at a distance from the event and at liberty to think calmly, we must declare our positions."

"I thought we had decided that it was all over!" said Ali in annoyance.