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Naguib Mahfouz: Adrift on the Nile

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Naguib Mahfouz Adrift on the Nile

Adrift on the Nile: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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A stunning novel by the widest-read Arab writer currently published in the U.S. The age of Nasser has ushered in enormous social change, and most of the middle-aged and middle-class sons and daughters of the old bourgeoisie find themselves trying to recreate the cozy, enchanted world they so dearly miss. One night, however, art and reality collide — with unforeseen circumstances.

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Khalid Azzuz looked toward Ali al-Sayyid. "So does the press have any news?" he asked.

Ali indicated Layla with a lift of his chin. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is here before you."

"But I heard the most astonishing facts…"

"Don't bother our brains with it," Anis said cynically. "Whatever else we get to hear, this world of ours will still be here, the same as ever it was, absolutely nothing happening at all."

Mustafa Rashid cleared his throat. "And what's more," he said, "the world does not concern us any more than we concern it. In any way at all."

Anis agreed. "As long as the pipe is still being passed around, what does it matter to you?"

Khalid regarded him, delighted. "Wisdom," he said, "from the mouth of the intoxicated!"

"Let me tell you what happened to me today with the Director General," Anis continued, and the story of the pen provoked a storm of laughter. "Pens like that are used to sign peace treaties," Ali said finally.

The water pipe continued on its glowing, melodious way. A halo of midges clustered around the neon light. Outside, beyond the balcony, darkness had set in. The Nile had vanished save for a few geometric shapes, some regular, some irregular: the reflections of the streetlights on the opposite bank, and the illuminated windows of the other houseboats. The Director's bald pate loomed, like the hull of an upturned boat, in the embrace of darkness. He must surely be a scion of the Hyksos kings, and one day would return to the desert… The worst thing Anis had to fear was that the evening would come to an end like the youth of Layla Zaydan, like the gray ash encroaching on the heart of the embers…

Who was it who had said that revolutions are plotted by the clever, fought by the brave, and profited from by cowards?

Amm Abduh came and took the pipe away to change the water. Then he brought it back and left again without uttering a word. Khalid Azzuz wiped his gold-rimmed spectacles, declaring his admiration for the old man. Ahmad Nasr broke his customary silence. "A man from the stock of dinosaurs," he said.

"We should thank God that he's past his prime," added Mustafa Rashid. "Otherwise there wouldn't be a single woman left for us!"

Anis related the conversation he had had with the old man.

"The world needs a giant like him to solve its political problems," said Ali.

The pipe gurgled louder in the momentary silence that followed. From outside came the croaking of frogs and the chirp of crickets. Through the spreading veil of smoke, Layla's hand crept into Khalid's; friends of a lifetime, a solace to one another. Ahmad's long, hooked nose was rivaled only by Ali's — though the latter was set in a wider, paler face. Beyond the balcony the darkness spoke, and said: _Concern yourself with nothing._ Borne down on the rays of a dull red star, it had come, across a hundred million light-years, to reach the smoking party. _Do not make your life a burden,_ it said. _Even the Director General will one day be gone, as was the ink from your pen._ And there was no care left now in his heart, not since they committed his precious ones to the ground… If you really want to perpetrate some piece of idiocy, to make people stare, then strip off your clothes and prance around in Opera Square — where you will find the statue of Ibrahim Pasha on his charger, pointing at the Continental Hotel. Which must be the most bizarre advertisement for tourism in the entire country…

"Is it true that we will die someday?"

"Wait until it's broadcast on the news."

"Anis Zaki is philosophizing!"

"And he's brought up something new this time!"

"What was that last joke?" Layla wondered.

"There are no jokes anymore," Mustafa replied. "Not now that our lives have become a sick joke."

Anis gazed out into the darkness beyond the balcony. He saw a huge whale quietly approaching the houseboat. It was not the strangest thing he had seen under cover of night, true; but now it gaped as if intending to swallow the houseboat whole. The conversation went back and forth among the smokers regardless, and so he decided to wait, likewise regardless, and see what happened. The whale came no closer; and then it winked, saying: _I am the whale that saved Jonah._ And then it retreated — and vanished. Anis laughed, and Layla asked him what he was laughing at.

"Strange apparitions," he replied.

"So why don't we see them?"

He replied, still busy with the water pipe: "As the great sheikh says: "He who turns this way and that will arrive at nothing."

An unrestrained volley of expostulations followed. "No sheikhs here, you old fraud!"

"Who can tell for sure where the next earthquake will strike!"

"And even so, there's singing and dancing everywhere."

"If you wanted to have a really good laugh, then why not look at the earth from above."

"Lucky they who look down from above."

"Although when the new finance bill comes into force, all our minds will be at rest."

"Does the bill apply to animals as well?"

"I fear it applies primarily to animals…"

"We could always emigrate to the moon."

"You know what I'm afraid of? That God is sick of us."

"Like everything is sick of everything else."

"Like Ragab is sick of his sweethearts."

"Like being sick of it is sick of being sick of it."

"And the solution, is there no solution?"

"Yes indeed — that we all pull together and change the world!"

"Or we stay as we are, which is better — more long-lasting, you see."

The houseboat shook at the approach of footsteps. They waited for Ragab to appear, but instead there came in a gay, lively woman whose plump figure had one fault only, which was that her bust was a little fuller than her hips. Saniya Kamil! She kissed everyone in greeting, meeting their gaze with gray eyes. Ali al-Sayyid offered her the seat next to him. "We haven't seen you since last Ramadan!" he said. He kissed her hand twice. "A passing visit?"

"A visit for always!" she replied.

"That means that your husband has left you!"

"Or that I have left him," she said, taking the water pipe.

She puffed voraciously and said, to satisfy the curiosity around her: "I caught him flirting with the new neighbor!"

"Salacious news!"

"And I should think they heard me on the seventh floor!"

"Bravo!"

"So I left the house and the children and went to my mother in Maadi."

"That is a shame — but necessary, for the renewal of married life."

"And the first idea that came into my head was to come and visit my houseboat here!"

"Absolutely right! An eye for an eye!"

Mustafa indicated Ali. "Now's the time for the emergency husband!" he said to Saniya.

"Why can't it be my turn this time?" Anis demanded heatedly.

Ali humored him. "I've always been Saniya's standby, for a long time now — "

"And I — "

"You are our lord, and the jewel in our crown, and the master of our pleasures; and if you were ever to bother with love, you could have all you wanted and more…"

"Liar."

Ali pointed to the water pipe. "Anyway, you've no time for love!"

"Bastards! Let me tell you the story of what happened with the Director General."

"But you have recounted every detail. Have you forgotten, master of pleasure?"

"Damn you all! Your lives will be over before you get the message!"

The water pipe circulated, favoring Saniya, who had not smoked since Ramadan. She's dark, nervous, likes to laugh, thought Anis. And she never forgets her children even in the intoxication of love and kif. She will go back to her husband in the end. But she will live with him one year and leave him the next, swearing always that it is his fault. Ragab brought her the first time, just as he had brought Layla, for he is the god of sex, the provider of women for our boat. I knew an ancient forebear of his who walked the forests before one house was built on the face of the earth, who in the arms of women would bury his fears of animals and darkness and the unknown and death. Who had a radar in his eyes and a radio in his ears and a grenade for a fist. Who achieved extraordinary victories before expiring exhausted. And as for his great-grandson, Ragab…

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