Naguib Mahfouz: Adrift on the Nile

The question held up the flow of their ideas in an annoying and intrusive way. "Mammals," Mustafa Rashid replied sarcastically.

"The messenger's only duty is to deliver the message," Ali went on. "If you don't like the idea…"

Ragab interrupted him. "We have not heard the opinion of the ladies."

Layla raised no objection. Neither did Saniya. As for Sana, she suggested that Anis and Ahmad and Mustafa should be allowed to decide, "since they are the ones who need girlfriends!"

"No — no," protested Ali, "what an unthinkable idea — don't embarrass me, please!"

"But in that case," wondered Sana, pushing back a stray lock of hair from her brow, "why do you want her to come?"

"I have nothing to add!"

"If the midge is a mammal" — Anis pursued his train of thought — "how can we maintain that your friend is not in the same class?"

Ali addressed everyone, ignoring Anis' interruption. "Your freedom is guaranteed in every way. You can say or do what you like — smoke, tell your ribald jokes; there will be no investigations, no probes, no reporter's trickery of any kind. You can rest assured. But it would not do for you to treat her as a frivolous woman."

"_Frivolous_ woman?"

"What I mean is that she is an excellent person, just like any of you, who should not be treated as if she were… loose."

"Really," said Ahmad, "I don't understand anything."

"That is to be expected of you, O Nineteenth Century personified. Everyone else understands me without any difficulty at all."

"Perhaps," said Khalid, "in spite of those articles of hers, she's actually an unreformed bourgeoise."

"She is not bourgeois in any sense of the word."

"Why don't you tell us something about her," Mustafa suggested. "That would be more useful."

"Certainly. She's twenty-five. She graduated in English just before she turned twenty. She's an excellent journalist, better by far than most people her age. And she has ambitions in the artistic sphere which she hopes to realize one day. She looks at life from a serious angle, but she is very pleasant company. Everybody knows that she refused to marry a very well-to-do bourgeois man, in spite of her small salary."

"Why?"

"The man was under forty, the director of a firm, the owner of an apartment block — like Khalid here — and a relation on her father's side to boot. But, as I understand it, she did not love him…"

"If we can judge by her heart, then," said Khalid, "she's a radical."

"Call her progressive, if you like. But genuine and sincere as well."

"Has she ever been arrested?"

"No. I have known her as a colleague ever since she got her first job on _Kulli Shay'_ magazine."

"Perhaps when she was a student, then?"

"I think not, or else I would have found out about it during our long talks together. In any case, it wouldn't influence my opinion of her one way or the other."

Sana spoke. "Why do you want to invite such a dangerous woman to the houseboat," she asked, "when she can't entertain us in the least?"

"She must come," said Layla. "We need some new blood here."

"Make a decision," said Ali. "She's at the club now. If you like, I can call her on the telephone and ask her to come over."

"Did you tell her that it is the whale who gathers us all here?" Anis asked him.

Ali did not reply. He suggested taking a vote. Anis laughed at his own embalmed memories. He suggested that they bring Amm Abduh to add his vote as well. Ragab put his arm around Sana, and Ali rose to go to the telephone.

Half an hour after his telephone call, Ali al-Sayyid left his seat in order to be ready to welcome the newcomer at the door. Not long afterward, they felt the faint vibration of footsteps on the gangway. Ahmad wished aloud that they had hidden the water pipe so that they could feel easy in the presence of the visitor, but Ragab signaled contemptuously to Anis. "Pile it on," he said.

She appeared smiling from behind the screen, and came forward — followed by Ali — to meet their combined gazes in a calm, friendly, and unembarrassed way. All the men rose to their feet. Even Anis stood up, his white robe rumpled up over his shins. Ali began the conventional introductions. Ahmad offered to bring her a chair, but she preferred to sit on a mattress; and Ragab — involuntarily — moved closer to Sana in order to make room for her. Anis resumed his work, stealing occasional glances at her. He had been led, by what he had heard, to expect someone rather odd, and she was definitely a woman of character; but she was also quite charmingly feminine. From under drooping lids he saw that her dark complexion was undisguised by makeup. Her features were as open as her simple elegance, but in her gaze there was an intelligence that prevented him from fathoming her. He imagined that he had seen her before, but in what bygone age? Had she been queen or subject? Another furtive glance — but this time she showed him a new picture! He tried to absorb it all, but the concentration tired him out and he turned away to the Nile instead.

The customary hubbub of introductions and compliments was followed by a silence. The gurgle of the water pipe made a duet with the crickets. Adroitly, Samara avoided looking at the pipe in any meaningful way. When Anis passed her the mouthpiece she put it to her lips without smoking, by way of salutation, and then passed it to Ragab, who took it, saying: "Be at your ease."

She turned to him. "I saw you in your last film, _Tree Without Fruit_," she said. "I can say that you played your part extraordinarily well."

He was not so modest as to be embarrassed by praise. "Opinion, or flattery?" he asked warily.

"Opinion, of course — and one shared by millions!"

Anis looked through the smoke at Sana and, seeing her tame her rebellious lock of hair, smiled. The Director General himself, with all the power conferred on him by financial and administrative directives, could not control all "incomings and outgoings". Thousands of comets, scattered by stars, burned and frittered away as they were flung into the earth's atmosphere, and not one of them found their way into the archives. Nor were they entered in the register of incoming mail. As for pain, that was the heart's domain only…

Now Samara was addressing Khalid Azzuz. "The last story of yours that I read was the tale of the piper…"

Khalid adjusted his spectacles.

"The piper whose pipe turned into a serpent!" she continued.

"And since its publication," said Mustafa, "he well deserves the epithet of "python."

"It's a strange, exciting story," she said.

"Our friend is a leading light of the old school — the school of 'art for art's sake,'"said Ali. "Don't expect anything else from this houseboat!"

"Oh, I think it won't be long before the theater of the irrational, known generally as the absurd, will be founded here," said Mustafa.

"But the absurd has existed among us in abundance, even before it became an art," said Ragab. "Your colleague Ali al-Sayyid is known for his absurd dreams, and Mustafa Rashid strives after the absurd in its guise of Absolute. And our master of ceremonies here — his whole life, since he cut himself off from the world some twenty years ago, is absurd."

Samara laughed aloud, throwing off her gravity. "I am really a wisewoman, then!" she said. "My heart told me that I would find wonderful and interesting things among you!"

"Was it your heart that told you," wondered Ragab, "or Ali's tattle?"

"He said nothing but good!"

"But our houseboat is not unique, surely?"

"Perhaps not, but the more people there are, the fewer who can live in friendship."

"I never imagined that I would hear a journalist say that!"

"People generally present the same face to us as they do to the camera."