Naguib Mahfouz: The Thief and the Dogs

Rauf's mephistophelean eyebrows lifted in what looked like silent forgiveness. When he saw Said's gaze wander from his face to the food, as if asking permission to resume eating, he said, "Help yourself," quite calmly.

Said attacked the rest of the dishes without hesitation, as if nothing had happened, until he'd wiped them clean. At this point Rauf said, a little quickly, as if he wished to end the meeting: "Things must now change completely. Have you thought about your future?"

Said lit a cigarette. "My past hasn't yet allowed me to consider the future."

"It occurs to me that there are more women in the world than men. So you mustn't let the infidelity of one lone female bother you. As for your daughter, she'll get to know you and love you one day. The important thing now is to look for a job."

Said eyed a statue of a Chinese god, a perfect embodiment of dignity and repose. "I learned tailoring in prison."

"So you want to set up a tailoring shop?" said Rauf with surprise.

"Certainly not," Said replied quietly.

"What then?"

Said looked at him. "In my whole life I've mastered only one trade."

"You're going back to burglary?" Rauf seemed almost alarmed.

"It's most rewarding, as you know."

"As I know! How the hell do I know?"

"Why are you so angry?" Said gave him a surprised look. "I meant as you know from my past. Isn't it so?"

Rauf lowered his eyes as if trying to assess the sincerity of Said's remark, clearly unable to maintain his bonhomie, and looking for a way to end the meeting. "Listen, Said. Things are no longer what they used to be. In the past you were both a thief and my friend, for reasons you well know.

Now the situation has changed. If you go back to burglary you'll be a thief and nothing else."

Dashed by Rauf's unaccommodating frankness, Said sprang to his feet. Then he stifled his agitation, sat down again, and said quietly, "All right. Choose a job that's suitable for me."

"Any job, no matter what. You do the talking, I'll listen."

"I should be happy," Said began, without obvious irony, "to work as a journalist on your paper. I'm a welleducated man and an old disciple of yours. Under your supervision I've read countless books, and you often testified to my intelligence."

Rauf shook his head impatiently, his thick black hair glistening in the brilliant light.

"This is no time for joking. You've never been a writer, and you came out of jail only yesterday.

This fooling about is wasting my time."

"So I have to choose something menial?"

"No job is menial, as long as it's honest."

Said felt utterly reckless. He ran his eyes quickly over the whole of the smart drawing room, then said bitterly, "How marvelous it is for the rich to recommend poverty to us." Rauf's reaction was to look at his watch.

"I am sure I have taken too much of your time," Said said quietly.

"Yes," said Rauf, with all the blank directness of a July sun, "I'm loaded with work!"

"Thanks for your kindness and hospitality and for the supper," said Said, standing up.

Rauf took out his wallet and handed him two five-pound notes. "Take these to tide you over.

Please forgive me for saying I'm overloaded with work. You'll seldom find me free as I was tonight."

Said smiled, took the bank notes, shook his hand warmly and wished him well: "May God increase your good fortune."

So this is the real Rauf Ilwan, the naked reality — a partial corpse not even decently underground. The other Rauf Ilwan has gone, disappeared, like yesterday, like the first day in the history of man — like Nabawiyya's love or Ilish's loyalty. I must not be deceived by appearances. His kind words are cunning, his smiles no more than a curl of the lips, his generosity a defensive flick of the fingers and only a sense of guilt moved him to let me cross the threshold of his house. You made me and now you reject me: Your ideas create their embodiment in my person and then you simply change them, leaving me lost — rootless, worthless, without hope — a betrayal so vile that if the whole Muqattam hill toppled over and buried it, I still would not be satisfied.

I wonder if you ever admit, even to yourself, that you betrayed me. Maybe you've deceived yourself as much as you try to deceive others. Hasn't your conscience bothered you even in the dark? I wish I could penetrate your soul as easily as I've penetrated your house, that house of mirrors and objets d'art, but I suppose I'd find nothing but betrayal there: Nabawiyya disguised as Rauf, Rauf disguised as Nabawiyya, or Ilish Sidra in place of both — and betrayal would cry out to me that it was the lowest crime on earth. Their eyes behind my back must have traded anxious looks throbbing with lust, which carried them in a current crawling like death, like a cat creeping on its belly towards a bewildered sparrow. When their chance came, the last remnants of decency and indecision disappeared so that in a corner of the lane, even in my own house, Ilish Sidra finally said: "I'll tell the police. We'll get rid of him" and the child's mother was silent — the tongue that so often and so profusely told me "I love you, the best man in the world" was silent. And I found myself surrounded by police in Sayrafi Lane — though until then demons themselves with all their wiles had failed to trap me — their kicks and punches raining down on me.

You're just the same, Rauf — I don't know which of you is the most treacherous — except that your guilt is greater because of your intelligence and the past association between us: You pushed me into jail, while you leapt free, into that palace of lights and mirrors. You've forgotten your wise sayings about palaces and hovels, haven't you?

I will never forget.

At the Abbas Bridge, sitting on a stone bench, he became aware for the first time of where he was.

"It's best to do it now," he said in a loud voice, as if addressing the dark, "before he's had time to get over the shock." I can't hold back, he thought. My profession will always be mine, a just and legitimate trade, especially when it's directed against its own philosopher. There'll be space enough in the world after I've punished the bastards to hide. If I could live without a past, ignoring Nabawiyya, Ilish, and Rauf, I'd be relieved of a great weight, a burden; I'd feel readier to win an easy life and a lot further from the rope. But unless I settle my account with them, life will have no taste because I shall not forget the past. For the simple reason that in my mind it's not a past, but the here and now.

Tonight's adventure will be the best beginning for my programme of action. And it'll be a rich venture indeed.

The Nile flowed in black waves slashed sidelong by arrows of light from the reflected street lamps along its banks. The silence was soothing and total.

At the approach of dawn as the stars drew closer to earth, Said rose from his seat, stretched, and began to walk slowly back along the bank towards the place from which he'd come, avoiding the few still-lit lamps, slowing his steps even further when the house came in sight. Examining the street, the terrain, the walls of the big houses as well as the river bank, his eyes finally came to rest on the sleeping villa, guarded on all sides by trees like ghostly figures, where treachery dozed in a fine unmerited tranquility. It's going to be a rich venture, indeed, and one to provide an emphatic reply to the treachery of a lifetime.

He crossed the street casually without a movement to either right or left, without looking wary.

Then followed the hedge down a side street, scanning carefully ahead. When he was sure the street was empty he dodged into the hedge, forcing his way in amidst the jasmine and violets, and stood motionless: If there was a dog in the house — other than its owner, of course — it would now fill the universe with barking.