The Dreams (14 page)

B
eneath this leafy tree sat my friend from my early days who was martyred for love of country. Though it had been decades since his death, he looked quite elegant and in the pink of health and cheer.

The sight of him made my chest flutter as I rushed toward him—but he halted me with a wave of his walking stick. I reminded him of our time as friends, but he paid no heed to my words—saying that he had run out of patience regarding the neighborhood rubbish heap.

After this speech, he threw down his stick and went away, leaving me sad. Yet I swelled up with a new spirit and hurried immediately to the trash pile, raining a hail of blows all over it with his cane. Each blow cut a gap in it: from each gap men and women emerged whose general appearance was unlike garbage.

Indeed, they were models of cleanliness, prestige, and respectability. Each time one of them appeared, they jumped with terror of the rod in my hand. Following this, I became utterly convinced that the sun would rise tomorrow over a world of greenery and pristine air.

I
turned onto the quiet side street carrying my overnight bag. Instantly I met memories and passions, encircled by peril and trepidation.

I expected to be scolded for my long absence; hence I’d prepared the appropriate excuses.

Reaching the building’s entrance, I saw the flat on the ground floor, four steps away from the staircase. Grinning broadly, I pressed the buzzer eagerly. The peep window opened to reveal a strange man dressed in a house robe who seemed to be the place’s owner. Suddenly my burning passion plunged to the bottom of a freezing lake. Quickly I concocted a phoney story to extricate myself from this impasse. I said I was looking for the residence of the schoolteacher, So-and-So Effendi, but had come to the wrong building.

Searching my face with wary suspicion, the man said, “This is his flat—he’s inside. What’s your name, sir, so that I may tell him you’re here?”

I realized that I had been found out and had lost face. Raising his voice, the man shouted, “You’re nothing but a vicious liar, like all who’ve come here before you!”

Not able to bear more, I scurried away in defeat, nearly
losing my balance. The bag dropped from my hand, exposing a bottle of wine and a kilogram of kabab on a paper plate. But I could think of one thing only: to vanish with lightning speed.

S
uch a gigantic funeral—I didn’t know how to join the procession. I didn’t know anyone walking in it, not even the man who had died. The strangest thing is that the funeral took a route not used before, heading off toward a network of railroad tracks. We crossed over them into the wasteland, then paused for rest.

During this time, the trains heading north and south arrived. This sparked an argument among those gathered around the bier. One group wanted to carry it to the south, and the other to the north. Both claimed that they were carrying out the wish of the deceased. One of the wise men called out to remind them that the dearly departed was among the righteous friends of God—and would never permit anyone to carry him in an unsatisfactory direction.

We all contemplated the sanctity of what he said. The southern-bound troupe tried to carry the bier, but was unable, while the northerners also hazarded their luck, only to meet with failure, too. At that point everyone realized that the saint didn’t want to leave the place where he was, lying between south and north.

I
sat on the balcony of the little hotel overlooking the sea, so absorbed in waiting for my girlfriend that I was oblivious to the gorgeous view. As the waiting dragged on, the hotel manager, who happened to be a childhood friend, came over to suggest that I cure myself of my worry by taking a walk.

I went to the shore where I kept marching back and forth, until I spotted my lover in a swimming race with a group of young men. One of them went with her out of sight behind a rock. I felt a stabbing pain in my heart and an unfathomable frustration. Sensing this, the manager said, “That’s the way of the world—don’t surrender to sadness.”

“You know, I know many things,” I replied, “but I don’t know how to swim.” So he took me to a quiet corner of the hotel garden, where I spent a distressed and anxious hour. Then, to my complete surprise, my girlfriend came toward me, her face grinning with happiness. I leapt up to pour out the weight of my anger, and in so doing encountered yet another surprise—completely unexpected, and incomprehensible, too, defying any explanation. For I was suddenly overcome with limitless joy as the grief was wiped out of my breast altogether, as if it had never been there. And so we greeted each other, in the way we always had in the past.

We walked around the city, as we usually did. Passing a
gift shop, we went inside without wavering, heading straight for the department devoted to engagements and weddings.

My lover’s eyes studied the innumerable items. Finally she said, “We don’t have enough time.”

“We have all time,” I innocently replied.

W
e gathered in the old room: my mother, my four sisters, and me. No sooner had we closed the door upon ourselves than complaints arose about times past and people we knew.

My mother turned toward me apprehensively, swearing an oath that all she had ever done or said was out of the purest love. At this, voices were raised, demanding, “If that’s true, then how do you explain what happened?”

Scoldingly, my mother replied, “You have to account for yourselves, as well: don’t try to tell me it was all written and decreed.”

A
t long last I went to the mansion. I asked the doorman to inform the eminent woman that the winner of her literary prize had come to present his thanks in person, if only she would permit him.

The man soon returned to bring me into the reception hall, whose beauty and vastness dazzled me. Before long a musical tune signaling welcome was played for me—and I spied the enchanting figure of the madam moving gracefully to its rhythm. I undertook to present my letter of thanks—but she, with a chic sweep of her hands, opened up her breasts, drawing from between them a neat little gun.

She pointed it at me. I forgot the letter—fainting away before she could pull the tiny pistol’s trigger.

I
was pleased that the new director had taken over the institute’s affairs—though I had not taken part in his selection. Yet every time I spoke appreciatively of him, my colleagues attacked me with sarcasm. This left me confused between approval on one side, and derision on the other. But I refused absolutely ever to despair.

I
watched the cart carrying the enchantress of Crimson Lane coming, and drawing it was a winged stallion. I got in and sat at the rear. The steed responded by spreading its wings, and the cart began to fly until we were higher than the rooftops and minarets—and in seconds we arrived at the Great Pyramid’s pinnacle. We started to pass over it from an arm’s height above it. But then I rashly leapt down onto the pyramid’s summit, my eyes never parting from the seductive girl as she soared upward and upward—and the nightfall descended, the darkness ever deepening, until she was fixed in the heavens as a luminous star.