The Dreams (26 page)

Going back to my office, I ran into my sister’s son, whose name begins with “Sh.”

“Don’t worry,” he told me. “I will be the eye through which you see and read, the ear through which you hear, and the hand with which you write.”

Still my anxiety would not leave me.

A
great pavilion was set up to celebrate the new party’s birth, and Mustafa al-Nahhas appeared on the dais. Greeted with cheers, he proclaimed the party’s principles, foremost of which were democracy, social justice, and national unity.

When we went back to the place where we gathered every evening, I told them that when I saw them applauding, I remembered their joy on the day that Cairo burned and al-Nahhas’s government fell.

“Our glee at that time was our greatest sin,” one of them answered, “for which we repented in our meeting today.”

A
decree declared that the best and highest posts would be reserved for Egyptians of Turkish or Mamluk origins.

I found myself walking on the street going nowhere in particular, until a friend who owned a sweet shop called me over and offered me a job as the accounts writer in his store.

At that moment his father’s voice reached us from where he sat in the shop’s corner. “Don’t let personal feelings corrupt your work,” he warned.

So I went back to walking aimlessly on the street once again.

M
y dear, deceased friend came to visit me. He queried me, “Why are you so sad?”

I told him that my weak eyesight and hearing had cut me off from the sources of culture that I used to read, hear, and see. So he took me to a publishing house managed by one of our university colleagues, and asked him for a work on all the modern ideas about science, philosophy, and literature.

The man produced a big book. Along with it, he gave us a brand-new printing of the Holy Qur’an, saying that the hefty tome contained an interpretation of the sacred text that had never been seen before.

We took these gifts with us. On the street my friend said, “I will come to you every evening to read you a chapter from the Glorious Qur’an, as well as a chapter from the other book, until we finish them both.”

“May God grant you mercy,” I welcomed him, “and set you to dwell in the broadest glades of Paradise.”

I
dreamt of my mentor, Shaykh Mustafa Abd al-Raziq, when he was the head of al-Azhar.

As he entered the main office, I rushed to catch up with him, offering my hand in greeting. Walking along with him, inside I saw a sprawling, spectacular garden. He told me that he had planted it himself—half with native roses, the other half with Western ones.

He hoped the two would give birth to a wholly new kind—in form perfect, and in fragrance, sublime.

“H
ave a good journey,” my friend and teacher said as he bid me farewell. “God willing, you will come upon that which you seek.”

I was delighted as radiant thoughts rained down upon me, reflecting their loveliness upon my soul, and the hearts of the beneficent beat with sympathy. I did not want for food, drink, or clothing—nor forget my city the whole time I was gone.

When I finally returned, my friend and teacher asked me, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I will find it here,” I replied, “amongst the agonies, as well as the hopes—via my vision as an explorer, and my patience as one who abides in one place.”

M
adam “S”—my old friend’s wife and my former fiancée—accosted me. “You’re the cause of my husband’s bankruptcy,” she scolded me.

I explained that he had told me of an idea that I found suitable as the basis for a film. But he stubbornly insisted upon writing the scenario alone, and financing it with his own limited money—then went bust as a result.

“It was your duty to guide him properly,” she replied. I answered that I had given him a great deal of good advice, but he would accept nothing less than error.

W
e were both employees in the minister’s office, each of us trying to get closer to him, as our jobs depended on him. At the same time, my colleague was saying bad things about me—but I didn’t meet evil with evil, relying on the thought that closeness would demand kindness.

Then, adjusting the budget, the minister issued two decisions. The first was to transfer my friend to another position in the ministry. The second was to appoint me as his parliamentary secretary—which would permit me to see His Excellency more than once per week.

And so I knew that he was aware of what was happening in his office.

I
read an article by a woman, “K,” that was tauntingly critical of me. Seeing her in the club, I asked her, “Don’t you remember how I supported your getting your grant?”

“One couldn’t forget it,” she replied, “for you alone opposed the awful attacks against me. But after a while I realized that their criticism had been correct: I had traded sex in order to gain something for myself, while you defended me to do the same for yourself—so you fell in my regard.”

What she said was a nasty lesson indeed.