The Dreams (31 page)
Authors: Naguib Mahfouz
No doubt the most painful to the author of all the dreams presented here, and the one that finally exposes the identity of the woman who was “Lady Eye,” did not appear in
Nisf al-dunya
. Instead it was published in
al-Ahram
, the third in a group of six carried in the daily (whose parent company also owns the magazine) on December 9, 2005, shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday (which sadly would be his last). In this dream, Mahfouz recounts a conversation with his sister in which she tells him that the woman he loves—whose name is Ayn—has died in Cairo’s Maternity Hospital. Based on my own research, the woman—who is the same “Ayn” found in Dream 104
27
—is actually Atiyah Shadid, one of Mahfouz’s neighbors in Abbasiyah—who died giving birth to her first child in Cairo’s Maternity Hospital in 1940. This is the real person whom he called Aïda Shaddad in the
Trilogy
—the great, unrequited love of his admittedly autobiographical character, Kamal Abd al-Jawad, and his own, as well—and who has many incarnations suffused throughout his fiction.
(“Ayn” is also the name of the guttural first letter of both “Aïda” and “Atiya” in Arabic.)
Aïda’s father, Abdel Hamid Shaddad, guilelessly mirrors the actual Abdel Hamid Shadid, father of Atiya—both served as personal secretary to Khedive Abbas Hilmi II, ruler of Egypt from 1892–1914, even following him into exile in Europe after he was deposed by the British early in World War I. And in real life, Atiya had a sister named Aïda, and another called Budur, also the name of Aïda Shaddad’s younger sibling in the
Trilogy
. Aïda Shaddad dies 1943 in the
Trilogy
of pneumonia, in the Coptic Hospital in Cairo, loosely fictionalizing the death of her real-life counterpart.
28
The true identity of “Aïda Shaddad” remained strictly secret all of Mahfouz’s life. He confirmed that she was Atiyah Shadid when I came to discuss this dream with him, one of the most moving moments of all my experience working with this most discreet of human beings.
29
If I hadn’t met members of the Shadid family in 1995—who themselves seemed not to know which of the sisters really represented Aïda Shaddad, though they thought it was probably their own Aïda—I wouldn’t have known how to interpret this dream. The author was surprised finally to see his most-speculated-upon secret discovered, yet was very emotional, and—to my own subjective gaze—seemed somehow relieved, as well. Only the fact that, eleven years earlier, her relatives mentioned that one of the Shadid sisters, Atiya, had died in childbirth in 1940, provided the crucial clue, but even that would not have been enough without this encoded literary revelation. Faced with its detection, he said to me in apparent shock, “You got all that from a dream?”
In Dream 188, Mahfouz encounters many of the most important musical figures in Egypt (among them Darwish)
stretching over the whole of the century just ended. Above them all is Umm Kulthoum, “the Star of the Orient” (1904?–75), who keeps chanting a haunting line from the Persian poet Omar Khayyam that she popularized in song. At the end, the dreamer recites the
Fatiha
—the opening chapter of the Qur’an—commonly compared to the Lord’s Prayer, and often read over those who have abandoned our world.
Though he has now departed, Mahfouz has not abandoned us—for, among many other treasures, he has left us his dreams. These on the whole express the longings—and embody the bittersweet recollections—that Naguib Mahfouz enlisted in
The Songs
, his heartbreakingly adept exercise in preserving the best of nearly a century of fleeting years and emotions through the remembrance of the lyrics that capture them. The seventh and final section of
The Songs
, “Old Age,” is the most powerful. There may be no better way to close an afterword to a book of prose that in so many ways is truly poetry, than to offer these verses in English:
30
When the evening comes …
How long ago were we here
?
Old closeness from the beautiful past, if only you could return
.
She said, how Time has mocked you since our parting
!
And I told her, I seek refuge in God, but it was you, not Time
.
What’s gone is gone, O my heart …
Say goodbye to your passion—forget it, and forget me
.
Time that has gone will not come back again …
I cannot forget you
.
We lived a lot and we saw a lot—
And he who lives sees wonders
.
NOTES
1
Bertrand Russell,
Philosophical Essays
(New York: Simon and Shuster, 1966), p. 68.
2
After a swift and controversial military proceeding, two men were hanged and eleven others sent to prison for the attempt on Naguib Mahfouz’s life and for plotting against the State. See Raymond Stock, “How Islamist Militants Put Egypt on Trial” (London:
The Financial Times
, Weekend FT, March 4/5, 1995), p. III.
3
The title is taken from the classic compilation of early Arabic poetry called
Kitab al-aghani (The Book of Songs)
by Abu Faraj al-Isfahani (d. 967)—no doubt the direct inspiration for Mahfouz’s own work. For al-Isfahani, see Roger Allen,
The Arabic Literary Heritage
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 32.
4
Dream 206 is found in Naguib Mahfouz,
Dreams of Departure
, translated from the Arabic and with an Afterword by Raymond Stock (Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2007), p. 111. The first volume appeared as
The Dreams
, translated from the Arabic and with an Introduction by Raymond Stock (Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2004). A comprehensive Arabic edition of Mahfouz dreams published to date (including 204–30, which appeared after the author’s death) in
Nisf al-dunya
magazine and
al-Ahram
was brought out by Dar El-Shurouk in Cairo as
Ahlam fatrat al-naqaha
in 2007.
5
See Naguib Mahfouz,
Ra’aytu fima yara al-na’im
(Cairo: Maktabat Misr, 1982), pp. 119–52.
6
Fedwa Malti-Douglas, “Mahfouz’s Dreams” in
Naguib Mahfouz: From Regional Fame to Global Recognition
, ed. by Michael Beard and Adnan Haydar (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1993), pp. 126–143. For more on the
maqamat
of Badi’ al-Zaman al-Hamadhani and
Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham
by Muhammad al-Muwaylihi, see Roger Allen,
The Arabic Literary Heritage
, p. 73. Allen’s translation with commentary of
Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham
has appeared as
A Period of Time
(Reading: Garnet, 1993).
7 George Makdisi, in
History and Politics in 11th Century Baghdad
(Aldershot, Hamps. and Broofield, VT: Variorum, 1990), pp. 35–36.
8
Ibid., pp. II/249–50.
9
Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, June 23, 2004.
10
As quoted by Ian Littlewood in
The Rough Guide Chronicle: France
(London: Rough Guides Ltd., 2002), p. 296. For an expansion on this theme, see Sarane Alexandrian,
Le Surréalisme et le rêve
(Paris: Gallimard, 1974).
11
Khufu’s Wisdom
(translated by Raymond Stock),
Rhadopis of Nubia
(translated by Anthony Calderbank), and
Kifah Tiba
(translated by Humphrey Davies) were all published in hardback by the American University in Cairo Press in 2003, in paperback by Anchor Books in New York in 2005, and by Alfred A. Knopf in an omnibus Everyman’s Library hardcover edition,
Three Novels of Ancient Egypt
, introduced by Nadine Gordimer (New York, 2007).
12
For a summary and the statements cited, see “Egypt’s Nobel Winner Asks Islamists to Approve Book,” by David Hardaker in
The Independent
(London), January 28, 2006 (available online).
13
Mohamed Salmawy, “
Wijhat Nazar: Hiwarat Najib Mahfuz,” al-Ahram
, Cairo, January 23, 2003, p. 12. Mahfouz had expressed similar frustration in an earlier period, where he felt unable to remember his dreams to record them, to Salmawy in “
Wijhat Nazar,” al-Ahram
, September 12, 2002, p. 12.
14
Mahfouz later suffered at least two more falls, both also in his home—on January 22, 2006, which left a long gash in his forehead, and again on July 16, 2006, causing a cut requiring five stitches on the back of his head in the Police Authority Hospital next door, where he was then held for tests and observation. A few days later, he struck his head in his hospital room in unclear circumstances, after which his condition gradually deteriorated—though the role of this incident, if any, in his decease remains uncertain.
15
Youssef Rakha, “Dreaming On,”
al-Ahram Weekly
, Cairo, December 11–17, 2003, p. 16. Mahfouz told Rakha that he had written Dreams 1–97 with his own hand before turning to dictation.
16
Interview with al-Hagg Muhammad Sabri al-Sayyid, Cairo, September 1, 2006. Al-Hagg Sabri also confirmed something that
Mahfouz had told me several times in his last months of life—that he had created more than three hundred dreams that were not yet published at the time of his death.
17
For a brief account of this prodigious figure’s life, see Arthur Goldschmidt,
A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt
(The American University in Cairo Press, 2000), p. 57.
18
For more on the film, see Samir Farid,
Naguib Mahfouz wa-al-sinima
(Cairo: al-Hay’a al-’Amma li-Qusur al-Thaqafa, 1990), p. 18. For details of Rayya and Sakina’s crimes and their memorialization in a museum, see Rasha Sadeq, “The Other Citadel,”
al-Ahram Weekly
, Cairo, February 20, 2003.
19
See Goldschmidt, pp. 234–35.
20
Ibid., p. 47.
21
Naguib Mahfouz,
Palace Walk
, translated by William M. Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny (The American University in Cairo Press, 1989), p. 498.
22
For more on Reda Helal and his mysterious disappearance, and the latter’s depiction in Mahfouz’s Dream 151, see “The Forgotten Man,” report by Joel Campagna posted online by the New York–based Committee to Protect Journalists (
http://www.cpj.org/forgottenman
), October 17, 2007.
23
Naguib Mahfouz (“Nagib Mahfus”) interviewed by Volkhard Windfuhr, (with Raymond Stock) “Wir müssen die Fenster öffnen” (“We Must Open the Windows”) in
Der Spiegel
(Hamburg: No. 8, 2006), pp. 106–07.
24
To Atiyatallah Ibrahim Rizq, twenty-five years his junior, who bore him two daughters—Umm Kulthoum and Fatema (who prefer to be known as Hoda and Faten respectively).
25
Naguib Mahfouz, “Umm Ahmad” in collection
Sabah al-ward
(Cairo: Maktabat Misr, 1987), p. 7. Passage translated by this writer.
26
That this evidently never-realized relationship was in effect a dream was the observation of Shirley Johnston, whose
Egyptian Palaces and Villas: Pashas, Khedives and Kings
(New York: Harry Abrams, 2006) deals with just the sort of houses owned by families such as the one to which Mahfouz’s unattainable Abbasiyan idol belonged.
27
N. Mahfouz,
The Dreams
, p. 122.
28 N. Mahfouz,
The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street
, translated by William Maynard Hutchins, Olive E. Kenny, Lorne M. Kenny, and Angele Botros Samaan, with an introduction by Sabry Hafez (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Everyman’s Library, 2001); see death of Aïda Shaddad in
Sugar Street
, pp. 1288–94.
29
Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Maadi, April 5, 2006. Aïda Shadid, Atiya’s oldest sister, died after a prolonged illness in Alexandria on September 11, 2001; she was apparently in her nineties.
30
Nisf al-Dunya
magazine, Cairo, February 14, 1999. Translated by this writer.
Azbakiya:
The name of both a large park in central Cairo and the district surrounding it. Established ca. 1476 by a local dignitary, the Amir Azbak—after whom it is named—around a small lake, for nearly five centuries it remained one of the wealthiest and most desired quarters in Cairo. The lake disappeared in the early nineteenth century, and most of the area’s grandeur by the latter part of the twentieth.
Bayt al-Qadi Square:
Naguib Mahfouz was born into a middle-class household at 8 Bayt al-Qadi Square (Judge’s House Square) at the corner of Darb Qirmiz (Crimson Lane) in the old Islamic quarter of Cairo on December 10, 1911. (The birth was not registered until the following day; hence he observed his birthday on December 11 each year.) The “judge’s house,” built some time before 1800, stands at the southwest edge of the square next to the ruins of the ornately decorated palace of the fifteenth-century amir Mamay. The name refers to its service as a courthouse during the last century of Ottoman rule in Egypt (1517–1914).
birth-feast of Husayn:
Part of the popular Egyptian tradition of fêting the birthdays of holy persons, the largest one is that for the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Husayn (Hussein). Many thousands gather around the Husayn Mosque (where it is claimed the saint’s head is kept) in al-Gamaliya for the occasion.
The date of the celebration varies each year in accordance with the lunar-based Islamic calendar.
Christopher Village:
Apparently an invention of Mahfouz’s mind, perhaps inspired by St. Christopher’s Village, a budget tourist hotel in London. Mahfouz had successful surgery in that city to remove an aneurism in his abdominal aorta in 1991, the first and only time he had been to the United Kingdom.
fuul:
Broad beans—also known as horse beans—an indispensable part of the Egyptian diet, including the late author’s.
gallabiya:
A long, loose garment commonly worn by Egyptians.
Ghuriya:
Part of the main north–south thoroughfare in the Islamic district of Cairo, named for the surviving façades of a mosque and mausoleum built in 1504–05 by the Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri, who died in 1516 vainly resisting the Ottoman conquest of Egypt and the Levant, which inexorably followed in 1517.
al-Hagg Ali:
“Pilgrim Ali,” a person known to Mahfouz in his native district of al-Gamaliya, who at least into the mid-1990s apparently owned much property in Bayt al-Qadi Square (see above).
Harafish:
In this instance, a group of friends—mostly actors, artists, writers, and musicians—to which Naguib Mahfouz belonged since roughly 1942, and which until recently met every Thursday evening without fail. The word itself is the plural of
harfush
, which originally may have been defined as “a person without a skilled trade.” By the nineteenth century, it generally meant “poor person,” or even “riff-raff.” One of the Mahfouz group’s most prominent members, the late actor Ahmed Mazhar (1917–2002)—who is thought to have given the weekly association its name—said that a
harfush
is “the
agent provocateur
found at the edge of every demonstration.”
Husayn district:
Named for the Mosque of al-Husayn, which it surrounds, this is part of the larger district of Gamaliya, itself
the northern (and largest) section of the former royal city of the Shiite Fatimid dynasty (969–1171). Known as al-Qahira, the Fatimids’ exclusive seat of power eventually formed the core of what became modern Cairo.
kunafa:
Vermicelli baked in sugar, honey, and melted butter.
jellaba:
A North African garment similar to the Egyptian
gallabiya
(see above), though usually featuring a hood.
jubba:
A wide-sleeved, long outer garment, open in front.
mahmal:
Until the advent of easy motorized travel, it was customary for Egyptian and other Islamic rulers to send a camel-borne litter, or
mahmal
, to Mecca bearing an elaborately embroidered cloth to decorate the Kaaba, or sacred cube-shaped black stone in the holy sanctuary, during the annual Muslim pilgrimage.
rabab:
A primitive, usually one-to-three-stringed instrument frequently used to accompany the recital of heroic folk epics, ballads, and other songs.
Rose of the Nile:
A name given to differing varieties of aquatic plants that grow in the Nile through the length of Egypt.
shaykh of the
hara:
A resident put in charge by the authorities to watch over the affairs of a neighborhood
(hara
, which also means
alley
or
side street)
in traditional parts of Cairo.
Shaykh Zakariya Ahmad:
Celebrated singer,
‘ud
player (see below), and composer (1896–1961), and a close friend of Naguib Mahfouz. Trained at Egypt’s principal Islamic school, al-Azhar, he authored a number of highly popular works sung by Egypt’s greatest diva, Umm Kulthoum (1904?–75), and also created numerous operettas.
Shukuku:
Mahmud Shukuku (1912–85) was a popular Egyptian comedian, actor, and singer of monologs. He appeared in over one hundred films between 1944 and 1976.
Sidi Gaber:
The first train stop in Alexandria. Mahfouz compared his advanced stage of life to that of a person pulling into Sidi
Gaber Station, knowing that the final destination is but a short time away. (See
Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber: Reflections of a Nobel Laureate 1994–2001
, from conversations with Mohamed Salmawy, AUC Press, 2001.)
tagin:
A dish of meat and vegetables baked in individual pots in a rich tomato sauce.
‘ud:
A multi-stringed instrument, the Arab version of the lute.