The Mirage (24 page)

Then, capitulating again to an urge to mislead, I said, “She’s a high-class lady, so let’s find ourselves a safe street.”

He rejoined with a laugh, “I think Garden City is the safest place nearby!”

“You’re wrong!” I exclaimed, “Her villa is in Garden City!”

“We’ve also got Roda Island coming up,” he replied with interest, “though the weather is chilly and I’m an old man who can’t stand the cold.”

“Not to worry,” I said reassuringly. “I’ll pay you a whole pound!”

The man thanked me enthusiastically, thinking he’d fallen on an unanticipated treasure. I laughed to myself as I ran my fingers over the one riyal that was all I had left till the end of the month. Some time passed, then I saw the beloved apartment building—my sweetheart’s building—approaching. A strange sort of wakefulness stirred in my heart, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the place. I wasn’t free to look at her anymore—though looking at her had been my sole consolation in life—since what had transpired between me and her would-be suitor. I could no longer look up at the balcony or the window. Do you suppose His Eminence the director of operations had spoken to her father yet? Had my beloved really become engaged? Didn’t she remember her other devotee—silent and pathetic though he’d been—as she moved into her new world? Didn’t she feel the slightest bit of sorrow over him? Wanting to get even with the whole world, I was gripped with dismay and dejection, and I sat motionless until the carriage reached our street. I instructed the driver to stop, got out and paid him eight piasters.

He took them from me in astonishment. “And what about the other trip?” he mumbled questioningly.

I chuckled softly in spite of myself, then went my way. I ascended the staircase wearily, then opened the door with a key that I had in my pocket and closed it carelessly behind me. I proceeded to the bedroom and turned on the light, and my eyes fell on my mother as she slept. The depth of
the slumber to which she’d succumbed was clear evidence of the effort she’d been expending in her long, arduous days. I stood there for a moment looking searchingly into her face.

“Mama!” I called out to her.

“Who is it? Kamil?” she murmured as she opened her eyes.

Then, calmly and nonchalantly I said, “I’m drunk.”

She stared uneasily into my face, then sat up in bed, distraught, and said, “You scare me to death with that kind of joke.”

“It’s no joke,” I said indifferently. “I drank two carafes of cognac.”

She slipped out of bed and came up to me in alarm, not taking her eyes off mine for a second, until I could feel her breath on my face. Then she went pale and said with a trembling voice, “Why have you done this to yourself? How can you obey Satan after having repented to God?”

I didn’t utter a word, and fell even deeper into my stupor.

“Take off your clothes,” she said. “Let me help you.”

As she proceeded to undress me, I was silent and perplexed. Why had I exposed myself in this odd way? I wasn’t so drunk that I wouldn’t have been able to control myself. On the contrary, I knew I’d come home on previous nights in a far more drunken state, and in spite of this, I hadn’t done anything untoward. In fact, I’d taken the greatest of care not to waken her. So what had come over me on this particular night? The strangest thing of all was that my mind had been clear even after I’d entered the flat, and it hadn’t occurred to me to waken her until I’d caught a glimpse of her. When she answered my summons, I’d said
what I said without hesitation and, perhaps, without realizing what I was doing. Yet I’d been moved by an irresistible force! At the time I hadn’t felt any remorse. I’d just stood there inert as a stone, scrutinizing her face with its pained expression as she took of my clothes. Then I moved away from her toward the clothes rack, got my pajamas, and put them on without saying a word. I got into my bed and slipped under the covers. She came up to me and put her hand on my forehead.

Her voice still trembling, she asked me, “Are you all right? Shall I make you some coffee to clear your head?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I don’t want anything at all.”

I
t was a week—or maybe more, I don’t recall exactly—after that event and the grief it had left in its wake. I’d finished my daily duties at the ministry and sat waiting, bored and weary, for our work hours to end. Then, a little before two in the afternoon, I was called to the telephone. I answered the summons in astonishment, since no one had ever called me on the telephone before, and since I wasn’t expecting a call from anyone. It was my brother Medhat, who said curtly, “Our father has died. Come to Hilmiya.”

My tongue tied with disbelief, all I said was, “I’ll be there right away.”

I hung up the receiver and stood motionless for a few moments. People began looking my way, and my colleagues asked me what was going on.

“My father died,” I replied in a stupor.

I received the usual condolences, and before I knew it, my astonishment and disbelief had turned to fear, since
death always frightens me. I left the ministry and headed for the tram stop. So, my father had died. It was an indubitable fact. As I began to get over the initial shock, I felt waves of deep relief wash over my soul. At the same time, his image appeared to me clearly with the rounded bald spot on his head and the absent look in his eyes, and for a moment I imagined myself hearing his gruff voice and his sarcastic guffaw. When had he died? I wondered. And how? What a strange thing, death. It doesn’t lose its tragic character even in the case of someone like my father, who’d lived most of his life as though he were dead, cut off from people and the world. After all, to live as though one were dead is one thing; death itself is another. I wondered to myself: Who might grieve over my father’s death? Medhat? Radiya? He seemed to have left the world without anyone who would grieve his loss, and this, to me, was a tragedy more terrible than that of death itself. Isn’t it a strange thing for someone to live in this world for more than seventy years, then die without leaving a single person to mourn his departure? The thought stirred a feeling of pity and sorrow in me. It was a strange emotion that had never stirred in me before. Perhaps it was born of relief rather than regret, since in a case like mine, the soul might pretend to be grief-stricken in order to conceal its delight, or in order to express this delight in a twisted sort of way. Or it might have been a sincere sentiment that expressed itself after the hindrances that once kept it in check had been removed by death. I betook myself to Hilmiya, and as I arrived at the old house, I saw a number of family members sitting on a row of wicker chairs. In the center was a man I was seeing for the first time, and whom I learned later was my paternal uncle. Medhat was seated to his
right, and next to Medhat sat my sister’s husband. I greeted them feeling despondent and flustered. Then my brother got up and took me into the garden.

“It’s been an exhausting, difficult day,” he said, “but everything’s over now.”

“Why didn’t you call me earlier?” I asked.

Sighing, he said, “We were too busy even to think. And if it weren’t for the fact that Radiya went herself to see our mother and came back here with her, she still wouldn’t have heard the news herself. Don’t you know what happened? I received a telegram in the early morning from Uncle Adam, asking me to come right away because my father hadn’t returned home since last night. So all of us came. Uncle Adam informed us that our father had left the house before sundown yesterday and that, unlike usual, he hadn’t come back. The man had waited for him anxiously until a little before dawn. He sent us the telegram in the early morning. Our father used to like to go out from time to time in the late afternoon—drunk, of course, as you know. He would set out on foot for a little while, after which he’d board a carriage that would take him around here and there. Then he would come back to the house an hour or two later. But he would never spend the entire night out. Consequently, his absence worried Uncle Adam, and threw us into a terrible confusion. We didn’t know of a single friend of his that we could contact and had no idea which direction he might have taken. It occurred to us that he might have gone to Radiya’s house, so we went to see her, but she hadn’t seen him since she’d left home. Not wanting to lose time, we agreed that she would go see our mother as a way of gathering more information, and we—your uncle and I—would inquire about him at the
Khalifa police station. When we got there, the master sergeant informed us that yesterday, a carriage driver had brought in a man who had passed away and who fit our father’s description. The driver said that the man had boarded his carriage at Bab al-Khalq Square and that he’d taken him at his request in the direction of Imam. When the driver turned around to inquire of him exactly where he wanted to go, he found him apparently asleep. He called to the man to wake him up, but got no response, so he stopped the carriage, got out and shook the man gently. It was then that he realized that the man had passed away. He’d had no choice but to bring him to the station. They arrested the driver as a precautionary measure, and our father was taken to Qasr al-Aini Hospital, where it was confirmed that he’d died a natural death from a heart attack. We went then to Qasr al-Aini, where they allowed us into the morgue.”

Medhat fell silent, his eyes betraying signs of pain and distress. Then, in a kind of suppressed outburst, he continued, “What a sight! I don’t know how we recognized him! It was something else.”

His eyes welled up with tears. I’d never seen him without a smile on his face, so I became more distressed myself, and tears came to my eyes as well.

He remained silent until he’d regained his composure. Then he told me it had been decided to have the funeral at four o’clock.

“He’s in his room now, so you can go and look at him for the last time.”

My heart pounded violently at the thought, and I was gripped by a terrible fear. However, I couldn’t bear to look up at my brother, and so I had no choice but to pretend to
welcome his idea. I headed toward the veranda, stumbling along in my fear and confusion, then ascended the staircase with a gulp. As I was on my way up, my sister and I caught sight of each other at the same moment. She seemed to have informed my mother of my arrival. In any case, she came forward hurriedly and met me on the veranda, asking me nervously where I was headed.

“I want to see my father,” I said.

“I wish you wouldn’t, Kamil,” she said imploringly. “Your heart is too weak to bear the sight of someone whose spirit has passed on.”

I heaved a sigh of relief and a heavy burden was lifted from my shoulders. The only thing I was feeling by now was fear. After all, will a heart that trembles at the sight of a mouse or a dung beetle be able to face death in its most hideous, fearsome manifestation? I went back outside and sat down between my uncle and my brother without saying a word. Then, half an hour before the funeral procession was to begin, those who’d come to offer their condolences began arriving. Some neighbors came, as did some employees at the warehousing section. Given the fact that my father hadn’t had any acquaintances and my uncle had no friends in Cairo, the number of those who came to pay their respects numbered no more than twenty. Visibly moved, my uncle said he would hold the wake in his house in Fayoum. We then came to the final moment, at which point my sister Radiya lifted up her voice in a lament that shattered the heavy silence, causing my heart to quake with emotion and my eyes to well up with tears.

Before long we’d assembled ourselves for the funeral procession. As it began, a heavy gloom descended upon me in response to the sight of the bier, the shadow of death
hovering about us, and the memories that had been stirred of my grandfather and his passing. Then the cloud began to lift and I recovered some measure of equanimity. As I looked furtively at those around me, I saw some faces that were serene and others that were smiling for one reason or another, a fact that consoled me and caused me to come back to myself. Suddenly I remembered how I used to walk to the ministry in the morning without a thought for the events that lay in store for me. Yet here I was now, walking behind the bier, and I marveled at this strange life of ours. At that moment, I imagined life sticking out its tongue with mischievous derision and rolling on the floor with laughter, and I wondered to myself which of the two states was better: that of the morning, or that of the afternoon? As the comparison came to mind, I couldn’t resist a subtle wave of joy and relief. However, my profound religious sense objected vociferously, sending a wave of fear and anxiety through the depths of my being till I sought refuge in God from the accursed Satan. Trying now to ward off the feelings of joy and relief that kept pursuing me, I unwittingly furrowed my brow and put on a gloomy, sorrowful face. But it was no use, and it wasn’t long before my mind began mocking these childish antics and I started thinking instead of the anticipated fortune. I remembered the dream I’d had of selling the house and I wondered: Will the dream come true? Will I become the owner of a thousand plus pounds? Has my rival been slow to take the decisive step, or has the matter been settled so that there’s no more hope? And will the awaited fortune be my ticket to happiness, or a new tool in the hands of fate for making sport of weak, helpless creatures? It’s made sport of my poverty and my powerlessness, and it’s no doubtless capable of making
sport of my wealth and power. In other words, it may show me that whichever way things go, I’m doomed to misery and affliction. My enthusiasm waned at the thought and I was gripped with worry and distress. Yet I beseeched God to grant me the good fortune of winning my sweetheart.

I wakened from my reverie to find that the funeral procession had come to a halt in front of the mosque. The bier was taken inside to be prayed over, and those who had kindly come to offer condolences went their way. Then the bier was placed in the hearse that took us and the deceased to Imam, and the occasion came to an end.

The family gathered that night in the large room where I’d met with my father for the last time. I sat with my uncle, my brother, and my brother-in-law on one side, with my mother, my sister, and my aunt and sister-in-law on the other. My uncle was a practical man whose appearance reminded me of my father, and he talked about the procedures that would have to be followed in order to demonstrate our respective rights to inherit. He offered to introduce us to a friend of his who worked in the Ministry of Religious Endowments and who could help facilitate matters for us in receiving our monthly allowances. My brother Medhat spoke as well, saying that since none of us wanted to live in the house, he thought it would be best for us to sell it. His proposal met with my approval, and I voiced my agreement with an enthusiasm that I forgot to conceal. As for Radiya, she had no objections to the idea.