The Mirage (36 page)

The announcement of the news had an all-encompassing effect.

The amateur singer asked me, “So, how do you find this world?”

I was alarmed to see the conversation turning to this perilous topic. However, I had no choice but to reply, “It’s nice! Aren’t you married, sir?”

The man smiled, revealing the few teeth he had left and said, “Once a woman gets beyond her youth, she’s not a woman anymore.”

Affirming what he’d said, another added, “That’s right. Woman has the shortest lifespan of all living creatures, even if she lives to a ripe old age!”

And another chimed in, “My wife picks a fight with me for every evening I spend here. So I told her, ‘I’m willing to quit going to the pub on one condition: that you quit this world!’ ”

The fact that they were all disgruntled with their lives brought me a solace I hadn’t known before, and I was amazed at all the strange things that bring drunkards together in brotherly fellowship. Then I noticed the absence of a certain baker who’d become famous among us for his
addiction and his taciturn ways. When I asked where he was, the elderly vocalist replied, “Liquor won’t do it for him anymore. So every evening he goes to the grocer and drinks pure alcohol.”

Then they started singing again, picking up where they’d left off, and I started drinking the way I had in the old days. And how I could drink! I was weak and cowardly in the face of everything, and I had no confidence in either my mind or my body. As for my stomach, it could hold an entire pub! I left the place at ten o’clock, sent off with the most heartfelt farewells. I went wandering from street to street, feeling so rapturous and invincible I was sure I could take on the whole world. Then my beloved’s phantom floated by. Seeing her in my drunken mind’s eye, I thought: I’ve kept her waiting! She’s gone to sleep by now! The thought of her intoxicated me even more, my heart fluttered amorously, and longing beckoned. My wandering eyes went in search of a taxi, and once I’d spotted one, I went over to it without hesitation. I asked the driver to move as fast as he could, and he virtually flew me to my destination. I got out in front of our building and rushed up the stairs, then went into the flat and headed quickly to our room. I turned on the light and my eyes fell on my beloved, who lay sleeping peacefully. Her head stirred when the light came on and she murmured, “Who is it?” then resumed her slumber. With trembling hands, I hurriedly undressed. Breathing hard and fast from astonishment, delight, and apprehension, I rushed over to the bed and slipped under the covers. I took her in my arms and placed my lips on hers until she opened her eyes. Then I smothered her with joyous, passionate, voracious kisses until she woke up and began returning my affection. What was
happening between us was like a dream so blissful, so incredible, that even slumber yields it only grudgingly. However, it was also a short dream that lasted all of a couple of seconds. I awakened from its enchantment feeling peaceful and confident, and several times drunker with happiness than I was from the liquor. I lay down blissfully and closed my eyes, surrendering to the sweetest thoughts and dreams. This time, however, my dreams weren’t made of the stuff of mere imagination. Rather, they were made from the stuff of reality itself, deriving their content from my very own life. After all, the best life is the one lived by someone whose happy dreams are an echo of the reality he actually experiences. Receiving this new happiness with humble gratitude, I was certain that my worries were over forever. The following morning I looked over at my beloved with confidence and joy, and at last I felt truly that I was a husband and a man. The same feelings of happiness and pride stayed with me the rest of the day. When evening came I went back to Alfi Bey Street, then I came flying home to my beloved on the wings of intoxication. I drank again from the brimming glass with the same enjoyment and at the same speed. Then I lay down, serene and self-assured. It wasn’t possible, of course, for someone like me to forget the mortal distress I’d had to endure in the past. On the contrary, true happiness inspires compassion even for torment’s memories.

S
ome weeks—possibly no more than two months—then passed in serenity and bliss. When I remember those days, I’m afflicted with pain and sorrow. It isn’t a longing for a happiness that no longer exists. Rather, it’s a feeling of grief over the hugest deception I’ve ever been subjected to in my life. In other words, there was nothing to be happy about at all, and if I did enjoy comfort and happiness for a time, it was only because I was ignorant, gullible, and blind. There’s nothing wrong with a blind man enjoying an illusory happiness so long as he goes on being blind. However, if his sight is restored and he sees that his happiness was nothing but a mirage, what will he reap from the memories of his happiness but an even greater unhappiness and never-ending sorrow? This was precisely my situation, but I only became aware of it with a painful slowness commensurate with my ignorance and stupidity.

I’d noticed that, what with her work at school and visits to her relatives, Rabab was spending all day and part of
the night away from home. I’d gone with her in the beginning despite my reclusive nature, but when it became a hardship for me, I withdrew and stopped accompanying her on more than the occasional visit. My mother went back to making her embittered, sorrowful comments on the situation, while I came tirelessly to my wife’s defense even though, somewhere deep inside me, I agreed with the criticisms. In the past I’d encouraged my wife to make such visits to help her get her mind off what I felt was lacking in our married life. Now, though, there was no reason that I could see to go to such excess in this regard.

Hence, after gathering my courage, I said to her one day, “It seems, sweetheart, that you’re boycotting our house. Wouldn’t it be possible for you to cut down on the number of visits you make?”

Looking at me suspiciously, she asked with a sharpness I wasn’t accustomed to, “So, does she still busy herself criticizing me?”

I realized that she was referring to my mother, and it pained me to see that she harbored such a negative attitude toward her.

“My mother doesn’t interfere in what doesn’t concern her,” I replied soothingly. “This is my request and no one else’s. The fact is, I can’t bear our house when you’re not in it.”

“Let’s go out together, then,” she said, having recovered her composure. “Why don’t you like to be with people?”

“That’s just the way I am,” I said gently.

I don’t know what changed her after what I’d said. However, she said testily, “Well, this is the only way life is bearable for me.”

Ah, my love! I thought to myself. Your gentle-heartedness wouldn’t allow you to speak this way! What’s happened?

However, that wasn’t all there was to it. After all, my heart would sometimes see things that my eyes missed. I had to rend the curtain of blindness and meet the truth face-to-face, bitter though it might be. It seemed to me that Rabab wasn’t as happy with my recovery as I was. It was a bizarre reality, and one that had me completely baffled. But how long would I go on deluding myself? She seemed to be afraid for night to come and want to avoid it. As soon as we found ourselves alone together, she would be gripped by torment that I could see in her limpid eyes. And particularly of late, she’d begun making all manner of excuses, from tiredness to feeling ill to being desperately sleepy. And when she did yield to me, she would do so in a way that made it seem like a joyless capitulation. Then she’d wrest her body away from mine as though she were offended and angry. For all these reasons, she was no longer the smiling, cheerful, serene girl I’d once known her to be. Her laugh was tainted with affectation, her cheerfulness had grown tepid, and her affection had turned to flattery. Far be it from me to say that she openly declared any bitterness or resentment or that she behaved discourteously. After all, my sweetheart was above such things. However, I could sense her anxiety with my heart, and I picked up instinctively on her ambivalence. God knows, the whole world wouldn’t have amounted to a hill of beans as far as I was concerned if my beloved was in pain. But what was bothering her? I missed her, but couldn’t find her. And I had to find her lest I die of sorrow.

My misery reached its limit. Her seeming aversion to me had affected me deeply, making its way into the inner recesses of my being. It provoked a recurrence of my old malady, and the magical recovery I’d experienced went the
way of the wind. Not even liquor did the trick anymore. I was so grief-stricken, I came close to losing my mind. Was impotence to be my lot again? Was I to be doomed once more to that deadly despair?

Once I said to her despondently, “What’s wrong, Rabab? You’re not the sweetheart I’ve always known.”

She made no reply. Instead, she just lowered her eyes with a look of consternation and uncertainty on her face.

Imploringly I said, “My heart doesn’t lie to me. So please, tell me what’s changed you.”

“Nothing,” she whispered with a somber look in her eyes.

“But there
is
something!” I cried. “In fact, there’s more than one thing. I’m your husband, Rabab, and I’m all yours. So don’t hide anything from me. Oh, Rabab, how I grieve the happy days we once knew!”

She sighed, and a look of pain and embarrassment came over her face. Then she murmured tremulously, “So do I.”

Stunned, distressed, and utterly confused, I asked her, “How could that be, Rabab? I don’t understand a thing. Shouldn’t our life be happier than this?”

The look on her face indicated that she was as confused as I was, a fact that stunned and baffled me even more. I wanted her to reveal to me what was causing her distress and, in so doing, to relieve me of my own. I waited fretfully until I began to suspect things that struck terror in my heart and, if true, would plunge me into humiliation and despair.

When I could bear to wait no longer, I said, “Why don’t you tell me honestly what you’re thinking?”

She wanted to reveal what was weighing on her delicate heart, but she either didn’t know how, or didn’t have the courage.

As for me, fear and despondency tightened their grip on me until my anguish knew no bounds.

“Rabab,” I said. “You’re not comfortable with the new development in our lives, are you?”

She looked at me strangely, then lowered her glance and began nervously chewing her fingernails. The cat was out of the bag now. However, her silence had started to disturb me, and with a feeling that bordered on exasperation I asked, “Isn’t that so?”

She looked at me as though she were begging me to have pity on her.

Then, in a voice that was barely audible she said, “Shall we go back to the way we were before? It was a nice life.”

I looked down in humiliation and dejection as though I’d been slapped in the face. This wish of hers could have given me a convenient excuse by which to conceal the impotence I’d begun suffering anew. Even so, my only response to it was to feel utterly mortified.

As though she saw the pained look on my face, she said gently, “I don’t mean to upset you. It’s just that I miss the life we had before. It was a pure, happy life.…”

As if to finish her statement for her, I said, “… and there was nothing in it to disturb your peace of mind?”

She blinked her eyes, and in them I could see a look of sympathy.

“We were happy, weren’t we?” she said gently. “We lacked nothing at all.”

I don’t know why, but her gentleness caused me pain.

Then I remembered some of the things I’d heard from my fellow employees at the warehousing section and I said, “But that’s the only thing that will make a woman happy!”

Blushing, she assured me hastily, “No! No! You’re wrong about that!”

I looked at her in bewilderment. Is she really telling me the truth? I wondered. But what reason would she have to lie? I was nothing but a gullible, ignorant fool, and you won’t find an easier prey for words of assurance than gullible, ignorant fools. Hence, I was moved profoundly by what she said.

Again I thought: Should I disbelieve my beloved and believe the harebrains at the ministry? Didn’t this statement of hers express a belief that I myself had held before I was persuaded otherwise by my coworkers’ bawdy remarks? Add to this the fact that now that she’d spoken this way, and now that I was impotent again, I couldn’t have relations with her anymore.

So all things considered, I pretended to be relieved.

Feigning a smile, I said with resignation, “There’s nothing I want more than your happiness, Rabab.”

Her worries dispelled, a look of relief flashed in her eyes. Then she moved up close to me until we were touching and kissed me.

Thus we went back to the way we’d been before, and I went back to being a chaste husband with an ugly habit. I would say to myself: It isn’t my fault that we’ve ended up this way. I’m an able-bodied man, and if it weren’t for her disposition, I wouldn’t have suffered this relapse. On the contrary, I’m enduring this strange life for her sake! It was a solace I’d badly needed. But did I really believe myself?

Whatever the answer, the memory of our era of blessedness didn’t leave me for a single moment. How had it passed with such astonishing rapidity? And how could my beloved have been so troubled that she would end up
breaking her silence with this sort of manifest grievance? Didn’t this mean that I was a wretched soul with no way out of my wretchedness? I was sorely tempted to flee and reclaim my freedom, and I would think back nostalgically to the days when I’d go wandering aimlessly in the streets.

Had everything gone back to point zero?

Love continued to bring us together in embraces and sympathy, and my beloved went back to being her smiling, cheerful self as she divided her days between her school and the houses of her family and relatives. It sufficed me to see her happy and content. At the same time, her disposition may have undergone a slight change, a change that became apparent in recurrent episodes of gloom, as well as in a quickness to lose her temper over the slightest thing my mother would say.

Was I happy?