The Mirage (6 page)

Thus, having been rescued from the fear that had loomed so large on our path, we went back to our usual peace and quiet. I carried on with my studies at home, plodding my way laboriously through them. Another year passed, autumn rolled around, and there was frequent talk of school, so I knew for a certainty that my return to prison drew nigh.

One day I said to my mother, “If you love me so much that you won’t agree to let my father take me back, why do you let school separate us?”

Laughing that delicate laugh of hers, she said, “For shame! How can you say that when you’re the perfect man? Don’t you want to be a high-ranking officer some day like your grandfather? If you leave school, what can you do but work as a fuul vendor or a tram conductor!”

My grandfather took me to the Aqqadin School in Heliopolis, and this time I passed the entrance examination. The academic year began and I began reluctantly attending school. The carriage would take me there in the morning and bring me home in the afternoon. Given this new arrangement, my grandfather forbade my mother to escort me herself as she’d done during my days at the Roda School. Hence, I returned once more to school and suffered anew the lessons, the regime, the teachers’ cruelty, and the other students’ derision. My entire school life was misery from start to finish. Moreover, my misery was reinforced by the fact that at home I was an undisputed sovereign, and at school a dutiful slave. Year after year I lived the confused, schizophrenic life of someone who at home is showered with affection, and at school is the target of his classmates’ ridicule and blows from the teachers’ rod.

I earned the teachers’ hostility thanks to my stupidity and dullness of mind. Some of them even dubbed me “the first-rate dunce.” Whenever my mathematics teacher finished explaining a lesson, he would ask me about it and keep after me until I’d given him a satisfactory answer. Then, with a sigh of relief, he would turn to the other students and say, “If Mr. Kamil has figured it out, then you must have, too!” And the class would roar with laughter.

As for the pupils, they made fun of me whenever they got the chance. My inability to make friends is a bitter reality of which there can be no doubt, since it’s something at which I’ve never succeeded in my entire life. The fact is that I’m no worse than a lot of people who enjoy happy friendships. However, I’m painfully shy, I love solitude and isolation, and I’m wary of strangers. What makes my disposition even more unhappy is the fact that by nature I’m
withdrawn, unable to express myself without faltering and searching in vain for the right word. Never in my life have I been good even at talking, much less joking or playfulness. For all these reasons the other students accused me of being disagreeable. It so pained me to be described in this way that I asked my mother one day, “Mama, am I disagreeable?”

She stared at me in horror.

“Who said that about you?” she asked me tartly.

“All the other students,” I said hesitantly.

“Well, their tongues ought to be cut out!” she cried, furious. “They just envy you for your perfect manners and the carriage that takes you to school while they dawdle along on foot! Don’t you dare make friends with any of them.”

As if I were in need of such advice! Thus, I endured life at school alone, with hostility and hatred peering at me from all sides. If I’d taken part in the pleasures school afforded, it might not have been all that bad. However, my inordinate shyness forced me to boycott the various activities others were involved in, from scouting, to ball, to physical education. My mother wouldn’t even agree to let me go on field trips for fear that some harm might come to me. The other students would talk about the pyramids, the Sphinx, the Museum of Antiquities, and Fustat while I listened in on their conversations feeling bewildered and disheartened, as though I were listening to tourists relating stories about distant lands. I can hardly describe the embarrassment that came over me when I realized that all I’d seen of vast, far-flung Cairo—the only city I’d ever inhabited—were a few streets within walking distance of our house. My sole consolation during those days was to
sit alone with my mother on the balcony or in our room, where we would talk for hours on end. Thinking of the teacher’s rod would remind me that there was a homework assignment I needed to do before going to bed. So I’d take to the book in loathing and disgust, studying wearily and without enthusiasm until, before long, I’d begin nodding off and sleep would dim my eyes.

One day in religion class the following verse from the Qur’an was recited to us: “At length, when there comes the Deafening Noise, that day shall a man flee from his own brother, and from his mother and his father.” I can’t recall ever being as upset by anything as I was by those words. I couldn’t bear the thought of fleeing from my mother on any day, no matter how horrible it happened to be, or of abandoning her to such a day’s horrors with her delicate, willowy frame and her gentle green eyes. Not realizing what I was doing, I interrupted the teacher, crying, “No! No!”

My interruption caused an astonished silence to fall over the classroom, since I usually didn’t utter a word, and no one understood what I’d meant. However, it wasn’t long before they broke into raucous laughter. Furious, the teacher held me responsible for disturbing the peace. Coming up to me in a rage, he gave me a forceful, exasperated slap in the face. I welcomed the slap as an excuse to cry, since I’d been fighting back the tears valiantly, but to no avail.

These words from the Holy Qur’an shook me to the core. They were the first portent to me of life’s tragedy.

I
t was a monotonous life, but I endured it despite my aversion to it. Even so, it wasn’t without its earth-shaking tremors. One evening my grandfather came home early. This worried my mother, since he generally didn’t come home before dawn. He burst into the room, his face full of foreboding. My mother rose, anxious to discover what the matter was, and I looked up from my book. But before she could ask him what was wrong, he struck the edge of his shoe with his cane and said brusquely, “Zaynab, there’s been a disaster in the family. It’s a scandal that will make us the talk of the town.”

“Lord have mercy, what’s happened, Baba?” cried my mother, her voice trembling and panic in her eyes.

His green eyes grew hard and he said crustily, “Your daughter … Radiya … has run away.”

Her face went pale and her eyes darted nervously about the room. Then she cast my grandfather a look of incredulity as though she couldn’t believe her ears.

“Ran away …,” she murmured in what sounded like a moan. “Radiya! That’s impossible!”

He stomped his foot on the floor until the corners of the room shook.

“Impossible?” he bellowed. “Well, that’s exactly what’s happened! It’s the naked, appalling truth, and it will deal the death blow to our honor!”

My mother made no reply, as though she’d lost the ability to speak.

His breathing slightly labored, my grandfather said as if to himself, “What sort of madness has robbed her of her senses? This corrupt, infernal blood doesn’t belong to us! Yet its rotten fruit points to its source. After all, her grandfather died calling down curses on her father’s head, and the curse has fallen on his children.”

“God, what a catastrophe!” murmured my mother in horror, swallowing with difficulty. “That drunken good-for-nothing has ruined her life! How miserable she must be!”

“Don’t make excuses for her,” my grandfather said indignantly. “There’s nothing in the world that could justify her doing something so disgraceful.”

“I’m not making excuses for her,” my mother murmured in a feeble, pathetic voice. “But she
is
miserable. There’s no doubt about it.”

A gloomy silence fell, and they sat there exchanging looks of grief, worry, and desperation. I listened to their conversation with rapt attention, understanding its more trivial parts while missing its true significance. It had to do with a sister of mine whom I’d never laid eyes on. But why had she run away? And where had she gone?

“Why didn’t she come to us?” I wondered aloud.

“Shush!” shouted my grandfather in exasperation.

Then he flung himself onto a chair and continued, “Her paternal uncle came to see me at the casino and told me the news. He said he didn’t know the details, but that Medhat had wired him, asking him to come immediately, and he’d come without delay. Then the young man had told him of his sister’s disappearance. As for that degenerate carouser, all he had to say was, ‘To hell with her.’ Then the uncle and I went to see a friend of his who works for the governorate. We informed him of the shocking situation and asked for his help.”

My grandfather paused for a minute, then went on, saying, “Damn that old sot! He’s the one who’s to blame for this tragedy, and I swear to God, I’ll go and bash his head in!”

My mother’s eyes flickered with distress.

“No, no!” she said fearfully. “That would only make our situation worse!”

“He should be repaid evil for evil,” insisted my grandfather.

“He’s no concern of ours,” said my mother imploringly. “Let’s just focus our attention on finding the girl in the hopes that we might be able to straighten her out.”

Eyeing her skeptically, my grandfather asked, “Why do you insist on preventing me from going to see him?”

“I’m afraid of things getting worse,” she murmured with a flustered look on her face.

Exasperated, my grandfather retorted, “Rather, what you’re afraid of is that if we have an argument, he might take Kamil away from you. You don’t care about anything but yourself. Damn the whole lot of you!”

Such a pall descended on the household after that, you would have thought it was in mourning. Black days came
upon us and life turned cheerless. I nearly suffocated in that dismal atmosphere. Meanwhile, my grandfather changed his lifestyle. He abandoned his usual evenings at the casino and would stay out all day long without our knowing a thing about his whereabouts. As for my mother, she spent her days grave-faced or in tears.

Then one evening my grandfather came to us, and when he saw my mother he hailed her with the words, “We’ve finally found what we were looking for!”

“Really?” she cried as she came running up to him. “O Lord, have mercy on us!”

In a tone of joy and satisfaction he said, “The crazy girl sent a letter to Medhat informing him that she was living with her husband in Banha. She asked him to forgive her for the way she’d acted, saying that she’d had no other choice.”

Her eyes welling up with tears, my mother heaved a deep sigh and said, “Didn’t I tell you? Radiya is an upstanding girl, but she’s had miserable luck. Lord! Where is she now? Tell me everything you know!”

“Her uncle, Medhat, and I went to Banha,” my grandfather said calmly, “and we found her living with a kind, respectable family. We met her husband, a young man by the name of Sabir Amin who works at the Ministry of Justice. He told us he’d rented a flat on Hidayet Street in Shubra and that he’d be moving into it this week. Radiya said that her husband had asked for her hand, but that her father had turned him rudely away. She said that he’d also turned away another young man who had asked for her hand before this. Perhaps on account of the liquor, he seemed to have lost the last vestiges of his humanity, as a result of which he’d forgotten his duties and frittered away his income. So, overcome by despair, she’d eloped with the
young man. They’d gone straightaway to his family, where the justice of the peace was waiting for them.”

As she listened to him, my mother wept hot tears, but they were tears of both sadness and joy.

Then she said, “I’ll go see her tomorrow.”

“You’ll find her at home whether you go tomorrow or the day after,” replied my grandfather reassuringly.

Then she wondered aloud, “Why didn’t she come to me?”

As if to apologize for the girl, my grandfather said, “Maybe she would have been embarrassed to bring her fiancé to us when she was running away from her father. In any case, let’s praise God for this happy ending, an ending happier than any we could have dreamed of.”

W
e all got in the Victoria together for the first time ever. My grandfather and my mother rode in front and I sat in the back. My mother was in a state of utter elation. After all the worry and grief she’d suffered in the days that had passed, she looked as though she’d regained her early youth. Her eyes sparkled with joy, and her tongue was uttering praise and thanks to God. Her joy was infectious, and I too rejoiced in the happy journey we were embarking on. I began thinking in amazement and delight about this sister of mine whom I’d be seeing for the first time in just a few minutes. At the same time, my thoughts were accompanied by a sense of anxiety that I couldn’t explain. What do you suppose she looks like? I wondered. And how will she receive us? Will she like us?

My train of thought was interrupted when my mother asked my grandfather eagerly, “Will Medhat be there?”

Resting his hands on the grip of his cane, my grandfather replied, “Most likely he will. We’d agreed that he would be.”