The Mirage

33

I was no longer the indigent, destitute person I had been, and the burden of need and deprivation had been lifted from my shoulders. I now had a reasonable income in addition to the fortune that would begin coming to me within a month or two. Now, however, I’d been afflicted with madness of a kind I’d never known before — the madness of someone in love who isn’t rendered helpless by poverty. Poverty had been a deterrent that put a damper on my ambition and turned my love into a prolonged affliction locked deep in my soul. Consequently, I’d conceded defeat to my rival Muhammad Gawdat without even a show of resistance, then gone sobbing down the street like a little boy. However, now that poverty had been dealt the death blow, love was no longer an unattainable desire. So I put other obstacles out of my mind and was afflicted by a new kind of madness, namely, the madness of someone for whom happiness appears as a genuine possibility and for whom all that remains is to overcome his timidity, storm the gates, and try his luck.

The afternoon after my father died I lingered at the tram stop for an unusually long time. I looked up at the dearly loved window with fervent longing. I no longer saw my sweetheart, and I didn’t know whether what I feared had come to pass. If it had, then all I stood to gain from my fortune was so much deadly poison. If she appeared in the window, what would I do? Would I have the nerve to gesture to her in some subtle way? On the contrary, my heart shrank with fear and alarm. I wasn’t the type to do that sort of thing. If I’d had an iota of courage, I would have stormed the building without further ado, requested a meeting with my sweetheart’s father, and told him what was on my mind. Was such a thing dangerous enough to warrant such awful dread? Supposing, as a worst-case scenario, that he declined to meet with me: Why did I think of such an eventuality as a fate worse than death? Why was it that the minute I so much as thought of taking such an initiative, I broke out in a sweat and my heart nearly leaped out of my chest? O God! Didn’t scores and even hundreds of people get married every day? How did would-be husbands find ways to go after what they wanted? The only thing that stood between me and the object of my desire was to knock on that door. Once that was done, it would either be the bliss of hope or the solace of despair. So why hesitate and shrink from the task at hand? After all, it was a house, not a fortress, and I was a suitor, not a foe. Why was I so terrified? My aim wasn’t to invade a continent or even to go into battle. I wasn’t required to be Napoleon or Hannibal. On the contrary, all that was required of me was that I introduce myself and pose my question. In the meantime, I’d be surrounded by the solicitous attention that’s always afforded a guest by a gracious host. Then let the answer be whatever it was meant to be, since at the very worst, it wouldn’t be more than a polite refusal. This is what I told myself reproachfully, but the minute I imagined the concrete situation before me, my forehead would get hot, my heart would race, and I’d feel a shudder go through my limbs. Suddenly I had a flashback of the ill-fated rhetoric class at the Faculty of Law that cast me beyond the pale of the university, and I heaved a deep, hopeless sigh. It was too much for me. I might easily spend my entire life crying on this sidewalk, I thought, but as for crossing the street and knocking on that door, it’s more than I’m capable of. I worked up such a dread, in fact, that the anxiety that tormented me turned into a fever that burned both heart and head. A few days passed, days spent in a kind of delirium. I forgot about the fortune that had fallen to my lot, and my hope and enthusiasm for life were extinguished. My thinking focused instead on one thing and no other, and I danced around it over and over without daring either to approach it or to move away from it. My mother found me in a state of agony that I made no attempt to conceal, and I said to myself furiously, If I weren’t afraid of her, I’d ask her to go ask for the girl’s hand on my behalf and spare me this ordeal!

When will this misery come to an end? I wondered. And, indeed, I never would have seen an end to it if it hadn’t been for a certain fortuitous event. I was on my way home from Hilmiya and I got off the tram at Ataba at sunset. Then, as usual, I boarded the tram that goes to Giza via Roda. The tram car was packed with passengers, some seated and others standing, so I made my way through the crowd until I was able to rest my back against the door that led into the first-class compartment. Just after the tram had left the square, I heard a tapping on the door and realized that someone was asking permission to open it. I stepped back from the door slightly, turning on my heels to make room for the person getting on. And when the door opened, who should I find before me but my sweetheart, in the flesh! My heart jumped so violently, my whole chest quaked. I became oblivious to everything in the universe but the happy sight, which caused me to tremble all over in joy and fear. She happened to look into my face, so our eyes met for a brief moment. She seemed to hesitate slightly on the car’s threshold between the two compartments, but she had no place behind her to place her foot, so she had no choice but to come forward. She looked around behind me for a place to stand, but the car was packed wall to wall. People were standing so close together, there wasn’t so much as an inch of space unoccupied. Consequently, she was obliged to occupy the place where I’d been standing, and she rested her back against the door. Meanwhile, I stood in front of her — only a breath away — holding on to the door handle. There she was — she and no other — as though heaven had granted her to me as a balm to my soul. There are realities that are more wondrous than dreams, and this was the most wondrous of them all. What was I feeling? Was it joy, or fear, or a blazing fire? If it hadn’t been for the delicacy of the situation and my appalling timidity, I would have liked to cry! I was insensible to everything, and I no longer felt the people around me despite the fact that they were pressing on me from all sides. I don’t even recall what color dress my beloved was wearing or what she had in her hand. It seems that the heart has its own kind of vision that, when it focuses in on something, so obscures physical vision that one becomes blind even though one is sighted. I don’t know where I got the courage, but I stole a glance at her, and when I saw her, my heart fluttered mercilessly. It seemed to me that my presence was what had produced this charming friendliness and delightful discomfiture. I sighed in spite of myself, and a lock of her hair undulated under the force of my breath. She looked up at me, then quickly lowered her eyes in flight from my gaze. Ah! I’d finally found someone who ran away from me! An intoxication warmer and more delectable than wine’s flowed through my head. Gripped by a madness the likes of which I’d never known before, I fixed my gaze on her face with an extraordinary — and, for me, outrageous — daring. Suddenly I became conscious of a peculiar urge to give voice to what was pressing in on me, and I gulped with a violent nervous tension. Then, in a terrible, angst-filled uproar, I began making ready for the anticipated leap, aided by the madness that was churning inside me and propelled forward by the anxious longing and near-despair that I’d suffered in the preceding days. Then, possessed by a feeling similar to that experienced by someone who’s about to commit suicide as he gathers courage for the final leap, my lips moved with a sound that came out in a whisper as I said, “I want to tell you something.”

Lord! Do you suppose she’d heard me? Yes, she had! Blushing and blinking her eyes, she stared at me in disbelief.

A harsh, arduous time ensued. My throat went dry and my heartbeats came fast and furiously. What sort of abyss had my lunacy plunged me into? The suicidal maniac had jumped, and now it was time to cry for help. Even so, I felt a profound relief, since I’d managed to budge the hugest barricade on my life’s path. I’d spoken! The rock had spoken, albeit belatedly. At the very least, I wouldn’t die with my secret still undisclosed. However, the tram wasn’t going to give me much more time, since it was about to reach my sweetheart’s stop. She was looking out the window by now, her hand was on the doorknob in preparation to open it, and once she did that, it would be all over. With madness coming over me once more, I took hold of the doorknob to keep her from opening it. Where on earth had I gotten such nerve? Her pretty face registered a look of indignation and she looked daggers at me.

Nearly in tears, I whispered imploringly, “Just one thing.…”

For a few brutal moments, I expected the thunderbolt to descend upon my head and for her to rebuke me or send me away with angry words. This, of course, would have turned the people around us against me, and that would have been the end of me. If it had happened I wouldn’t have had the strength to bear it, and I would have perished on the spot! When the tram stopped, I still had hold of the door, and when it moved again she was still standing there, frowning and disgruntled, though without making any serious objection. A wild rush of satisfaction coursed through my body, so pleased was I with my conquest, and I imagined myself being transformed into an invincible giant before whom death itself falls prostrate after being dealt a single blow. I waited two more stops, then I opened the door and whispered, “After you.” She turned around edgily, then made her way through the crowd with me close on her heels. It was then that my elation was dampened by a troubling thought: Might she have simply capitulated out of shyness, embarrassment, and the desire to avoid a scene? Wasn’t it most likely that she had restrained her anger on the tram so that she could unleash it on me in the street away from people’s inquisitive stares? My strength about to give out, I got off the tram behind her feeling worried and distraught. Darkness had fallen, and the street was virtually deserted except for cars coming and going. She hastily moved away from me and began to cross over to the sidewalk. Propelled by the fear of letting the opportunity slip out of my grasp and emboldened by the darkness, I came up to her.

“Pardon me,” I said with a trembling voice. “Please don’t take offense at my forwardness.”

“What do you want?” she retorted. “And what is this that you did in front of everyone?”

Now I was more flustered than ever. I was hearing her voice for the first time, and I was stirred by her lovely accent despite the sharpness and anger in her voice.

“I ask you to forgive me,” I said. “I’ve wanted to say something to you for a long time, but I never had the chance until today.”

I was finding it terribly difficult to express myself, and it seemed that my fervent emotions couldn’t be put into words. I was grieved and distressed, and to make things worse, she turned her back to me indifferently and hurriedly crossed the street to the other sidewalk.

I followed her in no less of a hurry, saying, “Please, one moment. Listen to me. I’ll say just one thing, then we’ll go our separate ways.”

Without stopping or looking at me she said, “By what right do you speak to me, you …?”

Forgetting myself, I cried, “I’ve known you for more than two years!”

“What nonsense!” she said irritably.

Could she possibly not have recognized me?

How stupid could I be! Hadn’t she complied with my wishes, with the result that we’d gotten off at this particular stop? This seemed to indicate that she wanted to hear what I had to say. The opportunity was before me, but I was ruining it with my inarticulate, bumbling speech.

I mustered my strength and, in a tremulous voice, I said distraughtly, “For months and months I’ve been dying to say something. So what harm would it do for you to listen to me?”

Why didn’t I just speak rather than making these endless introductions? O Lord, loosen my tongue! It seemed to me at this point that my beloved became aware of my deadly shyness. I don’t know what caused her to stop, but I saw her turn toward me and look at me with her beautiful eyes, those eyes that I loved more than life itself.

“What do you want?” she asked me testily.

What did I want? Had I not said it yet? Here she was waiting for the word that I’d sought her permission to speak, wearying her in the process. Had I not rehearsed it? I drew a huge blank as though I’d lost the ability to speak. What was one to say? I swallowed my nonexistent saliva in near despair.

Then, seeing her make a gesture that indicated she was losing her patience and about to leave, I broke out of my silence and cried, “Wait, please! I wanted to say … I want.…” The words, “to ask for your hand” got stuck in my throat. “You understand, I’m sure. Don’t you? Is this possible?”

“Oof!” she said. “I have to go home, and don’t follow me, please.”

Seized by a panic that impelled me to speak, I said without hesitation this time, “I’m thinking … I mean, I want to ask you to marry me, if you please!”

And with that, I sighed audibly as a sense of relief and surrender flooded my being. At long last I’d spoken and gotten things off my chest. And now, let come what may.

A moment of deep silence passed, like the calm that follows a raging storm. Then she began walking with short steps without saying a word. Feeling uneasy again, I followed her.

Like someone begging for a reply, I said, “That was what I wanted to say.”

In a low voice that seemed to reach my ear placidly, without a trace of harshness or anger, she said, “It isn’t proper for you to follow me this way.”

Stumbling hurriedly over my words, I said, “I asked for your permission, so don’t leave me without a reply.”

“I’m not the one to be addressed concerning this matter!” she said impatiently.

My heart was beating passionately, overflowing with unspeakable joy.

“I realize that,” I said. “However, I was afraid someone else had asked first.”

Her voice barely audible, she said, “Suppose someone had.…”

“Have I missed my chance, then?” I cried miserably.

With an exasperated sigh she said, “Don’t follow me any farther. I’m getting close to the house.”

“Is there no hope?” I asked her as my heart strove with all its strength to break free of despair’s grip.

Walking even more quickly now, she replied, “I’m not the one to be spoken to about this matter.”

I stopped walking and stood still for a moment in a daze.

Then I cracked my knuckles, crying, “What an idiot I am! If she’d wanted to refuse me, she could easily have given me a definitive reply. Didn’t she go along with me on the tram? Didn’t she listen to me a few minutes ago? Didn’t she tell me that she wasn’t the person to be spoken to about this matter? So what more could I ask? It was a polite, indirect invitation!”

Once these facts had sunk in, my soul was suffused with a dream-like bliss, and I felt as though I were reeling like a drunken man.