The Mirage

46

Autumn rolled around with its pleasant weather and its wispy clouds, and the schools embarked on a new year. My wife and I would go out together in the morning and take the same tram, and memories would wash over my heart in a blend of ecstasy and agony.

One time I said to her, “It was during days like this that I’d come rushing to the tram stop, dying just to catch a glimpse of your face.”

She smiled gently and said, “And I was dying to see yours!”

Ah, my beloved! Never in my life had I seen anyone so loving, content, and happy. She was cheerful and attentive without affectation or hypocrisy. Had she suffered in the beginning, then overcome her sufferings thanks to her loving, pure-hearted disposition? How could I possibly know what was going on deep inside her, or the thoughts she was thinking about me and her life? She seemed happy, caring, and sincere. After all, what reason would there be for her to pretend constantly to be happy if she was really miserable or didn’t love me? Nor did I have any reason to doubt her maturity as a woman or the depth of her feelings. She was the farthest thing from being frivolous and capricious. On the contrary, her heart was filled with vitality, fervor, and empathy. So, I thought, maybe she’s living her life inspired by the same hope that I cling to with such patience and endurance. However, the fact of the matter was that I was so preoccupied with my own worries, I had little time to concern myself with those of other people. This may have been due, first and foremost, to my innate self-centeredness. My ignorance also had a part to play in it. I may well have viewed myself as the primary, if not sole, victim of this tragedy.

In the early days of that autumn we were invited by Gabr Bey and Madame Nazli to a lunch banquet that they were hosting for family members and relatives in honor of Rabab’s brother Muhammad, who had recovered from a serious illness.

My wife went to the banquet, while my mother stayed home, saying she had to follow the new diet the doctor had prescribed for her. I went, feeling awkward and uncomfortable as usual, since for me a lunch banquet was a fate worse than illness, and because, like other gatherings of its type, it brought back memories of the orator’s podium at the Faculty of Law. I made certain that we went early so that we could arrive before all the other guests, since this way, I wouldn’t be subjected to people’s stares when I walked into the reception room. My plan worked; when we arrived, no one was there but the family, which was my family as well. I loved them all, though I’d come to be deathly afraid of Madame Nazli. Then the guests began to arrive: Rabab’s three paternal uncles and her four maternal uncles came with their wives and children. Her two maternal aunts also came, one of them with her husband and the other, a widow, with her eldest daughter.

Madame Nazli excused herself to receive a new guest, to whom I heard her say, “Why are you late, Amin?” The newcomer apologized to her in a low voice that sounded familiar to me, so I looked over toward the door with interest. As the new guest came into the room, I recognized him instantly. Before me stood the doctor I’d visited two months earlier and to whom I’d confided the secret of my misery! At first all I could do was stare at him, terrified, though I quickly got hold of myself. However, although I was capable of concealing what was going on inside me, there was nothing I could do to keep my heart from racing and nearly pounding its way out of my chest. Gripped with fright and deadly shyness, my heart was weighed down by an anguish so heavy, it was as though I’d fallen into a bottomless pit.

Then before I knew it, Madame Nazli was introducing him to me, saying, “This is a relative of mine whom I haven’t had the pleasure of introducing to you before. He just recently returned from Europe, and he rarely honors us with a visit. This is my nephew, Dr. Amin Rida.”

We shook hands as custom dictates and as we did so, our eyes met for a brief moment. However, I discerned nothing in his eyes but an expression of welcome, and there was nothing to indicate that he remembered me. Instead, he maintained his pompous, dispassionate bearing. When he’d finished shaking hands with seated family members, he sat down beside Gabr Bey and the two of them began to talk while I lost myself in frightened, distracted thoughts. Does he remember me? I wondered. Maybe, like doctors who are accustomed to encountering as many faces as there are minutes in the day, he’s forgotten me. On the other hand, he’s a new doctor, with only a few patients. Yet despite this fact, he didn’t appear to remember me in the least. Or, I wondered: Perhaps he does recognize me but is mercifully pretending not to. If only I could find a way to confirm this point! Supposing he does recognize me, might he possibly divulge my secret to his relative, Madame Nazli?

It seemed a far-fetched possibility. Nonetheless, I was about as far as one could get from peace of mind. I was already drowning in a fathomless sea of obsessive thoughts and fears. Did I really need any more?

We were invited to the table, so I left my thoughts behind, though their effects lingered the way the smell of smoke clings to someone coming out of a fire. Once we’d sat down, Madame Nazli turned and said with a smile, “I know you’re shy, Kamil, but beware, since banquets have no mercy on the shy!”

Some of them commented on what she’d said, which caused me to feel resentful toward her and even more distressed than before. However, it wasn’t long before they’d all become too engrossed in the delectable food to pay any attention to me. I hardly felt the discomfort that usually assails me in such circles, so distracted was I by matters of greater moment. After all, the only cure for discomfort is more discomfort. Then we went back to the reception room and coffee was served. I took the cup and brought it to my lips, and as I did so, my thoughts were suddenly transported to the old pub on Alfi Bey Street, and in my mind’s eye I saw a glass of liquor. How had the memory come back to me, and what had occasioned it? I was truly amazed, yet I also felt an extraordinary relief, like the delight you feel when you see a long-lost friend. Liquor … intoxication … bliss.… Ah, how badly I needed an escape! It was a strange, unexpected thought. But it was powerful, nay, irresistible. Cautiously and fearfully, I turned my attention back to my immediate surroundings. I glanced over in the direction of the doctor and found him engrossed in conversation, saying what he had to say with confidence, eloquence, and disdain while many of those present were jumping into the discussion with interest and delight. The conversation came around to the subject of life in Britain, and the doctor said that since his studies had taken up most of his time, he’d only rarely enjoyed his life there as a tourist. Nevertheless, he’d been able to observe first-hand the firm foundations on which the structure of political life there rested, people’s high standard of living, and the wide-ranging freedom they enjoyed in all spheres.

“So,” Gabr Bey said to him, “you seem to have continued to be interested there in the same things that interested you here before you went abroad.”

Laughing, one of the guests chimed in, “That’s right, Gabr Bey. Remind him of the days of the Faculty of Medicine and the nationalist revolution!”

Another said, “Who would have thought that you’d end up in enemy territory, or that you’d come back with such an admiration for the enemy’s ways!”

“Well,” he replied with a smile, “enmity isn’t incompatible with admiration.”

Then Gabr Bey asked him, “Aren’t you still a radical Wafdist? You were thrown in prison once for the sake of the Wafd Party!”

Pursing his lips in disgust, the young man rejoined, “Now I see all Egyptians living in a huge prison. The fact is, sir, that the only news we used to hate to hear when we were in England was news from Egypt.”

Madame Nazli said with a smile, “You love to take all sorts of burdens on yourself, as though you were responsible for the world and everyone in it. Focus your attention on your clinic, your life, and especially the matter of getting married. Haven’t you noticed that you’re thirty years old now? You’re over the hill!”

To this one of Rabab’s two maternal aunts added, “Don’t worry! You may be hearing good news before the year is out.”

The conversation turned to the daughter of a certain prominent physician. Rabab, who was sitting beside me, said to me in a whisper that the girl they were speaking about was a legendary beauty and the heiress to a huge fortune. She told me that the girl had been her classmate for a period of time.

One of Rabab’s maternal uncles seemed to be drawn to discussions of politics. The minute the discussion of marriage ended, he turned to the doctor and said, “There’s no reason to be pessimistic. Everything will be reformed in the end, however long it takes. We’re about to have new elections, and a favorable wind may be blowing.”

The doctor’s eyes took on an added intensity as he said testily, “It’s better for this country to be ruled by a corrupt government. After all, a righteous government can’t do anything to speak of under currently prevailing conditions. So let the corrupt government throw its weight around however it pleases, since this way it hastens the end — the inevitable end!”

“You’re still a cynic and a discontent!” said Gabr Bey with a laugh. “Don’t you see anything in Egypt that deserves your admiration and appreciation?”

“Well, yes,” replied the doctor with a smile as he scanned his audience with his sparkling eyes, “Umm Kulthoum.”

And everyone roared with laughter. I’d begun listening to him with a mixture of interest and astonishment. However, I could hardly make any sense out of what he was saying. I was amazed at people who preoccupied themselves with such matters. Didn’t they have worries in their lives to distract them from such affairs? Based on his conversation he’d struck me as a learned, perceptive man and a revolutionary with a conceited, pretentious air. Hence, it came as a huge surprise to me to hear him mention Umm Kulthoum as the one thing in the country that deserved his admiration. And I wondered: Is it really possible for a serious, stern, caustic person like this crazy doctor to love singing too? Since I myself liked singing, I was pleased to discover this shared predisposition, especially after having racked my brain to find the slightest commonality between us.

The doctor was the first to leave, and everyone present rose to shake his hand. I too shook his hand, all the while searching his eyes with fear and trepidation. However, I failed to see anything in his haughty glances that would give me cause for suspicion. We left the gathering at around five o’clock, and as we walked home, my sweetheart commented endlessly on the banquet and the guests, but I wasn’t able to lend her my full attention. I’d succumbed to the profuse, tumultuous flow of my thoughts. How would I cope with the ill fortune that had crossed my path in the form of this mad physician? And how had fate led me to confess to him the secret that I dared not let even the walls hear?