The Mirage

58

It wasn’t long before the house was filled with visitors. Rabab’s family and a group of her relatives came to see us, as did my sister Radiya and her family. Rabab also came to see the patient, kissing her hand and tearfully asking her forgiveness. I even hoped that, through this incident, we could start a new life free of rancor and hearts in conflict.

Then, taking advantage of a few moments when no strangers were in the room, Radiya said to me, “I’d like to ask your permission to take Mama home with me until she gets her strength back.”

“That’s impossible!” I said, alarmed at the suggestion.

Smiling at me sympathetically, she went on, saying, “Don’t you see that she needs constant care? Who will care for her here? You’re busy with your work and so is your wife, and Sabah is responsible for taking care of the house. So who will you assign the job of taking care of our mother?”

However, her suggestion remained totally unacceptable to me, and I resisted all her compelling arguments.

With an insistence that came from the depths of my heart, I said, “She won’t have to stay in bed for long, God willing. According to the doctor, she’ll only need someone to be constantly at her side for the first week, and I’ll be sure to find a servant who can devote herself full-time to caring for her.”

Radiya tried valiantly to persuade me of her suggestion, but to no avail, and the discussion ended with her deciding to stay in our house until I was able to find a servant. On the third day after my mother’s heart attack, my brother Medhat — whom I’d informed of her illness by special delivery letter — arrived with his wife. During the first days after her attack, she was very ill indeed. She didn’t move a muscle and she would hardly utter a word. When she opened her weary eyes, they were languid and dull. She would look around at us in silent resignation, and I felt as though my heart was breaking. We didn’t leave her side, and if she revived slightly, she would look back and forth among us with a smile on her parched lips, or spread out her hands and look heavenward, murmuring a prayer of supplication in a low, feeble voice. However, she didn’t remain in this near-comatose state for long, and by the end of the first week she’d begun to improve slightly. She realized clearly that all her children were gathered around her, and it gladdened her as though she were seeing them all together for the first time in her life. One day when we’d congregated around her bed, she sat there happily and looked at us for a long time without saying a word. Then, her face glowing with joy, she said in a feeble whisper, “How happy I am with you all! Praise and thanks be to God!”

Her eyes glistening with tenderness and emotion, she continued, “If illness brings us together this way, then I hope it never ends.”

Despite her illness, then, she seemed happy, and her happiness found its way into our hearts as well. Our family, which God had caused to be scattered in its earlier years, had been united. We were all under one roof now, eating and drinking together, and our hearts beat as one. What wondrous days those were! Our very beings breathed out sympathy, tenderness, and joy. However, the togetherness was short-lived. It wasn’t long before my mother’s health improved and the danger passed, although the doctor insisted that she not get out of bed for a month at the very least. Medhat bade us farewell and took his family back to Fayoum, promising to visit from time to time. Radiya also went back to her own house once I’d succeeded in finding a servant for my mother, with the agreement that she would visit our mother every day. And thus it was that the gathering broke up, we went our separate ways, and everything went back to the way it had been before. Hardly two weeks had passed before my mother began recovering her vitality and alertness and was able to sit up in bed with a pillow folded behind her back. It thrilled me no end to see Rabab fulfill her obligations toward her mother-in-law, and never will I forget the bitter pain and distress she suffered during the first days of my mother’s crisis.

Now that our peace of mind had been restored and all my mother needed was rest, albeit of an extended nature, we resumed our usual ways of life. Rabab went back to entertaining herself with evening visits to her relatives, and I took off again to my old haunt. I had asked my mother for permission to go out several hours a day for rest and recreation, and she’d given her enthusiastic consent, telling me how it pained her to see me having to stay by her side like a prisoner. And I left the house thinking: If I were the sick one, would she ask my permission to leave the room for rest and recreation? Life’s logic seemed harsh to me. But what was to be done about it?

I went flying back to Inayat. She would telephone me at the ministry every morning, so she knew why I hadn’t been able to see her. We went back to meeting the way we had before in our lovers’ nest, where we would get drunk and make love. It was a strange life. However, what I fear the most is that my memory may have failed me, if even in relation to a few of the details. Was I really happy? My heart was divided between my mother, my wife, and Inayat, between memories of the past, a sublime, ethereal love, and another love that was torrid and down-to-earth. I felt that I’d found refuge from life’s storms in a tranquil harbor. Even so, the old anxiety began knocking cautiously and hesitantly at my door again, as if shyness prevented it from storming in for no apparent reason. It’s true, of course, that I was proceeding on my way, but I would pause and hesitate every now and then as though I were wondering if there was something I’d forgotten. I’d think to myself: Should I keep on going full steam ahead, or would it be better for me to stop and take a look at what’s around me? However, I would conclude that there was no reason for hesitation and continue merrily on my way.

Then one day I noticed that Rabab wasn’t her usual cheery, energetic self. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me she’d had a tiring day at work and that she thought she might be coming down with the flu. I stayed home that evening, and the following morning, not long after she woke up, she vomited unexpectedly, then lay down exhausted. I suggested that I call her a doctor, but she rejected the idea, saying it was just a minor cold and that she could treat it without a doctor’s help. Her mother came to visit her and stayed the entire day in her room. However, on the third day Rabab insisted on going back to work, telling me she felt well again. And in fact, she went to the kindergarten despite my having advised her to stay home for a day or two longer. When she came home from work that afternoon, she was worse than she had been in the morning. Even so, she insisted that she was perfectly healthy. In fact, she got dressed and left the house the following two days as well. When she came home from the kindergarten on the second day at her regularly scheduled time, I was at the seamstress’s house. But when I got home at half past eleven, I didn’t find her in our room. Sabah, who appeared to have been awaiting my arrival, came rushing up to me and said, “Miss Rabab will be spending the night at her mother’s house, and they sent the servant to inform us of it.”

Bewildered and upset by the news, I asked Sabah, “Why is she going to do that?”

In a fearful tone of voice, the servant replied, “She’s fine, sir. I visited her and saw her myself. But she has a bit of a fever, and the Madame wasn’t willing to expose her to the night air, so she thought it best for her to spend the night at her house until the fever goes down.”

I left the room straightaway in exasperation, saying, “I warned her that this might happen, and I told her again and again not to leave the house!”

I was met in the living room by my mother’s servant, Nafisa, who told me that my mother wanted me to come see her. When I went to her room, she expressed her regret over Rabab’s illness and instructed me to tell Rabab that she was praying for her. I thanked her and left the house, furious and worried.