The Mirage

64

I left the house without seeing any of those who lived there. After all, it wasn’t my house any longer, nor were its residents my family. As I stood at the door to the building, my gaze shifted over to the tram stop, the tram stop of memories. I looked back and forth between it and the balcony, then closed my eyes to see the procession of memories marching past in the twinkling of an eye. It was a true picture of life, one that brought together its joys and its tragedies. Then I took off down the street without any destination in mind as though I were running away as fast as I could. My heart had turned into a firebrand from which sparks of rage, misery, and hatred were flying in all directions. I figured that this world, so preoccupied with its own concerns, would forget its sorrows the next day and drown itself in talk about my scandal. At the same time, I still hadn’t gotten over my shock, and I kept wondering what on earth had prompted that crook of a doctor to confess the terrible truth. I’d been so defeated by cowardice that I’d concealed the truth, and in so doing I’d given him a chance to flee if he had wanted to take it. But instead, he’d jumped to his feet in a rage and, in that self-important, arrogant way of his, he’d let the truth come out through his own two lips: “Don’t ask him something he knows nothing about. She was a wife in name only …” My God! Why hadn’t I beaten him to a pulp? Why hadn’t I hurled myself at him and dug my fingernails into his heart? It was a memory that would sting me like a flaming whip till the day I died. But what had made him fling himself into perdition?

Had his despair of being acquitted of one of the two charges led him to confess to the other? Was he so dismayed at the fate to which love had doomed his lover that he was moved in a moment of despair to share with her in her dreadful fate? Was it an uprising of the conscience, of the heart, or both? How could I possibly become privy to the secrets of that disdainful heart? At the same time, I became increasingly bewildered and wondered to myself: How could he have permitted himself to send her to the grave shrouded in disgrace? Wouldn’t it have been more fitting for him to seize the opportunity at hand to save himself and protect the honor of the woman he had loved, and who had loved him? Do you suppose he now regretted what he had said, or was he still holding his head high in arrogance and conceit? It was a puzzle to me then, and it always will be. My heart was so bloated with bitterness and rage that the fate that had been meted out to them — her in the grave, and him in prison — was a source of relief and joy to me.

By this time my feet had carried me to Ismailiya Square. Finding no place better to flee to than the Qasr al-Nil gardens, I headed toward the bridge. I thought: If only I could disappear from Cairo for a whole year. It hadn’t even occurred to me to attend the funeral of this woman who’d been my wife. After all, I wouldn’t be able to face any of the people who knew of the tragedy. But had I really even married? It had been nothing but a long, drawn-out farce or, more properly speaking, a tragedy. My family were sure to be shocked when they learned that my wife had died and been buried without any of them being invited to the funeral. However, their shock would be quick to dissipate once they knew the truth, and it wouldn’t be long before they were too distracted telling jokes about it to think of anything else. Anybody who got hold of this story would be the life of the party. My heart shrank, and I felt a coldness flowing through my limbs. How badly I wanted to flee, just as I always had in such situations. Where could I find a distant land in which no one had ever set foot? And how could I cut off every tie that bound me to my odious past? If only I could be born again in a new world in which I wasn’t haunted by a single memory from this one! Indeed, I wouldn’t be able to carry on with my life as long as I was being followed about by my past like a heavy shadow.

I spent the rest of the day wandering down streets or sitting like a vagrant in public parks. I felt no heat, no cold, no thirst. Then at last the sun announced its imminent departure and evening shadows spread over the treetops. I went back the way I’d come with heavy steps, and by the time I reached Ismailiya Square, darkness had fallen over the universe. I was gripped with uncertainty, not knowing where to go. Then suddenly, an image of the pub flashed into my mind. I heaved a deep sigh and my taut, frayed nerves uttered a sigh of relief as though I’d suddenly caught a glimpse of happiness after a long, oppressive ordeal. The very next moment, a taxi was taking me to Alfi Bey Street, but my relief was short-lived and soon replaced by anxiety, dejection, and indecision. Wondering whether I shouldn’t be heading somewhere else, I got out of the taxi in front of the pub, but didn’t go in. Instead I began walking slowly down the sidewalk with a heavy head and heart. Overcome by despair, however, I let it lead me back to the pub. After finding myself an isolated corner, I drank one glass, then another, and kept on drinking. My head was hardly responding to the liquor, but I suddenly felt ravenous, so I ate with an astounding, voracious appetite. And no sooner had I finished eating than I was overcome with a fatigue that enveloped my stomach, my head, and my entire body. It was as though the effort I’d expended in the course of the excruciating day, catching me in an unguarded moment, had come marching over me with its hordes and crushed me beneath their weight. I got up unsteadily, left the pub, and got into a nearby taxi that took me in the direction of Qasr al-Aini. Overwhelmed with fatigue, a numbness spread through my body, and a sudden feeling of apathy came over me. I looked with a mocking eye upon my tragedy, and for a moment it seemed as though it were someone else’s misfortune rather than my own, or as though it had been removed from my personal life and taken its place in the procession of shared human heartbreaks. The taxi continued down the road until we were within sight of the building through which the world had put me to the test. I looked toward it with open eyes and with a timorous, racing heart. I saw light emanating from the balcony and the windows, and in front of the building I could see two tall poles from which two large lights were suspended. So, it was all over.…