The Mirage

66

It never once occurred to me to go to my room. In fact, that was the farthest thing from my mind. I even avoided looking at it. Instead I went to the sitting room and flung myself on the sofa, exhausted and depressed. The night passed slowly and heavily, and the only sleep I got was in the form of intermittent naps permeated with nightmares. Then a faint light began filtering in through the shutters, heralding the break of day. Heaving a sigh of relief, I stretched wearily, then got up and left the room with the urge to flee and disappear from sight. I came up gingerly to the outer door and placed my hand on the doorknob. However, once there I froze in hesitation and moved no further. Instead I retreated quietly toward my mother’s room. Ever so carefully I pushed on the half-open door and stuck my head in. I could hear the servant’s rhythmic snores, and on the bed lay my mother in a deep stillness.

Hardly able to make out anything but the upper half of her face, I cast her a quick glance, then retreated and headed again for the outer door. As I closed the door noiselessly behind me, I heard — or at least I thought I heard — a voice calling me. I thought she’d awakened despite the care I’d taken not to disturb her, and she seemed to be calling to me. I paused, my hand on the banister, and my heart softened toward her. But I was in a state of such despair that I wasn’t handling things well, so I shrugged my shoulders indifferently and went down the stairs. It was still early morning and the street was abandoned, or nearly so, and a cool, damp breeze wafted over my face. I stood there for a while hesitantly, not knowing where to go, then I headed for the gas station where the taxi stop was and caught a taxi to Ismailiya Square. On the way I cast a glance at the other building. Enveloped in silence, its windows were closed, and the two lights hanging from the pole outside had been turned off. I arrived at the square, then went to a milk vendor’s and sat at a table at the far end of the place. After having a simple breakfast, I was suddenly overcome with fatigue. I spread out my legs, and an overwhelming drowsiness advanced like an army over my entire body. No longer able to hold my head up, I surrendered to its dominion and before I knew it, I’d fallen fast asleep. When I woke up again, I found myself leaning over the table with my head resting on my forearm. I lifted my head and looked around me feeling disoriented and embarrassed.

I left the place without daring to look at the other people sitting there, and when I looked at the clock in the square, I found to my astonishment that it was past two in the afternoon! I’d slept for eons, absent from my gloomy world, and how delectable it would have been to sleep forever! I headed in the direction of the Qasr al-Nil gardens, painfully aware of how unkempt and shabby I looked. As I walked briskly along, I asked myself what I was going to do with my life. However, in keeping with my usual tendency to avoid dealing head-on with serious problems, a voice inside me suggested that I postpone that decision till later.

Then I found myself thinking about Rabab. I felt a rage toward her that refused to leave me, as though it were some sort of permanent handicap. How I wished she could be resurrected, if only for a minute, so that I could spit in her face! Will I ever forget that I rejoiced over her death with the spiteful satisfaction of someone filled with bitterness and rage? That’s the way I am, and there’s no point in hiding the fact. At the same time, I was sufficiently calm by that time that I could think about things rationally. The strange thing is that despite my extreme self-centeredness, I never begrudge an opponent a fair hearing. This isn’t because I’m so fond of fairness, but I’ve grown accustomed to making excuses for my opponents as a way of concealing the fact that I’m too weak to get even with them. And this is why I made excuses for Rabab in her tragedy. I said to myself: I was wrong to believe her claim that she didn’t enjoy making love. Rather, it was my inadequacy that cast her into the arms of temptation. At the same time, how could I have doubted that she’d loved me sincerely? Memories went wafting over my imagination as fragrant breezes go wafting over a blazing fire, memories of shared glances, the unforgettable encounter on the tram, the way she resisted her first suitor in preference for me, and the enchantment that was the most joyous gift of ephemeral happiness I’ve ever received. It had been a sincere love, but it had been exposed to an icy wind that pulled it up by the roots and deprived it of the water of life. So hadn’t I been an accessory to her murder? At that moment, I called upon God to hasten Judgment Day and, in His mercy, to deliver human beings from life’s ordeals. My love for Rabab had been a God-given bliss. However, it had passed away, leaving hatred and rage in its wake. But had it really passed away? Suppose that, by some miracle, what had happened to me had been nothing but a bad dream. Wouldn’t my love have been brought back even more powerful than it had been before? Of course it would have. So, then, it was still there under the wreckage of hatred and loathing. A limb that’s been severed never grows back. Hence, it no longer has any real existence. Similarly, a love that returns must never have really gone away. But, I thought, What’s the use of all this agonizing rumination? And with that I furrowed my brow as if to frighten away the memories that were assailing me.

I made up my mind to flee from my memories, even if it meant facing up to the critical problem that I’d been running away from just a short while earlier, namely, the problem of what I was going to do with my life. I mustn’t leave things to chance, I said to myself. I’d find a way to get rid of Rabab’s furniture, then move to a new neighborhood. But did I really want to move somewhere far away? How badly I wanted to flee, but I was too weak to leave Cairo. This was how I felt; it was a certainty for me. And would I really abandon my mother? Would I be capable of abandoning her? For a long time the desire to leave her had come to me in the form of vague dreams. But could I actually do it? It was a critical step, one that I was well-advised not to take without serious thought and consideration. Why had I been so cruel to her? What was I avenging myself on her for? I knew for a certainty that the mere thought of her could well send me flying back into her arms, weeping and repentant. What an odious love it was, a love from whose grip I didn’t know how to free myself.

I went back to the square a little after three in the afternoon, and I found myself remembering Alfi Bey Street with my usual enthusiasm. Not far from the tram stop I glimpsed a colleague of mine from the ministry, but I ignored him. However, he happened to see me as well. Coming up to me with a solemn, concerned look on his face, he extended his hand and said, “I’m so sorry to hear of your loss, Mr. Kamil.”

A tremor went through my body and I wondered anxiously: How did he hear about it? And what does he know about it?

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

The man squeezed my hand and said, “Excuse me. I’m going to get a bite to eat, then come back to attend the funeral.”

My Lord! I thought the funeral had been held that morning or even the day before, and that my predicament had passed. However, I was still expected to attend, and they’d placed the obituary in the newspapers! What sort of predicament still lay in wait for me?

In a low voice I asked him, “Did you read the obituary in al-Ahram?”

“No,” he said, looking bewildered. “I don’t think it appeared in al-Ahram. Otherwise we would have found out about it at the ministry. I read about it in al-Balagh.”

He slipped the newspaper out from under his arm, opened it up and pointed to a column, saying, “Here’s the obituary.”

Discomfited and embarrassed, I took the newspaper and scanned the following lines: “Daughter of the late Colonel Abdulla Bey Hasan passes away. She is survived by her son, Medhat Bey Ru’ba Laz, a prominent member of the Fayoum community, her son Kamil Effendi Ru’ba Laz, employee at the Ministry of War, and her daughter, the wife of Sabir Effendi Amin.”

I gaped into my friend’s face like a lunatic. Then I reread the obituary, my entire body trembling.

“That’s impossible!” I shouted. “This is a lie!!”

I went running like mad toward a nearby taxi, threw myself inside it and told the driver to get me to my destination as fast as he could. It was a lie, a story somebody had made up! I’d find out what had really happened, and then I’d know how to punish whoever it was that had played this ridiculous joke on me! The taxi went speeding along, my neck craning toward the road. Then there appeared a large tent that had been set up in front of our house. When I saw it, my chest heaved and my limbs began to tremble. The taxi stopped and I got out, hardly able to see what was in front of me. I wasn’t grieved or pained. I was crazy. I saw my uncle sitting at the entrance to the tent. Then I saw my brother Medhat coming toward me. I rushed up to him in a frenzy and grabbed his necktie.

“How could you keep the news from me?” I screamed in his face.

Freeing himself with difficulty from my grip, my brother cast me a worried, disturbed look. Then my uncle came up to us and said, “Where have you been, Kamil? We looked all over for you, and couldn’t find you.”

I looked back and forth between the two men. Then I looked strangely at the tent and muttered, “Is this real?”

“Get hold of yourself and be a man,” my uncle replied.

In a fearful whisper I asked my brother, “Did she really die?”

“I received a telegram at nine o’clock this morning,” he replied glumly. “This is God’s decree. Where have you been? I was scared to death we might to have go out for the funeral procession without you.”

“And what’s all the hurry?” I shouted angrily. “Why didn’t you put off the funeral till tomorrow?”

“The doctor said that the death had occurred at midnight last night, so we decided to have the funeral today.”

My feverish body shuddered and I muttered in dismay, “Midnight last night? But I saw her sleeping in bed this morning!”

A look of sadness flashed in Medhat’s eyes.

“She wasn’t asleep,” he said mournfully. “It was her heart, Kamil.”

My limbs quaking, I conjured an image of the despondency I’d seen in her face, and I strained my memory to recall what I’d seen. And I asked myself: Was it really the face of a dead person?

Feeling I was about to collapse, I said in a feeble voice, “I want to look at her one last time.”

Placing his hand on my shoulder, my brother said, “Wait a little while till you’ve pulled yourself together. Besides, the room is full of women now.”

However, I shoved him out of my way and went rushing pell-mell into the building, then took the stairs in leaps with my brother close on my heels. As I went into the flat, my ears were filled with the sounds of weeping. To my dismay I found myself surrounded by women on all sides. My eyes stopped focusing and I was overcome with fatigue and awkwardness. However, just then my brother caught up with me, grabbed my arm and led me toward the bedroom, saying, “Don’t resist. You need to be alone for a while.”

He sat me down on the long seat and closed the door. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed in front of me and said sadly, “Be rational, Kamil. We mustn’t be overcome by grief like women. Wasn’t she my mother, too? But we’re men.”

My mind began swinging like a pendulum in a frenzied kind of concentration between two things: the ill-fated argument I’d had with my mother the day before, and my seeing her that same morning. Then suddenly a memory flashed through my mind and I cried, “The doctor lied! She didn’t die at midnight! I heard her calling me as I was leaving the flat this morning!”

With a look of incredulity on his face, he asked, “And did you answer her call? Did you speak with her?”

Heaving a miserable sigh, I said, “No, I didn’t, because I was angry with her! I was so rude and cruel to her!”

Then we both fell into a grieved silence. My head was about to explode with pain and fever.

Then, as though I were talking to myself, I said, “I killed her, there’s no doubt about it. Lord! How could I have allowed myself to say what I said to her?”

My brother looked at me despondently.

Then he said to me in a menacing tone, “Don’t you dare give in to thoughts like that!”

My head spinning like mad, I said stubbornly, “I was only saying the truth. I killed her. Don’t you understand? If you want to verify the truth of what I’ve said, just call the public prosecutor and the medical examiner.”

Groaning, Medhat said uneasily, “You must be delirious. Otherwise, get hold of yourself, because if you don’t, I won’t let you march in the funeral procession.”

I let forth a cold laugh and said, “Our family is afflicted with the ‘parent-killing syndrome’! Our father tried to kill our grandfather and he failed. Then I tried to kill our mother, and I succeeded. And thus you can see that I was more successful than my father.”

With a worried look on his face, the young man got up. Then, looking me hard in the face, he said, “What do you intend to do with yourself? The funeral is just an hour away.”

“What?” I said in amazement. “You’re going to let the funeral proceed without conducting an investigation first? What a merciful brother you are! However, duty comes before brotherhood. Call the public prosecutor. I’ll tell you where the office is, since I found out myself yesterday. Tell the district attorney that you’re calling on him to interrogate the person who called on him yesterday to investigate his wife’s murder.”

Looking like someone who’s just remembered something distressing, my brother cried, “How awful! Why didn’t you send me a telegram, Kamil! The servant told me about it today, and I could hardly believe it!”

In near delirium I said, “Believe it, brother. If you don’t get yourself used to believing tragedies like this, you’ll leave the world the same way you came in: gullible and ignorant. I killed my wife, too. But I had an accomplice, namely, her lover.”

Clapping his hands, Medhat cried, “There’s no way you’re going to leave the room when you’re in this condition!”

Shaking my head angrily, I rose to my feet and said, “Let’s go.”

But no sooner had I finished speaking than I fainted.