The Mirage

  One day she said to me consolingly, “The best thing lies in what God has chosen. Do we have the power to do anything for ourselves? Before long you’ll become a responsible man, and it will be your turn to pamper your mother and repay some of the debt you owe her.”

  We spent long hours together in which I basked in her gentle, healing words. It was thanks to her alone that my ordeal passed, my heart was opened anew to life, and I ceased to labor under the weight of scruples, misgivings, and obsessive thoughts.

  18

  In his efforts to find me a job in the Ministry of War, my grandfather sought the good offices of a high-ranking army officer who had once worked as a petty lieutenant under his command in Sudan. And his efforts were crowned with success. However, the officer informed him that I might be appointed to Salloum. When my grandfather mentioned this, my mother’s face clouded over.

  “Salloum!” she cried in horror. “Don’t you know that Kamil wouldn’t be able to live by himself?”

  She thought that Salloum was a nearby town like Zagazig, or possibly one as far away as Tanta. When she found out that it was really next to the border with Libya, she let a nervous laugh escape, thinking it was a joke.

  “Find a job for him yourself!” shouted my grandfather in frustration. “Or appoint him to work in your lap and give me a break!”

  However, continuing to spare no effort on my behalf, he approached old acquaintances of his who had been born in the nineteenth century and who had worked under his command many years before. They may have been touched by his venerable age and his long, active military career, not to mention the memories he stirred up in them, so they promised to do their best. And sure enough, they found me a job in the warehousing section of the Ministry of War’s general administrative office. The ministry was only three tram stops and a ten-minute walk from our house. Hence, my mother approved and was visibly pleased. The justifications for the appointment were presented, and I was seen by the general medical committee in keeping with routine procedures. In short, I became an employee of the government. The feeling I had as I left home for the ministry for the first time was a complex one: it included an element of pride, as well as a sense of delight over being liberated from slavery to both home and school. At the same time, it wasn’t without an element of anxiety of the sort that would come over me whenever I embarked on some new venture.

  My heart aflutter, I proceeded toward the stop where I would see “my beloved,” since as of this auspicious day, our paths had become one, if only for a few stops. Even if the job had involved this alone, it would have provided me with sufficient happiness and well-being. Taking precautions on behalf of my cowardly heart, I stood at the far end of the sidewalk lest I faint from being too close to her. A short while later she came along, striding by with that dignified but lively gait of hers, and my heart received her with a jubilant throb. I kept my gaze lowered, though I was in a state of elation that turned the world around me into a chorus of heavenly praises. The tram arrived and we boarded together. It was the first time we’d been in the same enclosed place together, and the feel of it coursed through my body like electricity. I wished the tram would keep on going forever without stopping. When I got off, I crossed the street hurriedly to the sidewalk, then looked back at the ladies’ compartment, where I caught a glimpse of her back as she pored over a book she was holding. As the tram began to move again, she suddenly turned and looked behind her, and her eyes fell on me. Then she turned her back to me again. A rush of excitement went through me from head to toe. Frozen in place, my eyes clung to the tram until I could no longer make out any of its features. Then I proceeded on my way, oblivious to everything around me, intoxicated by the glance that heaven had so generously bestowed. Puzzled and amazed, I wondered: Why did she turn around? What would have prompted her to do that? Indeed, what could possibly have prompted her to do so but my spirit’s unspoken invitation? A radio picks up sound over the airwaves even from inside our homes. So what would there be to prevent someone from answering the summons of another spirit charged with amorous affection and desire? Enchanted by the thought, I jubilantly embraced the belief that my spirit had an effect on hers. But, Lord have mercy, how I’d trembled under the impact of that fleeting glance! Do you suppose she recognized me as the young man who had looked at her for a moment at the tram stop three months earlier?

  By this time I was approaching the ministry, and I gradually began waking from my reverie. Then, as though I were bidding farewell to this passing moment of ecstasy, I said to myself: I love her! This is love, plain and simple.

  Then I exited the world of amorous love to enter the world of government. I introduced myself to the director, who introduced me in turn to my nine office mates. This was a small number by comparison to the students I’d had to deal with. Besides, they were full-grown men, so I couldn’t possibly expect them to treat me with mockery or disdain. I hoped with all my heart that I was beginning a new, rich life, and since no work had been assigned to me that day, I had some moments in which to dwell on happy thoughts. So I pondered the freedom I’d been looking forward to and which I hoped would rescue me from the prison of home and the slavery I’d known as school, as well as the enchanting look my soul had managed to wrest from the depths of the spirit by dint of its strength and potency.

  Embarking on my new life full of hope, I won the first type of friendship I’d ever known in my life, namely, what they term “office friendship.” It’s a kind of compulsory friendship that’s imposed on people by virtue of being coworkers in the same office. I delighted in it at first. After all, for someone like me who’d never had a friend in his entire life, it was the only way I could have responded to being in the midst of nine men who called me by name and who received me and bade me farewell in the friendliest of ways. But alas, my severe shyness stood as an impenetrable barrier between us. Then over time, experience demonstrated to me that it was a species of friendship that isn’t worth grieving over. It starts in the morning with a greeting and pleasantries, but by noon it may have been transmuted into some unpleasant incident that ends with a warning or a punishment. And the worst thing of all was that I had no real work of my own to do. Rather, there wasn’t a single one of them who didn’t assign me to mechanical work that I would carry out in servile obedience. It wasn’t unusual for them to spend most of the day chattering, smoking, and drinking coffee while I sat bent over a stack of papers in a kind of semi-slavery. Shrewd folks that they were, they’d no doubt picked up on the fact that I was inexperienced and unsure of myself, and they took advantage of my weakness in the worst possible way. So, within a month of the time I’d begun, I’d grown weary of the new life, and I concluded with a certainty that I’d gone from the frying pan into the fire.

  To make matters worse, I discovered that my difficulty in keeping my mind on a task hadn’t left me. I made careless errors time and time again, as a result of which I repeatedly became the object of derisive criticisms and warnings from my supervisors. It was as though I were back in school with its students and teachers. The bitterness of my past life returned to haunt me, and I concluded that I’d never know true rest as long as I had to have dealings with a single human being. However, I nursed my wounds in secret, and never once did I rebel openly against anything that made me miserable. Rather, it was my wont always to obey with a bleeding heart filled with pent-up rage.

  What made my suffering even more acute was the fact that I could see no way to change my life or any hope, even a distant one, of deliverance. When I was in school, I had sometimes derived the strength to endure my misery from the hope that it would be over some day and I’d become a free, independent man. Now, by contrast, I saw nothing before me but a dreary, harsh future from which the only escape would be death. I realized that relief would elude me for the rest of my life, and that I’d always be afflicted with a secret desire to flee. But where would I flee this time? The root of my misfortune lay not only in my helplessness in the face of obstacles, b
ut also in my tendency to blow them entirely out of proportion. I’d pitted my mind against my soul in a terrible war of nerves. I’d never accustomed myself to living in reality or bearing up under its difficulties. Consequently, I knew nothing of the philosophy of being content with one’s lot or making light of one’s woes. Nor was I capable of living by the philosophy of power or revolution. Hence, whenever I was presented with something that was unbearable—and life in its entirety was unbearable as far as I was concerned—my sickly imagination would go and make a mountain out of a molehill. I faced difficulties with what appeared on the surface to be patient endurance. In reality, however, I would retreat within myself in a deadly state of misery and anxiety. Consequently, no place I went was without an enemy, whether real or imagined. The students and teachers had been my old enemies, and my fellow employees had become my new ones.

  But she was my solace and delight! Life was a barren desert expanse, and she alone was the lush, green oasis in which the soul could find refuge. I swear to God, the only good thing about my job was the fact that its path led me to her doorstep. Every morning I would await her appearance the way one awaits the rising of the sun, and when I saw her approach with the sprightliness of a gazelle and the stateliness of a peacock, I’d retreat to the distant end of the tram stop in a near panic, asking God to calm my throbbing heart. Then I’d steal a glance at her while avoiding any direct eye contact between us, since that would have been an event of such moment that only the fittest would have been able to endure it. When the tram arrived, we would both board, though she had no idea what delight I took in its transporting us together. Then I’d get off as it took her to her unknown destination, attended by my prayers for the Lord to grant her happiness and protection. Thereafter her image would remain suspended in my mind’s eye, spreading over me a blanket of warmth and intimacy in the loneliness of my new prison. But how long would I be able to go on in this state? Anguish had assailed my heart, and waiting had become a torment.

  My agony was made all the worse by the fact that I’d begun seeing her in the afternoons as well as in the mornings, since I’d leave home in the late afternoon the way many other employees liked to do without objection from my mother, who could no longer protest against my doing so. I would rush to my old tram stop across from her house, then stand there with longing in my eyes, waiting to see whether my “sunshine” would emerge over the horizon. Sometimes I’d see the mother, the father, the brother, or the sister, and other times I would see her in a simple but elegant house dress that would send tremors through me.

  I could no longer see any hope for my life in anything but the prospect of an intimate companion. So I fell completely in love with her. I was possessed by a genuine, fervent desire for the happiness which, as far as I could see, would only be realized if I could lose myself in her, and she in me. Even so, I wasn’t unaware of the obstacles. (Indeed, had it ever been my wont to do anything but make too much of the obstacles in my path?) I hadn’t forgotten, for example, that I was still in the beginning of my career and that my salary was only seven and a half pounds a month. Then, to my dismay, I noticed that there were two other men who stood with us at the tram stop in the morning and who had a habit of regarding the girl’s face with marked attention. One of them, whom I would sometimes see coming out of the same building in which the girl lived, was around forty years old and had a dignified, serious look about him. He also had the air of a distinguished employee. As for the other, he was around thirty years old, rather obese, but well-dressed and prestigious looking, and his gestures and way of looking at others gave him an air of smugness and self-satisfaction. I was surprised to find them looking at her in this way. There was no reason for surprise, of course, but I had supposed—and what a laughable supposition it was!—that I was the first person ever to have discovered this treasure. Indignant and annoyed, I found the worm of jealousy writhing in the depths of my heart. She never looked to the right or to the left. Yet I wondered: Is she really as ignorant of them as she is of me? Especially of the neighbor who lived in her building? My heart shrank in alarm and despair, and I glared at her angrily as though she were responsible for people’s interest in her.

  Meanwhile, my life followed its familiar rhythm, divided between a loathsome job and a peculiar, uncertain love.

  At that time our household would have been considered a happy one, since the hearts of those who dwelled there had no reason to fear. After all, its aging patriarch had ceased his fretting, and my mother was content with the lot that had been apportioned to me and to her.

  One day, though, my grandfather said to me derisively, “Have some shame, man, and buy yourself your own bed! Do you plan to go on sleeping in your mother’s arms forever?”

  And in fact, I did buy myself a bed. However, I set it up in the same room—the room in which I’d come into the world—and which went on accommodating the two of us together.

  19

  It was a historic morning in my life when her glance fell upon me and our eyes met as she came toward the tram stop. My limbs trembled, and as I struggled with my shyness I wondered: Doesn’t she remember the young man she saw on the day when she answered my spirit’s invitation? I was intoxicated by an excitement that even the arrival of my two challengers couldn’t dampen. The tram carried us all as far as the ministry stop. I got off and rushed to the sidewalk, then glanced back at the ladies’ car. She was sitting in the last row and facing my direction, and our eyes met once again. I lowered my gaze shyly, but my heart was in bliss. As I walked briskly along, I mumbled to myself: I’ve been exposed!

  That afternoon as I sat in my room not far from my mother, I recalled the happiness I’d known earlier in the day. Stealing a strange glance at her, I thought to myself: Ah, if she only knew my thoughts! Hadn’t past experience taught me that this sort of happiness on my part was among the things she viewed as unforgivable sin? This was a fact I’d never lost sight of. Even so, it seemed at that moment to be strange and unfamiliar, as though I were discovering it for the first time. I looked over at her regal, lovely face in protest and indignation, saying to myself furiously: It would probably be easier for her to hear that some harm had come to me than to discover that I’m in love! I may have been exaggerating, but her past comportment had robbed me of the ability to look at the bright, pleasant side of life without a heavy dose of fear and shame where she was concerned. So, weary of having to conceal my happiness in her presence, I left the house with a sigh of relief, then hurried as usual to the old tram stop. Looking ahead of me, I caught sight of the two sisters behind the windowpane, and I approached with a feeling of elation. With uncertain steps, I slipped into the crowd of people standing at the tram stop, wishing with all my heart that I didn’t have to leave until night had drawn its curtains. The weather was extremely cold, and it pleased me to be enduring the harshness of the elements in return for one glance from her eyes. I was certain that my height and my black coat would be sufficient to remind her who I was. Lifting my gaze fearfully, I saw her looking my way, although, given the distance that separated us, I wasn’t able to determine exactly what she was looking at. Nevertheless, a rush of delight flowed through my limbs. Although I wished it could be otherwise, the tram arrived, and bashfulness left me no choice but to get on.

  My life no longer had any goal but the tram stop and the girl who lived next to it. All I could do was steal timid glances at her, then lower my gaze quickly if the eyes I’d come to love more than life itself happened to look back at me. My girl was no longer ignorant of me as she had been for the four months previous. On the contrary, she knew now that there was a young man who looked out for her wherever she went and that he did this deliberately and patiently, albeit without making a move. In fact, good fortune smiled on me so generously that I began winning a look from her nearly every day, though it seemed to be mere chance that brought it about. In other words, it would be a passing glance cast at the place as a whole and which happened to include me as part of the lar
ger picture. Beyond this, she maintained her usual modesty and decorum. Indeed, she was no longer ignorant of me however much she happened to ignore me, and it was a glorious victory—considering my powerlessness—for her to be aware of my existence after that long, silent struggle. So I persisted in my unwearying surveillance as though I were waiting for the next step to come from her, or from the Lord of heaven and earth.

  Those were sweet, happy days, even if they did happen to be devoid of hope. I lived them with a feeling of profound contentment and with dreams that couldn’t be contained by mere imagination. They wafted through my heart in purity and holiness, and I was careful to keep them locked securely out of my nightly retreat into seclusion and fiendish pleasure.

  After some time it became apparent to me that, despite my caution and attempts at concealment, my well-kept secret was giving itself away. I don’t know how it happened. It may simply be that in moments of ardor I would forget myself, as a result of which my eye would fall on something I should have been careful not to look at. To my surprise, one day I found my two “rivals” looking at me suspiciously, as though they realized that a new competitor had appeared on the scene. On another day, as I stood in my usual place at the tram stop, the servant girl who worked in my beloved’s house passed by me and, as she did so, cast me a meaningful glance that made my heart melt on the spot. Joyfully and fearfully I wondered: Do you suppose my secret has reached the household itself? Then, feeling mortified, I muttered to myself, “Oh well, my secret’s out now, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” One time I saw the little sister at the window as I approached the tram stop in the afternoon. When she glimpsed me, she turned and looked behind her as though she were talking to someone I couldn’t see. Then the mother appeared behind the windowpane and cast me a scrutinizing glance. Lord! I felt like a criminal who’d been caught red-handed! In any case, there was no doubt that the household recognized me now, and in the days that followed this certainty was confirmed. Whenever any of them happened to look at me—with the exception of “my lady,” of course—they would scrutinize me with intense interest. As for me, I became more and more unsettled.