Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz
“You want the United States to govern us?”
“Through a moderate right wing.” He mused. “Why not?”
I’d had enough of Tolba’s dreams.
“Go to Kuwait, before you lose your mind completely!”
—
The papers have carried news of the crime—strange, contradictory news. Mansour Bahy confessed to having committed the murder, but could not convince anyone as to his motives. He said he had killed Sarhan because in his opinion Sarhan deserved such a punishment. Why had he deserved it? Because of conduct and qualities bad in themselves, but by no means peculiar to Sarhan. Then why had Mansour chosen him? By mere chance; he might have picked someone else. Those were his answers. Who would have been convinced by such talk? Could the boy be really deranged or was he only pretending?
The postmortem report stated the cause of death to be a razor cut across the arteries of the left wrist, not a beating with a shoe, as the alleged murderer had claimed. It appeared that most probably it had been a suicide. Then when the connection between the victim and the incident of the truckload of stolen yam came out, the hypothesis of suicide was confirmed.
We wonder what sentence Mansour will get. He will probably be released soon to pick up his life again. But with what heart? Or what reason? “He’s an excellent young man,” I think sadly, “but he suffers from some secret malady of which he must be cured.”
And then there’s Zohra, looking, except for a touch of sadness, just as she did when I first saw her. These days that have passed have given her more depth than all the preceding years of her life. I take the cup from her, disguising my old man’s heavyheartedness with a smile.
She says casually, “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
I have tried to persuade Madame to keep her, but she has refused. For her part, Zohra has told me that she wouldn’t stay even if Madame changed her mind. “I am going to a better place,” she says—and believes it.
“God bless you!”
She gives me a tender smile. “And I shall never forget you as long as I live.”
I motion to her to bring her face nearer to me and kiss her on both cheeks. “Thank you, Zohra.”
Then I whisper in her ear, “Remember that you haven’t wasted your time here. If you’ve come to know what is not good for you, you may also think of it all as having been a sort of magical way of finding out what is truly good for you.”
And as often happens, when my heart is too full, I turn to the Sura of the Beneficent, and recite:
The Beneficent
Hath made known the Koran.
He hath created man.
He hath taught him utterance.
The sun and the moon are made punctual.
The stars and the trees adore.
And the sky He hath uplifted; and He hath set the measure,
That ye exceed not the measure,
But observe the measure strictly, nor fall short thereof.
And the earth hath He appointed for His creatures,
Wherein are fruit and sheathed palm trees,
Husked grain and scented herb.
Which is it, of the favors of your Lord, that ye deny?
Naguib Mahfouz
Miramar
Naguib Mahfouz was one of the most prominent writers of Arabic fiction in the twentieth century. Born in Cairo in 1911, he began writing when he was seventeen. Over his long career, he wrote nearly forty novel-length works and hundreds of short stories, ranging from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. His most famous work is The Cairo Trilogy (consisting of Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street), which focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from 1917 until 1952. In 1988, Mahfouz became the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August 2006.
BOOKS BY NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
The Beggar, The Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail (omnibus edition)
Respected Sir, Wedding Song, The Search (omnibus edition)
The Beginning and the End
The Time and the Place and Other Stories
Midaq Alley
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
Miramar
Adrift on the Nile
The Harafish
Arabian Nights and Days
Children of the Alley
Echoes of an Autobiography
The Day the Leader Was Killed
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth
Voices from the Other World
Khufu’s Wisdom
Rhadopis of Nubia
Thebes at War
Seventh Heaven
The Thief and the Dogs
Karnak Café
Morning and Evening Talk
The Dreams
Cairo Modern
Khan al-Khalili
The Mirage
THE CAIRO TRILOGY
Palace Walk
Palace of Desire
Sugar Street
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Naguib Mahfouz, Miramar