Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz
“I thought Zohra was…” I say to Madame slyly, with an eloquent gesture.
“No, no,” she assures me.
I change the subject abruptly. “I wonder if you’ve thought of any business we could share.”
The cunning old girl asks, “Where would I get the money?”
“What would happen if occasionally I brought a friend or two here?”
“I’m sorry.” She shakes her head. “The house is full. And if I let one of you do that, wouldn’t I have to let the others too? But you know, I could give you an address if you like.”
When I see Zohra in the hall, I congratulate her on her decision. “Work hard! I’ll soon need a secretary for my business.” She smiles happily, looking very pretty. I still want the girl, even knowing beforehand that I’d be sick of her in a week. It’s a week I need, though.
—
I drive around the city. The weather is too mild for my mood. For top speed I go to the desert road, drive for an hour at seventy-five miles an hour, then turn back. I have lunch at the Pam Pam and pick up a girl as she is leaving a hairdresser’s.
I go home to the pension around dusk. Zohra is sitting in the living room with a girl I do not know, obviously the teacher. I sit down with Madame, occasionally stealing a look at the teacher. Not bad. Somewhat hunched about the shoulders, but not too noticeably. A little snub nose. Quite attractive, in fact. It’s a pity a girl like her won’t go in for a quick night of love. It would have to be a lengthy romance and, what’s more, she’d probably look forward to wedlock, unpatriotically ignoring the Revolution’s call for population control.
Madame introduces me, complete with my hundred feddans, business plans and all. I appreciate her tact; she’s an old hand. After that I make a point of driving in the direction of her school in Moharrem Bey. It works. I see her one afternoon at a bus stop; I stop the car and invite her in. She hesitates for a moment, but the sky is cloudy and threatening. All the way home I complain of loneliness in Alexandria. I need someone to consult on my business…
“I do think we should meet again,” I say at the door.
“Drop in by all means. My father would be delighted to meet you.”
Now, Ferekeeko, the truth is, I am quite an eligible match, young and rich. If I want to be safe in the company of these college girls I’ll have to wear a fake wedding ring!
That evening I have nothing to do. I drop in on the Maltese madame at Cleopatra and ask her to call in as many of her girls as she can. I have a wonderful time—a wild evening, studded with delightful follies unheard of since the days of our great Harun al-Rashid.
—
“I can’t be hard on him. He never saw his mother. His father died when he was six.” He was speaking calmly, but my brother was trembling with rage.
—
I am holed up with skeletons. I hate old Qalawoon. The day I see his face in the morning is always a bad day. Tolba Marzuq asks about the progress of my plans. I catch a whiff of incense in the hall and look interrogatively at him.
“It’s Madame. You should have seen her make the round of the rooms with the incense burner.”
“So you like Umm Kulthum and use incense to keep off the evil eye. Very Egyptian for a Greek.” Mine hostess gives me a fleeting smile. She is absorbed in listening to a Greek song on the radio. “I’m looking for some foreigner who’d be ready to sell out. So many of them are leaving just now.”
“A good idea. What do you think, Mariana?”
“Yes. Wait a moment! I think the proprietor of the Miramar Café means to sell out.” She speaks quickly, turning back to the song.
“What does it say?”
“It’s about a young girl. She is describing to her mother the sort of man she’d like to marry.” Her old face grimaces coyly. I look at the Captain’s portrait and her ancient photograph. “I could have been a lady to this day.”
“You are. A perfect lady.”
“I mean lady of the big house in Ibrahimiya.”
“You mustn’t waste your time,” says the Doddering Sultan. “Take up some business.”
I curse him under my breath.
It is bitterly cold outside and I have a date with my Italo-Syrian beauty at the madame’s house in Sidi Gaber. Ferekeeko, don’t blame me!
—
At breakfast I hear that Zohra’s sister and her brother-in-law have paid a stormy visit to the pension.
“She has made up her mind to stay here for good.” Madame says that with deep satisfaction. “Thank God they didn’t strangle her!”
“Apparently you Beheirys are weaklings,” I say to Sarhan.
“What do you mean, weaklings?”
“The close proximity of your province to Alexandria has obviously weakened its native traditions.”
“We are more civilized than other provinces. That’s all.”
—
I give Tolba Marzuq a lift to the Windsor Hotel, where he is to meet an old friend. I like the old man and respect him deeply. To me he is the image of a venerable monarch who has been dethroned but still keeps his personal dignity. I joke.
“Don’t you think the fellaha should have gone home with her people?”
“She shouldn’t have run away in the first place.”
“I mean she must have had some strong reason for not going back, even if she wished to.”
“You mean the Beheiry lad?”
“Not particularly, though I’m sure he’s partly responsible.”
“Who knows?” He smiles. “He may be innocent after all. Maybe when she ran away from home it was some other fellow.”
The news that she has rejected Mahmoud Abu al-Abbas adds to my wonder. Before applying to Madame for the hand of her maid, the fellow had consulted me.
I stop at his stall the next day knowing that he will open the subject. We exchange significant looks.
“That’s modern girls for you!”
“The fool! She won’t get another offer in a hurry.”
“You’ll marry a better girl someday. Actually, I don’t believe the pension is a very suitable place for getting yourself a wife.”
“I thought she was decent and well behaved.”
“I haven’t said anything to the contrary, but…”
“Yes?”
“Why should you care, now that you’re through with it all?”
“I have to find out why she turned me down.”
“She’s in love with Sarhan al-Beheiry. If that’s any help to you.”
“The idiot! Would Mr. Sarhan marry her?”
“I said love. Not marriage.”
I’ve detested this Dream Boy from the start. My dislike has sometimes been overcome by his friendliness, but only momentarily. All this has nothing to do with Zohra; she’s not that important. Maybe it’s his bumbling tactlessness that annoys me so much. Or is it just that way he has of singing the glory of the Revolution on every possible occasion? I have to hold my tongue, unwillingly acquiescing in these hymns of praise, but one day I burst out, “All right, we all believe in the Revolution, but the past wasn’t a total blank!”
“Yes, it was,” he insists.
“The Corniche was there, and so was the University of Alexandria.”
“The Corniche wasn’t for the people, nor was the University. Why should you have a hundred feddans of your own,” he asks with a smile, without malice, “when my whole family holds only ten?”
“Why should you have ten, when millions of peasants haven’t even got a job?”
—
“I won’t believe a word of what you say. You’re just mad because Mervat turned you down. And you don’t believe any of this rubbish about socialism and equality. It’s simply power. If you have power you have everything. And meanwhile there’s no harm in preaching socialism and equality to others. Have you actually seen any of that gang walking around in poverty lately, like our lord Omar?”
—
A little while later I get wind of a lovely fight between
“Don’t take up that café business,” he urges. “You’re a man of good family, you must think of something more suitable.”
“Such as?”
“Now that I think of it, well, why not a poultry and dairy farm? There’s a lot of money in that. We could rent a plot of land in Semouha. I have experience, friends. I might even come in as a partner, if I could get the capital.”
—
Alexandria. How small it becomes when you look at it from behind the wheel of my madcap motorcar. I can cut through it like the wind but it keeps turning itself, in spite of me, into a tin of sardines. Night follows day in dogged stupidity, nothing ever happens. Dawn after dawn the sky gets up and dresses itself, the weather does its usual tricks, and the women arrive in all colors, shapes, and sizes. But nothing ever happens. The universe is really dead, you know. These are only the ultimate twitches before rigor mortis sets in.
I remember the Genevoise. One façade to the Corniche, bravely defying the sea and the season, but the actual entrance is through a narrow side street. Inside there’s a stage at one end of the hall and a dance floor in the middle. The walls, ceiling, and lamps are a dirty red—a jinni’s hideout—and one look at the girls and the clientele is enough to tell you the place is a brothel.
Beheiry’s girl is performing an authentic belly dance, with a fair amount of obscenity. I ask her to my table. At first she doesn’t recognize me, then she apologizes for her conduct the day we met and explains that after such a lapse of time she’d stopped expecting me. She says her name is Safeya Barakat. God knows what her real name is. She is, in fact, better-looking than the teacher; a little fat, though, and there’s a distinctly professional look about her plump face.
I drink so much that I almost pass out. I invite her into my car and take her to Sharia Lido in Mazarita. On the way I try to make love but she says she’s sorry, she has the curse. I go back to the pension in a deplorable condition, deeply disappointed. Zohra is just leaving the bathroom in her shift. I block her way with open arms.
“Go away,” she says firmly.
I beckon her to my room.
“Leave me alone!” She threatens me.
Excited with drink and desire, I throw myself at her. She fights me off, beating my chest with her fists so fiercely that I’m enraged and go berserk. I start hitting her savagely, determined to shove her or drag her into my room. Then I feel a hand on my shoulder and hear Sarhan. He is breathing hard.
“Hosny, have you gone mad?”
I push him away firmly, but his grip on my shoulder tightens.
“Go into the bathroom,” he says, “and stick a finger down your throat. You’ll feel better if you get it out of your system.”
I turn on him suddenly and hit him in the face. He reels, then hits back in a rage. Then Madame comes in, pulling on her dressing gown.
“What’s the matter?” she asks anxiously, her voice rising. “No, no, gentlemen, you’ll wreck the place! I won’t stand for it! I won’t stand for it!” She says the words furiously, breaking us apart.
—
Cherubs float or dance on the ceiling. Rain beats on the window and the waves make a deafening barrage. I close my eyes; my head aches badly. I yawn and I curse everything. I curse as I realize that I have slept in my coat and shoes. I curse again as the events of the awful night come back to me in a rush.
Madame enters and stands looking down at me as I try lethargically to get up. “You’re late,” she says reproachfully, taking the big chair. “You shouldn’t drink so much.” Our eyes meet and she smiles. “You’re my favorite lodger, but please don’t drink so much.”
“I’m sorry,” I say after a while, staring at the cherubs overhead. “I should apologize to Zohra.”
“Good! But promise you’ll conduct yourself as a gentleman of your family should.”
“Give her my apology, then.”
After that I cut Sarhan completely, though I manage with some difficulty to conciliate Zohra. But I must admit that I miss Sarhan’s company. The other fellow, Mansour Bahy, I hardly know. We usually exchange bare civilities at breakfast and then settle back to loathe each other cordially in silence. I can’t help despising him, with his arrogant effeminate introversion and his vulgar, acquired politesse. What a shock his voice on the radio gives me now. You’d think it was the voice of a fine orator, a hero. What a fraud. Curious. No one at the pension likes him except the Doddering Sultan. The old man must be an ex-pervert.
—
Maybe I shouldn’t leave the room, but some sort of auspicious event is taking place outside. Could it be in Beheiry’s room? Yes. A little disagreement? A quarrel, a fight in fact, between the Beheiry Romeo and the Beheiry Juliet. What can it be? Has she submitted a request that he repair his technical oversight and make her an honest woman? And is he shirking the responsibility, as he did with Safeya? Delicious! I’d better stay in. I never thought there was so much entertainment in store for me in this place. Listen carefully, Ferekeeko, and enjoy it all.
“It’s none of your business! Yes, I’ll marry anyone I like! I’ll marry Aleya!”
Ya Sayyid! Ya Badawi! Aleya! The schoolmistress! Has Dream Boy accepted that standing invitation she offers everyone to visit her en famille? So he’s switched his affections from the scholar to the teacher! Ferekeeko, be my witness! Long live the Revolution! Long live the July Ordinances! Alexandria, what a lovely day!
Here is Madame’s voice, remonstrating in pidgin Arabic; and the great newscaster himself in the flesh, having condescended to interest himself in the affairs of the commonalty. He’s sure to find a solution to this rustic imbroglio. A moi! Welcome the fray! Action, Ferekeeko! Never let events forestall you.
I hear the story later from mine hostess. “I have given him notice to leave,” she says angrily. “I shouldn’t have accepted him in the first place.”
I praise her protective attitude toward Zohra and inquire after the girl.
“She’s not well. She keeps to her room.”
“The old story. It keeps coming around like the four seasons of the year. The Beheiry must be glad to leave. He’s been promoted to the fifth floor. Who knows where his extraordinary talents will take him from there!”
“The proprietor downstairs is thinking seriously of selling the Miramar Café,” Madame ventures.
“I am ready to talk,” I say with aplomb.
I go out with every intention of painting the town red. Ferekeeko, don’t blame me.
—
She is deathly pale, with a new look of defeat about her, the light gone from her hazel eyes. She pours my tea and makes for the door, but I beg her to stay. The wind is blowing outside and clouds are gathering. The room suddenly darkens.
“Zohra, you always have to take the good with the bad. The world’s full of wicked people. But there’s still a lot of kindness in it.” She isn’t listening. She doesn’t seem to care about anything. “Take me, for instance. I was fed up with life at home. That’s why I’m here.” Not a word. She isn’t interested. “I tell you, nothing lasts forever, neither sorrow nor joy. We have to go on living. When hard luck leads us down a closed path, we have to look for another. That’s all.”
“Everything’s all right. I regret nothing.”
“But, Zohra, you’re sad, miserable. You have every reason to be. But you must find a way out. You’ve got to.” She can hardly control herself. Her face, distorted with grief, looks ugly for a second. “Listen to me, I’ve something to tell you. Think it over, take your time. I’ll be going into business soon—and I’ll give you a good job.” She doesn’t seem to trust me. “This place is hopeless. A girl like you and a pack of wolves!” It’s obvious that she doesn’t take a word of what I’m saying seriously. “You’ll be safe with me. A good job and a f
She mumbles something I can’t hear, takes the tray, and leaves the room.
I lose my temper, angry at her and at myself to the point of loathing. Being able to play upon the starved passions of frustrated men appears to have blinded Mademoiselle to her own true value—curse the land that gave you birth! And sourly I say, “Ferekeeko! Don’t put the blame on me!”
—
I spend an evening within the dingy red walls of the Genevoise, guzzling with Safeya, and later she takes me home to her flat, where I pour my drunken troubles into her ears. When I mention my plan for buying a business, she sits up.
“There’s a wonderful opening for you!” She lights a cigarette and speaks more deliberately. “The Genevoise. The owner wants to sell out.”
“But it’s seedy. And depressing.”
“Think of the situation: on the Corniche, near the center of town. It will make a marvelous restaurant and nightclub. It brings in good money even now, and it’s sure to bring in more once we’ve done it over.” She goes on: “Look, you’re a man of family. The police won’t meddle with you in a hurry. And I’ve got tons of experience in this sort of business. The summer season’s a sure thing and so’s the rest of the year, thanks to the Libyans. Petro-dollars!”
“All right. Arrange a meeting with the boss.” It’s as if I’m in a trance.
“Good! And I’ll be responsible for the female staff. Now,” she suggests, kissing me, “why don’t you come and live here with me?”
“Why not? But you’ve got to have one thing clear if we mean to get along together. I don’t believe in love. I don’t even know what it is.”
—
I get back to the pension at about ten o’clock in the morning and in the porter’s hall I run into Sarhan. We ignore each other, waiting for the elevator without a word. Is he paying a visit, I wonder, to his future in-laws? Suddenly he speaks to me: “I know very well you were behind the trouble with Mahmoud Abu al-Abbas.” I turn a cold shoulder, deliberately cutting him. “He told me,” he goes on. “Anyway, it was a rotten thing for you to do.”
He is getting excited and I’m furious already.