The Dreams by Naguib Mahfouz
He wrote out the requested letter by hand, and the meeting ended on a happy note. On the evening of the same day, as I promenaded on the banks of the Nile, a man whose name is bantered in the press accosted me. He pulled out a gun and robbed me of my money—roughly fifty Egyptian pounds.
Traumatized, I went back to my flat, yet took no action that would affect the appointment that the businessman had given me. The next morning, I was at his office. After a few minutes, he permitted me to enter. I handed him the reference, then froze where I stood.
“My Lord,” I said to myself, in this moment of high anxiety—for he was the very thief who had robbed me, or his twin brother. The ground spun before me.
Dream 45
My motor boat raced across the surface of the lake, with another boat following me, or so I imagined. As I sped up, so did the other.
I felt assailed by panic: Why was he pursuing me?
Nearing a great quay, I cast anchor and climbed the stairs onto a wide deck—which, I noticed, belonged to the Russian Embassy. The deck was filled with mourners who had come to give their condolences at the death of a dearly departed woman.
I greeted the ambassador, then took a seat, listening to what was being said about the deceased lady. I gazed at the lake. Seeing no trace of the boat that been trailing me, I felt relieved.
When the time was right, I got back in my boat and steered it toward the other shore. Looking behind me, I saw the strange skiff cruising in my wake. When I reached the lake’s center, I saw it was better to head for shore than return to the embassy. At the shore, I told myself, the true situation would become clear—and I could confront it with all my strength.
Dream 46
We were gathered in a garden. As usual, our host was singing as we listened enraptured, sending up shouts of passion and approval. This disturbed the neighbors, who complained to the police. We saw the police coming and split up, trying to get away.
I ran in the previously agreed direction—and each time I looked behind me I saw a policeman running after me, as hard and as determined as I was myself. At the same time, it seemed there was someone running ahead of me as though in flight from me. Who could this person be?
The trim, comely figure reminded me of my absent girlfriend, which spurred me to run even faster. The policeman wanted to overtake me, while I wanted to escape him and catch up with my sweetheart. Thus we climbed the tower and ran up to its roof as I panted to embrace my darling—but then she leapt over the wall and plummeted to the ground from its height. I went out of my mind, and—my misery mounting—I jumped from the wall after my beloved as the policeman approached.
Hitting the ground like a bomb, I expected to feel the most horrendous pain—yet all was well. Completely unhurt, I stood up. Glancing around me, I found no sign of my girlfriend. Then I looked up to see the policeman leering down from the tower, drowning in laughter.
Dream 47
A group of boys were playing on the road just ahead of me: I felt they harbored some sort of ill will against me. This surprised me, for nothing to provoke that sentiment had ever occurred between us. As I walked on cautiously, I remembered with wonder the way I was at their age.
A huge shop loomed before me, which I took to be for selling pastry, as it said on its giant sign. The labor of preparation was at its most intense as I approached, asking: “Do the pastries you offer include baklava and kunafa?’
The men stopped their work to stare at me. At the same time, the gang of boys laughed boisterously and whistled. From the farthest corners of the shop, a man appeared and inquired, “Is it true there are still people who love baklava and kunafa?”
I strolled among the workers as the boys danced and whistled and thrust their clenched fists in my face.
Dream 48
I found the Harafish in the room when I arrived. I asked about the only one of us who was absent. They said they’d dispatched him to ask the great composer Sayyid Darwish to send the new ballet troupe along.
I hadn’t realized how spoiled the atmosphere had grown between us, as their faces all scowled at me. I wanted to go away—but at that moment the ballet troupe arrived, enveloped in music and dance. The tension between us lessened as we threw ourselves into the dancing and singing. Raptures raining down on us, our hearts became purified—love and affection pervading us all.
As we reveled with the male and female dancers and chanted in chorus with the hymns and songs, we all made a silent covenant to record the history of that night.
Dream 49
I was heading toward the elegant white building. In the heart of the great hall, the beautiful woman was sitting. We held a meeting with her, and she began to talk about the artistic production company that she had decided to form.
We all welcomed the company and its owner, presenting our individual views about work and production. We differed on nothing—except the salaries. She proposed setting each person’s salary by agreement with her. Some others thought the salaries should be based on a fixed percentage of the expenditures for films and plays. The debate carried over into the next session. I advised my colleagues that to stick to her idea would simply put us at her mercy: the percentage concept clarified the matter, shutting the door on any sort of opportunism.
The lady invited us to dinner, along with some other guests. After the meal, there was a celebration with music. Before we knew it, the woman had stripped off all her clothes and was dancing for us totally naked—an extremely enticing scene.
My final opinion was settled, once and for all: I resolved to distance myself completely from the company—and from its owner, as well.
Dream 50
I was staring at a seductive woman as she walked down the street, when he boldly came up and whispered in my ear.
“If you have any orders,” he said, “she’s at your command.”
Despite the repulsive gleam in his eyes, I did not turn away. We agreed on a fee, one-half of which he demanded in advance: I gave him the half. He gave me an appointment, but when I showed up, I found him alone. He offered the excuse that she was indisposed, and he was perfectly prepared to repay the advance—but I believed him, leaving it with him.
He went on accosting me in my comings and goings, pleading for my patience. Fearing our encounters would damage my reputation, I informed him that my desire had since dampened. And—while I wouldn’t demand the return of my down payment—he had to stay away from me. He stopped approaching me, but still kept showing up most places I would go.
Finally, I became fed up, hating him so much that I decided to move to Alexandria. At Sidi Gaber station, I saw him, standing there as though in waiting.
Dream 51
The train came to a stop, though there was no station. My lady companion asked why this had happened, but I didn’t know how to answer her.
Next, squadrons of soldiers from the army encircled the train, then burst inside, wielding their guns. Many military officers who had been on the train, plus a certain number of civilians, were driven outside. I was among those placed under arrest, leaving my girlfriend distraught and afraid. We found ourselves out in the desert. The armed soldiers ordered us to remove our clothes except for our underwear. Then they moved the military detainees to one side and the civilians to another. We began to whisper to each other that we were lost and that the end had come.
The soldiers’ commander came and called out to each of us by name. A voice among us asked, “Will you kill us without trial?”
The commander answered with candor, “There’s no need here for a trial.”
The train pulled away—and I remembered the one with whom I had come.
Dream 52
We were invited to a meeting in the Azbakiya Gardens. There it was suggested that we honor our glorious professor on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth. No one showed any enthusiasm—nor did anyone appear to object.
The ceremony, it was agreed, would take place in the Foreign Ministry, where he spent t
They came dressed in identical uniforms for their role as hostesses, each one displaying the succulent splendor of youth. My heart pounded madly as I grew woozy amidst the charms of the raving beauties—succumbing to the lure of love. I simmered with the thoughts that I would utter in the speech conferring honor.
Dream 53
I inquired about my friend, and was told that the great musician and songwriter, Shaykh Zakariya Ahmad, chanted his tunes each night in his house until dawn. “What good fortune!” I exclaimed, and was invited to come by one evening.
I went into the vast room, whose walls were embellished with arabesques, and saw Shaykh Zakariya seated on a couch, cradling his ‘ud. He sang, “Would that please God?” as his family—women and children—sat in a circle around a man hanging by his feet.
Beneath the man’s head, but an arm’s length away sat a great vat of acid.
I became confused.
My confusion was compounded when I realized that everyone present was following the songs, paying not the slightest heed to the man being tortured.
Dream 54
In the closed room, the discussion went on between the lady broadcaster and myself about local versus foreign music. At different points in the conversation, I stood at the piano and played some songs.
Every so often, the door would open and a woman from the household—she might have been my mother or someone else of her stature—would enter to offer drinks. Without doubt, she regarded our seclusion with suspicion. Tired of her surveillance, I decided to challenge it by doing the unexpected. So, when next I heard the door opening, I rushed toward the broadcaster and clutched her to my chest.
I saw nothing wrong or unusual in what I had done. When I had finished my act of defiance, the woman had not only disappeared from the room, but from the house entirely.
Dream 55
The debate raged between a man, a woman, and her five sons about the right of the mother—who had passed her sixtieth year—to enjoy life and love.
The argument pierced the walls and became the talk of all the neighbors.
Some said it was a spurious love between an old woman and a young man the same age as her children, who was greedy for the money she’d inherited from her late husband. Others declared that a person must accept whatever they get from life—and especially, from love—even if the price be high. The affair seemed a disaster to the woman in the eyes of her five sons. They wound up murdering their wayward mother and going to the dock for it—accused of planning the crime and carrying it out together. In the investigation, arguments raged whose recurrent themes were motherhood and filial piety, honor and dignity, reputation, and respect for traditions.
I still can recall their faces and their words. Just as I remember the deceased woman when she defied the years and the wagging tongues to go her own way—so dazzlingly, seductively dressed and perfumed.
Dream 56
I left the great house in which we had waited—each man alone, not knowing the others—and felt something like security after unease.
Yet the sense of relief didn’t last long, for soon I imagined that others were following me. I glanced behind me and saw in the distance a group coming after me, gesturing with their hands in the breeze.
I quickened my pace until I broke into a run. On the road I spied the house to which I’d been invited, and instantly hurried toward it. I found the people there as if they were returning from abroad, organizing their things and dusting them off. None of them seemed surprised at my appearance among them. They stared at my face with such affection in their expressions, in their talk, and in their smiles, it was as though I’d just come back with them from their travels.
For that moment, at least, I forgot about the people creeping up behind me.
Dream 57
I walked around the fort twice—a citadel of stone whose windows were like tiny holes. From each window appeared a face that I not only knew, but adored. Some had been traveling a long while; others had departed our world at different times. I stared with passion and grief—and imagined that each one was begging from its depths for me to set them free. After looking hopelessly at the stone fort’s gate, I went to the authorities to ask for help.
I left them feeling satisfied, clutching a pole made of steel, and returned to the fort. I brandished the pole, and the faces peered out as I struck a mighty blow at the door, which split apart and collapsed. The faces vanished from the windows as shouts of joy and pleasure rose up, and I stopped, my heart beating hard—waiting to meet the dear ones with longing and desire.
Dream 58
Finally the new tram came to us, becoming the pearl of public transport in the Abbasiya quarter—and I was among the first to grow to hate it. At the start, I was attracted by its green and white color, by its decorated walls and its huge, plush seats. I sat upright marveling at its beauty, saying to myself this is a gorgeous museum, not a tram. But I noticed over time that the behavior of its passengers was far below the standard set by its elegance.
Truly I witnessed outrageous things. Once I saw a foreign boy pounce upon a little girl, wanting to devour her, but I thrust myself between them, reminding him that she was only a child. Before he could start fighting with me, a beautiful woman of middle age climbed aboard, as he shouted out, “I love you!” She told him that she had just returned from Europe where she had attended the party for the release of her autobiography.
She showed us a copy. On the cover was a picture of a totally naked woman!
Dream 59
His great height was amazing—and so was his behavior. He was as tall as the minaret at our local mosque. As for his actions, he would block the path of anyone he chose among the people of our quarter, angling down from his lofty altitude until he stood face to face with them.
He would stare piercingly at their features, searching for their hidden secret. He would keep doing this, then bolt out of sight behind a bend in the road. People would encounter him with dumb surprise and intense dismay—until one of them trailed him to discover the secret of his mystery. When the man failed to come back after a long time, a group of the neighbors went out to search for him and make sure he was all right.
The shaykh of the hara then came to search as well, as was his duty, but returned with wounded pride. The affair wound up on every tongue, as ideas and fantasies multiplied in peoples’ minds. Yet to no avail, for forgetfulness swallowed the whole business—or nearly so.
One evening the shaykh was chatting in front of the mosque when he felt the peculiar man’s presence. The shaykh not only grasped his miraculous nature, but also caught a glimpse of his enigma, which had so confounded others. He resolved on the spot to seize hold of him, and to broadcast what he knew of his riddle to the crowd gathered around. But then his strength betrayed him completely—he could not move, nor could he speak.
Dream 60
I rang the bell and the door opened upon three young women whom I was sure I did not know, yet felt I was not seeing for the first time. I asked about the woman who owned the flat, and they replied that she was still on pilgrimage. No one knew when to expect her.
They walked me through the rooms of the apartment. Each time a door opened it would reveal a group of people around a circular dinner table immersed in pointed conversation—but due to the cacophony of their blended voices I couldn’t make out anything they were discussing. I did not wish to enter any of the rooms, preferring to wait for the owner.
One of the young women informed me that the lady would be delayed by several days. In despair I replied that—after having taken part in futile discussions—I would rather defer all until the lady’s return.
Dream 61
We exchanged greetings, then their conversation focused on the fact that all of them were living in Christopher Village. Many of them spoke about its beauty and its superiority over all the other touristic villages. We then entered, going to different tables to dine. My seat was at a tiny table stripped of all things, having not a tablecloth or plates or eating utensils or even food.
Before I could overcome my surprise I saw Shukuku coming toward me, grasping a leg of roasted mutton. He stuck it in my hand and went away laughing. Thunderstruck and annoyed, I saw no choice but to tear the meat with my fingers to eat it—although the whole time, all I could think of was Christopher Village.
Dream 62
At last I found the ancient photograph among my old things. My joy was stillborn, however, when it quickly became clear that the picture had worn with the passage of time. My dear ones’ features had been blotted so badly, there was nothing left of them but memories.