The Mirage by Naguib Mahfouz
I waited alone until the kindergarten let out and I spotted Rabab approaching from a distance. This was the moment I’d been waiting for for the last four days—the most miserable days of my life. I would follow her, of that there was no doubt, and leave the rendezvous to circumstances alone. I expected her to turn left in the direction of the tram stop that leads to Heliopolis. However, she veered right instead, in the direction of the tram stop where she waited every day. I realized immediately that she’d made up the story about the sick colleague so as to create an excuse for her absence, and my chest went into such turmoil I could hardly breathe. Had the time come for me to be rid of this torment? As she stood there on the sidewalk, I shot her a fiery look, marveling at the phony decorum that served as a veneer for such unspeakable wickedness and depravity! Then came the time for the chase, which I hoped would bear fruit this time. She got on the tram and I hailed a taxi. As I rode along, I kept my eyes glued to the car she was in. Where would she get off? Where would she commit her dastardly deed? It was nearly unbearable for me to imagine her in such questionable situations. If the actual reality proved my suspicions correct, revealing to me its ugly, grotesque face, nothing would satisfy my thirst for revenge but to crush her skull with the stones of this huge city! What would have caused her to fall into such iniquity, she who was too chaste for legitimate marital relations? Or did she only want such things by crooked means? I was torn by indecision and tormented by bitterness and rage. At the same time, though, I held out the hope of being delivered from this torment once and for all, and from this bitter life so filled with disappointment and doubt. In just a few minutes everything would be over, and there would be no more reason for me to ask myself whether she was innocent or guilty. There would be no more obsessive thoughts driving me to endure the horrors of surveillance and espionage. The house would be empty of all but the old, familiar faces and the humble, quiet life I’d once known. It was true, of course, that I wished I could crush the head that had crushed my heart. However, I valued my life too much to let it be lost for the sake of an iniquitous woman. My rage was intense and formidable, but my love for safety was stronger and deeper. Wasn’t it strange that my thoughts should be revolving around fear and safety even at that terrifying moment? We approached Ataba, and again I wondered where she would get off. I saw her go to the stop on the square as she did every day. I got out of the taxi for fear of losing her in the crowded square. Then I saw her cross the square and head for the other stop where she usually waited. I circled the square and stopped at the section wall. It galled me to see her standing there in her usual decorous fashion, calm and collected, as though I weren’t burning up over her. Having ruled out the possibility of her meeting someone in such a crowd, I began looking out for the tram she was about to catch. Trams came and went in succession with their various numbers until at last the Roda tram arrived, whereupon she rushed up to it and took her place in the ladies’ compartment. I was stupefied. Was it going to happen in our very own neighborhood? I rushed over to another taxi and we followed the tram. My heart began pounding more and more wildly with every stop we passed. Then we came onto Qasr al-Aini Street. We passed one stop, then a second, then a third, then a fourth until we reached the stop that led to our house. To my dismay, I saw her get off the tram. Looking out the back window of the taxi, I saw her cross the street and walk into our building. I rested my head on the back of the seat and closed my eyes, exhausted and bewildered. What was behind all this? Had I lost my mind? Would there be no end to this torture? In any case, I went home myself, and when I arrived, she’d just finished getting undressed and putting on her robe.
“I thought you’d gone to visit your colleague!” I said to her in astonishment.
She broke into a smile and said, “She wasn’t that sick after all, and she came back to work today before anyone could go to the trouble of visiting her.”
And I wondered: Will all my suspicions lead to nothing but a handful of wind? I only asked God for one thing, namely, to be able to live with her in peace and assurance.
As I was changing my clothes she said to me, “My aunt called and invited me to visit her this evening, and she asked me to invite you on her behalf.”
“God willing,” I replied unthinkingly.
The minute I opened my mouth I realized I’d spoken hastily, since I remembered the appointment at the Abbasiya Bridge. But did I really want to go? I was far from the window and the balcony and their influence now, so was I still thinking about this woman seriously? What sort of demon was beguiling me? My heart belonged to my beloved and to no one else. So why was the strange woman’s siren song so overwhelming and irresistible? The longer I thought about it, the more I surrendered to the fiendish summons until the only thing left to prevent me from going was the promise I’d made to myself to accompany my wife that evening. But, would she have invited me to visit her aunt with her if she harbored any ill intentions? I thought about it again with considerable effort, since there’s nothing more taxing for me than to have to choose between two different things.
However, after considerable hesitation, I said, “I’m sorry, I just remembered—I have an important engagement!”
In what seemed like genuine distress, she said, “Do you mean you won’t be able to go with me?”
Feeling as though my foot were slipping into a bottomless pit, I said, “Please convey my regrets to your aunt.”
55
I reached the Abbasiya Bridge a few minutes before the scheduled time. The weather was pleasant and it was quite dark, so I waited under a gas lamp. I’d come in a state of angst and tension that reminded me of the state I’d been in on the day the carriage took me to the pub on Alfi Bey Street for the first time. And all this for the sake of a woman with neither beauty nor grace. In fact, I would have been embarrassed to be seen with her in public. When it was nearly time for her to arrive, I was ridden by the same fear that I’d felt over and over during the wait that had begun that afternoon. What if the tragedy repeated itself? There was still time to flee. But I didn’t budge. This woman was my only chance to reclaim my lost confidence. Besides, I was possessed by a spirit of adventure the likes of which I’d never seen in myself. “Give it a try!” it said to me. “You won’t lose anything. Or, at least, you won’t lose anything new.” I was roused from my thoughts by a medium-sized car that pulled up in front of me next to the sidewalk. The car window opened and through it I saw the face of the strange woman, who was seated behind the steering wheel. She smiled at me and invited me to go around and get in on the other side. Muddled, I did as she said, and in less than a second, I was sitting next to her. I pulled the door closed and remained sitting right up against it, so self-conscious that I was hardly aware of what was around me. I could feel her eyes on my left cheek, but I kept looking straight ahead until she burst out laughing.
Then, in a voice that sounded delicate by comparison with the coarseness of her face and body, she said provocatively, “There’s no need to be shy anymore.”
She took off, handling the car with deftness and ease, and said, “Let’s go to Pyramids Road.”
She was driving so fast I was petrified, and whenever she was forced to slow down by other cars or a traffic light, I breathed a sigh of relief. Yet strangely, she stopped speeding like a maniac when she’d left the busy streets behind. After catching my breath, I looked furtively over at her and got a close-up view of one side of her homely face and her compact bosom. At the same time, I recalled an image of her plump bronze legs. Then I remembered that she was just an inch away from my leg, and my body went into an uproar. I was amazed to find her calm and serene as though she were accompanying her husband or her brother, not a strange man about to die of awkwardness and self-consciousness.
Her eyes still on the road, she asked me, “What shall I call you?”
“Kamil Ru’ba,” I replied briefly.
I contented myself with this rather than adding the title “bey,” which often drew a laugh.
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I felt as though I ought to ask her for her name, too. I’d chosen a suitable phrase to use and was gathering my courage to utter it when she said simply, “You can call me Inayat.”
“Nice name,” I muttered shyly, though all she heard was a whisper.
Then suddenly she turned toward me and said with a smile, “Strange that you’re so shy! Don’t you know that shyness is out of style? Even virgins have given it up without regret. So why are you holding on to it?”
I laughed nervously and made no reply.
“But enough of this,” she went on. “Medicine is only effective when it’s given at the right time. Now tell me, for heaven’s sake, what led you to mix with the Nubians in that filthy coffee shop?”
Wondering what to say, I thought for a while until I hit on a fib that would get me out of my fix.
I said, “One day I was coming back from a long trip, and it was the only place I could find to rest.”
“That’s about the first day. But what about the second and third days?”
A fitting answer came to me off the top of my head. So, overcoming my shyness, I said softly, “You were the reason for the second and third days.”
She looked at me with a laugh and said shrewdly, “Are you telling me the truth, or are you just trying to evade the question by flirting?”
“No, I’m telling the truth,” I said.
Looking back at the road coquettishly, she said, “So then, why do you keep sitting up against the door as though you don’t want to touch me?”
Feeling muddled, I didn’t know what to do.
“But we’re on the road,” I said apologetically.
She burst out laughing, then said, “We’re in the car, not on the road! Besides, even the road wouldn’t keep people like us from sitting up next to each other if we wanted to. Don’t make phony excuses. Now tell me, how old are you?”
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“For shame! And how many women have you been with?”
I made no reply, feeling I wasn’t up to her and her questions. Then, as though she were surprised at my silence, she said reproachfully, “Do you mean to say you’ve never been with a woman before? Am I the first woman in your life? My Lord! Haven’t those green eyes of yours snagged anybody yet? If not, then I got to you just when you were about to drown, and may God reward me richly for my good deed! My Lord, who could believe this? How do you live, and what are you doing with your life?”
Again I made no reply, as her words had pained me without her realizing it. However, she may have seen the look of discomfort on my face, since she let up on me and asked me no more questions for some time. Then she asked me about my work, and I replied that I was a government employee. I added that I was on a short vacation, after which silence reigned once again. Meanwhile, she shifted slightly in my direction until her shoulder was gently touching mine. The contact sent life coursing through my cowering heart, whose pulse raced to the beat of my fear and shyness.
When I went on clinging to the door and not making a move, she stifled a laugh and said pithily, “A step from me and a step from you. Now are you still scared?”
Her invitation met with a willing soul and a fearful heart. Resisting the fear with everything in me, I slid over ever so cautiously until my side—from the lower leg to the top of the shoulder—came in contact with tender flesh that was redolent with a sweet, captivating perfume. I paused for a moment to take in the luscious feel of it, my whole body trembling. Then she turned toward me, and I felt her breath on my cheek.
“Are you still scared?” she whispered in my ear.
Not at all. I’d been intoxicated by passion. Still breathing on my cheek, she leaned her head toward me until my mouth dove into her swelling lips, whereupon she quickly shifted her head away from me and looked back at the road ahead of her. I placed my left arm around her thick waist and began covering the side of her neck with kisses.
“Easy does it!” she murmured with a laugh as she veered off to the side of the road.
Then she stopped the car, saying, “Let’s rest for a while here. It’s a safe place.”
Looking out, I saw that she’d chosen a spot halfway between two streetlights. It was pitch dark and the area on either side of the car was vacant. Aside from the cars whizzing by us at lightning speed, we were surrounded by a deep silence.
“Isn’t it dangerous?” I asked her in a whisper.
Wrapping her right arm around my neck, she said, “It’s safer than your house.”
She then turned until her right shoulder was touching the back of the seat and folded her right leg under her left thigh. We were now face to face, and the neck opening in her dress receded to reveal her swelling bosom. I leaned forward and rested my head on her chest, filled with amazement and tenderness, and I was intoxicated by the fragrance of a human body more delectable than the sweetest perfume. I rested there peacefully for I don’t know how long as her hand played with the hair on my head. Then I lifted my face toward hers and devoured her lips, and she devoured mine. It was as though we were eating and swallowing each other alive. Fear was gone now, since there was nothing left to justify it, and I was filled with life, with madness, and with boundless confidence. I don’t know where the confidence came from, but this woman was fully in charge of the situation, and in her I found the guide that I’d lacked all my life. She restored to me both confidence and peace of mind because she relieved me of all responsibility and took me slowly and gently. At that moment, more than ever before in my life, I realized that the laying of any responsibility on me was liable to cause me to lose myself, and that I could only find this fragile self of mine when I was in strong, steady hands. The world melted away in a wild, magical intoxication, and I emerged drunk on the wine of victory and profound satisfaction. Deep inside, I felt a desire for this woman equaled only by my desire for life itself. In fact, she herself was life, dignity, manhood, confidence, and happiness. My lips parted in a smile of victory and joy and I cast her a look of gratitude the depth of which she couldn’t possibly have fathomed. In her presence I was wallowing in the dirt. But it was good, loving dirt that yielded confidence and happiness. I realized the mistakes I’d made in the past and I remembered my beloved wife with a sense of grief and despair that nearly shattered my dreamlike bliss. Yet I had no hesitation about holding her responsible for all my misery. That’s how it seemed to me. At the same time, my heart pined for her even at that moment and in that place.
As for the woman, she tapped my nose with her fingertip and said, “Happy?”
“Very,” I replied from the heart.
She took my left hand in both of hers and murmured, “What a wonderful child you are.”
“A child in his third decade!” I said with an embarrassed laugh.
Then a look of seriousness and concern flashed in her eyes, and I noticed her running her fingers over my wedding band. With a stunned look on her face, she cried, “Are you married? That never even crossed my mind!”
Fear came over me, and I looked at her without saying a word.
Then she laughed out loud and said, “How is it that that never even occurred to me? But how can I believe this? My Lord, why did you run after me? Isn’t your wife to your liking? How dissolute can you get?”