The Seventh Heaven: Supernatural Tales by Naguib Mahfouz
And in the thirteen stories presented here, the same oneiric and unworldly forces are at work in the writer’s mind. For example, both “A Man of Awesome Power” (“al-Rajul al-qawi,” 1996), and “Forgetfulness” (“al-Nisyan,” 1984) feature recurring portentous dreams. Another piece, “The Vapor of Darkness” (“Dukhan al-zalam,” 1996) may itself be merely a nightmare—or a frightening memory. In “The Garden Passage” (“Mamarr al-Bustan,” 1984), whose name is drawn from an alley in a part of downtown Cairo famed for its secluded bars and artists’ cafés, vaguely celestial symbolism mixed with Sufism, a hint of prostitution, and the uncertain elapse of great spans of time all invoke a feeling of mystic hope and dread combined. “The Rose Garden” (“Hadiqat al-ward,” 1999) explores the conflict between the age-old Egyptian reverence for the dead and their tombs as houses for eternal life, and the modern needs of the living in mega-crowded Cairo.
Mahfouz published this story, set in one of Cairo’s surviving medieval haras (alleys, quarters), on January 16, 1994, in the women’s magazine Nisf al-dunya (Half the World), where he has debuted nearly all his new fiction since its first issue in February 1990. Nine months later, on October 14, 1994, the then eighty-two-year-old Mahfouz (born December 1911) would be stabbed in the neck, almost fatally, by a religious fanatic in an eerie echo of the fate of this story’s unfortunate victim, Hamza Qandil. The attack damaged the nerve that controls his right arm and hand, rendering him able to write little more than his name for over four years. Though by early 1999 he had partially regained his ability to handle a pen, he has lately been forced to dictate new work.
Like Qandil (whose last name means “lamp”), Mahfouz displays more learning than his peers, and his ideas have sometimes put him at odds with local traditions. And he almost paid the same price, exacted in the same way, for roughly the same reasons as his fictional bearer of light. And yet the message of this story, which later appeared in his 1999 collection Sada al-nisyan (The Echo of Forgetfulness), is somehow ambiguous.
Meanwhile, Qandil’s antagonist, Bayumi Zalat, may have been based on a real local thug of the same name that the young Mahfouz likely knew in the Darrasa district near his birthplace in the old Islamic quarter of Gamaliya—and whose grandson I encountered as he worked parking cars in the neighborhood. Curiously, Mahfouz’s own family’s tombs and many others in the Bab al-Nasr cemetery, likewise close to Gamaliya, were moved by government decree in an urban renewal scheme in the 1970s.16 When asked if “The Rose Garden” had been inspired by this event, he denied it vehemently. “No!” he said. “It is a symbolic story—simply!”
Meanwhile, the figure of Death itself materializes not only in “The Rose Garden” but also in the “The Reception Hall” (“al-Bahw,” 1996), in “The Vapor of Darkness” (“Dukhan al-zalam,” 1996), and in “Room No. 12” (“al-Hujra raqm 12,” 1973)—in the latter, once as the contractor Yusuf Qabil (“Qabil” is the Qur’anic name for Cain, the first murderer), and as Blind Sayyid the Corpse Washer.17 “The Reception Hall” also highlights Mahfouz’s abiding passion for Sufi imagery, with its moth fluttering raptly toward the flame, a metaphor favored by the great Muslim martyr Mansur al-Hallaj, crucified for heresy in 922.18 Queried jokingly if he had “been inspired by” al-Hallaj, or had resorted to “literary theft,” he chuckled. “Consider it theft,” he quipped.19
Another spectral figure who appears more than once in these stories does so openly in “The Only Man” (“al-Rajul al-wahid,” 1996). But he might also be found more covertly in “The Disturbing Occurrences” (“al-Hawadith al-muthira,” 1979) as the preternaturally clever character with a split demonic/angelic personality, and the devilish ability to turn the words of his accusers against them with ease. A further possible clue: he possesses the one trait that in Mahfouz’s fictional universe always indicates either a grave moral defect or raving depravity—blond hair. A different kind of deviltry infests “The Haunted Wood” (“al-Ghaba al-maskuna,” 1989), an allegory about the literal demonization of dissent in an authoritarian society— amid an ambiguous setting that seems both part of this dimension, and what the narrator calls “the life of the wood.” The closing piece, “A Warning from Afar” (“Nadhir min ba‘id,” 1999) is a kind of prophecy, or a terrorist videotape from the beyond, threatening that the forces of religious fanaticism will sweep in someday to clean out the corruption of this world if we don’t watch out. Ironic from a person who was nearly killed by a similar extremism a few years before this story was published— but, as in “The Rose Garden,” such nagging nuance is another of Mahfouz’s many specialties.
All the stories in this collection of Mahfouz’s little-known fiction exploring questions of death, the afterlife, and the disturbingly metaphysical embody what German theologian Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy (Das Heilige, 1917; English, 1923) called “the numinous.” This, as S. L. Varnado says in Haunted Presence, his 1987 book reviving Otto’s work, “can be summed up as an affective state in which the precipient—through feelings of awe, mystery and fascination—becomes aware of an objective spiritual presence.”20
The expression “awe, mystery and fascination” derives from Otto’s Latin phrase, mysterium tremendum et fascinans.21 That “affective state” is not only invoked by Mahfouz’s works dealing with the dead, but by his writings as a whole. Indeed, even by his very being, which exerts awe, mystery, and fascination upon all who know him— whether through his books alone, or in the perishable flesh as well.
As translator, I wish to thank Roger Allen, Hazem Azmy, Eric Banks, Brooke Comer, Shirley Johnston, Mary A. Kelly, Ben Metcalf, Abdel Aziz Nossier, Michael Ray, Everett Rowson, Tawfik Saleh, Matthew Stadler, Peter Theroux, Husayn Ukasha, Patrick Werr, and David Wilmsen for their helpful comments on the present work, and Abdalla F. Hassan and R. Neil Hewison for their very fine and proficient editing. And, as always, above all I am grateful to the author, not only for his thoughtful answers about these stories—but for everything.
This translation is dedicated to my sister, Carole Anne Huft, and her husband, David.
NOTES:
1. The lines from “If Ever You Go to Dublin Town” by Patrick Kavanagh are reprinted from Collected Poems, edited by Antoinette Quinn (Allen Lane, 2004), by kind permission of the Trustees of the Estate of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh, through the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency.
2. Naguib Mahfouz, Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales, translated by Raymond Stock (Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2002), p. 63.
3. Ra’uf Sadiq ‘Ubayd, al-Insan ruh la jasad, 2 vols. (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-‘Arabi, 1966). “Shawqi’s” ghostly poetry in Vol. 1, pp. 525-802, and in Vol. 2, pp. 3-16. Other editions of this book also exist.
4. Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Maadi, February 13, 2002.
5. Qur’an, Surat al-Mulk, 67:3.
6. Jane Dammen MacAuliffe, General Editor, Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an, Vol. II (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2002), pp. 410-13.
7. See Richard B. Parkinson, The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 121 n.
8. See William Kelly Simpson, ed., The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry. (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2003), pp. 470-89.
9. Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Maadi, March 1998.
10. Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Garden City, October 9, 2005.
11. Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950), pp. 170-71. Russell also dug at Gladstone, who, though generally anti-imperialist, sent British troops to put down an uprising in Egypt, where they remained for more than seventy years. On p. 169, he writes, “Invariably he [Gladstone] earnestly consulted his conscience, and invariably his conscience earnestly gave him the convenient answer.” Opposition to the British occupation, which ended in 1956, has been a major theme in Mahfouz’s works.
12. For Rayya’s and Sakina’s atrocities a
13. Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Maadi, February 13, 2002. Ditto for quote “long short story”—which, uncharacteristically, Mahfouz offered in English.
14. See also Menahem Milson, Najib Mahfuz, the Novelist-Philosopher of Cairo (New York and Jerusalem: St. Martin’s Press and The Magnes Press, 1998), pp. 142-43.
15. Naguib Mahfouz, The Dreams, translated by Raymond Stock (Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2004), p. 10.
16. Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, al-Ahram office, September 1994.
17. In 2005, a half-hour feature (very loosely) based on this story was produced by the Egyptian TV and Radio Union, Nile Thematic TV Channels, entitled al-Ghurfa raqm 12 (Room No. 12), directed by Izz al-Din Sa‘id, starring Lutfi Labib, Sahar Rami, Sa‘id Abd al-Karim, Ahmad Siyyam, Hasan al-Adl, Kamal Disuqi, with scenario and dialogue by Izz al-Din Sa‘id and Makkawi Sa‘id.
18. For more on al-Hallaj and the moth, see Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology (New York: Penguin Arkana, 1964), p. 447. Also, Roger Allen, The Arabic Literary Heritage (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 64, 192-93, 195, 250, 263, 265, and 347.
19. Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Garden City, October 9, 2005. The addition of “literary theft” to my question was done by Mohamed el-Kafrawi, a civil engineer and friend of Mahfouz who was sitting as usual by his side.
20. S. L. Varnado, Haunted Presence: The Numinous in Gothic Fiction (Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1987), p. 15.
21. Ibid., p. 10: as Varnado notes, more literally, “a frightening but fascinating mystery.”
The Seventh Heaven
1
A huge cloud surges over all existence, plunging through space. Everything pulses with a strange cosmic presence. Nothing like it has ever been, breaking living beings down into their basic elements, menacing all with destruction— or perhaps a new creation. Despite all this, he is still conscious of what is happening, seeming to live out the last moments of awareness. Seized by sensations that transcend imagination, he is witnessing things that none have seen before. Yet he is still himself—Raouf Abd-Rabbuh— without any fears, without evil whisperings within, and without any cares. He halts in the desert outside the ancient portal, floating in the dark, feeling as though he weighs nothing. He and his friend Anous Qadri are returning from their evening out. Where are you, Anous?
He heard not a sound, nor could he feel the touch of the ground. Then he had a bizarre sensation of levitation as he penetrated deeply into the churning, overspreading masses above. When he called out to his friend, no sound issued from him. He was present—and yet was not there at all. He was confused, yet not frightened, though his heart expected a direct reply from close by. The cloud thinned and began to vanish. The pulsing stopped completely. Then the darkness of night glittered with the luminous rays of stars. Finally I can see now, Anous! But what are you doing? The people are digging up the earth furiously, and with purpose. Then there is a young man sprawled on his back, blood pouring from his head. Raouf can see with a clarity greater than that granted by the starlight. How amazing! That’s Raouf Abd-Rabbuh himself! Yet he is me—and none other than me!
He was cut off from him completely as he watched from very near. No, it’s not a double nor his twin. That’s definitely his body. And those are his shoes. Anous urges the men on in their work. He does not see him at all. Evidently, he thinks that the body laid out there represents all there is of his friend Raouf Abd-Rabbuh, the creature that observes him, unable to do anything. He sensed that he was not whole like the corpse on the ground. Had he become two beings? Or had he departed from the living? Had he been murdered and suffered death? Did you kill me, Anous? Did we not spend an enjoyable night out together? What did you feel when you killed me? How could you so disdain my friendship that you would try to claim Rashida for yourself? Didn’t she tell me that she considered herself to be your sister from now on?
Ah—the men have carried my body to the hole, and are tossing it inside. Now they’re shoveling dirt over it and smoothing the spot afterward, restoring the ground to its natural shape. Thus Raouf Abd-Rabbuh vanishes, as though he never was. And yet, Anous, I still exist. You have cleverly buried the evidence of your hardened crime—all trace of it is gone. Yet why are you scowling so? What is that sardonic look in your eyes? I freely confess—even though you cannot hear me—that I still love her. Did you think that our relationship was now over? Even death is too weak to destroy such a passion. Rashida is mine, not yours. Yet you are rash and were raised amidst evil. You grew up in the sphere of your father, Boss Qadri the Butcher—monopolist of the meat trade, plunderer of the poor and the dispossessed, a gross greaser of palms. Let me tell you that what you aspire to is not yours—your felony is to try to gain it by force. What will you do now? You, who wouldn’t even go to the café without me, nor study without me, nor come and go to the university without me? We were the two best friends in our quarter, despite the infinite differences between us in money, status, and power. You may forget me, but I will not forget you. You should know that I have no longing for vengeance, or to hurt you in any way. All such weaknesses were buried with my body in that hole in the ground. Even the torture that your father’s oppression inflicts on our alley provokes neither rage nor wrath nor rebellion within me. Rather, it is a common occurrence that the power of love rejects, creating instead a lofty desire free of any stain. I mourn for you, Anous. I never conceived you in this ugly image before. You are a walking skeleton, a bat-infested ruin. Murdered blood splotches your face and your brow. Your eyes give off sparks, while a serpent hangs from each of your ears. Your father’s men file behind you on donkeys’ hooves, with heads like crows, bound in manacles bolted with thorns. How it saddens me to have been the cause for which you sullied your pages. I am overwhelmed with grief because of it—while my sense of happiness shrinks to nothing.
2
In the midst of a sigh, Raouf found himself in a new city— brilliantly illuminated, but without a sun. The sky was a cupola of white clouds, the ground rich with greenery, with endless orchards of flowering fruit trees. Stretching into the distance were rows of white roses. Throngs of people met and broke up with the fleetness of birds. In an empty spot, he felt the loneliness of the first-time arrival. At that moment, there arose before him a man enshrouded in a white mist.
“Welcome, Raouf,” the man said, smiling, “to the First Heaven.”
“Is this Paradise?” Raouf asked, shouting with joy.
“I said, ‘the First Heaven,’ not ‘Paradise,’” the stranger admonished.
“Then where is Paradise?”
“Between it and you, the path is very, very long,” the man answered. “The fortunate person will spend hundreds of thousands of enlightened years traversing it!”
A sound like a groan escaped Raouf. “Permit me first to introduce myself,” said the man. “I am your interlocutor, Abu, formerly High Priest at Hundred-Gated Thebes.”
“I’m honored to meet you, Your Reverence. What a happy coincidence that I’m Egyptian myself!”
“That is of no importance,” replied Abu. “I lost all nationality thousands of years ago. Now I am the defense counsel appointed by the courts for the new arrivals.”
“But there can be no charge against me—I’m a victim….”
“Patience,” Abu said, cutting him off. “Let me tell you about your new surroundings. This heaven receives the new arrivals. They are tried in court, where I serve as their advocate. The verdicts are either for acquittal
Raouf interrupted him, “But what then does ‘condemnation’ mean?”
“That the condemned must be reborn on earth to practice living once again; perhaps they would be more successful the next time,” said Abu. “As for verdicts that fall between acquittal and condemnation, in such cases the accused is usually put to work as a guide to one or more souls on earth. Depending on their luck, they may ascend to the Second Heaven, or the length of their probationary period might be extended, et cetera.”
“At any rate, I’m definitely innocent,” Raouf blurted confidently. “I lived a good life and died a martyr.”
“Do not be so hasty,” Abu counseled him. “Let us open the discussion of your case. Identify yourself, please.”
“Raouf Abd-Rabbuh, eighteen years of age, a university student of history. My father died, leaving my mother a widow who lives on a charitable trust from the Ministry of Religious Endowments.”
“Why are you so satisfied with yourself, Raouf?” queried Abu.
“Well, despite my intense poverty, I’m a hard-working student who loves knowledge, for which my thirst is never quenched.”
“That is beautiful, as a matter of principle,” remarked Abu, “yet you received most of your information from others, rather than through your own thinking.”
“Thought is enriched through age and experience,” said Raouf. “And regardless, would that count as a charge against me?”
“Here a person is held accountable for everything,” rejoined Abu. “I observe that you were dazzled by new ideas.”