Free The Mirage by Naguib Mahfouz Page B

this room?”
    “Of course!” she rejoined in a tone of incredulity. “Now ask His forgiveness for that question of yours!”
    So I asked His forgiveness from the bottom of my heart. Bewildered and fearful, I looked about me. Then I remembered with a pained heart the fact that I would indulge in sin under His watchful eye. The thought caused me intense suffering and I was filled with remorse. Even so, I continued helplessly in its grip.

    The ongoing struggle was so grueling, I began thinking seriously of committing suicide. I was seventeen years oldat the time, and I was preparing for the primary school final examination for the third time after having failed it two years in a row. I was gripped with panic and despair, both of which were even more overwhelming when I thought of the oral examination. I had no speaking ability, nor did I have the heart to face the examiner. During the previous year’s test, the English examiner had asked me about the landmarks I’d visited in Cairo. Whenever he asked me about one of the city’s archeological sites or attractions, I would reply that I wasn’t familiar with it. Thinking that I was evading his questions, he failed me. Fear overcame me, ushering me into the terrifying chambers of desolation. For the first time ever, I found myself taking a kind of bird’s-eye view of life. Tracing its overall trajectory from beginning to end, I no longer saw anything but the start and the finish while disregarding everything in between. Birth and death: this was the sum of life. Birth had passed; nothing was left but death. I’m going to die, I thought, and everything will end as though it had never been. So why go through all this suffering? Why should I have to endure fear, distress, loneliness, exhausting effort, and examinations? My head was swarming with distressing memories from the life I was living: a test that was too much for me to handle followed by failure and bitter ridicule, deprivation of the pleasures in life that other students enjoyed, and being called dumb and disagreeable. One day a student standing near the door to the school mosque saw me coming. He cupped his hand over his ear as though he were going to utter the call to prayer, then in a sing-song voice he shouted in my face, “Hey, disagreeable!” against a background of raucous laughter. I remember how a certain teacher had wanted to test our general knowledge one day.When it was my turn and I stood there in a daze, not answering any of his questions, he asked me what the name of the prime minister was. I didn’t say a word. So he bellowed at me, “Where do you live? In Timbuktu?” There were innumerable opportunities to go on strike, but during those days, I’d never taken part in a single demonstration. One day the entire school declared a strike and every single one of the students went out on a demonstration—every one of them but me, that is. I stayed behind in the schoolyard, flustered and afraid on account of my being one of the oldest students. I was seen by a teacher who was known at that time for his nationalist views. When he saw me, he rebuked me sternly, saying, “Why did you break with the consensus? Isn’t this your country, too?” As a consequence, I was torn between the suffering caused by the teacher’s rebuke and the instructions I received every morning from my mother and which she adjured me to follow without question.
    Memories like these threatened to rob life of all value whatsoever. And wouldn’t death deliver me from all this? Indeed, it would, I thought. So let me die! Such thoughts became my sole preoccupation, and I made up my mind to throw myself into the Nile. That evening I spent a long time in prayer. Then I went to sleep with my mother’s hand in mine, considering myself ready to be numbered among the dead. The next morning I began stealing worried, mournful glances at my mother’s face. Moved by her tranquility and beauty, I had the urge to cry, and it distressed me