Free The Seventh Heaven by Naguib Mahfouz Page A

said was the owner of the taxi that carried away Makram Abd al-Qayyum’s bags. The driver had no difficulty remembering the fare: he said that he’d dropped him directly at the Semiramis Hotel.
    I set off instantly to the Semiramis with a bunch of assistants. I was able to verify that the suspect spent one night in the place, leaving early the next morning. I asked about the taxi that took him away—and the porter told me that he carried his bags to a white, privately-owned Mercedes. The big, dusky, distinguished-looking gentleman with the golden hair drove the car himself. No one could remember its license number.
    Is he the car’s owner? If so, then why didn’t he use it the whole time he lived in the Paradise Building? Did he buy it just yesterday?
The more that I cut through the obscure character of his actions, the more the insinuation of his guilt took root inside me, and the instincts to investigate and take up the challenge became more deeply fixed within me.
4
    After that I went to the neighbors living on the same floor in his building. The first was an architect named Raouf. He’d barely heard me utter the name of Makram Abd al-Qayyum when he began to scowl.
    “Evidently, you don’t find him too agreeable,” I ventured.
    “Damn him, he’s a strange man,” Raouf raged. “So wrapped up in himself that he’s practically perverted. I wouldn’t doubt that he hates all humanity.”
    “The doorman has another view of him entirely,” I rejoined.
    “Pay no attention to what the doorman says; a tiny gratuity makes his head spin. I’ll never forget once when I met Abd al-Qayyum at the building’s entrance. As I began to greet him he replied with a curt haughtiness—my heart sank and my blood boiled. He’s impudent and ill-mannered.”
    “What you’re saying is new to me.”
    “I challenge you to find one resident in this building who ever exchanged greetings with him. He’s an arrogant crackpot. As for his cruelty …”
    “Did you say, ‘his cruelty’?”
    “My wife told me that she saw him kick a cat,” Raouf went on, “that he found in front of his apartment. The poor thing smashed violently against the wall, before it landed somewhere between life and death!”
    “That’s very strange!” I gasped.
    “When a wake was held at the building he neglectedhis human obligations without concern. He passed by the mourning tent, paying no attention to it whatsoever, nor did he acknowledge anyone there.”
    “What about his personal behavior? I mean, the furnished apartment …”
    “No, no—no one visited him so far as I know. His type suffers from a hidden inadequacy that turns them into supercilious snobs.”
    “But he was well-off, or so it seems.”
    “Why not?” he asked. “Are there bigger bastards than the rich?”
5
    This had surpassed mere suspicion—it was becoming a full-scale indictment. The doorman was credible, so was Raouf. My rock-solid familiarity with these crimes’ history led me to this view. Who other than Makram Abd al-Qayyum would throw money onto the balconies of the poor, while planting poison in chocolates meant for innocents? Isn’t he the one who provided money to feed stray cats, then kicked one of them to death without mercy?
    I approached the second neighbor, an Arabic language instructor named Abd al-Rahman.
    “The man lives alone, all right—but insolent, he’s not. The problem is that Engineer Raouf hated him because he reacted dryly to his greeting—but maybe his mind was simply troubled at the time.”
    “And how do you see him?”
    “I can testify to his piety,” said Abd al-Rahman. “We always meet in the mosque at Friday prayers.”
    “Really?”
    “I walked with him once after the prayers and found him very charming. He invited me to lunch at the Kursaal Restaurant downtown. He was so insistent that I could hardly get a word in edgewise. He told me of his enormous love for our religious heritage, and that he wanted my help to become more