Free The Seventh Heaven by Naguib Mahfouz Page B

knowledgeable of it.”
    “Perhaps he’s not well-educated.”
    “No, he’s not exactly erudite in that field, but he did graduate from the College of Law, and studied law and history in the Sorbonne.”
    “Maybe you’re the first to mix with him,” I suggested.
    “Maybe I am, but we used to meet at the bar in the Mena House Hotel by the Great Pyramid. To me it was clear he had a lot of friends there—both Egyptians and foreigners. He was called to the phone so often, I thought he must be in business.”
    “It never occurred to you to ask him about his occupation?”
    ” Once I asked him a bit craftily about how he spent his time. He answered that he loved innumerable things, yet he was not committed to any particular kind of work. In other words, he’s rich.”
    “What’s the source of his wealth?”
    “Land, stocks and bonds, and so on,” Abd al-Rahman replied. “Yet his greatest asset is that he is quite well read. At one point I proposed to him that he write history, and he smiled and asked me, ‘Do you think there’s really sucha thing as history?’ I thought he was just kidding, but he saw this and said, ‘To get rich on history comes through praise, and on poetry through libel.’”
    “Of course, you don’t know why he has avoided marriage?”
    “Once I complained to him that one of my sons was acting up,” he said. “Makram told me with a sadness that seemed unusual for him, ‘A son’s rebellion means endless sorrow.’ The ring of anguish in his voice told me he was that son, or perhaps even the afflicted father himself. Rather slyly I said, ‘You’ve released yourself from all that.’ He looked at me and smiled—but without sating my curiosity.”
    “Why didn’t you clarify this point?” I goaded him.
    “I was close to him—I even revered him. I was afraid I’d lose him by putting too much pressure on him.”
    “Naturally, he let you know that he intended to leave.”
    “Never … his departure surprised me. But I’ll surely be seeing him on Thursday at the Mena House.”
    “I don’t think so. In any case, we’ll see.”
    “Why do you say, ‘I don’t think so’?”
    “Don’t you know that he’s suspected of being behind the disturbing occurrences in our area?”
    The man’s eyes widened in dismay as he said—not only incredulously, but in protest—”I seek refuge in God from the accursed Satan.”
6
    The mystery grew murkier, merging into darkness, but my intuition—honed by years of experience—becameconviction, or nearly so. I was just about fully satisfied with my conclusions, based on the information gathered by that time, and was ready to speed up the pursuit. But I saw no harm in meeting the third resident. This was Makram Abd al-Qayyum’s next-door neighbor, the tax collector, Bakr al-Hamadhani.
    The tax man had hardly heard the suspect’s name when he blurted, “The madman!”
    “Mad?”
    “Of course! Every time I heard his voice it was reverberating like a drum in the quiet of the night. Was he talking on the telephone? To himself? Was he having an imaginary fight? You’d think it was a blast of wind or a rumble of thunder. And there was something else really astonishing.”
    “Really?” I mused.
    “He would sing and play the oud.”
    “This is something new indeed.”
    “His voice is actually strong and beautiful. Sometimes he sang songs of the utmost dignity, like, ‘Oh how I long to see you.’ But other times they were tunes of the most extreme banality, like, ‘Now I’m a teacher, I used to be a fool.’ Just imagine this somber man crooning, ‘The day you bit me so hard.’ He was such a raucous fellow.
    “One time I was returning from an evening at the theater, and saw him outside the Vladimir Tavern, staggering drunk. ‘Bring it on!’ he shouted, slurring his words.”
    “So he was rowdy?”
    “How strange that was! But there were stranger things, too. One night as I came home from my evening out I saw him walking a few