Adrift On The Nile Part 5

"My husband is trying to get a reconciliation."

"G.o.d forbid!"

Blind, and could not see. The thread was cut, and some splendid thing was scattered away. The important thing is that we preserve . . . preserve what? Tomorrow we have a wearisome task; tomorrow is the day of the annual accounts. In the prison house of the Archives Department. A museum for insects. Midges, of course, being mammals . . .

"But you are a beautiful blonde," Samara was saying to Layla. "Really you are."

Khalid Azzuz spoke, and it was clear that he meant Layla. "Her real problem," he began, "is the problem of the country as a whole; that is, she's a modern girl--but the husband is bourgeois!"

Anis looked out at the night. He saw the lamps of the opposite sh.o.r.e, slipping into the river's depths like pillars of light. And from a houseboat out of sight, carried on the breeze, came the sound of singing and music. Perhaps a wedding party. As Muhammad al-Arabi had sung on the night of your wedding: "Look! What a wonder. I fell for a peasant girl!" And my uncle had said: "G.o.d preserve you, and let your house be full of fine children, but be careful, there are only two acres left. . . ." How beautiful the village was, with the garden smelling of orange blossom; a perfume as heady as musk behind the ears of fine women . . .

"What a suggestion!" someone was exclaiming.

"But it's a wonderful idea!" Samara replied eagerly. "And this way we will really get to know each other; there's no room for pretenses!"

"But what do you mean by it?"

"I mean the primary concern of your lives!"

"Sounds like a probe to me!"

"If you have any doubts about me at all, then I should leave this minute!" Samara protested.

"Let's start with you, then," Ahmad said cautiously. "Tell us about your primary concern."

She appeared not to be surprised by the question, and said simply, in a way that seemed very candid: "Mine, at the moment, is that I try my hand at writing a play."

"Plays are not written without a reason!" Mustafa said maliciously.

She took a leisurely puff at her cigarette, narrowing her eyes in thought, hesitating. Ali's smile betrayed his sympathy for her, and he said, to encourage her: "The atmosphere here is clearly not conducive to anything except cynicism and triviality. I think you have a strong character, though--and you should stand firm!"

She lowered her eyes, as if she were contemplating the coals in the brazier. "So be it," she said. "The truth is that I believe in being serious."

There was a barrage of questions. Serious? Serious about everything? Could we not seriously believe in absurdity? And seriousness, moreover, implies that life has a meaning--but what is this meaning? Finally Ragab cried, "You have a sorceress here before you! With one stroke of her pen she will turn farce into political theater!" He turned to Samara. "But do you really believe in that?"

"I hope so."

"Speak frankly. Tell me how you can. We would welcome this miracle of belief with all our hearts!"

They discussed the higher basis on which life's meaning had formerly rested. They agreed that this basis had now gone forever. What new foundation could there possibly be? Samara summed it up: "The will to live!"

They exchanged their thoughts. The will to live was something sure and solid, but it could lead to absurdity. Indeed, what was to stop it? Was the will to live alone sufficient to create heroes? For the hero was someone who sacrificed his will to live in the service of some other thing, loftier in his eyes than life; how, according to her theory, could that higher glory ever be reached?

Samara spoke again. "I mean that in our search we should turn toward the will to live itself, not any one foundation in which it is impossible to believe. The will to live is what makes us cleave to real life at times when, if it were left to our intellects alone, we would commit suicide. This will itself is the sure foundation granted to us, so that by it we might rise above ourselves . . ."

Mustafa spoke. "You've turned Marx upside down," he said. "Not "from above to below," but "from below to above"!"

"There is no philosophy there," she protested. "But this is my primary concern. Now it's your turn."

Curses on you all. There is no worse an enemy to the water pipe's pleasures than thinking. Twenty pipes, and all for nothing, or nearly nothing. A date palm seems to be the firmest believer of all. The perseverance of the midges is also worthy of admiration. But if the plaints of Omar Khayyam lose their ardor, then say goodbye to ease. All these mockers and scoffers are merely complex atomic formations. And each of these individuals is breaking down into a certain number of atoms. Losing their form and color . . . changing entirely . . . until there is nothing left of them that can be seen with the naked eye . . . until there is nothing there except voices.

The voice, then, of Ragab al-Qadi: "My primary concern is art."

And the voice of Mustafa Rashid: "Actually, his primary concern is love--or, to be more exact, women."

Samara's voice, doubtful: "Is that really what concerns you?"

"No more and no less."

Her voice had prompted Ali's voice to reply. He said: "My primary concern is artistic criticism!"

The mocking voice of Mustafa: "Nonsense; his real concern is to dream--dreaming itself, that is, regardless of the contents of the dream. Criticism? He criticizes simply to flatter friends or destroy enemies--and to squeeze a certain amount of money out of it as well!"

"But then how can he want the dream to come true?"

"That does not matter to him at all. But when the pipe is generous in its bliss, he scratches his formidable nose and says: "Contemplate, my children, the distance man has traveled, from the caves to outer s.p.a.ce! b.a.s.t.a.r.ds all, you will soon sport among the stars like G.o.ds."

The inquiry turned to Ahmad. His voice spoke hesitantly. "My first concern is . . . to keep up my reputation."

Mustafa's voice, interrupting again: "This man is in a different situation altogether. He's a Muslim, to begin with; he prays and fasts, and he is a model husband whose att.i.tude toward the women here is one of complete indifference. Perhaps his primary concern is that his daughter gets married!"

Khalid's voice: "He is the only one of us who will live after death."

Anis became tired of his clamorous solitude and called Amm Abduh to change the water in the pipe. The man seemed, while he was present, to be the only thing existing in this vocal wilderness. One voice said that his concern was to remember; and another that it was to forget. And Anis himself wondered why the Tartar hordes had stopped on the border . . .

"I have no concerns!" cried Layla's voice.

To which the voice of Khalid replied: "Or rather, I am her first concern!"

Saniya's voice said: "Mine is that my husband divorces me--and that Ali divorces both his wives . . ."

Samara's voice tried to draw out Sana's voice, but it did not utter a word. Ragab's voice said: "Tell me your primary concern!"

And Sana's voice said: "No"; but the voice of a kiss whispered, indistinct and blurred. As for the voice of Khalid, it said: "My first concern is . . . anarchy!"

Laughter rang out. Then a silence reigned, like an interval for rest, and the void had complete dominion.

Amm Abduh approached. "A woman has just fallen from the eighth floor of the Suya Company building," he said.

Anis regarded him anxiously. "How did you find out?"

"I hurried over when I heard the scream. It was a shocking sight."

Ali's voice: "Luckily we're far from the street--we can't hear anything."

"Did the woman commit suicide or was she murdered?"

"G.o.d only knows," replied the old man. Then he hurried out to the street.

Ali suggested going out to see what was going on, but this was rejected by the company. The shock of the news had returned the atoms to their original formation, and people were themselves again. Anis was glad that he had escaped from his wearisome solitude. The company of madmen was better than being alone. It was Mustafa's turn to speak now, but Ali wanted to avenge himself first.

"He's a lawyer," Ali began, "who lost some of his best clients when the const.i.tuencies were reorganized, and who lives now off the misdeeds of ordinary people. His first concern, after getting an advance on his fees, is the Absolute; and this even though he is ruthless when it comes to getting the balance of the fees!"

"So you're devout!" said Samara.

"G.o.d forbid!"

"But what is the Absolute?"

It was Ali who replied. "Sometimes he looks at the sky, and sometimes he retreats into his sh.e.l.l--and sometimes he is sure that he is close to it, but there are no words to describe it. Khalid has advised him to go to a gland specialist."

"But he is one of the serious people at any rate?"

"Not at all. His Absolute is absurd."

"Could you describe him as a philosopher?"

"In the modern sense of philosophy, if you wished; that is, the philosophy that combines theft and imprisonment and s.e.xual perversion a la Jean Genet."

Anis recalled his last meeting with Nero. No, he was not the monster people said he was. He had said that when he found that he was emperor he killed his mother; and then when he became a G.o.d, he burned Rome to the ground. Before all that, he was just an ordinary human being--one who loved art. And this was why he now enjoyed the bliss of paradise. Anis laughed aloud--to find all eyes turned upon him, and Samara addressing him. "Your turn now, master of ceremonies; what is the most important thing for you?"

Anis answered without a second thought. "To be your lover," he said.

Everybody roared with laughter--and Ragab burst out: "But . . ." before remembering himself. Everyone laughed all the more, and in spite of the embarra.s.sment, Samara persisted in getting a reply. Ahmad answered for him. "To kill the Director General."

Samara laughed. "At last I have found somebody serious," she said.

"But he only thinks about that when he is clearheaded."

"Even so!"

Amm Abduh returned. He stood by the screen in front of the door. "The woman committed suicide," he said. "After a quarrel with her lover."

There was a short silence, broken by Khalid. "She did the right thing," he said. "Change the water in the pipe, Amm Abduh."

"So there is still love after all," murmured Samara.

Khalid spoke again. "The woman most likely killed herself when she was serious. We, on the other hand, will not."

Ahmad said that every living creature was serious, and built its life upon that foundation; and that absurdity did not usually occur to the mind. One might find a killer without a motive in a novel such as _L'Etranger_, but in real life? Beckett himself was the first to take swift legal action against any publisher who broke the contract on his absurdist works!

Samara was not convinced. She maintained that what was in the mind must somehow influence behavior--or, at the very least, feelings. Take, for example, the nihilism everywhere, the immorality, the spiritual suicides! But human beings are still human beings, and they must rebel against it, even if only once a year! . . .

Ragab suggested that she stay until dawn, to watch the sun come up over the acacias.

She declined the invitation, and at midnight took her leave. When they suggested one of them drive her home, she thanked them but refused.

After she had gone, there was a silence like that of rest after toil. Fatigue threatened to overtake them all. Anis decided to tell them about his atomic experiment, but he was forced by his own la.s.situde to abandon the idea.

"What is behind this strange and fascinating woman?" Ahmad wondered aloud.

Ali's large eyes were red now, and his great nose looked almost bulbous. "She wants to know everything," he said. "And she wants to make a friend of everyone worthy of friendship."

"Could she possibly be thinking that she might win us over one day?" asked Mustafa. And Khalid added: "In that case, we should try to win her over into one of these three bedrooms."

"That's Ragab's task!"

Sana went pale; but no value was attached to any comment now, after so many pipes.

"We must find a successor for Sana," Khalid said next. The girl gave Ragab a hard look, and he humored her: "People say anything when they're high . . ." Khalid, however, would not let it drop. "Is it easy for a trivial man to love a serious woman, do you think?"

The water pipe went round, and eyelids drooped. They took the brazier out to the balcony and blew the ash off the coals, which glowed and spat sparks. Anis went toward the door to the balcony to feel the damp night breeze. He gazed in wonderment at the fire, surrendering to its enchantment. He thought: n.o.body knows the secret of power like the Delta does. Geckos and rats and midges, and the river water; all these are my family, but only the Delta knows the secret of power. The North was an enchanted world, covered with forests that knew no day except spots of light glancing in through the lattice of leaves and branches. And one day the clouds fled away, and an unwelcome guest with cracked skin and gray face appeared, whose name was Drought. What can we do, when Death is at our heels? The green shriveled away, and the birds migrated, and the animals perished. I said: Death is coming, creeping nearer, stretching out his hand. My cousins, they went southward in search of the easy life, and fruit off the tree, even if it was at the end of the earth. But my family had made for the standing lakes of Nile water, and we had no weapons save resolution, and no witness to our mad, brave deeds except the Delta. And waiting for us there, the th.o.r.n.y plants and reptiles and wild beasts and flies and gnats, and there was a savage feast of Death; and no witness save the Delta. They said: All we can do is fight, inch by inch, welter in blood and sweat. Forearms b.l.o.o.d.y. Eyes staring and ears p.r.i.c.ked, and not a thing to hear except the advance of Death. And the ghosts were everywhere, the vultures wheeling, waiting for victims. No time save for action, no armistice for burying our dead. No one there to ask: Where are they going? Wonders were worked, the seeds of miracles were sown, and no witness save the Delta . . .

8.

When a new evening begins, the feeling of immanence intensifies. All existence is at peace. The thought of the end is far away, and there is a rare chance to give rein to notions of eternity. Because the sky is moonlit, the neon light has been put out, and we content ourselves with a dim blue lamp hung over the door to the balcony. The faces of my companions look pale. Out beyond the balcony, the moon--which is too high to be seen from here--casts a silvery rhombus over the semicircle of smokers.

"You've read Samara's article about the new film, of course."

"You mean about Ragab al-Qadi!" someone interjected.

Of course, he has not. He does not read newspapers or magazines. Like Louis XVI, he knows nothing of what goes on in the world.

Layla said, out of regard for Sana's feelings: "Seriousness! Indeed! I never paid much attention to that--I knew from the beginning that she had come with another aim in mind."

"Let's dance," Sana said to Ragab.

"There's no music," he replied, with odious placidity.

"Think how much we've danced without music!"

"Be patient, my dear--or the pipe will never get going."

He thinks that he is the center of the universe, and that the pipe only circulates because of him. But really the pipe goes around for the same reason that anything does; if the planets traveled in a straight line, then the order of nature would be altered. Last night I believed totally in eternal life--but on my way to the office I forgot the reason why.

"I thought that the article smacked of 'commitment,'" Khalid said sardonically. "What did you think, Ragab?"

Ragab replied, as if Sana was not there: "I thought it was a compliment, an approach, on her part."

"But what is certain is that she has deserted us for days!"

That hidden quarter-moon floods the darkness with an intoxicated glow, like the sleepy eye of a violet. Do you remember how weary the moon became, staying miraculously full through all the nights of battle in the first days of Islam? Here is the warrior once more, leaping into a new fray; and like all warriors, his costume has the hardness of chain mail. . . .