He threw a rod which had no equal in length toward the crescent, striking it squarely. With a brilliant movement it began to unroll its folds of light until it ripened into a full moon. We heard voices shout, “There is no god but God!” and we shouted it with them. I said that nothing like this had ever happened before, and she agreed. The light flowing over creation lifted me over the surface of the water. She called out, “A moonlit night!” and I said, “The boat is inviting us!” as we rode along with the utmost pleasure.
Then the pilot sang, “I crave you, by the Prophet, I crave you.” We grew drunk with ecstasy, and I suggested that we swim around the skiff. We stripped off our clothes and leapt into the water, splashing about with absolute delight. But then the moon suddenly turned back into a crescent—and the crescent, too, disappeared. We grew alarmed as we never had before, and I felt that this required a serious reappraisal of our situation. With the two of us drowning in the dark, I said, “Let’s head for the boat.”
“And if we get lost?” she replied.
“We can make for the shore,” I answered.
“We’ll be naked on the bank,” she fretted.
“Let’s worry about that later,” I told her.
Dream 21
On this little street there was no want of pedestrians out and about, or people sitting on their balconies. The lady walked slowly, sometimes stopping in front of the fashion displays.
Four young men, not yet twenty years old, made their way toward her. She frowned in their faces and turned away from their path. But they swooped down upon her, harassing her. She resisted them as the neighborhood watched without intervening. The youths tore her robe, exposing parts of her body, as the woman cried out in alarm. I observed what was happening and stopped in my tracks, paralyzed by shock and disgust. I wanted to do something—or wanted someone else to do something—but nothing occurred.
After the tragedy had finished and the criminals had fled, the police arrived, the place changed—and I found myself with a group of others in front of the officer’s desk. Our testimony was all in accord. When asked what we did, we answered, “Nothing.” I was embarrassed and disturbed, my hand trembling as I affixed my name to the official report.
Dream 22
We were working in the office when he looked me in the face and said, “Your mind is preoccupied.”
I answered tersely, powerless with fatigue, “The cost of the medicines is beyond my means.”
“I understand and appreciate that,” he said, “and I praise God who saved me from its claws.”
So I asked him, “How could you survive that for which there is no survival?”
He replied, “I have a friend whose brother is a pharmacist. When he knows that I have an illness, he assures me that he’ll find a solution. He takes down what medications I and my family need each month, which he tells to his brother the druggist—then surprises me with their equivalent for less than a tenth of the regular price.”
I asked him if these operations weren’t dangerous. He tried to put me at ease, speaking to me at length on the ways of the different pharmaceutical companies until he had me upset and confused. Nonetheless, I didn’t hesistate—but wrote for him a list of the medications that I needed each month, and felt deeply relieved.
Then suddenly he said to me, “But I want a service from you in return.” I began to prepare myself to do what he asked.
“I’m disturbed by the attacks on the government’s red tape and bureaucracy. The government is aggrieved by what people say and write on this subject—so I want you to devote your pen to defending against it.” Astonished, I asked, what was the secret of his zeal for something that all people alike criticize and reject?
Angrily, he replied, “Brother, what is a civil servant worth who faces the public without bureaucracy and red tape?” My head whirled in confusion between the medications and the procedural maze.
Dream 23
I was strolling down the street. I knew this place well—for it was where I worked and where I played, where I met my friends and my sweethearts alike. I greeted this one as I shook hands with that one—while noticing a man crossing in front of me, neither very close nor very far away.
From time to time, he would turn about to be sure that I was behind him. Perhaps this wasn’t the first time I’d seen him, but certainly there was no mutual bond between us. What he was doing annoyed me, and presented me with a challenge. I quickened my steps, and he quickened his. I felt he was plotting something, and this made me more defiant. Then a friend called me over to deal with some private business and I headed to his shop, where, absorbed in conversation, I forgot about the man.
When, in the late afternoon, our business was finished, I bid my friend goodbye. As I made for my house, I remembered the man and turned to look behind me. I saw him following me, just as I had found him walking ahead of me before.… Incensed, I decided to stop to see what he was doing. Instead, I found myself moving faster as though I were fleeing from him. Dismayed, I wondered, what does he want?
When my house came in sight, I finally felt relaxed as I opened the door and stepped inside without a glance over my shoulder. Finding the place empty, I went to my bedroom—then stopped at the peculiar sensation that the man was lurking within.
Dream 24
After not a short absence, I decided that my flat in Alexandria needed some repairs. The laborers came, the foreman at their lead. The work began with remarkable energy. My attention was drawn to a particular youth—who seemed strangely familiar. I felt a frisson in my body when I recalled that I had indeed seen him once—as he attacked a woman on a side street, taking her bag and running away. Yet I wasn’t sure, so—without the boy’s sensing it—I asked the foreman how much he trusted him.
“He’s as bankable as a gold pound,” the foreman said, “for he’s my son, whom I’ve raised myself.” This calmed my heart for a time—though whenever my sight fell on the boy my chest began to tighten. Seeking a sense of safety, I opened one of the windows that overlooked the street in which there labored those whom I knew and who knew me—but instead, I saw the alley of the garage on which my flat in Cairo looks down. Amazed, my heart pounded even more. As the time went on and darkness approached, I asked the men to end their work for the day before the evening began, since the electricity had been cut due to my long time away.
“Don’t worry,” the unsettling youth said, “I have a candle.” Concerned that the situation would offer him an opportunity to steal whatever was light enough to carry, I went to look for the foreman—and was told that he had gone into the washroom. Waiting for him to come out with mounting anxiety, I imagined that his disappearance into the W.C. was part of a conspiracy—and that I was alone with a gang of thieves. I called out to the foreman as the signs of approaching evening spread through the flat.
Dream 25
She was in the room with me—and no one else. My heart danced, singing with joy. I knew that my happiness would be brief: it wouldn’t be long before the door would open and someone would come in. I longed to tell her that I gladly accepted all the conditions that had been communicated to me, but that I would need at least a brief time to meet them. Yet, enchanted by her presence, I said nothing.
Seized by desire, I took two steps toward her—but then the door swung open. The professor came in. “You don’t know the meaning of time,” he told me sharply. I tore myself away and followed him to his institute, which was opposite our building. There he said to me, “You need to work ten hours a day until you perfect your playing.” He commanded me to sit down to practice the piano, and soon I was engrossed in my labor—while my heart hovered about back in my room.
When I was granted leave, the evening was descending in all its glory. I set out to cover the route quickly, yet there was no hope that she would wait for me all through my absence.
Just then a man from China with a long beard and a smiling face blocked my path. “I was in the institute while you were playing,” he said.
“There’s no doubt that a splendid future awaits you.” With a bow in my direction, he left.
I continued on my way, shuddering at the thought of the loneliness that attended me where I lived.
Dream 26
We met in my local café, where my friend read to us a detective story he had written. Nearing the end, he asked us to guess the killer’s identity—and who had paid him to commit the crime. I ventured the right answer—which made me incredibly glad.
After an hour, I excused myself to go home. But success had made me so euphoric that I wandered through the streets until, eventually, I found myself back in front of the café, which made everyone laugh. One of them volunteered to escort me to my house, and when we arrived there he said goodbye and left. My house was built in one story, set in a little garden. I felt like taking off my clothes, and when I was down to my underwear, I noticed a streak of dust projecting downward from one of the room’s corners. That same image was found in the story my friend had read to us—it was a warning that the house would fall down on whoever was inside.
I wept that my little place was going to collapse on my head. In the grip of terror, I fled for safety as far and as fast as the wind would take me.
Dream 27
On a ship crossing the ocean, people of all colors and tongues were arrayed. We were expecting the wind to swoop down, and when it did, the horizon disappeared behind the angry waves. I became frightened: it was every man for himself. I felt alone in the depths of the sea. An inner fear told me there was no way to survive the all-encompassing terror—unless this really was just a nightmare, to be shattered by a fevered awakening on my bed.
The wind became violent as the boat was tossed back and forth on the waves. Suddenly, I saw before me Hamza Effendi, my math teacher, wielding his wicker rod. He fixed me with a look demanding to know if I had done my homework. If I hadn’t, he would rap me ten times across my knuckles—which made them feel as though they’d been pressed with a hot iron. My hatred grew with the memory of those days.
I wanted to grab him by the neck, but feared that any move would cause my demise. So, saying nothing about my humiliation, I swallowed it despite the dryness in my throat. I saw my sweetheart and scurried toward her, cutting my way through tens of confused onlookers. But she did not recognize me and turned her back, proclaiming her annoyance. Then she ran toward the ship’s edge and threw herself into the storm—I thought she was showing me the way to deliverance. So I rushed stumblingly toward the side of the ship, but the old math teacher stood in my path, brandishing his stick of bamboo.
Dream 28
The wheel turned and turned, and the money came and went, as the young beauty served the drinks, and sometimes sandwiches, too. Then fortune smiled on me and I won a good sum of pounds, which seemed immense in our limited world.
Feeling slightly dizzy, I announced that I would withdraw—yet no one believed my reason for doing so. As I was leaving, one of the players accused the girl of revealing what cards they held. She grew furious—as did I—in reaction to this baseless charge. The accuser stood up, along with two others, tearing the girl’s clothes until she was practically naked. All the while, she screamed and threatened to inform the police about the apartment, where gambling and other forbidden things were going on. At this, they all returned quickly to their seats, as I helped the girl back into her clothes—then departed for my own apartment nearby.
I had just sat down to relax when the girl came to see me. She said the group was angry and that drunkenness had made them even angrier—they were threatening to storm my house and create an uproar in the whole quarter. She advised me to return my winnings as a solution to the problem. I argued that they would consider that a confession to a crime we had not committed. She replied that was less heinous than what they intended to do—so I deferred to her point of view, giving her the money. She took it and left.
The serenity of night returned—but I continued to expect a scandal or some other evil.
Dream 29
The place was new to me—I had not seen it before. Perhaps it was the grand salon of a hotel where the Harafish used to sit together around a banquet table. They were talking about the choice of the best female writer of renown. It seemed clear that the woman I had nominated would not be accepted. They said she was only superficially cultured and her behavior was depraved.
Playfully, I tried to defend her, when I noticed they were looking at me with unprecedented grimness, as though they had forgotten our lifelong intimacy. I got up to leave the salon, but none of them stirred, as they all glared at me, seething with rage.
I walked toward the elevator and stepped into it, nearly on the verge of tears. Then I became aware of a woman in the lift with me—her face was severe, and she was dressed like a man. She told me that she mocked what they call friendship: the way people dealt with each other had to change drastically. While I thought about the meaning of all this, she pulled a pistol from her pocket and pointed it at me, demanding any cash that I had with me. It was all over quickly, and when the elevator came to a stop and the door opened, she ordered me to get out.
As the lift resumed its descent, I found myself in an unlit corridor. Overwhelmed with the feeling that I had lost my friends, I feared that incidents like this robbery were waiting out there to ambush me, wherever I should go.
Dream 30
This was our house in Abbasiya. I went into the salon. My mother walked toward the entrance as my sister approached. My sister stopped for a few moments before joining her. We didn’t greet each other, but I declared my intense hunger in a loud voice. No one replied, so I repeated my demand.
I heard voices in the room overlooking the field, so I went toward it, discovering my oldest brother sitting in silence. Across from him, the Shaykh of al-Azhar sat cross-legged on the couch. The shaykh was speaking beautifully. When he finished, I told him I was hungry. He retorted that no one had served him coffee, or even a glass of water. I left the room and said—in a voice that my mother and sister would hear—that someone should bring coffee to His Eminence the Shaykh. But I heard only silence, except for the phonograph and the recordings that I adored—and I found the neighbors’ daughter who would visit me to borrow some records, especially that of Sayyid Darwish, which I loved the most. She was looking for a needle with which to play the record.
I told her I was hungry, and she said that she was hungry, too. My hunger overcame me and I went out of the room and called out, begging for a bite of something! Finding nothing, I left the house as evening shaded the empty street. Fearing that all the shops were closed, I made for the bakery—faint with starvation, yet enticed by hope.
Dream 31
A donkey carried me through the midst of the fields with monotonous steps, stripped of any feeling under the rays of the autumn sun. A dog’s barking hailed us, and the donkey halted. I prodded him with my heel and he resumed his gait.
The barking and wailing returned, and I screwed up my vision to scan for the man I was seeking. A woman appeared, surrounded by a pack of dogs. She shouted at them to keep quiet, and they obeyed. I greeted her and said that I had come to meet the shaykh, on the basis of two letters we had exchanged. The woman replied that she was the person ultimately in charge of this matter and that she was able to offer the requested services—just as she was able to annihilate whomever she wished, if she set the dogs upon them.
I answered that I had come in peace, not war, and I wanted work. She motioned toward me, and I came down from the donkey’s back, standing before her in submission. She walked, and I followed, the donkey trailing behind me, with the dogs all around us. She stopped in front of a small building, and the whole procession stopped with her. She commanded me to go inside: I entered, and she said that I should wait within. She warned of the dogs that would show no mercy if I ventured outside. I asked her how long I would have to comply—and what about my job? The shaykh, I pointed out, had promised me a good turn. She paid no heed to what I said, but mounted
the donkey and rode away, leaving the dogs encircling my prison.
She has been sending me the things I need through tough-looking men, who never say a word. Sometimes I think of taking on the dogs in a battle of life or death, but hope is triumphant.
And I wait.
Dream 32
My old colleague let me know that he was going to work in Yemen. He added there was a rumor that I, too, had been invited to work in Yemen—and urged me to accept it. I promised to think about it without showing any enthusiasm.
Yet in the house where I lived by myself, with only my female dog for company, I began to think about the matter in an unexpected manner. What caused this was my sudden aversion to my dog, after her face had started to change into that of a human being. Before this happened, she was my attractive and amusing canine. But after the confusing transformation, she was no longer my dog—nor was she quite human.
Then instantly I found myself in my office in Yemen, my male private secretary standing in front of me. The heat was intense, so I asked the secretary about the type of weather found in this country. He said that it was warm in winter and very hot the rest of the year—but the building was very tall, and the higher up you went, the more the weather would improve. Indeed, whenever the weather bothered me, I should write a memorandum to the director asking to transfer my office to a higher floor. I felt good after my earlier irritation, and—looking up—the building seemed so extremely huge, I imagined it actually touched the heavens.