The Seventh Heaven (3 page)

This translation is dedicated to my sister, Carole Anne Huft, and her husband, David.

^1.
The lines from “If Ever You Go to Dublin Town” by Patrick Kavanagh are reprinted from
Collected Poems,
edited by Antoinette Quinn (Allen Lane, 2004), by kind permission of the Trustees of the Estate of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh, through the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency.

^2.
Naguib Mahfouz,
Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales,
translated by Raymond Stock (Cairo and
New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2002), p. 63.

^3.
Ra’uf Sadiq ‘Ubayd,
al-Insan ruh la jasad,
2 vols. (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-‘Arabi, 1966). “Shawqi’s” ghostly poetry in Vol. 1, pp. 525-802, and in Vol. 2, pp. 3-16. Other editions of this book also exist.

^4.
Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Maadi, February 13, 2002.

^5.
Qur’an, Surat al-Mulk, 67:3.

^6.
Jane Dammen MacAuliffe, General Editor,
Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an,
Vol. II (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2002), pp. 410-13.

^7.
See Richard B. Parkinson,
The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems
(Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 121
n.

^8.
See William Kelly Simpson, ed.,
The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry.
(Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2003), pp. 470-89.

^9.
Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Maadi, March 1998.

^10.
Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Garden City, October 9, 2005.

^11.
Bertrand Russell,
Unpopular Essays
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950), pp. 170-71. Russell also dug at Gladstone, who, though generally anti-imperialist, sent British troops to put down an uprising in Egypt, where they remained for more than seventy years. On p. 169, he writes, “Invariably he [Gladstone] earnestly consulted his conscience, and invariably his conscience earnestly gave him the convenient answer.” Opposition to the British occupation, which ended in 1956, has been a major theme in Mahfouz’s works.

^12.
For Rayya’s and Sakina’s atrocities and their commemoration in a museum, see Rasha Sadeq, “The Other Citadel,”
Al-Ahram Weekly,
February 20-26, 2003. For more on the film, see Samir Farid,
Najib Mahfuz wa-l-sinima
(Cairo: al-Hay’a al-‘Amma li-Qusur al-Thaqafa, 1990), p. 18, and Hashim al-Nahhas,
Najib Mahfuz ‘ala al-shasha, 1945-1988
(al-Hay’a al-Misriya al-‘Amma li-l-Kitab, 1990), pp. 15-27, 243. Also, Hashim al-Nahhas,
Najib Mahfuz wa-l-sinima al-misriya
(Cairo: al-Majlis al-A‘la li-l-Thaqafa, 1997), pp. 14, 77-78.

^13.
Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Maadi, February 13, 2002. Ditto for quote “long short story”—which, uncharacteristically, Mahfouz offered in English.

^14.
See also Menahem Milson,
Najib Mahfuz, the Novelist-Philosopher of Cairo
(New York and Jerusalem: St. Martin’s Press and The Magnes Press, 1998), pp. 142-43.

^15.
Naguib Mahfouz,
The Dreams,
translated by Raymond Stock (Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2004), p. 10.

^16.
Interview with Naguib Mahfouz,
al-Ahram
office, September 1994.

^17.
In 2005, a half-hour feature (very loosely) based on this story was produced by the Egyptian TV and Radio Union, Nile Thematic TV Channels, entitled
al-Ghurfa raqm 12 (Room No. 12),
directed by Izz al-Din Sa‘id, starring Lutfi Labib, Sahar Rami, Sa‘id Abd al-Karim, Ahmad Siyyam, Hasan al-Adl, Kamal Disuqi, with scenario and dialogue by Izz al-Din Sa‘id and Makkawi Sa‘id.

^18.
For more on al-Hallaj and the moth, see Joseph Campbell,
The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology
(New York: Penguin Arkana, 1964), p. 447. Also, Roger Allen,
The Arabic
Literary Heritage
(Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 64, 192-93, 195, 250, 263, 265, and 347.

^19.
Interview with Naguib Mahfouz, Garden City, October 9, 2005. The addition of “literary theft” to my question was done by Mohamed el-Kafrawi, a civil engineer and friend of Mahfouz who was sitting as usual by his side.

^20.
S. L. Varnado,
Haunted Presence: The Numinous in Gothic Fiction
(Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1987), p. 15.

^21.
Ibid., p. 10: as Varnado notes, more literally, “a frightening but fascinating mystery.”

A
huge cloud surges over all existence, plunging through space. Everything pulses with a strange cosmic presence. Nothing like it has ever been, breaking living beings down into their basic elements, menacing all with destruction— or perhaps a new creation. Despite all this, he is still conscious of what is happening, seeming to live out the last moments of awareness. Seized by sensations that transcend imagination, he is witnessing things that none have seen before. Yet he is still himself—Raouf Abd-Rabbuh— without any fears, without evil whisperings within, and without any cares. He halts in the desert outside the ancient portal, floating in the dark, feeling as though he weighs nothing. He and his friend Anous Qadri are returning from their evening out.
Where are you, Anous?

He heard not a sound, nor could he feel the touch of the ground. Then he had a bizarre sensation of levitation as he penetrated deeply into the churning, overspreading masses above. When he called out to his friend, no sound issued from him. He was present—and yet was not there at all. He was confused, yet not frightened, though his heart expected a direct reply from close by. The cloud thinned and began to vanish. The pulsing stopped completely. Then the darkness of night glittered with the luminous rays of stars.
Finally I can see now, Anous! But what are you doing?
The people are digging up the earth furiously, and with purpose. Then there is a young man sprawled on his back, blood pouring from his head. Raouf can see with a clarity greater than that granted by the starlight. How amazing! That’s Raouf Abd-Rabbuh himself! Yet he is me—and none other than me!

He was cut off from him completely as he watched from very near. No, it’s not a double nor his twin. That’s definitely his body. And those are his shoes. Anous urges the men on in their work. He does not see him at all. Evidently, he thinks that the body laid out there represents all there is of his friend Raouf Abd-Rabbuh, the creature that observes him, unable to do anything. He sensed that he was not whole like the corpse on the ground. Had he become two beings? Or had he departed from the living? Had he been murdered and suffered death? Did you kill me, Anous? Did we not spend an enjoyable night out together? What did you feel when you killed me? How could you so disdain my friendship that you would try to claim Rashida for yourself? Didn’t she tell me that she considered herself to be your sister from now on?

Ah—the men have carried my body to the hole, and are tossing it inside. Now they’re shoveling dirt over it and smoothing the spot afterward, restoring the ground to its natural shape. Thus Raouf Abd-Rabbuh vanishes, as though he never was. And yet, Anous, I still exist. You have cleverly buried the evidence of your hardened crime—all trace of it is gone. Yet why are you scowling so? What is that sardonic look in your eyes? I freely confess—even though you cannot hear me—that I still love her. Did you think that our relationship was now over? Even death is too weak to destroy such a passion. Rashida is mine, not yours. Yet you are rash and were raised amidst evil. You grew up in the sphere of your father, Boss Qadri the Butcher—monopolist of the meat trade, plunderer of the poor and the dispossessed, a gross greaser of palms. Let me tell you that what you aspire to is not yours—your felony is to try to gain it by force. What will you do now? You, who wouldn’t even go to the café without me, nor study without me, nor come and go to the university without me? We were the two best friends in our quarter, despite the infinite differences between us in money, status, and power. You may forget me, but I will not forget you. You should know that I have no longing for vengeance, or to hurt you in any way. All such weaknesses were buried with my body in that hole in the ground. Even the torture that your father’s oppression inflicts on our alley provokes neither rage nor wrath nor rebellion within me. Rather, it is a common occurrence that the power of love rejects, creating instead a lofty desire free of any stain. I mourn for you, Anous. I never conceived you in this ugly image before. You are a walking skeleton, a bat-infested
ruin. Murdered blood splotches your face and your brow. Your eyes give off sparks, while a serpent hangs from each of your ears. Your father’s men file behind you on donkeys’ hooves, with heads like crows, bound in manacles bolted with thorns. How it saddens me to have been the cause for which you sullied your pages. I am overwhelmed with grief because of it—while my sense of happiness shrinks to nothing.

In the midst of a sigh, Raouf found himself in a new city— brilliantly illuminated, but without a sun. The sky was a cupola of white clouds, the ground rich with greenery, with endless orchards of flowering fruit trees. Stretching into the distance were rows of white roses. Throngs of people met and broke up with the fleetness of birds. In an empty spot, he felt the loneliness of the first-time arrival. At that moment, there arose before him a man enshrouded in a white mist.

“Welcome, Raouf,” the man said, smiling, “to the First Heaven.”

“Is this Paradise?” Raouf asked, shouting with joy.

“I said, ‘the First Heaven,’ not ‘Paradise,’” the stranger admonished.

“Then where is Paradise?”

“Between it and you, the path is very, very long,” the man answered. “The fortunate person will spend hundreds of thousands of enlightened years traversing it!”

A sound like a groan escaped Raouf. “Permit me first
to introduce myself,” said the man. “I am your interlocutor, Abu, formerly High Priest at Hundred-Gated Thebes.”

“I’m honored to meet you, Your Reverence. What a happy coincidence that I’m Egyptian myself!”

“That is of no importance,” replied Abu. “I lost all nationality thousands of years ago. Now I am the defense counsel appointed by the courts for the new arrivals.”

“But there can be no charge against me—I’m a victim….”

“Patience,” Abu said, cutting him off. “Let me tell you about your new surroundings. This heaven receives the new arrivals. They are tried in court, where I serve as their advocate. The verdicts are either for acquittal or for condemnation. In case of acquittal, the defendant spends one year here spiritually preparing for his ascent to the Second Heaven.”

Raouf interrupted him, “But what then does ‘condemnation’ mean?”

“That the condemned must be reborn on earth to practice living once again; perhaps they would be more successful the next time,” said Abu. “As for verdicts that fall between acquittal and condemnation, in such cases the accused is usually put to work as a guide to one or more souls on earth. Depending on their luck, they may ascend to the Second Heaven, or the length of their probationary period might be extended, et cetera.”

“At any rate, I’m definitely innocent,” Raouf blurted confidently. “I lived a good life and died a martyr.”

“Do not be so hasty,” Abu counseled him. “Let us open the discussion of your case. Identify yourself, please.”

“Raouf Abd-Rabbuh, eighteen years of age, a university
student of history. My father died, leaving my mother a widow who lives on a charitable trust from the Ministry of Religious Endowments.”

“Why are you so satisfied with yourself, Raouf?” queried Abu.

“Well, despite my intense poverty, I’m a hard-working student who loves knowledge, for which my thirst is never quenched.”

“That is beautiful, as a matter of principle,” remarked Abu, “yet you received most of your information from others, rather than through your own thinking.”

“Thought is enriched through age and experience,” said Raouf. “And regardless, would that count as a charge against me?”

“Here a person is held accountable for everything,” rejoined Abu. “I observe that you were dazzled by new ideas.”

“The new has its own enchantment, Your Reverence Abu,” said Raouf.

“First of all, do not call me, ‘Your Reverence,’” Abu rebuked him. “Second, we do not judge a thought itself even when it is false. Rather, we denounce submission to any idea, even if it is true.”

“Such a cruel trial! Justice on earth is far more merciful.”

“We will come to justice,” Abu reassured him. “How did you find your alley?”

“Horrible,” spat Raouf. “Most of the people there are poor beggars. They are controlled by a man who monopolizes all the food—and who has bought the loyalty of the shaykh of the
hara.
He kills, steals, and lives securely above the law.”