The Mirage by Naguib Mahfouz

grandfather came home early. This worried my mother, since he generally didn’t come home before dawn. He burst into the room, his face full of foreboding. My mother rose, anxious to discover what the matter was, and I looked up from my book. But before she could ask him what was wrong, he struck the edge of his shoe with his cane and said brusquely, “Zaynab, there’s been a disaster in the family. It’s a scandal that will make us the talk of the town.”
    “Lord have mercy, what’s happened, Baba?” cried my mother, her voice trembling and panic in her eyes.
    His green eyes grew hard and he said crustily, “Your daughter … Radiya … has run away.”
    Her face went pale and her eyes darted nervously about the room. Then she cast my grandfather a look of incredulity as though she couldn’t believe her ears.
    “Ran away …,” she murmured in what sounded like a moan. “Radiya! That’s impossible!”
    He stomped his foot on the floor until the corners of the room shook.
    “Impossible?” he bellowed. “Well, that’s exactly what’s happened! It’s the naked, appalling truth, and it will deal the death blow to our honor!”
    My mother made no reply, as though she’d lost the ability to speak.
    His breathing slightly labored, my grandfather said as if to himself, “What sort of madness has robbed her of her senses? This corrupt, infernal blood doesn’t belong to us! Yet its rotten fruit points to its source. After all, her grandfather died calling down curses on her father’s head, and the curse has fallen on his children.”
    “God, what a catastrophe!” murmured my mother in horror, swallowing with difficulty. “That drunken good-for-nothing has ruined her life! How miserable she must be!”
    “Don’t make excuses for her,” my grandfather said indignantly. “There’s nothing in the world that could justify her doing something so disgraceful.”
    “I’m not making excuses for her,” my mother murmured in a feeble, pathetic voice. “But she
is
miserable. There’s no doubt about it.”
    A gloomy silence fell, and they sat there exchanging looks of grief, worry, and desperation. I listened to their conversation with rapt attention, understanding its more trivial parts while missing its true significance. It had to do with a sister of mine whom I’d never laid eyes on. But why had she run away? And where had she gone?
    “Why didn’t she come to us?” I wondered aloud.
    “Shush!” shouted my grandfather in exasperation.
    Then he flung himself onto a chair and continued, “Her paternal uncle came to see me at the casino and told me the news. He said he didn’t know the details, but that Medhat had wired him, asking him to come immediately, and he’d come without delay. Then the young man had told him of his sister’s disappearance. As for that degenerate carouser, all he had to say was, ‘To hell with her.’ Then the uncle and I went to see a friend of his who works for the governorate. We informed him of the shocking situation and asked for his help.”
    My grandfather paused for a minute, then went on, saying, “Damn that old sot! He’s the one who’s to blame for this tragedy, and I swear to God, I’ll go and bash his head in!”
    My mother’s eyes flickered with distress.
    “No, no!” she said fearfully. “That would only make our situation worse!”
    “He should be repaid evil for evil,” insisted my grandfather.
    “He’s no concern of ours,” said my mother imploringly. “Let’s just focus our attention on finding the girl in the hopes that we might be able to straighten her out.”
    Eyeing her skeptically, my grandfather asked, “Why do you insist on preventing me from going to see him?”
    “I’m afraid of things getting worse,” she murmured with a flustered look on her face.
    Exasperated, my grandfather retorted, “Rather, what you’re afraid of is that if we have an argument, he might take Kamil away from you. You don’t care about anything but