The Mirage Read Free Page A

divorce her. Some months passed and my mother gave birth to my older brother. She went on living under her father’s wing, enjoying his affection and tender, loving care.
    During those days she heard bizarre reports concerningRu’ba Laz according to which, in a moment of impetuosity and greed, the reckless young man had tried to poison his father in the hope of hastening his portion of the inheritance. However, the father had discovered the crime through the cook and banished his son from the mansion. He then decided to set half his bequest aside as a religious endowment and bequeath the other half to his elder son. It appears that he may not have been willing to bequeath all of it to the elder brother for fear of endangering him by stirring up his younger, wicked son’s rancor against him. Be that as it may, it thus happened that after having dreamed for so long of a vast fortune, Ru’ba Laz woke up to find himself in relative poverty. All he possessed now of this world’s vanities was a quarter of a family endowment that he had inherited from his mother (who wasn’t his brother’s mother), which came to around forty pounds a month, and a two-story house in Hilmiya into which he had moved after being evicted from his father’s home. The news brought anxiety and distress to my grandfather’s household, troubling the hearts of those who feared for the future of the man’s two young children. As a result of the disinheritance, the support they received was reduced to a mere pittance, and their future looked bleak. My grandparents and my mother consulted together concerning the matter, and it was decided that my grandfather would meet with Laz senior and attempt to win his sympathy on behalf of his two innocent grandchildren in the hope that he might change his will for their benefit. My grandfather went to Laz’s mansion and spoke with the man. But he was met with a hard heart and deaf ears. In fact, the man cursed both his son and his son’s progeny in my grandfather’s presence, whereupon he returned home, saddened and enraged.
    One of the ironies of fate was that Laz’s father died the very year in which his son had tried to do away with him. Seven years then passed. My sister Radiya was eight years old and my brother Medhat was seven or thereabouts. Those days witnessed an event that changed the tranquil course of our family’s life. As fate would have it, the change took place as a result of a trivial incident of the sort that happens when one is walking down the street. As my grandfather was leaving a gambling establishment on Imad al-Din Street a little before dawn one day, he saw a bunch of hooligans gathered around a gentleman and beating him as he stumbled about in their midst, fuming and reeling. My grandfather shouted at them to leave the man alone, then approached them in a rage. He was joined shortly thereafter by a policeman. The mob scattered, and who should my grandfather see but Ru’ba Laz with a bloodied nose and in an obviously drunken state. Despite being startled and disconcerted, my grandfather came up to the man without hesitation and supported him with his arm, seeing that he was on the verge of falling. By this time all that had transpired between them in the past had been forgotten, or nearly so. At the same time, and in spite of the man’s unpredictability and riotousness, he’d been consistent in sending financial support to his two children. Consequently, there was no enmity between the two men. My grandfather summoned him over to his Victoria and he obeyed. Then my grandfather instructed the driver to go to Hilmiya. A peculiar silence fell over the two men along the way, and neither uttered a word. When the carriage reached the house, my grandfather cleared a space for Ru’ba Laz to get out, but he grabbed hold of my grandfather’s arm and invited him inside. My grandfather declined apologeticallygiven the lateness of the hour. Still inebriated, the man wouldn’t take no for an