Reading Mahfouz in the Hospital

Dead at 94: Naguib Mahfouz. Rose read his obituary. She forwarded the article to three online friends, members of an international literature listserv.

Rose had read Mahfouz’s THE CAIRO TRILOGY when she was hospitalized, breathless with pneumonia, cranky and insomniac. Night after night she sat in bed reading PALACE WALK while her roommate, a woman with an infectious disease, chattered on the phone and clicked the channels on the TV remote.

The hospital was a nightmare. Rose was frantic when she learned she had to stay in the hospital. She refused to wear a hospital gown. The nurses had said she had to wear the gown so they could hook her up to an IV.

Is an IV necessary? Rose asked. Why not pills?

Doctor says an IV, the nurse said.

Rose sent Ben home to fetch pajamas, her toothbrush, her makeup (she was ghastly pale from illness and thought she might try the free samples of pancake makeup from a department store), and books and magazines. An hour later, she changed into pajamas dotted with green palm trees which the nurse reluctantly approved

The nurse had trouble finding a vein for the IV.

It wasn’t clear to Rose why they had to zap the antibiotic into her veins.

Rose pretended she was in Egypt on the beach while the nurse taped the needle to her arm. Egypt because Ben had brought her the Mahfouz books which they had bought in Egypt ten years ago. The sun dazed, they had taken a boat ride on the Nile, they had admired the Pyramids, and visited an old friend, an administrator at the American University in Cairo, who took them to museums, coffeehouses, and restaurants.

After Ben went home, she lost herself in PALACE WALK. At two a.m. Rose complained that she couldn’t sleep, but the nurse would only give her Benadryl. Benadryl did nothing. She read all night. By the second night she had started PALACE OF DESIRE. Only after four nights, when the nurses admitted that Rose was awake during every shift, did the doctor prescribe sleeping pills.

She slept and read. The antibiotics healed her, but Mahfouz kept her sane.

Rose loved the opening paragraph of PALACE WALK:

“She woke at midnight. She always woke up then without having to rely on an alarm clock. A wish that had taken root in her awoke her with great accuracy. For a few moments she was not sure she was awake. Images from her dreams and perceptions mixed together in her mind. She was troubled by anxiety before opening her eyes, afraid sleep had deceived her. Shaking her head gently, she gazed at the total darkness of the room. There was no clue by which to judge the time. The street noise outside her room would continue until dawn. She could hear the babble of voices from the coffeehouses and bars, whether it was early evening, midnight or just before daybreak. She had no evidence to rely on except her intuition, like a conscious clock hand, and the silence encompassing the house, which revealed that her husband had not yet rapped at the door and that the tip of his stick had not struck against the steps of the staircase.”

When she got out of the hospital, she swore that Mahfouz's novels had combatted the disease.

Now she mourned his death.