Cover

Title Page

Copyright

AN ANCHOR BOOK

PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY

a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103

ANCHOR BOOKS, DOUBLEDAY, and the portrayal of an anchor are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The English translation of The Search was first published by The American University in Cairo Press in 1987.

First published in Arabic as al-Tariq in 1964.

Protected under the Berne Convention.

The Anchor Books edition is published by arrangement with The American University in Cairo Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maḥfūẓ, Najīb, 1911–

[Ŧarīq, English]

The search / Naguib Mahfouz; translated by Mohamed Islam; edited by Magdi Wahba.   — 1st Doubleday ed.

p.     cm.

Translation of: al-Ŧarīq.

Originally published: Cairo: American University Press, 1987.

I. Wahba, Magdi.   II. Title.

PJ7846.A46T313     1991      90-24347

892′.736—dc20

ISBN 0-385-26459-3

ISBN 0-385-26460-7 (pbk.)

eBook ISBN 9780525431695

Copyright © 1987 by The American University in Cairo Press

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION: JUNE 1991

v4.1

a

CHAPTER ONE

Tears filled his eyes. In spite of his control over his emotions and the repugnance he felt at weeping before these men, he was quite overcome. With moist eyes he looked at the corpse as it was removed from the coffin and carried to the open grave, the dead body seemingly weightless in its white shroud. Oh, how you’ve wasted away, Mother.

The scene faded and he could see only darkness, and the dust stung his nostrils, and the unpleasant stench of the men around him filled the air.

The wailing of the women, mingled with the sting of the dust, utterly disgusted him, and he moved forward, leaning over the open grave, but a hand pulled him back and a voice said, “Remember your God.”

He was repulsed by the touch and cursed the man inwardly. That man’s a pig like the rest of them. But then the awe of the moment roused him with a pang of remorse and he said, “A quarter of a century of love, tenderness, care, all gone, swallowed up by the earth as though it had never existed.”

A wailing heralded the entrance of a group of blind men who surrounded the grave and sat cross-legged. He felt eyes gazing intently upon him and others stealing an occasional glance. He knew what these looks meant and stretched his lean body in stubborn defiance. They must be wondering why he was so strange in his appearance and dress, as though he were not one of them. Why did his mother remove him from his environment, then abandon him?

They have not come here to pay their condolences, but rather to gloat over you.