The Seventh Heaven by Naguib Mahfouz

lady that I am here waiting,” he said.
    “She promised to call you at the appropriate time,” the manager told him, with a feeling of futility.
    The man wouldn’t move, so he called the lady again, handing the mortician the telephone at her request.
    “Madam, it’s already past the afternoon prayer, and the days in winter are very short,” he chided.
    He bent into the receiver listening for a moment, then put it back and returned to the lobby, clearly disturbed. The manager damned him from his deepest heart. The woman was responsible for inviting this ghoul to the hotel, he thought as he glanced at the lobby’s door with aversion and disgust. Meanwhile, some of the lady’s guests came down on their way outside, and the manager’s apprehensions about the goings-on in room number twelve seemed to lessen.
    “Some of the visitors will go sooner and some later; they’ll all be gone by nightfall,” he assured himself.
    He began to worry that his position of responsibility would force him into a confrontation with them—and they were from a powerful class. His dismay redoubled with the wind that whistled violently outdoors and the sense of distress that cloaked the roads. Yet despite these forbidding conditions, he saw a group of men and women wearing raincoats gathered at the door, and his heart sank in his chest. He surprised them by asking, “Madam Bahiga al-Dahabi?”
    One of them, laughing, replied, “Tell her, if you please, that the delegates from the Association for Heritage Revival have arrived.”
    So he telephoned the woman, and as she gave her consent for them to come up he pleaded with her, “There are ten of them, madam, and the lobby downstairs is at your disposal for any number of visitors.”
    “There’s plenty of space in the room,” she retorted.
    As the male and female delegates ascended, the manager shook his head in total confusion.
Sooner or later, there’s going to be a clash.
The fury of heaven was about to descend outside—provoked by the assorted oddballs in room number twelve. The manager chanced to turn around to the lobby, and caught sight of Blind Sayyid the Corpse Washer creeping toward him. So he rapped the table with his knuckles in agitation, then put the man directly in touch with the woman by telephone before he could open his mouth. The manager listened to him complain to her, then heard him accede. The undertaker hung up the receiver by himself, but then grumbled as the manager began to walk away, “Waiting around with nothing to do is very boring.”
    The manager became enraged, and would have scolded him if the lady hadn’t telephoned at that moment, asking to be connected to the restaurant. Her conversation with them continued for some minutes. Would she and her guests remain in the room until dinner, the manager pondered, and where would they dine? How he wished he could examine her room now: it had to be a scene beyond all imagining—an insane spectacle indeed.
    While the torrent continued outside without any hint of slowing, a group of university professors and men of religion came—so immersed in deep discussion, that the manager simply let them go upstairs. The situation was becoming more and more nightmarish, as a mysterious man went up without first passing by the desk. The manager called out to the intruder—who did not respond. One of the bellhops followed him, but stopped when the man ducked into room number twelve. The manager now felt he was all alone, that he had lost fundamental control of the hotel. He considered summoning the head bellhop, but then a man appeared, the mere sight of whom brought him relief. They shook hands and the manager told him, “You’ve come at the right time, honorable informer, sir.”
    “Show me the register,” the informer said calmly.
    “Strange things are happening here,” the manager blurted.
    As the informer perused the names in the ledger, jotting down notes as he read, the manager said, “I suppose you’ve