Dialogues of Naguib Mahfouz:

A bit of lenience

By Mohamed Salmawy

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In his final days in hospital, Mahfouz said, "I want to go home." We all imagined that he wanted to go back to his house. But now as I contemplate the events of the last two weeks of the novelist's life, I see the words in a different light, like an allegory from his works. I recall answering with a reassuring wish, "you'll get better and go home soon." After that, doctors said they needed to put Mahfouz on a tube for artificial feeding, by which time a lot of tubes were already going in and out of the novelist's body. Mrs Mahfouz, his partner for 52 years, had another view. She told the doctors she didn't want him to suffer any further. But none of us had the courage to face the inevitable. The great man had already stopped eating, which was a sign, if only we wanted to read it. Our impulse -- me included -- was to ignore that sign and do everything possible to save the great man's life. I told the family that the case called for surgical intervention. Within minutes, Mahfouz was moved to the operation room to emerge a bit later with an additional tube connected to his stomach.

We fought against the man's wish for 15 days, during which doctors pumped his lungs, put him on respirators, performed endoscope on his intestines, and at one point resuscitated his heart. Were we doing the right thing? A generation or two ago, people of a certain age were allowed to die in peace. Now as science improved, the final moments of life could be extended by weeks, if not months and years. Buddhist monks of Tibet, for example, have special rites that they perform in the last moments of a person's life, to help him or her make the transition. At one point, Mahfouz turned to those who were feeding him and said in calm tones, "you're feeding a dead man." But we refused to listen, and when the final moments came, he went into a coma during which he called out for people whose names were unfamiliar. I asked his daughter about the names and she said that those were people long gone.

Now that the end has come despite all, I recall words Mahfouz told me a few years ago. I asked him once about the meaning of the expression "good ending", which we normally use to refer to a peaceful death. "I believe I hope for an easy ending," he said. "People leave this life in different ways. Some leave as if they're going for a walk. Others leave after so much toil. I had two brothers. One of them had cancer and suffered immensely in the last two weeks of his life. The other one died drinking tea with his son, in the middle of a conversation. That was the lucky one. Death is a sentence that comes with no reprieve. The only thing one can hope for is a bit of lenience."