God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels (16 page)

He got up from his comfortable armchair, walked to the bathroom and spat into the wash basin, then gargled with water several times trying to rid his mouth of the bitter taste. He looked in the mirror and his eyes fastened themselves on the reflection of Zeinab scrubbing the bath tub so that it shone as clean as alabaster. Her long
galabeya
was wet, and had stuck to her body revealing her breasts and thighs. It was as though she was naked before his eyes. He felt the warm blood rush to his belly and he could no longer take his eyes off her young body.

Zeinab lifted her head bent over the bath and stood upright. She caught the blue eyes of the Mayor fastened on her with a strange look, and stepped back in a movement of fear, shrinking up against the wall as though seeking protection. But her foot slipped on the smooth wet tiles, and in a moment she was lying full length on the floor.

Before she had time to rest her hands on it for support and get up, his arm was already round her waist helping her to rise. The tips of his fingers brushed against her breast, and he felt his hand tremble as it moved stealthily around its smooth contour until it was cupped in his palm.

She gave a half-throttled shriek, part pain at the hard pressure of his hand around her breast sensitive with youth and inexperience, part fright running through her body with an icy shiver, and part pleasure, a strange new pleasure almost akin to an ecstasy, the ecstasy of salvation, of being free of the
heavy load which had been weighing down on her heart. Now she could leave herself in the hands of God, deliver her body and soul to Him, fulfil her vow, and savour the relief of having done so.

His hand moved up her legs, lifted the wet garment over her thighs. She heard his voice, hoarse, its tone low and tense with desire whispering in her ear, ‘Take off your
galabeya
, Zeinab, otherwise you will catch cold.'

His hands were now sliding up her thighs to her belly as he tried to lift her garment higher. But it was wet and stuck to her flesh. He pulled on it so hard that it split with a rending sound. She gasped, ‘My
galabeya
! It's my only
galabeya
!'

He tore the remaining folds from around her body, held her tight, whispering in her ear, ‘I will buy you a thousand
galabeyas
.'

He stretched out his hand, opened the tap and a shower of warm water poured down over her naked body. With his own hands he washed off the dust and dirt of the day's work, his hands diligent over her hair, her shoulders, her belly, and thighs and breasts.

He dried her in a soft towel smelling of jasmine, the way a mother would dry her child. She let him carry her to the bed, still and silent. Then he took her in his arms.

XV

Just before the crow of the cock rose into the air, Sheikh Hamzawi opened his eyes. In fact his eyes had probably been open for some time taking in the scene which he saw every day, and wondered at with a wonder that was not pure, and unadulterated and innocent but shot through and through with doubt, with a gnawing, aching, never-ending doubt. Yet the doubt itself had a strange quality about it, for most of the time, it was not really doubt, but a deep unshakeable certitude almost bordering on faith that what he saw before his eyes was an indisputable truth, like the truth of the existence of God.

The thin, long finger of dawn crept through a crack in the window and touched the face of Fatheya with an obscure gleam of light. It fell on the half of her face to his side, dim, grey, ashen-like. Her eyes were slightly open as though she were seeing even in her sleep. Her nose rose in sharp lines, and her lips were tightly closed together as though she feared that something might pass through them while she slept. The grey light of dawn revealed her smooth white neck. It ran down to a smooth white breast welling out where he had unbuttoned her garment over the chest. The child held on to it with its hands, and its lips,
and its tightly clenched jaws. She hugged the little body closely in the curve of her arm, with a hold which was tense, as though she feared that some force would tear him away.

Sheikh Hamzawi's look remained fastened to the side of the face he could see with a feeling somewhere between surprise and bewilderment. Was this side of her face so different from the side which the light had not yet reached, and where he would find the features of her face which he knew? What was the difference between the two? He was sure that the features revealed by the light of the dawn were not those of his wife Fatheya. In fact they did not resemble her at all. The nose was her nose, the mouth was her mouth, the neck her neck, the breast was her breast, everything was hers, and yet something had changed, something important but undefinable. He did not doubt for a moment that the woman lying by his side was Fatheya, and that this woman was his wife. He was absolutely sure of this truth, as sure of it as he was of the existence of Allah. And this certitude added to his bewilderment.

Anyone seeing his face at this particular moment would have realized that the man was no longer sure about anything. His eyes were wide open in a fixed stare but near them a small muscle seemed to twitch. The light of dawn pierced through the window and fell on his face. It looked deathly pale and there was a long shadow below it so that the one face looked like two faces. The upper face was his real face, the one which everyone in Kafr El Teen knew. But below it was another face
which no one knew, or would ever know because no such face had ever been seen in Kafr El Teen before. It was not the face of a human being, nor that of a spirit. It could have been the face of an angel or a devil, or even the face of Allah, if anyone had seen it before and could recognize Allah's face when he saw it.

Yet as he lay there, Sheikh Hamzawi was feeling further away from God than he had ever felt before. There were moments when he was very close to Allah, and particularly during the Friday midday prayer when all the men of the village, including the Mayor, would stand behind him, perfectly still, unable to move an arm, or a hand, or a finger, unable to move their lips, or whisper a verse from the Koran until he had done so himself.

At such moments he would feel much closer to Allah than any other man amongst them, be it the Mayor himself. A fine shiver would traverse his body, like the
fine
thrill of pleasure or of that rare happiness which he had known only as a child on those occasions when he used to throw stones at the other children and watch them run away in fright. During the prayer he would deliberately take his time before standing up, or sitting, or kneeling. Now and again he would shoot a quick backward glance, and observe the Mayor and the rows of men assembled behind him, reverently waiting for the slightest movement of his head, or his hand or even his little
finger.

Nevertheless, no matter how much he took his time, or even slowed down the prayer, it would still be over in a
matter of minutes, and the men would disperse from around him. Some of them might even tread on his foot as they rushed hurriedly behind the Mayor, carrying an appeal or a complaint of some sort written on a sheet of white paper with the required excise duty stamps stuck in the corner. Under his breath he would curse the ‘band of impious rascals' who had no respect for God, and were so busy running after the transient panoply of the earth instead of thinking of the life hereafter. He walked back to his home, a lonely
figure, stick
tapping on the ground, his yellow-beaded rosary swaying between his trembling fingers. His fingers would tremble even more nervously as soon as he spotted his wife Fatheya. He would call out to her, asking for something in a loud throaty voice calculated to sound more throaty and virile than usual, then cough and clear his chest several times to ensure that the neighbours would realize that Fatheya's husband, the man of the household, was back.

‘You've become deaf and blind since that accursed child came to our house. He occupies your whole life, and you care about nothing else despite the fact that he is a child born in sin. I held out a merciful hand to him, but sometimes I wish I had left him to die out there. Ever since the accursed creature, fruit of fornication and sin, has come into our house one misfortune after another has befallen us. People blame me for taking him in, their tongues keep wagging and I have lost the respect I used to enjoy in Kafr El Teen. Even my friends have
abandoned me, and the Mayor no longer invites me to spend an evening with him. He has advised me several times to send him to a home for illegitimate children. I've promised to do it, but you refuse all the time. I can't understand why you are so attached to this miserable child.'

His voice would tail off as soon as he had asked this question. He did not understand why she should be so enamoured of the child. As soon as he had thrown the question at her, the rosary would begin to tremble even more violently between his fingers, as though he in fact knew the reason, but would not admit it. But it was a knowing devoid of certitude, a kind of obscure suspicion of knowing what one knew without at the same time being sure of it. The knowing and the doubt went through his body with a deep shiver, as though an icy shaft of wind was dropping down from the crack in the window together with the light of dawn. He could see Fatheya's face, her neck, and the smooth round breast to which the child held so tightly. And the question would start to steal up to him again and crawl over him like the cold, smooth belly of a snake. ‘How was her breast giving milk if she had not been pregnant with the child, nor given birth to it?' He had not been the first one to ask this question. He had heard it from somebody else. He could not remember who it was that had asked him. In fact, he was sure it had been a question. Now he thought of it he could recall that it had been just a passing remark pronounced with a whisper. The whisper had made it feel like a sharp knife
stabbed into his heart. ‘Is Fatheya suckling the child?' He tried to deny that she was suckling it, for he had not seen the child at her breast. Every morning she used to buy buffalo milk for it. But the whispering voice insisted, sure of what it said, with a sureness which brooked no denial.

Sheikh Hamzawi's ears caught the whisper every time he walked along one of the lanes and passed by a group of people. He could see their heads come closer and hear it when it started. He would solemnly pronounce the usual greeting, ‘Peace be with you.' Some of them did not even answer. When he passed in front of the shop of Haj Ismail where the Mayor would be seated, surrounded by the Chief of the Village Guard, the village barber and other men, his voice would resound as he said, ‘Peace be with you.' There would be a short silence before the answer came back in a low, cold, inconsequential tone, ‘And peace be with you.' The voice which answered was not that of the Mayor, nor the village barber. It was some other man who answered. No one among those who were seated invited him to join them. He would return home, walking with his head bowed to the ground to find Fatheya hugging the child. A strong urge to wrench it out of her arms, and throw it out of the window seized him, but each time he would restrict himself to glaring in the direction of the child as though facing a rival so formidable that he did not know how to tackle him.

One night he remained awake until Fatheya fell asleep. He crept on his toes to where the child was lying by her side, and
tried to lift it, but although she was fast asleep she held her arms tightly around it. The child as usual was clamped to her breast. She felt him pulling at it and shrieked, ‘Shame on you, Sheikh Hamzawi. You are a man of God. He's a small, innocent child.'

‘I do not want a child born in sin to remain in my house.'

‘Then I will leave the house with him,' she said.

‘You are not his mother, and you shall not leave with him.' His voice trembled as he spoke.

‘I will not abandon him to the care of anyone else. People have no mercy in their hearts and he's an innocent child who has done no wrong.'

‘This child born of sin will bring nothing but trouble to us,' said Sheikh Hamzawi. ‘Since he was brought into our home one misfortune after another has happened to us, and to the whole village. The worm has eaten the crops in the fields and I've heard people say he is the cause. No one greets me when I walk along, Fatheya, and I fear the Mayor may chase me out of the mosque and appoint another sheikh in my place. Someone has put into his head the idea that the men of the village no longer like me to lead the prayer, because their prayers might not be favourably received by God since the man who leads them has sheltered a child born of sin and fornication in his house. We will die of hunger, Fatheya, if the Mayor expels me from the mosque.'

‘Allah will care for us, Sheikh Hamzawi, if the Mayor chases you out of the mosque,' said Fatheya.

‘Allah is not going to make the heavens pour manna on us.'

‘How can you of all people say such things about God, Sheikh Hamzawi? Don't you always say that Allah cares for the poor who worship Him? Why would He not take care of us also if the Mayor expels you from the mosque? Have you no trust in Allah, O Sheikh? Have you despaired of His mercy, you who enjoin people never to lose faith? Get up, Sheikh Hamzawi, and do your ablutions and pray God that He may have mercy on you and me, and on all the people in this village.'

So he did his ablutions and prayed. After prayer he would sit on the prayer carpet and recite verses from the Koran. The child would crawl up, sit in front of him on the carpet and look at him with questioning eyes. But the eyes of Sheikh Hamzawi were so full of hatred that they scared him, and he would crawl away screaming at the top of his voice. Fatheya would run up, lift him in her arms and pat him. ‘What's the matter, my sweet one, what's the matter with you? Are you afraid of your father, Sheikh Hamzawi? Do not be afraid of him, my sweet one. He's your father and he loves you, and when you grow a little older, he will teach you the Koran, and you will become the Sheikh of the mosque, just like he is. You'll lead people in prayer and give them a sermon on Fridays.'