God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels (36 page)

‘Don't be sad, Fouada. This is how life is. There's no life without death.'

He was silent for a moment, then said:

‘What's the use of being sad? It only makes you ill. I'm never sad, or if it happens that I am, I think about happy things or listen to soothing music.'

He put out his hand and turned on the radio. A dance tune came out. The tears froze to a lump in her throat and, feeling she would choke, she opened the door and stepped out into the desert. A light cool breeze tightened her muscles, but her body was heavy. She moved her legs to shake off that oppressive weight but it bore down on her. She opened her mouth to scream, to expel the lump from her throat, but the muscles of her mouth expanded and contracted, expelling nothing. The lump slid into her neck, and its muscles expanded and contracted, then it moved to her chest and stomach; these muscles too began to expand and contract. But like the tentacles of some hydra-headed serpent the lump slithered into her whole body, until all her muscles expanded and contracted in rapid, violent spasms like convulsions. How desperately she wanted to rid her body of that choking, creeping thing.

The tune from the car radio rang through the silent desert. Her ears were deaf to it but it filled the air and entered her with every breath. Panting, she wanted to stop, to be still, but her muscles ignored her consciousness and her body began to tremble to the tune, discharging the venom from the pent-up energy and unconsciously revelling in the joy of dancing.

Yes, she had lost conscious control and was abandoned to the delight of the violent movement, yet one small point in her head, perhaps one single brain cell, still retained consciousness. It still knew that she was in the desert, that Saati was standing beside her, that she was extremely sad, that
her mother was dead, Farid was absent, the idea of research was lost, her life in the Ministry empty.

She shook her head fiercely to separate out that one conscious cell, but it would not be dislodged. It had taken hold, solidified and began to rattle around her head, ripping through her languid brain cells like a pointed pebble.

The music stopped suddenly. Perhaps it had reached the end or perhaps Saati had turned off the radio. Her body crumpled onto the sand, breathless and soaked in sweat. When was the last time her body had been so drenched in sweat? When was the last time she had danced so wildly, uninhibitedly? Listened to Theodorakis? When was the last time Kazantzakis had said only madness destroys? Farid used to fight madness. He used to say that the madness of one individual means incarceration or death, whereas the madness of millions … What does the madness of millions mean, Farid? Knowledge and hunger, he used to say. Hunger exists, only knowledge is lacking. And why don't they have knowledge, Farid? How can they, Fouada, when everything around them is either silent or lying?

She opened her eyes. She was lying on the sand beside a huge bulk with bulging eyes from which emanated something false and thievish. She heard a hoarse voice say:

‘The most wonderful dance I've ever seen and the most beautiful dancer that exists!'

His arms were around her, filling her nostrils with a rusty metallic smell and her mouth with bitter, acrid saliva. She saw
his bulbous eyes grow larger and more prominent, a strange frightening look in them. She struggled to turn, in terror, but saw only the desert and darkness. She tried to breathe but couldn't and with all her strength pushed him away from her, leapt up and ran. He ran after her.

Before her the spreading darkness, behind her that bulbous-eyed shadow, stalking her. It seemed that the flat desert in front of her was rising and spinning into two great, bulging eyes as she ran in a long narrow trench between them. The black convex bulk of the sky, too, had become great, bulging eyes, towering over and pressing down on her. She stumbled against something round and solid, fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

Lost consciousness except for that one conscious cell into which her five senses were polarized. She could still see, hear, feel, taste and smell. She felt a plump, fleshy hand on her chest, smelled a rusty metallic smell, tasted bitter, acrid saliva.

The cushiony hand became coarse, trembling fingers. The trembling did not stay in one place but crept lower, to her stomach and thighs. She saw his thick creased, fleshy neck like the trunk of an old tree out of which jutted small black buds which might have lived and developed but instead had died and decayed. His unbuttoned silk shirt revealed a hairless, fleshy chest, an unfastened leather belt hung around a bloated belly from which hung a pair of thin, hairless legs. His belly rose and fell with his spasmodic breathing and from
inside him came a curious, muffled rattle like the groan of a sick animal.

A strange, heavy coldness enveloped her body, a coldness it had known only once before. She had been lying on a leather sheet surrounded by metal instruments – scalpels and syringes and scissors. The doctor picked up a long syringe and jabbed its needle into her arm. That same heavy coldness had coursed through her body as though she were plunged into a bath of ice and her body grew heavier and slowly drowned.

Only now there was no water beneath her but something soft … like sand. Cold air entered her dishevelled dress, hot, bitter saliva gathered in her throat, the smell of something old and rusted invaded her nostrils. A panting, shuddering bulk lay beside her, its thin legs limp and shaking. She tried to open her mouth to spit but could not. Her eyelids grew heavy and closed.

* * *

She opened her eyes to see daylight streaming through the slats of the shutters. She looked around in bewilderment. Everything in her room was normal, the wardrobe, clothes-stand, window, ceiling and jagged circle. She heard shuffling feet in the living room, approaching her room. She looked at the door expecting her mother's face to appear, but a long while passed and nothing happened. Remembering, she leaped out of bed onto her feet. Trembling, she went to the living room and apprehensively approached the door of her mother's
room. Was it all a dream? Or was she really dead? She put her head round the door, saw the empty bed and retreated in fear. She went to the kitchen, to the dining room, to the bathroom but her mother was nowhere. Dizzily she leaned her head against the wall. A solid lump whirled in her skull, knocking against the bones. Bitterness scalded her throat. Supporting herself against the wall, she staggered to the sink and opened her mouth to spit, but the bitterness pressed on her stomach and she vomited. The obscene, rusty smell emanated from her mouth, her nose, her clothes. She undressed, stood beneath the shower and scrubbed her body with a loofa and soap but the smell clung to her flesh. It had entered her pores and cells and into her blood.

Still clutching the walls, she returned to her room. Looking around in distraction, her eyes settled on the face of her mother in the photograph hanging near the wardrobe. Her mother seemed to look out at her with large, jaundiced eyes, feebly pleading with her to stay. She covered the face with her hand. Would her mother never lose that accusing look? Had she not paid for her sin? Wasn't she filled with that burning bitter taste? Wasn't her body steeped in that concentrated smell of old rust? Was there any grief greater than this? What was grief? How did people grieve? A loud scream clearing the voice and relieving pent-up feelings? Black clothing whose newness refreshed the body? Banquets and slaughtered meat stimulating the appetite and filling the stomach? Was there
a dead mother who enjoyed more grief than this? Was there another mother whose daughter swallowed poison after her? Was there a mother's death greater than this death? Was there a greater filial repayment?

She went to bed feeling somewhat calmer and stretched out her arms and legs, but the heaviness was still on her body, the bitterness still burned. When, when would this heaviness relent and this burden lift?

The telephone rang. It was him. None other. There was only him left. There was nothing else left but to swallow poison day after day. Her insides would be eroded by the acrid burning, her body saturated by the concentration of old, cold rust. Only a slow death remained.

She put out a slender hand and raised the receiver. The hoarse, oily voice came through:

‘Good morning, Fouada. How are you?'

‘Alive,' she said listlessly.

‘What are you doing tonight?' he asked.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I have nothing left.'

‘What about me? I am left,' he said.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘there's only you left.'

‘I'll pick you up at the laboratory at half past eight,' he said.

* * *

Walking out of the door she noticed something, something white and glistening behind the glass panel. She stepped back
and peered into the mailbox. There was a letter there. Her body began to shake. She opened the box and picked up the letter with long, trembling fingers. She glanced at the large, square letters with their familiar flourishes. Her heart throbbed painfully. It was Farid's writing … Dream or reality? She saw the stairs, the door and the mailbox. She put out a trembling hand to touch it. Yes, it was there, it was tangible. She fingered the letter. It was real paper with a thickness and density of its own. She put her fingers to her eyelids. They were open.

She turned the letter over, examining the corners and edges. There was nothing on it other than her name and address. She put it to her nose and met that distinctive smell of paper and postage stamp. She opened the envelope and took out a long sheet of paper, covered with writing:

Fouada…

How many days have passed since our last meeting, since that short night that bore the first winds of winter. You were sitting before me, the Nile behind you, in your eyes that strange glint which said: ‘I have something new' and your slender fingers drumming on the table with a quiet that hid the volcano beneath. You were silent and I knew you were in pain. After a long silence you said: ‘What do you think, Farid? Shall I leave the Ministry?' I understood you. At that moment, you wanted me to say: ‘Yes, leave it, come with me.' But, you remember, I said
nothing. I always felt that your role was different to mine. Your role is to create something new if you're given the chance, whereas my role is to create the chance for people to create something new. And what is new? Changing the old? And what does change create? Isn't it thought? Do you remember that small child who did the rounds of the tables in the restaurants? Do you remember his wrinkled hand when he held it out for a piece of bread or a piastre? People pitied him and gave him a piastre without thinking. If only they thought about what a piastre does! If only they thought why he was hungry! Yes, Fouada, it's thought, the idea that emerges from the head. Does an idea emerge from the head without expression?

Your role is to create the idea and mine to create the expression. Alone, I can do nothing. My role is neither as easy nor as convincing as the words appear to be. It's a sort of madness, for how do stifled, muted mouths express themselves? How can a voice penetrate through dense, stone walls? It's a sort of madness, but the madness of one individual can create nothing, only collective madness… do you remember that old conversation?

All right, I am not alone. There are others with me. All we have is that simple, dangerous role, and those simple, natural words which were born with the first human … to think and to express. Nothing except these words for us to say and write. No cannons or rifles or bombs. Only words.

After we separated that short night, I walked alone down Nile Street, thinking about you, feeling you were in pain, that deep inside you a new idea was struggling to come out, fighting alone against a high wall … in the Ministry, at home, in the street and in your skull. Yes, Fouada, there's another wall in your head, one you were not born with, but which day by day was erected out of long silence. I said to myself that night as I walked: ‘It is only a short wall, it will collapse finally, when the other walls collapse.'

I did not reach home. A man stood in my way. I think he was not alone, there were others, perhaps many, all armed. I had nothing. You remember, I was wearing a brown shirt and trousers. They searched my pockets and found nothing. Are words put in a pocket? They grabbed me and put me in irons, but the words were carried in the wind. Can they catch the wind and put it in irons?

The walls surround me, but you are with me. I feel your small, soft hand on my face and see your green eyes looking into mine, that imprisoned, new thing appearing in them that wants to be born but cannot. Do not grieve, Fouada, and do not weep. The words are in the wind beyond the walls, alive and entering hearts with the very air. A day will surely come when the walls will fall and voices will once again be freed to speak.

Farid

THE
CIRCLING
SONG

 

NAWAL EL SAADAWI

FOREWORD BY FEDWA MALTI-DOUGLAS

FOREWORD

Prolific writer, ardent fighter for women's rights, challenger of patriarchy, feared by most and loved by many, without doubt the most prominent and prolific female author in Arabic: Nawal El Saadawi, trained as a doctor and psychiatrist, has the uncanny ability to place her finger on the hot buttons that inflame Arab readers.

Anyone who puts pen to paper has a favourite book among all the books to his or her name. It is no surprise that, for the prolific Egyptian physician–author Nawal El Saadawi, hers should be
The Circling Song
.

The Circling Song
is a translation of the Arabic novel
Ughniyyat al-Atfal al-Da'iriyya
, rendered more correctly into English as
The Children's Circling Song
. The presence of the children is not accidental, since this haunting and masterful narrative revolves around a song sung by children holding each other's hands to form a circle without a beginning or an end. The children run in this never-ending circle as they sing a song that is itself repeated endlessly. The intrusive narrator provides the reader with a lesson on the Arabic language, in which meanings and genders can be changed with one dot or
one letter. The twins, Hamida (the female) and Hamido (the male), are the central protagonists who display beautifully this ambiguity in the Arabic language.