by Tayeb Salih
The steamer swung round on itself so that its engines would not be working against the current. Everything happened as it always did: the raucous whistle and the small boats from the opposite shore, the sycamore trees and the bustle on the quay of the landing-stage. Except for one great difference: I stepped ashore and Mahjoub shook me by the hand, avoiding me with his eyes; this time he was the only one who had come to meet me. He was embarrassed, as though feeling guilty about something or as though he were putting the responsibility on to me.
Hardly had I shaken hands with him than I said, ‘How did you let this happen?’
‘What has happened has happened,’ said Mahjoub, fixing the saddle of the tall black donkey which belonged to my uncle Abdul Karim. "The two boys are well and are at my place.’ I had not thought of the boys during the whole of that ghastly journey. I had been thinking of her.
Again I said to Mahjoub: ‘What happened?’
He was still avoiding looking at me. He remained silent, adjusting the sheepskin cover on the saddle and tightening the girth round his donkey’s belly. He pushed the saddle slightly forward, seized hold of the reins and jumped on. I remained standing, awaiting the reply that did not come; then I too mounted. Urging the donkey on, he said to me: ‘It’s as I told you in the cable. There’s no point in delving into the matter. In any case we weren’t expecting you.’
‘I wish I'd done as you advised and married her,’ I said to him, encouraging him to speak. All I succeeded in doing, though, was to drive him into a deeper silence. He was clearly angry for he dug his heel sharply into his donkey though it had done nothing to deserve such treatment. ‘Ever since I got your cable,’ I said to him, chasing after him but without quite catching him up, ‘I haven’t slept or eaten or spoken to a soul. Three days traveling from Khartoum by rail and steamer I’ve spent thinking and asking myself how it happened and I find no answer.’
‘You’ve never spent such a short time away from the village,’ he said kindly, as though feeling sorry for me.
‘No,’ I said to him. ‘Thirty-two days to be exact.’
‘Anything new in Khartoum?’ he said.
‘We were busy with a conference,’ I said to him. Interest showed on his face, for he liked to have news of Khartoum, especially news of scandals and stories of bribery and of the corruption of those in power.
‘What were they in conference about this time?’ he said with evident interest.
I was upset that he should have so quickly forgotten the matter in hand.
‘The Ministry of Education] I said to him wearily, wishing to cut it short, ‘organized a conference to which it invited delegates from twenty African countries to discuss ways of unifying educational methods throughout the whole continent — I was a member of the secretariat of the conference.’
‘Let them build the schools first,’ said Mahjoub, ‘and then discuss unifying education. How do these people’s minds work? They waste time in conferences and poppycock and here are our children having to travel several miles to school. Aren’t we human beings? Don’t we pay taxes? Haven’t we any rights in this country? Everything’s in Khartoum. The whole of the country’s budget is spent in Khartoum. One single hospital in Merawi, and it takes us three days to get there. The women die in childbirth — there’s not a single qualified midwife in this place. And you, what are you doing in Khartoum? What’s the use in our having one of us in the government when you’re not doing anything?
My donkey had passed him, so I pulled at the reins till he caught up with me. I chose to keep silent, although if it had been any other time I would have shouted at him — he and I had been like that since childhood, shouting at each other when angry; then making it up and forgetting. But now I was hungry and tired and my heart was heavy with grief. Had the circumstances of our meeting this time been better I would have roused him to laughter and to anger with stories about that conference. He will not believe the facts about the new rulers of Africa, smooth of face, lupine of mouth, their hands gleaming with rings of precious stones, exuding perfume from their cheeks, in white, blue, black and green suits of fine mohair and expensive silk rippling on their shoulders like the fur of Siamese cats, and with shoes that reflect the light from chandeliers and squeak as they tread on marble. Mahjoub will not believe that for nine days they studied every aspect of the progress of education in Africa in the Independence Hall built for the purpose and costing more than a million pounds: an imposing edifice of stone, cement, marble and glass, constructed in the form of a complete circle and designed in London, its corridors of white marble brought from Italy and the windows made up of small pieces of coloured glass skillfully arranged in a framework of teak. The floor of the main hall was covered with fine Persian carpets, while the ceiling was in the form of a gilded dome; on all sides chandeliers hung down, each the size of a large camel. The platform on which the Ministers of Education in Africa took it in turns to stand for nine whole days was of red marble like that of Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides, its vast ebony surface smooth and shiny. On the walls were oil paintings, and facing the main entrance was a vast map of Africa fashioned in coloured mosaic, each country in a different colour. How can I say to Mahjoub that the Minister who said in his verbose address, received with a storm of clapping: ‘No contradiction must occur between what the student learns at school and between the reality of the life of the people. Everyone who is educated today wants to sit at a comfortable desk under a fan and live in an air-conditioned house surrounded by a garden, coming and going in an American car as wide as the street. If we do not tear out this disease by the roots we shall have with us a bourgeoisie that is in no way connected with the reality of our life, which is more dangerous to the future of Africa than imperialism itself’: how can I say to Mahjoub that this very man escapes during the summer months from Africa to his villa on Lake Lucerne and that his wife does her shopping at Harrods in London, from where the articles are flown to her in a private plane, and that the members of his delegation themselves openly say that he is corrupt and takes bribes, that he has acquired whole estates, has set up businesses and amassed properties, has created a vast fortune from the sweat dripping from the brows of wretched, half-naked people in the jungle? Such people are concerned only with their stomachs and their sensual pleasures. There is no justice or moderation in the world. Mustafa Sa’eed said: ‘But I seek not glory for the likes of me do not seek glory.’ Had he returned in the natural way of things he would have joined up with this pack of wolves. They all resemble him: handsome faces and faces made so by comfortable living. One of those Ministers said in the closing party of the conference that Mustafa had been his teacher. The first thing he did when they introduced me to him was to exclaim: ‘You remind me of a dear friend with whom I was on very close terms in London — Dr Mustafa Sa’eed. He used to be my teacher. In 1928 he was President of the Society for the Struggle for African Freedom of which I was a committee member. What a man he was! He’s one of the greatest Africans I’ve known. He had wide contacts. Heavens, that man — women fell for him like flies. He used to say "I’ll liberate Africa with my penis", and he laughed so widely you could see the back of his throat.’ I wanted to put some questions to him but he disappeared in the throng of Presidents and Ministers. Mustafa no longer concerns me, for Mahjoub’s telegram has changed everything, bringing me worries of my own. When I first read Mrs Robinson’s reply to my letter I had a feeling of immense joy. I read it in the train a second time and tried, though in vain, to banish my thoughts from the spot that had become the pivot round which they revolved.
The donkeys continued to toss up the stones with their hooves. ‘Why so silent, as though you’ve lost your tongue? Why don’t you say something?’ said Mahjoub.
‘Civil servants like me can’t change anything,’ I said to him. ‘If our masters say “Do so—and—so”, we do it. You’re the head of the National Democratic Socialist Party here. It’s the party in power, so why not pour out your anger on them?’
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Mahjoub said apologetically ‘If it hadn’t been for this… this calamity… On the day it happened we were preparing to travel in a delegation to ask for the building of a large hospital, also for an intermediate boys’ school, a primary school for girls, an agricultural school and ...’ Suddenly he broke off and retired into his angry silence.
I glanced at the river on our left gleaming with menace and reverberating with mysterious sound. Then, in front of us, there came into view the ten domes in the middle of the cemetery; and the recollection it called forth cut into my heart.
‘We buried them without any fuss, first thing in the morning,’ said Mahjoub. ‘We told the women not to mourn. We held no funeral ceremony and informed no one — the police would only have come along and there would have been all the scandal of an investigation.’
‘Why the police?’ I asked in alarm.
He looked at me for a while, then fell silent. A long time later he said: A week or ten days after you went away her father said he had given Wad Rayyes a promise — and they married her off to him. Her father swore at her and beat her; he told her she’d marry him whether she liked it or not. I didn’t attend the marriage ceremony; no one was there except his friends: Bakri, your grandfather, and Bint Mahjoub. For myself I tried to deflect Wad Rayyes from his purpose, but like someone obsessed he insisted. I talked to her father, who said he wouldn’t be made a laughing-stock by people saying his daughter wouldn’t listen to him. After the marriage I told Wad Rayyes to go about things with tact. For two weeks they remained together without exchanging a word. She was — he was in an indescribable state, like a madman. He complained to all and sundry; saying how could there be in his house a woman he’d married according to the laws of God and His Prophet and how could there not be between them the normal relationship of man and wife. We used to tell him to have patience, then ...’
The two donkeys suddenly brayed at the same time and I almost fell out of the saddle. For two whole days I went on asking people about it, but no one would tell me. They all avoided looking at me as though they were accomplices in some dire crime.
‘Why did you leave your work and come?’ my mother said to me.
‘The two boys,’ I said to her.
She looked at me searchingly for a while and said: ‘The boys or the boys’ mother? What was there between you and her? She came to your father and her very words to him were: “Tell him to marry me!" What an impudent hussy! That’s modern women for you! That was bad enough, but the terrible thing she did later was even worse.’
My grandfather too vouchsafed me no information. I found him seated on his couch in a state of fatigue I’d never seen him in before, just as if the source of life inside him had suddenly dried up. I sat on and he still did not speak, only sighed from time to time and fidgeted and called upon God to grant him refuge from the accursed Devil. Every time he did this I would feel twinges of conscience as though the Devil and I were in some sort of league together. After a long time, addressing the ceiling, he said: ‘God curse all women! Women are the sisters of the Devil. Wad Rayyes! Wad Rayyes!’ and my grandfather burst into tears. It was the first time in my life I had seen him crying. He cried much, then wiped away the tears with the hem of his robe and was so long silent that I thought he had gone to sleep. ‘God rest your soul, Wad Rayyes,’ he said after a while. ‘May God forgive him and encompass him with His mercy’ He muttered some prayers and said: ‘He was a man without equal — always laughing, always at hand when one was in trouble. He never said "No" to anyone who asked anything of him. If only he’d listened to me! To end up like that! There is no power and no strength save in God — it’s the first time anything like this has happened in the village since God created it. What a time of affliction we live in!’
‘What happened? I asked him, plucking up courage.
He took no notice of my question and became engrossed in his string of prayer-beads. Then he said: ‘Nothing but trouble comes from that tribe. I said to Wad Rayyes, “This woman’s a bringer of bad luck. Keep away from her.” However, it was fated.’
On the morning of the third day, with a bottle of whisky in my pocket, I went off to see Bint Majzoub. If Bint Majzoub would not tell me, then no one would. Bint Majzoub, pouring some whisky into a large aluminium cup, said: ‘No doubt you want something. We’re not used to having such fine city drink here.’
‘I wish to know what happened,’ I said to her. ‘No one wants to tell me.’
She took a large gulp from the cup, gave a scowl, and said: ‘The thing done by Bint Mahmoud is not easily spoken of. It is something we have never seen or heard of in times past or present.’
She stopped talking and I waited patiently till a third of the bottle had gone, without it having any effect on her except that she looked more animated. ‘That’s enough of the heathens’ drink,’ said Bint Majzoub, closing the bottle. ‘It’s certainly formidable stuff and not a bit like date arak.’
I looked at her pleadingly ‘The things I’m going to say to you,’ she said, ‘you won’t hear from a living soul in the village — they buried them with Bint Mahmoud and with poor Wad Rayyes. They are shameful things and it’s hard to talk about them.’ Then she gave me a searching look with her bold eyes. ‘These are words that won’t please you,’ she said, ‘especially if ...’ and she lowered her head for an instant.
‘Just like everyone else,’ I said, ‘I want to know what happened. Why should I be the only one who mustn't be allowed to know?’
She drew on the cigarette I gave her. ‘Some time after the evening prayer,’ she continued, ‘I awoke to the screaming of Hosna Bint Mahmoud in Wad Rayyes’s house. The whole village was silent, you couldn’t hear a sound. To tell you God’s truth, I thought that Wad Rayyes had at last achieved what he wanted — the poor man was on the verge of madness: two weeks with the woman without her speaking to him or allowing him to come near her. I gave ear for a time as she screamed and wailed. May God forgive me, I laughed as I heard her screaming, telling myself that Wad Rayyes still had something left in him. The screaming grew louder and I heard a movement in Bakri’s house alongside Wad Rayyes’s. I heard Bakri shouting, “You, should be ashamed of yourself man, making such a scandal and hullabaloo.” Then I heard the voice of Sa’eeda, Bakri’s wife, saying, “Bint Mahmoud, look to your honour. What scandals are these? A virgin bride doesn’t behave like this — as though you’d had no experience of men." Bint Mahmoud’s screams grew louder. Then I heard Wad Rayyes screaming at the top of his voice, “Bakri! Hajj Ahmed! Bint Majzoub! Help! Bint Mahmoud has killed me.” I leapt up from bed and rushed out in a state of undress. I rapped on Bakri’s door and on Mahjoub’s, then ran to Wad Rayyes’s, which I found closed. I cried out at the top of my voice, at which Mahjoub came along, then Bakri. Many people then gathered round us. As we were breaking down the courtyard door we heard a scream — a mountain—shattering scream from Wad Rayyes, then a similar scream from Bint Mahmoud. We entered, Mahjoub, Bakri and I. "Stop the people from entering the house," I said to Mahjoub. “Don’t let any woman enter the house." Mahjoub went out and shouted at the people; when he returned your uncle Abdul Karim was with him, also Sa’eed, Tahir Rawwasi, and even your poor grandfather came from his house.’
The sweat began pouring down Bint Majzoub’s face. Her throat was dry and she pointed to the water. When I had brought it to her she drank, wiped the sweat from her face, and said, ‘I ask pardon and repentance of Almighty God. We found the two of them in Wad Rayyes’s low-ceilinged room looking on to the street. The lamp was alight. Wad Rayyes was as naked as the day he was born; Bint Mahmoud too was naked apart from her torn underclothes. The red straw mat was swimming in blood. I raised the lamp and saw that every inch of Bint Mahmoud’s body was covered in bites and scratches — her stomach, thighs and neck. The nipple of one breast had been bitten through and blood poured down from her lower lip. There is no strength and no power save in God. Wad Rayyes had been stabbed more than ten times — in his stom
ach, chest, face, and between his thighs.’
Bint Majzoub was unable to continue. She swallowed with difficulty and her throat quivered nervously. Then she said: ‘O Lord, there is no opposition to Thy will. We found her lying on her back with the knife plunged into her heart. Her mouth was open and her eyes were staring as though she were alive. Wad Rayyes had his tongue lolling out from between his jaws and his arms were raised in the air.’
Bint Majzoub covered her face with her hand and the sweat trickled down between her fingers; her breathing was fast and laboured. ‘I ask forgiveness of Almighty God,’ she said with difficulty ‘They had both died minutes beforehand. The blood was still warm and dripped from Bint Mahmoud’s heart and from between Wad Rayyes’s thighs. Blood covered the mat and the bed and flowed in rivulets across the floor of the room. Mahjoub, God lengthen his life, was a tower of strength. When he heard Mahmoud’s voice he hurried outside and told your father not to let him in. Then Mahjoub and the men bore off Wad Rayyes’s body, while Bakri’s wife and I, with some of the older women, took care of Bint Mahmoud. We put them in their shrouds that very night and they took them away before sunrise and buried them — she beside her mother and he beside his first wife, Bint Rajab. Some of the women started to hold a funeral ceremony but Mahjoub, God bless him, shut them up and said he’d break the neck of anyone who opened her mouth. What sort of funeral ceremony, my child, can be held in such circumstances? This is a great catastrophe that has befallen the village. All our lives we have enjoyed God’s protection and now finally something like this happens to us! I ask forgiveness and repentance of Thee, O Lord.’
