I rested my chin in my hands and sat thinking. Should I do battle with society or submit to it and be carried along by it, bowing my head to it, shutting myself up in my house and seeking protection from a man like all the rest?
No! Such thoughts were absurd. I would fight, looking to myself for protection, looking to my strength, my knowledge, my success in my work.
I left everything behind: my family and friends; men and women; food and drink; sleeping and dreaming; the moon and the stars; wind and water. I put on my white coat, hung the stethoscope round my neck and stood in my surgery.
I’d decided to do battle, to drown in my own sweat, to face society on feet of iron.
She came to see me in the surgery, her small body trembling with fear, panting, turning to look behind her, her innocent child’s face contorted with terror.
‘What’s wrong, my girl?’ I asked.
She shuddered as if she was feverish and started to sob her heart out. I managed to pick up a few disjointed, fragmented words from her quivering lips: ‘He didn’t do what he said... cruel bastard... Upper Egypt... they’ll kill me... I haven’t got anyone... save me, doctor.’
She didn’t have a hanky, so I gave her mine and waited until she had no more tears left. She dried her eyes and fixed her frightened gaze on my lips, desperate to hear the one small word I would speak, granting her life or sentencing her to death.
I looked at her. She was a child of no more than fourteen or fifteen, innocent, pure, frail, with no income and no one to support her. I had no choice. How could I abandon her when I was all she had, or sentence her to death when I believed in her innocence and her right to life? How could I leave her neck under her father’s knife when I knew that her father, mother, brother and uncle had all done wrong? How could I punish her alone when I knew that the whole of society had participated in the act, or wonder at her when I knew that everybody did similar things? How could I not protect her when she was the victim and society protected the real offender, or disapprove of her error when I myself had already fallen? I who had lived twice as long as her and seen and learnt many more things than she had. How could I not absolve her when I had already absolved myself?
I tried to save the poor child from the talons of the law and tradition and from the fangs of the wild beasts and the snakes, rats and cockroaches. I’d save her and they would crucify me if the idea appealed to them, stone me to death, take me to the scaffold. I’d accept my fate and meet death with a satisfied soul and an easy conscience.
All society’s tragedies came into my surgery. All the results of deception and deceit lay before me to be examined. The bitter truths which people constantly deny were stretched out on the operating table under my probing, cutting hands.
I felt compassion for people. Hadn’t this man who’d butchered his erring sister done wrong himself with other men’s sisters? Wasn’t the wolf who’d deceived the innocent girl himself the father of a daughter whom he’d kept imprisoned in the house...? the man who’d been unfaithful to his wife also the husband who’d killed his wife to defend his honour...? the unfaithful wife the woman who spread rumours about other women...? this society which broadcast songs of love and passion the same society which erected the scaffold for all who fell in love or were swept away by passion?
I felt compassion for people, all people: they were both wrongdoers and the victims of wrongdoing.
My surgery filled up with men, women and children and my coffers with money and gold. My name became as famous as that of a movie star and my opinions circulated among people as though they were law. Strangers suddenly claimed a relationship with me, enemies became friends and confidants. Men swarmed round me like flies and their attacks changed into a defence of my position and gestures of support. The drawers of my desk filled up with testimonials, requests and pleas for help.
I sat on my lofty peak looking down on society at my feet. I smiled at it pityingly. Society — that mighty monster which seized women by the scruff of the neck and flung them into kitchens, abbatoirs, graves or the filthy mire — was lying in my desk drawers, weak, subdued and hypocritically begging for mercy! How small mighty society looked now!
I sat alone at my desk after the last patient had left and the duty nurse had gone home. It was still only nine in the evening, the beginning of the night, and the streets were at their liveliest. I stood up and began to pace the room distractedly. I went up to the window and the warm dreary night air touched my face. In the street outside, people were clinging to one another, talking, laughing, scowling. I looked at myself and found that I was looking down on them from a great height.
I felt a chilling cold as though I was sitting on a snowy mountain top. I looked above my head and saw only clouds and sky. I looked down at my feet and saw the great distance separating me from the soft gentle valleys and the low-lying plains warmed by the breath of humanity. I could see people waving at me from afar but no one climbed right up to where I was. They played tunes for me but the sounds didn’t reach my ears. They threw flowers at me but the perfume vanished in the air.
I rested my forehead on the window-sill. How cold solitude was, how hard the silence! What should I do? Jump from the peak? But then I’d break my neck. Retrace my steps? But my life would pass and I’d never achieve what I wanted. My struggles were over and the time had come for me to sit doing nothing.
How terrible it was to have time lying on my hands!
Why had I bounded up the ladder of my profession instead of drinking from the cup of life sip by sip or savouring my time in small mouthfuls? Why had I jumped and panted over the course, leaving my proper place in the line and going over the heads of those in front of me?
People were moving along the street in their lines, advancing with all the speed of a tortoise, but they would arrive one day. Life was moving forward slowly but would inevitably get wherever it was going. Millions of years had gone by before atoms became air, and air became water and water became solid matter; and millions more had passed before the solid matter became moving amoebas, and the amoebas developed appendages, and they became fins, wings, arms and tails, and the arms grew fingers, and the tail became extinct and the ape stood upon two legs...
As a child, why had I been sad because I couldn’t fly through the air like a pigeon? Why had I been angry at the blood which stains a woman every thirty days? Why had I rebelled against history and laws and tradition and raged because science hadn’t discovered the secret of living protoplasm?
The years would go by and possibly time would transform history and laws and tradition. Life would discover a clean and beautiful way for little girls to mature. Human bodies would grow progressively lighter and fly. Science would stumble upon the secret of living protoplasm. The cavalcade of life moved along and each day life discovered something new. Why had time seemed so slow to me, its cogs tearing at parts of my life as it rumbled by? Why had life rushed me along and flung me away and up on to a lofty peak shrouded in icy loneliness?
How cruel the silence was and how gentle human voices, even if they were noisy. How cold the solitude and how warm the breathing of people, even the sick. How repellent inertia was and how beautiful movement, even struggle and conflict. How terrible empty time was, and how sweet thinking and being busy, even if the outcome was unsuccessful.
The feeling of emptiness took root in me and the giant found he had space to move. The throng of ideas and images inside me dispersed and the giant spread out his arms and legs and began lazily to yawn and stretch.
What do you want? You rebelled against everything and refused to lead a woman’s life. You ran after truth and truth made you shut yourself away from yourself. And men? You looked at them, searched around and were thrown into disarray; then you pursed your lips disparagingly.
What do you want? A man who only exists in your imagination and doesn’t walk about the earth? A man who talks, breathes and thinks but doesn’t have a body like other men? Can you forget those bodies lying on the dissecting table, or t
he miserable sound of snoring near your pillow, or those despairing, helpless looks, or death which cuts children down? Why don’t you shut yourself up in your prison cell and go back to sleep?
But the nights had grown long, and the nocturnal phantoms had taken up position around the bed again and the bed itself had become vast and cold and frightening. The giant didn’t want to go back to sleep. Success didn’t satisfy his hunger, fame was meaningless and money was just like dead withered leaves.
6
Among the letters and papers on my desk I noticed a little card. I reached for it and found it was an invitation to a party from some professional body. I got up quickly, went down to my car and drove to the place where the party was being held.
I went into a large hall and saw sparkling lights and guests dressed in starched ironed clothes, with formal, strained expressions on their faces. I let my eyes rove around the place and the people as if I was looking for something in particular. The men were stealing glances at the women and the women at the men. I strolled among the guests nodding to them when they nodded to me, like a doll with its head on a spring.
There was a sudden commotion and the guests rushed forward, pushing each other aside, to crowd around a small corpulent man. They all wanted to walk next to him, be photographed with him, appear on television standing near him, and make him remember their faces, their voices, their existence.
I left the crush and stood in a quiet corner. I half turned and found a man standing there. An ordinary man wearing ordinary clothes and standing in an ordinary way. He was neither short nor tall, thin nor fat, but I felt that something out of the ordinary hung about him. Perhaps it was that his expression was natural and relaxed, unlike the tense, starched features of those around him... perhaps that he was elegant in spite of his simplicity... perhaps that he scorned to join the group clustering round the man...
He looked in my direction and his eyes met mine. I felt a vague stirring inside. His eyes smiled faintly. He said in a voice which was almost as lively as his eyes, ‘They’re running after him.’
‘Why?’ I asked simply.
‘He’s the head of the corporation.’
He stood watching the people for a few moments with the same faint smile in his eyes. Was it a look of scorn or compassion, respect for human frailty or derision? I couldn’t decide. He turned back and looked hard at me for a moment before introducing himself. I reciprocated, telling him who I was and what I did. Pointing to a small table placed a little apart from the others, he said, ‘Let’s sit here. It’s the furthest table from the head man.’
We both laughed and went over to the table and sat facing each other. He looked at the plates of food, then at me and said smiling, ‘I’m not very good at knowing what to do at parties. Can I help you to something?’
What was it in this man’s eyes?
‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘I don’t like party manners.’
We started eating in silence and after a while he asked, ‘Do you find time to listen to music?’
‘Not often,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t heard your latest composition but I read how successful it was and how much people liked it.’
His eyes strayed far away from me, then he looked at me again and said, ‘I wasn’t happy with it.’
‘But the public was.’
‘An artist isn’t content unless he himself is satisfied with what he’s done.’
‘Why did you allow something to be broadcast if you weren’t completely happy with it?’
‘That’s what’s so agonizing. The work that I’m pleased with, the public doesn’t understand.’
‘So why don’t you compose pieces that you’re happy with, regardless of how the public reacts?’
‘Who’d listen to them?’
‘A few people. Just one... But that’s better than satisfying the public at any cost.’
‘I do that sometimes.’
He looked down at the floor briefly, as if thinking, then raised his expressive eyes to me and said, ‘We’ve talked about music a lot. Why haven’t you mentioned medicine?’
‘Conversations about medicine aren’t appropriate for parties,’ I said.
‘Why not?’ he asked in surprise.
‘It’s all about pain and sickness. The sad side of life,’ I replied.
‘No,’ he argued. ‘Of course the sorrows involved are immense, but the happiness must be even greater. I can imagine how happy you must feel when you save someone’s life. That must be the best part of your work.’
‘What about yours? What’s the part of your work that gives you the most happiness?’
‘When I write a tune that pleases me,’ he answered. ‘Or when I hear some magnificent piece of music.’
Then he looked at me and added, smiling, ‘Or when I make a new friend.’
I tried to avoid his eyes but he wouldn’t let me escape and encompassed me confidently within his gaze. My heart gave a single frightening lurch.
I turned over and over, unable to sleep. The bed seemed to be full of stones and nails. I got up and started walking about the room. It seemed cramped and cell-like and the air throttled me like a hangman’s rope. I went out on to the balcony and stood for a while but then I couldn’t bear it any more so I sat down. That too became intolerable and I went into the dining-room. I tried to eat something but the food tasted rubbery and odd.
Everything had become unbearable: sitting, standing, walking, eating. Food, water and air had lost their savour for me. The things that used to take up my time seemed trivial and meaningless. My new feeling replaced my former preoccupations and consumed my waking hours with its intensity. One series of questions wandered constantly through the regions of my mind and soul: should I try to contact him, talk to him, be the one to initiate the conversation?
I looked at the little instrument: the squarish black lump of plastic I used to carry about from place to place, and to silence with one finger if I felt like it, had become an object of terror, a dangerous bewitching piece of equipment. I looked warily at it from a distance, approached it apprehensively, and when I touched it a powerful electric charge went through me as if I’d touched a naked wire. Do things change to such an extent when our view of them changes?
I sat beside the telephone thinking. I remembered what he’d said when he wrote his number down for me: ‘Call me when you want to.’
He’d shown respect for my ability to decide, so why couldn’t I? I always had done in the past. Wasn’t it my will rather than the will of another which had controlled me? Hadn’t a man tried to possess my life and been unable to because I hadn’t wanted him to? And another had tried to give me his life and I hadn’t taken a thing from him because I hadn’t wanted to. My will had always determined my giving and taking. I wanted to see him now. Yes, I wanted to.
I turned my index finger in the holes on the disc six times and the repeated high-pitched tone sounded in my ears. Suddenly it was broken off and the flow of blood to my heart stopped momentarily. I heard his deep voice saying, ‘Hello.’
I didn’t think about different ways to be flirtatious or take refuge in womanly evasiveness. I didn’t pretend that I was just phoning to ask something. I didn’t veil my face and signal to him from behind my door, or act naive and stupid. I said truthfully, ‘I want to see you.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
‘Where?’
‘Anywhere. The place isn’t important.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘At home.’
‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
I sat back in the chair as if the life had drained out of me and looked about me at the furniture and the walls as if I were seeing them for the first time.
Suddenly I was seized with energy and enthusiasm: this picture ought to be over here; the chair ought to be there; the vase should be full of flowers. I sent the servant to buy a bunch of flowers, then put on an apron and went into the kitchen to make a cake with fresh eggs and
milk. While it was in the oven I made a jelly and put it in the fridge. I raced about like a child from the oven to the fridge, the fridge to the vase, the vase to the picture on the wall, and back to the oven.
Sweat poured down my face and ran into my mouth but it somehow had a delicious new taste. My chest rose and fell in staccato, panting breaths like a racehorse, but I’d forgotten about my lungs. I put my hand in the oven and didn’t feel the heat, as if my brain cells had forgotten the pain of burning. My back was twisted from bending down under tables and hunching over work-surfaces as if my backbone didn’t exist. Then the doorbell gave one long ring which echoed strangely and alarmingly in my heart as if I were hearing it for the first time in my life.
He sat in the sitting-room; his deep eyes, still smiling, strayed over the pictures on the walls and his composed, serious features registered curiosity and interest as he looked about him. I sat a little way from him trying to conceal the strange feeling stirring in my insides, suppressing the unfamiliar joy in my heart and trying to ignore the violent trembling of my soul. But how could I, when my eyes, lips and voice all betrayed me? He smiled gently and said, ‘Your house is beautiful — the house of an artist.’
‘I love art,’ I said, ‘but medicine takes up all my time.’
‘Medicine’s an art in itself,’ he said, and looked at me.
What was it in this man’s eyes? A deep, bottomless sea?
‘Would you like some tea?’ I asked him and he nodded slightly, smiling. I left him and went to make the tea. The servant stared at me in doubtful surprise — I was doing something in the kitchen for the first time since I’d come to live there. I took the cake out of the oven and put it on the plate next to the tea and went back in to him. He looked at the newly baked cake — which was obviously still underdone — and smiled. But I couldn’t help laughing and he began to laugh with me, and we laughed as if we’d never stop. This natural unrestrained laughter tore the fine veil of inhibition still separating us, and he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘I’ve never met a woman like you before.’
Memoirs of a Woman Doctor (Middle Eastern Fiction) Page 6
