Zeinat sat on the pavement surrounded by stray cats, dogs, and children. Their eyes glimmered as they devoured the leftovers. They chewed the remains of meat and bones with their strong teeth, and munched the dry bones and bread. She called one of the children Nessim, like her son. Her son’s eyes twinkled and his large pupils sparkled like the sun when she offered him a glass of fresh milk and an egg fried in butter. The gleam intensified when he smelled the plate. He was eight then, going to school and shouting with other demonstrators, “Down with injustice, long live freedom”.
They called her “mother” and carried her name Zeinat. According to religious and secular laws, a mother’s name brought disgrace to her children. The little kittens called her Zeinat, and their eyes sparkled when they smiled. A little girl with large kitten eyes filled with wonder and joy was called Zeina Bint Zeinat. Her two black pupils were surrounded by a blue circle and snow whiteness all around. She woke up with the lark singing, “Mum is coming back, coming soon, coming with a gift ...”
Her mother left her on the pavement, withdrew her hands from the little fingers and whispered, “I’m coming back, dear child, coming back, coming back. Mum is coming back, coming soon ...”
Bodour struggled to open her eyes and arise from sleep. She saw Nanny Zeinat sitting beside her on the wooden bench, singing to her child, “Mum is coming back, coming soon, coming with a gift ...”
The sound of her singing was drowned by the thousands, millions of voices coming from afar, all singing the mother song. The singing rose to shake the earth and sky.
“Is that the sound of thunder, Nanny Zeinat?”
“No, Miss Bodour. It’s demonstrations. Get out of bed. Everybody is wide awake, Naim, Nessim, Badreya, Mohamed, Mageeda, Safi, Mariam, and Zeina. Everybody. Even the newborn kittens, Miss Bodour, are demonstrating and saying, ‘Long live justice’.”
“Can cats speak, Nanny Zeinat?”
“Yes, child. It’s a different world now, and the blind kittens have opened their eyes and can speak.”
Bodour stretched her limbs and reached under the bench for her suitcase. It was a sturdy suitcase made of expensive leather. It had been bulging with the pages of the novel, hundreds of papers written with blood, tears, sweat, and exhaustion. Hundreds of evenings and nights were spent writing it. The suitcase had been pregnant with the papers when she placed it under the wooden bench before she fell asleep. She now felt its roundness, pressed on it with her palm, and reached down to the bottom. Between the upper lid and the bottom there was absolutely nothing, only a terrifying emptiness like death. She reached again into the emptiness and almost fainted. She tried to scream out, “My novel has been stolen. Oh my God, it has been stolen while I was asleep!”
Her voice came out raucous, hoarse as though in a dream. People gathered around her asking, “Who has stolen it, ma’am?”
“I don’t know. It was in the suitcase. They took the novel from the suitcase while I was sleeping.”
“But who stole it, ma’am?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the police. I don’t really know. Perhaps the thieves.”
“You mean the police are the thieves?”
“Perhaps somebody else other than the police and the thieves.”
“Somebody else? Do you know his name? Do you know what he looks like?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. My novel is gone, people. My life’s work is all gone.”
Bodour turned around, completely stupefied. The sun set and the darkness fell while she was still turning, surveying the earth and the sky with her open eyes in the darkness. She crawled on the pavement, searching, reaching with her hand under the wooden bench on the Nile front, feeling the pebbles and the stones, sifting the sand with her hands. The dust leaked through her fingers like water seeping out of a sieve, leaving nothing in her hands. She tripped over a bundle wrapped in a newspaper. She opened the bundle but found nothing but her husband’s long column, squirming like a snake, covered with mud and the stools of stray dogs. She wore her glasses and with difficulty managed to read the writing in the faint light:
On behalf of two million illegitimate children, a number of members of parliament who are also mothers presented a new legislation proposal to the People’s Assembly and the Consultative Council which will allow children with unknown fathers to carry the names of their mothers. The new legislation also called for the abolition of the words ‘illegitimate’ and ‘children of sin’ from dictionaries, and of awarding the mother’s name the same honor as that of the father. This proposal, dear readers, was rejected wholly and completely by the two esteemed chambers. It was rejected by women and men alike because it encourages moral disintegration and sexual freedom for women. The women presenting this proposal have been prosecuted on charges of violating the rules of our religion and breaching public order. But out of sympathy for the poor children who number more than two million, the governmental Higher Committee for the Care of Motherhood and Children presented another bill to the two chambers allowing illegitimate children to carry the names of any man. This man will be regarded as a virtual father to the child. The proposal only aims at safeguarding the rights of the poor innocent children. This bill has received the approval of the esteemed al-Azhar and the government. But the members of the two esteemed councils are currently examining the various legislative aspects, in view of the moral dangers involved in this type of legislation.
The committee had earlier presented a bill containing three articles:
Prosecuting men when there is proof of infidelity.
It is illegal for husbands to demand sexual relations by force.
A mother has the right to give her name to her child if the father is unknown.
Al-Azhar, however, refused this bill with its three articles wholesale, indicating that it contravenes the values of our Islamic society and our cultural heritage and traditions. It contradicts science and faith, because science affirms that justice is not absolute but relative and subject to the changing conditions of place and time. Nothing, in fact, is perfect or absolute except our faith in God Almighty.
Signed: Zakariah al-Khartiti
[email protected]
Bodour al-Damhiri was not dead yet. She lived the last days of her life with Nanny Zeinat in her basement room. She started writing a new novel. But her life was hard and didn’t make it easy for her to write. She wasn’t used to sleeping in an uncomfortable wooden bed and couldn’t sit on the ground. She also couldn’t sleep in a room swarming with cockroaches. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around her ears all the time. Her bedroom in Garden City seemed to her like a lost and distant paradise.
She opened the paper one morning and read a news headline: “The new novel by the great writer Zakariah al-Khartiti is now on sale at the bookshop of the great newspaper on Tahrir Street. Reserve your copy now.”
Bodour got up and ran to the street. She kept running, only stopping to catch her breath, and then continued running again. She saw the novel carrying the name of her husband. It was the same novel she had written with her own blood, sweat, and sleepless nights. The same novel, every word, every letter, every comma, every full stop, every dash. Her own novel was published everywhere under the name of the great writer, Zakariah al-Khartiti.
Bodour lay on the pavement, her body stretching under the blazing sun and the freezing cold. Her eyelids were half closed and her chest moved neither up nor down. Nothing stirred except her light cotton dress, moved by the breeze which lifted it up a little from the body lying on the pavement. Around her the street children sang, “Mum is coming back, coming soon, coming with a gift ...”
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Zeina Page 25
