This ‘how’ is what preoccupies Fouada – how to voice the desire and creativity, with what language and in what social circumstances? What is the power and weakness in her femininity and the way that she expresses it? What is the meaning of respect and dignity? These are all questions that Fouada cannot find answers to. The novel goes some way to encourage a journey into these thorny and demanding paths – through its gruelling description of pain and loss, confusion and turmoil. Yet it also seeks to turn searching into a poetic endeavour – a searching that reconfigures the questions as it seeks the answers.
Anastasia Valassopoulos
University of Manchester
PART ONE
That morning as she opened her eyes she felt a strange depression creeping in her veins; stinging ants seemed to be streaming into her heart, where they coagulated like a clot of blood and rubbed against the wall of her heart with the rise and fall of her chest whenever she sneezed, coughed or took a deep breath.
She rubbed her eyes, not understanding the reason for this depression. The sun was as bright as usual, its glowing rays penetrating the window-pane fell onto the wardrobe mirror, throwing a red flame onto the white walls. The leaves of the eucalyptus tree shimmered and quivered like shoals of little fish, and the wardrobe, clothes-stand, shelf – everything was in its usual place.
She threw back the covers, jumping up, and went straight to the mirror. Why did she look at her face the moment she woke up? She didn’t know, only that she wanted to assure herself that nothing untoward had happened to her as she slept … that no white speck had perhaps crept from the white of her eye to invade the black pupil; that no spot had appeared on the tip of her nose.
In the mirror was the same face that she saw every day: brown skin, the colour of milky cocoa; a wide brow on which hung a lock of curly, black hair; green eyes each containing a small black kernel; a long straight nose, and a mouth.
She looked quickly away from her mouth. She hated it, for it was her mouth that spoiled the shape of her face, that ugly involuntary gap as though her lips should have grown more, or her jawbones less. Whether the one or the other, her lips did not close easily, leaving a permanent gap through which showed prominent white teeth.
She pursed her lips and began to look at her eyes as she always did when trying to ignore her mouth. Her eyes had something in them, something that distinguished her from other women, as Farid used to say.
The name Farid reverberated in her head. The veil of sleep was suddenly lifted; she remembered with absolute clarity and absolute certainty what had happened the previous evening. Then she understood the reason for the depression that weighed on her heart: Farid had not kept their date last night.
As she turned from the mirror, the telephone on the shelf by the bed caught her eye. She hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the bed and sat down, staring hard at the phone. She put a finger in the dial to turn the five numbers, then withdrew her hand and laid it beside her on the bed. How could she call him when he had broken their date without apology? Had he broken it on purpose? Was it possible that he did not want to see her? That his love had ended? Had ended as everything ended, with or without reason? And since it had ended, what was the use of knowing why? Besides, was it possible for her to know the reason? She didn’t even know why it had started. He used to say that he saw something in her eyes, something he did not see in the eyes of other women, something that distinguished her from other women.
She stood up and walked back to the mirror and again looked into her eyes, examining them closely, searching for that something, and she saw two wide, white ovals in which floated two green discs, a small, black kernel in the centre of each. Eyes like any others, like those of a cow or a slaughtered rabbit!
Where was that something Farid saw? Which she herself had seen? Had seen more than once, inside those two green circles, something that shone out of them distinct and animated, something with a life of its own. Had it gone? How? She remembered neither how it had gone nor if it was from those two green circles it had appeared. Perhaps it had appeared from somewhere else? from her nose, from her mouth? No, not from her mouth, not from that ugly gap …
There was nothing there. She saw nothing appear from any of them. Farid had lied. Why? He lied like anyone else. What was so strange about that? Only Farid was not anyone. He was different, different from others. How? She didn’t know exactly. But there was something in his eyes that made her feel he was different. Yes, something in his eyes that she did not see in the eyes of other men, something that shone from his brown eyes, distinct and animated like something alive. What was it? She didn’t remember, didn’t know, but she had seen it, yes, she had seen it.
She pointed a finger at her eyes, hitting the mirror. She gave a start and looked at the clock. It was eight. Quickly, she turned from the mirror; it was time to go to the Ministry.
In front of the wardrobe she paused again, for the word ‘Ministry’ had entered her nose with the very air, like a splinter of guilt. She tried to sneeze it out, but, as she breathed, the air thrust it down into her chest to lodge in the triangle beneath her ribs, or, more exactly, the aperture that opened into her stomach.
She knew it would lodge there, graze in that fertile field, eating, drinking and swelling. Yes, it swelled every day and pressed its sharpness into her stomach, which often tried to eject it, contracting and relaxing its muscles to rid itself of all that lay deep inside. But the barb remained, stabbing the wall of her stomach like a needle, clinging with its teeth, like a tapeworm.
She went to the bathroom, feeling a chronic pain under her ribs; wanted to vomit, but couldn’t. She leaned her head against the wall. She was ill, a real illness, not faked. She could not go to the Ministry.
Energy spread through her slender body and she turned back to the bed, jumping on to it and pulling up the cover. She might have closed her eyes and slept, but it occurred to her that she must telephone the head of department and excuse her absence.
She pulled the telephone towards her, lifted the receiver, then immediately replaced it, remembering that she had used up all her sick-leave. No illness could excuse her, not even death could give her a holiday. She might claim that every member of her family, one after the other, had died and that she alone remained alive; she was still in her thirties and the head of department would not readily believe the news of her death.
Once again, she dragged her sluggish body from the bed, pressing her fingers into her stomach. She shot a glance at the mirror as she passed, and then dressed. She went towards the door and, opening it, heard her mother’s faint voice from the kitchen:
‘Aren’t you having any tea?’
‘I don’t have time.’
She went out, shutting the door behind her. In the crowded street her eyes were turned within herself and she saw nothing. She might have walked into somebody or a wall, but her feet moved of their own accord with perfect knowledge, stepping up onto and down from the pavement, avoiding a hole, sidestepping a pile of bricks, as if they had eyes.
They came to a standstill at the bus stop. The dense crowd of bodies jostled her; someone trod on her foot and almost crushed it, but she felt only a pressure on her shoe. She was aware that she was inside the bus only by the vibrations through her body and that curious smell. She didn’t know exactly what it was; it was strange; she didn’t know where it came from for it did not have a single source, neither the pits under arms nor the dark cavity of mouths nor the flakes of skin that clung to greasy hair.
Something sharp was pressing into her shoulder. She had sensed it before but ignored it since there were many pressures on her from all sides, so why particularly care about her shoulder? But an insistent voice hammered into her ear, like a nail: ‘Tickets’. A light rain of spray hit her face. She opened her bag with trembling fingers, for the man glowered at her like a policeman apprehending a thief, muttering something about ‘responsibility’ and ‘conscience’.
She felt her face flush
, not because of those two words – alone and out of context they were meaningless – but all eyes were turned towards her, in each a strange look as if in their hearts they too felt accused. But because they knew they would not be punished they were full of secret malice towards the one on whom punishment had fallen.
But she stood accused and as long as she did so she had relinquished all right to respect. Men’s eyes took possession of her body the way they appropriated those of prostitutes. Something pushed her. She shrank into her coat, burying her head in its wide collar. Her feet barely touched the ground, delivering her body to the heaving wave of bodies heading for the door. For a fleeting moment she was conscious of violent pressure, like a leaf or a butterfly crushed between books. Suddenly, the pressure relaxed and her body flew through the air like a feather, then hit the ground like a rock.
She got up and brushed the dust from her coat. Looking around, she was delighted to find she was in a place she had never seen before. It seemed that in the moment her body had flown through the air she’d been transported to another world. But her delight quickly faded, for she saw, only a few steps away, the rusty iron railing. The entrenched barb twisted in the wall of her stomach. She opened her mouth to eject it, but hot, dry air thrust in between her lips. A small tear congealed in the corner of her right eye, scratching like a grain of sand.
Looking up and through the iron bars, she saw the black building spattered with yellow blotches that spoiled its original colour. She knew almost certainly that there was a connection between her deep-seated desire to retch and this building, for the feeling always crept upon her whenever she remembered it and grew steadily the nearer she was to it, reaching its climax when she saw it face to face.
She paused in front of the iron gateway, looking around, reluctant to enter. If she delayed for a moment, who knew? Perhaps at that very moment a bomb would descend on the hated building; or someone might drop a lighted cigarette butt in the file store; or the worn-out pump in the head of department’s chest would stutter and he would have a heart attack!
But the moment passed and nothing happened. She placed one foot in the gateway, leaving the other in the street. Who knew what might happen from moment to moment? Many things happen from one moment to another. Thousands die, thousands are born, volcanoes erupt, earthquakes bury cities. Many things in life happen from one moment to the next, more than people imagine, for people imagine only what they know, what they understand. Who knows what it means for a rocket to be fired from one moment to another? a rocket with a nuclear warhead? What might be buried if it fell from the sky? Do people know that the sky is jewelled with millions of stars bigger, much bigger, than the earth? That if one of these suspended jewels fell to the earth it would consume it completely? Or would this ugly building alone escape? Would the head of department remain suspended in space above his office chair, licking his fingertips and carefully turning over the attendance register? Such a thing was inconceivable. She smiled, saying to herself, yes of course, it’s inconceivable. But her smile froze when she found that – flesh and blood and fully conscious – she had entered the courtyard of the Ministry.
She stopped, tall and slender, staring wildly, in panic, as if her feet had led her to a minefield. Then she sensed some sudden movement in the courtyard. A sleek, black car with a red interior swished across the courtyard as though through water; she was aware that like a huge whale it slid to a stop before the white marble stairs. On each side of these stairs stood a row of statues, each clad in a yellow uniform.
From where had these statues come in that brief moment? Maybe they had always been there and she’d never noticed? There were many things she didn’t notice even though they were there. Had she, for example, ever noticed those marble stairs of peerless white?
Her eyes widened in amazement when one of the statues left its place and stepped towards the car. Not stepped in the real sense but twitched and shuddered like a robot, its upper half folded over its lower half as it stretched out a long, stiff arm and opened the car door…
She blinked to expel the grain of sand in the corner of’ her right eye, but instead it pressed deeper. Through bloodshot eyes, she strained to see what might emerge from the car. First she saw the pointed, black tip of a man’s shoe, attached to a short, thin grey-clad leg, then a large, white, conical head with a small, smooth patch in the centre, reflecting the sunlight like a mirror; square, grey shoulders emerged next, followed by the second, short, thin leg … This body, emerging limb by limb, reminded her of a birth she had seen when she was a child. The car still stood, its curved black roof silhouetted against the entrance to the white marble stairs.
She saw the body laboriously climb the stairs. On each step, it paused, as if to catch its breath, and jerked its neck back. The large head swayed as if it would fall, but it remained securely attached to the neck.
At times it seemed to her as if she were watching this body through a diminishing lens, seeing it as the Tom Thumb of her grandmother’s stories. At other times when, as now, she was distracted, this body’s reality overpowered her distraction, revealing it as the under-secretary at the biochemistry ministry where she was an employee.
The spacious lobby swallowed him, the car slid away, the statues relaxed and loosened. They walked with flexible legs to the wooden bench by the stairs and sat down. As she passed, they stared at her, blankly, mouths half-open and eyes half-closed. One stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth, another fetched a plate of brown beans from beneath the bench.
She crossed the open courtyard and went to the back of the black building, which was like the back of anything, dirtier, coarser, rougher. She paused before the small wooden door that was covered by a mess of sooty shapes including human finger and hand prints and the letters of fragmented words. She saw the word ‘vot…’ but dirt had erased the rest.
She walked down the dingy, narrow corridor and climbed the stairs like an automaton; her practised feet jumped over the missing step, her body avoided the iron bar that protruded from the banisters, she reached the fourth floor and turned right to cross the long passageway. She caught the stale smell of urine and turned her head away from the lavatory door; beside it was the door into her office.
She walked over to her desk and sat down. Opening the drawer she took a small cloth and wiped off the dust so that its black skin showed. The skin was torn in places, revealing the desk’s white body beneath. She replaced the cloth, looked up and saw three other desks crowded side by side; three mummified heads jutted out above them…
The urine smell lingered in her nose but now, added to it, was another: that of a stale, unaired bedroom. She got up to open the window, but a coarse voice – more like the grunt of a sick animal – said: ‘It’s cold. Don’t open it!’
She returned to her desk, took out a large file and examined the thick outer cover. On it in her own handwriting on a small, white label were the words ‘Biochemical Research’. The letters were written with care and elegance, each etched in ink; she recalled how she had pressed the pen on each letter. The pen had been new, the inkpot too, and she could still remember the smell of the ink. Yes, though it was six years ago, she still remembered that smell and the curve of her fingers as she pressed out the letters. She had signed the acceptance for the new job in the biochemical research department and her fingers had trembled as she wrote her name on the official document, the first time she had put her name to an official document, the first time her signature had had an official value.
She opened the file’s cover, revealing its yellow interior. Attached to its centre was a thin metal strip from which hung a white sheet of paper with not a single line on it. She closed the file and returned it to the drawer, then raised her head to the sky, but her eyes were stopped by the ceiling. She got up and went to the window to look at the sky through the dirty glass.
Something about the sky relaxed her, perhaps its unfathomable spaciousness, perhaps its deep, steady blue; or perhaps because the sky remin
ded her of Farid.
She didn’t know what connected the sky and Farid but she knew there was a connection; maybe because the sky was always there when Farid was or because it was also there when he was absent? Farid had not come last night. It was the first time he had broken a date. He had not telephoned or apologized. What had happened?
The sky, silent and still, seemed as if in collusion with him. The white clouds continued to drift, unconcerned, and the tree tops were lifted above the distant dark buildings.
Farid was absent for a reason. Everything in life happens for a reason. Things may seem to happen without reason, but sooner or later a reason becomes apparent. But what was the reason? Had there been an accident or an illness or the death of someone close? Or maybe something else? She drummed her fingers on the window-pane. Yes, maybe there was something else – something that Farid wanted to hide. He used to hide things, he hid papers in the drawer of his desk, and sometimes he would close the door when speaking on the telephone.
Such things were normal and unremarkable. Everyone has secrets. Old love letters, unpaid bills, rental contracts on plots of land in the country, a picture of one’s mother in a galabeya* and wooden clogs, or of oneself as a child wearing a tarbush† with the tassel missing. Yes, there were always things to hide in a drawer, things one did not always need. Putting them into a locked drawer at the bottom of the desk was blameless. But the long telephone conversations behind closed doors … how to explain them?
She ground the heel of her shoe into the floor and it stuck in a jagged hole in the wood. She tugged to get it out and her shoe came off. She bent down to release the heel, looking around, but the three bowed heads had moved only slightly. She looked at the clock. It was half past ten – three and a half hours before she could leave this graveyard. Sitting down at her desk for a moment, she looked again at the clock; the thin hands had stuck. Tucking her bag under her arm, she got up and strode out.
God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels Page 17
