‘Other people want to use the telephone too.’
She put down the receiver and continued on her way, head bowed. Where had he vanished? Why hadn’t he told her the truth? Had it all been a deception? Had all her feelings been a lie? Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? How long would she roam the streets? What was the point of this futile, circling around like the hands of a clock? Should she not start buying instruments and equipment for the laboratory?
Raising her head, she saw a back that looked like Farid’s. She stood rooted to the spot as though paralysed by an electrical current. But when she saw the man’s face, in profile, she relaxed: it was not Farid. Her muscles seemed flaccid as they do after an electric shock; she felt unable to walk, that her legs were powerless to support her. Nearby was a small café with tables on the pavement, so she sat down on one of the chairs and glanced around her, half-conscious. Everything seemed familiar. Hadn’t she seen it all before? The lame old man distributing lottery tickets? The dark-skinned waiter with the deep scar on his chin? The oblong marble table on which she laid her hand? The little, fat man at the next table drinking coffee, the thin brown lines on the cup? Even the tremor of the man’s hand as he raised the cup to his mouth? All this had happened before. But she had never sat in this café, had never even been in this street … but sitting there … the lame old man, the waiter, the table, everything … had surely happened once before: she didn’t know where or when …
She recalled having once read something about reincarnation and sceptically told herself that perhaps she had lived before in another body.
At that moment, a strange thought strayed into her mind: she would see Farid pass by in the street in front of her. It was more than a thought, an idea, it was a conviction. It even seemed that some hidden force had brought her to this particular café, in this particular street, at this particular moment, precisely in order to see Farid.
She did not believe in hidden spirits. Her mind was scientific and believed only in what could be put to analysis and into a test tube. But this unbidden conviction so dominated her that she trembled with fear, imagining that the moment she saw Farid she would fall to the ground struck by belief, like a blow from an invisible hand.
She tensed the muscles of her face and body, ready for the blow that would fall the moment she saw Farid walking amongst the people. Unblinking, her eyes scoured the faces of passers-by, her breath bated, her heart pounding violently as if to empty out its last drop.
The moment passed; she did not see Farid. She gulped, some calm restored, thanking God that he had not appeared, that she had not been struck down. Then she began to feel anxious that the prediction had not been fulfilled, that she would again fall into the abyss of waiting, of searching. She still hoped she would see him and went on staring into men’s faces, scrutinizing each one. Some shared a feature or movement with Farid, and her eyes would settle momentarily on some similarity as though seeing a real part of Farid.
It was some time before Fouada became certain that her strange conviction was false. Her head and neck muscles slackened in disappointment, but also a faint relief crept upon her, the kind of relief that follows a release from responsibilities and belief.
Five days later, the laboratory was ready. It was Tuesday afternoon and Fouada was walking down Qasr al-Nil Street towards the laboratory carrying a package of test tubes and thin rubber tubing. She paused on the pavement waiting with others for the signal to cross the road.
Waiting for the green light, she looked up at the facade of the building opposite. Windows, balconies, doorways and spaces on the walls were covered with hoardings – bearing the names of doctors, lawyers, accountants, tailors, masseuses and other private professionals. The names, in large black letters on a white background, looked, she thought, like the obituary page in a newspaper. She saw her name – Fouada Khalil Salim – in black letters at the top of one page … and her heart shuddered, as though what she read was the notice of her own death. But she knew she hadn’t died; she was standing at the traffic lights, waiting for them to turn green, she could move her arms. As she swung her arms, one of them struck a man standing beside her with three other men. They were all looking at the front of the building, reading the hoardings. She imagined they were looking at her name in particular and shrank into her coat in embarrassment. It seemed to her that her name was no longer spelt out in letters of black paint but something intimate – like limbs – like the limbs of her body. With the eyes of the men examining her exposed name, she felt, in a confused way, that they were examining her naked body displayed in a window. When the lights changed, she slipped in amongst the other pedestrians to hide, remembering an incident from her first year in primary school. The teacher of religion, his nose thick and curved like the beak of a bird, stood before the class of young girls aged between six and eight expounding the religious teaching which stipulated feminine modesty. That day he said that a female must cover her body because it was private and she must not speak in the presence of strange men because even her voice was private. He also said that her name was private and should not be spoken out loud in front of strange men. He gave an example, saying: ‘When, and only in extreme necessity, I have to mention my wife in the presence of men, I never utter her real name.’
Fouada, the young child, listened without understanding a word of what he said but instead read the teacher’s features as he spoke. When he said the word ‘private’, she didn’t understand what it meant, but she felt from his expression that it meant something ugly and obscene, and she shrank into her chair, grieving for her female self. The day might have passed peacefully, like any other day, but the teacher of religion decided to ask her the meaning of what he had said … She got to her feet trembling with fear and, as she stood, she did not know how, urine involuntarily ran down between her legs. The eyes of all the girls turned to her wet legs; she wanted to cry but was too ashamed.
* * *
Fouada was in her chemical laboratory. Everything around her was new, washed and waiting: the pipes, the test tubes, the equipment, the basins, everything. She went over to the microscope placed on its own table with its own light, and turned the knob, looking down the lens. She saw a clean and empty circle of light and said to herself:
‘Maybe one day, in this circle, I will find the object of my long search.’
She felt a desire to work, so she put on a white overall, fixed the pipes and lit the gas burner. The softly hissing light of the flame was brilliant and she picked up a test tube with metal pincers, washed it carefully so that no speck of dust should remain and put it to the tongue of the flame to dry, then braced herself for the research.
But she remained motionless, holding the empty test tube, staring into it as if she had forgotten the object of the research, feeling cold sweat creep across her forehead. A fundamental question suddenly hit her, a question to which she had always known the answer; but when she actually faced it and began to think, the answer escaped her. The more she thought, the further it escaped. She recalled the day a colleague had read her coffee cup to predict future events. The friend reading the cup suddenly asked her:
‘What’s your mother’s name?’
Startled by the unexpected question Fouada was taken aback. She couldn’t remember her mother’s name. Her friend insisted, and the more she pressed, the further away the name escaped Fouada’s memory till, in the end, the reading had to continue without it. But Fouada remembered the name at the very moment the friend stopped asking.
She continued to stare into the empty test tube. Then she put it back on the rack and began to pace the room, her head bowed. Everything could disappear except that! Everything could escape her except that! For that to vanish was intolerable, unbearable! It was all she had left, the only reason for her to continue living.
She went over to the window and opened it. Cold air struck her face and she felt somewhat refreshed. ‘It’s depression,’ she thought. ‘I shouldn’t think about research whe
n I’m depressed.’ She looked out of the window. The large sign hung from the railing of the balcony. The street was far below and people were going on their way without looking up, paying no attention to her chemical laboratory. It seemed that nobody would be interested in her laboratory, that nobody would knock at her door. She chewed her lips in anxiety and was about to close the window when she noticed a woman standing below and looking up at her window. All at once, she became excited. No doubt the woman was suffering from gout and had come for a urine analysis. She rushed to the outer room, on the door of which was written ‘Waiting Room’, and straightened the chairs. She looked at herself in the long mirror near the door and saw the white overall reaching to above her knees like a hairdresser’s, glanced over her gaping mouth and looked into her eyes, smiling as she whispered to herself:
‘Fouada Khalil Salim, owner of a chemical analysis laboratory. Yes, it’s me.’
She heard the drone of the lift come to a stop, heard its door open and close, heard the clacking of heavy high heels on the tiled floor of the corridor. Fouada waited behind the door for the sound of the bell, but heard nothing. Very quietly, she slid back the peep-hole and saw a woman’s back disappearing through the door of the neighbouring apartment. She read the small copper plaque on the door: ‘Shalabi’s Sport Institute for Slimming and Massage’.
She closed the peep-hole and went back into the inner room on the door of which was written ‘Research and Analysis Room’. She avoided looking at the empty test tubes and began pacing up and down the room, then looked at the time. It was eight. Remembering that today was Tuesday, she threw off the overall, flung it on to a chair, then rushed out.
Last Tuesday he had not come – perhaps for an unavoidable reason? And here was another Tuesday. Would he come today? Would she go to the restaurant and find him sitting at the table? His back towards her, his face towards the Nile? Her heart pounded but inside it was that weight that hardened and contracted like a ball of lead. She would not find him, so why go to the restaurant? She tried to turn and head for home but couldn’t. Involuntarily, her feet made for the restaurant like a wild horse that has thrown its rider and is galloping unrestrained.
She saw the naked table-top, the air whipping it from all sides like a rock in a violent and tempestuous sea. She stood for a moment grave-faced, then left the restaurant with head bowed and made her way home with slow and heavy steps.
* * *
Her mother was in the corner of the living-room praying, back to the door and face to the wall. Fouada stood looking at her. Her bowed back was bent forward, the raised hem of her robe exposed the back of her legs. She knelt on the ground for a few moments, then got to her feet and bent forward again, lifting her robe and uncovering her legs. Fouada saw large, blue veins protruding from the back of her legs like long winding worms and said to herself, ‘A serious heart or artery condition.’ Her mother knelt on the ground, turned her head to the right and whispered something, then looked to the left muttering the same words. Finally, she stood up supporting herself on the sofa, put her feet into her slippers and turned to Fouada standing behind her.
‘In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful!’ she intoned. ‘When did you come in?’
‘Just now,’ Fouada replied, sitting on the sofa and sighing with fatigue. The mother sat down beside her and looking at her said:
‘You seem tired.’
She was just about to say ‘very tired,’ but glancing at her mother’s face and seeing the whites of her large eyes, clearly tinged with a yellowness she had never seen before, said:
‘I’ve been working hard. Are you tired, Mama?’
‘Me, tired?’ said her mother in surprise.
‘Your heart, for example,’ Fouada replied.
‘Why?’ her mother said.
‘I noticed varicose veins in your legs when you were praying,’ she said.
‘What’s the heart got to do with legs?’
‘The blood goes to the legs from the heart,’ she replied.
Her mother waved her hand dismissively.
‘It can go where it likes,’ she said, ‘I don’t feel tired.’
‘Sometimes we don’t feel tired,’ Fouada said, ‘but the illness is hidden in our bodies. It might be as well to do an examination.’
Crossing her legs her mother said:
‘I detest doctors.’
‘You don’t have to go to a doctor,’ Fouada said. ‘I’ll carry out an examination.
‘What examination?’ her mother said in alarm.
‘I’ll take a urine sample and analyse it in my laboratory,’ she replied.
Her mother gave a wry smile and exclaimed:
‘Ah, I understand! You want to carry out an experiment on me!’
Fouada stared at her for a moment, then said:
‘What experiment? I’m offering you a free service.’
‘Thank you very much,’ her mother said, ‘I’m in the best of health and I don’t want to delude myself that I’m ill.’
‘It’s neither a matter of delusion, Mama,’ Fouada said in annoyance, ‘nor of illness.’
‘So what’s the point of analysis then?’
‘Confirming the absence of illness is one thing, analysis is something else,’ she replied.
She fell silent for a moment, then more quietly said:
‘Analysis in itself is an art which I take pleasure in performing.’
Her mother’s upper lip curled in derision:
‘What’s the art or pleasure in analysing urine?’
As if talking to herself, Fouada replied:
‘It’s work that relies on the senses, just like art.’ ‘What senses?’ asked her mother.
‘Smell, touch, sight, taste…’ Fouada said.
‘Taste?’ her mother exclaimed, staring at her daughter for a moment.
‘It seems to me you know nothing about these analyses!’ she said.
Fouada looked at her mother and saw a strange look in her eyes, like that in her wedding photograph, a hard, suspicious look, bitterly mistrustful of whoever was before her. She felt the blood rush to her head and found herself saying:
‘I know why you refuse. You refuse because you don’t believe in analysis.’
Without meaning to, she raised her voice and shouted:
‘You don’t believe that I can do anything. That was always your opinion of me, that was always your opinion of father…’
Her mother’s mouth fell open in surprise. ‘What are you saying?’
Raising her voice even louder, she replied:
‘No, you don’t believe in me. That’s a fact which you’ve always tried to hide from me.’
Her mother gazed at her in utter astonishment and in a feeble voice said:
‘And why shouldn’t I believe in you…?’
‘Because I’m your daughter,’ Fouada shouted. ‘People never appreciate the things that they have simply because they have them.’
Fouada lowered her head, holding it in her hands as if she had a bad headache. The mother kept staring at her, silent and apprehensive.
‘Who told you that I don’t believe in you, daughter?’ she said sadly. ‘If only you knew how I felt when I saw you for the first time after you were born. You lay beside me like a little angel, breathing quietly and looking around in wonder with your small shining eyes. I picked you up, lifted you to show you to your father and said to him: “Just look at her, Khalil.” Your father glanced at you briefly, then said angrily: “It’s a girl.” Raising you up to his face, I said to him: “She’ll be a great woman, Khalil. Look at her eyes! Kiss her, Khalil! Kiss her!” I held you so that your face almost touched his, but he didn’t kiss you, just turned away and left us.’
The mother wiped away a tear from her eye on her sleeve, and continued:
‘That night I hated him more than ever. I stayed awake the whole night looking at your tiny face as you slept. Whenever I put my finger in your hand, you wrapped your little fingers around
it and held on tightly. I cried till daybreak. I don’t know, daughter, what illness I had but my temperature suddenly rose and I fainted … when I came round, I found I’d been taken to hospital where they removed my womb and I became sterile.’
She took a handkerchief from the pocket of her galabeya to wipe away the tears which ran down her face, and said:
‘You were the only thing I had in my life. I used to go into your room when you were up at night studying and say to you…’
She was weeping and put the handkerchief to her eyes for a moment, then lifted it and said:
‘Have you forgotten, Fouada?’
Fouada was fighting off a sharp pain in the side of her head and was silent and distracted, as if half-asleep.
‘I haven’t forgotten, Mama,’ she said faintly.
Gently, her mother asked:
‘What did I used to say to you, Fouada?’
‘You used to tell me that you believed that I would succeed and do better than all my friends…’
Her mother’s dry lips parted in a weak smile and she said:
‘You see? I always believed in you.’
‘You only imagined I was better than all the other girls.’
‘I didn’t only imagine it,’ said her mother with conviction. ‘I was sure of it.’
Fouada looked into her mother’s eyes and said: ‘Why were you so sure?’
‘Just like that, for no reason…’ she responded quickly.
Fouada tried to read the expression in her mother’s eyes so as to understand, to discover the secret of that conviction which lay in them, but she saw nothing. In a flash, she felt her irritation grow into anger and snapped at her mother:
‘That conviction ruined my life…!’
‘What…!’ her mother exclaimed in astonishment.
Without thinking and as if her words were dictated by someone from the distant past, she said:
‘That conviction of yours haunted me like a ghost. It weighed me down. I only passed my exams…’
God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels Page 22
