God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels (19 page)

He breathed in the air blowing down between the river waters and the fields lying alongside, trying to detect the familiar odour of dust sprayed with muddy water from the nearby stream, but his nose failed to catch anything that smelt
like it. He threw a searching glance in the same direction but nowhere could he find anything to indicate that he was near the approaches to Kafr El Teen.

He felt that the distance which lay before him might take long hours, or even days of walking. His lids closed over his eyes by a will stronger than his own. When they opened again, after a little while, he found the sun high up in the sky. A few moments went by before he realized that he had slept two days and two nights. He placed his palms flat on the ground and lifted his body upright. The skin of his palms was thick and coarse, and over it was the imprint of the groove made by his rifle. When he had paraded, or stood at attention or held the rifle to his shoulder and took aim it had rested in the groove made by long years of work with the hoe and dug it even deeper than before. When he stood up his body was like a bamboo cane, tall and thin, but his feet were swollen. Pus and blood oozed from the cracks in their skin, and the cracks had dark, muddy edges from miles and miles of walking. The burning disc of the sun was straight above his head and poured its rays down on him, and under the soles of his feet the ground was like hot needles. He could no longer tell where he was, for the Suez Canal was a strip of water and the hot needles under his feet was the silica sand of the retreat from Sinai cutting into his tortured skin.

His breath came in gasps, and before his eyes danced red circles. He closed his eyes to arrest the whirling movement.
Suddenly there was an explosion. He knew the sound so well. It was terrifying like thunder, or an earthquake, or both, as though the sky and earth had collided. In less than a second he was lying curled up on the ground, with his chin tucked in, and his head held tightly protected under his arms. Then he crawled quickly over the ground looking for a ditch, or a hole, or a hollow between two sand dunes. There he lay on his belly perfectly still like a man who had died or was frozen.

The sound faded away and was replaced by a silence even deeper than before. He opened his eyes slowly, shooting frightened glances at the sky, looking for something flying high up. But there was nothing. No plane, or burning flame, no smoke, or cloudy greyness. Just the fiery disc of the sun burning down from above. His eyes dropped down from the sky and looked around, and when they ran over the river and the fields he realized he was no longer in the desert. The war was over, and he was returning home on foot to Kafr El Teen. The next moment he noticed that a group of children were gathered around him. They had seen him leap suddenly down the slope of the bank into the ditch. Behind swarms of flies their eyes were opened wide with surprise. He staggered away from them on his swollen feet. He could hear them laughing behind him. A shrill voice cried out, ‘There goes the idiot.' Immediately the other children joined in and chanted in one voice, ‘There goes the idiot.' Then they started to throw stones at him.

When he reached the outer limits of Kafr El Teen the sun had dropped behind the treetops on the other side of the river Nile. The dark night crept slowly over the low mud huts, and the lines of buffalo and cows slouched along the river bank on their way back home. Groups of peasants walked wearily behind, their backs bent by unceasing toil, their feet worn out from the daily coming and going.

Zakeya was already home. The buffalo was in the stable, while she squatted as usual near the door on the dusty threshold of her house with her back to the wall. She neither moved nor spoke. She did not even move her hand or nod her head. Her large black eyes stared into the night. It made no difference to her whether she kept awake or dozed, whether her eyes remained open or closed, for the night was always like a dark cloak. She did not know when she slept, or when she awoke, she did not know whether what she saw was real, or just another dream, or ghost. She could not tell whether the man who emerged in front of her at that moment was her brother Kafrawi or her son Galal. Her son Galal was not at all like her brother Kafrawi. The last image she had of him was the day they took him away to the army. She watched him walk away between two men. He was young then, and strong, and he walked upright with his eyes fixed on something he could see straight ahead. But the last image she had of Kafrawi was the day on which they had taken him away to gaol. He walked between two men, old-looking and bent, with his eyes on the ground. Yet now she did
not know who of the two suddenly appeared before her eyes. The face was that of Galal, but the broken look in his eyes and the back which bent was without a doubt Kafrawi's.

She heard a voice like Galal's whisper in the dark. It sounded weak and spent. ‘Mother… don't you recognize me? It's Galal. I'm back from Sinai.'

She continued to stare at him with her black eyes. She could not tell whether they were open or closed, whether this was real or a dream. She stretched out her hand to touch him. Whenever she used to grope for him in the night, his face would seem to fade away, and her fingers would clutch at a dark nothingness. But this time what she held was a hand of flesh and blood, a big warm hand just like Galal's. She brought it close to her face. It had the same smell as her breast, the same smell as her milk before it dried up. It was the smell of his hand, there was no doubt about that.

‘My son, Galal, it's you!' she whispered in a weak, husky voice burying her face in his hand.

‘Yes, mother, it's Galal,' he said, bowing his head. She touched his head and neck, his shoulders and his arms, his legs and his feet with her big rough hands. She was making sure that there was no wound, no part missing, making sure he was whole.

‘Are you all right, my son?' she whispered.

‘Yes, mother,' he said. ‘I'm all right. And you? Are you well, mother?'

‘Yes, my son. I'm well.'

‘But you're not the same as you were when I left you,' he said, looking at her with anxious eyes.

‘That's four years ago. It's time, son,' she said. ‘Time, and you too, Galal, you are not the same.'

‘It's nothing,' he said. ‘I'm tired from the long distance I walked. It was very long. I need to rest.'

He lay down next to her on the dust-covered ground. She rubbed his feet in warm water and salt, then wrapped them in her shawl. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling of the mud hut. She squatted next to him, and her lips were tightly closed. At one moment she parted them slightly as though about to tell him the story of what had happened, but she closed them again and kept silent. But after a while she heard him ask, ‘How is my uncle, Kafrawi?'

She was silent for a long moment before she said, ‘He is well.'

‘And Nefissa? And Zeinab?'

She hesitated for a moment, then in an almost inaudible voice said, ‘They are well. Do you wish to eat something? You probably haven't put anything in your mouth for days.'

She got up and went to fetch the basket of bread, a piece of old cheese, and salted pickles. Then walking towards the door she said, ‘I will go to buy you a piece of sesame sweet from the shop of Haj Ismail.'

He realized she was hiding something from him and looked at her with an increased anxiety. ‘I do not want to eat. Come, sit here and tell me what's been happening. You're hiding something. You're not the same as when I left you.'

Her eyes avoided his, staring at something in the dark. She was silent for some time, then he heard her whisper, ‘Nefissa has run away.'

There was another long silence as heavy and as oppressive as the surrounding darkness lying over the village. Once again her lips parted to let out the same whisper. ‘And Kafrawi is in gaol.'

This time she closed her lips as though she intended never to open them again. After a long moment she heard him ask in a low voice which rose from somewhere hidden deep in the dark, ‘And Zeinab?'

His voice wavered when he pronounced her name, wavered with a hesitation, with wanting to ask and fearing the answer, with wanting to know and afraid of what would be revealed. A strange feeling had come over him the moment he saw her face, a feeling that something terrible had happened while he was far away. Kafrawi was his uncle, and Nefissa his cousin. But Zeinab had always meant something different to him. Every time he heard her voice calling out to her Aunt Zakeya something within him quivered. When their eyes met he would feel his legs go weak under him, as though his muscles had tired suddenly and needed rest. He longed to lay
his head on her breast and close his eyes. If he got a glimpse of her bare legs as she sat with his mother in front of the oven, he would be seized with a strong desire to carry her away from under the watchful eyes to where he could close a door on her and hold her in his arms.

His mother could feel what was going on in him, sense his voice tremble when he called out to Zeinab, notice how his eyes searched for the girl when she was out in the fields. She could feel him burn with an obscure desire when he heard her voice before she came into the house, and watched the warm blood slowly suffuse his dark face when the girl squatted down beside her.

One night when he lay close to her on the mat she heard a stifled groan. She whispered in the dark, ‘What's wrong with you, Galal?'

‘I want Zeinab my cousin,' he replied without opening his eyes.

‘We will marry her to you, my son, when you come back from the army,' she said, patting him on the head like a child.

But now Zakeya stayed silent. He raised his bowed head and looked at her in the dark, and although he could not see her face, he sensed her eyes staring at the iron gate which rose up in the night some distance away from their house.

He asked her again, this time trying hard to conceal the trembling in his voice. ‘And Zeinab? What did she do once her father and her sister were no longer in the house?'

‘She started to work in the Mayor's house.'

He could not prevent his voice from trembling as he asked, ‘What does she do?'

‘She washes, and sweeps and cleans the house.'

His whole body started to shiver as he asked again, ‘And where does she spend the night?'

‘She spends it here with me, my son. She's asleep now, on top of the oven.'

He swallowed quickly. The shiver in his body gradually subsided. He rested his hands on the
floor,
then paused for a moment before getting up. ‘Have you got a clean
galabeya
for me, mother?'

‘Yes my son. We've kept the new
galabeya
you had made before leaving for the army.'

He felt as though he was coming back to life. ‘Heat me some water. I want to take a bath,' he said.

XVII

As soon as the Chief of the Village Guard entered the room where the Mayor was sitting he realized at once why he had sent for him. Since the day when Galal had married Zeinab, Sheikh Zahran had been expecting this moment to come. He had voiced his fears to Haj Ismail but the village barber tried to set his mind at rest. ‘Don't worry, Sheikh Zahran. Galal has come back from the war a broken man, and he won't dare defy the Mayor. As a matter of fact, he should feel proud that his wife is working for the most important man in our village.'

‘You don't know Galal as well as I know him,' said Sheikh Zahran. ‘He's one of those stupid men who wax jealous over their wives. And ever since the girl was a child, he's been in love with her.'

‘Since he's stupid, he won't be assailed by doubts about anything. It's only intelligent people who wonder about things,' commented Haj Ismail.

‘But he's refused to send his wife to the Mayor's house,' said Sheikh Zahran.

‘Stupid people like him prefer to eat dry bread and salt, rather than send their wives to work as servants in a house. They think a servant's work is shameful.'

‘But this is not just any house! It's the Mayor's house,' objected Sheikh Zahran.

‘Stupid people don't differentiate between houses, Sheikh Zahran. To them a house is a house.'

‘What do we do if he stops Zeinab from going?'

‘Don't start worrying right from now,' said the village barber. ‘Maybe the Mayor will have had enough of her by then, and won't want her to go to him any more. You know he gets bored very quickly, and none of these girls has lasted with him very long.'

But the fears of Sheikh Zahran proved to be justified, and the day came when the Mayor said to him, in a voice which brooked no discussion, ‘Go, and come back with Zeinab.'

So Sheikh Zahran and Haj Ismail sat in front of the shop smoking the water-jar pipe while they pondered over the problem.

‘You don't know Galal like I do,' kept repeating Sheikh Zahran. ‘It's true he's an idiot just like the rest of these village men in Kafr El Teen. But we can't be sure that he hasn't learnt a few things since he joined the army, and went to Misr. Don't forget he's lived with soldiers all these years. I doubt if he can be fooled with amulets any more. We have to think of something else from now on.'

‘Men in this village are cowards, but they have no shame. Put fear in his heart, Sheikh Zahran. You know how to do that.'

‘That's true. But with men like Galal, I prefer to do things without using force. You don't know him well enough. He's not like Kafrawi, and for all you know, he could start creating a lot of problems in the village. Things are getting worse, and people have started to open their eyes much more than before. Prices are rising all the time and the peasants owe more and more taxes to the government. The Mayor is no longer as popular as he was at one time.'

‘But you've tried convincing him before and failed,' said Haj Ismail. ‘Now you have no choice but to use a bit of force.'

Sheikh Zahran was silent for a long time as though lost in thought. Haj Ismail waited patiently for a while, but then, unable to contain himself any more, he asked, ‘What are you thinking of, Sheikh Zahran?'