God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels (42 page)

This sort of kick with the hard snout of a boot did not carry the same force every time, though, for I used to see Hamido clambering to his feet afterwards and running to join his rank. But today was the feast-day. And the big chief – his master – was to attend the celebrations in person, not through a delegate, as he usually did. Naturally, any mistake whatsoever – even a slight misstep – would be unforgivable. On this particular day, a slip of the foot was not a mere slip of the foot, but rather was immediately transformed into something else, something far more serious. A misstep would distort the rank. And when one rank gets out of order, naturally the others become misshapen too. And this spells disaster right through.

Thus, everything went awry, becoming blurred and jumbled before Hamido's eyes. This was due not only to a deficiency in his powers of observation, but also to a lack of time. For, on such an important day as this, time is limited indeed, and the pace of life quickens to become a series of gasps. No one is able to breathe naturally, for everyone must gasp for breath if things are to remain as they should.

Like everyone else, then, Hamido panted, and as he did so a certain eye caught sight of him. Somewhere in the vicinity, there is always an eye which takes notice of whatever is going on. Observing things, staring with uninhibited intrusiveness into the lives – or deaths – of others, it gives the living no space to enjoy life, nor the dead respite in which to enjoy death. Hamido brought his legs together with a rather shy and fumbling movement (for meanwhile he had acquired a certain amount of diffidence), clearing the way for the procession of vehicles. But since time was so short, his right leg had no time to draw back as it should have, quickly; extended into the road, barefoot, his stiff toes quivering visibly, there it was in full sight of everyone.

Baffled, the procession stopped before this unprecedented and never-to-be-repeated scene. For the history books make no mention of any such incident of this type. Yet perhaps this is not so surprising, for what is recorded as history and what actually occurs in real life are two different things. And in this particular case, what actually occurred was so momentous that it deserved to find a place in history. But, being what it is, history does not open its pages to the recording of momentous events – especially if their hero is Hamido.

Hamido did not feel that he was a hero, despite the crowd which gathered around him: for in no time, an overwhelming number of people had collected. The empty spaces between buildings filled up with bodies; heads obstructed doors and
windows; people left their offices and bureaus, and locked their shops, crowding into tightly compressed rows to enjoy the spectacle. I don't think anyone lagged behind – whether little or big, male or female, upper class or lower class – for all wanted to amuse themselves. To seek pleasure is, after all, a universal pastime, and legitimate on condition that it takes place in secret.

Hamido was still on the ground, in the same position, his eyes closed; for death, of course, has its effects. Even so, he saw lots and lots of men around him (for the vision of the dead is sharper than that of the living). He knew they were men by their shaved heads, the rubbery tubing and brass buttons on their uniforms, and of course by the hard killing tools hanging down alongside their thighs.

He tried to open his mouth to defend himself, to tell his story, beginning it with the day his mother gave birth to him. But the big chief – his master – was present, and in his presence time is restricted. There isn't time enough for anyone. In any case, it is in the nature of things that the judgement must be issued first, and signed or imprinted with the thumbprint or sign of the accused to show that he is aware of its contents. Furthermore, the accused must follow the directives spelled out in the ruling. Only after all of this has been done will there be sufficient time for anything else – such as an appeal in which the condemned can claim innocence.

Thus, with all due promptness, Hamido's sentence was issued. In fact, it filled up an entire page of the official register.
The law specified that Hamido must read the police report before putting his signature or thumbprint to it, for this would indicate his compliance with the contents. The words were unclear and not easy to read though, for the handwriting was poor and the report had been written in great haste. Hamido had difficulty making out the script, especially since he had not learnt to read or write, but he was able to pick out a word or two in each line. It amazed him that the police had shown such an ability to transform him from an unknown soldier into a hero – even if his heroism was so far outside the norms governing these things that wiggling his bare toes in his big chief s face had come to be considered, in his case, as a gesture of rebellion. Hamido was no longer able to contain or conceal his pride, and he began wiggling his toes, with slow and dignified movements that were full of an almost regal self-esteem.

All those present raised their hands to applaud – including the big chief, his master, who was in the front row. (The movements of the big chief, like the movement of history, cannot afford to ignore the masses.) And when his arms swung upward to applaud, the sandwich stuffed with ewe's meat, which he had concealed under his arm, fell to the ground. A lame child who was crawling among the crowded rows of people, carrying small sacks of toasted seeds for sale, snatched the sandwich away immediately.

Hamido smiled, even though he understood nothing of what was happening around him. The scene had not been
intentional; he could take no credit for it. Moreover, it had been imperfectly executed, showing a lack of experience, and deficient in the requisite cultural background and perusal of The Heritage. Hamido had not read the many volumes pertaining to our Cultural Heritage; specifically and most significantly, he had not studied the tales of platonic love, derived from the era when love was clean and pure and people were honourable, back in those days when their sex organs had not yet been created.

But then Adam had committed The Great Crime (as Hamido's mother had told him), and lo and behold, there appeared an ugly organ growing between his thighs. It was a divine revenge – a just one, according to Hamido's mother. At this point in his musings, a question occurred to him that had never come to his mind before (perhaps because his body was now dead, and thus he could give his soul the right to think of sacred subjects). That question was the following: how had Adam committed the crime before this organ had been created for him?

Hamido made an attempt to rid himself of this speculation, for thinking about such matters could only be considered an immoral practice, especially in the presence of the big chief, his master. Hamido stole a quick glance between his thighs, but did not find the member in question. Instead, and in its place, he found a small cleft which reminded him of the cleft he used to see on Hamida's body. He thought there must be some
mistake: perhaps the bodies of the dead had been confused, and in the final sorting they had given him a woman's body. Mistakes are bound to occur in the final sorting: the civil servant who is responsible for the procedure has poor eyesight due to pulmonary tuberculosis. To make matters worse, he is the only one assigned to this task. (The budget doesn't allow for any expansion in personnel.) This civil servant is charged with transferring names from the initial to the final sorting lists. But the letters of some names are similar, particularly as certain names given to females can be distinguished from male names only by the single-letter, feminine ending: Amin becomes Amina, Zuhayr turns into Zuhayra, Mufid goes to Mufida, and Hamido becomes Hamida. In other words, with a mere stroke of the pen, man becomes woman.

Sometimes, Hamido loved being a woman, while at other times he resisted it strongly. For in those days women were charged with certain humiliating tasks normally performed by servants, like wiping a man's shoes when he came out of the lavatory, or giving him a glass of water as he lay on his back belching out loud (and belching out loud was the prerogative solely of men) or washing out his smelly socks or his underpants, which were even smellier because of the urine and the short supply of soap and water.

Hamido did try to rectify the situation. But this was not easy even in the best of circumstances, since he always had to establish that he was
not
a woman. Every time, they summoned
the medical examiner, who would strip off Hamido's soiled pants with grumbling displeasure and look between his thighs, insolently. Sometimes, the examiner would not verify it simply by looking, but would insist on extending his elegant hand, with its carefully pruned nails, to examine the shrivelled and terror-stricken member. Measuring it from all angles with a finely calibrated plastic ruler, he would then take out his Parker fountain-pen and record the numbers in a notebook specifically designated for this purpose. He despatched these numbers inside an envelope sealed with red wax to the police's Department of Citizen Identification and Documentation.

Now, in this department reigned complete bedlam. Fingerprints were confused with footprints, and both with prints of other parts of the body. First and last digits were mixed up; portions of numbers were dropped and misplaced, while other portions were blotted out. This was due to the bad quality of the ink, for it was adulterated (corruption was widespread at that time: an entire bucket of water might well be added to a bottle of ink).

As a result, and in this fashion, Hamido's status remained undefined for quite a number of years, during which time no one would come to a decisive opinion, and no one would summon him for re-examination. He began to believe that the subject had been forgotten, that the incident might as well never have happened. He started to walk the streets confidently, even going into a barber's shop one day to have
his long beard shaved off. He sat down on the comfortable swivel chair, gave his feet a relaxed shake, drew out an old newspaper from the pile on the table, and riffled its pages indifferently. But no sooner had he turned to the last page than his eyes widened in surprise. There was his own picture, printed at the bottom of the page among those of female suspects. Prostitution was not prohibited in those times, so they arrested him and returned him to service.

* * *

At that time, Hamida had found her way to an honourable profession (for in those days, ‘honour' meant domestic service). She learnt the first lesson which such service demands: that one must call females by the term ‘my mistress' and address males as ‘my master'. She became aware that her master and mistress grew more satisfied with her the lower she hung her head when passing before them, and her upper half began to take on a permanent stoop. The house protected her from the street, and in the street a man lay in wait, never ceasing to pursue her.

The kitchen was her life. More specifically, her life was the humid square patch in front of the basin, her small hands plunged in the water running from the tap, day and night, summer and winter. Her black eyes faced the wall, gazing from beneath a crust of dried tears that was dissolved from time to time by a blazing look, sharp as a sword, that pierced the wall
and passed through into the dining room. That expression penetrated all the way to the round dining table surrounded by nine mouths, opening and shutting upon bulging jowls, jaws grinding, teeth clacking like the cogs of a mill-wheel.

In the basin, stacks of empty plates collect, covered by a film of congealed fat; the garbage pail is filled to the brim with untouched leftovers, while the sink drain becomes clogged with the half-chewed leavings.

At midnight, after mopping the kitchen floor, she crams a chunk of bread into her mouth, and gnaws on a bit of skin or a piece of bone that holds remnants of marrow. She settles herself, wet
galabeya
and all, on the wooden bench behind the kitchen door, her swollen, reddened fingers still oozing a yellow fluid with the warmth of blood. Her ears track the aggressive male hissing that emanates from the bedroom, followed by a submissive female moaning and the creaking of wooden bed joints.

As she sleeps, the fatigue drains from her body, the pain in her hands and feet abates, and her breathing settles into an intimate peacefulness through which glide familiar images that have lain dormant in some dark interior. A spent wisp of light still dances through those recesses, casting a faint glow that gives the walls the appearance of mud-brick, with its interspersed gleam of yellow straw. The walls climb to the round, window-like aperture and drop to a floor covering which looks very much like that familiar straw matting.
On one edge lies her mother, the black
tarha
wrapping her head, one hand pillowing her temple. On the nearer edge sleeps Hamida, lids half-dropped: the eyes of a child who has fallen asleep to the tones of a frightening bedtime tale. Her lips are half open over tiny, translucent teeth which have sprouted recently in place of baby teeth. Her breaths have the sweet, childlike smell given off faintly by closed blossoms just before the dew falls and dawn arrives. Beneath the full-cut
galabeya
her breasts show like two tiny buds that have emerged just moments before, to be compressed suddenly under the large hand, flat as an axe blade, which has begun to creep stealthily underneath the
galabeya
, raising it from the small legs and thighs. Everything becomes compounded into a single object, a single heavy stick in the shopkeeper's hand, striking blow after blow, over her head and chest and then between her thighs. And she screams voicelessly, and she cries alone in the night in stifled sobs, and swallows her tears before dawn. Early in the morning, before anyone has awakened, she spits her tears into the lavatory, straightens up resolutely, and peers into the mirror at her tear-washed eyes, raised questioningly.

But no one answers her questions. No one responds to her slightly stooped back, her festering, swollen fingers, the cracked soles of her bare feet ascending the service stairs. The servants' stairs spiral crookedly; at every twisting bend is a dark crevice wide enough to hold a secret crime, and a
garbage bin that has overflowed, filling the floor with flies and tiny cockroaches which crawl under the bottoms of doors into the elegant, well-appointed flats.