Love in the Kingdom of Oil (17 page)

‘Then we must stop demanding them and take them with our own hands.’

The women exchanged glances behind the black cover. They scratched their heads where the skin had swollen under the base of the jars. Not one muscle of their faces moved. Their lips let out no sound. Their eyes darted backwards and forwards without seeing anything. She looked at the lake covered in dust. The moss in the crannies was being swept away by the current. The lake seemed to be as deep as the sea or the ocean, with dead bodies lying on the bottom.

‘Is there someone watching us?’

The eye was looking out through the keyhole. She knew him immediately from his back view. The hump stood out under the faint light. The women raised their arms with one powerful movement. The jars returned to their places and settled in the holes on their heads. She could no longer see anything apart from their bowed backs. Their bodies were as small as children’s, and their size decreased as they got further away, and there was no noise apart from the whispering of the
jallabas
in the distance like the rustling of the wind.

She was sitting by herself. The darkness of the night was growing less. The darkness had been veiling her like a curtain, and now the light was uncovering her. She saw the man standing there. She realised that he had seen her, as she had previously seen him. They were standing there, equal in their vision and height. This upright situation should not happen in a world that was not upright.

‘You no longer have an opportunity.’

He said it angrily. By anger he was trying to conceal his lack of uprightness. It was her last opportunity, and if it were lost, there would not be another. She raised her arm to protect her face from the slap. If she did not raise it now, she would not raise it later. If she lived, she would live with her head held high. If she died, she would die kicking. She would not stop kicking until her last breath.

‘This woman is losing blood.’

Indeed, the women needed to lose blood. If not, the world would remain as it was, and everything would end in nothing. We must take the fresh blood of this woman and transfuse it into the world that is on the point of death.

‘She has finally closed her eyes and died, standing there like a tree.’

She remained standing in her place, incapable of movement. Her roots were in the bowels of the earth, her head was held high, tossed about by the wind. Her leaves trembled and her arms bent and twisted like twigs. She tried to no avail to rid herself of her branches. The wind rubbed against her audibly and with a regular rhythm like the breathing of someone sleeping.

‘Will you go back to sleep in this heat?’ he asked her in a voice full of jealousy. As if he was jealous of her ability to sleep. The gushing of the oil was eating away at the wall, and jealousy was eating away a bit of his flesh under the twisted rib. He jumped up, taking off his clothes as if he was stripping off his skin.

‘I can stand it no longer. I have a desire.’

‘To write?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have this new machine now, and you no longer need to know how to read or write.’

‘Yes, but His Majesty wants a speech for his birthday tomorrow.’

‘OK. The new machine can make a copy of last year’s speech in a few minutes, can’t it?’

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘What’s new then?’

She grasped everything instinctively. Emptiness was spreading in the depths of her. What was the point of pretending then? There was no need to hide. Perhaps there was still some passion between them, the remains of a love from her old life. But there was a gust of wind and the current of oil swept everything away.

She heard the sound of the policeman typing and spinning in his swivel-chair.

‘As you see, the woman went on leave.’

‘Yes. These cases have become totally commonplace. One in three women goes on leave like this.’

‘Is it a new illness?’

‘Yes. In psychiatry, we call it schizophrenia.’ As he said ‘in psychiatry’, he twisted his neck towards heaven at a sharp angle, and the pipe, which was fixed in the corner of his mouth, shook.

‘Do you mean a dual personality?’

‘No. With a dual personality, the woman and the other person are two who are forced to accompany one another. With schizophrenia, the woman herself and that other man become one person. Understood?’

‘Yes. I know that. But the result is the same in any case.’

‘Of course, but dual personality is a totally natural case, and all women can be put in this category.’

‘Of course. I know that. Apart from our wives, of course.’

‘Of course. Because we men are different from all other men. We are descended from a distinct lineage that stretches back to the prophets. Didn’t you hear the speech of His Majesty on the occasion of his birthday?’

‘Yes, I heard it. It was a historic speech, and I wrote that in my article in the newspaper. His Majesty must have seen it.’

‘He must have seen the photographs at least. For as you know, His Majesty does not know how to read.’

‘Yes, I know, and there is no shame in that. None of the prophets knew how to read, but in spite of that they led the world into a new era.’

‘Yes, I know that, but His Majesty loves colour pictures, especially pictures of himself. He never gets bored of looking at pictures of himself published in the newspapers or broadcast on the screen, does he?’

‘Of course he doesn’t. That’s natural for a great person like him who is leading us to the new oil era.’

‘Of course, but what is the problem with oil?’

‘Nothing except . . .’

‘Except what?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I feel that you want to say something. Come on, speak, don’t be afraid.’

‘Not at all. It was only a trivial thing. When I returned from work today I found a small paper.’

‘A small paper?’

‘Yes, a small paper on the chair near the bed.’

‘That’s right, on the chair near the bed. I know that.’

‘How do you know?’

A deathly silence fell. All that could be heard was the hum of the fan, and the heavy breathing of the pair of them. Then the voice of one of them came faintly from afar as if from the bowels of the earth.

‘What did she write to you on the paper?’

‘Nothing important. Just that she had gone on holiday. That’s all there is to it.’

‘Is it really?’

‘Yes, that’s all there is to it.’

‘I also found a paper.’

A deathly silence fell once again. The air stopped moving. The fan also stopped humming. Even their breathing seemed to stop.

She moved her head from on the pillow. The man was lying down with his eyes open. Suddenly laughter rang out in the darkness of the night. He was definitely the man who was laughing, definitely. Perhaps by his laughter he was concealing something else. He was facing the wall, and she did not know what he was thinking. But when she heard him laughing, she laughed as well, and life seemed to be better than it had been previously.

As long as he has the ability to laugh, there is no call to run away, at least not tonight. She can go on sleeping and tomorrow she will try again.

1
.
Sarwal
: light baggy trousers worn by Arab men and women.

2
.
Abayas
: cloak-like woollen wraps worn by Arab women.

3
.
Jallaba
: a long loose shirtlike garment, commonly worn in the Arab world.

4
.
Keffiyeh
: the square cloth of the Arab headdress.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 86356 337 6 (pb)
eISBN 978-0-86356-733-9 (ePub)

© Nawal El-Saadawi, 2001
Translation copyright: © Basil Hatim & Malcolm Williams

This edition first published 2001

Saqi Books
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London W2 5RH
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