Zeina (14 page)

Bodour stared at her daughter Mageeda, who was eight years old. But she drove the memory out of her mind. She remembered that she was her age. But she didn’t tell her daughter the secret, and it stayed buried within her, locked inside an iron cage under the ribs. She didn’t have the courage or the daring to open it without splitting her heart in two or tearing her liver out of her body with the knife.

Mageeda al-Khartiti threw a huge party to celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday. Among the guests was Zeina Bint Zeinat, who was only a year older, although she looked older by a hundred years. She was tall and erect, and her long slender fingers moved with the speed of lightning over the keys of the piano. Everybody looked at her with admiration and envy: men, women, and children. Zeina Bint Zeinat was a star in the world of show business, and she had her own band of little boys and girls drawn from the narrow streets and alleys. Their little dark fingers played the lute or banged the drums and tamborines. Their pale cheeks were puffed while playing the flutes as they chanted the cotton and wheat song, their own national anthem: “Oh God, bless the wheat tonight, may it grow ...”, “You’ve come to bring us light, oh Nile cotton, how lovely you are!”, and “I love you my land with all my heart ...”

Their eyes gleamed, the black clouds cleared and the frozen tears melted. The dark pupils twinkled like stars in the sky and the little feet kicked the earth to the beat of the music. They danced, sang, and played music. Their feet and legs were bigger and their bones sturdier. Their wounds and bruises had healed, and their limping, rickets, and heartache had disappeared. Zeina Bint Zeinat led the children on the piano. She had known the tune since childhood and dreamed of it at night. The lyrics came to her during her sleep, for her mind was as active during sleep as when she was up and about. She saw the sparkle in the eyes of her mother, Zeinat, and in the eyes of Miss Mariam and her schoolmates. Her friend, Mageeda, looked at her with narrow eyes filled with envy and admiration. It was an ambivalent look that harbored love and hate at the same time. In front of the girls, she defended her, but on the toilet walls she wrote her name: Zeina Bint Zeinat. Like her father, Zakariah al-Khartiti, she remained impartial in her column in the
Renaissance
magazine. She repeated his maxim: “The middle ground is the best.” So she stood half-way between left and right, between praise and censure. In the jargon of literary criticism, she kept a balanced, objective view. She stayed neutral and uninvolved in partisan politics, always raising the banner of independence and freedom.

Ahmed al-Damhiri, her mother’s cousin, came to attend her birthday party. He had acquired the title of Eminent Sheikh by raising the slogan “Islam is the solution”. His aides in the underground group called him the emir. His voice rang out on popular radio channels but was low during secret meetings. His small head was square-shaped, and at the beginning of his career he wore no beard. But then he grew a thick black beard. His forehead used to be smooth and soft before a black mark started appearing there. His short, white fingers, which looked like those of his father, grandfather, and uncle, held the rosary by day and the wine glass at night. With these very fingers he stroked the bodies of prostitutes before dawn. In the dark, he was afraid of demons, cockroaches, beetles, and rats, but his courage returned with the daylight. He wore a turban or a cap on his head. He was usually dressed in a loose white gown, but in formal meetings with ministers, ambassadors, and party leaders he wore a suit made of English wool. The yellow rosary never left his hand. Its soft beads moved along with the soft murmurs of the holy verses, the sayings of the Prophet and the other messengers, and the words of holy men and ancient sages. He was in the habit of repeating God’s name and wiping his head with his little fat palm.

His eyes fell on her as she sang and danced. They caught sight of her graceful, slender body and her long, slender legs that ended in taut thighs resembling those of a tiger. In her there was a touch of overwhelming masculinity merged with soft femininity. Her breasts, which were as firm as rubber, moved underneath the white cotton dress with the rhythm and cadence of the music. She was like a wild, unruly mare that no one could possess. She moved her arms and legs freely in the air, jumping, bending like a soft blossoming twig. Her voice rose high without barriers or restrictions from earth or sky, and her large blue-black pupils gave forth a dark bluish flame that was unafraid of hell fires.

The seat next to him was occupied by Safaa al-Dhabi, the friend of his cousin Bodour. She stared at him because he looked like her former Islamist husband. She could almost read his thoughts. She even detected the quiver in his fingers that held the rosary. Her eyes pierced through him like the edge of a razor, shaving off his beard and his moustache and removing his pubic hair to see what lay underneath. She had extensive experience of men. They came in all shapes and views and attitudes. They flaunted rightist or leftist slogans, engaged in cock fights on radio and television, went to the mosque without performing ablution first, stood behind the president or the minister in the second, third, fourth, or even first row. They would hear their knees creaking during prayers, or their stomachs rumbling with envy and admiration. A fart might escape, producing a soft sound like stifled snoring during sleep or of bare feet tiptoeing at night.

Safaa al-Dhabi’s mind travelled back in time and recalled her former husband, who said to her, “I admire your writing, Safi!” Like Bodour, he used to call her “Safi”. Like the other women writers, and critics of her colleagues, she was proud of her intellect. So if a man praised her lips or breasts, she would look daggers at him.

“I’m not a piece of flesh, sir. I’m a thinking human being and a writer. Have you read my book on literary criticism? Don’t you read my articles in the paper?”

Safi let out a resounding laugh and her short, fat body shook. She started wearing the white scarf around her head to repulse men’s eyes. She had vowed everlasting fidelity to her husband, and he swore by the Qur’an that he wouldn’t touch another woman.

Safaa al-Dhabi was preparing to write a critical book on the theater or the cinema. But her husband said to her, “Write about women’s rights in Islam! What’s the point of criticism? It’s all nonsense, Safi! We don’t have any theaters, cinemas, literature, or culture in our country. It’s all copied from the West. Art in our country is nothing but pornography and lewdness. Write on Islam, Safi, for Islam will solve all our problems.”

Safi prepared to write the book and collected the necessary references and materials. She created the table of contents and wrote the chapter headings. She gave the book the title
Women in Islam,
which she wrote in large font on the cover of a green folder. She spent hours working on her papers, staying up late at night sitting at her desk until she was overcome by sleep. She then closed her folder, stretched her limbs, and walked to her bedroom, where the wide bed which she shared with her husband stood. Before getting into bed, she would take a shower in order to wash away the dust and the exhaustion.

She had an apartment on the ninth floor on al-Agouza Street. The water supply was often cut off at certain times of the day and night, because the lower floors used all the water before it could find its way to the higher floors. So an electric pump was installed to push the water up. But the electric power was sometimes cut off during the night. The air was filled with dust and smoke, and a black cloud covered the sky. Lidless rubbish bins stood in front of apartment doors, and cats and cockroaches played hide-and-seek there. The water pipes and sewage pipes sometimes burst at the same time. Car wheels were submerged in the water and the traffic came to a halt.

On the front door of the building there was a large plate with the words “Piety and Faith Building” in large font. Even buildings had convictions. The owner of the building was a man who had a money investment company as well as an Islamic bank. His photograph appeared in the papers, with his beard, moustache, rosary, and the prayer mark on the forehead. He appeared in pictures shaking the hands of ministers, ambassadors, eminent writers who had their own columns in government papers, and university professors, including Safaa al-Dhabi and her ex-husband. Both of them had no other income than their monthly salaries, payments for lectures delivered in oil states, royalties on books and articles written about Islam, textbooks sold to university students, and private coaching in religion, jurisprudence, and Islamic law. At the bank, or perhaps at an Islamic investment company, they had accounts running into thousands. Even money had religious persuasions. Safaa al-Dhabi objected to usury but she accepted interest under the guise of money investment.

From the window of her apartment on the ninth floor, Safaa al-Dhabi looked up toward the sky, but her nostrils were assailed by the smell of sewage wafting from the street, and her ears were deafened by the blaring noise of loudspeakers. So she closed the double-glazed window the whole day, in an attempt to stop the flies and the calls to prayer from coming through. At night, she also closed it to stop mosquitoes and little flying gnats. She sometimes opened the window for a bit of fresh air, but the air was non-existent and the smell of sewage and accumulating rubbish was unbearable. Although she covered herself with the blanket from head to toe, she was still attacked by mosquitoes and gnats. A black cockroach ran underneath her head. She sprang to her feet, holding a slipper in hand to hit it. But it was more agile and won the battle by disappearing into a chink in the wall, leaving her panting, sweating, and cursing life. She lay next to her husband, looking enviously at him, for he slept soundly, undisturbed by anything. Should the war break out or the building shake, he would not budge.

From a distance, a sound like the cheering of demonstrators came to her. People were going out on protests: laid-off workers, unemployed youngsters with university degrees, women in black gowns and slippers, street children, beggars of both sexes, handicapped people, and people maimed in war or peace.

From a distance, she could hear the rumbling, which was faint at first but grew louder with the break of dawn. The city seemed like a huge black animal that was waking up lazily, slowly, with withering eyes peering through the black cloud, or like a devout woman veiling herself from head to toe. The maid came to clean the house. She would hang the clothes on the line and beat the carpet on the balcony railing, the dust dispersing on the lower floors. The street began to wake up: grocers, hairdressers, pharmacies, plumbers, cafés, and restaurants on the Nile front and under the bridges, police stations, pubs, courts, schools, educational institutions, and mosques. Safaa al-Dhabi put the kettle on while her husband smiled in his sleep, for he no longer smiled at her. He turned his back to her and fell fast asleep. He was short and stout, and she liked men who were tall and graceful. His face was plump, and she liked lean faces. His voice was extremely masculine, and before marriage he told her, “I like your writing, Professor.”

He stressed the “f” while pronouncing “Professor”. He thought everything about her was beautiful, even her round nose. He told her that her unique nose set her apart from other women. He saw all her faults as marks of distinction. The difference in opinion between them was natural and healthy. It was in keeping with the democratic spirit of Islam.

“I believe in pluralism, Safi, for differences enrich life. If God wanted to create all humanity as one faction, He would have easily done that. But He created people to be different. Islam is based on reason, Safi!”

He read out an article he had written for the
Islamic Newspaper.
At the start of the article he wrote, “In the name of God, the Merciful, and Most Compassionate, Islam is distinguished from other religions by its reliance on reason and intellect. It is true that veiling is the duty of a Muslim woman to ward off temptations, but menstruation is not evil or unclean. A woman can hold the Qur’an in her hand and read during menstruation. As for marrying a person who had nursed from the same mother’s milk, it isn’t forbidden, because it is not logical. If a child nurses from the breast of a woman, he should not be prevented from marrying a girl who nursed from the same breast. How can we stop them marrying if their hearts are set on it?”

She dozed off while he was reading. His mind was filled with nothing but menstruation, childbirth, and breastfeeding. He grew angry when he noticed her falling asleep.

“Naturally you don’t like my writings. These are the same writings that you liked before we got married.”

“Do you mean you like what I write? You used to like them before we got married, and you used to say, ‘I like your writing, Professor’, stressing the ‘f’.”

“What do you mean I stressed the ‘f’? How dare you?”

“How dare
YOU?
”

There was havoc after her husband’s article was published. Ahmed al-Damhiri was hugely upset.

“This is heretical talk. This man is objecting to God’s words in the Qur’an. If there is a clear text, we cannot improvise or innovate. There is a text saying that menstruation is evil, that men should not go near women until they are purified of this evil ...”

Ahmed al-Damhiri didn’t know the verse concerning menstruation by heart, but he was certain that that the word “evil” was mentioned in the Holy Book. In addition, there was a saying by the Prophet (may peace be upon him) which forbade the marriage between children who suckled together, which he did not recall verbatim, but the gist was clear.

Next to her sat Ahmed al-Damhiri, his eyes following Zeina Bint Zeinat and her every move.