God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels (28 page)

She reached for a cup of coffee and said:

‘I know, I know, but I only have two hundred. I'll pay it to you without taking the furniture. I don't need it.'

His bulging eyes flickered under his thick glasses, reminding her of a large fish under water. He glanced briefly at the caretaker standing by the door, then said:

‘If you don't need the furniture, I'll reduce it to four hundred pounds.'

Swallowing a mouthful of bitter coffee, she said:

‘I told you, I only have two hundred.'

Looking meekly at his master, the caretaker said:

‘Please sir, she could pay two hundred now and the rest in instalments.'

The thin lips tightened into a smile and his fish-like eyes quivered as he said:

‘All right, how much is each instalment?'

Fouada knew nothing about such dealings. She wanted the apartment; indeed, it had become the only hope in her life, almost the only salvation from that loss, that void; the only firm thread that might lead her to chemical research – perhaps to a great discovery. But this large fleshy face, those bulging eyes looking at her hungrily as if she were a piece of meat, would they be content with two hundred pounds in return for nothing? How would she pay off the rest? She would need to buy instruments and equipment in instalments. Where would she get it all? Then she had to pay the rent for the apartment every month and hire someone to receive clients and help clean the laboratory.

She hung her head, thinking in silence. Suddenly, she looked up at him. He was staring at her legs, greedily, and she automatically pulled her skirt down to cover her knees.

‘I can't pay anything in instalments,' she said, picking up her bag and getting up to leave. He also got up and, as if embarrassed, looked down at the ground, mumbling in regret:

‘I've never reduced the sum below five hundred for anyone and many people have come to me, but I refused to let the apartment for a long time. It's the best apartment in the building.'

‘Yes, it is a nice apartment,' she said, making for the door, ‘but I can't pay more than two hundred pounds.'

She walked towards the lift, feeling his glance burning her back. He opened the lift door for her and she went in, he behind her. He was large and broad-shouldered, with a prominent stomach and small feet. Before the lift descended, he said to the caretaker:

‘Close up the apartment, Othman.'

The lift took them down. She saw his eyes examine her bust as though he were appraising it. She folded her arms over her chest and occupied herself by looking in the mirror. She was taken aback to see her own face. She hadn't seen it for a while, didn't recall having looked in the mirror for the past two days, since Farid's disappearance. She had perhaps glanced at her hair when combing it, but hadn't noticed her face. Now it looked longer than ever, the eyes even wider, the whites shot
with red. Her nose was still the same, her mouth too, with that ugly, involuntary gap. She closed her lips and swallowed hard. The lift came to a stop on the ground floor. She was conscious of the landlord still studying her from behind his thick glasses. She opened the lift door and was rushing out of the building when she heard his voice behind her saying:

‘If you please, miss…'

When she turned to him, he continued:

‘I don't know why you want the apartment… to live in?'

‘No,' she said in annoyance, ‘to turn into a chemical laboratory.'

His upper lip again uncovered his large, yellow teeth and he said:

‘That's wonderful. Is it you who will work in it?'

‘Yes,' she replied.

His eyes flickered briefly, then he said:

‘I'd like to give you the apartment, but…'

‘Thank you,' she interrupted him, ‘but as I told you, I only have two hundred pounds.'

He gazed at her for a moment.

‘I'll take two hundred. You can be sure I would never accept it from anyone else.'

She looked at him in surprise and said:

‘Does that mean you agree?'

He gave her a weak smile, his protuberant eyes – like those of a frog – swimming behind his glasses, then said:

‘Only to do you a favour.'

Hiding her joy, she said: ‘Can I pay you now?'

‘If you like,' he replied.

She opened her bag and handed him two hundred pounds.

‘When shall I sign the lease?'

‘Whenever you like,' he said.

‘Now?'

‘Now,' he answered.

* * *

Fouada left the building and walked down the street grave-faced. She was overcome by unreal, dreamlike feelings, a mixture of total disbelief at getting the apartment and extreme fear of losing it; the fear one experiences on acquiring something valuable, thinking that one might lose it at the very moment of possessing it.

It seemed that what had happened was only a dream. She opened her bag and saw the lease folded under her purse. She took it out and unfolded it, pausing to look at some of the words: the first party, Mohammed Saati; the second party, Fouada Khalil Salim. Reassured that it was indeed real, she folded the paper, put it back in her bag and continued walking.

Something heavy lay on her heart. What was it that weighed her down? Wasn't she supposed to be happy? Hadn't she got the apartment? Hadn't her hope been fulfilled' Wouldn't she now have her own chemical laboratory? Be able
to do research? Try to make her discovery? Yes, she should be happy, but her heart was heavy as though weighed down by a stone.

She had no desire to go home, and let her feet take her where they would. Then she saw a telephone, behind a glass door; pushing it open, she went in and was about to lift the receiver when a gruff voice said: ‘You can't use the phone.' She went out to look for another telephone. It was one o'clock, Friday. Maybe Farid had come back, but in her heart she knew she would not find him. That uninterrupted, loud ringing was all she would hear. It was better not to call, better to stop asking about him. He had left her, had vanished, so why burden her heart with cares?

She saw a telephone in a cigarette kiosk and, pretending not to notice it, walked by, but then turned back and lifted the receiver with cold, trembling fingers.

The ringing tone pierced her head like a sharp instrument. It hurt her ear but she pressed the receiver closer, as if enjoying the pain, as if it was curing another greater and heavier pain, like someone who cauterizes their flesh with hot irons to rid themselves of a pain in the liver or spleen. The receiver remained pressed against her ear, seemingly stuck to it, until she heard the vendor say:

‘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: