God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels (6 page)

The first time he had seen her, he was seated as usual in front of Haj Ismail's shop. He glimpsed her supple body as she walked along the river bank carrying an earthenware jar on her head. Turning to Haj Ismail, he had whispered, ‘That girl over there. Who's she?'

‘Fatheya, the daughter of Masoud,' answered Haj Ismail. ‘Her father is that poor man then. No doubt he would be happy to have me as a member of the family?'

‘Do you mean that you want to marry her, Sheikh Hamzawi?'

‘Why not? I have been married three times and still have no son. I must have a son before I die.'

‘But she is young enough to be one of your grandchildren,' said Haj Ismail. ‘Besides, how do you know that she will not remain childless like your previous wives?'

Sheikh Hamzawi bowed his head to the ground in silence, but the rosary beads continued to run uninterruptedly through
his fingers, impelled by a mechanism of their own. Haj Ismail eyed him with a knowing smile. He burst into a laugh, cut it short abruptly and said, ‘It looks as though the girl has turned your head for you, Sheikh Hamzawi.'

Sheikh Hamzawi smiled quietly and looked at the village barber with a gleam in his eyes. ‘Verily the look of her revives my spirit. I've always longed for the kind of female she is.'

‘Talking of females, female she certainly is. Her eyes seethe with desire. But do you think you can keep her under control, Sheikh Hamzawi? Do you think a man of your age can take her on?'

‘I can satisfy not only her, but her father if necessary,' retorted Sheikh Hamzawi. ‘It's only what you have in your pocket that counts where a man is concerned.'

‘What will you do if the years go by and she does not give you a son?' enquired Haj Ismail.

‘Allah is great, Haj Ismail. I am going through difficult times, but they will soon be over. God will breathe his spirit into me, and give me strength.'

Haj Ismail laughed out loudly. ‘Those are the kind of things you can say to other people, but not to me, Sheikh Hamzawi. You haven't stopped complaining to me about your condition. How can Allah give you strength? Are you insinuating that God will…?'

Sheikh Hamzawi cut him short quickly. ‘Allah can infuse life into dead bones, Haj Ismail. Besides you yourself told me that I can be cured.'

‘But you have not been listening to my advice, nor have you followed the treatment I prescribed to you. You've been lending an attentive ear to what the doctors say, and paying through your eyes for their medicines. I told you, doctors know nothing and their prescriptions are useless. But you did not believe me. And now what is the result? You've wasted your money and you're not one step ahead of where you were. Say so, if I'm wrong.'

‘Yes, yes, Haj Ismail, but one cannot learn except at a high price. Now I know all doctors are ignorant cheats, and that the only real doctor in the village is you. From now on I refuse to be treated by anyone else. But you must marry me to Fatheya, the daughter of Masoud. If you do that, Allah will reward you generously, because you will have done a service to the man who preserves the holy mosque and defends the teachings of God in this village.'

Haj Ismail burst into hilarious laughter. ‘Both I and my children would have died of hunger long ago if we had waited until Allah rewards us.'

‘Of course I will pay you, and handsomely. You know me well,' Sheikh Hamzawi said quickly.

‘I know you are a generous man, and that you are the descendant of a generous family. But most important of all, you are the man who preserves the faith in this village and watches over our morals. Therefore you must leave the matter in the hands of Allah, and not worry about it any further. I will
see to it. You can depend on that. Just follow what I told you to do before. Make constant use of warm water, and salt, and lemon. Burn your incense every night leaving none of it to the following morning, then take the rosary between your fingers and recite a thanksgiving to Allah ninety-nine times. After that, curse your first wife thirty-three times, for were you not fully potent when you married her, Sheikh Hamzawi?'

Sheikh Hamzawi answered in a voice that rang with despair, ‘I was as strong as a horse.'

‘She managed to cast a spell on you, and I know who prepared the amulet for her. He is not from Kafr El Teen, but I know the secret of his spell, and how to destroy it. The most important thing for you now is to follow my advice, and Allah will bestow his blessings upon you.'

Sheikh Hamzawi lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper and asked, ‘When will I spend the betrothal night with Fatheya?'

‘Soon, very soon, if Allah wills.'

‘What about my having a son, Haj Ismail? I suppose it is impossible?'

‘Nothing is impossible if Allah wills that it should not be so. You are a man of God and should know that well. How can you forget that Allah is all powerful?'

The rosary beads ran quickly between the fingers of Sheikh Hamzawi and he gasped, ‘May His name be praised. May His name be praised.'

Sheikh Hamzawi rested his hand on the wall and slowly got to his feet. The rosary swayed from side to side in his hand as he repeated ‘May His name be praised.' He put on his caftan and his
jiba
,
^*
and adjusted the turban on his head, all the time whispering under his breath. His thin body seemed to bow under a heavy weight as he shuffled towards the door of the house. He heard Fatheya moan in a low voice. He could not understand what was wrong with her these days. She was not the same. She did not even get angry with him as she used to do at one time, and spent most of her day in the house lying down. She no longer insisted on visiting her aunt, perhaps because each time he got into a temper and tried to stop her from going out. The wife of Sheikh Hamzawi, as he had explained to her father, was not like the wives of other men. Her husband was responsible for upholding the teachings of Allah, and keeping the morals and piety of the village intact. The wife of a man like that was not supposed to be seen by just anyone. Her body had to be concealed even from her closest relatives, except for her face and the palms of her hands. She was expected to live in his house surrounded by all due care and respect, never to be seen elsewhere except twice in her life. The first time when she moved from her father's to her husband's house. And the second when she left her husband's house for the grave allotted to her in the burial grounds. Apart from that …

The father shook his head in pious agreement and said, ‘Sheikh Hamzawi, you are indeed the most respected and esteemed of all men,' then he gave his consent.

But Fatheya hid herself above the oven and refused to answer anyone, despite all the efforts expended to make her more reasonable.

‘God is going to save you from the withering sun in the fields, from the dirt and the dung, from your diet of dry bread and salted pickles. Instead you will spend your days resting in the shade, eating white bread and meat. You will become the spouse of Sheikh Hamzawi, the man who devotes himself to the worship of God, to serving his mosque, the man who leads the people of the village in prayer, and lives a life of piety,' said Haj Ismail at the top of his voice, as though he wanted everyone within hearing distance to know what was going on.

But Fatheya continued to hide on top of the oven and refused to answer.

Haj Ismail looked round at her father and inquired in angry tones, ‘Now what do we do, Masoud?'

‘You can see, Haj Ismail, the girl is refusing.'

‘Do you mean that in your household it's the girl who decides what should be done?'

‘But what can I do?' asked the father looking perplexed.

‘What do you do?' exclaimed Haj Ismail, now looking furious. ‘Is that a question for a man to ask? Beat her, my brother, beat her once and twice and thrice. Do you not
know that girls and women are only convinced if they receive a good hiding?'

Masoud remained silent for a moment, then he called out, ‘Fatheya, come here at once.'

But there was no answer, so he climbed up on to the top of the oven, pulled her out by her hair, and beat her several times until she came down. Then he handed her over to Haj Ismail and the same day she married the pious old Sheikh.

Sheikh Hamzawi grasped his stick firmly in his hand, and opened the door of his house. Fatheya strained her ears to catch the tapping sound of his stick through the wall as he walked on its outer side. She knew the sound well. It had continued to echo in her ears ever since the night of her betrothal. It pierced through the thick shawl wrapped around her body and head as she rode the donkey to Sheikh Hamzawi's house. She could hear its tap, tap, tap as he walked along the lane by her side. Her father wore a new
galabeya
and Om Saber, the
daya
,
^*
was clad in a long, black dress. She could not see the old woman for the folds of the shawl were worn tightly round her head. She could not see anything.

But she felt. She felt the burning pain left by the woman's finger as it probed up between her thighs looking for blood. And she felt the warm gush and the sticky wet. She did not see the clean white towel stained red, nor the wound the woman's
nail had made in her flesh. But she felt her virgin colours had bled, for in her ears resounded the beat of the drums, the shrieks of joy and the high-pitched trilling of the women.

She moved her hand in under the shawl and wiped the sweat from her nose and eyes, but it continued to pour out from the roots of her hair down over her face and her neck to her chest and her back. Underneath her, on the back of the donkey its rough coat was becoming wetter and wetter. The spine of the donkey pressed up between her thighs. She could feel it hard against the wound which was still bleeding inside. With every step, with every beat of the
tabla
,
^*
the back of the donkey rose and fell, and its thin spine moved up and down to rub on her wounds, causing her a sharp pain every time, and making her lips open in a noiseless cry. The warm blood trickled out mixing with the sweat which poured down from her body, and the rough coat of the donkey felt soaking wet between her thighs.

When they arrived in front of the house which belonged to the pious and God-fearing man who had become her spouse, they took her down from the donkey, but she was unable to stand on her feet, and collapsed into the arms of those who stood around, to be carried into the house like a sack of cotton.

She realized she had left the streets and was now in the house from the dank, putrid smell of the air inside. Since she
was sure that the odour of godliness and moral uprightness smelt good and was pleasant to respire, she realized her nose was to blame for making the atmosphere around her smell like a latrine which was never washed down. She did not know exactly what it was that was wrong with her, but ever since her childhood she had felt there was something impure about her, that something in her body was unclean and bad. Then one day Om Saber came to their house, and she was told that the old woman was going to cut the bad, unclean part off. She was overcome by a feeling of overwhelming happiness. She was only six years old at the time.

After having done what she was supposed to do, Om Saber went away leaving a small wound between her thighs. It continued to bleed for several days. But even after it healed she was still left with something unclean in her body which used to bleed for several days at a time. Each time she had her periods the people around her would have a changed expression in their eyes when they looked at her, or they would avoid her as though there was something corrupt or bad about her.

Later, when she married Sheikh Hamzawi, he too would shy away from her whenever she had her periods, and treat her as though she was a leper. If his hand inadvertently touched her shoulder, or her arm, he would exhort Allah to protect him from the evil Satan. Then he would go to the water closet, wash himself five times and do his ablutions again if he had already done them. In addition she was not allowed to read
the Koran or to listen to it being read or recited. But once her periods were over, and she had taken a bath, and cleansed herself thoroughly, he allowed her to pray, and to recite passages from the Koran.

Every night before she went to bed Sheikh Hamzawi made her sit on a carpet opposite him, and showed her how to pray. She did not understand what the words he recited meant, they were difficult words and she kept asking him to explain their meaning to her. But he used to respond in a very discouraging and rough way, insisting that the words of Allah and the rituals of prayer were supposed to be learnt by heart and not understood. So Fatheya tried to memorize them as best she could. The instructions of Sheikh Hamzawi kept echoing in her ears.

‘Prayer is built on certain well defined movements of the body, namely: kneeling, prostrating yourself twice each time you kneel, and then sitting up with your feet under the body to recite the testimonial. In addition, there are certain conditions which must be strictly adhered to. In males the body must be covered from the waist downwards to a point below the knees. In females, the whole body should be covered with the exception of the palms of the hands, and the face. At the beginning of the prayer you must stand upright with the face looking straight in front of you, and the feet kept straight on the ground. In the case of males the hands should be lifted and held in line with the ears when declaiming the All Powerfulness
and Almightiness of Allah. In females the hands should be held in line with the shoulder bone. The next movement in males is to put the right hand over the left hand and cover the belly below the waist with both the hands, whereas in females the hands are to be placed over the chest.

‘Whenever you kneel or prostrate yourself you must do it completely. When you kneel repeat, “I praise thee O Almighty God” three times. And when you prostrate yourself repeat, “I praise thee O highest of all gods” three times. Your prayers become null and void if you say anything extraneous to the words of the prayer, or laugh or soil your cleanliness after ablutions in any way, particularly if you let out wind from the back passage.'