God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels Read Free Page A

house, panting breathlessly, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. The dust gets into her eyes, and nose and mouth. She sits up and starts rubbing her little fists into her eyes. The next moment she stops rubbing her eyes, and sits with her hands in her lap looking around, but suddenly she sees four black hoofs moving over the ground towards her. One of the hoofsrises slowly up into the air. She can see its dark forbidding underside like the surface of a big hammer ready to drop with all its might on her head. A shiver goes through her, and she screams out loud. Two strong arms reach out to her and lift her from the ground. The feel of her mother’s arms around her, the warmth of her breast, and the smell of her flesh are reassuring and her screams subside.
    She could no longer remember her mother’s face; the features had faded away in her mind. Only the smell of her body remained alive. Something about it reminded her of the smell of dough, or of yeast. And whenever this smell was in the air around her, a strong feeling of happiness came over her. Her face would soften and grow tender for a short moment, but an instant later it would become as harsh, and as resolute, as it had been throughout her life.
    When she learnt to stand on her legs, and walk, they allowed her to go to the fields with Kafrawi. He walked in front leading the buffalo by a rope tied round its neck, while she brought up the rear driving the donkey with its load of manure. Her brother remained silent all the way. She never heard his voice except when he urged the buffalo on with the cry ‘Shee, shee’ or tried to make the donkey move faster by shouting ‘Haa, haa’ at it.
    She remembered seeing her father standing in the fields, but could not recall his face. All that remained of him in her memory was a pair of long, thin, spindly legs, with protruding knees, a galabeya with its tail lifted and tied around his waist, a huge hoe held tightly in his big hands, as it rose and fell with a regular thud, and the sombre, heavy creaking of the water-wheel. The wheeze of the water-wheel would continue to go round and round inside her. At certain moments she could feel it stop suddenly, make her turn towards the buffalo and cry out ‘Shee, shee’, but the animal would not budge. It stood there motionless. The black head perfectly still, the black eyes staring at her fixedly.
    Zakeya was about to repeat ‘Shee, shee’ when she realized the face was not that of the buffalo, but Kafrawi’s. He resembled her a great deal. His features were carved like hers, his eyes large, black and also full of anger, but it was a different kind of anger, mingling in their depths with despair, and expressing a profound humiliation.
    He remained seated by her side, his lips tightly closed, his back pressed up against the mud wall, his eyes staring into the darkness of the lane, reaching across to the bars in the huge iron door facing them some distance away. He turned towards her and parting his lips slightly spoke in a harsh whisper.
    â€˜The girl has disappeared, Zakeya. She is gone.’
    â€˜Gone!?’ she asked in anguish.
    â€˜Yes, gone. There is no trace of her in the whole village.’
    He sounded desperate. She stared at him out of her large, black eyes. He held her stare, but there was a profound hopelessness in the way he looked back at her.
    â€˜Nefissa is nowhere to be found in Kafr El Teen, Zakeya,’ he said. ‘She’s vanished completely. She will never return.’
    He held his head in his hands and added, this time almost in a wail, ‘She’s lost, Zakeya. Oh, my God.’
    Zakeya looked away from him, and fixed her eyes on the lane, then whispered in a mechanical way, her voice full of sadness, ‘We’ve lost her the same as we lost Galal.’
    He lifted his face and murmured, ‘Galal is not lost, Zakeya. He will return to you soon.’
    â€˜Every day you say the same