Love in the Kingdom of Oil (3 page)

She followed him with the strap of the bag over her shoulder, holding on to it with her fingers as if it would protect her from falling. In her other hand was the chisel, vibrating in unison with her body, but in the darkness appearing as if it was vibrating by itself.

The track went downhill and the soil became damper. The pungent smell increased. Her legs sank in up to her knees. The man gathered up his
jallaba
and tied it round his waist. Then he jumped into a boat. She jumped in behind him and the boat rocked. She would have fallen if she had not regained her balance with a movement of her arm.

The scene appeared natural to her, apart from the pungent smell and the flying black particles that penetrated her nose and ears and stuck to the corners of her eyelids. Darkness piled up in front of her eyes like hills, and the silence weighed down on her, relieved only by the sound of the oar striking the endless black sea.

The man began to rub his eyes as he sang,

O giver of life,

O taker of the spirit,

Mercifully spare us from the flood,

O deliverer from all anxieties.

As he sang, his eyes gazed towards the horizon. He rubbed the corner of his eye with his fingertip then looked closely at his finger and considered it for a long time before wiping it on his
jallaba.
Then he began to rub his back, under his armpit and between his thighs. The sound of his song floated sadly in the night, apart from the occasional moments when his voice quickened with sudden pleasure.

He stopped the boat at a mass of darkness resembling a wall. He leant forward in the direction of the darkness. He cleared his throat loudly to announce his arrival. All that could be heard was the barking of the dog. As he rapped on the door, he cried out, ‘Open up, brother.’

From behind the door another man could be heard clearing his throat. From the depths of the darkness, the door opened. A smell gushed out which hurt the membrane of her nose. A small flame appeared, trembling in a large hairy hand, and a rattling voice emerged from a throat, ‘Come in, woman.’

The word no longer pained her. A greater pain was in her ears. The tiny particles were building up inside both ears. They were becoming hard like little bits of gravel that rubbed on the membrane or the nerve.

His voice rose slightly, ‘Come in, woman.’

She was standing in her place without any part of her moving apart from her neck, which was turned upwards towards heaven, seeking air. Over her shoulder she pulled on the strap as if pulling her memory out of the darkness. How had she come here?

His voice rose even more, ‘Can’t you hear what is being said to you?’

She moved her feet and entered. She passed over a low threshold with a familiar shape. However, the house rocked under her feet as if it were a boat. The door closed behind her and she turned round. The man with the black freckles was not there. She heard the sound of the oars moving away. The man burst into staccato coughs then blew his nose loudly. She withdrew a step. In her anxiety it appeared as if she was returning to her childhood and she let out a cry. The light was so faint that she could scarcely see anything. She rubbed her eye with her fingertip. The room was bare of furniture and there was a chair nailed to the ground. Doubt overcame her. Had she never left her place?

‘Take off your clothes.’

His voice was no longer strange to her ears. The wind was rattling the window. Threads of black liquid were pushing their way in under the door. Black drops like rain were falling from the ceiling.

In point of fact, there was no window. It was simply planks of wood. And the floor was not a floor but rather planks of wood creaking under her feet like sick cats. A dampness like sweat crept out of the planks, sticking to the heels of her shoes, or the soles of her feet if she took off her shoes.

‘The smell is unbearable!’

She put a handkerchief over her nose and closed her eyes. His voice was rattling and distant as if coming from the other world. All that she could see of him were his feet and his knees inside his nightshirt. His upper half was hidden behind the newspaper. Black lead-print letters, line after line, poured out in tiny horizontal lines:

Researchers wanted in the Archaeology Department.

* * *

She typed out the request on the typewriter. She filled in the boxes for name, age and religion. In the box marked sex, she typed ‘female’. The head of department looked at her wide-eyed, ‘This department only accepts males. The work we do, I mean digging up the ground, is not suitable.’

‘My aunt used to dig up the ground, and my mother also used to dig up the ground, and sow and . . .’

‘Digs are something else . . . I mean searching for gods in the bowels of the earth.’

‘The gods are in heaven, are they not?’

‘But there are other gods. Haven’t you read anything about archaeology?’

She noticed something crawling under her foot. A long soft finger, like the tale of a snake. It was twisting and turning and digging a tunnel for itself after coming down from the roof. There was also a trickle of black liquid. Round it gathered hordes of ants, geckos, lizards, and cockroaches looking like scarabs with wings, which beat with something resembling joy.

She heard his voice from behind the newspaper. He was speaking to himself or reading a headline in an audible voice. Some movement crept into that room which was plunged in such darkness. Those little wings shed some joy as they hovered around the lamp. She stretched her legs over the low seat. Her feet were swollen from all the walking she had done, and the skin, covered in a layer of black grime, was peeling. Her bag was over her shoulder, dangling from the strap. The chisel was inside the bag, of course. Her eyes gazed around her, exploring the place. On top of the black wall she saw it again. A black lizard or a chameleon. It gazed at her with little eyes. A friendship was growing up between them.

The man cleared his throat loudly. The lizard hid in the crack. She did not know how he had seen it from behind the newspaper. His top half was hidden completely. Only his feet and his knees were visible through his nightshirt. Perhaps they were feelers that were apprehensive of any friendship that might spring up between her and another being.

‘Get the dinner ready,’ said he in the tone of someone who had hired a woman to cook for him. There was no space for that in the form she had typed on the typewriter. In the space marked work, she had already written ‘Researcher into goddesses’. ‘I’m hungry!’ he cried again in a loud voice.

In the kitchen the window was blocked. Here too, wooden boards had been nailed in, and bits of newspaper had been stuck in the cracks and piled up behind the door to prevent the trickle from entering under the door. The water tap was also blocked with newspaper.

As she was standing in front of the sink, she sensed the man behind her. She felt his breath on the back of her neck. She did not know how to light the match, so he gave her something like a revolver. She pressed on it with her thumb; it cracked, and a spark flew out. She laughed like a child.

Little things used to make her laugh. The darkness dispersed and a light shone on the horizon. She saw him bend his head upwards with pride. She followed his glance to the ceiling with her eyes. The black trickle was continuing to advance.

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t you know what it is?’

‘No.’

‘It’s the oil.’

‘Does the oil seep through the ceiling?’

‘Of course, when the level rises in the ground or it pours down from the sky.’

‘Does the sky rain it down as well?’

‘The sky gives what it wants boundlessly.’

When she was in school as a child, she had learnt that oil is only found in the bowels of the earth. Over millions of years, it had been generated from dead bodies that disintegrated because of the heat, and little organisms called bacteria, and particles of soil and sand, and mineral dust. All that disintegrated into minute particles that absorbed water, and was stored in sponge-like layers, into which ran sand and little fragments of limestone. It was caught among the little particles and stored in cracks between two insulating layers, one that prevented it seeping upwards and the other a layer of water in the depths of the earth on which it floated, and which prevented it seeping lower. Like a prey for which all exits are closed, preventing it from emerging to the surface of the earth. Unless of course it should be shaken by an earthquake, a volcano or a bomb dropped in war.

She pursed her lips in silence. His neck was still craned upwards addressing the sky as if it was a goddess. She raised her head and he caught it from behind. He was standing behind her, rubbing against her without shame. She cringed inside her body in anguish. There was no box in the work contract for such things. Her cringing filled his soul with confidence, and he clung to her more. His breathing brushed her neck from behind. His arm stretched out and encircled her chest. Then his hand came to rest on her left breast. She saw his black nails from which emanated the smell of oil.

‘Aren’t you going to take a shower first?’

‘What?’

His anger showed. Never before had a woman been as daring as this. His hand almost rose and fell on her face. Perhaps it did really rise. Then he took a step back, suddenly seized by exhaustion. He pointed to a little glass on a wooden shelf. He opened his mouth so wide that she could see the red uvula vibrating in his throat.

‘Four drops.’

She poured four drops down his throat. He closed his eyes for a long time, then he opened them. She licked her lower lip with the end of her tongue.

‘Is it water?’

‘No. They are a sort of oil drops, which quench the thirst more than water, and cleanse the intestines. Open your mouth.’

He poured into her mouth the first drop and then the second. She wanted the third and the fourth drop. She clung to the bottle, holding it with all five fingers, but he wrenched it from her and concealed it. ‘According to the law you only get two drops.’

She bowed her head. She was in a state of dazed exhaustion. It was as if she had heard about this law before. She fell asleep and saw herself taking a shower in warm water. The sky was pure blue and the fields were green. In her nostrils was the smell of farmland. She was sitting on the bridge at sunset waiting for the lights to appear.

She opened her eyes to the sensation of something burning under her eyelid. The room was bathed in darkness. A faint light was emitted by a lamp that burned languidly. He was sitting in his place behind the open newspaper. His feet were bare on the tiles.

She tucked her bag under her arm. She began to drag her feet to the kitchen. She came back with a cup of black tea. He stretched out his arm and took the cup without saying anything, and sank into something resembling sleep. The newspaper was rolled up into a ball on the ground. She opened it and turned it page by page. ‘A woman has gone on leave and has not returned. According to the law it is forbidden to give her shelter or to conceal her.’

Noiselessly, she hung the bag over her shoulder. She closed the door cautiously and went out. The wind howled like a hungry wolf. Her feet sank in at every step. She could not tell the mud from the dry ground. She used the walls for support as she used to do when she was a little girl, before she learnt to walk, with her aunt holding her hand.

One, two, buckle your shoe.

Three, four, walk to the door.

Help her, our Lady of Purity.

When she was a little girl, she did not know who the Lady of Purity was. Perhaps it was the Virgin Mary. In the darkness of the night, her face sometimes used to hover over the roofs of the village. Some blind people had their sight restored and movement was restored to some paralysed legs. Or perhaps it was Lady Zaynab, the only prophet who was able to heal her aunt of pain.

‘What are you saying?’

‘I will be a prophet . . . so that I can heal people.’

‘Have you lost your mind? There are no female prophets.’

His voice rang clearly in her ears. It dispersed her dreams. The voice of a man. Perhaps it was her husband or her boss. In the entrance examination he was sitting behind his desk, with a black pipe between his lips, which shook as he asked her question after question.

‘What do you know about Numu, the first goddess of the waters?’

‘Numu?’

‘And Inana, the goddess of nature and fertility?’

‘Inana?’

‘And Sekhmet, the goddess of death?’

She did not know that there were such things as goddesses. The prophets were all men, and there was not a woman among them. How then could there be female gods? Which are higher in rank, prophets or gods? As for the god of death, his name was Ezra’el not Sekhmet, and he was male not female.

She was reading in the light of the lamp. He was sitting in his usual place. His top half was hidden behind the newspaper.

‘Are you reading?’

All that was visible of him were his feet and legs. His angular knees stuck out from under his nightshirt. Were his eyes in his knees? She no sooner opened her book and started to read than she could see them shaking – was it in irritation?

‘Leave the book.’

‘The exam is tomorrow. I haven’t finished revising and . . .’

‘I’m hungry.’

She looked at the watch on her wrist. Ten past nine. She had prepared him his food an hour previously. How could he get hungry again so quickly? And if he was hungry, the saucepan was on the stove, and the kitchen was only three paces away. She saw him sitting down shaking his knees and moving his feet in the air, cracking his toes.

‘I’m thirsty.’

He never stopped making demands. Like a child, he could neither feed himself nor get himself something to drink. He would no sooner see her opening a book than he would shout. As if the book was another man who was taking her from him.

She hid the book under the pillow. She would wait until he was asleep, sound asleep, and his snoring had begun to rise and fall regularly. She opened the book and read. In it there were commands from the mother goddess to her daughter: