Two Women in One (13 page)

When she reached the main street she felt a wave of cold air hit her burning cheeks. The muscles of her face contracted and a sense of impending danger swept through her body. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed the policeman standing there, then she went into a small shop and unwrapped her painting. The old man smiled, as he usually did on seeing her work. His veined hand reached into his pocket and extracted three Egyptian pounds, which he counted out carefully, one after the other.

She went back out into the street, and soon realized that a pair of eyes were watching her and footsteps following her. A bakery smell reached her nose; she went in and ate a piece of her favourite cake. When she paid the cashier, she saw the narrow eyes behind her in the mirror. She went out into the street and hailed a taxi, glancing at her watch. The taxi stopped. At a bend in the street she looked behind her and saw the same pair of eyes following in another taxi. She got out at al-Attabah square. She knew that Raouf and Fawzi would be waiting for her in the basement but she did not join them. She wandered down al-Moski street, watching the women and girls as they walked with their closely-bound fat legs, pounding the street with their bodies, their bottoms visible under their glossy dresses. Their made-up eyes devoured the shop windows: they lusted after clothes, transparent nightdresses, slippers, make-up, perfume and body lotions. Their sharp, penetrating voices mingled with the popping of chewing gum and the clacking of pointed high heels bearing bodies laden with shopping.

She pursed her lips in anger, for the greedy desire to consume is mere compensation for eternal deprivation. Under the lustful, burning eyes lies the coldness of snow. Under the hair wavy as silk lies a brain soft like a rabbit’s, knowing nothing of life except eating and reproduction.

The sun was setting as she went out into the street. The sky, the earth, the houses and trees were tinged pale red. They grew paler by the minute, like a face drained of blood after the long, slow wait for death. Then the street lights came on. Hundreds of white circles of light were reflected on the asphalt, in shop windows, in car windscreens and in people’s faces. Everything glowed under the light. She heard soft laughter and saw a girl taking a young man’s arm while his other arm curled around her. She smiled at them as a sudden energy surged through her. She filled her lungs with the damp night air. Her black eyes glittered like diamonds as, with childish joy, she watched the coloured lights hanging like balloons from the stores. She watched the cars speeding over the shiny asphalt, the window-panes glistening like mirrors, and the people in their colourful clothes walking in the white light like herds of deer. A child let off a firework: the rocket exploded in millions of shining, coloured particles.

She heard herself laugh as she had as a child. She almost skipped like a child too, but then she saw the narrow eyes in front of her. She turned and saw another pair of eyes watching her. She went down a side street on her right but found that the eyes blocked her way. She headed for her own neighbourhood, but the policeman’s fat body loomed with his shiny buttons and his pointed weapon hanging from his leather belt.

She stopped and looked around quickly with that frantic movement of people who feel threatened, with known and unknown forces lying in wait to destroy them. The eyes dart in all directions, watching for the hand that may strike from front or back, left or right. The head jerks continuously: every cell is alert, thinking: how can I save myself from the impending danger? How can I protect my body from the blows and carry it away safely? The muscles contract cautiously; the heart beats impatiently; the blood surges through the body with its rapid, regular pulse: it is the throb of anxiety, bringing with it the sensation of life. Her long, fine fingers shook imperceptibly. Her feet stood firm, the outlines of her body as unyielding as the earth beneath her feet. But under that stillness was a rapid, palpable movement, like the vibrations of air sensed by the ear or the pulse of blood through the walls of the veins. It was a rapid vibration that seemed silent from the outside — but beneath the stillness was hidden a frightening violent motion. It was the struggle between resistance and submission, the only movement through which the difference between life and death becomes clear.

It was a frightening moment. She feared it as much as she desired it. She longed to escape from it and yearned to pursue it. It was the only time she saw that she was real and alive. We feel alive only when we face death. It is like the colour white that becomes white only when contrasted with black.

Her lips parted in a smile and her eyes shone. This moment was her goal. She had wanted it from the very beginning and had marched toward it firmly and with determination. She knew that she was heading only toward danger, and at its brink was that small place, just a foot wide suspended in air; above was sky and below the abyss. It was a moment ruled by two powerful forces: one pulling down to the abyss, the other urging soaring flight.

She was sure that she would not plunge into the abyss. She would not surrender. She would not be Bahiah Shaheen, would not return to the ordinary faces, would not sink into the sea of similar bodies or tumble into the grave of ordinary life.

She raised her black eyes, tensed the muscles of her back and legs and walked toward them with long strides, each foot striking sharply on the ground, her legs parting confidently and freely. When she was face to face with them she said in her quiet, confident voice, ‘Let’s go!’

One of them locked the handcuffs around her wrists and put the key in his pocket. She walked briskly in front of them, her eyes darting, her feet searching among all those faces for the thin face with the exhausted features burdened with the world’s worries, for those eyes that could pick out her face from all other faces and distinguish her body from among millions of bodies floating in the universe.

When she saw him before her she shouted joyfully like a child: ‘Saleem!’

She stretched out her arms to embrace him, but she could not reach, and her hands trembled in the handcuffs.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 86356 562 X
EAN 9-780863-565625
eISBN: 978-0-86356-728-5

copyright © Nawal El-Saadawi 2005
Translation © Osman Nusairi and Jana Gough

First published in 1985 by Saqi Books

The right of Nawal El-Saadawi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of l988

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher
.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
.

This edition published 2005

SAQI
26 Westbourne Grove
London W2 5RH
www.saqibooks.com