God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels by Nawal El Saadawi Read Free Book Online

said, ‘Get down.’
    â€˜Is this Al Ramla, uncle?’ she asked.
    â€˜Yes,’ he said without looking at her.
    She rested her arms on the wooden cart and started to get down. It leaned suddenly on one side under the weight of her body and straightened up again when her feet reached the ground. The cart regained its balance and he felt it become light, moving more easily over the ground. His heart was beating steadily and he would feel that now it was much lighter than it was before, as though rid of the load which had been weighing it down. He heard her footsteps tread heavily over the ground and whipped the donkey with his stick several times. The cart resumed its slow progress, trundling along over the dusty road. He was on the verge of turning round to take a last look at her, but changed his mind. He fastened his eyes on the distant horizon and whipped the donkey again. It stumbled forwards gasping for breath as it dragged the cart behind it, and the wheels started to turn once more with their slow, monotonous, bumping sound.
    Nefissa saw the cart shaking and swaying from side to side, the man’s back was thin, and his bones stuck out, andwhen she looked at him from behind she was reminded of her father. After a while the cart disappeared carrying the man out of sight, but the sound of the wheels crunching over the ground continued to mingle in her ears with the hoarse gasping of the donkey as it breathed in and out. Every now and then these sounds were drowned in a rasping cough like the cough which shook her father every time he inhaled deeply from his water-jar pipe as he sat smoking in the yard of their house.
    When she arrived at the mosque she turned to the right and after a short distance was confronted by an area of waste ground which Om Saber had described to her. At the furthest end was a small house built of mud, with a big wooden door. Over the door was a wooden knocker, and close by she noticed the water pump. She worked the pump and drank the water which flowed over the palm of her hand, then walked up to the door. She lifted the knocker several times, allowing it to drop lightly, and heard a woman’s voice respond in a long, drawn-out vulgar call like that of Nafoussa, the dancer in Kafr El Teen.
    â€˜Who is at the door?’
    â€˜It’s me,’ answered Nefissa in what was little more than a whisper.
    The long, drawn-out vulgar call resounded loudly once more. ‘Who are you?’
    â€˜It’s me… Nefissa,’ she said.
    â€˜Nefissa who?’ the woman insisted.
    She wiped a drop of sweat which was trickling down her nose and said, ‘Aunt, Om Saber sent me to you, Aunt Nafoussa.’
    There was a silence. She could hear the pounding of her heart, and the whisper of her breath as she faced the door. Then it swung open by itself, as though moved by an invisible devil.
    She stood there as still as a statue. But when she stepped across the threshold she realized that her whole body was shivering.

IV
    Just before she heard the first cock crow in the dark silence, Fatheya opened her eyes. Or perhaps she did not realize that her eyes had already been open for some time. She could see her husband lying on his back with his mouth open, snoring with a deep choking noise. His breath smelt heavily of tobacco, and his chest kept up a wheezing sound as though phlegm had been collecting in it all night.
    She nudged him in the shoulder with her fist to wake him up, but he turned over and gave his back to her, muttering unintelligible words in his slumber. The crow of the cock rang out in the silence once more. This time she hit him with her knuckles sharply on the shoulder.
    â€˜Sheikh Hamzawi, the cock has awakened and called out to prayer, and you are still snoring away,’ she said irritably.
    Sheikh Hamzawi opened his eyes but closed his lips tightly as though he had decided not to respond to her verbal and manual attacks on him, already starting at this