Two Women in One by Nawal El Saadawi Read Free Book Online

weighed upon her heavily ever since she came to have a body of her own, separate from the world, wrenched from her mother’s body as a small definite mass. The earth drew her downwards, the sky pulled her upwards, and the air pressed in from all sides. Her small body was always in the world’s grip, caught between the lion’s jaws. She was sure that someday the jaws would inevitably close. Had she ever doubted this, she might have considered some attempt at escape. But she bore her certainty within her body, in every throbbing cell, and she knew that the time would come and the pulse would stop. So sure was she that she longed for that moment, for the pulse to stop, relieving her of the burden.
    She said faintly, ‘Hold me with all your strength until . . . ’
    She stopped before she had finished the sentence. She had wanted to say ‘until my pulse stops’, but her secret death wish, once out in the open, would have seemed taboo and she understood why, for most people, the forbidden wishes are the real ones and the licit wishes unreal.
    One move from him would have been enough to carry her to the end. But she had always been afraid of ends. She sensed the danger of arrival and realized the impossibility of going back where she had come from. She had always known that, in some magical way, she could become another person, someone other than Bahiah Shaheen — she could become her real self.
    She moved away from him, walking on ahead with her long, quick strides, her black eyes looking up. Their colour was just black enough, her nose upturned just enough, her skin pale from ill-concealed fear. She heard his voice from behind: ‘Bahiah!’
    She would not stop or answer. He shouted so loudly that his voice echoed from the mountain side:
    ‘Bahiah!’
    She began to run from the voice, but it came to her from every direction. She put her hands over her ears, but he pulled them away, shouting angrily, ‘Why are you running away?’
    She tried to move, but his arm blocked her way. She pushed at him with all her strength, but he pulled her towards him. He reached out, turned her face up, looked her straight in the eyes — angry eyes of black tinged with a terrible dark blue, like the blue of a bottomless sea. She tried to turn away but he stopped her, saying angrily, ‘Bahiah Shaheen will always prevent you from attaining any goal. You will always stand in the middle of the road and fall into the trap of the mundane, like countless millions of others.’
    His voice shook. He let go of her head and his hand fell trembling to her chest. Even her eyes were flickering. Everything in her life felt shaky. She had heard this trembling voice once, twice, many times, hundreds of times before — every day when she sat on the tram and watched the coined human pieces, when she saw the male students with their thick spectacles poring over their lecture notes, when she saw the female students with their legs stuck together, when she heard the lectures delivered in that monotonous drone, when the alarm clock assaulted her ears and when her father called her in that voice of his. Nothing could halt this monotony; it would continue for ever.
    She was consumed by an overwhelming desire to stop this monotony which took possession of her constantly; a desire to shout, for no reason; to jump through the window and break an arm or a leg, to plunge a kitchen knife into her chest so that she would cry and hear her cries with her own ears and know for certain that she was alive and not dead. She had a strong and persistent desire to feel alive to the extent of committing a capital crime, a desire to kill her own body, while conscious and with full intent. She knew it would not have been a crime. There would be a crime only if her body was killed without her consent. She knew that another will was lying in wait for her, ready to seize the slightest opportunity to destroy her — her foot slipping on the tram step, a momentary distraction when