Zeina by Nawal El Saadawi Read Free Book Online Page A

his narrow, sunken eyes, and looked at the faces on the second page. He saw the face of the great writer, al-Damhiri, who had turned from a military man to a great thinker, with opinions on literature, art, and culture. His photographs appeared inside a square frame on top of an item of news concerning him, an article he wrote or a clumsy poem he composed on political or amorous themes.
    One day, as he was reading the paper, he saw the picture of a girl with a chubby moon face and smooth, long hair falling about her shoulders. She had the sleepy eyes of a female dreaming of love. Her plump, white hands rested on the desk, and between her fingers was a small pencil resembling an eyebrow pencil. The caption underneath the picture read: “Young Critic, Bodour al-Damhiri”.
    The wound deep inside her womb had healed and she had banished his image from her memory: the face, the tall gait, the eyes, and the room with the tiled floor. According to the medical report, he had died of natural causes in prison. But he wasn’t the only one who died as a result of being beaten up in prison, shot by a stray bullet during demonstrations, or chased by a police squadron while trying to run away in the middle of the night. How many were they? How many trampled on the picture of the king, railed against British imperialism, raised their voices for a free, dignified Egypt and paved the way for the revolution? But as soon as the men in military uniforms were seated at the helm, they rewrote history. They became the heroes, while all the past martyrs were sent into oblivion, their blood congealing on the streets and in jails and detention camps, completely lost to the collective memory of the nation and banished from the textbooks of the national curriculum.
    Bodour’s wedding was a lavish affair, attended by the great dignitaries of the state and the distinguished names in the realm of literature, art, and the media. Zakariah al-Khartiti walked pompously in his groom’s suit, while Bodour wore a wedding dress made of white lace, her large bosom squeezed into a silk brassiere. Her chest heaved and fell with the strong, escalating beats of the tamborines. She panted as she sat staring at the profile of her bridegroom, with his triangular head, his eyes sunken underneath his large forehead, and his large aquiline nose. His black hair was thinning in the middle and his small feet were concealed by a pair of shiny pointed black shoes. His triangular chin looked almost like an acute angle.
    Her friend, Safaa al-Dhabi, held her little white hands in hers. Her fingers trembled and her palm was moist with sweat.
    “Courage, Bodour!”
    “May God help me, Safi!”
    “Yes, God is great!”
    The drumbeats sounded and the music played. A wedding song celebrating the bride and groom was sung. “Oh beautiful bride, fall in the arms of your lovely groom ...”
    The words “fall in” sounded in Bodour’s ears as “fallen”. She let out a sigh, a smile, and a little short nervous laugh, which sounded like a stifled sob. Safi gave her a side glance, suppressing her laughter.
    In the bedroom, before he took off her wedding gown, he whispered in her ear the words “I love you”. But she knew he was lying. She began to breathe more calmly and the beats within her chest slowed as Badreya’s voice came to her from below the pillow while she lay underneath him. A lie for a lie, and an eye for an eye, Bodour, as God has said.
    Bodour believed in the Holy Books, while Badreya, like her friend Naim, believed that the future of humanity lay in science and art, that the universe has been evolving over millions of years, and that Adam wasn’t created out of clay.
    Miss Mariam carried on looking for Zeina Bint Zeinat after she stopped coming to school. The image of her walking tall among the girls and sitting on the backless piano stool, her back straight and her thin, long fingers moving with the speed of light over the keys, was engraved in her memory. Her