Love in the Kingdom of Oil Read online

  The man kept quiet without moving.

  ‘I can’t remain here!’ She stood stiffly and her voice choked. The man’s silence and his bent head took on a frightening meaning. Would her fate be tied to his fate forever?

  The sun had risen in the sky. Its rays flared up with a red colour. Some corners of the lake caught fire. Smoke arose, concealing the sky and the disk of the sun. He raised his head, rubbing his eyes. ‘This smoke is a kindness from God, for it reduces the temperature.’

  His voice no longer stirred her body with waves of anger. On her face was drawn an expression of despair. She was standing barefoot with her head dangling over her chest. The bones of her body dangled in surrender and the strap of the bag dangled over her shoulder. ‘Yes, resistance is meaningless.’

  Her voice sounded exhausted and almost inaudible. The man could not hear it either. His bent head had some humanity in it. Some emotion tied her to him. It was certainly not love.

  His feet suddenly slipped and he fell on his face. She helped him to get up, brushing the dust off him. But he pushed her away, and the muscles of his face contracted.

  ‘If you hadn’t been standing like this, I wouldn’t have fallen over.’

  ‘Your foot slipped.’

  ‘It wasn’t my foot!’

  ‘If it wasn’t your foot, what was it?’

  ‘You! You standing in my way like this.’

  She was standing far away from him. Whatever had happened, she could not be the cause of his falling down. However, he was unable to grasp any other reason. He believed in the following principle: ‘If misfortune struck him, it was because of a woman. If good came his way, it was because of himself.’

  She did not utter a single word. She held her head in her hands. She had to pretend that his foot had not slipped. She was the cause of his falling down. She had to apologise for stepping out, and to ask his forgiveness.

  She curled up at his feet. Her eyes looked at him as he stood there. She stopped moving completely. She pretended to be dead for a moment. Then she woke up. The waterfall was gushing away, drowning everything. However, the people of the village were going on their way as if nothing was happening. The voices of newspaper vendors arose. He was standing without a sound. The silence confirmed that everything was clear without words. The jar was in front of her, the lake behind her, and nothing else mattered.

  Her body lay exhausted on the ground. She tied the scarf around her head and burst into tears. The tears poured out, burning the corners of her swollen eyelids. They were absorbed by the dust sticking to her eyelashes. They flowed down her cheeks like black threads.

  She moved her head towards the man. He was standing in his place. He had taken off his shirt and exposed his chest. With his fingers he began to play with clots of hair that were sticking together. There was something inhuman in his naked body. She could not place her head on this chest. A broad square locked like a box. The thought came to her to open it with the chisel. But her hand did not move from its place. The thought was a fantasy that used to come and go in her head.

  She stretched out her hand to take hold of the chisel. At that moment a sharp pain ran through her side. As if a congealed piece of oil had entered her lung with the air.

  She let out a cry and rushed to cling to his feet. She remained standing, hesitating a little, her features hanging limp. She had no hope that he could remove the pain. But he was there. There was something in his presence, or in the movement with which she rushed to his feet. Or in his features apart from their limpness, or in the startled look in his eyes. There was something there that lightened the pain.

  She was able to move her feet a few steps towards him. Her hand was on her breast pressing on the pain. She approached him until there was no more than a step between them. She had never before in her life seen the face of a man in such despair.

  She raised her eyes to heaven. The sun was setting and the light was fading. She suddenly found herself bending over as if she was going to sleep. Her neck bent forward at a sharp angle. The movement startled her and she came upright again. She took hold of the leather strap over her shoulder and pulled it strongly. The bag slipped off her shoulder and fell to the ground. The chisel fell out of it suddenly.

  A fresh breeze arose. She opened the buttons of her cloak and felt the freshness on her bare skin. The wind had a refreshing feel to it, which brought back to her something of her childhood happiness. Not all her childhood had been filled with sadness. There were some moments of happiness. When she was sitting on the bridge at sunset. She saw him looking at her. He was staring at her bare chest. She had no desire to seduce him. All she wanted was the breeze. It refreshed her swollen skin and dried her sweat.

  Her nakedness was natural under the pressure of the heat. But he continued to stare at her chest as if she had exposed it on purpose. She was about to reach out her hand to close her cloak but she did not do so. She closed her eyes helplessly. Yes, she could flee. Had she not fled once before? Had she not made a hole in the wall and crept out to go on leave?

  She looked around her. There were no four walls to hem her in. Just vast areas of liquid. A pond or a lake with black waves. She could find a boat or make herself a coracle of palm leaves. As a child she used to make little boats from the leaves of the date palm. She also used to make aeroplanes with wings of leaves.

  She began to brace her body and to stand up. She moved her feet in the other direction, away from the man.

  She moved away a few paces. When she looked at him from some distance away, he seemed more human. He looked at her more tenderly. Her eyes were drawn towards him. He could call her if he wanted. But he was silent, and in his silence there was something devious.

  She went no more than a few steps and then she came back. The man had gone inside the house. She saw him lying on his back, letting water drip into his mouth from a bottle. With the edge of his lower lip he wiped away a drop that had fallen on his upper lip. He looked around as if he was not expecting her to come.

  ‘You are selfish, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m better than many other men.’

  ‘That’s certain.’

  ‘Tomorrow I will give you your portion, when they pay the grant.’

  ‘Tomorrow I won’t be here.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I beg you. Help me go back. My husband is waiting for me. He maybe assailed with suspicions, and my boss at work must have no fewer suspicions than he. I went on leave, and that is something that arouses suspicions. But I’m not interested in anything apart from searching for goddesses. Perhaps you have heard of the goddess Sekhmet.’

  ‘Sakhmutt?’

  He pursed his lips as he said the word. His bottom lip turned outwards and he changed the pronunciation of the ‘t’ by velarising it.

  ‘Don’t you know anything about archaeology?’

  ‘On His Majesty’s birthday they order us to spend lavishly.’

  ‘Spend what?’

  ‘Bottles.’

  ‘I don’t want anything any more.’

  ‘What’s the problem then?’

  ‘I don’t understand why you don’t set me free.’

  ‘Set you free?’

  ‘Yes. I am a human being like you, and I have rights.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Women’s rights! Don’t you know about them?’

  ‘We have never heard of anything like that. We have the rights of men only.’

  She lowered her eyes and sighed silently. Her face dropped and her shoulders slumped. She didn’t attempt to reply. It appeared that words were without meaning.

  He also sank into a long silence. He lowered his head as if he was looking at his feet. Or perhaps he had fallen asleep. Then he raised his head, his eyes looking at her. ‘Why don’t you want to stay here?’

  ‘Why do you want me to stay here?’

  ‘My work is here.’

  ‘Do you call this chore work?’

  ‘There is a
long queue of people waiting impatiently for my place to fall vacant.’

  He raised his arm and pointed to a black line on the horizon. Her eyes followed the movement of his finger. The line was like a tilted disk, disappearing behind a dark cloud, which was dispersed a little by the light of the sun. The line appeared to move, like black particles, thousands of particles, appearing like heads stuck together, tilted downwards, moving forward slowly as if they were on the march. They advanced step by step with bent backs. Men with twisted moustaches, faceless women with heads tied with scarves. The storm rose and a new cloud appeared. They disappeared completely from sight. There was no trace of them apart from that black line that appeared on the horizon like an arc.

  She moved her eyes towards the man. He took an axe and began to beat the ground. He was filling the jars one after the other. His back was towards her. She crept away on tiptoe. She could distance herself little by little and run away. Perhaps she would succeed in running away before he turned towards her.

  She noticed the loaf of bread on the wooden board and suddenly felt pangs of hunger. She took the bag off her shoulder and stretched out her arm. She took a nibble of bread between her teeth, then another, then another. The man saw her eating. ‘How can you eat my food and then refuse to obey me?’

  ‘Is it your food?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m not eating of the sweat of your brow. I sweat as well, like you.’

  ‘Like me?’

  ‘Yes. For example, don’t I carry the jar to the company each day?’

  ‘The company!?’

  The word rang strangely in her ears. A mysterious word. The company. What is it? Who are the partners in this company? To whom do they sell the jars? How much do they pay for them each day? Does the man take a wage? From the day she had come, she had received nothing. She had never held any money in her hands.

  The world became blurred before her eyes. She moved her head towards the man. He began to beat the ground with the axe, blow after blow. A slow heavy movement. Then he threw the axe aside. He yawned. He wiped off the sweat with the sleeve of his jallaba. He filled the basket up to the brim. He raised it slowly with a ponderous movement, then emptied it into the jar. The jar cracked with a loud noise.

  ‘It’s not right for a woman to work for money.’

  ‘Then why should she work?’

  ‘For a greater goal.’

  The words seemed logical. There was another goal to her life. For the sake of the greater goal, she could submit herself to a smaller goal. She felt at rest with this thought.

  She raised the jar with one hand, and placed it on her head. The muscles of her neck bent under the load. But it steadied itself once more. The congealed oil was very sticky. It shook in the belly of the jar and from its mouth arose something like steam.

  She moved on her way towards the company. Her shadow was reflected on the surface of the lake. With the jar on her head, she appeared like the goddess Hathur carrying the disk of the sun between her horns.

  She tensed the muscles of her neck as if with pride. Heat emanated from the base of the jar like the sun. She moved with firm steps, without giving heed to anything.

  From a distance the company appeared like a black stain on an expanse that was even blacker. A piece of land rising into the sky like a chimney. It threw out flames and black particles that appeared to be red under the sun.

  Perhaps she had been born here and she didn’t have another life. She twisted her neck with a sudden movement and the jar almost fell. She raised her arm and grasped it with a swift movement.

  The company seemed more distant as she moved nearer to it. The sun disappeared and night began to creep over the land. It laid itself down on the land suddenly, as if it was going to sleep.

  Since her childhood she could not stand anything on her head. She took the jar off and carried it on her back. Perhaps this would be a better position. If the heat flowed into her back, all that there was there was bone. Heat on the head dissolved the brain.

  ‘Is this why donkeys carry things on their backs and not on their heads?’

  The thought astonished her. Her mind became more active. The donkey seemed to her to be more intelligent than women. She also realised why men refuse to carry things on their heads. She moved the jar to the lower part of her back and it became lighter. A refreshing wind slowly entered her chest. Her head was liberated from the weight and a new thought came to her. Her astonishment increased the more she developed the thought. Her body began to tremble. A wave of rebellion swept over her like a feverish tremor.

  She wiped the sweat from her brow with her sleeve. She contemplated her life. What was it that incapacitated her? In her childhood what had she wanted to be? Her body collapsed in exhaustion. She wanted to be a prophetess like the Lady of Purity, with her ability to restore movement to paralysed legs and sight to sick eyes.

  ‘A woman prophet!? We have never heard of this before!’

  ‘She’s inherited the madness from her aunt.’

  ‘A demon’s got hold of her and she’s become stubborn.’

  She closed her eyes and went off to sleep. She was resisting despair by falling asleep. Her mind regained some of its enthusiasm. Hope crept into her body like worms creep into the ground. She looked at the watch on her wrist. Time was passing and she was lying down. She jumped up on her feet. She stretched out her hand and took hold of the chisel.

  The land was changing as the oil changed. The oil was changing with the movement of the sun and the wind. Her breathing rose and fell according to the degree of hope or despair in her breast, and to the pulsing of blood from her heart to her arms, from her arms to her chisel, from her chisel to the ground, and from the ground to the oil, the wind and the sun.

  Everything began to rotate in wondrous harmony as if it was the law of the universe. If the oil changed, everything around her changed. Perhaps the power of the oil is beyond belief or of an unfamiliar type. Congealed oil is not like liquid oil, and oil sludge that settles on the bottom has another consistency, and a completely different viscosity. In the bowels of the earth, everything changes, even humidity. And in her head thought after thought went round, and the chisel hit the ground blow after blow, without purpose. Nothing leaves any mark, and everything ends in nothing.

  When she returned she saw the man lying on his back with his eyes open and a cigarette lit. He moved his head towards her a little and asked, ‘Did you say something? Weren’t you speaking?’ He was gazing at the flame in his hand. Perhaps fire was salvation.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She said ‘nothing’ with a ring of submission. The place was bathed in silence. If one particle catches fire, fire will catch hold of everything. The thought of dying by burning did not attract her. She moved her feet towards the door. She held the knob with both hands. It would not open. It was permeated with damp and its bottom edge had stuck to the ground.

  The man put out the cigarette against the heel of his shoe. Then he picked up the newspaper and hid behind it. She saw the picture of His Majesty and the banner headline:

  On the occasion of his birthday, His Majesty orders the Statue of Victory to be washed.

  She closed her eyes, then opened them. She saw something moving like a snake. It raised its tail when it saw her, as if it was greeting her. She nodded her head to return the greeting. It exhaled air with an audible sound. She realised that it was saying something in another language. She nodded her head as a sign of understanding.

  The snake changed into a sudden movement with her hand. She pulled the newspaper from over the head of the man.

  ‘What is happening is unendurable by any human being, and you stretch out in your chair smoking and reading the newspaper as if there was nothing wrong with the world.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘This is wrong. Can’t you see?’

  His eyes followed her finger as it pointed up in a circular movement.
r />   The Statue of Victory was made of alabaster covered with a black layer of oil particles. Before being washed its face looked black, covered with oil stains.

  She could not fail to attend the celebrations. The order had been issued typed out and sealed with the sign of the falcon. The women must undertake the washing and the men must stand in ordered ranks, and salute.

  She did not know how much time she spent washing the statue. It seemed to be submissive to her ministrations. She breathed in time with the movement of her arms, and the beating of her heart under her ribs, and the ticking of the watch on her wrist. The process of washing seemed endless, mindless perhaps, an attempt to escape from some other activity. After washing, the face became white in colour, like the face of His Majesty, plump, barrel-chested, with two prominent breasts like the face of the goddess Ekhnaton.

  She continued to gaze at the statue for a long time. A wind arose from the south and filled her eyes with particles of oil. The pain increased until it burned and she closed her eyelids. From behind she heard the voice and the man’s hand almost touched her.

  She half-opened her eyes. He was not the man. She saw a woman standing, carrying on her head the planet Earth or the disk of the sun. She had two long horns that curled forwards. The light was dim, or perhaps the swelling of her eyes had weakened her sight. She could not see the face of the woman. She could not be certain of what she carried on her head.

  Her mind was no longer able to make sense of things. Everything blended together inside her head with the intense heat. Sweat fell in drops from her nose. Her arm was not strong enough for her to raise it and wipe the sweat. She left it to drip copiously with her tears. Perhaps the disk of the sun was the enemy. Her mind worked once more as she sprawled on the ground, but the voice of the woman interrupted her thoughts, ‘Get up, sister, and have a bath. Many happy returns.’

  She turned over in her place and considered her. Her jallaba was long and black. She had the features of her aunt. Her neck twisted under the load. Next to her was the washing basin. She took a piece of rock and went to rub her cracked feet and to remove the layer of black. She polished her feet energetically as if they were the feet of the Statue of Victory. The rubbing brought on a pleasant stupor in her head. She did not know what was the relationship between feet and head.