Nagiya awoke at dawn to the dull echo of stabs of pain rising up from her body to her sleep-befogged brain. No sooner was she completely awake than her whole body was racked by the full force of these stabs which came from her side; long stabs of piercing pain which, now that she was quite conscious, followed one another with regular precision. With each separate pang, preceded as it was by an interval of quiet, came the hope that it would be the final one, and she would find herself listening, waiting. But the period of quiet would not last long; all too soon it was followed by another stab, more quiet, another stab, quiet, and yet another and another.
Nagiya stirred uneasily on her bed. The coldness of dawn shook her body lying on its mattress of straw over the dead stove. A sharp cry of pain broke from her, but no one answered. She kept silent, and once again the pain quivered in her side. In anger she renewed her cries.
“Hafiza . . . Come here, girl! . . . Where are you? . . . Come to me!”
She listened. From outside she could hear her husband’s voice swearing angrily at the donkey: “Come on with you, you son of a bitch!” Then the sound of Omran, her father-in-law, slowly gnawing at a piece of dry bread; also the voice of Hafiza’s child, crying listlessly, without anger—as he always did when he awoke in the early morning—and of Hafiza herself, rocking him, her voice heavy with sleep.
Pain again seized hold of her body. In fury she began thinking about the piece of bread Omran was gnawing. In her mind’s eye she saw him chewing it slowly between his toothless jaws, his face wearing an expression of engrossed contentment, scarcely aware of his surroundings. “Have you got nothing better to do than eat, the first thing you get up?” She muttered angrily, and once again pain twisted her body.
“Hafiza, you little wretch!” she cried in a voice choked with the pain that had come on with renewed vigor.
“What’s wrong, mother? Pain’s come again?” Hafiza slowly approached, wiping the sleep from her eyes.
Directly Nagiya heard these words spoken in such a gentle, conciliatory tone, she burst out at her daughter:
“Your mother! I’m no mother of yours. If I were it might mean something to you that I’m lying here dying, with the pain tearing at my side.”
Hafiza bent over her, her breasts pointed and youthful, a smile on her round, full face and moist lips.
“It’s all right, mother,” she said, speaking in a slow, gentle manner; “the child was crying and I was feeding him.”
Nagiya’s heart softened at the deep, kindly voice of her daughter. She remembered how fond she was of her, how much more she liked her than the others. She was about to smile at her when the pain returned, rending her exhausted body. She recovered from it and turned to Hafiza, her face convulsed.
“You and your father are leaving me here to die . . . Why should you care so long as you’ve got your husband and child? Why should you care whether your mother lives or dies? . . . Ah! Shame on you! . . . You’ve turned out just as brutal as your father.”
“But what can we do, mother?” she said softly, turning away her head, wounded by her mother’s unjust accusation. “Who can father leave the field to? . . . Anyway, here I am, sitting by you.”
Nagiya did not reply, and Hafiza squatted down on the stove, silent, her head lowered, hearing nothing but the occasional groans that broke from her mother; from time to time she passed her tongue over her lips in an anguish no words could express.
Then the monotonous, unchanging noise of the child’s crying reached them, sounding like some meaningless phrase committed to heart and repeated by a schoolboy. Hafiza stirred uneasily and her mother turned to her.
“Go and see to the child, Hafiza,”
Her body waited, as though with eager expectancy, for the next stab. She followed her daughter’s footsteps as she left the room, and her heart went out to her. She could also hear Omran’s voice as he sat with Muhammad and Zaina round him, both of them chewing bread, while he told them in his broken voice: “It’s much better with salt.” Then, after a while, she heard him give a short laugh. “Eh . . . don’t you agree it’s better with salt?” The blood rushed to her head with inward rage. Then came the mounting screams of the child, vibrating from the rocking, and a little later she made out the voice of Hafiza’s husband addressing her sharply: “If she’s all that ill why doesn’t she go to hospital?”
Suddenly Nagiya turned away from it all, her body alerted and ready to meet the next stab that clutched at her bowels, causing her to stretch straight out on her back. “Hospital . . . hospital.” The one word echoed through her head, unaccompanied by any sort of emotion. For a while she continued shaking her head to right and left as she repeated the word, until Hafiza returned and squatted down on the stove by her side, the child in her lap, his mouth at her breast and his eyes tightly closed. She bent over him, wrapping him round with her black milaya.
“Take me to the hospital,” her mother said.
“Why, mother? Do you think we hold you so cheap we’d pack you off to hospital?”
“Hafiza, take me to hospital,” she continued, in a voice choked with self-pity. “Take me to hospital, Hafiza.”
She was repeating these words when Khalifa entered.
“Yes, . . . now you’re talking sense,” he said in his loud, self-confident voice. “Go to hospital, then they’ll make you well again and you can come back cured. . . . Tomorrow, Hafiza my girl, you take her to town and put her into hospital.”
Accompanied by her daughter, Nagiya went to the Qasr al-Aini hospital. Of the train journey and the tramp through the wide streets, of the crazy traffic and noisy, merry, and quarrelsome inhabitants, of the towering, defiant buildings—of all these she was oblivious, existing as she did behind veil of pain, hemmed in by colorless, undefined impressions. The sharp stabs had now passed, to be replaced by a dull ache that permeated her whole being. She had submitted to this pain had immersed herself in it to the exclusion of everything else. All worries had disappeared and there moaned only fear and images of death. In evoking these vague thoughts Nagiya’s brain derived a vague yet subtle pleasure. She took her mind back to the past, to days that had long gone by, to as far back as she could remember, and found that every minute of her life had been nothing but worry and toil: wrenching her body at dawn from amid the clinging clouds of gentle sleep, spending her entire day running between the house and the field till, at night, she threw herself down in exhaustion. When the illness had come, she had fought and struggled against it for the sake of that life of hers which, in spite of her everlasting grumbling, she was unable to conceive as ever being different. Now that her body had yielded, her mind too experienced the pleasure of complete submission.
Hafiza walked by her mother’s side, her hands holding the black milaya wrapped round the child, who, at first, disturbed by the noise of the train, had cried, then, between his sobs, had smiled and fallen asleep to his mother’s rocking. Occasionally he woke up to let out his listless, monotonous crying for a while, but would soon be asleep again. At length, after asking the way a number of times, Hafiza and her mother reached the gate of the Qasr al-Aini hospital.
“What shall we do now?” Hafiza turned to her mother.
Nagiya made no answer, for she had found a new and unexpected pleasure in the worry that her daughter now bore. Why should she go on thinking and striving? Her whole life she had done so, not only for herself but for others, so it was high time somebody else did the worrying.
Hafiza stopped a passerby. Awkwardly she inquired how she could get her mother into hospital. He showed her the place where the names were registered, then added, “But they’re not taking anybody now,”
Hafiza continued on her way, terror and anxiety blinding her to everything. On reaching the office she began explaining her case in halting words, her face pleading and imploring, but she had no sooner finished speaking than the clerk burst out at her, “Well, what’s wrong with her—she’s standing on her two legs, isn’t she? . . . We haven’t got any beds.”
Hafiza renewed her appeals, calling to mind all the expressions used in such circumstances: “Please, sir . . . May God reward you for your kindness . . . May the Prophet. . . She’s a poor old woman with many children . . . She’s been suffering a long time from this illness of hers . . . May God protect you, sir.”
But he only snapped at her again and turned to someone else. At this Hafiza was overcome with shame, humiliation, and embarrassment. She stood sheltering by her mother’s side, a sense of complete helplessness engulfing her.
They stood thus for a while: the mother speechless yet experiencing a subtle joy at Hafiza’s helplessness, while Hafiza bent over her child with her sad, round face, her mind a void. When a policeman ordered them to leave, they went out. On reaching the door they were met by the man who had first directed Hafiza to the office.
“Didn’t I tell you they weren’t taking anybody now?” he remarked, an exultant ring in his voice. “You see,” he rambled on, “they only take people who have some sort of influence, and they don’t care a rap about poor folk. Now, when my aunt fell ill, and we wanted to have an operation done, only Dr. Hussein Bey could get her in . . . you see, he’s a very decent fellow and has a high regard for me.” He bent over Hafiza confidingly. “You seem to be poor folk—listen, I’ll tell you of a good plan. Get your mother to lie down on the ground and sit by her side and scream for all you’re worth, then they’ll fetch an ambulance that’ll take her right off to Qasr al-Aini where she’ll get a bed and everybody’ll be happy.”
These words fell on Hafiza’s ears like magic. She glanced at her mother’s silent face, but found no reply there.
“Thank you, sir,” she said to the man.
“Well, there it is,” he answered as he made off. “I’m telling you, there’s no other way.”
A period of silence followed between the two women, after which Hafiza said: “What shall we do now, mother?”
Nagiya turned to her, her face an expression of deep misery and self pity.
“Begin screaming, Hafiza!”
Directly she had said these words she threw herself to the ground, covering her face with the edge of her milaya. For a moment Hafiza stood confused, overcome by grief. Then she heard the weak voice of her mother saying: “Begin screaming, Hafiza!” so she started sobbing softly, then, gathering together her strength, she burst out into wild shrieks and walls that steadily increased in volume. The child, woken by the noise, opened his eyes; his face trembled, then he began crying loudly, his small features contorted, his eyes closed in temper.
The passersby collected round the two women. They stood by inquiring in loud voices what had happened and offering explanations. Most of them wandered off again, but a small number remained, curious to see what would be the outcome. A policeman came up and asked what the trouble was. For a while he stared frigidly at them, then telling some of those standing by to help him, he carried the woman into the hospital, with Hafiza following after him, her voice having now died down to a mere succession of choked mutterings: “May God bring you back to health, Mother.”
The policeman explained the position to the official, who glared suspiciously at Hafiza, while she lowered her head; asked about her mother’s name and what was wrong with her, she answered as best she could. The official ordered the mother to be taken into the hospital, but when Hafiza tried to follow, he roughly stopped her, ordering her outside. When her pleading availed nothing, she slowly went out into the street, her head filled with an overwhelming sense of bewilderment and futility in the face of everything. Exhaustion welling up within her body, she seated herself cross-legged on the ground and, taking the child to her warm bosom and arranging the ends of the milaya round him, she leant her head against the stone-work of the wall behind which her mother lay in one of the large, lonely buildings.
Her eyes closed. She endeavored to find, within the recesses of her mind, some clue as to what she should do and where she should go. No answer presented itself; all she felt was anger, anger against everything, but especially against her husband whom she could now picture with his broad, cheerful face and boisterous laugh. She imagined him returning from his round in the village where he worked as a barber, carrying his razor blade and soap, and sitting down to his dinner without so much as asking about her. Then perhaps, as he often did, he would start playing with Hosna, her young sister. How he loved Hosna! It sometimes seemed that he preferred Hosna to her and to her own poor child. She hated him and wished that she could inflict on him the very aguish that now surrounded and threatened to engulf her. Sadness surged up inside her; but soon, for no particular reason, she found herself thinking about Hussein, the son of the village omda, who had once smiled at her as he cycled along a country lane. Now studying here in Cairo, he dressed in European clothes and led a happy, luxurious life which was so above all that ugliness, filth and hate which was her lot. Yes, why shouldn’t she go to him this very evening, go to him and ask him what she ought to do. Maybe he’d invite her to spend the night with him at his house. Her face flushed with excitement and shame at this daring idea. She wandered on in her dreams, imagining herself knocking at his door, his opening it to her, his greeting her with joyful smiles, while she stared at the ground, smiling yet embarrassed. Then he would have all kinds of tasty food prepared for her and served on a large high table, after which she would experience the marvelous warmth of a soft bed .... Plunged in these happy dreams, sleep crept upon her, rising inside her with a delicious stealth. She yielded to it. having curled herself round the child so that her whole body covered him.