Zein’s mother put it about that her son was one of God’s saints, and this belief was strengthened by Zein’s friendship with Haneen. Haneen was a pious man wholly dedicated to his religious devotions who, having stayed six months in the village praying and fasting, would then take up his pitcher and prayer-rug and wander about up in the desert, disappearing for six months and then returning. No one knew where he went, though people related strange stories concerning him, one swearing that he had seen him in Merowi at a particular time, while another swore he’d caught sight of him in Karma at that very same time, though a distance of six days’ journey separates the two places. People stated that Haneen would meet up with a group of those itinerant holy men who wander about devoting themselves to the service of God. Haneen seldom talked to any of the villagers, and if asked where he went to for six months of the year would make no reply. No one knew what he ate or drank, for he carried no provisions on his long journeys. But there was in the village one person with whom Haneen was on friendly terms: Zein. When meeting him upon the road, he would embrace him, kiss him on the head and call him ‘The blessed one of God’. Zein, too, on seeing Haneen approach would leave off his horse-play and idle talk and would hasten up to embrace him. Haneen would not partake of food in any house but Zein’s: off Zein would go to his mother and ask her to prepare them lunch, tea or coffee, and there Zein and Haneen would stay together for hours laughing and talking. The people of the village tried to learn from Zein the secret of the friendship between him and Haneen, but he would never say more than the words ‘Haneen is a man blessed of God’.
Zein had numerous friendships of this sort with persons whom the villagers regarded as abnormal, such as Deaf Ashmana, Mousa the Lame, and Bekheit who was born deformed with no upper lip and a paralysed left side. Zein was fond of such people; thus, if he were to see Ashmana approaching from the field bearing a heavy load of firewood on her head, he would carry it for her with a playful smile. So afraid of people was she that if she came face to face with anyone, man or woman, she became utterly panic-stricken, just as though they were wild beasts. Yet she enjoyed Zein’s company and would give him her sad, almost soundless laugh that resembled the clucking of hens. And then there was Mousa whom people called not by name but ‘the Lame One’, a man advanced in years, the mere sight of whom was enough to rend one’s heart because of the great effort he had to make to walk, a man for whom life was an irksome and arduous road. He had been the slave of a well-to-do man in the village and when the government gave the slaves their freedom, Mousa had elected to stay on with his master, who had shown him great kindness, treating him like a son. At death the master’s wealth had devolved upon a good-for-nothing son, who had dissipated it and driven Mousa out. Overtaken by old age, Mousa had found himself destitute, without a family or anyone to look after him. He therefore lived on the fringe of life in the village, just like the old stray dogs that howled in the waste plots of land at night and, harassed by boys, spent their days scavenging hither and thither for food. Zein, taking pity on the man, had built him a house of palm branches and provided him with a nanny goat in milk. In the morning he would go to enquire how he was and after sunset would come with his garment bulging with dates and other sorts of food, which he would lay before him. Occasionally he would bring along an ounce of tea, a pound of sugar, or a little coffee. If you asked Mousa about the friendship that existed between him and Zein he would say to you, his eyes brimming over with tears, ‘Zein—Zein’s a good fellow’.
The people of the village, seeing these acts of Zein’s, would be even more amazed; perhaps he was the legendary Leader, the Prophet of God, perhaps an angel sent down by God in lowly human form in order to remind His worshippers that a great heart may yet beat even in one of concave breast and ridiculous manner such as Zein. Some would say: ‘He places His strength in the weakest of His creatures’. And all the while Zein’s voice would continue to call out ‘O kinsfolk, O people of the village, I am slain’, and this other picture of Zein would be destroyed and replaced by the picture of him to which people were accustomed and which they preferred. And all the while there was a young girl in the community, of sweet dignified countenance and flashing eyes, who watched Zein at his horseplay and raillery. One day, finding him amidst a group of women, joking with them in his usual way, she rebuked him with the words, ‘Why don’t you give up this nonsensical chatter and go off and get on with your work?’ And she glared at the women with her beautiful eyes. Zein stopped laughing and lowered his head in shame. He then slunk out from among the women and went his way.
Amna did not believe her ears. She asked Haleema, the seller of milk, for the tenth time: ‘Who did you say the lad was getting married to?’ and for the tenth time Haleema said: ‘Ni’ma’. Impossible. The girl had surely gone out of her mind. Ni’ma to marry Zein? Amazement mingled with anger in Amna’s breast, for she remembered clearly that day two months ago when, swallowing her pride and plucking up her courage, she had gone to Ni’ma’s mother. She had previously sworn not to speak to Saadiyya ever again, for when Amna’s own mother had died all the village women had come to pay their condolences with the exception of Saadiyya. Amna did not concern herself with the fact that Saadiyya had been away from the village at the time when her mother died, having been ill in hospital at Merowi, where she had been confined to bed for a whole month. When she had returned from Merowi all the women had come to enquire after her health with the exception of Amna. The women were divided into two groups: one held that Saadiyya was in the wrong and argued that duty decreed that it was she who should have begun by visiting Amna, death being of more moment than illness; the other group of women took Saadiyya’s side and said that Amna’s mother had in any case reached the age of decrepitude and that the living were more important than the dead. The situation grew increasingly involved as each of the two women stuck to her opinion. Thus Amna no longer spoke to Saadiyya, or Saadiyya to Amna.
This went on until two months back when Amna’s son insisted that she go and ask on his behalf for Ni’ma’s hand in marriage. So the woman swallowed her pride, plucked up her courage, and went to Saadiyya’s house late in the morning when the coffee was bubbling over the fire and the cups and sugar and things were laid out on the table. Saadiyya received her off-handedly and coldly asked her if she’d have some coffee. When Amna refused, Saadiyya said nothing more and made no attempt to press her. She did not say to her: ‘May the Prophet himself make you change your mind. God guide you, come along and drink some coffee’. She had said not one sentence more. It had taken a lot of courage from Amna to talk to Saadiyya on the subject of her son Ahmed and Ni’ma, Saadiyya’s daughter. Calming down, she had swallowed hard and said in a quavering voice, while inwardly cursing her son who had exposed her to all this humiliation: ‘Saadiyya, sister mine, I swore that not even a matter of life and death would ever bring me again to you, because you of all people had refused to come and offer me condolences on my mother’s death. Yet even so the true Moslem is indulgent, and thus, sister, I forgive you. The point of my coming to you now—the thing that’s brought me along—it’s my son Ahmed—Ahmed’s father and I would like to have Ni’ma for Ahmed’. When she had finished what she had to say, her tongue felt like a piece of wood in her mouth and her throat had contracted. She coughed nervously twice and her hands trembled.
Saadiyya said nothing. If she had uttered but one single word, Amna would have been put slightly at ease. Saadiyya always made her feel she was of lesser significance than herself; she was a beautiful woman of noble features, and when you looked at her serene and dignified face you were made aware of the wealth of her seven brothers, the vast properties of her father, and the countless date palms, trees, cows and livestock that were owned by her husband. This woman had three sons who had studied at school and worked for the government, also a beautiful daughter who was held in high regard by people and who was much sought after by the young men. This woman, who was over forty and looked like a young virgin
girl, this woman of few words, why did she not say something? At last Saadiyya raised her long eye-lashes and gave Amna a look she did not understand: it contained neither anger nor malice, neither reproach nor affection. In her calm voice which neither trembled nor was raised, she said, ‘God’s will be done. Naturally the decision lies with the girl’s father. When he comes we’ll speak to him’.
Amna remembered all this, she remembered too how they had later refused, giving as their excuse the fact that Ni’ma was still a minor and not of marriageable age. And here they were marrying her to this boorish dolt of a man—Zein of all people. Amna felt that the affair was an intentional affront directed against her personally. Haleema, the seller of milk, became alarmed as she watched Amna’s eyes widening in anger. Thinking that Amna had realised she had adulterated the milk, she poured out some more and said to her, ‘Just a little extra to put you in a good mood.’
The years come and go, year follows year. The Nile’s breast, like that of a man in anger, swells up, and the water flows over its banks, covering the cultivated land until it reaches the base of the houses at the fringe of the desert. The frogs croak at night, and from the north there blows a humid breeze bringing with it a smell that is a mixture of the perfume of the flower of the talh acacia tree and the smell of wet firewood, the smell of thirsting, fertile land when it is given water, and the smell of dead fish thrown up by the waves on to the sands. On moonlit nights, when the moon’s face is rounded, the water turns into an enormous illuminated mirror over whose surface move the shadows of date palms and the branches of trees. The water carries sounds great distances; thus if a wedding party is being held two miles away, the ululations, the beating of drums, and the strains of the tunbours and mizmars, are heard as though right alongside your house. The Nile draws a deep breath and one day awakes from sleep and lo! its breast has sunk down and the water has drawn away from the sides, settling down into one large water-course that stretches eastwards and westwards—from it the sun rises in the mornings and into it it plunges at nightfall. As you look across you see the land extending away, smooth and sated; land on which the water has left shapely, polished tracks in its flight to its natural course. Now the smell of the earth fills your nostrils; it puts you in mind of the smell of the date palms when they are ready for pollination. The land is motionless and moist, yet you feel that its belly encases a great secret, as though it were a woman of boundless passion preparing to meet her mate. The earth is motionless, but its bowels are astir with gushing water, the water of life and fertility. The earth is moist and ready; it prepares itself for giving. Something sharp pierces the bowels of the earth; there is a moment of ecstasy, of pain, of giving, and in the place where the bowels of the earth have been pierced the seed flows in, just as the female womb embraces the embryo in tenderness, warmth, and love. So the innermost part of the earth encases the seed of wheat, maize and bean, and tomorrow the earth will split open and send forth vegatation and fruit.
Ni’ma remembered that, as a child, when the women used to come on visits to her mother, they would seat her on their laps and stroke her luxuriant hair which hung down on to her shoulders, would kiss her on the cheek and lips, and would tickle her and hug her to their bosoms. She used to hate it and would squirm about in their arms. Once she was enraged by the way in which a fat woman was fussing over her; feeling the woman’s thick arms encircling her like the jaws of some wild animal, her heavy haunches and pungent perfume, it was as though she were being throttled. She fidgeted and tried to escape from the woman’s grasp but the woman hugged her closely to her breast, swooping down on her face with pinched lips, kissing her on neck and cheek, and puffing at her. Ni’ma then gave her a hearty slap on the face at which, in alarm, the woman let go and Ni’ma made her escape from the room. When she grew up and was no longer a child, the heads of both men and women would turn as she passed them on the road; yet her beauty meant nothing to her. She also recollected how she had forced her father to put her into the elementary school to learn the Koran, where she had been a lone girl amongst boys. After one month she had learnt how to write, for she used to listen to boys older than herself reading aloud chapters from the Koran and these stuck in her mind. She applied herself to the Koran, eagerly committing it to memory and finding joy in reciting it. Certain verses gave her particular pleasure and they would strike upon her heart like good news. Of the bits she had learnt by heart she liked best the Chapter of the Merciful, the Chapter of Mary, and the Chapter of Retribution, and would feel her heart being wrung with sadness as she read about Job. When she reached the verse ‘And we restored unto him his family, and as many more with them, through our mercy’, she would picture ‘Mercy’ to herself as a woman, a woman of rare beauty, dedicated to the service of her husband, and she wished that her parents had named her Rahma, that is ‘Mercy’. She used to dream that one day she would make some great sacrifice, though she did not know what form it would take, and then she would experience the same strange sensation that came over her when reading the Chapter of Mary.
Ni’ma grew up a serious child, the pivot of her personality being a sense of responsibility. She would share the household chores with her mother and would talk everything over with her; with her father she would have frank, grown-up discussions that would sometimes astonish him.
Her brother, who was two years older, used to urge her to continue her education at school and would say to her: ‘You could become a doctor or a lawyer’, but she did not believe in that type of education.
With that impenetrable mask of gravity on her face, she would say to her brother, ‘Education at school is a whole lot of nonsense. It’s quite enough to read and write and to know the Koran and the rituals of prayer’.
Her brother would laugh and say, ‘Tomorrow some nice lad will come along and marry you and spare us all this bother!’
The members of her family would say such things to her with a feeling of trepidation, for they realised that this girl with the grave countenance and the sullen eyes held something within her heart that she concealed from them. When she was sixteen, her mother began talking about the young men who would make suitable husbands: the rich, the educated, the handsome, and those whose mothers and fathers would be suitable as ‘in-laws’. But Ni’ma would shrug her shoulders and say nothing. And when Amna had come to talk to Saadiyya about Ni’ma marrying Ahmed and Saadiyya had said to her, ‘The decision lies with the girl’s father’, she had known in her heart of hearts that it lay with no one but Ni’ma herself. She had had to be informed, at which she had shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘I’m not ready to marry yet,’ and it was senseless to argue with her—especially as Saadiyya was not keen on becoming related to Amna’s family.
Not long after that another suitor made his appearance: Idris. Many a girl in the village would have been only too happy to be his wife, for he was an educated man, worked as a teacher at an Intermediate School, was of a gentle disposition and well-respected locally. Though he was not from one of the well-connected and prominent families in the village, his father had nevertheless made a place for himself through his diligence and good neighbourliness. It was a good, comfortably off family. Hajj Ibrahim, Ni’ma’s father, her mother Saadiyya, and her three brothers, were for accepting Idris. Ni’ma, however, was of another opinion. ‘He’s not for me.’ she said with a shrug of her shoulders. Hajj Ibrahim spoke furiously to her and was about to slap her. Suddenly, though, he stopped; something in the girl’s stubborn countenance killed the anger in his breast. Perhaps it was the expression of her eyes, perhaps the calm resolution on her face. It was as though the man sensed that this girl was neither disobedient nor refractory, but that she was propelled by an inner counsel to embark upon something from which no one could deflect her. From that day on no one talked to her about marriage.
When Ni’ma was alone with her thoughts and the idea of marriage crossed her mind, she had the feeling that marriage would come to her unexpectedly and unplanned, just as God’s di
vine decree falls upon His servants—as people are born, fall ill, and die. As the Nile floods its banks, storms rage, the date palms produce their fruit each year, as the corn sprouts, the rain pours down, and the seasons change, so would her marriage be: a destiny fore-ordained by God for her from before she was born, before the Nile began to flow, before God created the earth and all that is on it. She felt no joy, fear or distress when she thought of it, merely that a great responsibility would be placed upon her shoulders at some time, be it near at hand or far off. Each girl-friend of hers in the district grew up with a specific image of the knight who would tether his steed outside the house one bright evening and come in and snatch her off from amidst her family, fleeing with her far away to magical worlds of happiness and plenty. But for Ni’ma no such set image had been formed in her mind. As she grew up, so there grew up with her the idea of an overwhelming love which she would one day bestow upon some man. The man might well be already married with children and would take her as his second wife; he might be a handsome and educated young man; or yet a farmer from among the ordinary folk of the village, with legs and feet cracked from having spent so much time wading about in water and wielding a hoe. He could, again, be Zein, and when Zein came to Ni’ma’s mind, she experienced a sensation of warmth in her heart, of the kind a mother feels for her children. Intermingled with it was another feeling: of pity. She would see Zein as being an orphan in need of being cared for. In any case he was her cousin, and there was nothing unusual in the fact that she should feel concern for him.
Zein’s mother did not worry as to where he spent the night, for, like a restless soul, he had no fixed abode. Whenever, though, a wedding party was being held, you’d be sure to find Zein there: among the Talha people or with the Koz bedouin, be it up river or down; neither cold nor raging storm at night, not even the swollen Nile at the time of its flooding, would keep him away. With rare sensitivity his ear would detect women’s ululations from miles away, at which he would throw his robe over his shoulder and hurry off as though drawn to the source of the sound. Sometimes a light would flash suddenly from behind the sand dunes as the lorries made their way from Omdurman and would show up a thin figure trudging along through the sands, his body leaning slightly forward, his eyes looking down at the ground, as he hastened eastwards. Recognising Zein, the passengers would know that some wedding party was being held on the outskirts of the village and they would either call out at him as they passed or would stop the lorry and banter with him. Sometimes there would be a whole crowd of people walking behind him.