Read Online Love in the Kingdom of Oil by Nawal El Saadawi - Free Book Online

present life.
    She had seen pictures of geniuses in the book. Clouds of smoke surrounded their heads. One of them had his head tilted sideways, leaning his chin on his hands. His eyes were half open, gazing upwards into space. The smoke rose from his dilated nostrils. In the book she also used to see pictures of the prophets. They too could only see God from behind a cloud of smoke.
    She drew a deeper breath. Her head filled with smoke. Her mind seemed to pulsate under her skull, and she felt the idea being born. She encircled her head with her hands, afraid that the idea would escape her. The idea might creep out through the holes that opened onto her ears, eyes and nose. She pressed her hands on her skull, but she could not continue long and eventually let her arms fall by her sides.
    ‘Are you sleeping on your feet?’ She stretched and yawned with a sound resembling the bleating of a goat. She heard the voice, like the whistle of the wind. The storm roared and black particles crept under her clothes, invading the orifices of her body. She closed her eyes completely and wakefulness dissolved in a strange dream. She saw herself riding on the back of the chisel as if it was a horse. It galloped with her over an unknown city. Its buildings were tall, the tops piercing the clouds. Its streets were so narrow that there was only just enough room to pass. The chisel flew with her through the air without wings. It hovered above the roofs and she waved her feet as if she was playing on a swing. The women gazed at her with pleasure mixed with envy. Their hands were raised in the air clapping. Then the hands tried to drag her down, hoping to make her fall. She shook her legs vigorously so that the horse could climb with her again. By now the horse was no longer a horse but a palm frond that she rode on like the village children did.
    Hands seized her and she fell. Her body plunged downwards and sank into the fog. Then she saw herself walking on asphalt that melted under her feet because of the extreme heat. A bit of tar stuck to the heel of her shoe, smelling of oil. She quickened her pace, panting, and went into a black building without windows or doors, but with iron pillars. A choking smell filled the building. The chisel was in her bag and she held on firmly to the strap over her shoulder. Her legs climbed the steps, almost slipping. She regained her balance without grasping hold of anything. There were no railings and the staircase was a narrow spiral one, which was not wide enough to permit her body to pass. She was pushed into a narrow door, which opened suddenly, and there she was inside the room, which was bare of furniture apart from a swivel chair and a worktable around which a number of men were sitting. All that was visible of them were their prominent facial features, the foreheads, the cheeks, the jawbones, the noses and the chins.
    They did not raise their heads when she entered. They were standing over a book, their minds absorbed. They turned over the pages with knuckly fingers. They began from the cover and continued to the last page. Then they began again. ‘Is this your name?’
    The voice sounded like that of her husband, but the black pipe in his mouth indicated that it was her boss from work. He swivelled round, sitting in the chair. He came and stood directly in front of her. She saw his face and realised that he was the police interrogator. Silence fell. She heard the rustle of papers, and a cloud of smoke rose to the ceiling. His finger pointed to the name on the cover of the book. ‘This is your name, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And the book!?’
    ‘It’s about goddesses.’
    ‘Isn’t that blasphemy against the gods?’
    She wanted to raise her hand and ask ‘What is blasphemy?’ and ‘Where is the blasphemy?’ But the fog prevented her from seeing. She heard a noise like an explosion coming from papers being torn. Her nose filled with the smell of smoke. The papers were burning. A spark had