Read Online Two Women in One by Nawal El Saadawi - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nawal El Saadawi
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and the mountain behind. Beyond the mountain the blue sky was tinged with the red glow of the late afternoon sun. The sunlight was reflected in her eyes like a radiant smile and she laughed with abandon, pointing to the window and saying, ‘What a wonderful view!’
She expected him to take his eyes off her and look at the view, but he did not. His eyes remained on hers. She stammered as she said, ‘Why don’t you look? Isn’t the scenery wonderful?’
His eyes still on hers, he said, ‘You are even more wonderful than the scenery!’
She looked away from him and he seemed surprised. ‘Why do you look away?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know’, she replied, confused, ‘but your eyes sometimes seem not to belong to you.’
‘Whose eyes are they, then?’
‘Someone else’s.’
‘Who do you prefer: him or me?’
‘You.’
They both laughed. Then he asked, ‘Do you want something to drink?’
‘No.’
‘Something to eat?’
‘No.’
She laughed again, for no reason. When she heard the sound of her laughter she wondered whether this was happiness and whether happiness meant that the whole world with everyone and everything in it would disappear, leaving nothing but the small area of the sofa and its two adjacent bodies, not yet touching but divided by a space no greater than a millimetre.
She tried to retain that moment of happiness, to savour its taste. But it was thin and transparent, like a breath of air: if she raised her hand to touch it, it would be torn apart. Her hand was near his on the sofa a hair’s breadth away, but neither of them moved so much as a finger. Both were afraid that if one of them moved, the hair’s breadth of distance would die, and with it that fragile, veil-like moment of happiness.
But they were both frustrated by this moment. They wanted it driven to a conclusion: for no one can stand more than a moment of happiness, suspended in time like a floating particle of air, suspended, neither attracted by the earth nor drawn by the sky. How difficult it is for people to be suspended between earth and sky! How strong is their desire to put their feet on the ground, or on the surface of any solid object whose familiar weight reassures them that they really exist.
Like the force of gravity that attracts the body to the earth, his arms moved round her. They embraced with a violent desire to dissolve into the world, to lose all consciousness of the body and its weight, and to be annihilated and vanish in the air, like death, if you could manage to die and then come back to life and describe it. Yet it was not exactly like death, for in death people lose all feeling. It was like losing feeling yet not losing it, as though his body vanished while he was still there, and as though the world around him had been obliterated while he remained alive. As if the sky had become the earth and the earth the sky. It was all things intertwining, merging in a single point at the centre of the head, throbbing perceptibly like a heartbeat, but stronger.
She heard the violent pounding of his heart. It sounded like her own heartbeat. Everything of him that reached her senses became like the touch of her own body. Only with great difficulty could she distinguish her body from his: temperature, smell, complexion, the flow of blood in the veins — all were as similar as if they were in one body. She wanted to whisper something in his ear but she could not find the words. Would she say, ‘I love you’? Before the words came to her lips, they seemed inadequate and fell far short of what she actually felt. What do the words ‘I love you’ mean?
Only silence could express what she really felt, because silence could convey something momentous: that words between people were no longer adequate, that she must coin new ones, a whole new language. He too was silent and absorbed, as if searching for the key to the moment of eternal contact when the body would no longer feel separated from the world but
She expected him to take his eyes off her and look at the view, but he did not. His eyes remained on hers. She stammered as she said, ‘Why don’t you look? Isn’t the scenery wonderful?’
His eyes still on hers, he said, ‘You are even more wonderful than the scenery!’
She looked away from him and he seemed surprised. ‘Why do you look away?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know’, she replied, confused, ‘but your eyes sometimes seem not to belong to you.’
‘Whose eyes are they, then?’
‘Someone else’s.’
‘Who do you prefer: him or me?’
‘You.’
They both laughed. Then he asked, ‘Do you want something to drink?’
‘No.’
‘Something to eat?’
‘No.’
She laughed again, for no reason. When she heard the sound of her laughter she wondered whether this was happiness and whether happiness meant that the whole world with everyone and everything in it would disappear, leaving nothing but the small area of the sofa and its two adjacent bodies, not yet touching but divided by a space no greater than a millimetre.
She tried to retain that moment of happiness, to savour its taste. But it was thin and transparent, like a breath of air: if she raised her hand to touch it, it would be torn apart. Her hand was near his on the sofa a hair’s breadth away, but neither of them moved so much as a finger. Both were afraid that if one of them moved, the hair’s breadth of distance would die, and with it that fragile, veil-like moment of happiness.
But they were both frustrated by this moment. They wanted it driven to a conclusion: for no one can stand more than a moment of happiness, suspended in time like a floating particle of air, suspended, neither attracted by the earth nor drawn by the sky. How difficult it is for people to be suspended between earth and sky! How strong is their desire to put their feet on the ground, or on the surface of any solid object whose familiar weight reassures them that they really exist.
Like the force of gravity that attracts the body to the earth, his arms moved round her. They embraced with a violent desire to dissolve into the world, to lose all consciousness of the body and its weight, and to be annihilated and vanish in the air, like death, if you could manage to die and then come back to life and describe it. Yet it was not exactly like death, for in death people lose all feeling. It was like losing feeling yet not losing it, as though his body vanished while he was still there, and as though the world around him had been obliterated while he remained alive. As if the sky had become the earth and the earth the sky. It was all things intertwining, merging in a single point at the centre of the head, throbbing perceptibly like a heartbeat, but stronger.
She heard the violent pounding of his heart. It sounded like her own heartbeat. Everything of him that reached her senses became like the touch of her own body. Only with great difficulty could she distinguish her body from his: temperature, smell, complexion, the flow of blood in the veins — all were as similar as if they were in one body. She wanted to whisper something in his ear but she could not find the words. Would she say, ‘I love you’? Before the words came to her lips, they seemed inadequate and fell far short of what she actually felt. What do the words ‘I love you’ mean?
Only silence could express what she really felt, because silence could convey something momentous: that words between people were no longer adequate, that she must coin new ones, a whole new language. He too was silent and absorbed, as if searching for the key to the moment of eternal contact when the body would no longer feel separated from the world but
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