Free Love in the Kingdom of Oil by Nawal El Saadawi

When the chair stopped swivelling, the interrogator was facing the wall. He began typing, then swivelled round. Her boss at work was also sitting there, with his black pipe quivering between his lips, smoke rising from it.
    ‘I’m not going to extol her nose, for I’m not impressed by Roman noses. I prefer national noses of the snub-nosed type.’
    ‘What are you saying?’
    ‘She was always an obedient woman, and there was nothing in her to arouse desire.’
    The interrogator was swivelling his chair. The stormy wind was turning over the pages. There was no proof of anything. The newspaper was open before her eyes. Her picture appeared and then disappeared with the movement of the wind. News about lost persons was lower down on the page. It was natural for people to disappear. There was a law concerning men who did. The woman had to wait for her lost husband for seven years, and not take another man. The embryo remains alive in the womb seven years, and it remains the property of the lost man until he returns. The woman is no more than a container. Lost women have no law concerning them. A woman does not have to be lost in order for her husband to take another woman.
    She closed her eyes in the face of the wind. The rays of the sun were like a flame. The idea revolved in her head, as painful as a nail. If the interrogation was continuing, then no doubt there were campaigns to find her, and people tracking her down. Perhaps there were pedigree dogs – that imported type that distinguishes the smell of human beings. They train them to pick up the smell from far away, to see stars at midday, to type on typewriters and to use modern instruments. She did not know anything about modernity. All she knew about it was related to the past and to archaeology. The goddesses Hathur or Sekhmet would not protect her from any trained dog. But there were hidden depths to the matter. Perhaps it was due to that other man. Could he have sent the information about her to the police? Or perhaps it was her boss at work? He had hinted covertly at the shape of her nose. This was a clear invitation to her relating to something more than her nose.
    She woke up to the sound of regular snoring. The man was sound asleep in the doorway. He was breathing loudly as usual. He was inhaling the air, his lips quivering. He was lying on his back with his right calf over his left, shaking his foot in the air. The sun had risen to its zenith. The heat had reached that temperature that destroys everything, even the last remaining vestiges of shame. She saw him pull his
sarwal
off as well. He became naked as the day he was born. But shame quickly returned to him when the sun set, so he put on his
sarwal
while his upper half remained naked.
    Her eyes were not following the movement of the sun. His gaze was fixed on the picture in the newspaper. Under the Roman nose, her mouth was clamped shut. One corner of each eye was swollen, and her full name was missing. There was no police report. Perhaps the man had stopped sending information.
    The relaxation she experienced diffused a sort of energy through her body. She jumped up from her place and stamped on the congealed oil. She was only wearing a baggy
sarwal
, which billowed up around her. Her torso was totally bare. The wind, little though it was, somehow found its way under her armpits. She raised her arms upwards, conscious of a certain repose. The oil had piled up around her waist where it held the strap firm. She wanted to scratch the corner of both her eyes, when suddenly she remembered the thirst that burnt her stomach.
    She turned round to look for the bottle. As she turned the sun shone directly into her eyes. She could not take a step towards the house. The world around her appeared to burn with a red flame. There was no sign of the man. That was natural, for he used to disappear when he wished, and return when he wished. He could absent himself for seven years, and she would have to wait for him, by