Zeina Read Online Free PDF Page A

the smooth hairless pubic area. From there it slipped down toward the left thigh and through to the left leg, and thence to the sole of her left foot. It titillated her as it used to do in the past, giving her the well-known but fresh sensation of pleasure together with an overwhelming feeling of guilt.
    Mageeda never knew how music, in her childish dreams, turned into a sinful pleasure, a pleasure that was akin to, though still different from, Satan’s finger, for although music descended from her ears to the sole of her foot, Satan’s finger went up from the foot until it reached the focal point of the universe.
    Before she slept, Mageeda told her nanny about Miss Mariam and how she held Zeina’s fingers up high for all the girls to see, and how her voice rose high saying: “Zeina’s fingers have been created for music. She’s a talented girl like no one else.”
    Mageeda would bury her head in her nanny’s bosom, pushing her nose between her breasts, trying to inhale some motherly love.
    Nanny would stroke her head and whisper in her ear, “Sleep, Mageeda, God has been kind to you and has given you plenty. Your father is a celebrity and your mother, may God protect her, is a great professor at the university. But Zeina, poor heart, has no father or mother ...”
    Nanny’s voice would stop, as though choked. She would raise her large dark hand to wipe the tears with the wide sleeves of her long, loose gown.
    “Are you crying, Nanny?”
    “Not at all, my child.”
    “Do you have a father and mother yourself, Nanny?”
    “Of course, my child, everybody does.”
    “Except for Zeina Bint Zeinat, Nanny?”
    “She had a father, child. He was a real man, a proper man ...”
    “But where did he go, Nanny?”
    “He went to heaven, child.”
    “You mean he died?”
    “Yes, Mageeda, my child.”
    “Why did God take him?”
    “God always takes the best people.”
    “But why didn’t God take my father and mother then?”
    “Stop talking, Mageeda. Not so loud. Sleep my child, may God protect your parents from evils and mishaps.”
    At eight, Mageeda couldn’t understand what her nanny told her, for if God took the best people to heaven, why didn’t He take her distinguished father, Zakariah al-Khartiti, and her great mother, Professor Bodour al-Damhiri? And why did Nanny feel disturbed, and why did she pray to God to protect her parents from evils and mishaps?
    If death was an evil sent from God, why should the best people die and go to God up in heaven while the evil ones stayed alive?
    On the street, she would glimpse Zeina Bint Zeinat playing with other children. They would encircle her, dancing, playing, and singing the folk songs chanted by peasants: “You’ve come to bring us light, oh Nile cotton, how lovely you are!” “The Sun is up, lovely and bright! Let’s go milk the cow!”
    She didn’t enjoy being driven by the chauffeur, because he took her straight home from school without stopping, not even for a little while that she might see the children dancing and singing on the streets. He told her that they were little fiends, the Devil’s children. She didn’t know the meaning of the word “fiends” so the chauffeur told her it meant little Devils.
    Mageeda couldn’t imagine the Devil having children, for she thought of him as childless, like God.
    “They’re illegitimate bastards! They’re little thieves, and you shouldn’t be talking to them, miss.”
    “But Zeina Bint Zeinat was with me at school and she was talented. Miss Mariam said she was the best girl at school ...”
    The chauffeur never listened to what Mageeda said. His sunken eyes would gaze straight ahead of him, fixed on the road. With his dark complexion, he looked like the Garden City porters, although he didn’t wear their white galabeyas. Instead, he wore a khaki suit similar to the outfits worn by soldiers. On his head was a khaki cap called a caskette and made of thick material. His large dark fingers firmly holding