From Sleep Unbound. Andrée Chedid

herself.

      Light was flowing into the corners of the room, catching the flecks of dust, gathering upon the artificial flowers in the earthenware vase. They could live without water, these immortal flowers, rustling like dry leaves when anyone accidentally brushed them in passing. The two green leather chairs were waiting for no one. A halo of sunlight encircled the fez.

      Still clinging to the balcony railing, Rachida went on screaming. Everyone seemed to have grown used to her cries.

      The mirror gave to each object wrested from the shadows an image both realistic and cruel. The woman saw nothing but these objects. She did not look at herself, nor did she look any longer at the red stain on the chest of the dead man.

      . . .

      Since dawn she had known that Boutros would be lying in this way in this exact place. After that she had thought no more about it. Between her boredom and the comings and goings of Rachida, the woman had passed this day as she passed all the others. No sooner had Rachida left one corner of the room than she reappeared in another, her lips moving endlessly. When she disappeared into the adjacent room, her grumbling seeped in under the doorsill. Countering the incessant disturbance of Rachida’s motions, the semi-darkness gave the other woman an opportunity to close her eyes for a while and to forget everything.

      It was around six o’clock when Rachida went down for her evening walk. Soon after this Boutros would come upstairs. The woman always waited for him. Because of the closed shutters,. she was surrounded by darkness, and she sat tensely in the dark, lying in wait for his footsteps.

      She heard him cross the threshold and she raised herself a little in order to hear better. The various objects were barely visible in the half-light of the room. The woman was attentive only to his steps, deliberate and heavy. She counted them step after step as they rose toward the slightly open door.

      His face tense, she envisioned Boutros stopping at the door of the storeroom, stopping at the door of the office, his manner suspicious as he tested the keys in the locks. She easily envisioned the manner in which he crossed the landing before entering the foyer. Then the harsh sound of his cane when he dropped it into the umbrella stand.

      Boutros never loitered.

      She felt a current of air brush the back of her neck, and she knew that he had opened the velvet draperies. His steps entered the room. Soon Boutros would stand before her and he would embrace her, kiss her. This time she knew that it would be too much to bear.

      Since dawn when she was placed in her armchair, she had been hiding the gun. Most of the time Boutros carried it in the right pocket of his jacket. He often said: “It is necessary to carry a gun. You never can tell. . . .” But sometimes he left it in the chest of drawers between his shirts.

      At first Samya had thought of it as a dangerous object. Then one evening, while her husband and Rachida stood talking on the balcony, she had opened the drawer near her bed, removed the revolver and laid it on the sheet. She had turned it over and over in her hands until its feel became familiar. She had tested the trigger with her finger. Then she had replaced the revolver in the drawer. Rachida and Boutros were always talking together on the balcony. They spoke in such low tones that she was unable to hear what they said. She had slipped the gun back between the shirts. The woman was not yet thinking of using it.

      Why this particular day? The night had not been disturbing. Still, it was on this particular morning that she had decided to end everything. She knew that she would use the gun. Boutros would bend over her, his arms dangling, offering his lips. He would be wearing his fez tilted toward the back, exposing his forehead on which a few drops of sweat always glistened. His lips would approach, huge and brown, filled with saliva at the corners. He would bend over her. She would see nothing but his lips and his scarlet fez. This would be unbearable. He would stoop over her once more. He would stoop over her one more time.

      . . .

      He would never get up again.

      The shot had gone off so close to his chest that the noise had been muffled.

      The man had lost his balance, his arms waving about grasping for support. He had fallen forward and the fez had tumbled off his head and rolled into the middle of the room like an empty flowerpot.

      Samya had fired again.

      The man seemed drunk. He mumbled indistinct words. He staggered, then reeled, bringing his hands to his forehead as he fell onto his knees.

      The woman had loosened her grip and the gun slid from her hands, making a thud on the floor.

      She looked away; she longed to be far away. She yearned to abandon her own body, to leave it to whomever came along, and to think about something else. For the first time she had performed, accomplished, completed an action, and now it was necessary to separate herself from it. Later, there would be time to dream about it. The others would see to that.

      The man’s head seemed to become heavy. She bent toward the chest in which life was still struggling. Then, as if all the threads snapped at the same instant, Boutros collapsed against her legs.

      . . .

      The dead man’s head was not heavy.

      The woman breathed more easily. She detached herself from her action; she did not concern herself with it any longer. In order to see the dead man’s head she had to support herself by clasping the arms of her chair while she leaned forward. And what would he then awaken in her? Perhaps nothing at all.

      At this moment she thought that she might be able to stand up; her legs would obey her, she felt sure. But where could she go? It was too late; nothing ever begins over again. Buried in her armchair, right now she was farther away from this place than she would ever be able to walk. A weight had fallen from her chest, carrying with it the room itself and this very moment. This story was no longer her story.

      Soon the house would be filled with the sounds of Rachida’s return. She would cross the threshold; one would be able to hear her climbing the stairs. In spite of her sixty years, Rachida climbed quickly. She often boasted about what strong legs she had, stating and restating her belief that one never grew old if one had nothing bad on one’s conscience.

      Just as she did every evening, Rachida would test all the locks with her heavily veined hands. As suspicious as her brother, she would examine every single door. They had duplicates of all the keys. She would climb the stairs without even leaning on the shaky bannister. The door to the foyer was partly open, she would push against it.

      Rachida was hesitating before the velvet draperies, the ones that she refused to replace. She insisted that velvet was “rich looking.” She said that in the white house opposite their house, in the landlord’s house, all the curtains were velvet, as well as the armchairs and the sofas.

      One would be able to hear her moving into the kitchen before the roar of the lighted stove would muffle the sound of her steps. She would return, grumbling: “I really go to too much trouble! No one helps me. At my age, to have to wait on a woman who could be my daughter! I do it all for Boutros, may God bless him! What would become of him without me?”

      As soon as Boutros arrived, she made a fuss over him. After dinner they would pull their chairs close together and they would whisper:

      “We’re talking quietly so we won’t wear you out.”

      “In your condition,” they said.

      . . .

      Soon, Rachida would open the velvet drapes and she would run across the room. She would throw open the shutters, allowing the light to pour into the room. She would lean over the balcony and she would begin to scream.

      All of this no longer mattered. Bubbles bursting above the water, that was all.

      . . .

      Rachida screamed but no one heard her!

      In the village the women were entirely taken up with their children. They were tending to the little ones and they had ears for no one else. They were giving orders in order to make themselves feel important before their