Females on the Nile: Short Story Collection

By Heba Bendary

Females on the Nile is a short story collection whose author, Heba Bendary, seems to have turned her pen into a camera that takes thrilling shots from various angles of a variety of critical situations in the lives of Egyptian women. These women belong to different age brackets, numerous personal backgrounds, diverse social classes, and various demographic and geographic settings. This book sheds light on the conditions of women in Egypt and probably in many other areas in the Middle East.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728389967

Heba Bendary

• Heba Bendary Mustafa Afifi • Studied law at Cairo University. • Member of Egyptian Writers Union Literary Works: The Aversion of Antelopes. Novel. Rawha Publishing House. 2014 Female Wearing Men’s Clothes. Novel. Alnassem Publishing House. 2015 Belkais. Novel. Dar Elmoharer Eladaby Publishing House. 2016 Wassan. Short Stories. Akhbar Elyom Publishing House. 2018 Woman’s Reflections – Novel. Currently being printed. Cultural Activities: Heba Bendary Cultural Salon: It was created in 2018 so that men of letters, artists and literary critics all over the Arab world can gather and exchange views to boost Arab culture and enhance Arab identity. She has published dozens of articles in print, online, on her YouTube channel and in social media platforms. Her literary works have been reviewed by Egypt’s major critics.

Book preview

© 2019 Heba Bendary. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  06/21/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8995-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8996-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Introduction (in arabic)

Chapter 1 The Birth Cry

Chapter 2 The Illusion

Chapter 3 The Ray of Hope

Chapter 4 The Moment of Truth

Chapter 5 The Red Dress

Chapter 6 The Light

Chapter 7 The Call

Chapter 8 Female in the Mirror

Chapter 9 The Window

Chapter 10 The Self-made Shackles

Chapter 11 The Girl who was Buried Alive

Chapter 12 The Mask

Chapter 13 The Mirror

Chapter 14 Oblivious

Chapter 15 If Only We Could Know!

Chapter 16 The Trap

Chapter 17 A Moment in a Lifetime

Chapter 18 The Burning Ice

Chapter 19 The Misfortune

Chapter 20 The Smell

Chapter 21 The Road

Chapter 22 The Prey

Chapter 23 The House of Memories

Chapter 24 The Missing Truth

Chapter 25 Careless Love

Chapter 26 Lava

Chapter 27 The Scissors

Chapter 28 The Long Night

Chapter 29 The Perpetual Waiting

Chapter 30 Certainty Regained

Critical Summary

About Heba Bendary

Dedication

T o every and each woman who had gone through this coma before she finally and peacefully sobered up.

Note: The heroine in each of these short stories has deliberately got no name, as she could be any woman who has lived anytime and anywhere. With this in mind, any woman may find her herself in one of these characters. So, it is up to you to give her whatever name you wish.

Introduction

S tanding out, we wait, on the time sidewalk, in the distance between a lost dream and a new dream looming on the horizon. We keep on waiting until the sea of hope dries and we get flooded with despair, so we slump, exhausted, into the chairs of indifference, hoping that they would protect us from the attack of a new dream.

Thereafter, we get awakened to a wave of love crashing against us, or to the rebirth of a glimmer of hope, which has previously faded away; so we once again take these boats and sail to the remote seashores of happiness.

Then we arrive at islands on which we haven’t’ trodden before, roam cities which our minds have never previously imagined, and walk down streets which we’ve always wished to exist in our bitter reality, until we finally reach a wall which we can never climb; so we stand out once again in a state of perplexity and helplessness, walking down the road, to and fro, hoping to find any opening in the wall to crawl through. Yet, it stands out in our way as a rock-hard, inaccessible and impenetrable barrier, which we strive to pull down with our bare hands, our feet, our tears, our screams, and our heads − to no avail.

In the end we fall down whereas the wall never crumbles, as it has by then turned into a barrier which stands in the way, preventing us from achieving all the dreams which keep calling on us, screaming at us, asking when we will wake up!

Heba Bendary

Introduction (in arabic)

مـقـدمـة

بين حلمٍ ضاع منّا وحلم يلوح لنا من بعيد نقف مُنتظرين على أرصفة

الزمن. ننتظر وننتظر حتى تجف بحور الأمل وتفيض أنهار اليأس فتحيط بنا. ولا نجد أمامنا إلا مقاعد اللامبالاة فنجلس عليها بسرعة من يحتمي

.بشيء خوفًا من أن يهاجمه حلم جديد مرة أخرى

نفيق على موجة حب تصطدم بنا أو على صاعقة أمل

كان قد مات بداخلنا ثم بعث؛ فنركب من جديد تلك

الزوارق التي تبحر بنا إلى أعماق بحور السعادة.

نصل إلى جزر لم تطأها أرواحنا من قبل، ونطوف داخل

مدن لم تصل إليها عقولنا مطلقًا، ونسير بشوارع كم تمنينا أن تكون بواقعنا المرير، حتى نصل إلى ذلك الجدار فلا نستطيع أبدًا تسلقه، ونقف حائرين عاجزين نجوب الطريق ذهابا وإيابا علّنا نجد ثغرةً ننفذ من خلالها. لكنه يقف أمامنا صلبًا، سدًا منيعًا لا نستطيع اختراقه، نحاول كثيرًا هدمه بأيدينا، بأرجلنا، بدموعنا، بصراخنا، بخبط رؤوسنا به ولكن دون فائدة، ننهار ولا ينهار ذلك الجدار. لقد أصبح هذا السد عائقًا بيننا وبين أحلامنا التي تنادي

علينا وتصرخ من خلفه؛ متى نفيق ؟

هبة بنداري

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1

The Birth Cry

T he door was opened. He began to argue loudly while I was answering uninterestedly in a low-pitched voice, which I was trying hard to summon from the depths of my soul. Yet, my voice was coming out so faint and disproportionate with the man’s foul temper.

Extraordinarily calm, I kept staring at him while he was indignantly yelling at me – with a wrinkled face, narrowing eyes and a deafening voice. I usually wouldn’t put up with his screaming or the provocative words he usually uttered, but this time I didn’t want to talk, as words were vanishing, and tears escaping from my eyes.

I slowly got to my feet, heading towards the shut window, opened it, and stood up there gulping the cold air which smelled of the coffee being roasted in a nearby coffee roastery. I always adore the smell of roasted coffee. Then, I began to imagine myself sitting on the Nile bank with a man other than this person who was yelling at me, a man with whom I would enjoy drinking my coffee, a soft-hearted man whose voice could be filled with tenderness and charm.

Then, I was woken up by his rough hand on my shoulder and his hoarse voice.

Are you so audacious as to turn your back on me?! How dare you not respond to my words?!

As he callously turned me towards