stretched out
her hand and took hold of mine.
“Do you know that my mother’s Spanish?” she said.
“'That, then, explains everything. It explains our meeting by
chance, our spontaneous mutual understanding as though we had got to know each
other centuries ago. Doubtless one of my forefathers was a soldier in Tarik ibn
Ziyad’s army. Doubtless he met one of your ancestors as she gathered in the
grapes from an orchard in Seville. Doubtless he fell in love with her at first
sight and she with him. He lived with her for a time, then left her and went
off to Africa. There he married again and I was one of his progeny in Africa,
and you have come from his progeny in Spain." ‘These words, also the low
lights and the wine, made her happy. She gave out throaty gurgling laughs.
"‘What a devil you are!" she said.
‘For a moment I imagined to myself the Arab soldiers’ first
meeting with Spain: like me at this instant sitting opposite Isabella Seymour,
a southern thirst being dissipated in the mountain passes of history in the
north. However, I seek not glory for the likes of me do not seek glory. After a
month of feverish desire I turned the key in the door with her at my side, a
fertile Andalusia; after that I led her across the short passageway to the
bedroom where the smell of burning sandalwood and incense assailed her, filling
her lungs with a perfume she little knew was deadly. In those days, when the
summit lay a mere arm’s length away from me, I would be enveloped in a tragic
calm. All the fever and throbbing of the heart, the strain of nerves, would be
transformed into the calm of a surgeon as he opens up the patient’s stomach. I
knew that the short road along which we walked together to the bedroom was, for
her, a road of light redolent with the aroma of magnanimity and devotion, but
which to me was the last step before attaining the peak of selfishness. I
waited by the edge of the bed, as though condensing that moment in my mind, and
cast a cold eye at the pink curtains and large mirrors, the lights lurking in
the corners of the room, then at the shapely bronze statue before me. When we
were at the climax of the tragedy she cried out weakly; “No. No." This
will be of no help to you now. The critical moment when it was in your power to
refrain from taking the first step has been lost. I caught you unawares; at
that time it was in your power to say "No". As for now the flood of
events has swept you along, as it does every person, and you are no longer
capable of doing anything. Were every person to know when to refrain from
taking the first step many things would have been changed. Is the sun wicked
when it turns the hearts of millions of human beings into sand-strewn deserts
in which the throat of the nightingale is parched with thirst? Lingeringly I
passed the palm of my hand over her neck and kissed her in the fountainheads of
her sensitivity. With every touch, with every kiss, I felt a muscle in her body
relax; her face glowed and her eyes sparkled with a sudden brightness. She
gazed hard and long at me as though seeing me as a symbol rather than reality I
heard her saying to me in an imploring voice of surrender “I love you,” and
there answered her voice a weak cry from the depths of my consciousness calling
on me to desist. But the summit was only a step away after which I would
recover my breath and rest. At the climax of our pain there passed through my
head clouds of old, far-off memories, like a vapour rising up from a salt lake
in the middle of the desert. She burst into agonized, consuming tears, while I
gave myself up to a feverishly tense sleep.’
It
was a steamingly hot ]uly night , the Nile that year having experienced one
of those floodings that occur once every twenty or thirty years and become
legendary — something for fathers to talk to their sons about. Water covered
most of the land lying between the river bank and the edge of the desert where
the houses stood, and the fields
her hand and took hold of mine.
“Do you know that my mother’s Spanish?” she said.
“'That, then, explains everything. It explains our meeting by
chance, our spontaneous mutual understanding as though we had got to know each
other centuries ago. Doubtless one of my forefathers was a soldier in Tarik ibn
Ziyad’s army. Doubtless he met one of your ancestors as she gathered in the
grapes from an orchard in Seville. Doubtless he fell in love with her at first
sight and she with him. He lived with her for a time, then left her and went
off to Africa. There he married again and I was one of his progeny in Africa,
and you have come from his progeny in Spain." ‘These words, also the low
lights and the wine, made her happy. She gave out throaty gurgling laughs.
"‘What a devil you are!" she said.
‘For a moment I imagined to myself the Arab soldiers’ first
meeting with Spain: like me at this instant sitting opposite Isabella Seymour,
a southern thirst being dissipated in the mountain passes of history in the
north. However, I seek not glory for the likes of me do not seek glory. After a
month of feverish desire I turned the key in the door with her at my side, a
fertile Andalusia; after that I led her across the short passageway to the
bedroom where the smell of burning sandalwood and incense assailed her, filling
her lungs with a perfume she little knew was deadly. In those days, when the
summit lay a mere arm’s length away from me, I would be enveloped in a tragic
calm. All the fever and throbbing of the heart, the strain of nerves, would be
transformed into the calm of a surgeon as he opens up the patient’s stomach. I
knew that the short road along which we walked together to the bedroom was, for
her, a road of light redolent with the aroma of magnanimity and devotion, but
which to me was the last step before attaining the peak of selfishness. I
waited by the edge of the bed, as though condensing that moment in my mind, and
cast a cold eye at the pink curtains and large mirrors, the lights lurking in
the corners of the room, then at the shapely bronze statue before me. When we
were at the climax of the tragedy she cried out weakly; “No. No." This
will be of no help to you now. The critical moment when it was in your power to
refrain from taking the first step has been lost. I caught you unawares; at
that time it was in your power to say "No". As for now the flood of
events has swept you along, as it does every person, and you are no longer
capable of doing anything. Were every person to know when to refrain from
taking the first step many things would have been changed. Is the sun wicked
when it turns the hearts of millions of human beings into sand-strewn deserts
in which the throat of the nightingale is parched with thirst? Lingeringly I
passed the palm of my hand over her neck and kissed her in the fountainheads of
her sensitivity. With every touch, with every kiss, I felt a muscle in her body
relax; her face glowed and her eyes sparkled with a sudden brightness. She
gazed hard and long at me as though seeing me as a symbol rather than reality I
heard her saying to me in an imploring voice of surrender “I love you,” and
there answered her voice a weak cry from the depths of my consciousness calling
on me to desist. But the summit was only a step away after which I would
recover my breath and rest. At the climax of our pain there passed through my
head clouds of old, far-off memories, like a vapour rising up from a salt lake
in the middle of the desert. She burst into agonized, consuming tears, while I
gave myself up to a feverishly tense sleep.’
It
was a steamingly hot ]uly night , the Nile that year having experienced one
of those floodings that occur once every twenty or thirty years and become
legendary — something for fathers to talk to their sons about. Water covered
most of the land lying between the river bank and the edge of the desert where
the houses stood, and the fields
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