Of one thing Ben Attar was always certain: his deep and precise knowledge of the nature of the care and love that inspired happiness and security in his wives. Every act of love with one of them involved an anxious concern for the other. Otherwise, how could he have asked them to leave their children and do without servants, to give up the scented warmth of spacious homes with beautiful tableware and luxurious beds, and squeeze like fugitives from a war into tiny, rocking cabins on board a ship sailing north instead of east, on an unknown route? If he himself, who had passed his fortieth year and was entitled to contemplate seriously the approach of death, was prepared to endure the hardships of such a lengthy journey, were they, being so much younger than he, entitled to refuse? Surely they knew well that it was also for their sakes that he was undertaking this daring voyage. Even if they felt apprehension about their ability to withstand the hardships, surely they should feel no less apprehension about the wandering of a solitary man, who for many long days would be not only without a bedmate but without a kind word to caress his careworn brow. If he were to take with him only the first wife, whose two sons were now old enough to fend for themselves, and spare the second, whose only child was five years old and still tied to the hem of her robe, surely he would be undermining the living and compelling proof of the stability and equilibrium of his double marriage, by means of which he wished to surprise his nephew’s sanctimonious wife, who could not imagine even now, in this dawn when he was at the mouth of the river, that in a few more days he would glide on his strange guardship to the very threshold of her house, to bring her this living proof.
Ben Attar’s uncle, however, the famous scholar Ben Ghiyyat, was not entirely happy about the idea of subjecting two wives who had scarcely met to prolonged and indelicate proximity in the narrow confines of a small ship. Surely it would be an assured source of storms and troubles over and above those caused by the winds and the waves. So that his nephew would not be left alone in the company of sailors, who were in the habit of seeking sin in every port, the good uncle had a mind to send a letter to his friends in Andalus asking them to prepare for the honored voyager, from his first port of call, Cadiz, a third, temporary wife, for the purpose of this journey only. A woman who would be at home on the ship and happy dwelling on the sea, with the waves as her companions. A woman whose bill of divorce would be signed together with her marriage deed and would be waiting for her on her return, in the port in which her married life had begun. Politely, with due respect to his distinguished uncle, whose white hair and beard he greatly admired, Ben Attar swiftly declined this well-intentioned initiative, which would only add fuel to the fire that was already burning against him far away. He was absolutely confident of the power of his understanding love to quell any storm caused by loneliness or jealousy, like that which was now pent up in the confines of this cabin.
At home he was always careful not to lie down beside his second wife, let alone touch her, until he was certain of her utter reconciliation, for even a grain of resentment can reduce desire to mere ardor incapable of bringing relief. Consequently, whenever back in Tangier he entered her delightful bedchamber, with its high, blue-washed ceiling and its window looking out on the sea, he would first scrutinize her long, lovely face, whose angularity sometimes recalled that of a sad man, and if he observed the slightest shadow around her eyes or her mouth he preferred not to approach her, even if the sweet pain of desire was already burgeoning in his loins. First he would go over to the window to look at the boats in the bay, then he would return and walk slowly around her bed, which was covered in striking colorful blankets that Abu Lutfi found especially for her among the nomadic tribes of the northern Sahara. Softly and casually he would start talking to her about the troubles and pains of kith and kin, so that the miseries of the world would enter into her and soothe away any resentment or grudge that she felt toward him. Only then, when he could see the dim amber hue of her eyes sparkling with moisture brought out by the duty of compassion, would he permit himself to sit down on the end of her bed, which was also his own bed, and quivering with excitement, as though traveling back in time to his wedding night, he would delicately draw her perfumed legs, their down smoothed and softened by warm honey, one at a time out of the rumpled covers, and press them to his face as though trying to identify with his lips the legs of the young woman who had stamped on the dust of the small yard of her home when he had come and indicated to her father his wish to marry her. Only then did he permit himself to begin to caress her from the top of her long thighs down to her toes, talking all the while softly and unhurriedly about the prospect of his death, which in the case of a man like him, who had passed his fortieth year, was not only possible but indeed natural. And only thus, with the permission he gave her to contemplate without any sense of guilt a new young husband who would wed her after his approaching death, did her shuddering acceptance begin, and he would feel her foot clench in his hands. Unlike the first wife, who was shaken to the core of her being by any talk of death concerning himself or others, this one, who was younger and sadder, was attracted by talk about his death, which not only stirred her curiosity and hope for herself but also aroused her tender desire for him, which he promptly took up and sprinkled upon himself like fragrant powdered garlic.
But now he was afraid to mention the reassuring prospect of his death even in a lighthearted or jocular way. The subject might appear brightly lit and charged with sweet sadness by the window looking out over the Bay of Tangier, but here, in this cramped little cabin in the very bottom of the creaking ship, it filled even him with dread. Therefore, without a further unnecessary word of apology, he entered, hung the lamp on an iron hook above her bed, unbuckled the belt full of jewels and laid it by her head, then boldly removed all his clothes. But before lying down naked next to his wife he tied his ankles with some coils of yellow rope left over from those with which the caliph’s admiral had reinforced the ship’s timbers, and then he took off the heavy silver chain that hung around his neck and bound his wrists together with it, so that she would understand that nothing prevented her from taking whatever she wanted from his body and his soul. Maybe like this she would be able, if not to forgive him, at least to reconcile herself to the fact that he had married her as his second, not his first, wife.
Although she was surprised that he surrendered himself to her so unconditionally, stripped and bound, which he had never done before, she still recoiled from him and was in no hurry to remove her shift, but took down the lamp to shed light on the body stretched out at her feet, to check whether since their last lovemaking any more curls on his chest had turned that silver color that always excited her so, because it was given to so few men to have their hair turn white before death cut them off. Now she confirmed what she had imagined. The same days of sun and clear skies that had ruthlessly tanned her own skin had whitened the hair on her husband’s head and chest, so that it was hard to know whether to lament the new signs of his approaching demise or to rejoice over the mysterious beauty with which they endowed him. A sweet sadness flooded her soul, and she could not refrain from laying her curly head upon the chest of the man who had come to her so late in the night.