"What's the matter, Rachel?" I asked after returning her salutation.
Sitting opposite me, she downed a full glass of water. After taking a deep breath as though to gather together all her strength before telling me something really serious, she seemed to calm down a little.
"I used to think that the reason why my husband kept avoiding me was because he was so fond of you," she told me. "But as of today I'm the one who's started avoiding him because it's you I'm in love with. That is how my first lover has handed me over to my true love. You are the reference point; everything else is a mere shadow of it. You represent everything I aspire to and hope for…"
As the old saying has it, "He who eats with the kids before the fast begins becomes one of them himself." So that this maxim would not apply in my case, I asked the girl to go back to her family, demanding of her that she remain true to her first love. I wrote a couple of lines by Abu Tammam on a piece of paper and gave it to her:
"Take this piece of paper," I told her, giving Salman a meaningful look. "Read it at home and think about it, then hang it up somewhere so in the future it'll protect you from any illusions or missteps."
The servant came back after locking the door and sighed. "What an ugly era this is!" he said. "There no sense of shame or propriety any more."
4
SARA, RACHEL'S ELDER SISTER, is one of the women around whom my doubts concerning my missing manuscript revolve. I have my reasons for believing that, although they are both nebulous and complex.
So how did I get to know her?
My acquaintances with all the women I have either slept with or dallied with without bedding them came about as the result of a wide variety of brilliantly contrived preliminaries. Those unforgettable first delights-how lovely and amicable they were! One gloomy fall day I mounted my horse and headed for the seashore to the east of Murcia. I had every intention of making full use of wind and sea to counter the depression that would sometimes come over me. I was walking along the beach with my horse following behind me when I spotted a woman with a svelte figure and a mop of glistening hair walking a few paces behind me. I proceeded to ignore her and walked the remaining distance to a rocky area where it was difficult to walk. When I turned around to walk back, there was no sign of the woman. On the landward side I looked all over the place, then turned toward the sea. There she was, swimming as though in her own element, rising with the waves, then diving down as they crashed to the beach. Once in a while I could hear her clapping to her own singing and letting out whoops of joy. After first wondering if she might be a jinni or sorceress, I decided that she could be neither. Stopping my horse, I performed the afternoon prayer. No sooner had I finished the appropriate phrases than I heard a female voice behind me.
"So you're a Muslim," the voice said in an assured tone. "I'm one of Moses's people."
She had stopped where she was, and I stared at her in surprise. Her curly hair looked just like a dewy sash fluttering in the breeze and framing a beautiful face. Praise be to the Creator! Her diaphanous dress was wet and showed every detail of her luxuriant body. How was I supposed to maintain her modesty by turning my eyes away when all I could think of was an even more wonderful pleasure. I wrapped her in my cloak, not so much because I was afraid she might catch cold but merely as a way of keeping my emotions under control and finding a way of talking to her.
"It's rainy," I said. "This weather's cold. Aren't you worried about getting sick?"
By now she had wrapped herself tightly in my cloak and showed as much of her face as she could. "No matter what the season," she replied, "I swim either in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic. My devotion to being at one with salt water is my way of salving my conscience for the Messiah's death. It's also my window on to the manifest abundance of the universe."
These were towering words emerging from the mouth of this strange woman; they made her luscious lips quiver. I paused for a moment before responding to her, trying to determine a better way of behaving toward her. Inside my head all kinds of sentences were clustering together, with both meat and substance. However before I could utter a single word, she walked over to my horse and whispered in its ear. Responding to her touch, the animal moved its head.
"This is an Arabian horse," she said, staring straight at me with her lustrous eyes. "It's purebred, headstrong, and assertive. It's a noble stallion, fully endowed with the spirit of generosity and power. A wonderful horse and a wonderful master!"
She paused for a moment, almost as though she were taking my pulse. "I hereby name him `The Proud,' even if he has another name."
She asked me if she might ride him, and I agreed. She moved back a bit, then ran at "The Proud" from behind and leapt. Suddenly there she was astride him, just like a ring on a little finger. She took off, hands outstretched like wings ready for takeoff and flight. Framed between land and sea, my horse ran beautifully, something he had never done for me before. I got the impression he was concentrating his attention on the way his rider was clearly at one with him and wanted to respond as much as possible to her imperious demands. After she had ridden him for seven circuits, she brought him back to me and asked me to get on behind her and hold on to her belt. I did so, and the horse proceeded to take off again, but this time at a trot; it was as if he objected to the way I was adding my weight to hers. Just then, he decided to respond to my commands and took off at a fast gallop. I imagined heaven and earth as a dome, one in which this gorgeous rider and I were wandering and pasturing in its firmament, while between sea and land the wind was blessing us with its purifying wafts and dewy breezes. When the girl sensed that the horse was getting tired, she pulled on the reins and slowed it down to a walk, then leaned over to kiss its head and give it a snuggle. The horse was so content that it kept stamping its feet and neighing with pleasure. In this fashion we covered a certain distance. When we reached some heights with a few houses scattered around, she stopped the horse opposite a small house overlooking the sea.
"This is my little nest," she said.
I immediately dismounted, muttering some appropriate words to express my pleasure, and made ready to leave. However, she surprised me by saying, "I'm up higher than you are, so, if you like, grab me and carry me inside." I led the horse to an enclosure alongside the house with both grass and shade, then pulled its rider very gently toward me, carried her toward the door, and kicked it open. She invited me to complete the mission, while for my part I kept saying a silent prayer that I might keep my emotions under control as I struggled with her pulsating beauty on the one hand and my palpitating heart on the other.
"Put me down in front of that screen," she said, "and wait for me on that chair."
I did exactly that. She gave me back my overcoat with thanks and disappeared behind the screen. I got the impression she was washing herself so she could put on some perfume and change her clothes. My hunch proved to be correct, since, when she emerged, she was looking even more radiantly beautiful than before. Her hair was dry and combed; the kohl on her lovely, honey-colored eyes made them look even wider and brighter. Her body exuded the most delicate and subtle of perfumes. She offered me a plate of fruit and a cup of milk. She sat down, ate some of the food, and took sips from a glass of wine, which was probably permitted in her faith. I asked her what her name was. She gave me a smile.