I'm inside myself, I thought; dust and emptiness in every direction; that's what I'm left with, now I've finished writing.
The caravan was steadily moving away from me. I knew if I lingered too long it would disappear from sight. Then . what would I do? Die of loneliness or desiccation; one or the other. Unhappy though I was, I wasn't ready for that. I started toward the caravan, my walk quickening into a trot, and the trot into a run, as my fear of losing it grew.
Then, suddenly, I was there among the travelers; in the midst of their din and their stench. I felt the rhythmical motion of a camel beneath me, and looked down to see that I was indeed perched high on the back of one of the animals. The landscape-that aching void of baked earth-was now concealed from me by the dust cloud raised by the travelers in whose midst I rode. I could see the backside of the animal in front, and the head of the animal behind; the rest was out of sight.
Somebody in the caravan now began to sing, raising a voice more confident.than it was melodic above the general din. It was, I suppose you'd say, a dream song, wholly incoherent yet oddly familiar. What was it? I listened more carefully, trying to make sense of the syllables, certain that if I concentrated hard enough I'd discover what I was hearing. Still the song resisted; though at times the sense of it was tantalizingly close.
Frustrated, I was about to give up on the endeavor, when something about the rhythm of the song gave me a clue. I listened again, and the words, which had seemed nonsensical just moments before, came clear.
It wasn't a traveler's song I was listening to; it wasn't some exotic paean raised to the desert sky: it was a ditty from my childhood. The song I'd sung in the plum tree, all those many, many years ago.
It seems I am, It seems I was, It seems I will Be born, because It seems I am-
Hearing it now, I let my voice join in the rendition, and as soon as I did so, other voices were raised around me, all singing the same song. Round and round the words went, like the wheel of the stars; born and being and being born again.
I felt a surge of remembered contentment. I was not empty, despite the tears I'd taken to bed with me. The memories were still there in me, sweet and pungent, like the plums on the branches of that tree. There to be plucked when I needed sustenance. Yes, there were stones at their heart-hard, bitter stones-but the meat around those stones was moist and nourishing. I wouldn't go empty after all.
The singing continued, but the voices of my unseen companions were becoming more remote. I looked back. The camel behind me had disappeared; so had the beast I was following. My fellow travelers, it seemed, had fallen by the wayside. Now I was traveling alone, singing alone, matching the pace of my song to the steady tread of my mount.
It seems I am, I sang.
It seems I was-
The dust was clearing, now that there were no animals other than my own to stir it up. Something was glittering ahead of me.
It seems I will
Be bom, because-
A river; I was coming to a broad river, the waters of which had brought forth lush swards of flower-speckled grass and stands of heavy-headed trees. And beyond this verdant place, the walls of a city, warmed by the setting sun.
Now I knew what river this was; it was the Zarafsham. And the city? I knew that too. I had come, by way of a plum tree and a song, to the city of Samarkand.
That was all. I didn't get any closer to the city than that first glimpse. But that was enough. I woke immediately, but with such a strong sense of what I'd seen that the melancholy which had accompanied me to bed had dis appeared, healed away by what I'd experienced. Such is the wisdom of dreams.
It was by now the middle of the afternoon, and I took myself off to the kitchen to find something to eat. I did so without attending to myself whatsoever-thinking that I'd be able to find myself some food and slip back to my study unnoticed. But the kitchen had two occupants: Zabrina and Dwight. They both greeted the sight of me with some alarm.
"You need a shave, my friend," Dwight remarked.
"And some new clothes," Zabrina remarked. "You look as though you've been sleeping in those."
"I have," I said.
"You can take a look through my wardrobe if you like," Dwight said. "You're welcome to whatever I'm leaving behind."
Only now did I notice two things. One, the suitcase beside the table at which Zabrina and Dwight sat; two, the fact that Zabrina's eyes were red-rimmed and wet. It seems I'd interrupted a tearful farewell; at least tearful on her side.
"This is your fault," she said to me. "He's going because of you."
Dwight pulled a face. "That's not true," he protested.
"You told me if you hadn't seen that damn horse-" Zabrina began.
"That wasn't his doing," Dwight said. "I volunteered to go out to the stables with him. Anyway, if it hadn't been the horse it would have been something else."
"I gather from all this that you're leaving?" I said.
Dwight looked rueful. "I have to," he said. "I think if I don't go now-"
"You don't have to go at all," Zabrina said. "There's nothing out there worth going for." She reached across the table and caught hold of Dwight's hand. "If you've got too much work-"
"It's not that" Dwight said. "It's just that I'm not getting any younger. And if I don't go soon, I won't go at all." He gently extricated his hand from Zabrina's hold.
"That damn horse," she growled.
"What's the horse got to do with all this?" I asked.
"Nothing…" Dwight replied. "I just said to Zsa-Zsa-" (Zsa-Zsa? I thought. Lord, they'd been closer than I imagined.) "-that seeing the horse-"
"Dumuzzi."
"-seeing Dumuzzi made me realize that I missed seeing things, ordinary things, out there in the world. Except on that, of course." He nodded toward the little television which I knew he'd spent countless hours watching. Had he been yearning to leave L'Enfant all the time he'd been watching that flickering image? So it seemed. But he hadn't known, apparently, how much he yearned, until Dumuzzi had appeared.
"Well," he said with a little sigh, "I should be going." He got up from the table.
"Wait until tomorrow at least," Zabrina said. "It's getting late. You'd be better setting off first thing in the morning."
"I'm afraid you'll slip something in my supper," he said to her with a small, sad smile. "And I won't remember why I packed."
Zabrina gave him a small, forbidding smile. "You know I'd never do a thing like that," she replied. Then, sniffing hard, she said: "If you don't want to stay, then don't. Nobody's twisting your arm." She looked down at her hands. "But you'll miss me," she said softly. "You see if you don't."
"I'll miss you so much I'll probably be back in a week," he said.
Zabrina started to shake with sorrow. Tears splashed on the table, big as silver dollars.
"Don't…" Dwight said, his own voice cracking. "I hate it when you cry."
"Well then you shouldn't make me cry," Zabrina replied, somewhat petulantly. She looked up at him, her eyes streaming. "I know you have to go," she said. "I understand. I really do. And I know you won't come back in a week, whatever you say. You'll get out there, and you'll forget I ever existed."
"Oh darlin'-" Dwight said, leaning down to gather her against him. It was an ungainly embrace, to say the least, Dwight unable to quite get his arms around Zabrina at that angle, Zabrina so desperate to be comforted she grabbed hold of him as though she were about to fall from a great height, and he was her only hope of life. The sobs came loud and long now, though Zabrina's face was pressed against Dwight's belly. With great tenderness he stroked her hair, looking at me as he did so. There was sadness on his face, no question; but there was also a hint of impatience. He'd decided to go, and there would be no changing his mind. Zabrina's clinging and sobbing only delayed the inevitable.