‘It’s a souvenir.’
‘But it’s the first time you’ve seen it!’
‘Sometimes one glance is enough for an object to be irreplaceable.’
She blushed. Our looks met. Our lips parted. We were already friends. The servant woman, more cheerful than ever, walked between us, trying to overhear our whisperings. We had arranged to meet: Friday, at midday, Azbakiyya Square, in front of the donkey showman.
Since my arrival in Egypt, I had never missed the solemn Friday prayer. But, that day, I did so without much remorse; after all, it was the Creator who had made this woman so beautiful, and it was He who had put her in my path.
Azbakiyya Square was filling up slowly as the mosques emptied, because it was the custom of all the Cairenes to gather there after the ceremony to play dice, listen to the patter of the story-tellers, and sometimes lose themselves in the neighbouring alleys where certain taverns were offering a short cut to Eden.
I did not yet catch sight of my Circassian, but the donkey showman was there, already surrounded by a swelling cluster of idlers. I joined them, glancing frequently at the faces which surrounded me and at the sun in the hope that it had moved a few degrees.
The clown was dancing with his beast, without anyone knowing which was following the steps of the other. Then he began to talk to his donkey. He told him that the sultan had decided to undertake a great construction work, and that he was going to requisition all the donkeys in Cairo to transport lime and stones. At that very moment the animal fell to the ground, turned round on to his back, his legs in the air, puffed out its stomach and shut its eyes. The man began to lament in front of the audience, saying that his donkey was dead, and he took a collection to buy himself another one. Having collected several dozen coins, he said:
‘Don’t believe that my donkey has given up the ghost. He is a glutton who, aware of my poverty, acts a part so that I can earn some money and buy him something to eat.’
Taking a big stick he gave the beast a good beating.
‘Come on, get up now!’
But the donkey did not move. The clown continued:
‘People of Cairo, the sultan has just issued an edict: the whole population is to go out tomorrow to be present at his triumphal entry into the city. The donkeys have been requisitioned to carry the women of high society.’
Thereupon the donkey leaped to its feet, began to preen himself, showing great happiness. His master burst out laughing as did the crowd.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you like pretty women! But there are several here! Which one would you like to carry?’
The beast went round the audience, seemed to hesitate and then made for a rather tall lady spectator who was standing a few paces away from me. She was wearing veils so thick that her face was invisible. But I recognized her bearing immediately. She herself, frightened by the laughter and the looks, came up to me and clutched my arm. I hastened to say to the donkey in a jocular voice: ‘No, you won’t be carrying my wife!’, before going off with her in a dignified fashion.
‘I didn’t expect to see you veiled. Had it not been for the donkey, I wouldn’t have recognized you.’
‘It is precisely in order not to be recognized that I am veiled. We are together in the street, in the middle of an inquisitive gossiping crowd, and no one is aware that I am not your wife.’
And she nodded teasingly:
‘I take off the veil if I want to please all men; I wear it if I only want to please a single one.’
‘Henceforth, I should hate it if your face were to be uncovered.’
‘Will you never want to look at it?’
It is true that we could not be alone in a house, neither hers nor mine, and that we had to be satisfied with walking in the city side by side. The day of our first meeting Nur insisted that we visit the forbidden garden.
‘It has been given this name,’ she explained to me, ‘because it is surrounded by high walls and the sultan has prohibited access to it in order to protect a wonder of nature; the only tree in the world to produce real balsam.’
A piece of silver in the hand of the guard enabled us to go inside. Leaning over the balsam tree, Nur drew aside her veil and stayed still for a long time, fascinated, as if in a dream. She repeated, as if to herself:
‘In the whole world there is only this one root. It is so slender, so fragile, but so precious!’
As far as I could see, the tree seemed quite ordinary. Its leaves were like those of a vine, perhaps a little smaller. It was planted right in the middle of a spring.
‘It is said that if it was watered with different water it would dry up immediately.’
She seemed moved by this visit, although I did not understand why. But the next day we were together again, and she seemed happy and considerate. Henceforth our walks were daily, or almost so, because in the middle of the week, Mondays and Tuesdays, she was never free. When, at the end of a month, I pointed this out to her, her reaction was sharp:
‘You might never have seen me, or only once a month. Now I am with you two, three, five days a week, you complain about my absences.’
‘I don’t count the days that I see you. It is the others than seem interminable to me.’
It was a Sunday, and we were close to the mosque of Ibn Tulun, in front of the women’s hammam where Nur was preparing to enter. She seemed to hesitate:
‘Would you be ready to come with me, without asking the slightest question?’
‘As far as China, if I must!’
‘Then meet me tomorrow morning, with two camels and full waterskins, in front of the Great Mosque of Giza.’
Intent on keeping my promise, I did not ask her about our destination, so much so that at the end of two hours on the road we had only exchanged a few words. However I did not think that it would be against the spirit of our agreement to say:
‘The pyramids can’t be far from here.’
‘Exactly.’
Encouraged by this information I continued:
‘Is that where we’re going?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Do you come here each week to see those round buildings?’
She was overcome by a frank and devastating laugh at which I could only feel offended. To show my disapproval, I got down to the ground and hobbled my camel. She hastened to come back towards me.
‘I’m sorry that I laughed. It was because you said that they were round.’
‘I didn’t invent it. Ibn Batuta, the great traveller, says exactly that they have a “circular shape”.’
‘That was because he never saw them. Or perhaps from very far off, or at night, may God forgive him! But do not blame him. When a traveller tells of his exploits, he becomes a prisoner of the admiring chuckles of those who listen to him. He no longer dares to say “I don’t know”, or “I haven’t seen” for fear of losing face. There are lies of which the ears are more guilty than the mouth.’
We had recommenced our progress. She went on:
‘And what else did he say about the pyramids, this Ibn Batuta?’
‘That they were built by a sage who was well acquainted with the movements of the stars, and who had foreseen the Flood; that was why he built the pyramids, on which he depicted all the arts and sciences, to preserve them from destruction and oblivion.’
Fearing further sarcasms, I hastened to add:
‘In any case Ibn Batuta stated that these were only suppositions, and that no one really knows what these strange structures were built for.’
‘For me, the pyramids have been built only to be beautiful and imposing, to be the first of the wonders of the world. They must certainly have had some function, but that was only a pretext provided by the prince of the time.’