[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

repaired nostrils.
"And anyway, this blunder of mine led to Djoura being freed, and freedom was what she most
wanted, so I'm glad of it."
"Freedom is what we all most want," murmured the thoughtful spirit, and for a moment he faded into
moonlight. When he raised his face to his friend again, there was a hint of fire in his dark eyes.
"Raphael, you must remember who you are!"
The man looked only weary. He turned his head away. "I remember, my friend. My confusion is
nearly gone.
"I remember every voice in the choir. And the song, in all its parts how could I forget that? But my
memories are only memories, and don't move me."
The voice of a single frog hidden in the weeds of the pond silenced Raphael for a few moments. Then
he said, "More real to me than heavenly music is the fact that my nose hurts, and is dripping blood, and
that I know I must dig at the latrines tomorrow, as well as play the ud."
Damiano nodded. He dipped one vague hand into the black pool water, passing it through several
little perch in the process. Neither hand nor fish were the worse for it. "You don't talk about God your
Father anymore."
Raphael's eyes slipped down, from his friend's face to the undisturbed surface of the water. "You
mean Allah. Here He is Allah, and the people of Granada use His name in every third sentence. And they
all seem to know just what His will is on every issue. All but me, of course.
"Allah and I have not been introduced."
"You are bitter," whispered the ghost.
Raphael smiled and his battered face was transformed. "I'm not, really." He put his hand into the
waistband of his trousers and pulled out a little pouch. "I have a pebble, Darni: the one you gave me. I
take care of it."
The moon had rolled away and only Jupiter and the Dog Star made light enough to outshine the
approach of dawn. In that season and latitude Sirius never set.
Raphael was sleeping like a dog, however, curled against the cold with a protective hand on either
side of his nose. Even as he slumbered, the little perch of the pond did not relax their honor guard, and
the carp at the bottom hugged the bottom and sides of the tank as though to push their way through soil
to the transformed angel.
Soon the dozen men in the barracks would be expected to wake up and be useful. They slept all the
harder now in expectation.
But in the main house little Ama was awake; she had had to wake up to vomit, which was her recent
custom. As al ways, concluding this task left her fresh and airy, ready for the day's experience. And now
she tiptoed out the white doorway, sure of her path despite the lack of light.
Ama was wearing white. She came sans veil and her hair was undone. She looked more like Rashiid's
little daughter than Rashiid's young wife. She found Raphael on the bench beside the fish pond.
Finger-length perch darted in every direction.
"Ho, slugabed! Wake up. Wake up and do my hair."
Raphael opened both eyes. He yawned, winced, and touched his upper lip. He chafed his unclad
arms.
"Since because of you I don't have Djoura anymore, you must be my body servant," Ama persisted.
Then she giggled. "You're much nicer, after all, though you're the wrong color."
She leaned over him and peered closely at his face. "Wrong colors, I should say. How shocking!"
Ignoring his incoherent reply, Ama pushed his knees off the bench and sat herself down facing away from
him, presenting her abundant hair.
"My husband is a brute; I have always known so. He would hit me, I'm sure, if my family were not so
important. I'm glad they are. My uncle is a nakib; he has the fealty of two hundred men. But not so much
money.
"Why do you sleep outside, Raphael? It gets cold in the morning. It's cold now.
"You know how Djoura used to sleep? Fully dressed, in all those dusty black gowns of hers. Looked
like a hill of mud, she did, with her veil over her black face. But she was warm, I bet.
"What did you say?"
Raphael had been about to tell Ama why he slept on the bench by the fish pond: a story which
involved his first and only night in the barracks (fully dressed, like Djoura), when because of his humming
and his muted conversation with an unseen visitor he had earned eviction. But as he rose from his hard
cot he thought of something else to say.
"I don't know how to do your hair, mistress," the slave admitted. "I have never done a lady's hair
before."
Ama shrugged and set her small mouth. "You know how to make braids, don't you? Braid it."
Raphael set to work. His hands were good, and he was, of course, an artist. He worked neatly but
without great speed, and Ama wiggled. After a few minutes, she wiggled backward into his lap.
"Rashiid is angry with me too. Isn't that absurd? All because I'm the one who wanted the black. How
was I to know she was of an important clan? It's Rashiid's own business to know those things; I'm just
his wife, after all."
She darted an avian glance back at the blond. "I wish I weren't his wife. I wish I was YOUR wife
instead!" Then Ama giggled at her own conceit. "The wife of a eunuch! Wouldn't that be an easy job?"
Suddenly the girl spun about on Raphael's knees, pulling her black tresses from his fingers. Her face
was inches from his. With her fingers she combed his yellow hair over his eyes and begun to twist it
about. "Your turn, Pinkie& I mean Raphael.
"You'd make such a pretty girl yourself, except that you're too big, of course, and too skinny. But I
like your eyes, and your mouth is so sweet." She kissed his not-quite-awake face.
Color had descended from the sky: the green of the pond, the blue in Raphael's eyes, the hidden
russet in Ama's hair. "Shall I marry you, Raphael? Shall I forget about Rashiid and marry you? You can
be my little wife!"
Ama forced her treble voice down to a masculine growl as she repeated again and again the phrase
"my little wife." She had quite a talent for imitating Rashiid, both in word and gesture; Raphael found
himself being possessively pawed all over. It was rather pleasant.
"I have only seen one eunuch before," whispered Ama, breaking out of her husbandly character for a
moment. "He was the little boy of my uncles household in Algiers, and he had two red scars in this
shape." She laid one finger crosswise over another. "He would cry if we tried to touch them. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]