My beloved, my beautiful friend, the sight of this line pierced my soul. How could a young woman like you, so lavishly adorned by Almighty God both in body and soul, want to take her own life?
You said it was many years ago. I wished to fly across time and oceans and reach you just before the blade dared to touch your milky skin. I would have thrown my throat between knife and artery. Better, I would have arrived earlier, before any trial should have upset your treasured soul.
O God of our fathers, let all my blood be spilled rather than one of her eyelashes fall to the ground! And yet, Eternal One, You are the One who watches over us, even in our darkest hours. If only You once wished to use me for her fulfilment, in whatever degree or capacity, I would be the happiest man.
Then I did what under Sharia law should have cost me a hand: I stole – our first touch – and I assumed our last. If the penalty increases according to the value attached to the stolen good, I would have lost more than one hand indeed, but both – and feet and head (as to my heart, it wasn’t mine to lose)!
My lips fell on that hated line drawn across a cherished limb, wishing to erase with a kiss the assault of the steel.
In that, they failed.
But not in the reward they earned for my eyes: a tear from yours falling upon my hand; and a smile opening across your brightening face a laughing “scar” that I wish would never heal again.
O mouth of my delight; O teeth, O tongue, O lips: what music you play to my ears as I rise and take my leave! Is sanity retained when a man loves his pains? Your voice, bidding farewell, is a kiss to my ears and a pang in my heart.
I stop reading.
His letter upsets me more than it thrills me.
Are these not mere words? What proves them true, Azim?
You said you loved me, and you ran away!
Chapter 2
In pink crocodile?
As a diversion, I just walked to the Louis Vuitton boutique near the bookshop to see their latest phone case, just released. It might fit mine.
But, in pink crocodile? I didn’t see any of that colour crawling down the Nile (only sculpted ones in temples, brownish and harmless). Perhaps I would have, if I’d drunk a bit more. I should have accepted Azim’s cocktail yesterday, but what if his mysterious “Katarina” had heard of it!
Sitting down again, I browse through the picture album on my screen.
I realise that we modern men and women don’t need gods anymore, though we appreciate the zeal and the cultural achievements of
long-gone believers.
REGINA | 73