His heart floated high over a cloud of happiness and swayed tipsily above it. He asked, 'When did you learn that?'
'Quite a while ago.'
He gazed at her with gratitude, so moved by love he felt like crying. Then he said, 'You learned I'm innocent?'
'Yes.'
Was Hasan Salim going to regain his good reputation? 'How did you learn the truth?'
She said quickly and in a way that showed she wanted to end this interrogation, 'I learned it. That's the important thing.'
He did not insist, for fear of annoying her, but a thought crossed his mind. Sorrow clouded his heart, and he said plaintively, 'Even so, you continued to hide yourself You didn't bother to announce the pardon with a sign or a word, although you were able to express your anger most expertly. But your excuse is obvious and I accept it.'
'What excuse is that?'
With a sorrowful voice he replied, 'That you haven't ever known pain. I ask God most sincerely that you never will.'
She said apologetically, 'I thought you didn't care whether you were accused.'
'May God forgive you. I cared more than you can imagine. It hurt me dreadfully to find the gap between us so vast. The problem wasn't merely your disinterest in the… affection I feel for you. It was also the unfair charges lodged against me. So consider your position and mine. But I'll tell you frankly that the unjust accusation was not responsible for my worst pains She smiled and asked, 'So there wasn't just one type of pain?'
Encouraged by her smile as if he were a small child, he proceeded to pour out the story of his devotion. He said passionately, 'No. Your accusation caused the least of my pains, and your disappearance the greatest. Each hour out of the past three months has witnessed some moment of pain. The way I've lived, I could easily have been considered insane. So I mean and know what I'm saying when I pray that God will not test you with pain. I've learned from my own experience. What a cruel time it's been! It's convinced me that if you're destined to disappear from my life, I might as well search for another existence. It was like a long, odious curse. Don't make fun of me. I'm always afraid you will. But pain's too exalted l: o be mocked. I don't picture a generous angel like you joking about the afflictions of other people. And of course you're the cause too. But what can a person do? It's been my fate to love you with all the force of my being.'
The silence that followed was broken only by his irregular breathing. She was looking straight ahead, and he could not search her eyes. He was comforted by her silence, for it was easier to bear than a careless word. So he considered it a triumph.
'Imagine hearing her voice soft and sweet expressing the very same feelings….'
He was crazy. Why had he released the floodwaters dammed up in his heart? He was like a vaulter who keeps trying to go just a foot higher only to find himself soaring high into the heavens. But what force could muzzle him after this?
'Don't remind me of things I hate to hear, for I've had my fill of that. I won't forget my head, for I carry it with me night and day, or my nose, for I see it repeatedly each day. But I've got something no one else comes close to possessing. My love for you is unequaled, and I'm proud of it. You should be too, even if you spurn it. I've felt this way ever since I saw you the first time in the garden. Haven't you been conscious of it? I haven't thought about confessing it before now, because I was afraid of spoiling our friendship and of being expelled from paradise. It was hideously difficult for me to consider risking my happiness. But now that I've been evicted, what do I have to fear?'
His secret flowed out of him like blood from a wound. He saw nothing in all of existence except her extraordinary person. The road, trees, mansions, and the few passers by vanished into a dense fog with only one gap through which his silent beloved could be seen with her slender build, halo of black hair, and a profile that openly revealed its grace while concealing its secrets. In the twilight shadows her face seemed a pure brown, but when they crossed a side street it was radiant and bright from the rays of the setting sun. He could have kept on talking until morning.
'Did I say I'd never considered confessing my love to you before? That's not quite true. The fact is, I started the day we met in the gazebo when Husayn was called to the telephone. I almost told you then, but before I could, you began attacking my head and nose'. He laughed briefly before continuing: 'I was like an orator who opens his mouth only to be showered with pebbles by the audience.'
She was calm and silent. That was fitting. An angel from another world should not converse in a mortal tongue or take an interest in human affairs. Would it not have been nobler of him to guard his secret? Nobler? Pride vis-a-vis the beloved was blasphemy. For the assassin to be confronted with her victim was only proper.
'Do you remember your happy dream that left you in tears when you awoke? Dreams are quickly forgotten, but tears or rather the memory of them may become an immortal symbol.'
Here she was saying, 'I was only joking when I said those things, and I asked you then not to get angry.'
This refreshing sensation deserved to be savored. It resembled the happy delight one feels after a throbbing toothache. The melodies latent within him echoed each other until a beautiful tune emerged. His beloved's features seemed the musical notation from which he was reading a heavenly composition.
'You'll find I'm content with hoping for nothing, because as I told you I love you.'
With her natural grace she cast him a smiling look but withdrew it too quickly for him to decipher it. What kind of look had it been? Was she pleased, moved, affectionate, responsive, or politely sarcastic? Had she bestowed it on his face as a whole or directed it toward his head and nose?
Then her voice followed this look: 'I can only thank you and apologize for unintentionally causing you pain. You're kind and generous.'
His soul was ready to convey him to the warm embrace of happy dreams, but she added in a faint voice, 'Now let me ask what follows from this.'
Was he hearing the voice of his beloved or an echo of his own? This very sentence was soaring somewhere over Palace Walk, borne aloft by his sighs. Had the time come for him to find an answer for this question?
He asked anxiously, 'Does something follow from love?'
'She's smiling,' he thought. 'I wonder what this smile means. But you want something more than a smile.'
She answered, 'The declaration is the beginning, not the end. I'd like to know what you want.'
Still anxious, he said, 'I want… I want you to give me permission to Jove you.'
She could not hold back her laughter. She inquired, 'Is this really what you want? But what will you do if I refuse?'
Sighing, he replied, 'In that case, I'll love you anyway.' In a half-joking manner that upset him she asked, 'What's the point of the permission then?'
How absurd it was when words betrayed a person and came out wrong…. What he feared most was falling back to earth as suddenly as he had risen from it. He heard her say, 'You perplex nie. It seems to me that you even perplex yourself.'
He answered uneasily, 'Me… perplexed? Perhaps, but I love you. 'What follows from this?' I imagine occasionally that I aspire to things beyond the earth's capacities. But when I reflect a little, I'm unable to ascertain what my goal is. You tell me what this means.1 want you to talk while I listen. Can you rescue me from my dilemma?'
She said with a smile, 'I don't have anything to offer in this regard. You ought to be the speaker. I'll do the listening. Aren't you a philosopher?'
His face turning red, he commented dejectedly, 'You're making fun of me.'
She was quick to answer, 'No. But I wasn't anticipating a conversation like this when I left my house. You caught me by surprise, telling me things I wasn't expecting to hear. In any case, I'm thankful and grateful. No one would be able to forget your tender and refined affection. It would be out of the question to make fun of them.'
It was a captivating tune with sweet lyrics. Yet he did not know whether the beloved was being serious or frivolous. Were the portals of hope opening… or closing with the gentleness of a breeze? When she had asked him what he wanted, he had not replied, because he had not known what he did want. Would it be wrong to say that he longed for communion, the communion of one spirit with another? Should he knock at the mysterious closed door
