Almazan was about to throw himself upon him, but the spy of the Holy Office must have understood his intention, for he leapt to his feet and, renouncing his dignity as a Santon, started running alongside the great mosque. He reached the door and disappeared.
Almazan did not follow him. The presence of an infidel in the mosque would have provoked the indignation of the believers, and he would not have been able to take more than a few steps without being arrested. He promised himself to warn the Hagib that evening, or even the Emir, and he headed for the Alhambra.
He was not at the end of his surprises. As the air was stifling he went into the gardens of the Generalife, whose freshness he liked. He went alongside the Laurel Fountain and passed close to the dwarf cypress under which the nightingale had been buried.
He was struck by the sound of voices. Two forms advanced along a path. He recalled that Khadidja was jealous of the solitude of this part of the garden and, ashamed of troubling her reverie again, he hid behind the branches of a clump of bushes.
But he recognized the solid silhouette of Aixa the Horra. Walking beside her was a man of short stature with broad shoulders, whose head was covered in a brown hood. The moon illuminated his face, and Almazan saw with amazement that he was a leper.
Beneath the deformation of the lips and the nose shone an expression of baseness and ferocity. He was carrying his neck forward and his enormous head seemed to be preceding his thickest body ridiculously. He was speaking in a low voice, sometimes raising a horrible white hand.
Almazan had never seen him before, and yet he thought that he recognized him. He thought that he must be one of Soleiman’s brothers. He remembered having heard it said that the four brothers were distant relatives of Aixa and that she had asked the Emir several times to release them from the leprosarium.
“You did well to come and find me,” the Horra said. “You won’t regret it.”
Almazan did not hear the response of the leper, whose voice was hoarse and muffled, but he saw Aixa raise her hand and indicate the balcony that overlooked Khadidja’s apartments and heard her say: “It’s there. The spiral stairway is in that tower and ends directly opposite the large magnolia. One can go down again by the large staircase in the middle, but a woman who has an amorous rendezvous has no need to be abducted by force.”
The two silhouettes drew away under the porticos that bordered the pool of irises. They remained sheltered for some time by the shadow of a cork-oak, like two large nocturnal raptors lying in ambush for evil, and then they headed through the rose-garden toward the communicating gate between the Generalife and the Alhambra.
What could the hateful woman and the lustful leper be planning? Almazan followed them until he saw them disappear, and continued wandering through the gardens for a long time, thinking that Princess Khadidja was in danger.
Late in the night, he went back to his apartment. He found two messages there.
The first was in Spanish and only contained the words: What a pity you don’t love me.
The second was in Arabic, on emerald colored filigree paper that was only made in Alexandria. The characters had been traced by a calam dipped in liquid gold. The thin scroll that it formed was knotted with seven threads of almost invisible silk and of a color corresponding to each of the planets.
The message read:
Words are not necessary, nor even pressures of the hand or gazes. Spirits have their wings and they find one another unknown to their ignorant bodies. Every evening, Al Nefs and Al Hewa—desire and amour—march alongside the Fountain of Laurels and make me signs from a distance. They know that I am behind the shutter of the window and murmur your name to me in the warm night. But even though they are Gennis, they do not murmur it with more ardor than my lips. So I was not surprised by the words that you have sent to me. I was only surprised by the quality of the messenger. If you tell me to come, let it not be with words, let no hand extend the letter, give me a sign with a ray of moonlight borne by the echo of a darbuka, and I will come.
Almazan was confounded by astonishment. He had not seen Princess Khadidja again since encountering her in the gardens of the Generalife. He had never thought of writing to her. He had never even thought about her. What did this mystery signify?
The muezzins were already climbing the stairways of the mosques while Almazan was still meditating over the emerald-colored filigree paper.
XV. Khadidja’s Rendezvous
The love that Khadidja had in her heart had multiplied of its own accord like a tree that causes a forest to flourish around it with its own seeds. All the species of good Gennis spoke to her about Almazan and those Gennis had even sent her a new nightingale, which sang on the hot nights in the magnolia near the window.
They had not only sent a nightingale. They had especially delegated the fat, caricaturish, extravagant Fatima, for Gennis have powers so diverse that they can equally direct a nightingale poet and a masseuse serving as a go-between.
How could that Fatima’s words not be welcomed? It was her, her alone, the loquacious Fatima, who, by virtue of her knowledge of unguents and their influences on the human body, had removed the little tuft of hair that departed from Princess Khadidja’s groin. The mark of the beast was effaced, matter had recoiled, and the milky whiteness of the skin had triumphed over hair, thanks to the most material of creatures, by the art of the gross Fatima, who resembled the monsters from beyond the deserts of Africa whose descriptions voyagers made with amazement. In truth, that contrast must be due to the Genni Al Dounia, who was reputed to be the most whimsical of celestial Gennis.
First, that Fatima had tested the terrain lightly without seeming to touch it. An allusion, a jesting word, nothing more. How prudent and sage she was beneath the enveloped of a hippopotamus! It was only a little later that it had come to Khadidja’s mind like a revelation that the masseuse Fatima might have a supraterrestrial mission. She did not reflect that Fatima had long been a confident of Aixa and that it was perhaps from his conversations with that fine spy that Boabdil had obtained, in childhood, his great fondness for treason. Khadidja was such a stranger to lies that she transformed the false things that reached her into verities.
Almazan was thinking about her, and he had opened up to that gossip, that trafficker of stories, that jovial matron, that masseuse who only massaged in order to talk and make others talk. Nothing was more plausible. One did not have a choice of messengers. Not everyone could have, like her, the power to communicate her thought without a physical intermediary.
Things moved very rapidly, for, in addition to the communications made by day by Fatima, there were those, more tender and more amorous, that the faithful divine Gennis brought by night. And pure souls are very easy to deceive.
To the ordinary habit of men who absolutely want a material sign, Khadidja made the concession of writing a letter—only one—and she knew immediately that the delightful moment of the first meeting was imminent.
It was the time when the magnolia flowers seem to consume their perfumes in their calices like as many inflamed cassolettes, when the roses crowd together in the flower-beds like a host of Christian cardinals before the Pope’s castle, when the cypresses file under the moon like a procession of pious Imams before the Prophet’s tomb. The faces of Gennis shone behind the shutters and Khadidja, sitting on her bed, her head in her hands, meditated the charming and terrible problem all night.
How ought one to offer one’s body to the man one loves? Was a traditional hypocritical resistance necessary? Was there not proof of more love in a spontaneous gift? How should one present oneself? What garments was it necessary to wear? The union of bodies would entail that of souls, but was it appropriate to hasten or was it better to remain for a long time in a state of hope, susceptible of prolonging the enthusiasm of belonging?
And it was necessary for her to recall, in order to go to sleep, that the absence of sleep slides a light ashen mask over faces at dawn.
She was not surprised the next d
ay by the message that Fatima brought. The latter laughed to disguise her embarrassment and the audacity of her request. Why that embarrassment? The request of the man that one loves is never audacious. Yes, she would emerge from the Generalife as that stated time, she would climb into the litter that was waiting for her and she would go to meet Almazan.
And the day passed in the fog of an exquisite dream. Was it necessary to put on jewels, to be as resplendent as the sun, or was there more grace in a slim bare neck and minuscule hands ornamented by the traces of removed rings? Was it time to pour into her hair a few drops of the suave odor that she had composed herself and the effluvia of which had a secret correspondence with the green of her eyes, the third note of the scale and the force of the planet Venus? So many charming perplexities that were only resolved at the last moment, when night had fallen, when a litter went along the wall that surrounded the gardens of the Generalife.
A green form slid into a stone stairway, brushed box-trees, ran alongside a fountain, caressed roses with a trembling hand, arrived at a little door through which no one ever passed and where there was only one Moroccan guard, to whom the green form made a sign.
The Moroccan guard opened the door, but Khadidja turned round. How was it that the nightingale was not singing? Was it forgetful or disapproving? And why were the magnolias letting their flowery branches fall like extinct candles from a chandelier after a funeral ceremony? And why was that cloud suddenly over the moon, like a fragment of crepe in an ocean of azure? Why was the cry of that owl so unusual, so long and so heart-rending? And why had a cone detached from a parasol pine? And why that elongation of white pathways, that whisper of cypresses, that languor of colonnades, that ambient mystery, that inexpressible despair, and that anguished silence?
No, Khadidja was not hesitant, but she would have preferred the beloved gardens to participate in her delight. She approached the fountain of irises and considered the first of the fountain’s twelve jets of water, the one that she liked most, which she supposed to have a heart more fraternal that the others. She would have liked that white dancer, under the dazzling cascade of its costume, to have inclined joyfully toward her, with a pirouette of approval, a crystal smile amid its broad collar of drops of water. Decidedly, the gardens were sulking. With a rapid gesture, Khadidja took one of the emerald necklaces and threw it at the neck of the jet of water. By means of that gesture she conciliated the entire population of insensate dancers.
But why did the little low door, when the Moroccan guard closed it again, make the sound that doors make that one will never pass through again?
Khadidja must have intimidated the two litter-bearers for, on seeing her, they gave the impression of being unable to believe their eyes. But they had departed nevertheless in an astonishingly rapid fashion. Khadidja heard the staff of the runner preceding the litter striking the ground of the inclined streets. How right the bearers were to hurry! The white palaces they went past gave the impression of belonging to an extraordinary city of dream, a fabulous universe in which she was wandering in pursuit of happiness.
Kaschefs making a round stopped the litter momentarily at the entrance to the street of the jewelers, but the runner showed them the insignia that he bore at the end of his staff and they stood aside respectfully.
The course was recommenced. An anxiety slid into Khadidja’s soul. It was an irrational anxiety that was initially formulated as a sentiment of regret, for which she immediately reproached herself. How pleasant it would have been to be in the embalmed gardens of the Generalife at that moment, how sweet the music of the darbuka would have been over the nightingale’s grave!
She lifted the silk curtain of the door. She was being carried through mute suburbs. Where was Almazan waiting for her? How far it was! There were a few negotiations at the guard-post of one of the city gates. The runner said a few words, raised his staff, and they set off again.
But where? Doubtless the porters were deaf. Khadidja had called to interrogate them but they had not heard. They continued their course impassively. Outside the city there were many houses of pleasure with dense gardens watered by canals, where the rich inhabitants of Granada went to spend the summer. Almazan must have rented one of them, or perhaps the Emir had put one of the villas he possessed on the road to Elvira at his disposal. Yes, that was it.
However, she did not recognize the road to Elvira. To the left of the road there were fields as far as the eye could see. In the distance, to the right, stood a somber mass, something like a walled enclosure.
She did not understand. But those possessed by the spirit of illusion go to the end of their folly with a blind faith. Everything would be explained. What did the place and the distance matter? Almazan was waiting for her, that was the essential thing.
They had reached a gate and a somnolent guard, holding a lantern, had just come out of a low house adjacent to the wall.
There was still time to call out, to be recognized. The idea occurred to Khadidja, but she immediately set it aside. The runner had raised his magic staff and the litter had immediately launched through the open gate with a single bound, a strange surge in which there was a triumphant joy.
At the same moment, by the light of the lantern, Khadidja has distinguished the insignia that the runner bore on his staff. It was a bronze ball on which a closed hand was crudely sculpted—which is to say, the insignia known throughout Granada as that of Aixa the Horra. And she had distinguished a face beyond the gate, the bizarre face of a crouching man, a face so sad and so terrible!
She had suddenly understood where she was. In a litter belonging to her mortal enemy Aixa, she had just penetrated into the city of lepers. She uttered a faint cry, the cry of a child, and lost consciousness.
She was woken up by a curious sensation. Something rough and damp, the nature of which she could not distinguish, was rubbing her hand and wrist. Then that indefinable thing quit her and she heard a voice above her that said: “She’ll wake up in the end.”
It was a singularly weak and broken voice, whose dolorous tone struck her.
Raising her eyelids slightly, Khadidja allowed her gaze to filter around her through the thickness of her long lashes.
She was lying full length on a carpet and her first distinct thought was that her veils, partly lifted, were uncovering her leg above the knee. She was about to pull them down swiftly, but the sentiment of danger retained her. Where was she? With what was she threatened?
Other broken voices spoke. There was a sound of glasses, clicking tongues and grunts of satisfaction, and she saw that there were three men considering her. Two were sitting among cushions and the third, who was speaking to them with his back turned to her, was the one who had just leaned over her and taken her hand and wrist.
But no, they were not men. She had descended, by a horrible enchantment, into the abode of the evil Gennis. She saw before her Iblis, in the triple appearance of Evil, Ugliness and the Night. She was about to endure the punishment of her sins.
Her life had always been egotistical. She had not loved the beings surrounding her sufficiently, she had only thought of the satisfaction of hr physical desires instead of elevating her spirit by ecstasy, as she had once been taught in Malaga by her master the old Sufi Abou-Lahab. She was about to enter into the circle of expiation.
But no, they were not Gennis. She remembered! The porters send by Almazan had brought her to the city of lepers. She had fallen into a trap, and it was the man she loved who had made her fall into it. She was among living lepers more redoubtable than Iblis himself, because there are certain bodily pollutions that cannot be effaced.
Suddenly, the three men who were drinking were immobilized, and the six flames of their eyes turned toward Khadidja and remained fixed upon her. They had seen the green gaze that had just become animated through the shadow of her long lashes.
A cry rang out. The three lepers were on their feet. Khadidja saw a stout form make a kind of leap and she had the same sensation of damp rou
ghness on her neck that she had had on her hand. Her veil gave way. A hand opened it, striving to rip it from top to bottom.
Suddenly frozen by a nameless horror, Khadidja stood up at the same time, and succeeded in detaching herself. She searched with her gaze for something that might protect her from the assault of the three men. With the exception of a little table and a tall bronze lamp, the room was bare. Bringing up the fragments of her veil over her uncovered breasts, she took shelter behind the lamp and looked the hideous danger that menaced her in the face.
She he never imagined such a bestial expression on human faces. The three brothers made the same gesture with their open arms and extended white hands before them, with deformed joints and moist swellings in the palm. The eldest, the shortest, carried his head forward as if it had an enormous weight and that he had difficulty sustaining it. What aggravated that particularity were the tubercles placed around his lips, which gave them a color analogous to that of lead. The second was entirely bald and had a profound wrinkle around his forehead that made a line of demarcation, as if the upper part of his cranium, strangely high, was added to the rest of the head and susceptible of being easily lifted off. The youngest was at that phase of the malady in which the skin forms successions of dead squamae, crumbling inexorably into flakes, and, with a mechanical gesture, he passed his hand over his face incessantly to detach some crust therefrom. All three were laughing at the terror they inspired and the certainty of possession.
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