He kissed her gently, then strode off quickly.
At the river bank Adi was waiting for him with the boat. He got down into it and quietly ordered, “To Apama!”
His old friend was waiting for him in a pavilion very similar to the previous one. One minute she was sprawled luxuriously on the pillows, but by the next, already overcome with impatience, she had gotten up and begun roaming about the room. She kept looking toward the door, talking to herself, growing angry and cursing in a half-whisper, gesticulating as she tried to make some point to her invisible interlocutor. When she heard footsteps, she straightened up proudly and moved a few paces toward the entrance.
When Hasan caught sight of her he could barely suppress a sarcastic smile. She was dressed in her finest silk. The entire contents of her jewelry chest were hanging around her neck, from her ears, on her wrists, hands and feet. On her head she was wearing a magnificent gold diadem studded with glinting gemstones. This was almost precisely the way she had been dressed when he first met her at a dinner given by some Indian prince in Kabul thirty years before. But what a difference between that Apama and this one! Instead of taut, supple limbs, a bony framework covered with faded, darkish, wrinkled skin. She had painted her sunken cheeks a screaming red, and her lips as well. She had daubed black dye on her hair, eyebrows and lashes. She struck Hasan as a living image of the impermanence of everything made of flesh and bones.
She hastily kissed his right hand and invited him to sit down on the pillows with her. Then she scolded him.
“You’ve been with her. There was a time when you wouldn’t leave me waiting long enough to sit down.”
“Rubbish,” Hasan said, his eyes flashing in annoyance. “I’ve called you here on important business. Let’s drop the past. What’s done is done.”
“So you have regrets?”
“Did I say that?”
“No, but…”
“No buts! I’m asking you if everything is ready.”
“Everything is as you’ve instructed.”
“The gardens will be having visitors. I need to depend on you completely.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, rescuing me from poverty at my age.”
“Fine. How is the school coming along?”
“As well as can be expected with a flock of silly geese sitting in it.”
“Good.”
“I feel I have to warn you about something. Those eunuchs of yours don’t seem dependable to me.”
Hasan laughed.
“The same old story. Don’t you know any others?”
“I don’t mean that you can’t depend on them. They’re too scared for that. But I suspect some of them still have some remnants of manhood left in them.”
Hasan’s mood brightened.
“So have you tried any of them?”
Indignantly she drew away from him.
“What do you think I am? With beasts like that?”
“Then what gave you this curious idea?”
“They’ve been flirting with the girls and it’s very suspicious. They can’t hide anything from me. And there’s something else…”
“Well?”
“Recently Mustafa showed me something from a long way off.”
Hasan shook in silent laughter.
“Don’t be crazy. You’re old and bleary-eyed. It was something else he was shoving your way, just to make fun of you. You don’t really think he’d get hard from just looking at you?”
“You insult me. But just wait until they ruin your girls.”
“That’s what they’re there for.”
“But maybe there’s just one you might feel badly about?”
“Oh, cut it out. Don’t you see I’m old?”
“Not so old you couldn’t fall head over heels in love.”
Privately Hasan was supremely amused.
“If that were true, you’d have to congratulate me. Unfortunately I feel like an extinct volcano.”
“Don’t pretend. But it’s true, at your age something more mature would be more suitable.”
“Maybe Apama? Come on, old girl. Love is like a roast. The older the teeth, the younger the lamb needs to be.”
Tears welled up in Apama’s eyes, but finally she swallowed the barb.
“Why do you stick to just one? Haven’t you heard that a frequent change keeps a man fresh and active? The Prophet himself set the example. Recently I was looking at one young quail in the bath. Everything about her is firm and taut. Immediately I thought of you. She’s barely fourteen…”
“And her name is Halima. I know, I know. I held her in my arms before even you saw her. It was I who handed her to Adi. But let me tell you, for a wise man even one is too many.”
“But why does it have to be her? Haven’t you had your fill of her yet?”
Hasan chuckled inaudibly.
“It’s been wisely said, ‘Be modest and oat cakes every day will taste better to you than heavenly foods.”
“I don’t see how you don’t get tired of her self-important ignorance!”
“In these matters milky skin and pink lips outweigh even the profoundest erudition.”
“Once you told me, and I remember it perfectly, that you learned more in those three months that we were together than in the previous ten years.”
“Learning suits youth, the pleasure of teaching—old age.”
“But tell me, what is it about her precisely that attracts you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some vague affinity of hearts.”
“You say that to hurt me.”
“It didn’t even occur to me.”
“Even worse!”
“Oh, cut it out. Spending your old age being jealous?”
“What did you say? Me, jealous? Apama, the priestess of love, before whom three princes, seven heirs apparent, a future caliph and more than two hundred knights and noblemen fell on their knees? Apama is jealous? And of a bumpkin, of a christened slut like that?!”
Her voice shook in fury.
Hasan spoke to her.
“My dear, those times are gone. That was thirty years ago, and now your mouth has no teeth, your bones have no flesh, your skin has no succulence…”
She began to sob.
“Do you think you’re any better off than me?”
“Allah forbid that I think anything of the sort! The only difference between us is this: I’m old and I’ve reconciled myself with it. You’re also old, but you hide the fact from yourself.”
“You came here to make fun of me.”
Large tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Not at all, old girl. Let’s be wise. I sent for you because I need your skills and experience. You just said yourself that I rescued you from poverty by inviting you to my castle. I give you everything you want. I’ve only ever valued the things in people that make them stand out from others. That’s why I deeply admire your knowledge of the arts of love. I’m declaring my complete confidence in you. What more would you want?”
She felt touched and no longer cried. Hasan silently laughed to himself. He bent toward her and whispered in her ear.
“Do you still really want to …?”
She looked at him abruptly.
“I can’t help it,” she said and clasped onto him. “That’s how I am.”
“Then I’ll send you a healthy Moor.”
Offended, she pulled away from him.
“You’re right. I’m too ugly and too old. It’s just so incredibly painful that so much beauty is gone forever.”
Hasan rose and spoke dispassionately.