She looked over his head. Her eyes seemed absorbed in thought. This is how Mohammed loved me when he carried me off from Moses’s. Only he was more mature, wilder. She felt stung by the thought. Why do all the best things come too late?
The girls were crestfallen when they saw that ibn Tahir wasn’t paying any attention to them. They grew quieter, talking in whispers, and they felt more and more awkward around the enraptured couple.
At last ibn Tahir whispered to Miriam.
“I’d like for us to be alone.”
She went over to the girls and asked them to go to their rooms and entertain themselves there.
They obeyed her. Some of them were hurt.
“You want to have everything for yourself,” Rikana said softly. “What will Sayyiduna say when he hears you’ve fallen in love with another?”
Miriam just smiled playfully.
“Girls, we’ll take the wine with us! We’ll be the only ones having fun, if that’s how it has to be.”
Taviba made peace with fate. Miriam could sense her power, and so didn’t take offense. She gave each one of them a kind look, and she gently hugged Safiya.
“We’ll compose a song about how you’ve fallen in love,” Sit threatened. “When we come back we’ll sing it so he can hear.”
“Go ahead, compose it and sing it.”
She dismissed them and returned to ibn Tahir.
He was feeling awkward, and this carried over to her too. She poured wine into both their cups and toasted him.
They gazed into each other’s eyes.
“You were going to tell me something, ibn Tahir.”
“Every word is too pale to express what I feel now. I feel as though I’ve undergone an illumination. I’ve understood so many things in this short time! Do you know the story of Farhad and the princess Shirin? Since I first saw you, I’ve felt that we’ve already met somewhere before. Now I’ve finally figured it out. You’re how I’ve always imagined the princess Shirin. Except that the image in front of me now is far more perfect. Don’t smile at this, Miriam. As Allah is in heaven, now I understand poor Farhad. To look at so much beauty every day, and then be separated from it forever! Wasn’t that a punishment from hell? Farhad couldn’t help but go mad. He couldn’t help but carve the image he’d constantly had before him out of the living rock. Allah, how horrible his pain must have been! For there can’t be anything more terrible than to be aware every day of the loss of such limitless happiness that will never come again.”
Her eyes were lowered. She was half kneeling, half leaning on the pillows. Her body shone through her veils like a marble statue. The oval shape of her face, her arms and legs, her size, everything was in such wonderful proportion. He stared at her, mesmerized. He felt as reverent as before a sacrament. His soul was shaken by so much perfection. He moaned with delectable pain. Suddenly he noticed tears dropping on his hands.
Miriam was frightened.
“What’s the matter with you, ibn Tahir?”
“You’re too beautiful. I can’t bear your beauty. I’m too weak.”
“You crazy, silly boy!”
“Yes, I’m crazy, I’m insane. This instant Sayyiduna and the martyr Ali mean as much to me as the emperor of China. I could dislodge Allah from his throne and put you in his place.”
“You really have gone mad! Those are blasphemous words. You’re in paradise!”
“I don’t care. Let me be in heaven or in hell. As long as you’re with me, my Shirin, my heavenly Shirin.”
She smiled.
“You mistake me for another. I’m not Shirin. I’m Miriam, a girl of paradise.”
“You’re Shirin. Shirin. And I’m Farhad, doomed to be separated from you and go mad with the pain.”
What fiendish wisdom to send this passionate boy precisely to her! Indeed. Ibn Sabbah was the horrible dreamer from hell.
Her decision was quick. She wrapped her arms around ibn Tahir’s neck and brought her face close to his. She looked deep into his eyes from close up. His entire body began to shake. A weakness overcame him, as though his body were too fragile a vessel for the violent passion overtaking it.
She kissed him on the lips.
He didn’t move. He didn’t embrace her. Slowly he began to lose consciousness. The summit of bliss was approaching.
During this time the girls had crowded together in one of the bedrooms. They threw some pillows down on the floor and spread out comfortably on them. They poured themselves full cups of wine and began drinking in earnest. They grew more and more boisterous. They began to sing, then they bickered, and made peace again, kissing and hugging each other.
This was the mood that Apama found them in. At first she cautiously lifted the curtain. But when she was convinced there was no danger of intruding on their guest, she walked in noisily.
“Where have you got the visitor? Where is Miriam?”
She was shaking in anger and agitation.
“They’re in the room alone.”
“Is this how you carry out Sayyiduna’s orders? This will mean your heads! The woman could be giving away secrets to that boy this very minute, and you sit here whinnying like a bunch of fillies!”
Some of them burst out in tears.
“Miriam ordered us to leave them alone.”
“Go back to them this minute! Throw yourselves at the boy and try to get out of him how many of our secrets the slut has revealed to him. One of you come report back to me. I’ll be waiting behind the white rose bush to the left of the pool.”
When they entered the central hall, they were greeted by a strange sight. Ibn Tahir lay motionless and pale like a corpse. Only a blissful smile played across his lips. Miriam was bent over him, gazing intently into his face. Slowly she turned her eyes from him and caught sight of the companions. She could tell from their timidity that something must have happened. She got up and went over to them.
“Apama?” she asked.
They nodded. She shrugged indifferently.
“Did you compose a song?”
“We did.”
Ibn Tahir had woken up. He rubbed the drowsiness from his eyes and looked around serenely.
“With your permission, we’ll sing for you.”
“A song? It would be a pleasure.”
Ibn Tahir was visibly cheered.
They lifted their harps and bells and began boldly singing.