“So the divers have to gather it up from the seabed in the early hours.”
“That’s what makes it such a luxury.”
The food looked so mouth-wateringly delicious, I swallowed loudly, despite myself.
The gentlemen, unaware of my presence, turned and trained their gaze on me.
“Who do we have here? A traveller, perhaps, from a distant land?”
“A visitor.”
“We don’t often get visitors.”
“We should mark the occasion!”
They all rose from the table. The gentleman at the head placed his napkin on his chair and approached me, his arms open.
“So good of you to come!” he said.
And the others, who’d followed his lead placing their napkins on their chairs and greeting me, added their chorus of welcomes.
I was shown to a seat midway along the table, a napkin was tucked in at my collar, and a gleaming knife and fork placed beside me.
“Please, eat.”
“Please feel free, have whatever you like.”
The gentlemen took their seats at the table. The gentlemen on my right turned to the left, and the gentlemen on my left turned to the right. Two lines of faces, on both sides of the table, their eyes all fixed on the same point, receded into the distance on either side of me, like two lines of layered images.
“Please try the flounder. It’s out of this world.”
“And the cooked dishes—the stir-fried chicken with chilli peppers.”
“Or the pig’s liver gayettes.”
“If you’d prefer a dish with green curry, we’ll have it prepared specially.”
With all this encouragement, I was unable to decide. My fork hovered over the dishes. The gentlemen fixed their gaze, their eyes wide, on the end of my fork. They seemed almost to be drooling.
I stuck the fork into something that looked like meat, I wasn’t sure what kind, on a plate near me.
A sigh rose up from the company.
“Ahh!”
“Would you expect less from a guest from a distant land?”
“Such a discriminating palate!”
I cut the meat, or whatever it was, and ate it, piece by tiny piece. But I couldn’t taste it.
“What’ll she go for now, I wonder?”
“Come now, no more comments. Leave her to enjoy it.”
I continued to eat. With every bite, sighs and cries of joy and muffled surprise rose up, and I became even less able to taste what I was eating.
I had now eaten my fill, so I laid down my knife and fork. But the gentlemen glared at me.
“Our guest eats surprisingly little.”
“She’s probably just having a rest.”
“She couldn’t possibly want to stop eating yet.”
Embarrassed, I resumed eating. My stomach was so full I thought it might burst, but still I ate. I ate till nearly everything on the table was gone. I sighed in relief, thinking I was done, when one of the gentlemen rang a bell, which made a little tinkling sound.
A butler appeared, bringing out platters with dome-like silver dish covers.
“Our guest is fortunate!”
“Fortunate to be able to enjoy such a rare feast!”
“She can eat her fill, whatever she likes, until dawn breaks!”
I really felt that I could not force down another morsel. But the gentlemen were all staring at me sternly, even as they smiled.
Outside a nightingale started to sing in a high voice.
Please, I can’t eat anything more, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t.
The nightingale sang again. The plates on the table gleamed, and the food, in all its ceaseless variety, breathed, glossy and bright.
The night had only just begun.
I assumed that we’d been borne along for a while, but when I awoke, time was at a standstill. Since time had stopped, even if we had been moving for a while, no actual hours, or moments, would have passed.
The hair of the girl who had been carried along with me had grown down to her hips. So even if time had stood still, her hair had grown.
Good morning, I said, seeing she was awake. She laughed softly. It’s too early to say that, she said. It’s still evening. And she smiled.
Really? It’s evening now?
The girl entwined her arms with mine.
Some of her long hair got entwined as well. It felt silky and warm.
Your hair has grown, I said.
Yours hasn’t though, she replied.
It was true. My hair hadn’t grown an inch.
The girl’s hair rose, like a living being, and stroked my neck and shoulders. When I brought my face near hers, the girl exhaled gently out of her slightly opened mouth. The scent of her breath was like the odour of lilies at full bloom, and the sound of her breath coming out of her mouth was like a butterfly faintly beating its wings.
I kissed the girl on the lips, as if to suck her breath inside me. When I did this, the girl wilted, ever so slightly. In my arms, gradually she became lighter, and more transparent. The smell of lilies rose up, filling my breast, overwhelming me. The taste of the kiss was so sweet, I couldn’t stop—even though I knew she would go on wilting if I continued. The girl was wilting by the instant, and something thick and strong was filling my breast.
Holding the girl in the palm of my hand, for by now she had shrunk so that it was possible to do so, I continued to kiss her. A numbness came over me, covering me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes: I felt as if I was now enfolded by something soft and huge. Revelling in the sensation of being wrapped in giant overlapping petals, I kept my lips placed on the lips of the girl, who was now getting quite crumpled and tiny.
The girl finally grew incredibly small, about one centimetre wide. I no longer knew whether I was kissing her or simply enjoying the afterglow of the kiss, but now the girl’s breath was filled with the overpowering scent of lilies, and the sound of her breathing, like the beating of butterfly wings, grew loud, almost annoyingly loud.
As I looked at the girl in the palm of my hand, she shone whitely in the night. When I stroked her gently, she seemed beautifully lustrous, and I was struck by how smooth she was, by how she was warm but cold at the same time, and then, looking more closely, I realized she had become a pearl. In the depths of the pearl, I could see the girl’s face staring back at me, and, if I peered into the depths of her eyes, I could see another, smaller girl.
An endless number of girls, getting infinitely smaller and smaller, and all emitting the same scented breath, were quietly but persistently enticing me to go further. When I rolled the pearl over my palm, exploring its smooth surface, they all laughed gently, flutteringly, in response, drawing me in even more.
I put the pearl in my mouth, let it rest on my tongue for a while, and swallowed it.
The infinite number of girls descended my throat, passed down into my stomach, and were transmitted through my veins to all parts of my body. Waves of explosive pleasure rushed over me. Then I realized: my hair had started to grow. And time, previously at a standstill, had started to flow again.
Time continued to flow, as the granules of girl reached every nook and cranny of me. The girl was broken down into something very tiny indeed, tinier even than the smallest particle, and still she coursed round and round. The girl became more and more mixed and homogeneous with me, until in the end I lost track of whether the girl was me, or I was the girl. It was only then that I started to love her, and to miss her. I loved and missed something I couldn’t define, some combination of us both.
At this thought, time came to a standstill. A little while later, I was assailed by contractions of unbelievable force.
No matter how much I poured into the cup, it never filled. And then I realized that the liquid I assumed to be coffee had, unbeknownst to me, turned into night.