I Think of You: Stories by Ahdaf Soueif Read Free Book Online Page A

my blood
I longed to kiss
Their glinting edges
Shining like your smiling mouth
    and on the other:
I am the lord’s knight
Famed throughout the land
For a sure hand with the lance
And the Indian sword.
    They had bought it in Damascus. One day, wandering down the labyrinth of narrow streets that made up the covered market surrounding the Umaynad Mosque, they had come across a tiny shop selling fabrics and tapestries. They had gone in and spent time looking over the materials and she had spotted this one in black and gold. She had laughed as she showed it to him. “This could be your motto. He thought a lot of himself, like you.” For a moment he had been defensive. Then he had trusted in her good faith and laughed and bought it.
    Her remark had been true. He lived in heroic proportions and would have been better off as some medieval knight, be it Arab or Frank. He would have gone out and slain dragons and ghouls and rescued damsels in distress. He would have been kind to his squire and his horses and would have believed in the chastity of his wife weaving in her tower. And perhaps, in the Middle Ages, his belief would not have been misplaced.
    Another memory sprang to her mind. “The Spartans,” he was fond of saying, “spent the last day before Marathonadorning themselves and combing their hair. They knew they were going to die.” On their last day, he had come up to the living room in the cottage. His car had been packed. He was setting off down the M-I. He was drunk. But he was very well dressed, with a velvet jacket and a silk foulard. “I have combed my hair,” he had said quietly, swaying at the top of the stairs.
    She pressed a hand to her head. Not again. Please. Not again. It’s over now. Finished. Her eye caught her desk. It was cluttered with objects. She stood up and went over, looking at them absently. Papers, letters, ashtrays, an old half coconut shell, a silver flask in a leather case, some flying instruments salvaged from a wrecked plane, and a gun. She picked it up. An old Colt.45. “When you shoot yourself in the head,” he had told her, “your brains splatter all over the place. It’s a hell of a mess.”
    “What can you do?” she had asked.
    “Put your head in a plastic bag first.”
    The doorbell rang. She stood very still. It rang again. She walked slowly to the door and opened it. A boy stood holding a carefully folded pile of shirts. He handed them to her. She took them automatically.
    “How much?”
    “Twelve shirts by five piastres is sixty piastres,” he said.
    She went back to the living room, put the shirts on the sofa, and took her purse from her handbag. She took out seventy piastres and went back to the door.
    “Take these.”
    “Do you have anything else for ironing?”
    “No thanks,” she replied, “not today.”
    She closed the door and turned again to face the flat. The dining room was now directly opposite her. She walked over. These had been her favorite pieces of furniture. Solid dark oak in a rustic style with carved lions’ heads for handles. The massive table and sideboards stood waiting for her in the gloom. She opened the small upright sideboard they had used as a bar. It was as well stocked as ever and the crystal goblets sparkled quietly inside. She put out her hand. She had treasured these goblets and the formal china with gold and green edging. She looked around. The table would be covered with the beige and gold damask tablecloth and the room lit by candles in silver candlesticks. Where is the silver? she wondered. The trays and candlesticks were not in their places on the sideboards. She started looking for them. She opened the sideboard doors and peered inside, and there were the delicate little blue and white Japanese bowls. Bought in Tokyo. A great tiredness overwhelmed her. She put out a hand behind her, dragged up a chair, and sat down. The whole world. What city was left that she could go to and not find memories? Why not give in? Why not