Suddenly the bird spotted something and swooped down as fast as an arrow. As it rose into the air again, a snake was writhing in its talons. It made me feel a bit sick because the scene that had been so beautiful and peaceful just a second before had turned into something quite brutal. The others hadn’t seen it. The bird flew off before I could point it out, and in a way I was glad because I didn’t want to disturb their peace.
I had a nice bath when we got home, to wash off the dust and the sweat. My legs are quite sore from not being used to riding. I hope I’ll sleep well again tonight after all that fresh country air. But I keep remembering the image of the bird with the snake in its claws and it makes my stomach feel quite queasy, the same way I felt when I saw the snake charmer in the medina.
Kenza has given me a tin lantern, which she brought from her home, to put by my bed. It’s like the one in the dreamseller’s room. She says Nina has one too, to help keep the darkness at bay while she falls asleep. The top and sides of it are pierced with the shapes of moons and stars and I love to watch the light from them flicker on the wall. It’s almost as if they are keeping me company.
I think I will stop writing now and read a bit of my next Dorothy L. Sayers book instead. It’s called Strong Poison and it has a heroine in it called Harriet Vane, who is an expert in all kinds of poisons. Lord Peter Wimsey has to rescue her from prison when she is accused of using arsenic to murder her lover, and he falls in love with her too and proposes. But Harriet Vane says she never wants to get married. I don’t know if I would ever want to be married, unless the man was very kind like my papa or Felix. I think I’d probably rather have animals instead, like Josephine Baker.
Zoe – 2010
Tom said he’d be working late this evening – something to do with having to call the company’s Vancouver office – so not to keep supper for him as he’d grab something from one of the takeaway cafés next to the port.
After reading about the tin lantern that Josie used to have beside her bed, I take one of the ones that sit in a row on the sideboard in the sitting room and bring it upstairs with me to Grace’s room. I’m a little anxious about having it too close to the swathes of mosquito netting, so I set it on the chest of drawers against the far wall, alongside my quilting things. I’ve cut the starched fabrics into neat squares now and selected the ones I’ll use to piece my first block, subdividing some of the squares into quarter-triangles. I need fifty for each tree, plus some additional squares to form the trunk. As Kate suggested, for the first one I’ve begun pinning all the pieces together before I sew a single stitch, to get a feel for the pattern.
Grace sleeps soundly, arms flung wide. I light the candle in the lantern and take a seat in the brocade-covered armchair that I’ve set in the corner by the window. It’ll be the perfect place to sit and sew in the daytime with the sunlight streaming in, accompanied by the preoccupied murmuring of the doves on the roof.
This evening, though, I sit and watch the stars from the lantern as they flicker across the wall and then reach for one of the books I bought the other day.
I turn the pages, flipping through Scheherazade’s tales of princes and princesses and djinns until my attention is caught by the title of a short fable tucked away towards the end. It’s called ‘The Dream’。
‘Listen well,’ it begins, ‘it is told that long ago and in a far-off land a wealthy merchant lived in a fine house with a courtyard of white marble and a fountain carved with peacocks. He was foolish, though, and squandered his riches until one day he found himself to be penniless. He lay down to sleep with the heaviest of hearts, not knowing what to do. That night, a man appeared to him in a dream and said, “Your fortune lies in the city beyond the mountains. Go and seek it there.”
‘And so the next day the merchant packed his few remaining rags and set off. After several weeks of travelling, and having encountered many hardships along the way, he finally arrived at the city beyond the mountains. It was late and he had no money, so he lay down in a garden and fell asleep. In the night, a band of thieves came to the garden and from there they broke into a neighbouring house. Hearing the noise, the owners raised the alarm and the police arrived. They arrested the merchant, whom they found lying in the garden, and beat him soundly with their sticks before throwing him into jail.
‘After he’d lain in his cell for several days, the head of the police had the man brought before him, at last, and demanded where he’d come from and what had brought him to the city.