The Moors Last Sigh

scraping, washing and sweeping, and the owner, by the way, is not a Dane called Olé, but a retired bargee from the Danube, named Uli.’
    I had had enough of Helsing. Vasco’s women had removed their aprons and put them into the large straw baskets they carried; they were plainly eager to be off. I rose and made my excuses. ‘And has all my work on your behalf been worth so little to you?’ said the wretched fellow. ‘I have been your mentor, and this is how you repay me.’
    ‘Give him nothing,’ advised Renegada Larios. ‘He is always trying to wheedle money out of strangers, like a common beggar.’
    ‘I will pay for our drinks, at least,’ I said, and set down a note.
    ‘They will chew up your heart and imprison your soul in a glass bottle,’ warned Helsing, wildly. ‘Never say you were not warned. Vasco Miranda is an evil spirit, and these are his familiars. Beware! I have seen them metamorphose into bats …’
    Although he was speaking loudly, nobody in that crowded street was paying the slightest attention to Gottfried Helsing. ‘We are used to him here,’ said Felicitas. ‘We let him rant, and pass by on the other side. Every so often the Sargento of the Guardia Civil, Salvador Medina, locks him up for a night, and that cools him off.’

    I must admit that Jawaharlal the stuffed dog had seen better times. Since I began carting him around he had lost most of one ear and there were a couple of missing teeth. Nevertheless, Renegada, the finer-boned of my two new acquaintances, was effusive in her praise for him, and found ways of touching me often, on the arm or shoulder, to underline her sentiments. Felicitas Larios held her peace, but I had the impression that she disapproved of these moments of physical contact.
    We entered a small two-storey row house on a sharply sloping street which bore the name of Calle de Miradores even though the buildings on it were far too humble to boast the glassed-in balconies from which it took its unlikely name. However, the street-sign (white letters on a royal blue ground) remained unrepentant. It was further evidence that Benengeli was a place of dreamers as well as secrets. In the distance, at the very top of the road, I could make out the outlines of a large and hideous fountain. ‘That is the Place of the Elephants,’ said Renegada, affectionately. ‘The main gate to the Miranda residence is up there.’
    ‘But there is no point in knocking or ringing, for no-one will answer,’ broke in Felicitas, with a worried frown. ‘It will be better if you come in and rest. You have the look of a tired and, excuse me, also an unwell man.’
    ‘Please,’ said Renegada, ‘take off your shoes.’ I did not understand this rather religious request, but complied, and she showed me into a tiny room whose floor, ceilings and walls were covered in ceramic tiles, on which, in Delft blue, a host of tiny scenes were depicted. ‘No two are identical,’ said Renegada proudly. ‘It is said that they are all that remains of the ancient Jewish synagogue of Benengeli, which was demolished after the final expulsions. It is said that they have the power to show you the future, if you have the eyes to see it.’
    ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ laughed Felicitas, who as well as being the more heavily built and coarser-looking of the two, with a large, unfortunate mole on her chin, was also the less romantic. ‘The tiles are two-a-penny, not old at all; this same Dutchy blue has been in use locally for a long time. And as for fortune-telling, that’s a lot of hogwash. So stop your hocus-pocus, dear Renegada, and let the tired gentleman get some sleep.’
    I needed no further invitation to rest – insomnia, even at the worst of times, had never been my problem! – and threw myself down, fully clothed, upon the tiled room’s narrow cot. In the few instants before I fell asleep my eyes chanced to fall on a certain tile near my head, and there was my mother’s portrait staring back at me, giving a saucy smile. Dizziness claimed me, and I lost consciousness.
    When I awoke I had been undressed, and a long nightshirt had been slipped over my head. Beneath this nightshirt I was completely naked. The two housekeepers were a bold pair, I thought; and how deeply I must have been sleeping! – A moment later I remembered the miracle of the tile, but try as I might I could find nothing that even remotely resembled the picture I was sure I had seen before nodding off. ‘The mind plays