The Moors Last Sigh

awakened early each morning by an hour of that ‘music’ which Miranda insisted on calling ‘Oriental’, even ‘Japanese’, but if the Japanese woman he had imprisoned found such epithets insulting, she never gave Vasco the satisfaction of expressing her annoyance. The noise appalled and bruised, but while it lasted we performed, at Aoi’s suggestion, our daily private functions. Each of us in turn would avert our gaze, lying down to face the wall, while the other did what had to be done in one of the two latrine-buckets that Vasco, most nightmarish of jailers, had provided; and the din needling our ears spared us each other’s sounds. (Each of us was, from time to time, given a few squares of coarse brown paper with which to clean ourselves, and these we treasured and defended as dragons defend their hoards.) After this we washed, using the aluminium bowls and jugs of water that one of the ‘Larios sisters’ brought up once a day. Felicitas and Renegada were stony-faced on these visits, refusing all entreaties, ignoring all expostulation and contumely. ‘How far will you go?’ I shouted at them. ‘How far, for that fat madman? As far as murder? The end of the line? Or will you get off at an earlier station?’ Under such questioning they were implacable, unconcerned, deaf. Aoi Uë taught me that only by remaining silent, in such a situation, could one maintain one’s necessary self-respect. After that I let Miranda’s women come and go without a word.
    Once the music had ended we applied ourselves to our work: she to her paint-flakes, I to these pages. But as well as our allotted tasks we made time for conversation-hours during which, by agreement, we would speak of anything except our situation; and brief daily ‘business talks’ during which we considered our options and spoke tentatively of escape; and exercise periods; and times of solitude, too, when we did not speak, but sat alone and husbanded our private, eroding selves. Thus we clung to humanity, and refused to allow our captivity to define us. ‘We are greater than this prison,’ Aoi said. ‘We must not shrink to fit its little walls. We must not become the ghosts haunting this stupid castle.’ We played games – word-games, memory-games, pat-a-cake. And, often, without any sexual motive, we would hold each other. Sometimes she would let herself shake, and weep, and I would let her, let her. More often she performed this service for me. For I felt old, and spent. My breathing difficulties had returned, worse than ever; I had no medication, nor was any provided for me. Giddy, aching, I understood that my body was sending me a simple, absolute message: the jig was nearly up.
    One part of the day could not be time-tabled. This was Miranda’s visit, when he inspected Aoi’s progress, removed my daily pages and provided me with new sheets and pencils if required; and in various ways amused himself at our expense. He had his pet-names for us, he announced, for were we not his pets, kept leashed and kennelled, transformed into dog and bitch? ‘Well, Moor is Moor, of course,’ he said. ‘But you, my dear, must henceforth be his Chimène.’
    I told Aoi Uë about my mother, whom she was bringing back from the dead – and about the sequence of works in which another Chimène had met, and loved, and betrayed another Moor. She said: ‘I loved a man, you know; my husband, Benet. But he betrayed me, often, in many countries, he could not help himself. He loved me, and betrayed me while continuing to love. In the end it was I who stopped loving him and left: stopped loving him not because he betrayed me – I had gotten used to that – but because certain habits of his, which had always irritated me, just wore away my love. Very little habits. The relish with which he picked his nose. The length of time he took in the bathroom while I was waiting for him in bed. His reluctance to meet my eye with an affectionate smile when we were in company. Trivial things; or perhaps not? What do you think – perhaps my betrayal was greater than his, or as great? Never mind. Just let me say that our love is still the most important event in my life. Defeated love is still a treasure, and those who choose lovelessness have won no victory at all.’
    Defeated love  … O heartbreaking echoes of the past! On my little table in that death-cell young Abraham Zogoiby wooed his spice-heiress and aligned himself with love and beauty against the forces of