The Vorrh

was she to see him that she didn’t instantly notice the strangeness of his approach.
    She greeted him with lapping warmth. He smiled gently and touched her arm. This was unknown. She was dismayed, overwhelmed and silenced by it. He deflated into one of the enormous Moroccan armchairs and said, with eyes already shut, ‘Charlotte, my dear, I am a little tired.’
    They were twelve years away from the other hotel; a road of dilution and addiction would run from here to there. Palermo waited, with the conclusion gilded and marbled in baroque sadness. But this evening was luxuriously calm. The perfume of the jasmine that twisted through the wrought iron of the balcony fluttered into the room. The fireflies buzzed the dusk in overlapping eclipses, and the frogs and cicadas accelerated a chorus. There was a settled peace in their suite of rooms. He was asleep in the chair where he had collapsed. She had checked that he was well, then taken off his shoes and placed his hat and cane in the hall. The cane felt curiously weightless, her excessive use of muscle giving it an illusion of levitation which made her laugh.
    He slept for three hours before waking slowly, creaking in the leather and blinking into the room as she lit the lamps. There was a softness about his eyes that had never been present before. She saw the child in the old man, wonder and contentment where cynicism and greed had been scratched before. This was the man she always knew, but hardly ever met.
    ‘Come and sit with me,’ he said. ‘I want to tell you about my black friend and his vision of the forest.’
    They talked for a very long time, only pausing the conversation to fetch wine and delay the dinner. He told her of his new friend, of his kindness and his lessons, of the chapel and the saints and a living Adam, somewhere at the heart of the wilderness of trees. He wanted her to meet ‘The Black Prince’ and share in his tales of belief and wonder. Quietly, out of nowhere, he asked, ‘The little silver crucifix that you sometimes wear; is it of great sentimental value to you?’ She looked a little confused, so he continued, ‘It’s just that I so want to give my Prince a gift; I wondered if I might purchase it from you?’
    ‘It’s of no real value to me,’ she lied. ‘I have several others, please do take it.’
    He was delighted and crossed the little space between them to kiss her cheek. His mouth was surprisingly cold. His request satisfied, he continued to talk about his day.
    They moved into the dining room, without a break in his enthusiasm or a pause in her amazement. It was to be a much lighter dinner than he usually demanded: only sixteen courses that night. At times, during his eloquent nibbling, he would adopt Seil Kor’s voice and dash ornate French with a rich Arabic bias and sonorous tones across the tabled landscape of food. She would laugh loudly at his pronunciations and roll against the joy that projected them. He was a genius at imitation. He could copy all voices, whether they belonged to strangers or friends, animals, or even the inanimate. He once held a party of poets spellbound by his portrayal of a collection of old hinges. She loved it when he was playful, when his gift was not soured by malice.
    It was almost midnight when he left the table and sat down to the piano with a cigar. She went to the window and walked out into the glittering night. The city was already sleeping, and the heavens took up the sound of the creatures below, the stars making a notation of their trills and bells that rang in the darkness like glass. Whispers of Satie joined them from the room, and there seemed, in this inimitable moment, to be an agreement between time and the proximity of all things, as if clumsy humans might have a place in all this infinite, perfect darkness, if only they played at the edge. Out of sight, blindfolded, and in agreement.
    * * *

    The Nemesis watched from below, standing amongst the trees of a nearby garden, observing the beautiful woman, whose radiance matched the night. The faint music was entirely unknown, but it touched and realigned the heart in absolute and enigmatic ways, seemingly to stand in the shadows of previously unnoticed places. The woman on the balcony was desirable, unique, and conspicuously not part of this country. She stood for a long time, absorbing the stars, her life reaching out to all things. The Nemesis felt the temperature of her heart, the depth of her understanding, and the