Chapter 12 Chapter One
When you sleep next to someone whose mind is full of images, there is an osmosis, a nocturnal act of sharing.At least he thought so.He was thinking a lot then; maybe more than he'd ever thought in the past.Maybe he's just more aware of the process, and the identity of the thoughts and the passing of time.Sometimes he felt that every moment he spent with her was like being in a precious capsule of consciousness wrapped affectionately, carefully placed in a place where there was no violence, no harm.
But he didn't fully understand until later; that wasn't something he fully realized at the time.At that moment, the only thing he paid attention to at all was her.
Often he would lie and watch her sleeping face in the light that passed through the open walls of the strange room.He would stare open-mouthed at her skin, dazed by her constant stillness, numb by the fact that she actually existed, as if she were some careless star falling asleep unaware of her fiery power; He marveled at the ease with which she slept; he couldn't believe that such beauty could have survived without some superhuman intensity of self-awareness.
On mornings like these, he would lie watching her, listening to the sound of the house in the breeze.He liked the house; it seemed... fitting.Normally he would have hated it.
Yet here and now he accepts it, joyfully sees it as a symbol; open and closed at the same time, vulnerable and strong, outward and inward.When he first saw it, he thought it would collapse in the first violent gusts of wind, but these houses hardly ever seem to collapse; in very rare storms, people would evacuate into the center of the building and huddle around the fire Beside, let the layers of clothing and heavy coats swing on the sentry post, finally breaking the wind force and providing core shelter from the wind.
Yet—as he had told her when he first saw it from the lonely ocean road—it was easy to set fire to and rob, stuck in a place that was nothing. (She looked at him then as if thinking he was crazy, but then kissed him.)
This weakness fascinates and disturbs him.There is a portrait of her, which represents her as a poet and a woman at the same time.He thought one of the images was quite similar; he loved hearing her read aloud the symbols and metaphors she used in her poems, although she never quite understood them (too many cultural cues, and he hasn't quite learned the confusing language, which also sometimes makes her laugh).Their physical relationship seemed to him fuller, more complete, and more challengingly complex than anything similar he'd known before.The paradoxes of love crystallized, made the most personal attacks an equally tangled knot in his mind, and sometimes disgusted him, only because, in the joy of it all, he tried to understand that statements and guarantees could be different. There are overtones.
Sex was a violation, an assault, an invasion; he had no other way of looking at it.Every act, however miraculous and enjoyed, however voluntarily directed, has an acoustic resonance of lust.He possesses her, and no matter how much she is aroused and his own love grows, she is still the victim of the act, pressed and entered.He notices his own absurdity, overly trying to compare sex to war; he laughs out loud at the few awkward occasions when he tries to do so (“Zarqawi,” she would say when he tried to explain, would cold, slender fingers resting on the back of his neck, watching him from behind a wild mass of black hair, saying: "Your problem is too serious." She will not smile), but the feeling, the behavior, the two The world man constructs is so close to him, so familiar that it needs no explanation, and it is this response that drives him deeper into his confusion.
But he tried not to let it bother him; he could just look at her at any time, wrap his love like a coat around her on a cold day, watch her life and body, mood and expression, words and actions, Like a whole fascinating field, he can study like a scholar all his life.
(It's more like this,' said a small reminder inside him. It's more like the way things should be; with these, you can leave other things behind, sin and secrets and all lies; that ship and chair and Another man... but he tries not to listen to the voice.)
They met in a bar in the port.He had just arrived and thought he'd try to see if their wine was as good as the locals said it was.Indeed.She was sitting on the next dark booth, trying to get rid of a man.
You said nothing lasts forever, he heard the guy wail. (Well, what a cliché.)
No, he heard her say.I'm saying that with very few exceptions, nothing lasts forever, and very few of those exceptions have anything to do with a man's work or thoughts.
She continued talking, but he was intrigued.That's better, he thought.I like.She sounds interesting, but what does she look like?
He stuck his head out of the booth and looked at the two of them.The man is tearful; the woman is...well, full of hair...very beautiful face; sharp, almost aggressive.Excellent body.
"Sorry," he told them. "But I just want to point out that 'nothing lasts forever' can be considered a positive statement... Well, in some languages..." At this point, he thought that the language doesn't count, they use nothing for different different words.He smiled, and retreated to his booth, suddenly embarrassed.He stared accusingly at the drink in front of him.Then he shrugged and rang for the waiter.
There was a roar from the booth next door.There was a crash and a small scream.He turned to see the man rushing across the bar, heading for the door.
The girl appeared at his elbow.She was soaked through.
He looked at her face; it was wet.She wiped off the water with a towel.
"Thank you for your contribution," she said coldly. "I was about to wind things up until you barged in."
"I'm so sorry," he said, but it didn't feel like that at all.
She swirled water into his glass with her handkerchief, tick-tock. "Huh," he said. "It's kind of you." He nodded at the dark stain on her gray coat. "Did you drink or his?"
"Both," she said, folded the hand towels and turned to leave.
"Please; let me buy you another glass."
She hesitated.The waiters arrive at the same time.Good omen, he thought.
"Ah," he said to the man. "I'm going to order another glass...whatever I just drank, and this lady..."
She looks at his glass. "Same," she said.She sat down across the table.
"Think of it as...compensation," he said, digging words out of the vocabulary implanted for the visit.
She looked puzzled. "Compensation . . . I forgot what that word means; it has something to do with the war, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," he said, soothing the hiccup with his hand. "Kind of like...damage?"
She shook her head. "Surprisingly cold vocabulary, but terrible grammar."
"I'm from out of town," he said lightly.That is true.He had never been within a hundred light-years of this place.
"Ciaance Ungern," she nodded. "I write poetry."
"You're a poet?" he said, delighted. "I've always been interested in poets. I tried writing poetry for a while."
"Yeah," she sighed, looking alert. "I guess everyone is. So you are...?"
"Sharidian Zarqawi. I fight wars."
she smiles. "I thought there had been no war here for three hundred years; don't you feel a little lack of practice?"
"Yeah; that's boring, isn't it?"
She sat back in the chair and took off her coat. "How far out of the city did you come from, Mr. Zarqawi?"
"Ah, damn it, you already guessed it," he cast his eyes down. "Yes, I'm from another planet. Oh, thank you." The drink came; he handed her one.
"You do look interesting," she said, watching him.
"'Interesting'?" he said indignantly.
She shrugged. "It's different." She drank her drink. "But it's not that different." She leaned forward on the table. "Why do you look so much like us? I know not all outsiders are humanoid, but many are. How could that be?"
"Well," he said, putting his hand over his mouth again. "It should be said, this..." He hiccupped. "... the dust clouds and stuff in the galaxy are... its food, and its food is constantly expressing its opinion. That's why there are so many kinds of human races; the last meal of the nebula group is always in their bodies It's repetitive."
She grinned. "It's as simple as that, isn't it?"
He shook his head. "Nah; not at all. Very complicated. Still," he held up a finger. "I think I know the real reason."
"What is it?"
"There's ethanol in the dust cloud. Damn stuff everywhere. Any shitty race that invented telescopes and spectroscopes started looking at the stars, and what did they find?" He tapped his glass on the table. "Lots of stuff, but mostly alcohol." He downed the drink from his glass. "And humanoids are the galaxy's way of trying to get rid of alcohol."
"That sounds a lot more reasonable," she agreed, nodding earnestly.She looked at him curiously. "Then why are you here? Let's hope it's not to start another war."
"No, I'm on vacation; wanting to get away from them. That's why I chose this place."
"How long will you be here?"
"Wait till I get bored."
She smiles at him. "How long do you think that will take?"
"Yeah," he smiled back. "I don't know." He put down his glass.She drank hers.He reached out to ring the bell for the waiter, but her fingers were already there.
"It's my turn," she said. "Is it still the same?"
"No," he said. "I want to drink something quite different this time."
By the time he tried to enumerate his loves, point out everything about her that attracted him, he found himself starting with the biggest facts—her beauty, her approach to life, her creativity—but when he thought about The day before, or just looking at her, he noticed other gestures, single words, certain steps, and every movement of her eyes, or gestures that began to seek equal attention.He'd then give up and console himself with something she said; that saying, you can't love something you know all about.Love, she argues, is a process not a state; hold on to it and it will wither.He wasn't quite sure about all that.With her help, he seemed to find an inner peace, a limpid stillness that he didn't know existed before.
The fact that she was gifted—perhaps genius—plays a big part, too.That adds to his unbelievable frontier, he becomes more capable than what he loves, and now the world outside is a whole different angle.She was all he knew here and now, capable and rich and limitless, yet when they both died (and he found that he could think of his own death again without fear), a world at least— --perhaps many civilizations--would know that she is such a different thing, a poet; the weaver created many meanings, to him only words printed on a page, or she occasionally mentioned title.
Someday, she said, she would write a poem for him, but the time had not yet come.He figured that what she wanted was for him to tell her the story of his life, but he'd already told her he'd never be able to.He didn't have to confess to her; it wasn't necessary at all.She had relieved her of her burden, though he didn't quite know how.Memories are interpretations, not facts, she insisted, and rational thinking is just another intuitive force.
He felt the antagonism in his head slowly healing, aligning his mind with hers, aligning all his prejudices and ego with the image of natural charm she presented to him.
She helped him unconsciously.She sewed him up, dug up the thing buried too deep in a place he'd thought would never pass, and pulled its stinger out.Maybe that was why it shocked him; he was a man with such terrible memories, he had accepted his fate early on, and the effect would only grow stronger with age.But she just pushes them away, cuts them up, wraps them up and throws them away, without knowing she's doing it, without realizing how much influence she has.
He put his arms around her.
"How old are you?" she asked at dawn on the first night.
"Older than you and younger than you."
"Mysterious shit; answer the question."
He grimaced at the darkness. "How long will this... your people live?"
"I don't know. Eighty or ninety years?"
He had to recall the length of a year here.close enough. "Then I'm . . . about two hundred and twenty; one hundred and ten; or thirty."
She whistled and moved her head to his shoulder. "Good choice."
"Quite so. I was born two hundred and twenty years ago. I lived to be a hundred and ten years old, and I was actually about thirty."
Laughter escaped from the back of her throat.He felt her breasts brush against his as she turned onto him. "The person I fucked is as old as a hundred and ten years old?" She said with humor.
He put his hands behind her back, smooth and cool. "Yeah, great isn't it? To have all the experience and benefits without having to—"
She leaned over and kissed him.
He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her tighter.She moved in her sleep, and at the same time hugged him with her arms, pulling him closer.He sniffed the skin of her shoulders, smelled the breath emanating from her body, whether it was perfume or not, it only carried her smell; he closed his eyes and focused on this feeling.He opened his eyes, attracted by her sleeping appearance again, put his head close to hers, put his tongue under her nose to feel the flow of breath, eager to touch the thread of her life.The tip of his tongue, the small depression between her lips and nose, one protrusion and one depression, seemed to be designed by nature. Her lips parted and then closed; their sides rubbed against each other, and her nose wrinkled.He watched these with secret joy, fascinated like a child playing "startle" at the adults who kept disappearing beside the hammock. She continued to sleep.He rested his head again. In the gray light of the first morning, he lay there for her to examine the details of his body. "So many scars, Zarqawi," she said, shaking her head and following the line of his chest. "I was always getting into trouble," he admitted. "I could have cured them all, but...they're good for...memories." She pressed her cheek against his chest. "Please; admit you just like showing them off to girls." "That's true." "This one looks tricky, if your heart is in the same position as ours...then the rest of the place looks similar too." She traced a finger around a wrinkle near one nipple.She felt him tense, and looked up.Something in the man's eyes made her tremble.Suddenly all those years he claimed came true, and even longer than that.She lifted herself up, running a hand through her hair. "That's kinda new, isn't it?" "That..." He tried to smile, and ran his fingers over the small sunken wrinkles on his body. "Funny, that's actually the oldest one." The look faded from his. "And this one?" she said cheerfully, stroking the side of his head. "bullet." "In a big battle?" "Well, sort of. In a car, to be more precise. There's a woman." "Oh, shit!" She put her hand over her mouth, mimicking panic. "It was very embarrassing." "Okay, let's not talk too much about this... what about this?" "Lasers...a very bright light," he explained, seeing her bewildered look. "A long time ago. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. "Insects?" She shuddered. (Then he's back there; in that submerged volcano. It's been a long time since now, but there are more old memories lingering. He remembers the crater, seeing stagnant pools again, and the poisonous lake Rocks in the center and around. He felt again the narrow bruises on his body, and the constant rush of insects...but that never-ending centripetal gathering didn't matter anymore; it was just the here and now .) "You don't want to know," he grinned. "I think I'll trust you," she agreed, nodding slowly, her long black hair bobbing heavily. "I know; I'll kiss 'em and make them well." "It might take a while," he told her, and she turned to stand. "Are you in a hurry?" she asked, kissing her toes. "Not at all," he smiled, lying back on the bed. "Just use your time. Always." He felt her move and looked down.Rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, her hair loose, she patted her nose and cheek, then smiled at him.He looked at her and smiled.He had seen a few smiles for which he might be willing to take a life, but never one for which he would have given his life.What else could he do but smile back? "Why do you always wake up before me?" "I don't know," he sighed.The room sighs, too, and the breeze pushes against the ambiguous walls. "I love watching you sleep." "Why?" She rolled over and lay down, turning her head to him, hair falling on him in large chunks.Resting his head in the dark scented place, he remembered the smell of her shoulder and wondered foolishly if she would smell different when she woke up. He squeezed her shoulders, and she laughed a little, trying to move her shoulders and put her head against him.He kissed her neck, answering the question before completely forgetting about it. "You move when you wake up, and then I miss things." "What is it?" He felt her kiss his head. "Everything you do. You barely move when you're asleep, so I can see it all. There's plenty of time, too." "That's weird," she said slowly. "You smell the same when you're awake as you do when you're asleep, you know?" He propped his head up, staring into her face, grinning. "You..." she started, then lowered her head.When she looked up again, there was a sad smile on her face. "I love hearing this gibberish," she said. He heard overtones. "You mean, you like hearing this bullshit now, but not in the immediate future." (She hates the mediocrity of it, but she has her own scars.) "I suppose so," she said, taking his hand. "You think too much about the future." "Then maybe we can use this to counterbalance the feelings we can't get rid of from each other." he laughed. "I think I'm stepping into one of them." She touched his face and looked into her eyes. "I really shouldn't have fallen in love with you, Zarqawi." "Why not?" "Many reasons. The whole past and the future; because you are you and I am me. Just because of everything." "I want details," he said, waving a hand. She laughed, shaking her head in her hair.She resurfaced and looked at him. "I'm just worried it won't last." "Nothing lasts forever, remember?" "I remember," she nodded slowly. "You don't think this will last?" "Right now...it feels...I don't know. But if we really want to hurt each other..." "Then let's not do it," he said. She lowered her eyelids and pressed her head to his, and he held her head in his arms. "Maybe it's that simple," she said. "Maybe I like to dwell on what might happen so that it's never a surprise." She looked up into his face. "Does that worry you?" she said, shaking her head with a look of pain around her eyes. "What are you worried about?" He leaned over to kiss her, smiling, but she moved her head away to show that she didn't want to, and he pulled it back.At the same time, she said: "Worry... I don't believe enough, so I still have doubts." "No. I'm not worried about that." He kissed her. "It's weird that taste-buds don't have taste," she whispered into his neck.They laughed together. Sometimes at night, as he lay in the dark and she fell asleep or fell silent, he would think that he had seen the real ghost of Sharidian Zarqawi, coming in through the veiled wall, dark and cold and gripping. Holding some sort of oversized deadly gun, loaded and ready to fire; figures would look at him, and the air around him would seem to overflow with...badness and hate; and mockery.At these times he will realize that he is lying here with her, in love and obsessed as any young man is, lying here with his arms around a beautiful girl, gifted and young, and he has no reluctance for her doing, and fully, utterly aware of the unambiguous, selfless, silent devotion he did to himself—whether he became or always was—was done out of shame, an act that must be eradicate something.The real Zarqawi would raise his gun, stare at him through the crosshairs, and fire, calmly and without hesitation. But then he'd laugh and turn to her and kiss her or accept a kiss, and there was no threat or danger or anything else under the sun that could pull him away from her. "Don't forget we're going up to find that Karim today. This morning, actually." "Oh, yes," he said.He rolled over on his back, and she sat up stretching her arms, yawning, forcing her eyes wide open to the dazzling ceiling.She relaxed her eyes, closed her mouth, looked at him and put her arms on the bed against her head, running her fingers through her hair. "It's probably not trapped yet, though." "Well, maybe not yet," he agreed. "It probably won't be there when we go look for it today." "indeed." "But if it's still there, we've got to go up." He nodded, reaching out to take her hand. She smiled, kissed him quickly, jumped off the bed and walked away.She opened the swaying transparent curtains and unfastened a pair of small binoculars hanging from frame poles.He lay watching her bring the binoculars close to her eyes and survey the hillside above. "Still there," she said, her voice distant.He closes his eyes. "We're leaving today. Maybe this afternoon." "We should go." The voice was far away. "Ok." Perhaps the stupid animal wasn't trapped at all; more likely it dozed off into a kind of unconscious hibernation.He'd heard they did that; they'd just stop eating, stare straight ahead, stare with those big stupid eyes, then close them wearily and pass out, purely by accident.Maybe it's really stuck; the kalim has a thick coat of fur that sometimes gets tangled in bushes and branches, rendering it immobile.They'll be on the road today; the scenery is lovely, and he can do some exercise that isn't quite vertical.They would lie on the grass and talk, looking out at the hazy sea.Maybe they'd release the animal, or wake it up, and she'd look at it in a way he knew he shouldn't bother; at night she'd write, and maybe that would make another poem. He appears as an unnamed lover in many of her recent works, though she usually throws many away.She said that someday, she would write a poem about him in particular, maybe after he told her more about his life. The room murmurs, moves its parts, shakes, sheds light and dims it; the ever-changing thickness and strength of the draperies that make up the walls and partitions here rub against each other secretly, as if hearing only part of a conversation. In the distance, she rests her hand in her hair, absently tilted to one side, and moves a piece of paper on the table with one finger.he watched.Her fingers flicked over what she had written yesterday, playing with the parchment; her fingertips slowly circled them, contracted and twirled slowly, watched by her and watched by him. Glasses hang from her other hand, laced and forgotten, and he slowly sweeps his gaze as she stands in the sun; feet, legs, buttocks, belly, chest, breasts, shoulders, neck; face And head and hair. The finger moved to the table, where she wrote a short poem about him that night, and he would secretly copy it up, in case she didn't like it and threw it away.And when his desire grows and her calm face no longer sees any finger movement, one of them will just pass something, just like a leaf caught in a page of the other's diary, and what they really have to talk about is You can respond with silence. "I have to write something today," she said to herself. There was a pause. "Hey?" he said. "Huh?" Her voice was far away. "Shall we waste a little time?" "Nice euphemism, sir," she quipped, still far away. he smiles. "Come up and help me think of better words." She smiled and they looked at each other. Then there was a long silence.
He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her tighter.She moved in her sleep, and at the same time hugged him with her arms, pulling him closer.He sniffed the skin of her shoulders, smelled the breath emanating from her body, whether it was perfume or not, it only carried her smell; he closed his eyes and focused on this feeling.He opened his eyes, attracted by her sleeping appearance again, put his head close to hers, put his tongue under her nose to feel the flow of breath, eager to touch the thread of her life.The tip of his tongue, the small depression between her lips and nose, one protrusion and one depression, seemed to be designed by nature. Her lips parted and then closed; their sides rubbed against each other, and her nose wrinkled.He watched these with secret joy, fascinated like a child playing "startle" at the adults who kept disappearing beside the hammock. She continued to sleep.He rested his head again. In the gray light of the first morning, he lay there for her to examine the details of his body. "So many scars, Zarqawi," she said, shaking her head and following the line of his chest. "I was always getting into trouble," he admitted. "I could have cured them all, but...they're good for...memories." She pressed her cheek against his chest. "Please; admit you just like showing them off to girls." "That's true." "This one looks tricky, if your heart is in the same position as ours...then the rest of the place looks similar too." She traced a finger around a wrinkle near one nipple.She felt him tense, and looked up.Something in the man's eyes made her tremble.Suddenly all those years he claimed came true, and even longer than that.She lifted herself up, running a hand through her hair. "That's kinda new, isn't it?" "That..." He tried to smile, and ran his fingers over the small sunken wrinkles on his body. "Funny, that's actually the oldest one." The look faded from his. "And this one?" she said cheerfully, stroking the side of his head. "bullet." "In a big battle?" "Well, sort of. In a car, to be more precise. There's a woman." "Oh, shit!" She put her hand over her mouth, mimicking panic. "It was very embarrassing." "Okay, let's not talk too much about this... what about this?" "Lasers...a very bright light," he explained, seeing her bewildered look. "A long time ago. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. "Insects?" She shuddered. (Then he's back there; in that submerged volcano. It's been a long time since now, but there are more old memories lingering. He remembers the crater, seeing stagnant pools again, and the poisonous lake Rocks in the center and around. He felt again the narrow bruises on his body, and the constant rush of insects...but that never-ending centripetal gathering didn't matter anymore; it was just the here and now .) "You don't want to know," he grinned. "I think I'll trust you," she agreed, nodding slowly, her long black hair bobbing heavily. "I know; I'll kiss 'em and make them well." "It might take a while," he told her, and she turned to stand. "Are you in a hurry?" she asked, kissing her toes. "Not at all," he smiled, lying back on the bed. "Just use your time. Always." He felt her move and looked down.Rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, her hair loose, she patted her nose and cheek, then smiled at him.He looked at her and smiled.He had seen a few smiles for which he might be willing to take a life, but never one for which he would have given his life.What else could he do but smile back? "Why do you always wake up before me?" "I don't know," he sighed.The room sighs, too, and the breeze pushes against the ambiguous walls. "I love watching you sleep." "Why?" She rolled over and lay down, turning her head to him, hair falling on him in large chunks.Resting his head in the dark scented place, he remembered the smell of her shoulder and wondered foolishly if she would smell different when she woke up. He squeezed her shoulders, and she laughed a little, trying to move her shoulders and put her head against him.He kissed her neck, answering the question before completely forgetting about it. "You move when you wake up, and then I miss things." "What is it?" He felt her kiss his head. "Everything you do. You barely move when you're asleep, so I can see it all. There's plenty of time, too." "That's weird," she said slowly. "You smell the same when you're awake as you do when you're asleep, you know?" He propped his head up, staring into her face, grinning. "You..." she started, then lowered her head.When she looked up again, there was a sad smile on her face. "I love hearing this gibberish," she said. He heard overtones. "You mean, you like hearing this bullshit now, but not in the immediate future." (She hates the mediocrity of it, but she has her own scars.) "I suppose so," she said, taking his hand. "You think too much about the future." "Then maybe we can use this to counterbalance the feelings we can't get rid of from each other." he laughed. "I think I'm stepping into one of them." She touched his face and looked into her eyes. "I really shouldn't have fallen in love with you, Zarqawi." "Why not?" "Many reasons. The whole past and the future; because you are you and I am me. Just because of everything." "I want details," he said, waving a hand. She laughed, shaking her head in her hair.She resurfaced and looked at him. "I'm just worried it won't last." "Nothing lasts forever, remember?" "I remember," she nodded slowly. "You don't think this will last?" "Right now...it feels...I don't know. But if we really want to hurt each other..." "Then let's not do it," he said. She lowered her eyelids and pressed her head to his, and he held her head in his arms. "Maybe it's that simple," she said. "Maybe I like to dwell on what might happen so that it's never a surprise." She looked up into his face. "Does that worry you?" she said, shaking her head with a look of pain around her eyes. "What are you worried about?" He leaned over to kiss her, smiling, but she moved her head away to show that she didn't want to, and he pulled it back.At the same time, she said: "Worry... I don't believe enough, so I still have doubts." "No. I'm not worried about that." He kissed her. "It's weird that taste-buds don't have taste," she whispered into his neck.They laughed together. Sometimes at night, as he lay in the dark and she fell asleep or fell silent, he would think that he had seen the real ghost of Sharidian Zarqawi, coming in through the veiled wall, dark and cold and gripping. Holding some sort of oversized deadly gun, loaded and ready to fire; figures would look at him, and the air around him would seem to overflow with...badness and hate; and mockery.At these times he will realize that he is lying here with her, in love and obsessed as any young man is, lying here with his arms around a beautiful girl, gifted and young, and he has no reluctance for her doing, and fully, utterly aware of the unambiguous, selfless, silent devotion he did to himself—whether he became or always was—was done out of shame, an act that must be eradicate something.The real Zarqawi would raise his gun, stare at him through the crosshairs, and fire, calmly and without hesitation. But then he'd laugh and turn to her and kiss her or accept a kiss, and there was no threat or danger or anything else under the sun that could pull him away from her. "Don't forget we're going up to find that Karim today. This morning, actually." "Oh, yes," he said.He rolled over on his back, and she sat up stretching her arms, yawning, forcing her eyes wide open to the dazzling ceiling.She relaxed her eyes, closed her mouth, looked at him and put her arms on the bed against her head, running her fingers through her hair. "It's probably not trapped yet, though." "Well, maybe not yet," he agreed. "It probably won't be there when we go look for it today." "indeed." "But if it's still there, we've got to go up." He nodded, reaching out to take her hand. She smiled, kissed him quickly, jumped off the bed and walked away.She opened the swaying transparent curtains and unfastened a pair of small binoculars hanging from frame poles.He lay watching her bring the binoculars close to her eyes and survey the hillside above. "Still there," she said, her voice distant.He closes his eyes. "We're leaving today. Maybe this afternoon." "We should go." The voice was far away. "Ok." Perhaps the stupid animal wasn't trapped at all; more likely it dozed off into a kind of unconscious hibernation.He'd heard they did that; they'd just stop eating, stare straight ahead, stare with those big stupid eyes, then close them wearily and pass out, purely by accident.Maybe it's really stuck; the kalim has a thick coat of fur that sometimes gets tangled in bushes and branches, rendering it immobile.They'll be on the road today; the scenery is lovely, and he can do some exercise that isn't quite vertical.They would lie on the grass and talk, looking out at the hazy sea.Maybe they'd release the animal, or wake it up, and she'd look at it in a way he knew he shouldn't bother; at night she'd write, and maybe that would make another poem. He appears as an unnamed lover in many of her recent works, though she usually throws many away.She said that someday, she would write a poem about him in particular, maybe after he told her more about his life. The room murmurs, moves its parts, shakes, sheds light and dims it; the ever-changing thickness and strength of the draperies that make up the walls and partitions here rub against each other secretly, as if hearing only part of a conversation. In the distance, she rests her hand in her hair, absently tilted to one side, and moves a piece of paper on the table with one finger.he watched.Her fingers flicked over what she had written yesterday, playing with the parchment; her fingertips slowly circled them, contracted and twirled slowly, watched by her and watched by him. Glasses hang from her other hand, laced and forgotten, and he slowly sweeps his gaze as she stands in the sun; feet, legs, buttocks, belly, chest, breasts, shoulders, neck; face And head and hair. The finger moved to the table, where she wrote a short poem about him that night, and he would secretly copy it up, in case she didn't like it and threw it away.And when his desire grows and her calm face no longer sees any finger movement, one of them will just pass something, just like a leaf caught in a page of the other's diary, and what they really have to talk about is You can respond with silence. "I have to write something today," she said to herself. There was a pause. "Hey?" he said. "Huh?" Her voice was far away. "Shall we waste a little time?" "Nice euphemism, sir," she quipped, still far away. he smiles. "Come up and help me think of better words." She smiled and they looked at each other. Then there was a long silence.