Sofia
turn away.“No! No!” I blurted. “I mean...”
From this stuttering and looking at the ground I was suddenly drawn up into the hollows of her eyes and found myself speaking poetry. Though I had the impression that the whirlpool I felt was caused by her eyes, she, too, seemed caught up in it. We spun thus in a wild, inescapable swirl where time and the world about us meant nothing. We communicated at such a pace that words were rendered obsolete and eyes, gestures, and soon the touch of hands through the partition were called on to second them. It was only common lovers’ talk, the calloused may say. Yet I am constrained from exposing it to paper and possibly their profane eyes much as the Revelator himself was:
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, “Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.”
At length—a time that seemed a thousand years in but a minute—we slowly extracted ourselves from the violence of that thundering whirlpool. Being mortal, we had to return to breathe our mortality or die. But I found earth’s air rare and I panted over her hand as I bade it farewell, planting heavy-breathed kisses on its white knuckles, palm, and wrist.
“Be true, my love,” she said.
“My love,” I vowed, “I shall find a way to free you and for us to come together in the end. By my life, I shall.”
XIV
We sailed around the rugged sentinels of Lesbos and Limnos, their tops helmeted in rock and plumed with fleecy clouds. The western sun poured on our track, gilded with glory the hither projections of the armor of these Greek watchers and filled the great gorges beyond with dark purple shadows.
Oblivious of natural beauty, my sole purpose was to seek out other times to meet with Sofia and whisper to her through the ax-holes in the crating. The all-consuming passion we had experienced the first time never repeated itself. It returned only like sparks in an all-but-dead fire to light our dialogues. And our dialogues were otherwise composed of little but sighs and long pauses of dark despair between statements which all began with “Oh, if only...!” or “How I wish...!”
Still, there was more than enough kindled between us to drive me to attempt to achieve satisfaction no matter how desperate the chances. I determined to approach Husayn. I did not mean to betray our love, but only to sound the waters of the Turks’ mercy as with a plumb line.
However, I got no further than to say “Husayn, my friend, I was wondering...” before he stopped as with a heavy hand upon my shoulder.
“My young friend,” he said, “do not even ask. Such choices were offered at the first, but now it is too late. Tripoli, where you might have gained your freedom, is now a harbor left long ago in our wake. Constantinople will be reached shortly and Uluj Ali is determined upon his course. Throw your lot in with Allah. Trust to Him, and we shall see what He may do for you in the days to come.”
I said no more, for the hand upon my shoulder was a silent warning. I thought I had been so cautious in my courting, but now it was clear that any more boldness could very well put not only our happiness but our very lives in jeopardy. Fortunately, my inactive wait was not very long. That evening, the Turks prostrated in a slightly different direction for their prayers, for we had entered the Dardanelles and changed our all-important orientation to the Holy City of Mecca. By morning light the other city, Constantinople on the Golden Horn, could be seen, rising from the mist in brilliance like a second sun.
In the confusion of throwing anchor and then unloading, I ventured one last interview with my love. The Santa Lucia’s banners of Saint Mark, her crucifixes, and her images of the Virgin were hung upside down along the gunwale. Any boat that was close enough and idlers on the shore saluted this announcement of the Turks’ victory. The Sultan’s customary fifth of the spoils disembarked first and was tendered directly to the daunting seaside walls of the Sarai by wharfage collectors.
I found Madonna Baffo standing at the rail, in the exact spot where she had buried her little dog, watching all of this. I hoped the blasphemy to our icons did not distress her too much. I would tell her heaven could hear and answer the prayers of the righteous even upside down.
I spoke her name and she acknowledged my presence but she did not turn. Indeed, she never let her eyes leave their bewondered study of the scene before them: the myriad boats, tiny fishers and great galleys, bustling on the water like crowds in Venice’s market. The activity on the ridge before the great seawalls and, finally, the city itself rose as a backdrop with minarets and domes, great palaces and the stuffing of teeming slums in between. She was oblivious of insult.
“This is Constantinople?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied, trying to draw her attention to me by a display of worldly knowledge. But to say, “Yes, this is Constantinople” could have been done by a fool. It was obvious; there was no greater city in the world.
So I began to point out the sights to her. “The Turks like to call it Islambul, which means ‘Islam-abundant.’ That great dome is the Saint Sophia. Named, as your own sweet self, for holy wisdom, it was once the greatest monument of Christian faith in the world. These last hundred years, however, stripped of all but the shell of former glory, she has served the Turks in their heathen worship. There, beneath her great domes, are the lesser domes of Saint Irene and the columns of the...”
But she was not interested in my services as a guide. In a tone that