Читать книгу The Girl with Braided Hair - Rasha Adly - Страница 8

3

The memory was replaying in Sherif’s head when she walked in; she found him lost in thought, in another world. “What are you thinking of?” she asked.

He jerked up, finding her already in the seat opposite his. He smiled, “You.”

“Oh? And what were you thinking?”

He did not reply; she did not press him. From the way his eyes lit up at the sight of her, and the unsteadiness in his voice when he spoke her name, she could not doubt that he still loved her. It would have been cruel to twist the knife. They had not spoken of the subject since the last time they talked, when they sat facing each other at a café on a rainy winter day. Back then, he had asked her, “Why have you changed so much?”

“It’s because of you,” she had responded truthfully.

“How?”

“The way you love me,” she explained, “it’s . . . the spark is gone. You’re cold, and the cold is in us now, too. It’s too long between calls and between dates. We meet at the same places, say the same words, order the same things. The logs in a fireplace need to be stirred up every once in a while so the flame will burn bright, but you’ve let the fire go out.”

“It’s funny,” he had said, “that you say ‘the way you love me.’ Isn’t it enough that I love you?”

“No,” she’d replied, “it’s not.”

Back then, he had not argued with her. Maybe, as she said, he was not adept enough at the ways of love, perhaps he didn’t know how to keep his woman’s heart aflame. When they parted that day, he had meant it to be for always; but she’d called him weeks later, telling him she missed him and wanted to see him. Before she hung up, she had said, “Sherif, I think my life was meant to have you in it.” It wasn’t about romance: their relationship had deepened to the point where her life was unimaginable without him. There was nothing in it for him but to fold his passions inside and play the part of the shoulder to cry on, the person to talk to. We all have someone like that in our life; sometimes we don’t quite know what they are to us.

He ordered two espressos. When they arrived, he asked her how she’d been. Her eyes glistened: he knew there was something important. “I’m working on an unsigned painting by an extraordinarily talented artist. What’s strange is that the painting was never a success. It isn’t well-known or famous at all, although it belongs in a top-tier art museum.”

“What I think,” he said, “is that the chance for success comes once in a lifetime. If you let it slip by, it’s lost forever.” He took a sip of his espresso. “Be sure of it: opportunity comes once in a lifetime.”

She appeared to catch his meaning, and so did not contradict him. Instead, she gave him the innocent smile he liked so much, the one that revealed her inner child. Was it only her smile he was fond of? He loved everything about her, from her large eyes and thick brows to her plump lips, loose, wavy hair, and shining bronzed skin. He loved the expressions on her face when she talked: her eyes had a way of widening and then narrowing, and unlike any woman he had known, her beauty came from her simplicity and her allure from her ingenuous nature.

They were used to sitting in comfortable silence; he enjoyed reading the language of her eyes, and she could read his body language in a nod or a lift of his eyebrows or the way he steepled his hands; so what need had they of talk? Eventually, he looked at his watch. “It’s 3:30. What do you have planned?”

“Nothing,” she said easily, “I’ll just go home.”

“I need to get back to the office,” he said. “I’ve an important meeting at four.” They rose to go. She wrapped her scarf around her neck while he put on his coat. “Where’s your car?” he asked as they walked outside.

“I thought I’d walk today,” she said, “I could use the exercise.”

“Do you want a lift?” he asked. “It’s kind of windy.”

“Let’s see where it blows me.”

He ran his hand over her hair by way of goodbye, and left.