Free Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri Page A

obscure. He didn’t know what was obscure about her.
    She sat beside him on the bed and her presence affected him deeply. Her body breathed out an unbearable lustful air. So strong was her lust that he began to quiver. Baring her thighs to him casually, she said:
    â€˜I have hungered for a man such as you for many long years. Do you know what it is like when your body and soul crave a particular person whom you have not met, but whom you sense exists, and for whom you have been waiting for hundreds of years? Sensitive lovers know this feeling. We call it: “Sickness for your Orpheus”. That’s what I’ve had. You are my Orpheus. In my dreams I have loved you and wanted you. There has been no other, and there never will be. You are my missing soul. To be in your presence alone is like having entered a fairy-tale. I am a princess again, and you are my missing prince. Under these skies, in this square that has suffered more history than it has known love, and with the wind fragrant with a moment that will never be repeated, I have found you just as I thought I would – on a white bed, in the marble square, with a jug of water, and eating the grapes of the king.’

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    She moved closer to him as his eyes shut gently under the spell of her words. But more powerful than her words was her desire. It overwhelmed him. It made the blood sing in his ears. Her lust filled the spaces about him and changed the night into something infinitely sensual. He found himself unable to breathe. Her lust had somehow infected him.
    Looking at her out of eyes changed by transferred desire, he noticed that she was attired in a soft golden shift. Her legs were graceful and sensuous. Her rich breasts lightly heaved. Her lips were ripe and full, like summer grapes. She was a paradoxical beauty, full-bodied and classical, chaste and wild. The combination was irresistible.
    She had moved so close to him that he no longer breathed air. He breathed in her lust, her charged fragrance, and her fiery sensuality. The mystery of her in that square made him think of frenzied journeys driven by the face of a woman who was somehow the meaning of his life. He saw in her that woman. He stayed silent. She began again to speak.
    â€˜Do you not recognise me?’
    â€˜I think I do,’ he replied, ‘but it would be strange if I said so.’
    â€˜Fate is strange,’ she mused. ‘We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It’s just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn’t have expected. How far back is our childhood? Twenty years? Thirty? Fifty? Or ten? I think our childhood goes back thousands of years, farther back than the memory of any race. When we yearn, our yearning comes through from deep below. It comes from a deep remembering, from the forgotten dreams of our mingled ancestry. You are my yearning. And this is the night, long ago, when our stars first met. They are together now, in the heavens, shedding a beautiful radiance on this night. They are weaving enchantments for us so that we may step through the invisible mirror in the air and enter the fairy-tale we are meant to live, but which we forgot.’

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    The extraordinary lady paused, then continued:
    â€˜Are you comfortable? Are you all right? Is the wind too cold for you? Should I go and fetch you some more fruits? I love your silence. It is so wise. It listens. It invites warmth. I love your loneliness. It is brave. It makes the universe want to protect you. You have the loneliness that all true heroes have, a loneliness that is a deep sea, within which the fishes of mystery dwell. I love your quest. It is noble. It has greatness in it. Only one who