geoffrey gave me your monograph when i was reading up on the desert. very impressive.
i wanted to meet a man who could write such a long paper with so few adjectives.
love? romantic love, platonic love, filial love - ? quite different things, surely?
hello.
isn't zerzura supposed to be protected by spirits who take on the shape of sandstorms?
i can't sing. but i can tell a story. i might need a prompt. do you have your herodotus? i've noticed you carry it.
it doesn't matter. really. i think i can muddle through. okay - the story of candaules and gyges. king candaules was passionately in love with his wife - one day he said to gyges, the son of somebody, anyway - his favorite warrior -
yes, thank you, gyges, son of daskylus - candaules said to him i don't think you believe me when i tell you how beautiful my wife is. and although gyges replied he did find the queen magnificent the king insisted he would find some way to prove beyond dispute that she was fairest of all women. do you all know this story?
and that evening, it's exactly as the king had told him, she goes to the chair and removes her clothes, one by one, until she stand naked in full view of gyges. and indeed she was more lovely than he could have imagined.
but then the queen looked up and saw gyges concealed in the shadows. and though she said nothing, she shuddered. the next day she sent for gyges and challenged him. and hearing his story, she said this -
hello! good morning.
seven pounds, eight, i suppose. why?
excuse me?
i don't want to go back.
i don't care to bargain.
i don't believe that. i think you are insulted by me, somehow. you're a foreigner too, aren't you, here, in this market?
excuse me.
not at all. i was thoroughly enjoying by book. please. signor d'agostino, herr bermann.
oh really?
how awful. what will you do?
and future ones.
why did you follow me yesterday?
after the market, you followed me to the hotel.
you felt obliged to.
so why follow me? escort me, by all means. following me is predatory, isn't it?
darling, for goodness' sake!
hello. not to interrupt but we're celebrating.
what do you mean, poetry?
sounds perfectly clear. where does the ostrich come in?
what is he saying? come on, what did he say?
be careful? you mean you - or me? who?
darling, peter says i could stay.
why do you think? about my staying?
oh.
i've been thinking about - how does somebody like you decide to come to the desert? what is it? you're doing whatever you're doing - in your castle, or wherever it is you live, and one day, you say, i have to go to the desert - or what?
actually, you sing.
you sing. all the time.
ask al auf.
i'll be down to get you in the taxi, honey, you'd better be ready about half-past eight!
i shall stay behind, of course
i insist. there clearly isn't room for us all, i'm the least able to dig, and i'm not one of the walking wounded. those are facts. besides, if i remain it's the most effective method of persuading my husband to abandon whatever he's doing and rescue us.
i thought you might paste them into your book.
i'd like you to have them.
and that would be unconscionable, i suppose, to feel any obligation? yes. of course it would.
i'm quite all right, thank you.
what am i looking at?
they're so untidy. i'm just trying to rearrange them.
this is not very good, is it?
shall we be all right?
yes is a comfort. absolutely is not.
fiction. we had a house on that coast and it never rained blood. go on. more.
our tracks, where are they?
oh my god, the others!
of course. is it, am i a terrible coward to ask how much water we have?
find that plant. cut out its heart.
geoffrey's not in cairo. he's not actually a buffoon. and the plane wasn't a wedding present. it belongs to the british government. they want aerial maps of the whole north africa. so i think he's in ethiopia. in case you were counting on his sudden appearance.
no, the marriage isn't a fiction.
thank god. oh, thank god.
do they know them?
am i k. in your book? i think i must be.
hello.
will you not come in?
will you please come in?
don't.
you still have sand in your hair.
i'm impressed you can sew.
you sew very badly.
a woman should never learn to sew, and if she can she should never admit to it. close your eyes.
now.
now.
what do i love? i love rice pudding, and water, the fish in it, hedgehogs! the gardens at our house in freshwater - all my secret paths.
marmite - addicted! baths - not with other people! islands. your handwriting. i could go on all day. my husband.
a lie. what do you hate most?
what? no!
no.
coming. i can't sleep. i woke up shouting in the middle of the night. geoffrey thinks it's the thing in the desert, the trauma.
this is empty, just coming!
i'm fine. how silly.
i don't think so.
i think i might go inside and sit down for a few minutes.
no, please. i shall be absolutely fine.
i'm fine. i got hot.
i'm not pregnant. i'm hot. i'm too hot.
aren't you?
can't we really go home? i can't breathe. aren't you dying for green, anything green, or rain, wouldn't you die to feel rain on your face? it's christmas and it's all - i don't know - if you asked me i'd go home tomorrow. if you wanted.
geoffrey, you do so love putting on a disguise.
what?
this is - what is this?
arabic?
it's beautiful. what's it about?
you bastard, i was believing you!
i thought we were against ownership? i can stay tonight.
this is a different world - is what i tell myself. a different life. and here i am a different wife.
that day, had you followed me to the market?
shall we be all right?
fuck off.
you heard me.
i can't do this, i can't do this any more.
i'd better get back. say goodbye here.
i just know - any minute he'll find out, we'll barge into somebody we'll - and it will ill him.
you will. you will.
what?
would you let me pass?
don't do this.
you know why?
no.
do you think you're the only one who feels anything? is that what you think?
i can't move. i can't get out.
a surprise, he said.
poor geoffrey. he knew. he must have known all the time. he was shouting - i love you, katharine, i love you so much. is he badly hurt? his neck is odd.
please don't move me. it hurts too much.
it hurts too much.
why did you hate me?
don't you know you drove everybody mad?
you speak so many bloody languages and you never want to talk.
of course. you idiot. i always wear it. i've always worn it. i've always loved you.
it's so cold.
don't leave me!
shall we be all right?
oh dear.
do you promise? i wouldn't want to die here. i wouldn't want to die in the desert. i've always had a rather elaborate funeral in mind, with particular hymns. very english. and i know exactly where i want to be buried. in our garden. where i grew up. with a view of the sea. so promise me you'll come back for you.
thank you. will you bury geoffrey? i know he's dead.
i know.
our garden, our garden - not so much the garden, but the copse alongside it, wild, a secret way plunging down to the shore and then nothing but water between you and france. the devil's chimney it was called - the devil's chimney, i don't know why. darling. my darling.