As we sat talking on that rainy evening when I arrived at his door, I had the impression that he was looking back with new eyes, as though the sharp edges of my memories had served to strip away a dense layer of accretions that had gathered upon his surroundings, like bark. But it was not long before he entered gleefully into the spirit of my wonderment, and soon enough he even began to manufacture little surprises of his own for our mutual delectation. The morning after I arrived, for example, he sent his grandson scampering out of the room on a secret errand while we were eating our breakfast. When the boy returned he had a tray in his hands, and sitting in the middle of it, like a crown on a cushion, was a richly-beaded glass of iced water. Shaikh Musa paused to listen to the tinkling of the ice as he handed me the glass. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘even my brothers house is full of wonders now.’ It was a couple of years since his brother’s refrigerator had arrived: it had been bought for him by Mabrouk, his eldest son, who was away working in Iraq.
What do You think about In An Antique Land (2011)?
