The city men became even more excited,
talking loudly in many different languages, laughing, and exchanging gold pieces
stamped with elephants or alligators or the faces of kings who had been born,
governed the city, then died and been forgotten, though the city, where every
day a new unsettling pleasure, decadent vice, inventive wickedness, daring
fashion, eastern cult, or esoteric world view ruled, remained ever unchanging.
The crowd, growing
steadily larger and louder, surrounded the stranger. ``Let me pass'', he said.
But the crowd paid no attention and hustled him along the broad streets of
Granada, where the vendors of tamarind fruit, love potions in crystal cordials,
parrots which quoted Sanskrit poetry, and whatever else one might want were
just setting up their stands. Finally the throng, with the stranger in their
midst, stopped in front of a large house of carved stone. Many voices yelled,
``Send out your daughter! Her husband's arrived!''
A woman wearing clothes of
mourning looked briefly out of the house, then disappeared, and soon a young
woman, her hair in disarray, was pushed out the front door, which slammed shut
behind her. She was weeping. She looked at the stranger first fearfully and
shyly, then with some attention, for the dawn showed him to be tall and strong
and of a noble beauty. She and the stranger were led along by the mass of
people - by now a large part of the city's populace - while flowers showered
down on them from every house they passed. The stranger could not make himself
heard over the singing and joking and laughter. As he passed by, many people
took his hand or slapped him on the back, so that he was well-pummeled by the
time he and the young woman, who had stopped crying, arrived in a large open
square at the center of the city and led before a dais where the queen sat on
an onyx throne, the high priest of the city's nameless god at her side. The
people fell silent.
The
queen said to the stranger, ``This woman's father has pledged a good farm with
livestock, a fine house, and gold enough for a man, to whomever will marry her.
Will you?'' The stranger replied gravely, ``I may not and will not.'' The
queen replied, ``She is intelligent, healthy and beautiful, yet she has
refused each man her father has picked for her.
Today she is twenty-five years old, and he has sworn by his
beard that if she doesn't marry the first man to enter the city, he will kill
her with his own hands. And after he does so, I will have him tried and
executed. Again, will you marry her?'' The stranger was silent for a long
moment, then
said, ``I may not, but I will.'' Trumpets sounded, but no one heard them over
the crowd's roar.
The ceremonies and festivies took several days, and the entire time the stranger
was never alone, and even when he and his new wife were led to the bridal
chamber, revelers outside danced and drank and sang the whole night through.
He never had a chance to slip away, and he soon found he no longer wanted to.
The long road to Granada was especially dry and dusty that summer, but just
before daybreak, as the stranger walked through the great gates of the
unconquerable city before the
queen's sleepy slaves had even, with a groaning of men and
metal, pulled them half-open,
no one noticed that not even the hem of his cloud-white robe was soiled,
or remarked the extreme paleness of his calm face, which seemed to be trying
unsuccessfully to express distaste. For his part, the stranger
did not appear surprised to be greeted by a large group of excited men. He said
to them in a strong voice, ``Where can I find the holy man Elias? He must
leave the city.'' But
they ignored him and asked, ``Are you married?'' At this he did seem surprised,
and answered ``No, nor shall I be.''
Years later, his face tanned as any other farmer's, crow's feet at his
eyes, his
strong hands callused and covered in rich earth, he looked up as his son
came running to him. ``Father, there's a man just beyond the hill coming this
way from the city - and he's
glowing like the sun. He'll be here any minute now.'' The man ran to his house
and found his wife. He said to her, ``On that day I married you, I had a task
to accomplish, but I never did it. I have been happy with you, but now an
angel
has come to bring me back to answer for my failure.'' Yet his wife, who was
wise and surprised at nothing, said, ``Don't worry, I know what to do. Go out
to the far field for an hour or so. I'll have everything settled by then.''
She had their daughter, who was at
the same time of an earthly and unearthly beauty, put on her best dress and comb
out her long hair. The stranger soon knocked on the door. He was wearing a
bright white robe; not even its hem was the least bit dirty. He said, ``I have
come to speak with him who lives here.'' The woman said, ``He's out in the
fields somewhere; I'll send my son out to find him. Please sit down.''
She sent out her son, and called to her daughter to bring in some wine for the
stranger. By the time her husband came back, he found he would soon have a
son-in-law. The ceremonies and festivities lasted several days, and they all
lived happily ever after, though what the son-in-law did when an angel came
for him, nobody's told me.