Raja Alem - The Dove's Necklace

“It’s time for my morning coffee.”

They insisted that she let them take her for a coffee. She sat across from them in a cafe on the Plaza de Zocodover and told them her story. “You know the building where we met? It’s sort of a home-cum-school for orphan girls, run by the Church. They provide them with all their basic needs until they’re old enough to get married and then they move on to a different life. I was one of those girls, except for one small difference. I spent my entire life in that dark, bare school and although I could’ve left its austerity behind by getting married, I was too scared to go out into the world when I finally grew up, so I became a teacher at the school. A prophet of austerity, in a way, but I at least hope I’m able to teach the girls to be braver than I was so that they can go out and have their own lives. In the midst of that asceticism, I preach the gospel of escape; I feel like an infiltrator. I’ve taken my vows to be a spiritual hypocrite.” Rafi looked deep into Nora’s eyes as he translated what the woman had said. She was prepared to spend the whole day with them, talking and listening, as if she loved nothing more than filling the time with her own stories as they climbed through the city like she didn’t even have to breathe; and, of course, it was intoxicating to hear herself being translated into another language. She insisted on writing her address at the school for each of them in her severe handwriting, paying most of her attention to Nora.

“Will you send me a postcard? You will? I don’t believe you. I want to have a collection of postcards from the world outside. Places I don’t dare to go myself. I hope you come from somewhere very far away so I can hear a voice from the other side of the world.”

“I’m from Mecca. The city that Noah visited to retrieve the bodies of Adam and Eve from the floodwaters just as his grandson would later visit Toledo.” It was the first time Rafi had ever heard Nora mention her hometown.

“O merciful God!” the woman said before standing up and walking off — without acknowledging them at all — ducking into the first lane she came to. Rafi knew they’d missed their chance to ask what the sheikh had come looking for. He settled the bill while Nora went into the cafe to look for a bathroom.

As she was washing her hands, the woman in white appeared beside her all of a sudden. “Did you really say you were from Mecca? Meeting you and you promising to write to me on this beautiful, sunny morning is the highlight of my life.” She pressed yet another piece of paper with her address on it into Nora’s palm.

“Please write to me a lot. Write with the dust and the sweat and the dreams of your city. Maybe I’ll give your postcards to my students. It’s good for them to imagine different cities, different religions.” She turned to leave, but then she turned back again. “Are you another one of those religious types that come here pretending to be tourists? Deep down, we all suffer the burden of our religions. A city like this attracts people in disguise from all over the world. Here, being this high up, we’re closer to God, so we don’t need all the different names religion goes by. God himself is near to us and nameless. We can free ourselves from our masks and ambitions; it’s enough that we’re meek. Here we can forget about the world down below and stop caring about life.” She walked away again, no explanation given, no response expected. Nora hadn’t understood a word of what she’d said, of course. Rafi was astonished to see them walk out together. The woman leaned down over the table.

“The El Greco Museum is closed on Mondays, but you can still go see The Burial of the Count of Orgaz in the church.” As soon as she stepped away from the cafe, her expression became humorless once again. She was preparing to reenter a world that knew everything there was to know about her and about which she, too, knew everything.

“Should we follow her?” There was enough skepticism in Nora’s voice that Rafi felt able to acknowledge that it wasn’t worth it.

“I think she must be insane, that woman. That’s the conclusion the sheikh came to.” At that altitude, the sheikh had begun to matter less. Nora was swept up in the moment; she wanted to pursue an adventure that would take her far away from everything she’d left behind.

They walked along, winding their way back through the Roman and Islamic-era buildings along stone alleyways, which seemed always to ascend. Nora stopped in front of a house, which looked to them like a spearhead at the tip of the other houses, like a river between sloping banks. It was a small stone house with an old arabesque door, inlaid with brass. The door knocker was in the shape of a circular constellation.

“For Sale — Please call,” Rafi read the sign that had been posted on the wooden shutter.

“If he forgets me and I end up — maybe we should write down the number, just in case …” Her request took him by surprise, but her enthusiasm was electric. He jotted down the number: 37 63 29.

As they crossed back through the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, Nora stopped in a small bookshop. When she found a book about El Greco that she wanted to buy, she realized that she hadn’t brought any money with her. She put it back. Nothing could spoil her mood on that sunny morning.

All around them, as if out of nowhere, a flood of tourists and flashbulbs appeared and they were pulled along in their wake. They ate paella with snails, topped with black beans, at a table with four chairs and a loud orange umbrella. The umbrella didn’t really shelter them so when the sky began to sprinkle, raindrops stuck to her hair and gave off a scent of passion in her heart. It was raining hard suddenly, a downpour, and then equally suddenly, it stopped. The sky folded the rain clouds and tucked them under its arm as it watched them from the edge of the precipice where the orange umbrellas ended.

Rafi took the book about El Greco out of a paper bag and handed it to Nora. “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” she said, and it sounded like she was saying, I needed to own this! She flipped the pages, possessively, giddily, and there, between the pages, she found a slip of paper with the phone number for the house that was for sale. She smiled and pressed it deeper toward the spine of the book.

“Don’t mention it. I’ll just put it on your bill.” The words floated through the air that separated them, meaninglessly; they weren’t intended to burst her happy bubble. Rafi was watching her, as if with a sixth sense, trying to decipher the small reactions behind her natural smile and between her exuberant chatter and heavy silence.

They finally traced their steps back to the Church of Santo Tomé, which held the painting depicting the burial of the man who was Count of Toledo and Lord of Orgaz in the fourteenth century. Rafi could tell that she was uncomfortable letting him pay for the tickets. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This is on me.”

They walked into the hall, which looked to them like a vestibule, and stood, awestruck, behind a rope that separated them from the painting, which stretched from floor to ceiling. They looked down on the gently lit burial scene and the Count of Orgaz’s body.

“Humans wearing heavenly faces. This painting shows two saints known for being lavish and vibrant, Saint Augustine and Saint Stephen, descending from heaven to attend the burial of the departed nobleman. One stands at the man’s head and the other at his feet as they lay him in the earth. It’s as though this is the miracle that the worthy can expect to receive when they die. It was a way of getting the people of Orgaz to donate liberally to the church,” explained the guide, who was himself under the painting’s spell.