CHAPTER 3: El-Beyda
Remi was experiencing a strange, contradictory feeling, one that would be hard to understand for anyone in this world who leads a normal life guided by a strict, monotonous routine. In her mind, she was still a rational woman. But on the other hand, the white cat whose body she inhabited had a reasoning of its own. Following a skinny, olive-skinned boy she had only just met through the labyrinth of streets in a city where she was setting foot for the very first time—that was all part of this feline reasoning.
“Thank you, White One! El-Beyda! In our language...”
“Why do I understand your language?” Remi interrupted, her voice calm, without a trace of panic.
“It is the collar, but not just that,” the boy whispered. “Maktub!”
“It was written!” Remi echoed in her mind, proving once again, if only to herself, that she understood this tongue all of a sudden.
“In the writings, it is called Samatein.”
“The Collar of the Two Skies,” the white cat murmured back in her thoughts.
“My name is Samir, El-Beyda.”
“Samir... the companion of the night,” the white cat whispered back, astonished by how the words and meanings of this foreign language unravelled in her mind like threads of gossamer.
“I am Remi, but since becoming a cat, I have called myself Bise.”
The shop shutters had closed, locking away the daytime and evening spectacle of light and colour behind heavy padlocks. The white cat padded behind the olive-skinned child, whose eyes were a shade of hazel she had never seen before. Those eyes held a golden glimmer that was downright hypnotic.
They crossed a labyrinth of narrow streets paved with cobblestones melted by time, accompanied only by their elongated shadows cast by the yellowish glow of the streetlamps, projected sometimes onto the pavement, sometimes onto the massive, ancient buildings with their latticed wooden balconies.
The Khan el-Khalili bazaar... the area where the children who needed her lived... El-Beyda.
Their winding path and the way she blindly followed the boy opened a window in her woman’s mind to the tales of the Arabian Nights—perhaps Ali Baba.
They stopped in front of a huge door of blackened wood, studded with heavy iron rivets, with a small door cut right into the gate, which the boy pushed open without a sound. Then followed a narrow corridor smelling of flint and olive oil, and finally, under the star-filled sky, they stepped onto another sky—a huge courtyard paved with a black-and-white mosaic of small, polished stones, featuring a round, barely noticeable dip right in the centre.
“The mirror of time,” the boy said, pointing with one hand toward the round dip, “it’s broken now.”
Remi said nothing, only nodding her head slightly, as if her white fur had brought her an ancient wisdom too. She raised her eyes to greet the silhouette just stepping out of the house. A woman, still beautiful, dressed in loose white trousers of spun linen and an equally white shirt, with a sort of yellow-ochre shawl over her shoulders. Her greying hair was gathered into a heavy bun at the nape of her neck, and her eyes were identical to Samir’s.
The woman stopped five paces from Remi, bowed slightly, and said in a voice that was almost a whisper:
“El-hamdu lillah, innek geiti ya El-Beyda!” and Remi noticed that the woman had tears in her eyes.
“My grandmother, Jaddati,” Samir whispered.
They followed her in silence into the interior of the house, with its thick stone walls washed in white. First, they passed through a large hall paved with slightly coppery marble that smelled of lemon, then climbed stairs carved from the same marble toward a bedchamber, neither large nor small, furnished only with a bed, a small ebony table, and a nightstand of the same wood. Between the white sheets lay the sleeping body of a child, the perfect copy of Samir. Even the mole at the corner of his mouth was identical.
The children’s grandmother approached the child’s bed and, pointing with her hand toward his chest, said:
“Sit here, El-Beyda. Help me bring my boy back to us.”
Remi did not protest, even though in her heart she thought she might be too heavy to sit on his weakened frame. She approached the child’s bed and leaped lightly onto its edge, then settled herself on the spot the woman had indicated.
“This is Demir,” the woman said, “Samir’s twin brother.”
Once settled on the child’s chest, Remi felt the collar vibrate.
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