“Why talk?  If you do not listen to me?", he asked. He spoke to her in Kurdish, the language of her misty childhood memories. Simon had guessed, but did not know, could not know, how deeply she was speared by this simple statement, spoken flawlessly by a man she thought she knew. She ceased her melody, and as the chords faded away, so her warmth disappeared. Her eyes watered...cleared, darkened. Memories long buried, embalmed with religious care, rose again out of the shadows she had banished them to. "How dare you speak to me like that. Who do you think you are? How do you know my language, my childhood?"

"You talk in your sleep..."

She leaned forward and slapped her friend across the face. She knew there was something wrong with him, knew that there could be no such thing as unconditional companionship, as real altruism.
How stupid she was, how naïve to believe that she might have found someone who didn't want something from her, who didn't have a price.

Simon, who knew the alleyways and alcoves of the past like a lover knew his partner's body, should have been more concise. But it wasn't in his nature to approach personal history with spotlights and pragmatics. Ta'ra was accusing now, calling him hideous, a betrayer, one who steals sweet things in the dark from lack of courage. "It's not like that Ta'ra, not an ugly thing like you make it," he tried to explain. But she did not want to hear, did not want to listen as he tried to tell her how she cried in her sleep on the long drive from Cadiz, how Clara told him a little of their history together in Morocco. "So Clara told you so much did she? I should've known she'd pout to somebody as soon as she could, as soon as I wasn't listening! So what else does she tell you? What else does she say about me when I'm not around? Or do you do more than talk hmm?"

She was standing over him now, guitar abandoned like an orphan, her green sweater all askew. So close to him he could smell her. "It's not like that Ta'ra, she cares for you, wants the best for you, and I...I..." he trailed off. "You what? You fantasize about me, you put my face on those ****** you find in the bars and cafes?" She slapped him again, crying in earnest, and he knew that the choice now was his.