Let me hear your voice;
For your voice is sweet,
And your face is lovely.
—Song of Songs 2:14
I’m intrigued by a muslim girl I work with named Mariyan but I’m afraid the cultural barrier between us is too difficult for me to penetrate and connect with her.
My friend Raj who’s a psychiatrist and of eastern descent has encouraged me over drinks at lunch to persevere but I’m wracked by doubts and misgivings.
Nonetheless, I wend my way back to work more or less determined to try to make a breakthrough with this girl.
Back at the office, the fire the scotch lit in me has died. I glance over at Mariyan and she looks aloof and serene as the Moon—but just as distant and inaccessible. I feel I’m looking through the opposite end of a spyglass and she’s receding from view.
I spend the next few hours shuffling paper and checking email, but am totally unable to concentrate.
I’m reduced to doing menial, repetitive tasks, like photocopying. As I’m standing there, bathed in the copier’s luminous glow, I sense a presence behind me and turn and stare into Mariyan’s huge dark eyes.
“Hello, Markus,” she whispers.
Were you looking for me?
She doesn’t say it out loud—her lips don’t move—but I hear it inside my head.
“Would—would you like to go out for coffee after work?” I stammer. “That is, if you drink coffee, I mean.”
I have no idea what dietary restrictions Muslims might follow.
She smiles and a ray of sunlight pours through me. “I drink coffee, but I’d prefer wine—if that’s okay with you.”
“Wine will be fine,” I smile.
We end up at roof terrace of the Park Hotel—I don’t know why, but it seems the perfect place for a goddess to be—close to the stars.
We sip Shiraz and stare out over the twilight skyline, stars above us, and twinkling city lights around us.
“I was intimidated by you,” I confess, “you seemed so remote and aloof.”
“I’ve grown up in seclusion, I’m afraid—my father’s an imam.”
“You mean he’s a leader in a mosque?” I croak.
‘No, not exactly, he’s a Muslim scholar, but attended western schools—more a Rhodes scholar,” she laughs.
I have to ask. “Are you a practicing Muslim?”
“Let’s just say I’m a work in progress. When I was in university I went through a phase where I wore the full burqa, and then the hijab—but now, a simple head scarf.”
“O, who has seen the mobled queen?” I smile.
“I used to like to hide parts of myself—to be reserved. I think it was more a romantic notion than devotion.”
“So you no longer feel the need to be veiled?”
“Not in that way,” she smiled, “you, yourself are your own veil.”
I pause arrested by the thought.
“That’s beautiful,” I say, “Is that Rumi?”
She shakes her head. “No—Hafiz. He lived a century after Rumi and is not so well known in the west, but is famous for his imagery, especially his Lover-Beloved mysticism.”
“He sounds like someone I’d like to read.”
“Perhaps, but I like Rumi—he’s more spontaneous—like a sudden flash of the Moon through the clouds.”
As she said that, the Moon broke free in the heavens above us.
She’s as lovely as the Moon, I thought.
She looked at me and shook her head. “No, I’m not. The Moon is austere, arid and desolate.”
My jaw dropped. “You can read my thoughts?”
She frowned, “I can—that’s why I was drawn to you—but you seem to have trouble reading mine.”
I coloured. “Maybe I’m just afraid.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment—a kiss through a veil.”
I leaned over and kissed her lips—no longer a man of stone.