The ​Silver Swan (Quirke 2.) 1 csillagozás

They paused at the gate. All the windows were dark. The garden's mingled fragrances seemed for a second a breath out of the past, a past that was not theirs, exactly, but rather one where their younger selves still lived somehow in a long-gone and yet unaging present.

Tonight they were drinking a rusty claret that Quirke had first drunk on a weekend trip to Bordeaux years before with a woman, the taste of whose mouth he fancied he could still detect in its grape-dark depths; that was what Quirke remembered of his women, their savors, their smells, the hot touch of their skin under his hand, when their names and even their faces had been long forgotten.

The clock on the mantelpiece at the far end of the room began to chime, a whispery, sinister sound, and at its signal the three politicians rose and hurried together out of the room, still in a huddle, like a skulk of villains in a melodrama.

The doctor was, quite simply, beautiful. It was a word she would never have thought of applying to a man, until now. He told her so many things, and said so many names—. Ali somebody Talib, and El-Ghazali, and Omar Khayyám, whom at least she had heard of, and ones that were almost funny, like Al-Biruni, and Rumi, and Saadi of Shiraz— that soon her head was spinning. He instructed her that Sufis believe that all people must try to cleanse themselves of low human instincts and approach God through stages, maqaam, and states of mind, haal. He pronounced these and other exotic words very clearly and carefully, so that she would remember them, but most of them she immediately forgot.

He tried to teach her more about Sufism and gave her books and pamphlets to read, but she found it hard to learn. There were so many names, for a start, most of which she could hardly get her tongue around, and which confused her—half of them were called Ibn-this or Ibn-that, though he told her it only meant son of, but still. And the teachings of these wise men did not seem to her all that wise. They were so sure of themselves and sure that they were dispensing the greatest wisdom, but most of the things they said seemed to her obvious or even silly.

He approved of the way she dressed, the freedoms she allowed herself; the women he was used to wore too many clothes, belts and straps, corsets, rubber roll-ons, and came heaving into his arms with all the voluminous rufflings and strainings of an old-style sailing ship in full rig.

Billy ordered it without comment, and a pint of stout for himself. Quirke watched him drink off the pint in two goes. He seemed to have no swallow mechanism, merely opened his mouth impossibly wide and tilted the heavy black liquid straight down his throat.