Land of No Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

new world where everyone would be equal. That’s the echo of an old way of speaking, which many people today consider to be intellectual naivety, even though its red banners once fluttered on the skyline. The Island of the Sun teemed with refugees, people fleeing the City of Siege and War. On that island, its humped form like that of a giant tropical tortoise, there were political activists, guerrilla fighters and arms dealers, diplomats and spies, poets and writers, artists, newspaper and magazine editors and printers, wanderers, adventurers, profiteers and purveyors of lies, cooks and prostitutes, musicians and singers – a vast throng tossed there by the cycle of successive wars that raged. Then came the thousand-day siege and the occupation. You met her at a seminar on the lessons to be drawn from what was happening in the City of Siege and War. She was talking about the double standard that intellectuals apply towards women – how they speak about them in the world at large and how they treat them at home. They ask women to liberate themselves and rebel, but they keep a close eye on their wives, sisters and daughters. What she said was strong and measured, without emotion or histrionics, despite her tremulous tone.
    You liked what she said; in fact you liked her. You met several times. You were famous, to some extent, within a narrow clique of intellectuals – a poet and activist from a country ruled by a military dynasty of men with ginger hair. So it wasn’t hard to introduce yourself. At first you were surprised that a young woman from a country so isolated from its surroundings would rebel and throw herself into public affairs, would run away and cross borders, through dusty towns, along dry riverbeds, to settle in a city that was vulnerable to wars and sieges. She was rather pretty, attractive in fact. She didn’t wear make-up and rarely used perfume. That made her more attractive in your view, along of course with the intelligence that shone in her eyes. After two or three meetings you knew part of her story. She had been married, briefly, to a young revolutionary from her own country. They had met while studying in the City of Red and Grey and fallen in love. In their case love and ideology went hand in hand. In their meetings, far from the eyes of family and the traditions of their country, ideas and books were just as present as emotions and sex. That was rare among the young people of their country, which had been indoctrinated by a strict religious sect. They married. But the marriage did not last long, because the young revolutionary quickly changed. Her differentness, which he had liked abroad, began to trouble him back at home. Then it began to annoy him. Then it started to keep him awake at night: her smoking, the way she crossed her legs on an evening out or at a family gathering, her lack of interest in dressing up, the way she was so candid with her opinions, the way she objected to any word or deed she didn’t like, the clarity of her ideas and her conduct, her interest in public affairs. In short, her attempt to pursue what they believed in and what they had done abroad, and her uncompromising attitude towards the conventions of their country. The marriage ended in a divorce that no one favoured, even those closest to her. She was on assignment when she came to the City of Siege and War for the first time. It amazed her that there should be a city in the region that was so open-minded, so pluralistic, with such a lively social life despite the occasional outbreaks of gunfire. She said this was the city where she dreamed of living, and she came again to settle, running away to join the forces of the revolution, which put up posters of its martyrs and leaders on the approaches to the city, with slogans promising a new world.
    It wasn’t long into your relationship with her that you got married. After that you lived in as much harmony as is possible for two bodies, two spirits from two different