That Beauty

It was a day circa the first week os September 1995 when that beauty came to my Mustansiriyah office, and apologising for my poor means of entertaining her as we had that one-eyed porter Abdul who served nothing but black over-boiled tea, she suggested to be my host in a free tour in the beautiful cafes of the city of Baghdad. Being a true Moslawi and a passionte lover of her, dreaming rosy--sometimes blue--dreams of her, I immediately, like Mrs Bloom in James Joyce's ULYSSES, said Yes. We sat and set out in a taxi and I cannot-- couldn't then-- remember the places we passed because with her I was outside the streets of Baghdad, outside the world and outside my substance. I only remember we ended up in one of those Beirut-style cafeterias which were in fashion in those days where clandestine lovers had rendevouzes and trysts. I am unable to recall the actual words of our conversation, but I can still feel the--to use TS Eliot's term--objective correlative of--to use a phrase from Elizabeth Barrett Browning in "Songs from the Portoguese"-- the ways I counted to her how I loved her