One of those days I met Nicholas on the sandy beach of Cadiz.
The wind blew off my scarf and I did not even bother to stand up and get involved with the levante’s cheeky dance and chase my scarf around the beach. But I sat minding my numerous sheets of paper which would turn into letters as the day approached towards more tiresome hours for me.
He approached from behind, I never heard his footsteps, for the sand was a silent road, nor had I caught his very distinguished odour of strong spirits, for the wind was blowing it away from us. He said:
“Your scarf.”
I grabbed my sheets of paper as if I was guarding them with my life and did not know whether he came as a rescuer of my scarf or whether he was an intruder keen to interfere with my tidied-up sentences. I had had enough of the levante’s interference, for with it my sentences were somehow less obedient to my mind; but I did not need any interference, either from any other natural source or from a man who came as a rescuer, who caught a freed bird I tied below my suspicious chin. Honestly, I did not know what to say, or to take the scarf he was holding, for I was holding my letters tightly to my chest and both hands were full of my conversations with my men and I was very hesitant, for if I wanted my scarf I needed to let go of my letters and it would be more of a disaster to lose my pages than the silken scarf I had bought in the bazaar down in Cadiz town. He read my dilemma in my trembling hands and as he came closer he simply asked if he might tie it around my head.
I did not say “yes,” I did not say “no,” but he came closer and tied it around my head and tied a little bow on the back of my neck