Read A Canopy of Rose Leaves for Free Online Page B

here?’ she countered. ‘It’s a bit gloomy without ever seeing the sun, isn’t it?’
    But almost immediately they came out of the covered passageway and into a cluster of narrow streets made up of the windowless, anonymous-looking houses favoured by most Moslems, with only the relative grandeur of their doors to betray the wealth or otherwise of the families who lived inside.
    Roger paused outside a particularly fine studded door, painted a rich green that had not yet had time to be faded and cracked by the hot sun. The knocker could have been solid silver and was formed in the shape of a female hand. Later, Deborah was to discover that all the fittings, the lamp too that lit the courtyard within, were made of silver, and she took over the task of cleaning them herself, distressed that anything so beautiful should be left to tarnish as if they were of no account.
    The door opened and a young woman stood framed in the entrance, her hair as fair as a child’s and her smile as welcoming.
    ‘Darling Roger! I’d practically given you up!’
    She reached up to embrace him, turning her face to meet his kiss so that it landed full on her mouth and not on her cheek as he had intended. She was dressed in a pair of jeans, frayed to the knees, and a man’s shirt that was several sizes too big for her. The warmth of her personality shone like a beacon out of her tall, long-legged frame. It would be hard for anyone to dislike her, Deborah thought.
    ‘Deborah doesn’t hurry for anyone,’ Roger explained. ‘I’ll have to rush off almost immediately if I’m not to be late. Do you think you two can manage?’
    Maxine Reinhardt extended a much-ringed hand in Deborah’s direction. ‘We’ll try not to get into too much trouble until you get back. By the way, Howard wants to talk to you. Do you mind, Roger?’
    ‘He can come out to my place tonight,’ Roger suggested.
    ‘No, he can’t. I want to see you too.’ She put a second, more possessive hand on Roger’s arm. ‘I wilt when you neglect me, sweetest, you know I do. You promised you’d be around more often and I’m relying on you to make good your word on that score! Howard only wants to talk about some beastly poet. You can do that any time.’
    Roger smiled easily. ‘Which poet this time?’ he asked.
    Maxine laughed. ‘Since we came to Shiraz there only are two as far as Howard is concerned. It’s your own fault for telling him to read them in the original! His Farsi isn’t good enough and he doesn’t get the right nuance—or that’s what he says. I think he wants to pick your brains for his next essay on whichever one of them it is he has to write about this time.’
    ‘He should find Saadi easier than he found Hafez.’
    ‘I do,’ Deborah submitted, not looking at Roger. ‘Not in the original, of course, but in translation. I find Saadi’s stories much easier to understand, but less beautiful than Hafez’s imagery.’
    Roger’s interest was caught. ‘You can interpret Hafez at a number of different levels, which makes him more difficult. Some people open his books at random and try to tell their fortunes from whichever lines they find there.’
    ‘Like you did for me?’ she said.
    ‘That wasn’t fortune-telling.’
    Deborah was aware of the interested speculation in Maxine’s eyes. ‘What was it, then?’ she asked. ‘It sounded as though you were giving me a pointer as to my ultimate destiny.’
    ‘I shouldn’t have done so had I known you as well as I do now,’ he remarked.
    ‘Roger!’ Maxine protested. ‘You’re being unkind!’ He looked at Deborah. ‘Am I?’
    She shook her head. ‘I told you I’m not as romantic as you thought me.’
    ‘Rather more so,’ he observed, ‘and much greener too!’
    Deborah put her head on one side, making a face at him. ‘You shouldn’t be deceived by appearances. I may have found your “minstrel of the night” a pretty thought, but I don’t believe he’ll ever come along!’ Maxine’s