“I have been to America.” I replied, “the newest and biggest of all countries”—and as of old I was talking, and he was listening; only this time it was not of the past, and of the people, who, having done their work, were dead and forgotten, but of a country of a great present, and a still greater future. And as of old his old face was full of interest and kindness.
Presently he asked, “But my little lady, what have you done with the roses of your face? You are pale and worn out.”
“One has to work hard in America,” I replied. “It is a country which requires of your best, of your utmost, if you are to succeed.” And again I went on to tell him of the fast trains which go sixty miles an hour, of the elevated trains, flying above the middle of the streets, and of the preparations for the subways, which were to burrow in the depths of the city.
“But why are they working so hard and preparing so much?” he asked, a bit bewildered. “After all they will have to die, and when they are dead they can only have a grave like anybody else.”
I shook my head. “They are making away with the graves, my Ali Baba. They have invented a quicker and more expedient way of getting rid of the body. They place it on a table in a special room, and within two hours all that is left of it is a simple white strip of clean ashes.”
He gasped. “They have done that?” he cried in horror. “They have done that! Allah, can’st thou forgive them?” He leaned towards me, earnestness and entreaty in his kind face. “Don’t go back there, my little one, don’t go back there again. It is an accursed country which steals the peace from the living, their bodies from the dead, and robs a child of her roses. Say that you are not going back, my little one.”
Again I shook my head. “When I left there, my Ali Baba, I bought my return-ticket. I wear it like an amulet around my neck. I am going back as soon as my presence is no longer needed here.”
He let his oars drop. “You are going back?” he asked with awe. “But why?”
I looked at him, and beyond him at old Byzantium—once Greek, now full of minarets and mosques and all they stood for. A red Turkish flag floated idly against the indigo sky.
Why was I going back to that vast new country so diametrically different from his own? Could I explain to him?