Well, well, I thought - everyone.
'I live here,' he said, 'because I have a peculiar affinity with the desert. I am drawn to it the same way as a sailor is drawn to the sea. Does that seem so very strange to you?'
'No,' I answered, 'it doesn't seem strange at all.'
He paused and took a pull at his cigarette. Then he said, 'That is one reason. But there is another. Are you a family man, Mr Cornelius?'
'Unfortunately not,' I answered cautiously.
'I am,' he said. 'I have a wife and a daughter. Both of them, in my eyes at any rate, are very beautiful. My daughter is just eighteen. She has been to an excellent boarding-school in England, and she is now...' he shrugged... 'she is now just sitting around and waiting until she is old enough to get married. But this waiting period - what does one do with a beautiful young girl during that time? I can't let her loose. She is far too desirable for that. When I take her to Beirut, I see the men hanging around her like wolves waiting to pounce. It drives me nearly out of my mind. I know all about men, Mr Cornelius. I know how they behave. It is true, of course, that I am not the only father who has had this problem. But the others seem somehow able to face it and accept it. They let their daughters go. They just turn them out of the house and look the other way. I cannot do that. I simply cannot bring myself to do it! I refuse to allow her to be mauled by every Achmed, Ali, and Hamil that comes along. And that, you see, is the other reason why I live in the desert - to protect my lovely child for a few more years from the wild beasts. Did you say that you had no family
at all, Mr Cornelius?'
'I'm afraid that's true.'
'Oh.' He seemed disappointed. 'You mean you've never been married?'
'Well... no,' I said. 'No, I haven't.' I waited for the next inevitable question. It came about a minute later.
'Have you never wanted to get married and have children?'
They all asked that one. It was simply another way of saying, 'Are you, in that case, homosexual?'
'Once,' I said. 'Just once.'
'What happened?'
'There was only one person ever in my life, Mr Aziz... and after she went...' I sighed.
'You mean she died?'
I nodded, too choked up to answer.
'My dear fellow,' he said. 'Oh, I am so sorry. Forgive me for intruding.'
We drove on for a while in silence.
'It's amazing,' I murmured, 'how one loses all interest in matters of the flesh after a thing like that. I suppose it's the shock. One never gets over it.'
He nodded sympathetically, swallowing it all.
'So now I just travel around trying to forget. I've been doing it for years...'
We had reached the foot of Mount Maghara now and were following the track as it curved around the mountain toward the side that was invisible from the road - the north side. 'As soon as we round the next bend you'll see the house,' Mr Aziz said.
We rounded the bend... and there it was! I blinked and stared, and I tell you that for the first few seconds I literally could not believe my eyes. I saw before me a white castle - I mean it - a tall white castle with turrets and towers and little spires all over it, standing like a fairy-tale in the middle of a splash of green vegetation on the lower slope of the blazing-hot, bare, yellow mountain! It was fantastic! It was straight out of Hans Christian Andersen or Grimm. I had seen plenty of romantic-looking Rhine and Loire valley castles in my time, but never before had I seen anything with such a slender, graceful, fairy-tale quality as this! The greenery, as I observed when we drew closer, was a pretty garden of lawns and date-palms, and there was a high white wall going all the way round to keep out the desert.
'Do you approve?' my host asked, smiling.
'It's fabulous!' I said. 'It's like al the fairy-tale castles in the world made into one.'
'That's exactly what it is!' he cried. 'It's a fairy-tale castle! I built it especially for my daughter, my beautiful Princess.'
And the beautiful Princess is imprisoned within its walls by her strict and jealous father, King Abdul Aziz, who refuses to allow her the pleasures of masculine company. But watch out, for here comes Prince Oswald Cornelius to the rescue! Unbeknownst to the King, he is going to ravish the beautiful Princess, and make her very happy.
'You have to admit it's different,' Mr Aziz said.
'It is that.'