The Horse Healer by Gonzalo Giner

memory, like others that would come over the following six months. But particularly that day, he smelled his hand and looked for the remains of Benazir’s fragrance that lingered there. And again he wanted her, though with shame, because she was Galib’s wife.
    The force of instinct, of his unbridled youth, the sensuality that Benazir gave off from each of her pores, weighed more than his own sense of wrong.

XII.
    T heir naked bodies shook in the warm breeze.
    It was the breath of the desert that came through the windows of the luxurious harem of Yusuf ben Yaqub al-Mansur in Marrakesh, over them, the two new slaves brought there expressly for his pleasure.
    They had just emerged from a room saturated with steam. They were lying atop marble tables suffering the rasping of rough gloves. Women were cleaning their skin and seemed almost to be peeling it off. In compensation, they would receive an agreeable bath with hot water.
    Blanca and Estela looked at each other. They had slept a whole day after the long and painful voyage, first in carriage for several weeks, then in a ship for two days, and at last on horse back for four days more.
    That morning, from daybreak, a huddle of women had watched over them and the first thing they did was undress them. They looked at their intimate parts without concern, and amid laughter, they pointed incredulously at their orange hair. Blanca and Estela were defeated. They could scarcely put up any resistance.
    â€œWhat will they do to us?” Estela looked with terror at her older sister.
    â€œI don’t know, but I’m afraid we’ll find out soon.”
    Blanca turned to a high window that rose up from the floor. Through it could be seen a fantastic pond next to the building, full of calm blue waters. And in the distance, magnificent mountains raised their snow-capped summits against the horizon.
    A tear slipped down her cheek when she imagined how much humiliation and suffering still awaited them, now inside a palace, perhaps to be enslaved by some man of high rank.
    Estela tried to push aside a woman with a rotund body and a cold face who was feeling the firmness of her breasts, but the woman paid no attention and went on to her hips and buttocks. Blanca pretended to trip and fell against the woman to push her away from her sister, but in return she received a violent slap and a torrent of imprecations in Arabic. Angered, the woman began to push at their backs with the intention of moving to another room.
    Holding hands, the two sisters were walking completely nude, but no one seemed to care.
    The new room was completely lined in pink marble and had an enormous pool in the center. Blanca and Estela had to lie down so that their heads were just over the water. Two young women with dark eyes and olive skin, almost their same age, entered the pool and washed their hair from inside it. With their hands covered in a reddish mud, they scrubbed their heads, massaging them unhurriedly. Then they rinsed them, over and over, until their hair was loose and silky. Once it was dry, they scrubbed their feet with a rough stone until they were well polished, and then they left without saying anything.
    Estela covered herself with a cloth and remembered the inn and her family.
    â€œEvery day I pray for Belinda, and I also remember Papa and Diego. … Something tells me we won’t see them again. …”
    â€œDon’t say that!” Blanca said angrily.
    The women who had washed their hair came back, now with trays and two steaming containers. Blanca and Estela immediately perceived a sweet scent of caramel with a touch of lemon.
    They were told to lie down again and each woman grabbed a small wooden spade. With them, they spread that sticky brew and anointed the women’s arms and legs, armpits, and sex. … All the hair on their bodies was covered with that unguent, which was then left to dry. When the women began to peel it off, especially in the more