Visions of Isabelle by William Bayer

don't know," Old Nathalie says. "I look at you sometimes and see your father. Then I think back on all the wasted years."
    "You mustn't say that. There was love in the house..."
    "Not enough. Nowhere near enough."
    "There were good times..."
    "Yes. There were. Heaven knows the man wasn't dull! But they don't cancel out all the terrible things he did–all the violence, those awful scenes. I don't care about myself. I was grown up. But I'll never forgive the way he bent your young minds–twisted you back and forth. Still, if you have a happy life, Isabelle, then all of it will have been worthwhile."
    They sit in silence, Isabelle astonished, Old Nathalie a little ashamed of what she's said.
    "Look!" Isabelle points toward the sea. "Maybe we'll see it tonight."
    They search the horizon. The sun is only a millimeter from the water, smooth like a tile.
    "There!"
    "Yes!"
    The "green flash"–the strange explosion between falling sun and darkening sea–fills Old Nathalie with thoughts of God, and Isabelle with a question: will she ever escape the past?
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    A handsome, teen-aged Tunisian prince named Tefik Saheb-Ettaba, rumored to be the heir to millions of acres of the richest wheat-producing lands in the Tunisian Sahel, sees her in the streets, follows her, then sends flowers to her house.
    Isabelle feels nothing about this except slight amusement. She continues her afternoon walks, becoming used to the sad-eyed young man who tries so hard to keep up as she sweeps through the sun-filled streets.
    But after several days her amusement fades–he is making a spectacle of himself at her expense. She makes her move carefully. She stops suddenly in a public square and turns upon him in annoyance.
    "Isn't it rather silly for you to follow me?" she asks in French, hoping he'll be humiliated as she is overheard. "I don't like it. Please leave me alone!"
    That night he hires flutists to serenade her as she sleeps. Furious, she drives them away with a few well-chosen expletives and a couple of well-aimed stones.
    No longer able to bear her indifference, Tefik demands an interview with Old Nathalie. Then, in her presence, he makes a proposal of marriage in florid Arabic couplets, classical and rhymed.
    "Thank you so much," says Isabelle when he's finished, "but I doubt I shall ever marry, and I certainly won't consider it now."
    The look of astonishment on his face is sweeter to her than any contrived serenade.
    But later she thinks: If I am a sensualist, if the world of sensation opened up to me by Archivir is the world that satisfies me the most, then I must indulge all my cravings and give myself over fully to desire .
    The next day she accompanies her mother to the prince's house. While his father enraptures Old Nathalie with a description of an esoteric Islamic rite, Isabelle asks Tefik to show her through the fruit orchard in the back. Alone with him at last she seizes his hand and brings it to her lips. Then she kisses him, begs him to take her to his room and ravish her with ardent love. Mesmerized by her impassioned eyes, he obeys her like a slave. Afterward, he is grateful, delighted and amazed, and redoubles his pleas for her hand.
    "Out of the question," she tells him, fondling his organ to a spire.
    Then later, recalling his perplexity and maddened tears, she thinks: Now I can do anything I want.
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    O n September 17, on a clear afternoon, while the sun seems to stand still in the sky, shining down with a radiant gloss upon the city spread below, Isabelle and Old Nathalie stand together on the side of a hill near Bône, raise their right hands and make a solemn pledge:
    "I attest there is no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet."
    Standing about them are all the friends they've made, the Koranic scholars who've indoctrinated them, the love-struck Tunisian prince, well-wishers, neighbors, friends.
    After they say the fateful words, they clasp their hands together and embrace. Old Nathalie's eyes fill