Here is what I remember of the story about Maryam, which I had read ages ago.
A young man named William was staying at an inn in the city. One day as he was going upstairs, he met a little girl coming down. He would have taken her for a boy if it had not been for the long curls of black hair wound about her head. And she ran by he caught her in his arms and asked her to whom she belonged. You felt sure that she must be one of the rope dancers who had just come to an end. She gave him a sharp, dark look, slipped out of his arms and ran away without speaking the next time he saw her. Talked to her again. “Do not be afraid of me, little one”, he said kindly. “What is your name?” “They call me Maryam”, said the child. “How old are you?” He asked. “No one has counted”, the child answered.
William went on. But he could not help wondering about the child and thinking of her dark eyes and strange ways. One day, not long after that, there was a great outcry among the crowd watching the rope dancers. William went down to find out what was the matter. He saw that the master of the dancers was beating the little Maryam with a stick. He ran and held the man by the collar, “leave the child alone”, he cried. “If you touch her again, one of us shall never leave the spot.” The man tried to get loose, but William held him fast. The child crept away and hid herself in the crowd. The man stated, pay me a thousand lira, “And you may take her as soon as all was quiet.”
William went to look for Maryam, for she now belongs to him. But he could not find her. And it was not until the rope dancers had left the town that she came to him. “Where have you been?” Asked William in his kind of tones. But the child did not speak. “You are to live with me now, and you must be a good child,” he said. “I will try,” said Maryam gently.
From that time, she tried to do all she could for William and his friends. She would let no one wait on him but herself. She was often seen going to a water basin to wash from her face the paint with which the rope dancers had reddened her cheeks. Indeed, she nearly rubbed off her skin in trying to wash away its delicate brown skin. Maryam grew more lovely every day. She never walked up and down the stairs but jumped. Maryam would spring along by the railing, and before you knew it, she would be sitting quietly above on the lendings. She would speak in a different way to William.
It was with her arms crossed upon her breast, often for a whole day. She would not say one word. And yet, in waiting upon William, she never tired. One night William came home very aware and said Maryam was waiting for him. She carried the light before him. Upstairs, Maryam set the lamp down upon the table and asked him if she might dance in a little while. “It might ease your heart a little”, she said. To Please her, William told her that she might. Then she brought a tiny carpet and spread it upon the floor. At each corner, she placed a candle, and on the rug, she put several eggs. She arranged the eggs in the form of a specific figure. When this was done, she called to a man who was waiting with a violin. She tied a band about her eyes, and then the dancing began. How lightly, quickly, nimbly, wonderfully, she moved, she skipped so fast among the eggs, she tried so closely beside them that you would have thought she must crush them all, but not one of them. Did she touch with all kinds of steps she passed among them? Not one of them was moved from its place. William forgot all his worries. He watched every motion of the child. He almost forgot who and where he was.
When the dance was ended, Maryam rolled the eggs together with her foot into a bit of heap. Not one was left behind. Not one was harmed. William. “Thank her for showing him a dance that was so wonderful and pretty.” He praised her and petted her and hope that she had not tired herself too much. When she had gone from the room, the man with the violin told William of the care she had taken to teach him the dance music. He described how she had sung it to him over and over again. He told how she had even wished to pay him with her own money for learning to play it for her. There was yet another way in which Maryam tried to please William and make him forget his cares. She sang to him the song, which he liked best, was one whose words he had never heard before. Its music, too, was strange to him, and yet it pleased him very much. He asked her to speak the words over and over again. He wrote them down, but the sweetness of the tune was more delightful than the words the song began. In this way, “do you know the land where psytrance lemons grow, and oranges under the green leaves glow?” Once, when she had ended the song, she said again, “Do you know the land?” “It must be Italy”, said William. “Have you ever been there?” The child did not answer.
Some characters in your subconscious mind create a picture that you can never forget. I am sure you have yours.
