THE OSTRAKA PLAYS, VOLUME THREE
THE ANDALUSIAN STUDY
By
FRANCIS HAGAN
Published by Francis Hagan at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Francis Hagan
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T H E A N D A L U S I A N S T U D Y
By
Francis Hagan
‘A story neither begins nor ends, it merely feigns to . . .’
- Cervantes
Copyright Sept 2011
CHARACTERS
BILL ALEXANDER - A male in his mid-twenties, distant, worn.
AVERROËS - A patriarchal figure, blind, magisterial.
MIRA - His daughter, in her mid-twenties, aristocratic and somewhat wilful.
LOCATION
The manorial estate of Averroës high in the rugged hills of the Sierra Morena in Andalusia, Spain. It is early summer, 1949.
The Arrival
(A dim hazy light covers the stage. It shifts and pulses with uncertain shapes and colours.)
(A young man is revealed in this light. He is gazing up, both lost and entranced. He wears a crumpled linen suit, shabby with use. In one hand, he holds a travel case. One clasp is broken and a tie is now knotted around that part of the case.)
(The light shifts as if alive leaving the stage indeterminate. A large wall emerges like the flank of an unseen creature. It is cracked and riddled with old colours and half-remembered designs.)
(The young man gazes up as the light shifts about him. He is oblivious to the wall.)
(Petals drift down through the light; delicate; endless.)
(Slowly, the young man reaches up his free hand into the falling petals. They brush across his skin.)
(The light shifts again in oceanic complexity. The large wall fades. The young man is suspended in light and falling petals, his hand still held high. He turns it slowly, as if it is alien to him.)
(He sighs deeply and then frowns.)
(The figure of a young dark woman appears beside him. She is barefoot.)
(Petals fall upon them and each is absorbed by their patterns and colours.)
(The light slowly ebbs from them to reveal a sparse room with simple but elegant country fittings.)
Mira (Gazing upon the man.) . . . The orchard is a thousand years old . . .
Bill (His hand remains high.) It is endless . . .
Mira Yes. They say the Sephardim planted it. Lemon trees. Orange trees. The fruit of Andalusia, you see.
Bill (He pulls his hand down. It is feathered in blossom.) . . . The Sephardim?
Mira The Jews of old Spain. All gone now of course. But they say – the peasants here in the mountains – that the Sephardim planted that orchard over a thousand years ago . . . And the blossom falls on us here like a balm, like a mercy, every year. (She laughs.) There is a superstition here, Mr Alexander! Would you like to hear it?
Bill (He steps back from the fading rain of petals.) I thought – after the war – we had left superstition behind –
Mira Call it local colour then –
Bill (A beat.) As you wish.
Mira Mercy falls lightly like blossom but if you indulge in it, if you bathe yourself in it, it will drown you and wash you away . . .
Bill A local superstition, is it? This saying?
Mira The Sephardim left us with a blessing and a curse, yes, Mr Alexander. May I? (She reaches out and takes the case from him before he can object.)
Bill I’d rather –
Mira (She moves to heft the battered suitcase onto a nearby table – then she pauses in surprise and holds it out at arm’s length. She twirls it about.) – It’s –
Bill Empty, yes.
Mira (Smiling.) And yet sealed with a tie?
Bill It is an affectation. Of course to that. That suitcase is cardboard – demob issue naturally. Men in their thousands are carrying that case now. Across Europe. Across their lives indeed. I expect, though of course I am merely surmising, that many of these young men in fact have not fought at all. Sutlers. Or cooks, I imagine – but that suitcase! It floods a continent, you see. And one can pick one up for a penny in any market.
Mira (She drops it on the table.) Are you mocking them, Mr Alexander, or yourself, I wonder?
Bill (He gazes at her, lost.) . . . The tie is silk. Jenners of Edinburgh. Two shillings. Pre-war, of course.
Mira Jenners?
Bill The Harrods of the North – by Royal Appointment, no less.
Mira (She laughs.) - How strange . . .
Bill That I use a silk tie to bind a broken clasp? I had to use something.
Mira No, not that. That a man from Scotland, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh no less, should end up here in the orange and lemon groves of Andalusia, Is it not? A dark petal among all these others, I think.
(A pause.)
Bill . . . There was a gorge, some hours’ drive back, the road crossed it on this tiny stone bridge – medieval, I expect - and below a hundred feet of rock and the white foam of a stream.
Mira That would be the Duenne.
Bill I stopped the car on the bridge. Opened the suitcase – that was when I snapped the lock, you see – and tipped it all out, into the gorge. All of it . . . Have you ever thrown your whole wardrobe away?
Mira A girl may murder, Mr Alexander, but she is never allowed to vacate her wardrobe. Imagine the scandal.
Bill Quite . . . And then I closed it up again, using my tie . . . (He laughs sourly.) What does that say about me, I wonder?
Mira That the tie is good quality.
(A pause.)
Bill (Taking a step towards her.) I always admire –
Mira (Brushing him aside.) You will find clothes in the wardrobe there. Some will fit you, no doubt. Use them as you see fit, please.
Bill (A beat.) I will. Thank you.
Mira My father is expecting you downstairs. He has not seen the blossom in a long, long, time. Remember that, Mr Alexander.
Bill Of course. His blindness, I understand -
Mira When you talk to him . . . be gentle and spare him your lies. (She looks hard at him – and then smiles.) They might amuse me but I would never forgive you if you treated him as a fool. You understand?
Bill . . . Perfectly.
Mira Good. Half an hour, shall we say?
Bill Half an hour, it is, then.
(She leaves.)
(Bill waits. The petals drift slowly away. He removes his crumpled jacket and places it over the back of a chair. Underneath, he is wearing a light shirt. A bullet-hole lies over his heart on the shirt and around it is the claret-stain of dried blood.)
Bill . . . Yes, this will do nicely. This will do very nicely indeed . . .
The Meeting
(A Study in some disarray. Books spill everywhere with abandon. Ancient objects litter the place as though cast carelessly aside.)
(Hot light streams in from several high windows. These windows are narrow and tall, like church windows.)
(Bill stands lost in this chaos. He has changed and is now wearing a light flannel shirt. He is drawn to a curious antique object amongst all the books. He picks it up and slowly examines it.)
(An old man appears out of a recess. He cocks his head to one side slowly and then smiles.)
Averroës (Entering.) Eleventh century, is it not?
Bill (Putting it down in haste.) I beg your pardon –
Averroës Don’t be silly, Mr Alexander. Please, examine it, if you wish. Those like us who have lived too much in books sometimes forget what it is to touch the past. Tell me what you see.
Bill Eleventh century, you say? (He picks up the object again.)
Averroës (Laughing.) Mr Alexander, I am afraid you are the expert here. Not I. I was told by a man, with some repute it must be said, that it was of that period – Moorish obviously. Of Andalusian origin, he claimed, all the while haggling over its price.
Bill How much did you pay –
Averroës I would never be so boorish as to quote a figure, Mr Alexander. Such things are for accountants, do you not agree? May I call you Bill? Mr Alexander is such a mouthful, is it not? Bill has a wonderful intimacy on the tongue. I am sensualist, of course. How could I not be in this glorious landscape? To you perhaps Bill is a commonplace but to me it reeks of Anglo-Saxon longboats, the hearths of Celtic princes, dark lakes filled with magic and lost swords.
Bill Are you mocking me, perhaps, I wonder?
Averroës (A beat.) I prefer to think it is older, of course. Tenth century, at least. It served up the ancient food of the Moriscos – the Moors, I mean – here in Andalusia, before the Christians came and converted us all. I am told that the blue along the rim is most unique, Bill. A blue I will never see, of course.
Bill (He hesitates and then places the object down again.) She said . . .
Averroës Mira. Her name is Mira.
Bill Mira told me your blindness has confounded the doctors.
Averroës Call me Averroës, please. The name is an adopted one, naturally. I steal another man’s name and in doing so attempt to bask in his glory. How vain of me, eh, Bill? Do I disappoint you perhaps?
Bill Averroës . . ?
Averroës The Muslim who rescued Aristotle among many others. What an irony, eh? As the West sank down into barbarism, one Moor alone picked up the litter of philosophy and cast it anew in the delicate lines and curves of Arabic – and yes the blindness has confounded them all. There is an expert in Ronda here. An old man – he travelled through South America when he was young – and he told me that in a few cases the mind simply chooses no longer to see. That these people have seen something, something so out of place, shall we say, that sight is now no longer needed or wanted.
Bill Then it is psychological, this blindness?
Averroës - I remember his hands on my face, their roughness, as he leaned in and whispered – so gently I almost wept – ‘it is a gift, my friend, a gift . . .’
Bill He was being kind, surely?
Averroës Was he? I wonder sometimes . . . and no the condition is physiognomic now. It has been too long, you see.
Bill So you are ‘Averroës’, an echo of a Moorish philosopher. I am Bill, a sweetmeat on your tongue –
Averroës Yes!
Bill And Mira, your daughter?
Averroës Ah, she is wilful and just a little spiteful, I am afraid – but I am sure you will find that out in time for yourself. Now, Bill, what do you see around you, eh?
Bill Books. Bloody hundreds of books, Averroës.
Averroës Exactly. And that is why you are here, is it not?
Bill So many . . .
Averroës Too many, perhaps?
Bill Well . . .
Averroës It is the largest private collection here in Andalusia, Bill. And the oldest, of course. Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic – there are books and manuscripts in this house which are so old you would think thousands had read them. All through the centuries.
Bill I can imagine –
Averroës Well, you would be wrong. My family is so very ancient, Bill, and so very private. We have had to be, you see. My ancestors dwelt here before the Carthaginians and the Romans. We were Sephardim once – those Jews who settled here long before Christ was hung up to die. We hid here in the mountains when the Vandals moved through and slaughtered all in their path. We emerged uneasily under the Goths after them and then we flourished when the Moors arrived bringing with them fountains and poetry. We embraced Islam then, I am told. We shook off the Talmud and opened the Koran under the shadow of the muezzin. Does that shock you, Bill?
Bill It is no affair of mine, Averroës.
Averroës In time you might come to think differently.
Bill I am sure if I do you will be the first to know.
Averroës But of course. War fell upon Andalusia, Bill. The Christians came with sword and fire and eventually the Moors were driven out or converted to the one true cross. I do not need to tell you what my ancestors did. Now in my blood lies the mystery of the three great books of Abraham and his god. I am their legacy, Bill. Their destiny.
Bill And all this – all these books, these manuscripts –
Averroës All collected and hoarded away, yes. Call it a whim of my ancestors. We bought up books and – how do you say squirreled then away? This room is a prison, Bill, a prison of history.
Bill But no more?
Averroës Indeed. I am blind. What an irony is it not? History has its revenge, I think. No. it is time to open the door and blow out the dust of ages. And you will be my scribe – my cataloguer! You will list all these books and then I will sell them all off. Every single last one. I will empty out this study, Bill, and leave no word, not even a letter behind. I am aware the pay is not lavish – how could it be? But think of the opportunity, Bill! The chance to delve as you catalogue – to read books very few people have ever seen let alone read. You may take notes of course – as many as you want. I may even gift you a book or two. In fact, I have one in particular but we shall leave that for later, I think, no?
Bill You know, Averroës, I have decided that there is something of the showman in you.
Averroës (He laughs but is pleased at the remark.) Now really, Bill, you are mocking me!
Bill Am I? Perhaps. So here I am, a Scotsman from Edinburgh, and at the other end of Europe, drowning in books it seems. Life is unexpected.
Averroës . . . You are not the first who responded to the advertisement, Bill. I think it is only fair to tell you that.
Bill I am not?
Averroës Oh no. But you are the most promising – if you will forgive a clumsy attempt to flatter you.
Bill (A beat.) It’s a fake.
Averroës I beg your pardon?
Bill The dish. It is a fake. I saw a dozen like them in a market in Barcelona while driving down here.
(A pause.)
Averroës Of course it is. Where better to hide the truth, Bill?
The Proposition
(Bill Alexander’s room: his crumpled linen jacket remains over the back of the chair. A lamp is lit giving the white walls a golden hue.)
(He sits at a desk, an old book in his hands. Frustration hangs on his brow. Far away, the sound of goats and a dog barking can be heard.)
(He slams the old book shut and gets up to pour himself a glass of red wine. He grimaces at the taste of it but drinks it nonetheless.)
(Mira appears in the room. She is holding a small ornate box.)
Mira I would knock but frankly it would be a waste of my time.
Bill (Standing, the wine glass in his hand.) You are going to enter anyway?
Mira Precisely. (She enters and places the box on a table.)
Bill (Finishing the wine.) I do like surprises.
Mira (Flipping the lid open.) Oh it’s nothing too exciting: Pall Mall, Rothmans, Navy Cut. All from Gibraltar, of course. The Royal Navy there is most accommodating in matters of barter, shall we say? These are Spanish brands but I expect you will find them too bitter, Mr Alexander.
Bill But I don’t smoke. (He pours himself another glass.)
Mira (A beat.) My father was ill-informed it seems.
Bill You have a dossier on me?
Mira Nothing so sinister! Call it background research, if you will. My father is very particular over whom he employs.
Bill (He pours Mira a glass and offers it to her.) Bill.
Mira Not yet.
Bill What?
Mira You haven’t earned the right yet to be familiar, Mr Alexander. (She takes the glass.)
Bill Ah. Probation, is it?
Mira (A beat.) You won’t last. They never do.
Bill Maybe I’ll be different, Mira.
Mira (She smiles at him.) They all say that, How typical. Every man thinks he is unique.
Bill One of us has to be. Perhaps it will be me. The world zigs and I zag.
Mira What a monstrous ego – to think like that. Already you have proved a disappointment.
Bill I could say the same about this wine, to be honest. (He grimaces at the bottle.)
Mira (Laughing.) It’s an acquired taste! My father always keep the vintage wine for special occasions.
Bill And I am not yet one . . . These others, those before me I mean, what happened to them?
Mira Careful, Mr Alexander, look to the future not the past. Let us say they were not suitable and leave it at that.
Bill As you wish . . .
Mira My father . . . is not all he appears to be. (She hesitates to say more.)
Bill I did wonder.
Mira No doubt he told you about our lineage? The old blood of Sephardim, Morisco and Christian? The slow secret shadow of our past?
Bill Something like that, yes. He does seem to enjoy his stories I must say.
Mira The others . . . were, let us say, susceptible to all that. Too susceptible I may say.
Bill And you think I will be, too?
Mira He will throw a test at you. Tomorrow, perhaps, in the morning. You would do well . . . not to get swept up in it.
Bill And how do I do that, Mira?
Mira Oh Mr Alexander, you are a smart man. I will leave it to you to figure it out!
Bill (He raises his glass.) To your father, then.
Mira My father. (She drinks and motions for a refill.)
Bill (Accomodating her.) . . . Why –
Mira Warn you? Don’t flatter yourself. I am tired, Mr Alexander. Tired of seeing young men come and go – their egos crushed. You cannot imagine how tiresome it is honestly. The young men – some from France, Belgium – America even. All graduates like yourself, all with bland faces – and always they wore spectacles!
Bill And always they left?
Mira (She drinks the wine.) . . . I require a change in pace, shall we say?
Bill Well at least I am not wearing glasses. That must be refreshing for you, Mira.
Mira - I will make a deal with you, Mr Alexander.
Bill A proposition? From such a beauty – how can I resist?
Mira Flippancy will get you nothing but scorn in return. Are you interested or not?
Bill Of course I am. I apologise.
Mira I wish you to stay. Call it a desire for something habitual, if you will. Outlive the others – their failures, their lassitude, even. Indulge my father’s whims and fancies.
Bill For you?
Mira Why not? In return I will alert you to some of his games. You will confound him and that will intrigue him. That will stay his hand in dismissing you – as he did all the others.
Bill And what is in it for me?
Mira (She finishes the wine and makes to leave.) . . . Need you ask?
Bill - Four fucking years –
Mira What?
Bill Four fucking years in the infantry – North Africa, Sicily, then up into that long slog called Italy. War, Mira, bloody war, all across this cesspit called Europe. Its sallow-faced people. Its mealy-mouthed cries. A million hands raised up in supplication as if this continent was nothing but a mass of worms. Always wriggling. So I hid in university afterwards. In books. Philosophy and medieval history – burrowed away to forget it all, you see. Pathetic, wasn’t it? And the day I graduated I saw his advertisement – assistant wanted – private book collection to be catalogued for potential sale – in Andalusia, no less. Somewhere free from these wriggling worms, wasn’t it? How could I not come? And what do I find?
Mira Do tell.
Bill Some wars it seems are fought in the smallest of spaces.
Mira (She smiles.) I am not the enemy -
Bill (A beat.) No, of course not. Forgive me. I am making an arse of myself. No, you are not.
Mira (She approaches him and takes his glass away. She plants a soft kiss on his forehead.) I do so love your lies, you know. There is something sweet about them.
Bill (He reaches out and grasps her wrist tightly.) . . . ‘Bill’ . . .
Mira . . . Bill . . .
The Game
(The Study. It is late morning. Bill and Averroës are sorting through a pile of musty books. Mira hovers nearby. She is finishing off a slice of toast and seems amused at their efforts.)
(The light coming in from the high windows is cool, delicate.)
Mira Are you sure I can’t offer you some coffee, Bill?
Bill (Looking up from the pile.) Later, perhaps.
Mira Father? The pot is fresh.
Averroës (Annoyed for some reason.) Not now, Mira. These we can dispense with – the spiral bound books, yes? You have them?
Bill Notebooks and such, yes. (He holds one up and reads the cover.) ‘Summer, 1937 – (He flips it open.) A diary – yours, is it?
Averroës (He laughs.) Do I look like I can keep a diary? No, a former assistant – what was his name. Mira? Petecki?
Mira Potocki, father. As you well know. Jan Potocki.
Averroës Ah, yes. A Pole – and such a barbarous tongue, is it not? Slavic, the race of slaves.
Mira He served you well enough, father.
Averroës Not just me, I seem to recall. Potocki the Slave –
Mira He was like you, Bill. A graduate from Krakow. A devout Catholic. Passionate and very erudite. My father became jealous of us.
Averroës Nonsense! The very idea –
Mira We became lovers, of course. Does that shock you? It shocked him.
Bill It is no concern of –
Averroës For a man, Bill who fought on the side of the Allies, you seem to have a remarkable lack of concerns.
Bill I meant to say –
Mira Ignore him. I do. (She moves to leave and then pauses.) . . . I loved him, Bill, at least for awhile, I suppose. My first love . . . And now he is nothing more than a few scribbles in a yellowed notebook . . .
(She leaves.)
Bill (He turns a page.) . . . ‘The light in these mountains has such clarity, such freshness. The world here is redolent with colour. It is a tapestry filled with golds and reds and emeralds. A pristine landscape. Today I stood in the ruins of a Moorish castle speckled with saxifrage and gentian and watched a tiny beetle coruscate its way along a rampart. Bombs fell in the distance and I praised god that finally the Monarchists had arrived . . .’
Averroës . . . He left soon after and fell in the fighting. A mortar shell, I believe.
Bill Which side – I mean, where did your sympathies lie –
Averroës Don’t be so naïve, Bill – Now I must say I am surprised you can read Polish . . . There are hidden depths to you it seems!
Bill My mother, well, she left Poland during the Partition –
Averroës She was Jewish?
Bill Ashkenazi, yes. And a Communist, too. (He laughs.) And she ended up in an old granite city on the Forth. A city filed with sleepy heads and bag-pipes. A slumbering wreck bound in tarnished shackles.
Averroës And she married a respectable merchant or banker, I have no doubt.
Bill What makes you say that?
Averroës Your lack of a Scottish accent, of course. It speaks of a certain middle-class; a conformity. Perhaps you had a burr long ago but schooling and the army scoured that away. Lieutenant, yes? Commissioned?
Bill If you are wondering why I never rose up in the ranks, don’t bother. Unlike your dead Potocki, I had no stomach for it. It disgusted me. I . . . found it did not concern me . . .
Averroës (A beat.) That reminds me. I would like to tell you why I choose you, if I may. Please have a seat.
Bill (Hesitating.) These notepads –
Averroës Keep them or throw them out. It is of no consequence. Offer them to Mira, if you wish. Here – sit down. (He gestures carefully to a worn leather chair nestled up to a tall bookcase.) . . . Won’t you? Indulge an old man, please.
Bill (He sits slowly down, wary.) It is your time, Averroës . . .
Averroës Indeed it is . . . Do you believe in fate, Bill?
Bill What cynic does? I would have thought that was obvious –
Averroës Oh but my dear friend that is all a cynic does believe in. Why do you think he is weary after all? The inevitability of fate. Its remorseless presence. Its endless grasp. No, a cynic is only a prisoner who mocks his chains as a matter of the last resort.
Bill Was it fate then that bought me here, Averroës?
Averroës You might be surprised – forgive me, I am an old blind man. I am encased in books I cannot read. Entombed in a history I cannot escape. Of course I talk too much. Words tumble out of in an endless parody of speech. They are all I have left to populate this darkness I dwell in now, you see. Fate is mocking me and I respond with the bitter litany of words . . . No matter. I expect Mira has mentioned other assistants here – the dead Pole aside, of course – no, don’t answer. It of no import. Of course she has. They have not been many but they have been enough. They came and they went. Few lasted more than a week – I am a difficult beast to burden at times – and no doubt my daughter has advised you of that also. I had all but given up on finding someone – someone interested enough to endure me – and then I saw your response. Oh, it was not your academic qualifications or your service in the army, Bill – but the fact it was someone from Scotland, that splinter of a country broken from Europe. A little shard of a lost kingdom. Scotland, my friend, with its endless glens and doomed Romantic history. Quite a ‘bonny’ land, is it not?
Bill It’s nothing more than a fag-end of a country. A country squeezed between the English and the mountains.
Averroës It is more surprising than you might think, Bill.
Bill If coming from there got me this post, then it is useful enough, I suppose.
Averroës Ah, but why did it, eh? Tell me, Bill, how far away is your country? A thousand miles? Two?
Bill I don’t know off-hand. Something like that I suppose –
Averroës Less than a day’s walk. That is all. Less than a day.
Bill Now you are being obtuse –
Averroës Far from it! The blood of Scotland lies not that far away, Bill. I swear to you. High up here in the Sierra Morena, in the beaten gold of its hills, lies an old worn patch of scrub – and a red thread ends there, a thread which began in your country, a thread which ties that land to Scotland for all time. You see, a long time ago, a troop of your knights fell in among a horde of Moorish cavalry and knowing that they were doomed their leader heaved aloft a gold casket deep into the Moors – a last desperate throw – and where it fell and spilt open is honoured now as a piece of Scotland itself. Does the tale sound familiar at all?
Bill . . . Go on . . .
Averroës That gold casket cracked open on the dry dusty ground and out fell the embalmed heart of a Scottish King – even as the knights following in the wake of that throw were cut down to a man. It was a moment of supreme honour – the hurling of that gold casket and the sacrifice around it in blood and courage – and we revere that place now, Bill, as only history can revere an act which transcends prose and becomes poetry . . .
Bill And this . . . heart . . . It belonged to whom?
Averroës (Changing his tone abruptly.) Ah but I promised you a book, did I not? I think I did, yes.
Bill Yes, but –
Averroës Then you shall have it! (He gestures to the large bookcase which stands next to the chair Bill is sitting in.) - There it is. Buried amongst all the others.
Bill (Looking up into the bookcase.) A book? Here?
Averroës Of course.
Bill (He rises up slowly and scans the books.) Well . . . which one is it? Averroës?
(A pause.)
Averroës . . . My friend, you have only to reach out and take it and it will be yours . . .
Bill I don’t – How will I know if I pick the right -
Averroës You will. Trust me.
Bill (He reaches a hand up – and then a moment of recognition fills him and he smiles deeply.) . . . And if I take it?
Averroës Perhaps fate will twist another loop about you, my friend –
Bill (He laughs, not altogether uncruelly.) I see a book up here, Averroës. It is high up among the other books. A red book sitting amid the other books, all faded in golds and yellows. Such a vivid red. It gleams like a splash of blood. It is a book itching for the touch of my fingers. I think!
Averroës (His composure fading slightly.) - Take it then –
Bill I think not. No, I think I will take this book instead – here, this slight tome. A little slip of a thing. (He selects a small book down near the bottom of the bookcase.) Yes, this will do . . .
(Averroës hesitates, as if unsure of what to do. He opens his mouth to speak but pauses.)
Bill . . . But let us say I had picked that book, Averroës, pulled its red spine and laid it out here on the table – I wonder what would have happened next, eh? What tiny loop might have twisted around me, eh?
Averroës I am sure I do not know what you mean –
Bill Careful. I enjoy parlour tricks as much as the next man. But do not take me for a fool, Averroës –
Averroës Page sixty one –
Bill What?
Averroës I would have asked you to open the book at page sixty one.
Bill This book I have picked at random?
Averroës Yes.
Bill And?
Averroës Why, Bill, I would have quoted the story of that Scottish King word for word from the page of course.
Bill (He looks up at the red book.) Ah. A nice trick.