Tom Foran Clark

Emery and Rita arrived in empty Sagunto. Everyone was out for a siesta, it seemed -- out of town for the siesta. The two wound through the village on foot, seeking a place to eat. They finally found a little restaurant with a front door opening onto a cool and shady room with tables -- and with some people in it. A small, round woman wearing a white apron over a flowery dress greeted them, clapped her hands, then disappeared again, going through a swinging door into what the two assumed was the kitchen. She emerged with two glasses of water, set them on the table, and disappeared again. After a little while, she again emerged. Rita asked if she had cerveza -- beer -- but there was no cerveza. “Un carte?” Emery asked. On a piece of paper, the woman wrote out some of the offerings. The two ordered tortillas Espanola (omelette with potatoes), salad, and wine, then the woman went back through the swinging doors to her kitchen.

They waited for another half an hour. Finally a large man all in black except for a bloody butcher’s apron emerged brusquely through the swinging doors with the meal. “Tortillas Espanola,” he confirmed, placing the repast gently before them, also gingerly pouring our wine, his huge hands shaking. Neither he nor the woman returned to the table to collect payment for the meal. Emery and Rita went out in search of them. They found the woman arranging flowers in boxes at a fountain at the end of the street. She waved the two away. “She insists we needn’t pay,” Rita explained. “Or we should pay her whatever we think the meal was worth.” Emery handed her an amount that he felt was about right -- even on the generous side. The woman stuffed the money into her apron pocket without even looking at it.

“Do you think we’re the first people ever to visit Sagunto?” Rita ventured, puzzled. The two went down to the Port and the Playa de Malvasur, "with its wide expanse of beach and sand dunes held in place by sparse vegetation," as Juan Armando Cabrera had noted in his Cartagena, Sagunto and Environs, adding that it had become "a popular nude beach." But there was nobody else there -- not a soul. Juan Armando Cabrera had this to say about the history of the ghostly town:

"Saguntum, an early Iberian settlement supplying access to the sea for the predominantly farming villages inland, was built on a ridge, looking down onto a peaceful cove. Coins were minted and trade with the Greeks and Phoenicians flourished. Around 350 BCE, Greek traders set themselves up in the frontierlands. Though the city maintained political neutrality for hundreds of years, history eventually proved Saguntum was built absolutely in the wrong place. The Carthginian colonies to the south controlled the trade of goods coming in on the Atlantic, especially tin. In the north, the colonists from Phocaea and Greece were in control. Through their main colony, Marseilles, the Greeks had traded goods brought overland. To the chagrin of the Carthginians and Etruscans, they'd prospered beautifully. The Etruscans sold what tin they could, taking it overland across the Alps into Italy. In 219, Hannibal the Carthginian arrived at the gates of Saguntum."

Emery and Rita walked northward and stopped at Canet de Berenguer on the Racó de Mar Beach, a beautiful beach with still finer sand and more dunes. Then they turned back to the village and got a room. They dressed up and went out for chick pea stew, potage de cigrons, and salt cod, bacalao.

"In 221 BC," the guidebook noted, "the Carthaginian leader, Hasdrubal, was killed by a local tribesman. He was replaced by his brother-in-law, who, as a young boy, had vowed he would forever be Rome’s enemy." this man, Hannibal, had been born in Carthage, which Pike and I had visited when we’d first arrived in North Africa -- near Tunis. He was the son of the great military leader Hamilcar Barca. Nicknamed the 'Joy of Baal,' he'd sworn eternal hostility against Rome: 'I will use fire and steel,' he'd famously vowed, 'to arrest the destiny of Rome.'

"Hamilcar, who had participated in the First Punic War, took his son with him on the Carthaginian expedition to conquer Spain. As a result of that war, fought between the Carthaginians and the Romans in the years 264-241 BC, Carthage had to turn over to the Romans the islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia. In Spain, Hannibal was meanwhile consolidating Carthage’s domination over Spain. Having married a Spanish princess, Imilce, he began conquering Spanish tribes at fever pitch. Within two years, he had subjugated all of Spain between the Tagus and the Ebro rivers, except for the independent city of Saguntum. At the start of the second Punic War, the Romans had 70,000 Soldiers (the Carthaginians, 80,000); the Romans had 220 Ships (the Carthaginians, 100); the Romans had 60,000 Sailors (the Carthaginians, 25,000); the Romans had superiority on the sea (but the Carthaginians had overland reinforcement and supply lines); the Romans had faithful allies (the Carthaginians had Hannibal).

"In 207 BC, a Roman general named Publius Cornelius Scipio now came forward, up to the task of encountering and defeating Hannibal to end the Carthaginian Empire in Spain. Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal, accompanied by 30,000 soldiers, traveled toward Italy to join forceswith Hannibal’s armies. The Romans learned the location Hasdrubal was headed for. Two large Roman armies, one commanded by Publius Scipio and the other from Southern Italy, put a halt to Hasdrubal’s advance. The remaining Carthaginians, commanded by Hannibal, returned home. There the Romans, again led by Publius Scipio, attacked Carthage itself. In Zama, North Africa, the two generals met. The peace terms Hannibal proposed were rejected outright by Scipio. In the battle that followed, the Carthaginians were cut to shreds down to a man. That man was Hannibal.

"The Second Punic War began in 218 BC, when Carthaginian General Hannibal lay siege to Saguntum. For eight months, Hannibal met with heroic resistance from the inhabitants of Saguntum. The Roman senate voted to come to the aid of their allies, insisting a treaty made between Rome and Carthage had been violated. Rome, declaring the Carthaginian attack on Saguntum an act of war, sent help. But those still alive in Saguntum were by then building bonfires into which they would throw themselves in preference to being enslaved by Hannibal, who then began his northward journey, crossing the Alps with his legendary elephants, defeating the Romans in northern Italy in just two battles. Hannibal had 90,000 infantry men and 12,000 cavalry. They had all crossed the Pyrenees Mountains and the Rhone River together. Hannibal had used large rafts to get the elephants across. Horses had been carried on boats or forced to swim.

"The Romans knew Hannibal was coming for them. When they thought of Carthage, the Romans could only see raging fires. They had heard of Hamilcar, the Carthaginian admiral who, after losing his 250 vessels in a fight with the Syracusans at Himera, built a fire and jumped into it. They’d heard of Dido, the queen who founded Carthage. Though the name Dido was said to mean “husband killer,” she’d instead seen her faithless lover Aeneas sailing off on his divine mission to found Rome and so had built a pyre on the beach, stabbed herself, and jumped into the flames. Hannibal overran Italy, burning and killing all along the way. He tried to get the Romans to fight a direct battle, but they wouldn’t. He did not attack Rome. He won all his battles, but he did not win the war -- he did not take Rome. There, things turned. In 201 BC Carthage was forced to sign a humiliating treaty, agreeing to pay reparations to the Romans and to exile Hannibal. Rome vowed never to allow Carthage to regain its strength. 'Delenda est Cathago!' cried Cato the Elder -- 'Carthage must be destroyed!'

"The last Punic War began in 149 BC, and ended with the complete destruction of Carthage by a Roman army in 146, after only ten days and ten nights of fierce fighting, fires, and carnage. They destroyed it utterly, letting the fires rage for ten days. They then covered everything with salt, to ensure that nothing would ever grow there again. in Carthage had been a great library filled with books in the Punic language. Not a page -- not a line -- survived. With the Roman victory over Carthage came the Romanization of Hispania, bringing new growth and expansion to Saguntum, which died down after successive invasions from barbarians, Vandals, Goths, and Byzantines through the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries.

"In the 8th century, Saguntum was taken over by the Moors. As of this period, the town became known as the Arab Morbiter, becoming Morviedro in Castilian and Morvedre or Molvedre in Valencian, derived from the Medieval Latin muri veleres. In 1098 it was conquered by El Cid, though Sagunto's actual reconquest and return to the Christians did not occur until 1238, under king Jaime I."

Whle in Sagunto, Emery and Rita took several hikes. One morning, they walked up to the remains of the Castle of Sagunto, a fortress on a ridge about a mile from the town center. They looked out from the very crest of the Sierra Calderona over orchards stretching all the way to the Mediterranean. Then they walked over the hills to El Puig, to the Monastery of Santa Maria where, so the story goes, a Byzantine image of a Madonna had been found, the so-called Virgin of El Puig, said to have been carved by angels from a stone removed from Mary's original tomb. During the years of Muslim domination, the monks had kept her buried her under a bell, until 1237 when the Christians reconquered the area under Jaime I.

The monastery had two inner cloisters. The lower cloister led to the chapel of the Mercedarian monks, the refectory, and a gothic hall. The upper cloister led to the Royal salon and the library. The east wing of the monastery contained the Printing and Graphic Arts Museum, commemorating the first book published in Spain, printed in Valencia in 1474, Les Obres o Trobes en Lahors a la Verge Maria, a copy of which the museum owned.

Seeing playing cards on display in the museum, Rita began telling Emery all about them -- especially Tarot cards. She knew all about Tarot cards. She told him of her father's telling stories to her about The Wandering Fool. "The Way of the Fool was a path of initiation for those who set out on their own, encountering teachers along the way, then moving on, to presrve their own unique identity. The Fool was prepared to go through life naked to the world, seeing the lower was nothing more than a reflection of the higher. The Fool was prepared to reveal more than ordinary people, if only to lay bare the basic structure of the Spiritual world."

The fundamental thing, Rita was now telling Emery, was the need for discovery, exploration, creation. Generally, people were always far too busy, distracted by 'the real' and 'responsibilities,' and so not seeing -- not perceiving -- reality. So much of what society claimed necessary turned out otherwise. In the dreams of the child, the adult found the keys to a freedom that was not an illusion. Looked at rightly, the world was always new. Fools progressed by means of the questions that they asked. The Fool was sensitive to symbols. Indeed, if the Fool was alert enough, making sufficiently headway along the Path of exuberance, then everything became a symbol. Life itself was art. To live life well was to live both deep and light.

Emery supposed he was being a good listener -- getting it -- understanding all or most of what Rita was saying. He was nodding his head, nodding his head, pretending to listen. In fact, his mind was wandering. He was completely somewhere else -- in a library somewhere, or back in school, studying. It was exciting for him to be here now, with Rita, in this monastery, in this Printing Museum. Books, books, books -- in all the world there was nothing so fine as books. It wasn't too long before Emery noticed that not only was he not listening to Rita, she had ceased speaking to him. In fact, she was no longer next to him. Puzzled, he looked around. She wasn't even in the museum. Distraught, Emery went out in search of her. There was no sign of Rita in the monastery anywhere. The place was not so large that you could get lost there, so Emery searched all over again. But there was no doubt about it now, she'd left without him.

He walked back to the town -- first to the hotel, then to the train station. He was shaking and sweating. He was worried. He was beside himself with pain. He'd sure made a mess of this. What was he thinking? Just then Rita came walking up a side street. She wore a pale-blue blouse a size too small that clung to her too tightly, Emery judged her. But he we was very glad to see her.

Rita’s head was down. She didn’t see Emery, who'd stopped in his tracks, observing her. Here was Rita Sandoval. She went forth in equilibrium, beautifully. She walked with a lightness that amazed him, with grace, but not with a fruit-basket or bread loaves on her head. No Arabian sheik or American modeling school had taught her to walk like that.

Some men standing by idly in the shade under an awning at the station snickered when Rita passed in front of them. One man gestured with his hands, describing two large melons, and blew an impressive, windy wolf’s whistle. Rita ignored him. Another man reached out and patted her right on her butt. Rita kept on walking. She didn’t look back. She went to a table under the awning of a café at the other side of the station, and plopped down hard in the metal café chair.

Emery went over and sat down across from her. He wasn't upset, only grateful. “What’s up?" he said.

“I don’t say I’m so pretty," Rita said, sighing, "but I try to look nice. I know I’ve got good features, and a good figure. My mom was right about one thing: men come at you like wolves. Actually, real wolves aren’t as bad as that.”

Emery ordered a couple beers. Slowly, he got up the nerve to ask Rita where she'd got off to back at the monastery. "I needed time alone," she said, and pierced him with a glance. Emery knew enough to know to leave it at that.

The two went down to the golden, peaceful, unpeopled beach. They came around a bend and saw a wooden booth, or shack, or stand -- a snackbar? Whatever it was, it was apparently deserted. “Look,” Rita said excitedly, raising one of the two big wooden flaps that became eaves when lifted on supporting poles. Emery found the four poles and helped her set up what became a kind of awning on a porch before the snackbar. Blankets had been tacked and nailed to the boards, covering all the underlying windows. It was just then starting to drizzle. By the time the rain came streaming down, the two of them were safely ensconced within the shelter, snuggling in the blankets they’d taken from the walls, sitting on further blankets on the concrete floor, peering out through the big front windows to the tumultuous and heaving ocean. Along the back wall was a huge counter and cabinets, all empty. At either end of the booth were stacks of empty cold storage boxes and blue and green and yellow lawn chairs. A trash can, a barbecue, and a croquet set were in there, too.

“Hey! We could have some kind of grill party here!” Rita said, grinning, opening the bun she’d made at the back of her head, letting down her silky hair, unloosed now on her shoulders. The waves came rolling in from the distance, gaining in a steady, rapid pulse, curling at the last minute, and dropping in a loud splash, the suds returning to the sea as backwash, magically sneaking back to the deeps under the next incoming, crashing wave -- and on and on. Winds blew against the grasses on the dunes higher on the beach. Random stands of withering, wind-beaten bamboo fences were set round, looking nearly defeated, on their last legs.

At dusk, the two went out, tacked up a large sheet over the snackbar's big picture window, and returned to their hotel. Though they'd paid through until noon the next day, they checked out, put their things in the car, and drove down to the beach nearest the point where the shack was. They took their sleeping bags and food and candles and went down to it. They laid down their sleeping bags within, on blankets on the floor. "Light is all it needs," Rita said cheerfully, "and a certain cleanness and order." At nightfall, after they’d eaten a light repast, the two went out under the stars, where Rita resumed telling Emery the story of the treasure digger of St. James.

"Do you remember how George Borrow, in Villa Seca, was visited by the treasure hunter who, instead of being ragged and forlorn was now well-dressed and eager to go forward?"

"Yup," Emery said. "He'd got himself that big Andalusian hat and a fancy walking stick with a lion’s head on top."

"Right. He'd got lost in the mountains and had nearly lost his mind, wandering in the savage hills around Aragon. In this wilderness, a voice had spoken to him from the hollow of a rock, 'To Madrid, to Madrid! The way to the schatz is through Madrid!’ Benedict had taken his staff in hand and gone forth, refreshed, full of new energy. He'd walked to Madrid, where he'd met some strangers who'd treated him kindly, providing him with money and new clothes -- not from disinterested motives, however, but having an eye to the treasure. Those new friends were people with political clout. The treasure hunter was just about to reveal to Borrow something essential about the treasure when -- he changed his mind. 'That's all I can reveal,' he said. ‘It is an evil thing to say a word about a treasure before you have secured it'.”

Emery thanked Rita for sharing these assorted stories of Lazarillo and the treasure hunter and, around midnight, in silence, the two retreated to their little nest.

In the morning they awoke to the songs of birds and resplendent, startling sunshine. A low din or hum of frolicking began to stir nearby, around the bend and further up the beach. Inside their refuge, they ate oranges, cheese, and candy bars. Emery offered to go out and drive or walk up to the village to get more food. It was such a pristine, gorgeous morning, a Saturday, he decided to take the hike. In town, he bought fresh cheese, bread, wine, and bottled water. Walking back along the highway, two motorcycle cops roared up alongside of him. They wanted to see his passport. They had a hard time saying Massachusetts, but they knew where it was -- “A-may-ri -ka!” After handing back Emery's papers, they got on their bikes and made a beeline for the highway. He was glad they didn’t follow him down to the strand, where he and Rita could have faced charges of maybe breaking and entering or perhaps even something worse.

Down on the beach, Rita was dancing in a circle, sun-worshipping. She came running toward Emery. Even from the distance he could see the lovely goose bumps on her black skin touched lightly by the morning breeze. Her nipples pointed away from her like directional signs. Emery said he didn’t want to spoil anything, but he’d just about been run over by two motorcycle cops who’d stopped him on the road from the town and who could just show up at any moment and charge them both with maybe breaking and entering or perhaps something worse and so shouldn't they be exercising caution? -- and on and on in that vein.

Rita was meanwhile taking Emery's little daypack down from his shoulders, removing his shirt, next his pants. ”Did you act suspicious?” she asked Emery.

“Did I act suspicious?” he echoed, placing my shaking hands on Rita's shoulders for support. She put his pack and clothes in the shack. “Christ, you’re a fearful whiny white guy!“ Rita teased him as they ran down to the water holding hands. Emery didn't respond, but he must have looked quite hurt. Rita came to a stop at the water’s edge, where she pulled in close and threw her arms around him. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered in his ear, taking firm hold of that which had arisen between them. “You’re perfect.”

They went in the water. Rita’s curvaceous black smooth backside floated toward Emery over the blue, gleaming, glistening waters. Her silken hair fanned out over the water. He held her afloat, a hand cupped under her belly. She placed her hands on his neck, her glowing tiger’s eyes piercing him, her long body stretching away toward the horizon. She let his hands wander under the water where they would.

Up on the beach, a man appeared, watching them. Rita pointed this out. The two now broke apart and began just to swim idly around, frolicking with light abandon. The man walked straight to their secret encampment. Emery and Rita lunged out of the shallow waters in hurried strides. The ocean pulled them back, as if they'd put on big webbed platypus feet.

They ran up the beach to the snackbar. There was no sign of the man who’d intruded on their haven. Emery went into the refuge and put on his pants. “Funny how things change,” Rita observed, entering the hut. "I confess to a weakness in nerve," she said, "thinking of that guy in here, poking about. I can’t tell you how good it is to be with you here, so free and unmolested. She tugged on her blue jeans and had Emery clasp her bra together at her back. “Thank you for your gentleness,” she said..

A light chill fell with the dusk. The two sat on the beach wrapped in blankets and watched the lights go on up and down the coast, then retreated to the snackbar for the night. When Emery was sure Rita was asleep, he ventured out alone to have another look at the moon and stars and constellations. It seemed to him that he'd sat down on the perfect spot. Unhurried winds swept by as through a corridor, whistling. The ocean’s gentle lapping came in, then back out, all up and down the shore.

In the morning, Emery took a blue lawn chair from a stack, unfolded it, and went out to see if he could again find that spot. He did. He sat down and did some writing. After a while, he realized someone was standing behind him. Emery turned and saw Rita. She put her hands on his shoulders. "What are you doing up so bright and early?" she asked. He held up pencil and paper. "What are you writing?"

"Notes."

"Notes?" she repeated. "That makes me think of Jack," she said. "Did you know Jack was keeping a diary in Morocco? It was the funniest thing. All these remarkable, incredible, unspeakable things were happening and Jack was jotting down an outline -- notes. He was writing down maybe six or seven words each day -- '9th: sun. 10th: More sun. Noon clouds. 15th: Me and Dieter tossed in dungeon. 16th: In chains -- Rita not.' Jack kept insisting someday he will reconstruct, from these telegraphic messages, the whole story of our African adventure. He vows he'll get a tape-recorder, turn it on and, from those notes, fill out his tale. Then he'll get a secretary or a robot to type this saga up for him. So he says. What are you writing?"

"Ah, just scribbling," Emery said. "Writing a poem about a peach -- about a mermaid who sings to me."

"Are you writing about us?"

"Well, a little," he lied.

"Can I see?"

"I'm just scribbling. Nothing much to show."

"What are you scribbling about me?"

"You're beautiful and I'm amazed by you. I look at you and I think how elegant, how wonderful. I'm noting how I saw you in the town and you walked around so lightly, precious, like so many fragile dishes, and all those goons were staring at you, gasping, slapping themselves upside their heads, talking among themselves like wolves in packs, elbowing one another aside in a flurry of trying to get an even better look at you as you passed by, all of them staring and a few whistling."

"You wrote that down? You wrote about these other men? You care what other men think? Did you note how after the men whispered, howled, and whistled, they followed me like bloodhounds -- not because I'm so light on my feet or fragile, delicate, or soulful, but only because men lust for tits and ass."

"I have mentioned your lovely features and proportions. Seeing no higher truth than the divine -- the eternal feminine manifested in human female persons -- I have mentioned you are just such an enigma, a divine person. You are a goddess, a teacher."

"A divine person, a goddess, a teacher," she repeated. "Emery," she said gleefully, coming around to face him, "you are some kind of woman's man." She kissed him. She put his papers on the sand, put the the pen on top as a paperweight, and led him back into the snackbar. She somehow wrapped three or four pairs of arms and legs around him, quickly dissolving their separateness. They plunged toward the earth's core. Then, suddenly, she was still. "Listen," she said. Emery heard the voices then. They came close, outside. Laughter went running ghostlike along the sea's edge and then came up again, close to the snackbar, in under the eaves. Hands touched the coversheet over the window. Then the sound of running feet on sand, going higher on the beach, to the dunes. Then gone.

Rita sat upright on her sleepsack, heels pulled up to her thighs like a yogi, her hands in her lap, eyes closed, meditating. When she re-opened her eyes, she stood and, silent, started getting dressed. The two went out for a walk further north along the coast, visiting beachfront tourist shops and tapas bars. They were back at their refuge by sundown. When the stars began appearing. Rita, who'd been mostly quiet this day, began now to tell more of her stories and to laugh -- the wine going to her head. She went up to the snackbar and returned with scraps of wood and sheets and blankets. "Be glad the fire burns in women," she said, as if in warning. "Let us build a fire." The two gathered further sticks and chunks of wood and soon they had a bonfire crackling.

"You called me a teacher," she said. "A goddess and a teacher."

"A divine person, a goddess, and a teacher," Emery said.

"Yes. A person and a goddess and a teacher. Emery, will you do me a favor? Will you agree simply to do everything I tell you to do for one hour? It could be uncomfortable at moments for you, but you must trust me."

"Is it some ritual?" he asked hesitantly. "Does it involve inflicting pain?"

"Oh no -- you weirdo. Nothing like that. A ritual, yes -- painful, no. For some men, I imagine, awkward. We will both be naked, of course. I am going to stand by the fire and speak 'The Fire Prayer'," she whispered.

They undresssed, folded their clothes, and placed them -- all except Emery's shirt -- in a neat pile just a litttle distance from the fire. Rita placed Emery's shirt, neatly folded in the shape of a triangle, on the sand. She had him sit down on it, then postitioned his legs in a certain way, yogi-like, but without strain to him, and stood before the fire and recited: "We are strangers and pilgrims, all; let us all light a fire; let us all make a temple in the wind; let us all be present in the present, giving thanks at all times; fire is the warmth of life, a joy to see; fire is the present burning, shining; sing glory in the tongue of fire; blow our prayer into flame."

Seeing that all things were ready, she eased herself down onto his lap. Her hands touched his back. She seemed to wrap ten arms around him. He felt like melting butter. Emery looked into her eyes. She put her arms back, palms pressed hard against the sand, stretched taut as if in pain but also shining with ecstasy and exultation. Everything fell away. The two moved together, quivering, like ocean wave and backwash. Neither spoke -- as promised -- for an hour or more.

Finally, Rita broke the silence, lifting herself from Emery and warming herself by the dying embers of the fire. "Do you know anything about the Sufis?" she said.

"The who-fees?"

"The Sufis. You know -- Sufi mysticism. The Sufis loved God so much they wanted only to think of him every minute at all hours, both night and day. The Prophet Mohammad was a focus of their mysticism. Mohammad who had elevated love to a central religious theme -- 'He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquillity with them.' Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, from whom my lover Abdul in Tangiers was descended, emphasized impassioned mystical union. Mohammad had said he was given, by God, a love for perfumes, women, and joy in prayer. The human appetite was a manifestation of God's attribute of desire and love.

"Abdul liked to say the subject of the inter-relatedness of religion, mysticism, and eroticism was a touchy one! Like al-Hallaj, my Abdul also loved the aroma of the woman's body during sex -- you too? I know. But, like al-Hallaj, Abdul believed one's attraction to the human object was more than fun. It transmuted into a connection with the sublime -- the divine -- God. Abdul said divine union was consummated in amorous union, the Creator joining with his creature, opening his heart in intimacy with his Beloved. 'We are two spirits in a single body,' Abdul liked to tell me. 'I have become the One I love, and the One I love has become me.' This was tawhid, complete unification of lover and beloved. When a man loves a woman, he seeks union with her, that is to say the most complete union possible in love. This was on the level of the tantric, in Yoga, sex elevated to a spiritual practice. Al-Hallaj had founded his cosmology on sexuality: God's attributes could not be known apart from their manifestation."

"Have you ever heard of 'Astarte'?" Emery asked, looking for something at least somewhat pertinent to say to all this, besides "Yup," and "Uh-huh."

"The goddess Astarte?"

"Yup -- uh-huh."

"Worshipped by the Phillistines, Greeks, Romans, Sicilians, throughout Europe and North Africa?"

"Yup. That's the one. The Norse worshipped her under the name Freya. goddess of love and fecundity. From Freya came the name of the day of the week, 'Friday'. Frida, sometimes spelled with an 'e' -- F-r-i-e-d-a -- means 'beautiful'."

"Didn't you tell me you met a girl in Paris, or was it Venice, who had that name -- Frida?"

It was a long story.