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Someone sees the Alhambra in this painting… There, in the distance, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, in Granada — the palace that the last Moor, Boabdil of the Nasrid dynasty, gazed upon in tears, bidding it farewell forever…
Someone sees a house on the shore of a lagoon in Niau — an atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia. In Tahitian, the name of the atoll means “coconut palm.” It was discovered in 1820 by the Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who named it Greig Island…
And someone else sees a villa in Turkey, in Kuşadası, where the great-granddaughter of Mehmed VI Vahideddin — the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire — lives, after returning from exile in Egypt…
And what, then, do all these places have in common? Love…
In dreams, just as in sleep, everything is tangled, stripped of logic and common sense. Other laws prevail there. The Alhambra may find itself on the shores of the Aegean Sea, while Fethiye and Kuşadası may be somewhere in Polynesia… And, indeed, it is so easy to confuse Tahiti with Haiti.
In any case, “the palace, where reed pipes are trilling” is a dream house, where love rules so simply and effortlessly. It is the house that everyone, always, longs to reach — the house one wishes at least to stop by and visit. Even if only for a day… Even if only for a night… Even if only to see it in a painting… exactly as it is… when one can bear it no longer…
Hey… apa-apa-ama-oaete… vana-fau-fa… amou-onaaa…
