The Prospector Read Online Free Page B

‘to bathe, in the company of her many servants. As soon as she noticed the basket, she was curious to learn what was in it and sent one of her maidservants to fetch it. When she saw the infant crying in the cradle she was touched and, as the child’s beauty caused her tender feelings to grow even deeper, she resolved to save it.’ We recite the story by heart and we always stop at the place when the Pharaoh’s daughter adopts the child and names him Moses, because she’d saved him from the waters.
    There is one story that I love above all, it’s the one about the Queen of Sheba. I don’t know why I like it, but after talking about it so much I succeed in getting Laure to like it too. Mam knows this and sometimes, with a smile, she opens the big red book to that chapter and starts reading. I still know every sentence by heart, even today: ‘After Solomon had built such a magnificent temple for God, he built a palace for himself – which took fourteen years to finish – and gold glittered in every corner and the eyes of the world were turned upon the magnificence of the columns and sculptures…’ Then the Queen of Sheba appears, ‘who came from deep in the south to ascertain whether all that was said about the young prince was true. She came in magnificent circumstance and brought rich presents to Solomon, six score talents of gold’ – which would be approximately eight million pounds – ‘extremely precious pearls and perfumes the likes of which had never been seen.’ It isn’t the words I’m hearing, but Mam’s voice that is drawing me into the palace of Solomon, who has risen from his throne as the extremely lovely Queen of Sheba leads in the slaves rolling treasures across the floor. Laure and I really like King Solomon, even if we don’t understand why he forsook the Lord and worshipped the idols at the end of his life. Mam says that’s just the way it is, even the most righteous and powerful men can commit sins. We don’t understand how that can be possible, but we like the way he rendered his judgements and that magnificent palace he had built that the Queen of Sheba came to visit. But maybe what we really like is the book with its red-leather cover and the large golden sun, and Mam’s slow, gentle voice, her blue eyes glancing up at us between each sentence, and the sunlight lying ever so golden upon the trees in the garden, for I’ve never read any other book that made such a deep impression upon me.
    On afternoons when Mam’s lessons finish a little early, Laure and I go exploring in the attic of the house. There is a little wooden stairway that leads up to the ceiling and you just need to push open a trapdoor. Under the shingled rooftops it is dusky and the heat is stifling, but we love being up there. At each end of the attic there is a narrow garret window, with no panes, simply closed with poorly joined shutters. When you crack open the shutters, you can see way out over the landscape as far as the cane fields of Yemen and Magenta, and the peaks of Trois Mamelles and Rempart Mountain.
    I love staying up here in this secret place until dinner time and even later, after nightfall. My hiding place is the part of the attic that’s all the way at the end of the roof, on the side where you can see the mountains. There’s a lot of dusty, termite-eaten furniture – all that is left of what my great-grandfather had bought from the East India Company. I sit down on a very low seamstress chair and look out through the garret window towards the mountains jutting up from the shadows. In the middle of the attic there are large trunks filled with old papers, French reviews in bundles tied up with string. That’s where my father has put all of his old journals. Every six or seven months he makes a packet that he puts on the floor near the trunks. Laure and I often come up here to look at the pictures.