Amafis

He met her on a Monday. The previous Sunday he had returned from Samarkand, where he was collaborating with Nikolay Veselovsky on the excavations. By a blessed chance, the train had stopped overnight due to heavy snowfall, and that circumstance had forced travelers to spend the night in a decaying and cold station.

A few months earlier, amid of discovery fever, Nikolay asked him to accompany him. He wanted his opinion on the murals and paintings found in the strata dated to the 7th century AD. Following Nikolay’s explanations, he carefully observed the murals and for a moment, it seemed to him that one of the figures represented on the mural, in which she appeared accompanying the King of Samarkand, was following him with her eyes. She was a very beautiful woman. Black eyes, like her hair, jet-black, sensual lips, and a luminous, unforgettable face. He asked Nikolay about that lady but her presence in the mural was a mystery. In ancient texts, she was not referred to and no scholar could explain its origin.

He asked at the station for a hotel where he could spend the night. An employee at the station provided him with an address. He walked for ten minutes and when he was about to enter, a female voice spoke his name:

“Hi Mikhail. It’s me. Amafis. I have escaped my confinement just to be with you tonight”.

Those hours were the happiest of his life.

A few days later, she received a telegram from Nikolay in which she explained an unprecedented fact. For a few hours, the lady in the mural had vanished, reappearing the next day in the same place of as that mural.

La conoció un lunes. El domingo anterior había regresado de Samarcanda, donde colaboraba en las excavaciones con Nikolay Veselovsky. Por una bendita casualidad, el tren se había detenido durante toda una noche debido a una intensa nevada, y esa circunstancia había obligado a los viajeros a pernoctar en una estación decadente y fría.

Unos meses antes, en plena fiebre de descubrimientos, Nikolay le pidió que le acompañara. Quería que le diera su opinión sobre los murales y pinturas encontradas en los estratosfechados en el siglo VII d.C. Siguiendo las explicaciones de Nikolay, observaba atentamente los murales y durante un instante, le pareció que una de las figuras representadas en el mural, en el que aparecía acompañando al rey de Samarcanda, le seguía con la mirada. Se trataba de una mujer bellísima. Ojos negros, como su pelo, color azabache, labios sensuales y un rostro…