There's a candle in my window, Vina sang, but I don't have to tell you, you're feeling it already, the memory of it, pulling at your emotions. Swim to me. I can't listen to it myself. Not any more.
He clings to her, without touching her. They meet and whisper and shout and make each other up. Each is Pygmalion, both are Galatea. They are a single entity in two bodies: male and female constructed they themselves. You are my only family, he tells her. You are my only earth. These are heavy burdens, but she bears them willingly, asks for more, burdens him identically in return. They have both been damaged, are both repairers of damage. Later, entering that world of ruined selves, music's world, they will already have learned that such damage is the normal condition of life, as is the closeness of the crumbling edge, as is the fissured ground. In that inferno, they will feel at home.
He is clear about his purpose: by his labours to make himself worthy of her again. And when he's ready he'll find her, he'll make her real by touching her kissing her caressing her, and she'll do the same for him. Vina I'll be the ground beneath your feet and you, in this happy ending, will be all the earth I need.
- Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
