“I never believed in my heart that you were dead!” he says. Asin takes his hands away from her shoulder but Narivan takes her hand in the air and kisses her fingers. Asin feels lost in time and place. She doesn’t know whether the things she had experienced, the life she had on the ship, all the hardship and misery, the stillborn babies and what she thought was her new life was even real or all had just happened in a nightmare. She has so many things to tell him. Narivan holds his instruments in his arms as if he is carefully holding a baby. He takes Asin to a narrow alley behind the square. Asin takes the oud from him, smelling its carved bowl, a scent so close to her childhood memories. She plays the strings with her fingertips slowly touching the chords and moving her around the smooth surface of the bowl, fondling and caressing it. The oud screeches softly like a lover reaching her climax. Asin smiles, satisfied. Narivan takes back the oud, gently kissing Asin’s head. He starts asking questions to where has Asin been all these years? How had she survived the ship wreck? Asin puts her palm over Narivan’s lips inviting him to stop the questioning for he has to answer her first! Why hadn’t they come to find her? And what had become of all the others? Her brothers and the rest of the group? Narivan kisses her palm and takes her into his arms, lowering the oud and holding it down not to separate them. He doesn’t want to let go and she doesn’t want to either. But the world will not stop in that moment and she needs her answers. Narivan starts speaking, using the phrase ‘do you remember?’ at the beginning of most of the things he says. Asin doesn’t like the phrase as if her memory has been undermined because she has been living among the sea people. Maybe she doesn’t like to remind the memories that come alive every time Narivan uses the phrase, the memories she had tried so hard to bury in his thoughts all these years.