A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom

by John Boyne

  I shook my head, unconvinced, but allowed Hakang his indulgence, and when Peren lifted the stone and the tools and carried them outside to a shady area, my cousin turned back to me with an enormous smile on his face. I worried that he was exerting himself too much, for his face had grown quite flushed and he appeared to be lost in some sort of silent reverie.

  Hours later, when the sun began to set behind the mountains, Peren returned to the hut, presenting us with a sculpture of the four-armed Vishnu, a crown upon his head, an orb in his hand, and an intricate throne for him to sit upon. I examined it carefully, inspecting the depth of the cutting and the integrity of the stone, before being forced to admit that he was a man who had some skill, although it certainly needed refinement. Nevertheless, I remained concerned by his unorthodox views and expressed as much to Hakang.

  “We promised him a job, Cousin,” he replied, and his enthusiasm for the young man began to irritate me. I had never known him to care so much about any of the other workers before. What made this new arrival so special?

  “You promised,” I corrected him. “Not me.”

  “He will be a worthy addition, I’m sure of it. You always complain that you don’t have the time to design the entire statue alone, and when a gift from the Buddha falls into your lap like this, you turn away. Look, you’re already exhausted and it’s only been a few months. How will you feel by the end of it? Assuming you still have breath in your body.”

  I examined Peren’s work again, running my hands across the surfaces. It was good, yes, but it was not extraordinary. There were others onsite who were equally talented but who had not been offered any exalted position. Still, I had to admit that the young man had a skill that might surely grow in time, and that would only be to my advantage.

  In the end, I gave in to Hakang’s enthusiasm. “If you like him so much, then tell him to be here early tomorrow morning and I’m sure I’ll find something for him to do.”

  His face lit up. I could scarcely recall when I had last seen him so happy and it pleased me to give him such cheer, for his life was often a lonely one. Now that we were men, it seemed that he regretted the fact of his twisted limbs much more than he had when we were children, for he made no attempts to seek a wife; perhaps, I imagined, out of fear that eligible young women or their fathers would laugh at him. But still, despite his infirmity, he moved so quickly toward the door to give Peren the good news that I feared he might trip over his crutches and humiliate himself entirely.

  * * *

  • • •

  Almost a year after the project had begun, the statue was finally close to completion. As promised, the Buddha stood one hundred and twenty men in height, carved into the rock and looking out across the valley wearing a timeless expression that combined benevolence and sagacity.

  And yet, just as the joy of finishing was coming my way, tragedy struck. None of my family had come to visit the site during construction, so I was surprised to observe my sister Abir riding toward us at great speed one afternoon. When she reached the workshop, she jumped off her horse and came running over to Hakang and me with tears in her eyes and, after she spoke, I turned toward the enormous Buddha, wondering why he would betray me in such a cold-hearted fashion after I had devoted so much time and care to his construction. I longed for an answer and had to remind myself that this, of course, was not Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha himself, but just a replica, carved from a mountain. Stone, not deity.

  Perhaps, I thought, Peren had been right all along. Perhaps there was no benevolent God looking over us. Perhaps we were alone in the universe, with no past lives to atone for and no future lives to anticipate.

  YEMEN

  A.D. 552

  WHEN MY SISTER APPEARED with the news, I was already preparing to make the journey from Aden to Sana’a to present the Great Malik with the miniature figurines he had commissioned for the Honored Malikah’s birthday. The sixteen tiny statues were carved from butter wood and represented the Malik himself, his wife and their fourteen children. Each one was no bigger than the first phalanx of my thumb but the detail in the faces and bodies was, I thought, exceptional.

  Years earlier, when I had first started to craft my tiny sculptures, people had laughed at me. They’re so small, they said, why would anyone want such pathetic things? But once they observed the precision that went into carving every tiny face and body, they reconsidered their mockery and my order book had begun to fill.

  When Albia announced through tears that we needed to return home without delay, I glanced at my cousin, who had been out of humor all morning, ignoring the companionable jokes that usually defined our time together. Perhaps we both assumed that my father was beginning his journey from this world for the next, since Maurel had been ill of late, but when we arrived at our dwelling, a much more unexpected and sorrowful shock lay in store for us.

  For as long as I could remember, I had called Núria my aunt, but strictly speaking we were not related in any sense. However, we had always liked and respected each other, particularly since I’d embraced Hamu as a cousin, enjoying the kind of relationship with him that I had always longed to have with my long-since-disappeared brother.

  In those early years, Maurel had divided his affections equally between my mother and aunt, visiting the beds of each one on alternate nights, but as they grew older, he abandoned them almost entirely for younger women.

  But Núria’s health had deteriorated in recent months, too, and I’d discovered her on more than one occasion in the marketplace, seated on a bench while breathing heavily and pressing one hand against her chest. When I placed my own hand upon hers, it felt as if her heart were trying to break through the skin, and the panic in her eyes reflected the fear in my own. An apothecary visited her in our home but declared that women must suffer through their infirmities, for Allah had made it clear that their primary purpose was to bear children and to fulfill the tasks that men demanded of them. Only once did she take to her room for a day and, even then, we had to distract Maurel from noticing her absence in the kitchen.

  * * *

  • • •

  When death finally came for her, Núria had already spent most of her morning washing clothes, preparing food and feeding the livestock. Earlier she had cooked some fatoot with beef’s liver for Hamu and me before we set off for my workshop, and as she wrapped the mutabbaks that we regularly took with us for our lunch, I sensed an awkwardness in the air. Hamu and his mother had always loved each other dearly. That morning, however, things had felt very different.

  When Hamu had sat down on the turquoise pillow that he favored, Núria had turned away from him and he’d stared at the floor, an expression of utter abjectness on his face. It was obvious that my aunt had been crying and when she placed our breakfast before us, he’d reached for her hand, but she’d pulled away, saying, “Not now, Hamu; later,” before returning to her chores. Before we left the house, and while I was placing my sandals upon my feet, I overheard him speaking to his mother in a low voice, begging her forgiveness, and when I stepped inside, I found her seated at the table, her head in her hands, as if a great tragedy had been visited upon her. I looked from one to the other, but neither spoke, Hamu’s face growing red with a mixture of fury and embarrassment as he brushed past me on his crutches.

  I reached down to kiss the top of her head, the familiar and comforting scent of the apple perfume she used in her hair filling my senses, but as I walked away, she took my hand, pulling me back to her.

  “Did you know?” she asked, looking at me with a degree of disappointment in her eyes. “Are you a part of this?”

  “Did I know what?” I asked her, and she searched my eyes for an answer but, finding only ignorance there, released me, and I went on my way, confused by her question. It was the last time that we would see each other.

  Of course, their lives had been difficult from the start. Hamu had n
ot been born with twisted limbs; they had been the result of an accident when he was three years old. It was unfortunate in so many ways, not least of which was the fact that the girls of our town looked at him with great desire in their eyes, for there was not a boy in our village who possessed such astonishing physical beauty, and he would have been a much-sought-after husband had he not been cursed with this deformity.

  Núria, however, had always been a wonderful mother to him, and my mother, Farela, had grown fond of him, too, encouraging the friendship between the two of us, although once, in a moment of candor, she had confided in me that she did not trust him entirely.

  “Be careful of him, my son,” she told me, watching as he carved a pair of eagles into the handles of his new crutches. “You think he loves you as you love him, but I fear there is another side to him.”

  “And what side might that be?” I’d asked her in surprise.

  “Envy,” she replied. “Hamu hates your freedom, the skill you have with your hands, the fact that you have not been damaged physically. If he can ever find a way to hurt you, he will.”

  At the time, I had laughed it off, thinking it a ridiculous idea.

  There were times when I wondered whether it was Hamu’s good looks that made everyone adore him. I was certain that had I been as pretty, my father would have shunned me entirely or sent me to an orphanage and yet even he had an affection for this good-natured boy, treating him much as a benevolent uncle might, an affection that I never resented. In my innocence, I believed it was impossible not to love Hamu.

  It was my mother who discovered Núria’s body, soon after lunch, when she returned to the house and found her old friend lying in the dust behind the coop where the chickens hatched their eggs, her hand clutched to her chest and a terrible grimace affixed to her face. She ran to my father’s room in tears and he came outside to pick his lover’s body up, before carrying her inside the house and laying her upon the table.

  “Her heart,” he said quietly to my mother, taking his wife’s hand and kissing it, allowing a rare moment of tenderness to pass between them. “It must have given out on her at last.”

  When Hamu and I arrived home, we discovered my mother washing the body in preparation for the burial, which according to our custom had to be before the sun set. I wept copiously and unashamedly but, to my surprise, Hamu shed no tears, simply staring at his mother with an indecipherable expression on his face. He was trembling noticeably, though, and when I reached out to take his hand in friendship, he shook me off and rushed from the house, his crutches banging noisily upon the stone floor.

  Within hours, prayers were being said over Núria’s body, which had been wrapped in a shroud. Together, my father and I, along with two of our neighbors, carried her to the burial ground, where she was laid in a grave and covered in earth while her soul ascended for the final judgment of Allah.

  When we turned to go back home, I was surprised to find that Hamu was no longer there.

  * * *

  • • •

  I found it difficult to sleep that night, memories of my aunt running through my mind. Conscious of the long ride that lay ahead of me the following day, I rose early and decided that a walk might soothe my emotions. Strolling toward the shore where the fishermen had lined up their boats in a neat stripe along the beach, I glanced in the direction of the repair shop on the peninsula that represented the last port before the great and mysterious continent of Africa.

  It was quiet, save for the sound of the occasional bird in the air or animal scurrying through the undergrowth. Beneath my breath I hummed a love song that my late wife had often sung to me after we made love in the caves nearby, a place I rarely visited anymore. In fact, I had gone only once since her death; running my hand along the images carved into the stone I had been overwhelmed by the sensation, feeling a shock against my skin that was so powerful I pledged never to return.

  I had walked for some time and was thinking of turning back for home when I heard the sound of weeping and followed it carefully. A figure revealed itself slowly and to my surprise I discovered Hamu seated in the undergrowth, staring out to sea, tears rolling down his face. He startled when he saw me.

  “Cousin,” he said softly as I sat down next to him. I said nothing for a time, but when it seemed that his silence would prove interminable, I decided to speak.

  “I miss her already,” I said, picking up a handful of sand and allowing it to sieve through my fingers onto my toes. “But she lived a good and honest life. She would not want you to be unhappy, Hamu. Death comes to us all, my friend.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “I understand how it feels to lose someone you love,” I reminded him. “I understand what it is to mourn.”

  He hesitated for a moment, acknowledging the truth of that remark. “Still,” he said at last, shaking his head. “This is different. After all, you were not responsible for your wife’s death.”

  “No,” I admitted. “But then, you were not responsible for Núria’s either.”

  “I was.”

  “How?”

  “She saw me,” he whispered. “Last night. She saw me. That’s why she didn’t want to talk to me this morning.”

  I turned to look at him and frowned. “Saw you?” I asked. “Saw you doing what?”

  “You can’t guess?” he asked.

  “Cousin, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Parona and I,” he said, looking down and pressing a hand against his eyes as if to block out the world.

  I turned back to the sea, considering this. The only Parona I knew was the boy who had recently come to help me in my workshop, sweeping floors and sharpening my tools. A remarkably handsome and muscular youth, certainly, and one whom Hamu had taken under his wing, for they spent much time together, laughing and sharing private jokes.

  And then, of course, I understood.

  “You mean…?” I began, unwilling to put the profanation into words, and he looked back at me, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, before nodding.

  “She saw us together,” he said. “That is why she would not talk to me this morning. That is why her heart gave out on her. It is all my fault.”

  I could scarcely find the words to express my surprise. I had never imagined that my cousin had such a deviant taint to his nature, although I knew that such men existed, of course. There had been a boy in our village a few years earlier, for example, who had been of such a mind, and he had been murdered in his sleep on account of his perversion. And while the perpetrators had never been caught, it was believed by all that his parents had committed the act.

  “You must not indulge in such sinful thoughts,” I warned him eventually. “Allah has said—”

  “I don’t care what Allah has said,” he snapped, and I drew in my breath at the heresy.

  “Hamu!”

  “It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” he said, turning to me now with venom in his eyes. “Normal in every way. Legs that work. One wife already buried and another in your future, no doubt—”

  “Hamu,” I repeated, growing angry now. “You are grieving, so I will make allowances for any indiscretion on your part, but have a care with your tone.”

  “Everything, your entire life, has come easy to you,” he continued, ignoring my warning. “But what about me? What is there left for me?”

  I looked toward the water while Hamu calmed himself, saying nothing now. Somehow, I found myself reaching out and taking his hand in mine. He was, after all, my cousin and I loved him as deeply as he loved me. Nothing, I was sure, could ever change that.

  SRI LANKA

  A.D. 588

  THE ROAD FROM NEGOMBO to Anuradhapura was notoriously treacherous, taking me through mountainous terrain and those parts of the country where bandits and killers were known to dwell. Considering th
e value of the goods that I was carrying, I felt anxious about making the journey alone and had considered asking my cousin to accompany me, but, as he remained lost in his grief, I guessed that he would prefer to remain at home.

  I was riding to the capital for an audience with King Aggabodhi, who had commissioned me to create a set of bronze replicas of the royal family as a birthday gift for his Queen. Earlier in the year, when he dispatched his emissary to Negombo, our entire village had taken pride in my receiving such an honored assignment. Casting my own bronze from a mixture of copper, zinc, lead and bismuth, I worked day and night for months on the pieces—there were sixteen in all—before wrapping them in a fabric covering and placing them in my satchel for the journey ahead. I looked forward to visiting the royal palace and seeing the expression on the King’s face when I presented him with my work, the finest pieces that I had yet created.

  I expected that it would take me three days in total to reach the capital and, on my first night, I stopped in Padeniya, to eat, rest and allow my horse time to recover. The inn was situated in a long rectangular building, constructed entirely from stone, and three of the walls were divided by a dozen or more partitions where travelers could sleep on heavy blankets thrown on the floor. The landlord confirmed that there were a few still available that night and I left my bags in one, hoping that the man sleeping in the cell next to my own would not prove himself a thief. I glanced in his direction as I passed; his back was turned to me so I could not see his face, but something about the manner in which he lay there, with one leg wrapped behind the other, made me feel that I knew him from somewhere. The memory did not immediately reveal itself to me, however, so I continued on toward the center of the hostelry, where a large gathering place could be found, replete with tables and servant girls offering food and drink. At the rear of the structure was a place for livestock and the coop where the chickens hatched their eggs, along with a bathhouse. Entering the steaming chamber, I nodded to the three or four other men already relaxing in the water and, divesting myself of my clothing, stepped in to join them while a group of young women poured perfumes and balms about our shoulders, massaging their unguents into our hair. The heat of the bath relaxed me and I allowed myself a deep sigh as I stretched out and closed my eyes, the pores on my face opening to let the dirt of the roads seep from my skin.