A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom

by John Boyne

  “Back in Ohrid,” I said, for this was the town where my mother and he had met.

  “No,” he said, looking down at the sand. “Not in Ohrid. In Cappadocia.”

  “Cappadocia is in the Ottoman Empire, Father,” I told him. “You have never traveled as far as that.”

  He smiled at me, stroking my face with his hand, and shook his head, as if I were the one in the wrong.

  “It was Cappadocia,” he insisted. “I have traveled further than you know. As have you, my son. My journeys might be at an end now, but so many lie in wait for you. Do your memories never surprise you? Do you not dream of the past and the future and recognize both with equal clarity?” He leaned forward and grasped me by the wrist, a hint of his once-intimidating strength returning in that moment as he gripped me tightly. “Your shadow falls both behind you and before you while you stand between the two pretenders, a mask across your eyes.”

  I felt a shiver run down my spine, something otherworldly that unsettled me deeply. His confusion was too upsetting for me so I stood up and walked back toward the walls with my tools, hacking a loose piece of rock from the surface. Holding it in my hands, I used my chisel and hammer to carve a rough portrait of Marin’s face into the stone and, when I was finished, I blew the dust away and held it up to the light. Not my finest work, but a passable portrait.

  “See, Father?” I said, walking back to him. He was slumped over now, as if he had fallen asleep. “Isn’t this better than fighting? This stone will last forever. It will still be here long after we have both become one with the dust.”

  I held it out to him, saying his name over and over, even as the tears fell down my cheeks. Finally, I let the stone drop to the ground and gathered my tools before placing his body on the back of my horse and leading it slowly back toward our village, where we would soon begin the burial rites.

  MEXICO

  A.D. 752

  THE FUNERAL TOOK PLACE before the sun went down and, afterward, as my mother’s spirit traveled onward toward the unknown place, I felt a deep sense of melancholy to know that I would never see her or my father, who had predeceased her by only a few months, again. Their bodies lay in the same earth now, their quarrels hushed at last, their bones intermingling as they began the business of transforming themselves in communion with the soil and the worms into new forms of life. As my mother’s shroud disappeared beneath a blanket of loam and mud, my sister Adria drew attention to herself with an outpouring of the most dramatic keening, falling to her knees while tearing at her clothes and hair, determined that all who surrounded her should be in no doubt regarding the depth of her grief. Her husband was not there to console her. The man had grown so thin in recent months that it was frightening to see his bones press against his skin. It was as if his skeleton were trying to break through its translucent casing. And so it fell to my wife, Kalisha, to drag her to her feet and offer words of comfort. I considered this contemptible behavior on Adria’s part since she had so often been a source of conflict between our parents and had in fact been responsible for the argument that caused my mother to lose her temper and collapse in a faint, hitting her head so hard against the stone floor that she took to her bed, dazed and incoherent, before leaving us in the night, a lonely end to a life that had been filled with kindness and love. The fight had been over a piece of marketplace gossip that suggested Adria was behaving indiscreetly with a handsome boy barely on the cusp of manhood, the grandson of one of my late father’s friends. Adria did not deny the accusation. In fact, she seemed to take a certain pride in her seduction of the lad.

  Although I retained a natural loyalty toward my sister, I had long since grown disenchanted by her behavior, not least because she had taken against my wife from the moment I first brought her to Teotihuacan, treating her like a person who could not be trusted and going out of her way to be unpleasant. At first, her spitefulness had been subtle—referring to her by my first wife’s name, for example, or leaving the table one place short when she cooked for the family—but in time it became obvious that these little acts of tyranny were designed to hurt. There was a possessiveness to Adria that had always unsettled me and we shared such dark secrets that I had begun to feel that it might be healthier if there were more distance between us.

  “Why does she hate me so?” Kalisha asked one evening as we walked along the Avenue of the Dead, making our way toward the Pyramid of the Sun. The structure itself was centuries old and I liked to imagine my forefathers dragging stones toward it under the gaze of the Cerro Gordo, confident that their descendants would enjoy the fruits of their labors until the end of time. The designs across the rockface depicted panthers, snakes, elephants, as well as beasts that were unfamiliar to me, and whenever I pressed my hand against the stone, I felt that I was drawing in the essence of generations past.

  Once, as I climbed to the summit, I had stood alone to stare across the landscape of the city and a combination of blistering heat and an empty stomach must have played tricks on me, for I experienced a series of curious visions. The pictures that flickered across my mind seemed so real that the sun rose and set twice more before my daze began to clear. During that time, I felt the spirit of Spearthrower Owl descend upon me and since then, whenever I had felt in need of inspiration, I had come here, hoping that I would receive another revelation but, to my disappointment, the phenomenon had never been repeated since. “What did I ever do to insult her?”

  “It’s not you,” I said, lifting our hands together and kissing her fingers tenderly. A small boy walking past giggled at our display of affection, and when I stamped my foot against the cracked clay beneath me to startle him, he ran off with a scream. “She’s had a bad strain to her character since childhood. There are things that she’s done—”

  “Such as?”

  I hesitated. I did not like keeping secrets from my wife but had decided against revealing some of the more iniquitous moments of my life.

  “She has a temper,” I replied. “And she hates to be challenged. In your case, I think it’s because she’s always felt envious of any woman who I love more than her.”

  “Was she equally rude to Laria?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Although, since she lived for only a few hours after our wedding, Adria didn’t have much opportunity to come between us. But it’s best not to think about these things. She can’t hurt you in any way, my beloved. No one can. Not while I have breath in my body.”

  Kalisha appeared unconvinced. A gentle woman, she hated conflict, and it hurt her to be on the receiving end of any animosity, particularly when she had worked so hard to win the affections of my family. Of course, Adria’s great triumph over my wife was that she was now the mother of six children while Kalisha and I had yet to bring a baby into the world. There had been moments of hope, when her belly had started to grow big, but on each of those occasions, she had woken in the night with blood spilling down her legs, the child lost to us before it even had a chance to witness its first dawn.

  “Brother, you must be pleased with your choice of bride,” Adria remarked on her most recent visit to our home, and I’d turned to her warily, certain that some clever insult was about to come my way.

  “I am,” I agreed, doing my best to make my voice heard above the clamor of my nephews and nieces, who were like farmyard animals in their want of manners. “Is there a reason you suggest this now?”

  “Because life must be a lot more peaceful when you’re not surrounded by shrieking children,” she replied, waving a hand toward her boisterous flock. “A barren field has a certain serenity to it, after all.”

  Kalisha looked across in shock at the crude nature of these remarks before stepping outside, lost in her own thoughts. Although initially reluctant to become a mother, she now longed for it and her monthly disappointment had become a source of great distress to her.

  “Was that really necessar
y?” I asked, rising now to follow my wife. “Why must you be so cruel?”

  Adria merely shrugged her shoulders. “Honestly?” she asked. “It helps to pass the time, Brother. I have to find my pleasures where I can.”

  * * *

  • • •

  As I was, at heart, a peaceful man with no passion for warfare, perhaps it was a little incongruous that I had been crafting swords since I was a boy. There was such satisfaction to be found in selecting a choice piece of steel, heating it to the right temperature in the scalding heart of a forge and then using my hammers to create a fine, smooth blade. The design of the grip was particularly important to me, as was finding an appropriate jewel for the pommel, and I signed each of my creations with the symbol of the pyramid on the chappe, an autograph to mark the sword as one of my own. My skills as a craftsman were well known and, while I was content to make a weapon for anyone who could afford my price, I was at my happiest when asked to create an elaborate sword for some wealthy soldier who wanted his instrument of death to be admired by his victims even as he used it to remove their heads.

  It was while I was working on one such piece for a local ajaw, a beautiful foil with a star-shaped emerald as its centerpiece, that my cousin Hagi entered my workshop on his sticks, followed by the boy, Perro. Any sword that bore my pyramid needed to be of the highest merit and, unfortunately, Perro had not proved himself to be worthy of the task and so, a few days earlier, I had been forced to tell him that I could use him no more. He’d taken the news badly, although not quite as badly as Hagi, who had been avoiding me ever since. I felt a certain sense of dread, therefore, when I saw them arrive together.

  Putting down my tools, I stepped away from the forge and greeted them politely.

  “You’re busy, Cousin?” asked Hagi, looking around at the collection of blades, hilts and scabbards that were scattered on tables in various stages of preparedness.

  “As ever,” I replied.

  “Too much for one man, I suppose?”

  I smiled. It hadn’t taken long for him to get to the point. “Hagi,” I said. “I know you’re upset that I wasn’t able to continue Perro’s employment, but—”

  “I’m just worried for you, that’s all,” he said, sitting down and propping his crutches up against the wall. “To have so many commissions and be forced to spend such long hours here. Your wife must miss you, surely?”

  “My wife is content,” I said, a note of caution in my tone. I understood his desire to recover his friend’s job, but I didn’t appreciate his invoking Kalisha’s name. Still, recognizing that I’d caused some difficulties for Perro, I stepped over to the steel box I had built into the wall, and for which I and I alone had the key. Opening it, I withdrew some coins and handed them to him. “I know it’s not much,” I said. “But this should keep you going until you find something else. You’re a skilled worker, my friend, and in time perhaps you will—”

  “If he’s so skilled, then why are you sending him away?” asked Hagi, raising his voice now.

  “Because he’s not good enough,” I said. “Not for me. It’s that simple.”

  “I know I can improve,” said Perro, speaking now for the first time. “If you would have patience with me, I’m sure that in time I—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t have time to be anyone’s teacher. My work keeps me busy enough as it is without adding mentorship to my duties.”

  “Cousin,” said Hagi, standing up and hobbling toward me, taking my hand in his. “Perro tells me that if he cannot return to work here, then he will be left with no choice but to return to Tapachula.”

  “Well, so be it,” I said, uncertain why he thought this would have any particular effect on me. After all, I barely knew the boy, I was not responsible for his welfare, and if he was to return to his own family in the south of the country, then I would likely have forgotten him before they’d even finished welcoming him home.

  “But his village is three weeks’ ride from here,” continued Hagi, raising his voice now in frustration. “If he goes, he will never return.”

  I stared at him, feeling a growing sense of irritation. Turning to Perro, I asked him whether he might leave Hagi and me alone for a few minutes and he nodded before stepping outside. When he was gone, I closed the door and turned back to my cousin.

  “What is this all about?” I asked. “I know you’re fond of the boy, but—”

  “I’m more than fond of him,” he said. “We care deeply for each other.”

  “You don’t mean that you’re still engaged in intimacies with him?”

  “I love him, Cousin,” said Hagi. “He must stay here. I cannot go with him. Tapachula is not the place for a cripple like me. His family would never accept me.”

  I considered it for a moment but knew that I could not change my mind. “I’m sorry,” I replied. “I don’t want to hurt you, you must know that, but you’re behaving like a fool.”

  “A fool?” he repeated, looking outraged.

  “Yes, a fool. Find a wife, Hagi. I know you think that no woman would want you with your twisted—”

  “It has nothing to do with that,” he insisted. “I don’t want a wife; can’t you understand that? I want Perro! Only Perro!”

  “And I want to return to my work,” I sighed, running a hand across my eyes in exhaustion. “So, if there’s nothing else?”

  “I’ve never asked you for anything before, Cousin,” he said, stepping so close to me now that the look of determination on his face frightened me a little. “I’ve been your friend and ally since the day my mother, may her name be remembered forever in glory, brought me to your house as a child. But I’m asking you for this. Let Perro work for you. Please. Train him. Allow him to stay in the village. I’m begging you, Cousin. Do this for me and I will never ask for anything again. Not as long as I live.”

  I turned away, wondering whether there was a way that I could give him what he wanted. The look of desperation on Hagi’s face was almost enough to convince me to reconsider, but, in the end, I knew that I had to put the consistency of my craftsmanship before any personal loyalties and so, with regret, I shook my head.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “There is very little that I wouldn’t do for you if I could. But you ask too much, my friend. On this matter, I cannot help you.”

  He closed his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose, remaining that way, as if trapped in stone, for almost a minute. When he opened them again, he looked at me with an expression I had never seen before, one of contempt mixed with a desire to inflict pain. Such coldness unsettled me, and I hoped that he might say something to forgive my refusal, but instead, he simply gathered his sticks and walked slowly out of the workshop.

  EGYPT

  A.D. 767

  LOOKING BACK, I wonder whether perhaps I behaved selfishly in placing my standing as an artist over a friendship that had endured since childhood. But having spent my entire life on the banks of the Canal of the Pharaohs, painting images on the hulls of the ships that transported their goods along the towns and cities between the Nile and the Red Sea, I did not want to see my position usurped by any of my competitors. It was the same consideration I put into choosing my commissions, preferring the more complicated and extravagant ideas, and it pleased me to know that the routes of the silk trade were populated by dozens of boats enlivened by my art.

  And so, when the great Caliph Al-Mansur, may his name be remembered forever in glory, announced that he was closing the passageway as punishment to the rebellious states in the south, I grew worried that my business would no longer be viable. My wife, Khepri, an optimist by nature, did her best to reassure me that we would survive on what we had saved until the notoriously fickle Caliph reversed his decision, but I could tell that she was worried, too, particularly now that our family of two had become three, our son, Eshaq, being almos
t a year old by then.

  This came as a further strain on a life that was already suffering under the weight of uninvited troubles. My beloved cousin, Hager, with whom I had scarcely exchanged a cross word in two decades, had become estranged from me. Even when I became a father, he failed to offer his congratulations or to bring a gift for the child, despite knowing how long Khepri and I had waited to be so blessed. And, as if one family discord was not enough, my sister Abra’s regular complaints and insults, not to mention her insistent belief that I could somehow resolve them for her, had become so overwhelming that I dreaded seeing her walking toward me, her face always red with fury and perceived slights.

  “We could move further north,” I suggested one evening when Khepri and I were discussing our savings, which were beginning to diminish as my contracts dried up. “Toward Alexandria, perhaps?”

  She looked across at me in surprise. “I thought you didn’t want to leave your hometown?” she said.

  “I don’t,” I replied. “But if I cannot work, then we cannot eat. And I left it once before, remember? When I met you. So I’m not frightened of what the world might hold for me.”

  “And your family?” she asked. “I find it hard to imagine you living without them.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. After all, my parents were both dead, Hager and I weren’t speaking, and Abra was an endless source of distress. Perhaps it would do me good to start afresh elsewhere.

  “The only people I need are you and Eshaq,” I told her. “What do you say? There’s nothing to stop us leaving if we want to.”

  She considered it for a moment before nodding her head. “It could be a great adventure,” she said, her face lighting up as she smiled. “Why not?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Of course, when I told Abra of our plans to leave Ismaïlia, she grew enraged.