FSF, May 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  Firooz was ready, when he passed between tall trees into a small clearing, to rein in the mare and leap to the ground between the two animals. He grabbed for the collar of the sand-colored bitch but she, startled and snarling, eluded him, bounded over the sweet grass and leapt upon the other, smaller dog. Courageous or stubborn, it shook her off the first time and stood its ground, growling ferociously. It was scarcely more than a puppy. Wrapping the excess fabric of his jallabiya about his forearm, Firooz stepped forward to separate them but stumbled and fell. By the time he regained his feet, the bitch hound had torn open the puppy's throat and stood over her fallen foe, jaws red and dripping. Still growling, the puppy lay on its side, panting from the new scarlet mouth in its throat as well as the one it had been born with, bleeding heavily from both.

  Saddened by the bad end to such outsize courage, Firooz cuffed the hound aside and severed the younger dog's spine with a single stroke of his Damascus blade. For a long moment, he regarded the small corpse, while the hound lay at her ease, licking her chops, and the mare cropped at the grass between her feet. Clearly, the dead dog was not wild, native to the desolation—had been cared for, tended, for its woolly black coat gleamed where not matted and dulled by blood and it appeared well nourished. Heavy shoulders and sturdy limbs suggested it had not been a courser; though not fully grown, it would not have become large enough to threaten big predators, bears, wolves, leopards: it was surely not a hunter's dog.

  Puzzled and regretful, Firooz did not at first properly hear or understand the muffled wailing that rose almost between his feet. The hound had returned, to nose interestedly at the corpse. He shoved her away again and gently lifted the dead dog aside.

  It had died protecting its charge. In a perfectly sized depression in the grass lay the crying babe, naked but for spatters of the dog's scarlet blood. Firooz's first, terrible impulse was to kill it, too, and ride away.

  The hound was back again, licking the blood from the baby's perfect skin. Her soft, damp tongue seemed to calm it—him—and after a time the babe ceased wailing. Looking away, Firooz cleaned and sheathed his sword. He didn't know what to do.

  He knew what to do. Removing his rolled prayer rug from the mare's back, he wrapped the dead dog in it and fastened it again behind the saddle. The horse bridled and shied at the scent of blood. He took a clean scarf from the saddle bag. Kneeling by the baby, he nudged the hound aside for the last time. He moistened a corner of the scarf to wipe away the remaining traces of blood. The quiet baby stared up at him with a knowing, toothless smile. Picking up the baby, Firooz wound the scarf about his pliant body—somehow he knew how to hold him so he didn't complain. Firooz couldn't figure out how to mount the mare while holding the baby, so he took the reins, called the hound to heel, and set out walking back to the caravan. Along the way, he decided to name the baby Haider, after his grandfather.

  Stranger things than discovering an abandoned child in the wilderness had occurred in the hundreds of years since caravans began traveling between Samarkand and Baghdad. The doctor who accompanied the caravan proclaimed Haider fit. A nursing goat was found to provide milk. The dead dog was buried with dignity, its grave marked by a cairn of stones beside the road. Firooz's uncle said he should raise Haider as his son, to which Firooz replied, “I am unmarried and too young to be a father. He shall be my brother."

  Haider grew and prospered. Firooz, too, prospered. In time, he married his uncle's daughter as had been arranged in their childhood. In time, he took his uncle's place at the head of the caravan. His wife did not travel with him, but his brother Haider did. In all this time, Haider had become a handsome, pious, merry young man; he, too, was appropriately and happily wed, and when the brothers departed for distant Baghdad their wives remained together in the comfortable Samarkand house, caring for Haider's children, two small boys and a lovely girl. For the elder brother's marriage, though happy, remained childless: his wife quickened readily enough but always lost the baby before its time. Their family—indeed, the unhappy not-mother herself—urged Firooz to take a second wife, but always he refused. He loved his wife well, he said, and as for heirs he had his young brother and his brother's sons.

  The caravan was heading again for Baghdad. Reaching the spot marked by the dog's grave's cairn, Firooz called a halt, although it was scarcely noon. There was a spring here and often game nearby. He called his brother to him. “You have often heard of how, by the will of God, I found you,” he said. “We have passed the grave of your first protector many times, but I have never shown you the place where I found you, not so far away. While our companions hunt, let us go there."

  They took with them two fine hounds, descendants of the first bitch. Now and again they sighted game but, though the hounds complained, did not loose them. Firooz felt he knew his heading exactly although it was now twenty-one years since he followed the long-lost buck deer. They entered the broken country, then the region of strange spires and canyons and lush vegetation. Haider exclaimed at the beauty of the place, but Firooz felt an odd urgency pulling at him and led his brother on without pausing. When they came to the narrowly enclosed woods, the hounds strained at their leashes and, as they progressed farther among the tree shadows, bayed.

  They were answered by furious barking, of a timbre Firooz, twenty-one years later, recognized. Keeping a strong hand on his hound's leash, he spurred his horse forward.

  Awaiting them in the clearing, stalwart, as if the years had not passed, was a half-grown dog fleeced like a black lamb, which Firooz could not distinguish from the dog he had killed and buried. The two men dismounted hastily. Without needing to be asked, Firooz took the leash of the second straining hound. The black dog continued to bark as Haider gingerly approached, but these were clearly cries of joy and welcome. Falling to his knees, Haider embraced the animal. When he looked up at his brother, Firooz saw tears on his cheeks. “I seem to know this dog,” he said.

  "It cannot be the same one,” said Firooz, but he was confused by this marvel.

  Properly introduced, the hounds made friends with the black dog, which Haider began calling Iman as if he had always known her name. Iman gratefully accepted several pieces of dried meat, and showed the men a spring and small pond as artfully placed under the overhanging cliff as if an architect had designed it. Beyond the high scarps around this place, the sun was lowering. Firooz and his brother washed at the spring, laid out their prayer rugs toward Holy Mecca, and made the declaration of their faith. Firooz's rug still bore faint stains of blood.

  Haider built a small fire and prepared coffee. The hobbled horses grazed contentedly on grass sweeter than any they had encountered since departing Samarkand, while the three dogs lay about—Iman always near her master—panting, happy. The brothers reclined with their coffee, talking of matters of no importance, but not speaking of marvels.

  After, heated with the spirit of the coffee, they removed their garments and embraced. They were men, they were fond of each other, they were long away from their wives. No words needed to be spoken as each gave pleasure to the other, as none had ever been spoken.

  Yet afterward, when they woke from slumber and lay side by side, content, Haider said, “My brother, do you truly not regret having no children?"

  Firooz considered. It was not a question he had not had to answer before. “It saddens me,” he said, “that my wife cannot bear our children safely, for she so wishes to be a mother. And yet, one day she may, for I myself was my father's late, unexpected child, after his wife had been barren for many years. As for my own wishes—it was God's will to grant me a brother after both my parents had died. My uncle told me to call you son, but it was a brother God gave me and I have never not been glad of you. Now, moreover, there are your sons and daughter at home, whom I could not value more if they were my own."

  "This is what you say, and it is a fine answer. Is it what you feel?” Haider rose to his feet, as naked as the day Firooz found him. As Firooz admired him, Haider said, “I believe I ca
n give you a child of your own blood—and mine,” and as Firooz watched, amazed, the handsome young man was transformed into a beautiful young woman. “Ask no questions,” she said, kneeling at his side and placing her hand on his lips, “for I cannot answer them.” She kissed his mouth.

  They made love again, and it was not so very different than before, except that Haider gave only, did not take. Indeed, when he remembered it later, Firooz felt he preferred the manliness of Haider as he had been or the different womanliness of his own wife.

  When both were spent, the woman who had been his brother kissed him again, and rose, and gathered up the garments of a man. As she drew them on, her form appeared to melt within the fabric, assuming again the guise of Firooz's brother Haider. Beard grew on cheeks now more wide and flat, around lips more thin and hard. The long sable glory of the woman's hair drifted away, leaving only black stubble on Haider's well-shaped skull. “We should return to the camp,” he said, offering a hand to help Firooz up.

  Grasping it, Firooz held the small, smooth hand of the woman. He started and, as he blinked, saw for an instant the woman encumbered in outsize man's clothing, but the vision fled when his brother's gripping hand and strong right arm hauled him to his feet. Numbed by astonishment, frightened, he stumbled about, donning his own clothes while Haider rolled up their rugs and repacked the coffee service. The younger man mounted his horse easily, called to the dog, Iman, who came readily, keeping a sane distance from the horse's hooves.

  Haider appeared to remain Haider, a man, for the rest of the journey to Baghdad. Still, Firooz continued troubled. Perhaps it had been simply a dream, his brother's transformation—they did not speak of it, nor came there again an occasion that he might touch his brother, see him whole and nude and prove that vision false. Yet sometimes, regarding Haider over an evening's fire, Firooz thought the younger man looked ill, drawn and pale; sometimes, as they rode, the straight-backed youth appeared for an instant to slump in his saddle and to resemble more a weary woman than an energetic, cheerful man. The black dog—which followed Haider everywhere, received choice morsels from his bowl, sometimes rode perched before him on the saddle, held safe by his strong arm—would bark, Haider would smile and shake his head, and Firooz blink.

  In the great city of Baghdad, Firooz conducted his business out of the caravansary maintained by the merchants of Samarkand, selling, buying, bartering, trading. It was already a profitable venture. For some days business occupied him to the exclusion of any other concern. Then a late-arriving caravan brought him a sad letter from his wife in Samarkand: she had not told him before his departure that she believed herself with child and it was just as well for, by God's will, she had lost this baby too, soon after he left. Yet she was well, recovered from the injury to her body if not the wound to her soul; her sister (by which she meant Haider's wife) was a constant comfort, Haider's children constant joys. She awaited her husband's return with fond resolve.

  Haider entered Firooz's chamber as he finished reading the letter and set it aside, his eyes wet. “You are once again not to be an uncle,” Firooz said.

  "I know. My wife, also, wrote to me.” Haider poured cool water for his brother, offered a scented kerchief to wipe his eyes. “I grieve with you."

  Firooz drank. “Nevertheless,” he said, “I meant what I said, the day you found Iman.” (Hearing her name, the dog yapped, before curling up for a nap.) “I should like a child, for my poor wife's sake, but I have no need of one.” He held out a hand for his brother to grip.

  Though Haider's well-known, well-loved face did not change, it was a woman's hand Firooz grasped, small boned and soft, and a woman's full, quickening belly to which his palm was pressed. “You are to be a father, brother,” Haider said in his deep, full voice, “and I a mother.” He held Firooz's hand to his belly a moment longer, exerting a man's strength to prevent his recoiling. “Although I should prefer your wife raise the child, as I have other responsibilities."

  "How is this possible?"

  "Do you question the will of merciful and compassionate God?"

  "Are you a jinni? An ifrit?"

  "I am a creature of earth even as yourself, not a being of fire. I am a man: your brother. And a woman—not your sister nor your wife, but the mother of your unborn child. Firooz, my dear, there is no more I can tell you. I mean you only good."

  Firooz recoiled when Haider approached again.

  "I came,” Haider said with a gentle smile, “to take you away from your new sorrow and your weary business. Tomorrow we go to the Friday Mosque to say our prayers among the ummah. This evening I intend to dedicate to your comfort and ease. Come, brother. This other matter need not concern you for some months yet. Come."

  Still troubled, Firooz gave in. Leaving the disappointed Iman behind, Haider led Firooz out into the streets of the city, first to a hammam as splendid as the finest mosque. Here they bathed—Firooz felt immeasurable relief when he saw that Haider, wearing no more than a cloth around his hips, appeared no less masculine than he ought, his belly flat and firm, his chest and shoulders broad. Attendants massaged them in turn; others shaved the hair from their scalps and bodies, as was meet, oiled and perfumed their beards; still others brought coffee when at length they reclined on soft couches and did not speak.

  From the hammam, they went on to the house of a gentleman of their acquaintance, an elderly merchant who left the traveling to his sons and nephews, where they were fed dishes from distant lands and offered conversation of the kind to be encountered only in great cities.

  Finally, pleasantly weary and replete, they returned to Firooz's rooms at the caravansary. Iman greeted them with great joy, not lessened by the little bowl of tidbits Haider had smuggled under his robes from their dinner. Firooz seated himself again before his accounts and inventories.

  "No,” said Haider, firm. Drawing his brother to his feet, he undressed Firooz and laid him down on the couch, removed his own clothing, blew out the lamp.

  Making love, Firooz was uncertain from moment to moment whether the person in his arms was a strong, slender, forceful man or a soft, yielding, fecund woman. For one night, it seemed, it didn't matter.

  A month later, they departed Baghdad at the head of a caravan laden with the goods of all western Islam as well as infidel Europe and savage Africa. Some months into the journey, they came again to the cairn of stones by the road and here again they halted. As camp was set up, the black dog Iman became agitated. She circled the grave of her predecessor several times, then, barking and whining, made Haider accompany her in investigating it again. She led him to the edge of the encampment and gazed long across the plain where, beyond the horizon, lay the place she had been found. At last, Haider went to his brother, the dog whining and yapping at his heels, and said, “I must go. Will you come with me?"

  The place, when they came to it, had not changed, but Haider had. Dismounting from his horse, he was no longer a sturdy young merchant but a frail, weary woman whose inappropriate, ill-fitting garments did nothing to disguise the belly round and full as a melon, the brimming breasts like ripe pears. Frightened as much for as of her, Firooz ran to take her arm. “It is early, I would have thought,” she said. “I should have known God would lead me here, again, to bear my child."

  "There is no midwife,” Firooz protested, “no shelter."

  "We shall manage."

  Her labor was short, though she bit her lips to bleeding from the pain and clenched her fists so tight as to leave bruises on Firooz's hand and cause the dog that lay on her other side, shoulders under her hand, to yelp. When his son came, Firooz was ready to catch him, marveling, weeping, to lift him, all bloody and damp, to his cheek. He severed the cord with the blade that had killed Iman's predecessor. The mother pushed out the afterbirth onto the rug stained by much older blood and lay back, resting her aching legs. “Is he beautiful?” she asked.

  "He is beautiful,” the father said, tender, cleaning the baby with fresh water from the spring.

&
nbsp; "Give him my breast,” she said, “for I think I shall not keep it long."

  While the baby suckled, the man washed the woman, prepared a clean place for her to lie and coffee to soothe and revive her. When the baby slept, tiny hand curled around a lock of Iman's fur, the woman rose slowly to her feet. “Bring me my clothing, please, Firooz,” she said.

  As she dressed, the transformation occurred, so subtly Firooz could not determine the instant he saw no longer the mother of his son but his brother Haider. The young man knelt by his nephew but did not touch. “What will you call your son?"

  "Khayrat."

  Haider smiled. The old word meant good deed. “A fine name.” He stood again. “We should return to camp. It will be dark soon."

  "Will you carry him?"

  "No, brother. I meant him for you."

  There was no other man in the caravan who remembered Firooz's finding Haider twenty-two years before, none to call his finding Khayrat other than good fortune for fatherless babe and childless father alike. When, months later in Samarkand, Firooz's wife took Khayrat from her husband's arms, she was nearly reconciled to her own barrenness.

  Haider never again, to his brother's knowledge, became a woman; never, in word or action, admitted to being more than Khayrat's fond uncle. The dog Iman was spoiled and petted by children and adults alike, though she never forgot where her love and loyalty lay, never slept where she could not hear Haider's breath. She bore litters to passing dogs, and every puppy resembled her, and when after a long life at last she died, there was another fleecy black bitch to be his companion.

  The years passed, between Samarkand and Baghdad, bringing the family instants of joy and good fortune, sorrow and bad luck, as God had written in their fates. Haider's wife died of a fever, her children still young. The family mourned but went on, as it must. Haider did not marry again. When they were old enough, his sons—and later Khayrat—journeyed with the caravan to and from Baghdad. Grown to manhood, they led it, and their fathers remained at home.