“This is Nusel,” Clovis said to me. “His younger brother works for me when I’m gone.”
He shook my hand and spoke what I assumed to be a greeting, his head checked halfway through a bow as he noticed my fresh tattoo. Clovis placed his hand on Nusel’s shoulder and walked over to a stall holding a thin, weary-looking brown horse. The horse stirred at his approach and brushed its muzzle against Clovis’s head, who spoke to the animal in a soft voice as he rubbed its neck.
“Is this horse yours?” I asked.
“Yes. Nusel doesn’t know what to do with him. Poor guy, he is unsettled if I am not around.” He turned and spoke to the Arab stableman, who nodded every few seconds.
“It is too late in the morning to reach my home before midday. I suggested to Nusel that we relax with coffee until the sun’s zenith has passed.
“We should arrive at my home just before dark, in time for dinner. Are you hungry now?”
“Yes, very,” I said.
Clovis put his hands together and gave a slight bow as he spoke to Nusel. The stableman nodded and bowed deeply, then withdrew out the open side door. Nusel returned minutes later with three tall glass cups of black coffee along with bread and a large sugar-covered pastry. I mimicked Clovis’s bowing gestures as Nusel set the tray down between the stools on the dirt floor. Undaunted by the thick stench of manure hanging in the stagnant air, I broke off a section of the pastry and began to eat.
Clovis spoke at length with Nusel in Arabic, periodically translating for my benefit. The temperature rose relentlessly inside the barn as the day wore on. Of the three of us in the circle, I was the only one sweating.
“How are you holding up?” Clovis asked after the second cup of coffee.
“I’ll be fine.”
He leaned over to check the progress of the shadows visible through the open door. “We should leave.” He turned and spoke to Nusel, who stood up and began to round up pieces of tack hanging on the walls. Clovis motioned for me to help the stableman as he led the lean horse out of the stall and toward the back door of the barn. The sun dominated a cloudless blue sky. I carried the weathered leather yoke out to Nusel, who backed the horse up to an old, black-painted wagon. Clovis immediately began work at the leather straps that confined the animal.
“Put your bag in the back. We are leaving,” he said.
I placed both of our bags behind the seat and climbed up onto the bench. Clovis stepped up and sat next to me before taking a water-soaked leather bottle from Nusel’s outstretched hands. The reins cracked against the horse’s back, and we rolled out the open side gate. Nusel waved enthusiastically behind us as Clovis turned the corner. He turned south onto the wide boulevard, passing several abandoned buildings that had been half consumed by the relentless sand. The wagon’s wooden wheels reported of every small bump in the road.
“What’s the story with that town?” I asked Clovis.
“What do you mean?”
“It looks like it’s dying,” I answered.
“It is dead compared to what it once was. Take a look behind you, Evan. That is the town of Mocha, it gave the world coffee.”32
I turned and looked at the ghost town getting smaller behind us. “Al-Mocha is the same as the coffee mocha?”
“Yes, the highlands just above those inland dunes were the finest coffee growing regions in the world for many generations, but the beans were stolen and replanted in the tropical soils of Indonesia and the New World. Those lands proved much more fertile and eventually lured the trading ships away. The town has died a little more each decade since the Dutch and English ships left. It’s hard to believe that twenty thousand people lived there at its height.”
“How many live there today?”
“Less than a thousand, and they are mostly fishermen.”
“What happened to the rest of it?”
Clovis glanced back over his shoulder. “It was reclaimed by the desert. There is a saying in these parts, cities that rise from the sands too quickly, soon sink back into them.”
The bumps in the road smoothed to a dull vibration as he coaxed the horse to a gallop.
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Surely,” answered Clovis.
“Why are you so averse to flying?”
He leaned forward on the bench, folded the leather reins over in his hands to take up the slack, and cast his eyes down at the hard dirt road skittering past underneath us. He looked up at the horizon as he spoke. “I have been around for over nineteen hundred years, Evan, and in all that time, I have never wanted to travel faster than a good horse could carry me. I have gotten around that way for all of my lives. Right, boy,” he said, cracking the reins across the horse’s back.
“Have you ever been in a plane or a car without sleeping?”
“No. What is the point of it? I am more comfortable with this. Last night was only the third time I have traveled in their machines, and I did it then only to meet the modern timetables to which the others now adhere. No, my friend, that way is not for me.”
He pointed to the right in the distance where the road turned and paralleled the sea. “From here on in is my favorite stretch of road in the world. I think it a sin to travel it any faster than necessary.”
I smiled and took in the beautiful scene. “They told me you are the oldest of us. Is it true?” I asked.
“They say quite a bit, do they not?”
“And not enough sometimes.”
He looked over at me and smiled. “Yes, it is true. I am the oldest.”
“How many members like me have you found in all this time?”
“That I have found personally?” he asked, looking at me.
“Yes.”
“Six. I found Chance, Kress, Ramsay, Jens, Tobias, and one other. I actively searched for many, many years, but that was a long time ago. In some ways, it was easier back then. One of the things I used to do was seek out any new spiritual leader. These were often men or women who spoke in strange tongues or possessed some new knowledge unknown to the other inhabitants of their city or village or tribe. In a few instances, these people turned out to be Reincarnationists who knew not what they were, save that they were different and took it as a sign of divinity. I found Chance, Tobias, and Jens that way. I think it much more difficult to find such individuals today. When enlightenment can be peddled in the marketplace alongside loaves of bread and cuts of meat, the voices of those truly divine become muffled. The world used to be a much simpler place, Evan.”
I eased back on the seat and watched the waves roll onto the empty beach as we passed. White gulls and black frigate birds plied the waters for their quarry. Not only were we the only people in sight, but were it not for the hands that packed the dirt on the road, I would have thought we were the only ones who had ever been there. Time passed quickly in the isolation, and the waning sun rested on the tops of the crests of the approaching waves when I saw it. The small spire rose out of the timeless sands like a soldier on post and stood vigil against the azure expanse of ocean and sky.
“Is that a lighthouse?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Does this road go past it?”
“No, it stops at it. It is my home.”
“You live in a lighthouse?”
“My home is at the base of it.”
“Does it still work?”
“Oh, yes, I am the keeper.”
The tower stretched higher into the evening twilight the closer we came. The road wound down onto a narrow point of land that jutted out into the sea and supported the stone blocks of the lighthouse. Waves, subdued by the ebbing of daylight, licked at the shore on both sides as we approached.
“As much as I enjoy the views on that ride, I am always happy when it is over,” Clovis said to me.
I assumed from that comment that his butt was as
sore as mine. Clovis reined the horse to a stop next to the back door of a small stone house dovetailed into the larger tan blocks of the tower. A tethered gray horse grazed on the sparse grass lying close to the ground.
“Aye, Sayedee!” cried a young alto voice from the high railing circling the glass dome at the top of the spire. The young Arab on the walkway looked surprised at my presence.
Clovis waved and called back up to him. “That is Drusel, younger brother of Nusel,” he said to me. “He has been manning the light during my absence.”
Clovis called up to him and climbed down off the wagon. “Bring your things inside, Evan. I will show you to the guest bed.” The young man at the railing above watched me until I reached the door. The setting sun’s last rays reflected off the silver handle of the dagger tucked into the belt around his waist.
“This way,” said Clovis, opening the rough-finished wooden door.
I followed him in and hovered within the shallow perimeter of light in the doorway. He struck a match and lit a brass lantern sitting on a polished wooden table in the center of the room. He turned up the wick and took hold of a small rope dangling above the table. The room filled with light as he pulled and hoisted the lantern up close to the rafters.
“A Yemeni chandelier,” he said, tying the rope off. The roughly hewn stone blocks of the walls were barren, and huge timbers from some remote corner of this treeless land held up the thatched roof. A large open hearth stood in the far corner, its edges blackened from untold years of usage. Two chairs sat at the rectangular table, the polished surface of which held dozens of round, dark knots, scattered like constellations. Two more chairs hung from the crossbeam above the lantern.
“You can set your things in the bedroom.” Clovis pointed to an open door opposite the hearth. “You will be on the right side.”
I stepped in and waited a moment for my eyes to adjust. Two small mats lay rolled up against the far wall. I sat my bag in front of the right one.
“I am going to start a stew.”
“Sounds good,” I said back to him. Lingering in the bedroom, I noticed three leather-bound books next to the other bedroll. The lettering on the spines and covers had long since worn off from handling. “What are you reading?” I asked as I opened one. Handwritten Greek letters covered the thick, brittle pages.
“Those are Diocletian’s garden journals. I found them again a few years ago.”
I walked out with the dagger tucked proudly into my waistband. He looked up from his preparations at the smaller table in the recessed kitchen.
“Ah,” he said, smiling as I approached, “look at you. You will fit in perfectly here.”
I peered over his shoulder at the preparations. “Can you grow things in this soil?”
“With some effort. I have to bring fresh loam down from the highlands each winter. I keep a garden between here and the well up on the hill,” he said, pointing with his knife. “We will eat from its bounty tonight.”
My next question was cut short by a loud, uninterrupted mechanical clatter from above that sounded as if the tower had just collapsed into the sea. Clovis went on chopping, undisturbed.
“What’s that?” I shouted over the noise.
“That is just Drusel resetting the light’s pendulum weights,” he shouted back. “The revolving lens is driven by a large clock mechanism. It has to be wound each night to last until morning. I will show you tomorrow.” His shouts carried loudly as the clamor abruptly stopped midsentence. “Ah, there,” he said in a normal tone again. “I will show you tomorrow.”
Drusel came through a door next to the hearth that led into the tower. Clovis called him over and introduced us. Drusel clasped my right hand with both of his and looked at the fresh black of the Embe. A white grin appeared under his young, sparse beard. Clovis spoke to him and motioned to the iron pot he stirred. Drusel reluctantly let go of my hand and grabbed a bucket next to the hearth on his way out the back door.
“Does he know?” I asked.
“Know what?”
“About this,” I said, pointing to my tattoo. “He smiled as if he knew.”
Clovis shook his head as he stirred. “They know it is a sign of something special, but they know not what exactly, though there is no scarcity of speculation. I should not think it unusual that they would treat you with the same curiosity and reverence as me.”
“I noticed Nusel showed you quite a bit of reverence.”
“Well, I have lived in these walls for a long time, and because of that, I am a bit of an oddity to the remaining villagers. Drusel’s grandfather did not know me in this body, but he did know me by this,” he said, pointing to his tattoo with a wooden spoon. “To the villagers, the lighthouse has always been manned by a mysterious foreigner with the same mark on his hand. It is only natural for them to be intrigued by another one. They are a simple people, Evan, beautiful in their simplicity. Being an object of curiosity and reverence seems an equitable trade for the pleasure of their company.”
“Don’t any of the other Reincarnationists visit?”
“Oh, not in a long time. My lifestyle is too . . . introspective . . . for most of their tastes.”
“I noticed that about you. You seemed uninterested in the festivities of my Ascension. Why is that?”
“I look at things differently. I do not mean to sound pious, but there comes a time in your life, Evan, when you realize you have done everything that can be done. Neither Bacchus’s fruits nor the sirens of the sea can captivate you as they once did. When that day came, I knew the time for simplicity was upon me.”
Drusel waddled back through the door, his hand straining on the rope handle of the coal- and dung-filled bucket. He sat it down next to the hearth and began arranging the fuel on the floor of the fireplace’s black mouth.
“It is ready,” Clovis said, carrying a small cast iron pot over to the hearth. I followed and held my lighter to the pyramid-shaped pile before Drusel could light it. Clovis hung the pot from a hook set into the masonry then spoke to Drusel and pointed to the chairs hanging from the rafters.
The Arab nodded and walked over to take down a necessary third chair. He stretched to reach the dangling legs then gently lifted it off its resting hook. As he lowered it, his eyes widened in amazement at the accumulation of dust on the seat. The sediment lay on it in a uniform thick layer. Bewilderment showed on his face as he held it and looked over at Clovis.
Clovis walked over and took the chair from his hands. “That is life in Arabia for you, an endless battle with dust.” He carried the chair outside and cleared the seat with his hand. He set it at the table minutes later. There was more dust on the chair than could be cleared away with a single hand—it betrayed long stretches of solitude accumulated within the sediment, and Clovis seemed embarrassed by the abundance of both.
I sat in one of the other chairs and watched as Clovis returned to the pot. He finished cooking and ladled three carved wooden bowls full, placing each of them on the table without speaking. Drusel mumbled a prayer over his bowl before he ate.
“It’s good,” I said, breaking the silence.
“Thank you. I agree,” Clovis said, smiling. “It is a shame I do not cook this more often. My habit is to cook more simply when dining alone.”
“Why do you live this way, Clovis?” I had planned on waiting for the perfect moment to pry a question under his protection of repose. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your hospitality and I think this is exactly what I need right now, but still, this place is so isolated, so solitary.”
“Exactly,” he said, looking up at me.
I looked up at him, confused. Drusel ate, oblivious to our conversation.
“It is comforting to me,” he continued. “As I said, I prefer a slower, uncomplicated life. This quiet corner of the world affords me that. My home here allows me a refuge from the maddening changes going
on in the world.”
“What changes are those?”
He raised his eyebrows as though I’d missed his point entirely, then began again. “It is a matter of perspective, I suppose. Funny, for over sixteen hundred years I saw mankind build its society on the experiences of the past, and then suddenly, as though at the behest of some unseen catalyst, within a few generations of the Renaissance, society began to continually rebuild itself on anticipations of the future. It was then that virtue became based on the promise of the new, instead of the traditions of the past. I came here and stayed shortly after that.”
“But look at the advances made since then.”
“Oh, yes, there were changes to be sure, too many changes to possibly fathom. The Renaissance marked the emergence of the empowering engine of youth and their thirst for change, but I am a youth no longer and care not for their change.”
“Is change really so bad?”
“It is not change per se, but the heated, cavalier manner in which it comes. It is the same story told time after time. A new generation is always coming to power in the world. They live their lives and achieve all that they can, but when their time wanes, and they see the coming generation eager to step into their shoes, they become alarmed at the prospect that this approaching legion will not respect the standards and traditions which they had so painstakingly established. Thus begins the eternal conflict between the old and the new.”
Clovis had a faraway look in his eye as he continued. “These untiring, youthful legions are full of enthusiasms and dreams and they rebuild the world anew in their own image, not caring if the standards of those who came before are swept asunder. The older generation invariably cries out with concern, but the new one will say it is necessary to raze the dilapidated, out-of-fashion structures, to begin anew on the same foundation. To the new, there is no loss, only progress, but what they do not realize, what they cannot realize, is that their sword of progress has two edges, the second of which awaits them in the hands of their successors. So the question presents itself, who is right and who is to be trusted? Dreaming youth, eyeing the future, or their conserving elders who cast a longing glance at what once was. For me, I chose not to live in that world of tumultuous change and came here. I have been very lucky in that time barely touches this land. I should think the Bulgaria of your youth must have been much the same.”
The Reincarnationist Papers Page 33
