Barrett entered the newsroom, coffee cup in one hand, phone at her ear in the other, with her handbag held in her inside elbow. ‘Come with me,’ she said to Liam without looking at him as she strode past his desk. Ronston smiled gleefully as Liam stood up and followed.
‘Yes, I know. I’m talking to him now.’ Barrett ended the call and put down her coffee cup and bag, then took a seat and looked at Liam.
‘Sit down, for God’s sake.’
‘They still expecting an apology?’
Barrett adopted a stern expression. ‘Liam, I get it – this situation is surreal, and you can’t just apologise because someone doesn’t like what you have to say. But they’re now making veiled threats against the paper.’
‘So on this occasion I’m going to be the sacrificial lamb?’
‘On this occasion . . .’ Barrett teased out the words.
‘You got something you want to say?’
Barrett paused briefly. ‘Let’s face it, you’re no stranger to sacrificing the odd lamb for the sake of your reputation.’
‘So you’re comforting yourself by saying I’m getting what I deserve?’
Barrett flicked an impatient smile. ‘Be careful not to attack one of the few friends you’ve got. I’m trying to protect you right now.’
‘How?’
‘You know what these terrorists said? They wanted you to admit you could be wrong.’ She stared fixedly. ‘And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing that either.’
Years of silent recriminations filled the room, as Liam shuffled under Barrett’s gaze.
‘I’ve just come back from speaking to the board. They’re anxious. As far as they’re concerned, the only reason these threats arose is because of you, and they’re wondering whether it’s worth the hassle for a journalist whose recent tone is at odds with our readership.’
Liam’s defensive expression lost its resolve, a hint of vulnerability entering his voice. ‘You’re . . . you’re letting me go?’
Barrett held his stare for a few seconds silently, before shaking her head. ‘The board wanted to.’
‘And you?’
Barrett smiled gently. ‘I told them to trust me.’
Liam nodded. ‘Why?’
Barrett shrugged. ‘Old times’ sake.’
‘Big gamble in the name of failed promise.’
Barrett remained silent and looked down at the table. ‘Maybe what the group asked is what I should have asked you a few years ago.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Liam asked tentatively.
‘I want you to go and prove yourself wrong. I want you to go to Cairo.’
Liam remained silent.
‘Have you actually followed this story at all?’ Barrett said, knowing the answer. ‘Jesus, Liam. The one thing I . . .’ She trailed off, rubbing her forehead, eyes closed. ‘Your inside scoop on this has all but gone. For the last week they managed to get 4,000 people to tune in each night and watch the hostage storyteller ramble on for an hour. He was released yesterday, and now he’s performing on the street to large audiences.’
Liam had no response.
‘You’re going to Cairo tomorrow, and you’re going to provide me with a story about this group. Find the kidnappers. Find the victims. Just give me something that I can use to justify your future at the paper to the board.’
She slid an envelope across her desk. ‘Your plane tickets.’
He narrowed his eyes questioningly before picking up the envelope.
‘Liam,’ Barrett said before he opened it. ‘This isn’t the type of thing a reputable editor is supposed to do. You understand what I’m saying?’
He looked at her, nodded shallowly once, and offered a smile of thanks, then stood and left the office.
PART TWO
The Kidnappers
A Walking Tour
There was a village that if viewed from above would titillate even the most jaded urban planner. If pressed, they would likely conclude it took its design inspiration from the thermometer – unless, of course, they were familiar with the rababah.
A reputable walking tour would start at the village’s most northerly point in the late afternoon sun. The mud buildings here formed stables, storerooms and granaries. Here, students explained at length their jobs in the running of the madrasa’s farm. There was much to see but, boy, can these kids talk.
To the right, heading south on the only road, were the musical instrument workshops. Here, craftsmen moulded the bodies of tabla drums, stretched skins across tambourines, strung rababahs, and hollowed out flutes. Opposite lay the metal works and carpenters. Next were the textile huts, where cotton from the fields was processed, woven and dyed, then turned into clothing for performers and puppets.
The next 25 metres on either side housed the story rooms. Each had a stage. A blackboard hung to one side with names of protagonists, events and places, with numerous arrows highlighting potential scenarios. A large mirror covered the opposite wall, where students rehearsed their gestures and facial expressions.
All guests were invited to tell a story. While students found the idea of someone without a story unsettling, they had been warned to prepare for a silence. That was, after all, why they were studying.
Musicians would be heard practising in the rooms opposite. Guests might reflect on how traditional it all appeared; but the sun was starting to recline and they understood nothing yet.
Further down the street the buildings left their traditional roots behind. The earthen walls were punctuated by modern windows and air-conditioning units. In a large open-plan room, students in huddles learned the art of making and breaking computer code. Off this central space lay further rooms armed with video cameras, editing suites and radio booths.
Elsewhere, students were studying business, politics, international relations and constitutional law. Snatches of English and French grammar hung in the early evening air.
A large acacia tree stood in a circular clearing at the bottom of the road, casting its shadow over a fire pit. A middle-aged man invited his guests to settle here until dusk, when Al-Shā’ir would be able to join them. The man read the confusion on his visitors’ faces. ‘The Poet,’ he said with a smile, as if the translation solved the misunderstanding.
Two students made a fire as the shadows lengthened, out of which a silhouette appeared and took a seat.
‘I have a story to tell you,’ the old man said, the flames picking out the deeply etched smile lines on his face, ‘that is, and is not, so.’ He motioned for a boy to serve his guests tea.
‘It is said that, among us, a secret order lies in wait. They may have already sought out your company for pleasure, or be masquerading as your colleague, friend, or lover. Legend has it they shake hands just like us. Their wardrobes would betray no purple robes. Chanting and incense have no place in their world. We cannot rule out the odd pointy nose, but nor can we guarantee one.
‘Their secret is such that members of The Order may unknowingly be friends. They live in constant doubt: when should they rise up, and what should they do once they have done so? Indeed, none of them has any certainty that any other of The Order is still alive.’
He looked up and smiled at his audience.
‘Their prophecy, like many others, foretells the apocalypse, but not in the way so often promised, with horsemen and hellfire. No, what The Order foretells is the end of the word, of the imagination. Don’t pretend you can’t hear its approaching silence. We all have blood on our hands. When it is time The Order will rise and . . . and . . .’ Al-Shā’ir trailed off.
‘The legend can be traced back to eleventh-century Persia. The Seljuk Empire, whose lands stretched from the steppes of Anatolia to the sands of the Taklamakan, was terrorised by a clandestine group called the Assassins. For years they worked their way into positions within the court, before shockingly and publicly slaying their masters.
‘And if the peoples of the Seljuk Empire thought the Assassins inspired fear, along came the
Crusaders. On the plus side’ – Al-Shā’ir chuckled to himself – ‘the Crusaders didn’t hide behind curtains, and crawl from the shadows to smother you in your sleep. Instead they climbed over the city walls and killed everything. If your only fear was subtlety, they were a breath of fresh air.
‘To summarise: if you were lucky enough to be in the ownership of your head, it was likely to be filled with tales of the most monstrous kind.’
He looked across the flames to his audience of four.
‘It is said The Order began as a collective of rich traders from all over the Muslim world, from as far as Fes and Tripoli along the Maghreb trade routes towards the great cities of the Levant. Surrounded by fellow tradesmen exchanging tales, they recognised a story’s ability to inspire empathy between strangers. Where stories were absent, chaos ruled.
‘At the end of the thirteenth century, the 43 founding members gathered in Cairo. Stories from across the world were performed, embellished, lengthened and satirised. They sang, they danced, they revelled in the wonder and power of story.
‘One day, with a heavy heart, the member from Samarkand announced that he had to leave. The night before his planned departure, the member from the Persian city of Shiraz asked if she might tell one final story. It was a tale so full of adventure and truth that when dawn gave a polite cough from the horizon, it still hadn’t finished. It was decided the return to Samarkand would be delayed, and the tale would seek a conclusion the following evening.
‘The next evening saw the climax to her story, but also the beguiling temptation of another that would find no closure that night. None of The Order could bear to leave while the plight of a hero, or the revealing of a truth, lay in the balance. And so it continued.
‘It is said that the member from Shiraz, who went by the name of Scheherazade, continued in this vein for 1,001 nights.
‘The delay enabled a plan to emerge. Each would return home and set up a madrasa dedicated to the art of storytelling. Each would have two schools. The first would develop technical performance: delivery, expression, pace, drama, musical accompaniment and puppetry. The second would focus on repertoire, tailoring the narrative to the audience and the exchange of successful stories between madrasas. The rababah – a stringed instrument with a long neck and a small round body that was used as musical accompaniment to perform-ance – would be their insignia.
‘As the members returned home, the global influence of The Order began. From the cafés of Bukhara to the squares of Marrakech, huge crowds would gather to have their imagin-ations set on fire. No one knew where the performers had come from, but their powers of providing guidance and wonder led people to question how they had previously managed without them.
‘The original 43 members quickly increased in number. From Morocco, The Order crossed the straits into Iberia. Ships from Alexandria crossed to Italy. In Europe the madrasas were the only centres of learning in town, and soon became known institutions. The first of these sprang up in Cambridge, Bologna and Salamanca.
‘These European madrasas expanded their instruction to include grammar, logic and rhetoric as ways to captivate, reason and persuade their audience. This was The Order’s Golden Age.’
Al-Shā’ir paused.
‘Further skills were added that were intended to support the madrasas. Astronomy was added to take advantage of planetary superstition, arithmetic to do the madrasa’s accounts, law because everyone makes mistakes. They soon became subjects in their own right. Men, called mathematicians, roamed madrasas with no idea how to craft words into worlds. Storytellers existed who had no stories, and were called philosophers. They all wanted more room and more departmental funding.
‘Questions were then raised as to whether storytelling was a proper subject. In the sixteenth century a university was formed without any provision for storytelling. Its founders felt the extroverts in the courtyard were for lunchtime entertainment only.
‘Around this time, the heads of storytelling at all The Order’s madrasas met in Venice. From Fatehpur Sikri to Stratford-upon-Avon, members spoke of their disillusionment. They had been pushed to the margins, trumped by dogmas of religious intolerance, naïve to the politicisation of stories, which had been harnessed for the ends of power and greed. The world, as it always seems to be, was teetering on the edge.
‘And if The Order was to save it they had to adapt, and nurture a few saviours of their own. Each madrasa would select their most promising students, and grant them the best education and social privileges. Keeping their loyalties hidden, they would climb up to the highest ranks in government, looking at ways to frame stories in ways that could unite rather than divide, to bring joy rather than hate – waiting for a time when a story was needed to pull the world back from the abyss. Each initiate would induct a younger replacement.
‘The member from Stratford-upon-Avon was one such man. Excited with the prospect of saving the world, he produced 38 plays before later covering his tracks.’
Al-Shā’ir laughed and looked at his audience to gauge if they understood.
‘Which figures from history belonged to The Order? How many of your heroes were also your saviours? How many told the wrong story and became your enemy? How many died alone and ignored?’ Al-Shā’ir shrugged.
‘We all have our lists. Yet the important question is how many remain? Over five centuries on, how could anyone keep such solitary faith? Where would you find anyone with the patience to be initiated? Maybe by listening to this story, you, too, have been initiated. You might be the last ones left.’
Al-Shā’ir took a sip of tea. The sound of the cicadas, the river and the fire reminded his audience of how far away from home they were.
‘It was not long before storytelling was purged from the history of madrasas. The members of The Order who avoided destitution became tutors, analysing Macbeth one syllable at a time.’
His audience smiled.
‘Others took to the streets to entertain an ever shrinking audience, but times had changed. Crowds left coins out of pity, the value of a story demeaned to that of begging. The modern world was no place for men whose imaginations had no ulterior motives.’
Al-Shā’ir nodded slowly.
‘But there is one more story left to tell. It is said that an elite group of storytellers from the Cairo madrasa left one day at the start of the twentieth century. You would not find them in cafés or squares. They were gone. Rumours circulated that early one morning they had left the madrasa, trunks in tow, boarded a felucca, and set sail in a southerly direction.
‘And with that, the story was said to end.’
A Bend in the River
Unlike other parents who celebrate each jumbled vowel, Al-Shā’ir’s parents expected him to make a vocal mark upon the world only when he had something worth saying.
For the first four years of his life Al-Shā’ir was handed from his mother’s teat, to musicians’ laps, to orators’ hips, to the stage where he received acclaim for his wordless comic timing. By his fortieth month he had mastered puppetry, and before his fourth birthday had performed what his father recognised as a silent performance of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy.
To outside eyes, this would not have been considered textbook parenting, but his parents had been raised in a similar way. They were born in the same village on the banks of the Nile after their own parents had fled Cairo in an event that became known as ‘The Exodus’. Whereas the Israelites had parted water for theirs, Al-Shā’ir’s grandparents sailed leis-urely on top of it in a southerly direction: a fleet armed with an arsenal of musical instruments, props, costumes, puppets and the imaginations of 12 storytellers and their families.
Their retreat from the city was viewed as a temporary measure. As the madrasa became established, they would re-forge their links with madrasas around the world.
The fields were fertile, and the madrasa soon grew in size. As the world experienced one crippling war after another, there seemed no compelling reason to re-ente
r the fray. Al-Shā’ir’s parents grew up to marry each other, believing that everything of value in the world lay within the madrasa’s limits.
As each of the next 40 years passed, the madrasa drifted further from the twentieth century. It was no longer a training camp for an army of stories, but a form of preservation. They were archives in a forgotten museum.
Four years into the life of their previously mute heir, a note of discord entered proceedings. As an evening performance recounted The Order’s cosmopolitan origins, a wavering, high-pitched voice invaded a dramatic pause.
‘Why do we speak of places we are too scared of visiting?’
The rest of the audience turned to the young boy. A mixture of proud smiles and disquieted frowns crossed their faces. It had taken a child to point out the madrasa’s blossoming relationship with irrelevance. The madrasa more closely resembled a village than a school. No one graduated or left in search of bright lights.
The young boy was named ‘The Poet’ and he soon grew into the name. King Solomon of Sonnets, the Prince of Pentameter, the Verse Vizier: by the age of ten, he spoke solely in poetry. Disagreements over cleaning his room transcended into lyrical paeans to the stars.
By the age of fifteen he was said to have the largest repertoire of stories in the whole madrasa. From the fantastical, to the allegorical, to the comic, thrilling and erotic, he had a story suitable for every mood.
His fidelity to poetry was eroded by contact with traders who hinted that the modern world favoured stories in prose. He adapted all his stories to both formats, causing uproar among the elders. By his twenties he argued that the madrasa had lost its way: a saviour whose time has come does not remain in hiding.
Around this time, he fell in love with Aliah, the closest person he had to a rival in the madrasa; but puppets, not words, were her chosen medium for magic.
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