Burhan stammered and then said, “I didn’t believe that all this was real. I didn’t believe that all this was possible.”
The three old men answered calmly, “What are you saying, Burhan?”
Burhan corrected himself, “Nothing. I must have said something silly. Old men are always like that.”
One of the three men put a hand in his bag and drew out a handful of seeds, which he scattered into the air. Then the earth was carpeted with flowers and the garden was filled with colorful birds. One of them lit on Burhan Abdallah’s shoulder and head. Hedgehogs, rabbits, and squirrels emerged from their lairs and began to frolic among plants that sprouted instantaneously. He started with alarm when he saw life creep into the stone lions that stood at the entrance to the garden. He stayed put because the blood had frozen in his veins as he looked at the three angels, but the two mild-mannered lions approached and lay down at his feet. One of the angels told him, “There’s finally peace, Burhan.”
A type of enchantment had settled over the city. “This is more than I expected,” Burhan told himself. Then he placed his hat on his head, and a small sparrow lit on it and began to peck at what it thought was a hole. The three old men, who looked so much alike that it was hard to tell them apart, laughed. One of them said, “Seeing you like this will make everyone in the Chuqor community roar with laughter.” Another added, “Fine, we’ll wait for you there, Burhan.” The third placed his hand on Burhan’s shoulder, saying, “You must enter the Chuqor community alone, just as you left it alone.” Then they headed for the far side of the garden and disappeared among the olive trees that hid white stone-and-plaster houses that gleamed in the light.
“Definitely not; I can’t stand all this tenderness. It surpasses what’s required. It’s more than I deserve. Not even the mind of God would conceive of such a happy ending.” Images from distant memories mixed together in his mind with dreams so arresting he felt like weeping. Through a crack in a door, he was watching a woman comb her hair and rub her breasts with a lemon. A man sat in a coffeehouse and surreptitiously counted his money. A security officer dismounted from his motorcycle and asked a young man as beautiful as a girl his name. Satan was seated at a table in a restaurant filled with smoke. Pupils were fleeing from their schools to pinch girls’ bottoms in demonstrations.
“I normally become intoxicated after the first glass. I dance till I fall asleep on a woman’s shoulder. When I awake in the morning I find that an executioner is leading me to some square to chop off my head, but he normally leaves me alone while he goes to a farm to eat greens. My God, how beautiful our days were when we hunted for angels among the trees and pursued demons among the boulders. Once I saw a machine-gun at the rear of an airplane fire on shepherds. Naked women, men, and children at the shore of Grünau in Berlin conduct a memorial service for me. A man with a glass eye reads from a newspaper that almost touches his face. Hamlet’s mother stands at the door, wearing a black evening gown that reveals her shoulders while she distributes smiles to soldiers carrying heads on bronze trays. Is this the head of John the Baptist? The man who incited us to rebel against time? Oh, I once saw myself in a sanatorium with blood on my palm.”
He was cast into the spring that had taken the city by surprise after being delayed. He was caught up in his emotions and memories as if in some nameless passion. Here finally was Kirkuk. The dead had quit it, as if it had never experienced death. They had vanished, just as everything else vanishes. They had entered the crematories, leaving no trace behind. Burhan Abdallah’s eyes were bathed in tears as he crossed Kirkuk’s stone bridge: “My God, it’s still standing, even now. Nothing has changed at all.” He leaned on the railing, studying the roaring waters of the Khasa Su, which swept along with them tree trunks, the bodies of wild animals that the floods had overwhelmed, and empty containers. He smelled the scent of the mud and experienced the light dizziness that had always afflicted him as a child whenever he crossed the bridge. He noticed coachmen whipping their horses that pulled carts behind which boys in ragged dishdashas leapt at each other.
At the far end of the bridge was the citadel, to which a person climbed by steps on either side. He thought of heading to the Chuqor community by ascending to the citadel, but wished to pass through the great souk. He turned right and walked in front of the shop of the Armenian prosthetic dentist. The man was still sitting on a chair that he had placed in front of the entrance on the sidewalk. Burhan Abdallah greeted him by politely raising his hat. The man returned his greeting, rising from his chair, astonished to see an old man wearing a European hat in a city like Kirkuk. Through the glass, he saw the Turkmen barber Tahsin lather with a barber’s brush the chin of a man reclining in a chair. He passed a lame locksmith, who had covered the wall of his shop with pictures of Egyptian actresses like Fatin Hamama, Samia Gamal, and Shadya. He saw the Kurdish goldsmith Abd al-Samad seated on the ground, stretching his legs in front of his bellows. In the area leading to the great souk, he saw porters transporting sacks of wheat to the great warehouse, which lay opposite a plant that produced large blocks of ice, which children carried on their shoulders. The metalsmiths were still beating their copper and bronze vessels. He passed people selling tea on the sidewalk, kebab restaurants, and shops offering just about anything. The old smell of Kirkuk intoxicated him. Almost everything was mixed into it, and it comprised a blend that went to the head before reaching the lungs.
Nothing had changed except that the colors had become brilliant. He was struck, however, by the dogs that were playing with cats after forgetting their instinctive hostility, the crows that entered stores, and the storks that had descended from the minarets to stand on the sidewalks. The garden’s two stone lions were following him like two old retainers, but what interested him was not the lions but the Chuqor community, from which he was separated now only by al-Qaysariya, which had a rotten smell and the passageways of which he still knew by heart. He had scarcely passed through al-Qaysariya and caught sight of the alley that was the beginning of the Chuqor community when he was surprised by something he had never even imagined.
They were all standing there, waiting for him, holding roses. It was all the old faces, as though impervious to time, and they embraced him, one after the other. There was his mother, who looked younger than he did, and his father, who was wearing his Arab clothing. There was Hameed Nylon, who as usual delivered a humorous speech. Abbas Bahlawan brandished his revolver and fired in the air. The thief Mahmud al-Arabi presented him with a skeleton key that would open any lock. Drummers were drumming while the women placed bonbons, chocolates, and candy on the heads of people in the crowd. “My God, how did they learn of my return? I didn’t tell anyone.” Burhan Abdallah wondered about this. “My angels, the three old men, must have been the ones who arranged this. They were the only ones who knew I was returning.” He was certain that this was the case when he saw the three men walking through the surging crowd. Burhan Abdallah looked for his maternal uncle Khidir Musa, who had been sealed up in the tower along with Dervish Bahlul and Dada Hijri so that they were buried alive. The drumming continued, women in black wraps trilled, and dervishes poked skewers into their bodies. Here the pilgrim was returning from his long journey to Mecca, after forgetting the hardships of the trip. The deadly days that had subdued Chuqor had ended, and the faces had regained their original innocence. The curse that had settled on the city, blocking spring for forty-six years, had ended. The evil sorcerer had been manacled. They had bound him to a large rock and thrown him in the river.
“You shouldn’t have lost hope, Burhan. Your angels have instructed you since you were an adolescent that they were carrying the spring of eternity in hemp sacks to Chuqor, where not even memories are limited. Sorrow? There is no sorrow worse than that of a waiting heart. What sorrow is ruder than that of the newborn’s longing for his mother’s womb? All forms of waiting have ended: the waits of a forlorn life, of pointless excursions, of trains in snow, of friends in coffeehouses. That is all ove
r now, for the soldier has returned from the war. All of them are returning: living friends and deceased friends, as spring spills over the earth.”
The next day Burhan Abdallah headed for the tower in which Khidir Musa, Dervish Bahlul, and Dada Hijri had been interred. All night long while he was in his family’s house he had continued to think about the three men, whom everyone had forgotten. They must at least be given a proper burial. With the pickax he had brought he began to strike at the door, which had been covered with concrete. The delicate wall, which humidity had damaged and weakened, collapsed. The lock broke, and he pushed on the door with his foot, oblivious to the pains convulsing his body. He knew that he would discover the skeletons of the three men who had been buried alive. This scene had never left him during all the years he had spent far from the city. They must have died one after the other. He thought of the last words that they had perhaps exchanged. There is nothing worse than for a man to be buried alive. That was an unalloyed evil.
The door opened partway. At the center of the room a candle was burning, throwing shadows on the walls. Burhan Abdallah pushed on the door with his hand and it opened wider. He continued to stand there, not daring to enter. The three men sat there calmly, leaning against white pillows and smoking. One of them asked, “Why are you standing there, Burhan? Come on in.”
Burhan Abdallah entered, filled to overflowing with grief and terror, stunned by the unexpected spectacle. He heard a voice tell him, “Why don’t you come greet your uncle Khidir, who’s been waiting for you all these years?” Burhan closed his eyes and then opened them again. They were sitting there just as he had left them. Khidir Musa was playing chess with Dervish Bahlul while Dada Hijri sat leaning over a large notebook, which he had propped on a pillow, transmitting to paper what appeared to be the last of his poems. Burhan Abdallah stood there, baffled but filled with bliss. He found nothing to say. The words had died on his lips. Then he found himself laughing boisterously, like a child playing happily.
This enormous happiness that filled his heart did not, however, last long. He awoke one morning to find that spring had died away like a fire that turns to ashes. “My God, was all that a fantasy, too?” The air had become stagnant, and the sky had turned yellow, emitting sickly yellowish rays. He no longer heard the chirping of sparrows or the rustling of the wind. Everything was still, as though death had settled over the city. He had difficulty breathing. He pulled on his clothes and went out to the street after being gripped by an anxiety that had afflicted him throughout his long years of exile. He would open his eyes to discover his corpse, over which other people were weeping. He would be unable to scream to them, “Why are you weeping? I’m still alive!” He was alive and dead at the same time, without being able to dispel this confusion. As a matter of fact, he was unable to bear happiness because he knew that happiness always conceals the threat of its annihilation, just as a glass might fall to the floor and shatter, by accident.
In the days following his return to Chuqor, he was filled with a dream-like happiness because the world had suddenly changed. Spring, which had been withheld from the city for long years, had come to earth. So here it was, glowing green. The trunks of trees that the blinding sun had scorched had regained their vigor and put forth leaves and flowered, stretching boughs out in every direction. Their twigs interlaced, forming corridors without beginning or end. Light penetrated through these, and colors washed with mist were reflected, almost forming a portrait of nature in the first days of its creation. The wolves left their dens and went into the meadows, where they began to graze on grass with the sheep. Meanwhile the shepherds sat on boulders found in the countryside and played the nay. Layla returned to her grandmother in the forest and the wolf opened the door. He fixed her some soup and then curled up on the floor beside the grandmother’s bed, listening with a smile while she told Layla the story of the evil wolf that ate grandmothers, wrapped a kerchief around its head, climbed in bed, and then waited for little girls who were picking flowers in the woods. Lions, cheetahs, elephants, foxes, hyenas, jackals, monkeys, stags, gazelles, skinks, anteaters, hawks, penguins, tapirs, and rhinoceroses left their hiding places and returned to the cities from which they had been chased. They presented free, humorous shows to amuse children, who often rode on the lions’ backs or clung to the talons of eagles, which lifted them high into the air. They would sit on the clouds before returning to the earth once more. What delighted them most, however, was the performance of the vipers with bells. They would hold themselves erect and make music to the beat of which even men and women danced.
During the days that Burhan Abdallah spent in Chuqor, he was haunted by the feeling that all this could not be true, but it felt so true that he wept from happiness. The earth had suddenly exploded with springs that began to flow with milk and honey. People came and ladled as much from these as they wished. Chuqor was filled with shops and stores that were open day and night but that lacked salesmen. They were filled with merchandise from all over the world. People would enter them, take what they needed, and then leave. No one thought about money, which people began to toss in trash bins, making fun of the days when a man could go hungry if he lacked some colored slips of paper stuffed into his wallet. The women and girls of the Chuqor community removed their wraps and wore jeans, deliberately cutting holes in them in areas that would excite men’s interest. Then they replaced these with short garments that revealed shapely legs. In fact, they swam naked in the many lakes that had appeared in the empty countryside of al-Musalla, lying on their bellies on the grass and reading detective stories or a book of poems. The aged Burhan Abdallah would pass by them when out for a stroll and would raise his hat in greeting, even to those he did not know. “My God, how times have changed! Is this the Chuqor community?” The cocky young women would lift their heads and whisper to each other, “He’s the old guy who’s returned from exile.” He would smile, oblivious to everything—even his old age, which lent him a dignified air that he had never possessed before.
Although everyone—perhaps from force of habit—purchased Mercedes and Volvos, or even a Rolls-Royce or a Jaguar, they parked them in lots located near their homes, after fastening a horseshoe to the front bumper to ward off envy. They preferred to ride bicycles or to take a subway train when heading to the forests located near the city in order to enjoy their plentiful free time, which they possessed now that no one was forced to work. Unknown workers—perhaps robots made in Japan—directed everything themselves and organized it. For this reason, many people began to compose poetry, to write imaginative novels, to draw, and to dance, as though there were nothing else to live for except art.
Young men and young women immersed themselves in love, overflowing with emotions that caused their eyes to grow languid and to dissolve in delicate affection. Beyond this, no one died anymore. Death had been erased from people’s history, and nobody even thought about it. That fact, which was suddenly observed by Burhan Abdallah, made him think nervously and agitatedly, “This could only happen in heaven.” He was certain, however, that he was in the Chuqor community and that everything was real. “Time has changed. That’s all there is to the matter. I shouldn’t be so skeptical.”
He did not grasp the secret of this transformation until Khidir Musa, Dervish Bahlul, and Dada Hijri visited him one day in the room he occupied in his family’s home. They said they had come to have tea with him. His mother prepared tea with cardamom and mixed in some dried rose petals. As they drank the tea, they chewed on sugar cubes after each sip—the way old people do. Dervish Bahlul withdrew from his breast pocket a large ledger with a black binding and handed it to Burhan Abdallah. “Take this. It’s my gift to you. I no longer need it. I’ve lost my employment, as you can see.”
Khidir Musa commented sarcastically, “There’s nothing better than retirement. We’ve grown old, Burhan.”
Dada Hijri nodded his head and added, “It’s hard for a person to endure what Dervish Bahlul has survived to this point. A person
needs a heart of stone to accept what has been delegated to him.”
Burhan Abdallah was astonished by this conversation, which seemed cryptic to him. He commented, “I’ve scarcely understood anything you’ve said.”
Dada Hijri interjected, “That’s because you haven’t opened Dervish Bahlul’s ledger and glanced at its contents.”
Burhan Abdallah examined the ledger for the first time and flipped through its pages at random, scrutinizing lines that seemed to tremble before his eyes. Then he said, “My God, this resembles the register people have called for ages the ‘Book of Destiny.’”
Dervish Bahlul replied, “That’s actually what it is.”
Everything seemed weird to Burhan Abdallah. Life got mixed up with dream in his head. The dervish’s presence alarmed him greatly. Then he opened his mouth rather hesitantly, “It doesn’t seem to me that you’re God.”
Dervish Bahlul let out a resounding laugh and then said as if whispering an important secret, “‘Thank God I am not God!’”
Burhan Abdallah felt so perplexed after the three men had left that he wanted to see them again, for no particular reason. But they were inscrutable men who appeared when no one was expecting them and disappeared when everyone was requesting them. As a matter of fact, Burhan Abdallah had entertained doubts about the reality of these old men since he demolished the door to the tower and found them sitting there. These men could not really be Khidir Musa, Dervish Bahlul, and Dada Hijri. Those men had died forty-six years earlier, when they were buried alive in the tower. “I wonder why Dervish Bahlul gave me this ledger, which he says is the veritable Book of Destiny? Death has ended. What meaning is there then to destiny? What shall I do with it?”
He turned the pages of the thick ledger, which he placed on the table before him. There he saw all of human history: men, women, and children—being born and then dying. Tribes and nations appeared like water moss sprouting and then disappeared into the heart of time. There were wars without end, treasonous conspiracies like murder mysteries, epidemics that swept over cities snatching the people away, tyrants and commanders who erected gallows in cities’ old markets, executioners who chopped off heads, and cooks who threw their victims into kettles of boiling tar. Innocent young children burned to death within the walls of besieged cities, and soldiers with lances ripped open the bellies of pregnant women. There were kings who lost their heads to guillotines and prophets who were slain or burned, leaving behind ashes that were cast into the wind.
The Last of the Angels Page 30
