The Second Achmed Abdullah Megapack

by Achmed Abdullah

  And Krishna Chucker-jee, the guru, the oldest of the five, answered:

  “We know many things, O babu-jee. We are Holy Men, beloved of the gods. Behold our filth! We know that at the age of fifteen thou didst leave thy home in Shahjahanabad, and that thou hadst only five rupees in thy waistband. We know that the gods smiled on thee, and that thou didst prosper exceedingly. All is known concerning thee. And now the gods have ordered us five to travel many miles because they wish to build a temple in thy village to the Mahadeo. Thus the gods send thee message through us.”

  “Be pleased to deliver it,” said the babu, amazed at their intimate knowledge of his affairs.

  But Krishna Chucker-jee replied in a dignified and haughty manner:

  “Patience, O babu-jee. Patience! For remember that patience is the key of relief, and that nothing comes to an end except the beard of the beardless. Patience, then!”

  He squatted on the ground. He rolled up his eyes in a thoroughly disgusting and very bewildering manner. His disciples crowded around him.

  “Hush!” they admonished the banker. “Hush, O babu-jee! The guru is now communing with the deity, with Shiva.” And they gave a well-trained shudder, in which the babu joined involuntarily.

  Suddenly the guru gave a great sigh. He jumped up. His eyes assumed once more their normal, beady focus. He scratched his long, matted hair with his claw-like hands. Then he addressed the babu in gentle tones.

  “Shiva has whispered to me. At the appointed hour everything shall be made most clear. But first it is necessary that thou, O babu-jee, shouldst give us food for twelve days. At the end of the twelve days my four chelas shall go away. Eight days more I shall abide with thee, and then the message shall be given to thee. For the gods are pleased with thee, and they have heard of thy pious desires in the matter of the Mahadeo.”

  Here he winked furiously at the peasant who happened to pass by and who was watching the scene with open mouth and staring eyes.

  The jubilant babu did as he was bidden. For ta his Eastern mind there was nothing incredible in such an occurrence.

  For twelve days the guru and his four chelas were the guests of the babu. Then they departed. Only Krishna Chucker-jee remained in the house of the banker.

  The guru had an earnest talk with his host. He told him that during the eight days which intervened between that day and the delivery of the message he must prepare himself and purify his mind and soul by deeds of charity, ceremonious visits to the Mahadeo, and complicated devotional exercises.

  He could rest assured that every rupee given away in charity would be returned a hundredfold to him.

  “Wherefore hold not thy hand,” said the ascetic at the end of his pious exhortation.

  Strictly the babu obeyed the instructions of the Holy One. He tore up mortgages and he distributed food and coins to the gaping villagers.

  Eight long days passed. On the morning of the ninth day, Krishna Chucker-jee ordered the babu to fetch a new earthenware jar, two cubits of khassa cloth and a seer of attah flour. And now he would see how everything that he had given away in charity would be restored by the gods a hundredfold.

  As a token he told him to bring a rupee, and, taking it from the babu, he asked him to prostrate himself on the ground and to say certain lengthy passages from the Kata Upanishad, while he himself wrapped the rupee in the cloth, placed it in the pot, emptied the attah flour a-top, and then closed the mouth of the jar with a piece of khassa cloth which was sealed with the babu’s own signet-ring. Then he told the babu to hide the jar somewhere in the open country.

  The next day the jar was brought back. Nobody had tampered with it. The seal was intact. But, miraculous to relate, when the cloth was removed and the jar opened, there were two rupees wrapped in the cloth instead of one.

  Three times the ceremony was repeated, with the same prostrations and prayers on the babu’s part, while the guru sealed the jar. And finally the rupee had grown to be eight.

  “Thou aft beloved by the gods,” said Krishna Chucker-jee. “Thy deeds of charity smell sweet in their holy nostrils. Again I admonish thee: hold not thy hand!”

  And the babu did as he was bid. He held not his hand. He tore up all the other mortgages he had and returned many acres of land to the original owners, the peasants of the village.

  “The period of probation has passed,” said the guru.

  Followed a day of prayer and fasting, and on the next morning the babu was told by Krishna Chuckerjee to bring an extra-large jar and to fetch all his currency notes, all his gold and silver coins, his own jewels and those of his beautiful, fat wife.

  “Fill the jar with them,” said the guru. “But leave sufficient room on top so that the gods can double them.”

  The babu did as he was told. He was jubilant. Then Chucker-jee asked him to prostrate himself and to recite an especially long passage from the Kata Upanishad. Meanwhile he himself closed and sealed the jar.

  Devotional exercises over, he directed Harar Lai to carry away the jar to a spot twenty times as far as the one which had contained the jar with the one rupee, and to guard it until the following dawn.

  “Cease not to pray for a single minute,” continued the Holy Man. “Let none approach thee or speak to thee. Do not fall asleep. Fast until thou comest here again. Obey strictly, so as not to kindle divine anger.”

  The babu obeyed. He took the jar and carried it a long distance into the country. He watched it. He allowed nobody to approach. He prayed incessantly. But, finally, worn out with his fastings and his prayers, he fell asleep.

  The sun was high in the heavens and the shadows pointing northward when he awoke. Terror gripped his heart when he thought that he might have angered the Mahadeo by failing in his vigil. He seized the jar in alarm. He examined it carefully. But the seals were intact. Nobody had tampered with his treasures. So he felt relieved. Again he watched and prayed.

  Finally he could not stand the suspense any longer. He picked up the jar and returned to the house.

  The fakir was not there. He searched through house and garden. But there was no sign of the Holy Man.

  He called loudly:

  “Guru-jee… O guru-jee!”

  But no answer came. Then he inquired of the villagers, but none had seen the Holy One.

  Then he thought that perhaps the guru had set out in search of him and would return sooner or later. And he waited a long time till finally anxiety and hunger got the better of his fear. He ate, and then he opened the jar with the proper ceremonies…

  But the gods had not doubled his riches. In fact, they had removed them altogether and had put in their place three large and heavy bricks.

  The babu sat down and wept. That was the end of all things. To call in the police to aid him against the gods would be a futility. He visited the babul tree and looked at the Mahadeo. And it seemed to him that the Mahadeo was solemnly winking at him.

  And a great fury seized him by the throat. He cursed the deities of his native land.

  And six months later the Christian Messenger printed the glorious news that another pagan, this time a high-class Brahmin, a charitable native Indian banker, after giving away all his wealth in charities to the village where he lived, and tearing up all the mortgages he owned, had been converted to the True Faith; and had even risked his life and been severely beaten because in his righteous new zeal he had endeavored to break a horrid and grinning Mahadeo idol which stood in the shade of a great babul tree at the confines of the village.

  THE LOGICAL TALE OF THE FOUR CAMELS

  In Sidi-el-Abas it was spring, white spring, and the pale peace of perfumed dawn.

  We were smoking and dreaming, too indolent to speak, each waiting for his neighbor to open the trickling stream of soft, lazy conversation. At last, Ibrahim Fadlallah, the Egyptian, turned to the young Englishman and said:

  “Soon, oh my dear, you will return to your own country, so listen to the moral tale I am about to tell, so that you can take back to your own pe
ople one lesson, one small lesson which will teach you how to use the manly virtues of honor, self-restraint, and piety all accomplishments in which you unbelievers are sadly deficient. Give me a cigarette, oh my beloved. Ah, thanks; and now listen to what happened in Ouadi-Halfa between Ayesha Zemzem, the Sheik Seif Ed-din, and Hasaballah Abdelkader, a young Bedouin gentleman, who is very close to my heart.

  “The Sheik was a most venerable man, deeply versed in the winding paths of sectarian theology—he had even studied the Sunna—and of a transcendent wisdom which his disciples declared to be greater than that of all the other Sheiks.

  “But even in your own country it may be that sanctity of the mind and grace of the dust created body do not always match. Indeed, the Sheik’s beard was scanty and of a mottled color; he was not over-clean, especially when you consider that as a most holy man he was supposed to be most rigorous in his daily ablutions. He had grown fat and bulky with years of good living; for tell me, should not a holy man live well so that he may reach a ripe old age, and that many growing generations of disciples may drink the clear drops of honeyed piety which fall from his lips?

  “Besides, to compensate for the many piastres he spent on himself, he tightened the strings of his purse when it came to paying for the wants of his large household. He said it was his duty to train his sons and the mothers of his sons in the shining virtue of abstemiousness, asking them to repeat daily the words in the book of the Koran: Over-indulgence is a most vile abomination in the eyes of Allah.

  “His first two wives had grown gray, and, his old heart yearning for the untaught shyness of youth, he had taken as the third, Ayesha Zemzem, the daughter of the morning. My dear, do not ask me to describe her many charms. My chaste vocabulary could never do her justice. Besides, do you not know that our women go decently veiled before strangers? Thus who am I to know what I am not allowed to see?

  “Suffice it to say that she was a precious casket filled with the arts of coquetry, that she was tall and slender as the free cypress, that her forehead was as the moon on the seventh day and her black eyes taverns of sweetest wine. But the heart of woman acknowledges no law, respects no master except the one she appoints herself, and so it was that Ayesha had no love for the Sheik in spite of his white sanctity, and though he knew the Koran and all the commentaries by heart.

  “And then one day she saw Hasaballah, and her veil dropping by chance, he saw her.

  “Hasaballah had but lately returned from that famed asylum of learning and splendor, that abode of the Commander of the Faithful, the noble town of Stamboul. He had come back dressed in robes of state, and when he donned his peach-colored coat embroidered with cunning Persian designs in silver and gold, the men in the bazaar looked up from their work and exclaimed: ‘Look at him who with his splendor shames the light of the mid-day sun!’

  “He was indeed a true Osmanli for all his Bedouin blood, and the soft fall of his large Turkish trousers, which met at the ankle, the majestic lines of his silken burnous, the bold cut of his famed peach-colored coat, were the despair of all the leading tailors in Ouadi-Halfa and the envy of all the young bloods. His speech was a string of pearls on a thread of gold. He walked lithely, with a jaunty step, swaying from side to side. He was like a fresh-sprung hyacinth and the master of many hearts.

  “I said that Ayesha saw him and her veil was lowered; and you, oh my dear, you know the heart of man, and you also know what many women shall al ways desire. You will not be shocked when I tell you that on the very same night you could have seen Hasaballah leaning against the wall in the shadow of the screened balcony which protruded from the Sheik’s harem; and there he warbled certain appropriate lines which I had taught him. Indeed, I had used them myself with great effect on a former occasion.

  “I am a beggar and I love a Queen.

  ’Tis thee, beloved, upon whose braided locks

  The fez lies as a rose-leaf on the brook;

  ’Tis thee whose breath is sweetest ambergris,

  Whose orbs are dewdrops which the lilies wear.

  “Claptrap! Oh, I don’t know. You should have heard Hasaballah’s own effort. He was going to address her as blood of my soul, but I thought it altogether too extravagant. The time to woo a woman is when you first see her, and the way to woo her is the old-fashioned way. Flatteries never grow old, and I always use the time-honored similes.

  “I tell her that she is as beautiful as the pale moon, that her walk is the walk of the king-goose, that the corners of her mouth touch her pink ears, that she has the waist of a lion, and that her voice is sweeter than the song of the Kokila-bird.

  “But permit me to continue my tale.

  “Two hours later Hasaballah and Ayesha knocked at my gate, and, touching my knee, asked me for hospitality and protection, which I granted them, having always been known as the friend of the oppressed and the persecuted. And early the following morning the Sheik came to my house, and I received him with open arms as the honored guest of my divan.

  “After partaking of coffee and pipe he said:

  “Ibrahim, last night when I went to the women’s quarter to join my female household in their midnight prayer, the weeping slaves told me that Ayesha had run away. Great was my grief and fervent my prayers, and when sleep at last closed my swollen eyelids I saw in my dreams the angels Gabriel and Michael descend from heaven. They took me on their shining wings into the seventh hall of Paradise, and there I saw the Messenger Mohammed (on whom be praises) sitting on a throne of pearls and emeralds, and judging men and jinn.

  “And the Prophet (peace on him) said to me: ‘Go thou in the morning to the house of my beloved and obedient servant Ibrahim Fadlallah, where thou shalt find Ayesha, and with her a certain good-for-nought young scoundrel, whom thou shouldst carry before the Kadi and have punished with many lashes.’ Thus, O Ibrahim, obeying the commands of the blessed Prophet (on whom peace), I ask you to give up to me Ayesha and Hasaballah, that I may kill the woman and have the man much beaten, according to the wise and merciful law of the Koran.

  “And I replied: O most pious Sheik, your tale is strange indeed, though amply corroborated by what I am about to relate. For last night, after the fugitives had asked me for protection, I also prayed fervently to Allah (indeed He has no equal), and in my dreams the angels Gabriel and Michael carried me on wide spread wings into the seventh hall of Paradise, even into the presence of the Messenger Mohammed (on whom be benedictions).

  “And the Prophet (deep peace on him) turned to me and said:

  “Ibrahim, the pious and learned Sheik Seif Ed-din has just left the abode of the righteous to return to his earthly home. I gave him certain orders, but after he left I reconsidered my decision. When he visits you in the morning, tell him it is my wish that he should leave Hasaballah undisturbed in the possession of the woman he has stolen, and should accept two camels in payment of her.

  The Sheik pondered awhile, and replied:

  “Verily it says in the most holy book of the Koran that Allah loveth those who observe justice, and that the wicked who turn their backs on the decisions of the Prophet (on whom peace) are infidels who shall hereafter be boiled in large cauldrons of very hot oil. Now tell me, Ibrahim, are you sure that last night the Prophet (peace on him) did not say that I should accept four camels, and not two, in payment of the bitter loss inflicted on my honor and dignity? Indeed, for four camels Hasaballah may keep the woman, provided the animals be swift-footed and of a fair pedigree. Upon those two points I must insist.

  “Then, oh my eyes! I thought that bargaining is the habit of Jews and Armenians, and I sent word to Hasaballah to give four camels to the Sheik. And everybody was happy, everybody’s honor was satisfied, and there was but little scandal and no foulmouthed gossip to hurt the woman’s reputation.

  “I have told you how we Moslems, being the wisest of mankind, settle affairs of honor and love. Tell me, do you not think that our way is better than your crude Christian method of airing such matters in a public court of la
w, and of announcing to a jeering world the little details of harem life and of love misplaced?”

  After a moment’s reflection the Englishman replied: “I must say, since you ask me, that I consider yours a disgraceful way of bargaining for a few camels where the shame of a misled woman and the honor of an outraged husband are in the balance. In my country, as you say, the whole affair would have been aired in court and considered from every possible point of view, thus giving the respondent, the petitioner, and the co-respondent equally fair chances. The judge finally, according to our strict though humane law, would have pronounced a divorce decree in favor of the Sheik, and would have sentenced Hasaballah to pay to the Sheik a heavy fine a fine of many hundreds of pounds.”

  And Ibrahim interrupted quickly:

  “But, beloved one, you have no camels in your country.”

  THE TWO-HANDED SWORD

  He judged each act of the passing days by three pictures in the back cells of his brain. These pictures never weakened, never receded; neither during his meals, which he shared with the other students at Frau Grosser’s pension in the Dahlmannstrasse, nor during his hours of study and research spent over glass tubes and crucibles and bottles and retorts in the Royal Prussian Chemical Laboratory overlooking Unter den Linden, with Professor Kreutzer’s grating, sarcastic voice at his left ear, the rumbling basso of the professor’s German assistants at his right.

  There was one picture which showed him the island of Kiushu rising from the cloudy gray of the China Sea, black-green with cedar and scarlet with autumn maple, and the pink snow of cherry fluffing April and early May; the island which stood to him for princely Satsuma, and Satsuma; since he was a samurai, permitted to wear two swords, the daito and the shoto for the whole of Japan.

  There was the picture of his grandfather, the Marquis Takagawa—his father had gone down fighting his ship against the Russians under Makarov—who in his youth had drawn the sword for the Shogun against the Mikado in the train of Saigo, the rebel chief, who had finally made his peace with his sovereign lord and had given honorable oath that he would lay the lives, the courage, and the brains of his descendants for all time to come on the altar of Nippon to atone for the sin of his hot youth.