by Tamim Ansary
Khadija looked at Soraya “Chanting, walking in circles, counting his prayer beads—make up a plate of food.” Her green eyes were gleaming. Soraya had never seen her sister-in-law so excited. “I think a malang has come to Char Bagh!” Khadija exulted.
4
Karim and Ahmad came out of the headman’s compound, carrying a heavy basket. The main path through the village was a dusty track that meandered among scattered fruit trees and across occasional irrigation ditches. Here and there, smaller pathways branched away to lose themselves among the compounds of the humbler clans, but the boys kept going past the big communal well, past the bridge, past the mosque, until they reached the mouth of the steep path leading up to Baba’s Nose. Here, Karim paused.
“Go ahead,” he said to his friend.
“You first,” Ahmad shot back.
Karim grimaced but led the way. It was only right: he was the bigger boy, the older boy…As they approached the stranger, however, he balked again. “Please, Ahmad-jan. You take his tea to him.”
“Why me? You threw the stone.” The climb had left Ahmad wheezing for breath.
“I know, but he might put a curse on me. He’s a malang!”
Ahmad crept around a cistern built to collect rainwater. He could see the vagabond sitting against Baba’s Nose, humming away. Ahmad crouched down among the weeds, and Karim hunkered next to him. Both boys watched the vagabond thumb his green prayer beads round and round.
“Run up,” Karim whispered. “Run up, set it down, run back—nothing to it.” He gave Ahmad a push.
“Don’t push,” Ahmad complained. “You made me spill!”
“So go before it cools!”
“Should I unwrap the bread? Auntie might be angry if I leave the cloth behind.”
“Dummie! You think he’ll take the cloth when he goes? He’s a malang! He might not even take his clothes!”
“Okay, okay.” Ahmad drew a breath. “Here I go then.” But just as he clenched the basket, he went into one of his coughing fits. Karim waited patiently, knowing it might take a while to pass. Finally Ahmad wiped his brow and took hold of the basket again. Under the cloth was a potful of steaming tea, a cup already half-filled with sugar, a stick for stirring, a loaf of this morning’s bread re-heated over the dinner-fire, and a bag of date-and-walnut leather. Squaring his shoulders, Ahmad climbed the last few paces.
The malang didn’t stop murmuring, but he looked up and nodded slightly. From this close, Ahmad could see the man’s broad features, his prominent nose, his full, fleshy lips. A bushy gray beard sprouted not just from his chin but from his cheeks to his cheekbones. His forehead bore a wreath of wrinkles, yet his eyes looked young.
“My aunt sent this.” Ahmad set the tray beside the man’s knee and tried to remember the words he’d been told to say. “Your road has been long, sahib. May this tea warm you.”
“God bless you, little boy. Nice of you. Thank your good aunt.”
Ahmad was startled. He had heard of malangs so lost in ecstatic worship they let insects inhabit their beards and moss grow around their feet. He had heard of malangs who survived in the worst weather without shelter, because they thought so constantly about God that nothing could harm them. Ahmad knew all this about malangs, but he never knew malangs could speak and say ordinary things like “bless you” and “thank-your-aunt”.
Should he say something in return? Questions surged in him. Who are you? Where did you come from? Oh, how he longed to ask. What lay beyond the mountains? A traveling man must have seen great things: giants—who could tell? Dragons. Battles. Even, perhaps, the great city of Kabul.
The malang slipped his beads into his vest pocket and peeped under the cloth. Then he tore a chunk off the loaf of bread, filled and stirred his cup, dipped his bread in the sweet hot tea, and began to chew with gusto, taking no further notice of the boy. Karim, lying flat against the ground waved at Ahmad through the weeds, an urgent irritated gesture that meant: what are you waiting for? Run back!
But Ahmad could not leave without asking at least a question or two. “Malang-sahib, did you come from far away?” His breath rasped.
The vagabond glanced at the boy. “Why do you call me ‘malang’?”
“Aren’t you one? What are you, then? Just a traveler, sir?”
“Yes, my boy. Just a traveler.”
“Well a traveler is a great thing to be,” said Ahmad. “I’ll be one myself when I’m grown. I’ll travel so far away, so far, you wait and see! My father went all the way to Mecca with his papa when he was a boy. One day…” Ahmad groped for a place inconceivably distant. “I will go to Kabul.”
“If God wills it,” the malang agreed gently.
“But where did you come from, sir?” Ahmad stopped to cough, then dared to add, “And where are you going?”
The malang drew his prayer beads out again. “Yesterday, little man, I was with my beloved. Tomorrow, inshallah, I will be with my beloved.”
“Oh.” So this was a suitor going somewhere to claim his bride. But wait: if he was with her yesterday, why was he here now? And where were his people, why had they left him without so much as a donkey, even? “How long will you stay here, sir?”
“Until The Friend calls to me,” the malang replied. “I have yielded to The Friend, like the leaves and the birds and the stars and the worms. How about you, good lad? Have you yielded to the stars and the worms?”
“Maybe,” Ahmad stammered. Was the man talking about Allah in some strange way? Just to be on the safe side, the little boy recited his Testament of Faith: “La illaha il-allahu wa Mohammedu-rasullilah.” No god but God and Mohammed bears His Message.
A hornet came circling down in a great swooping spiral, moving not like a bee or a wasp, but slowly, very slowly. The hornet moved so slowly that Ahmad could see the big orange-banded body swaying and tilting as it swung below the supporting wings. The boy sucked in a scared breath. Hornets could hurt you bad, kill you even! But this one bypassed Ahmad, alighting instead on the malang’s hand, which in turn was resting on the man’s knee. The malang did not move. After a moment, the hornet lifted off and buzzed around his head. Ahmad went on holding his breath. The malang caught his eye and winked, then opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. The hornet landed on that flap of flesh. The malang closed his mouth and smiled. A moment later, he opened his mouth and the hornet soared away, shaking droplets of moisture off its tiny legs. Ahmad rubbed his eyes, feeling dizzy.
A thud sounded to his right—Karim had thrown a stone to get his attention. The next one might hit the malang.
“Entrusting you to God, Sahib,” Ahmad blurted, jumping up to go, so his friend wouldn’t throw another stone.
“God protect you, sugar cube,” the malang replied, his eyes suddenly sad. Ahmad trotted back to his friend.
“You talked to him!” Karim chittered. “What did he say? What did he say?”
“He said he’s on his way to claim his bride,” Ahmad said thoughtfully.
“Where did he come from, did he say?”
“From his bride.”
Karim snickered. “He can’t be doing both, donkey-butt.”
“You’re the donkey-butt. God made him crazy, but he’s still got powers.” At that moment Ahmad realized he had to tell his father. His father the malik needed to know about this man on the hill. The thought of breaking into his father’s mighty presence made the boy feel sweaty, but someone had to tell him, and who else could do it? Ahmad started up the stairs.
***
Ibrahim heard the knock but didn’t look up from his book. My beloved can tie water into knots… There it was again, the poet’s favorite word: beloved… An image of Khadija flickered into the malik’s mind, but of course when the great poet Senayee said Beloved, he meant … another image flared up in Ibrahim’s mind—that moment in Mecca, standing before the black stone, when the sound of the crowds had died to a whisper and he had almost felt—but just then his father had squeezed his shoulder and the
spell was broken. So he had never completed a connection…to Allah… yet he never forgot either. Ibrahim jotted Mecca near the word “my beloved,” writing carefully because the page was thin. He didn’t hear the door opening until he heard his son’s voice.
“Agha-jan?” the boy squeaked. “There’s a stranger in the village.”
Ibrahim set his pen down and rubbed his eyes. The poem dissipated around him like a dream. “What sort of stranger, Little Fellow?”
“The kind that swallows hornets. He can turn stones into birds, papa!”
The village headman closed his book and put it on the shelf, then twisted the cap back onto the ink bottle, making sure not to spill any ink on his book, for ink was precious and books irreplaceable. Then he patted the spot beside him on the mat, his eyes doting on his heir. “Stones into birds, eh? Sit down and tell me about this man. He comes from Sorkhab, you say?”
“No, Papa. He’s a traveler. He comes from his beloved, he says.”
“His Beloved?” Ice formed suddenly in Ibrahim’s veins.
“Yes, sir. He’s on his way to meet her. Only—he just came from where she was—he said. It was confusing! But he said—”
“His Beloved?” the malik repeated. “He used that word exactly? You’re sure?”
“Yes, Agha-jan.” Ahmad took a breath. “Then he talked about worms. Then he started humming. No, the humming was first. And the bird was this morning. This afternoon a hornet landed on his tongue, but he just swallowed it. Then it came out and flew away. I bet he can cure snakebites. Karim says he wants to kill us and steal our women, but I don’t think so. He doesn’t even have a donkey, Papa. He walked over the hill. It’s true!”
Ibrahim’s pulse was racing now. Through the open window came the aroma of wet pebbles and cattails. “Where is he now?”
“Next to Baba’s Nose. He’s been there since morning. Auntie Khadija made us take some food to him up there.”
“Since morning! Oh no.” Ibrahim scrambled to his feet. “Run away and play but don’t tell anyone about this man. Not till I’ve seen him.” He patted the boy’s head and hurried out.
5
Halfway up the slope, Ibrahim paused to pull his cloak tighter, then kept climbing into the shadow of the cliffs. Soon he discerned the figure hunched in the deeper shadows of Baba’s Nose. “A’salaam aleikum,” he called out.
“W’aleikum a’salaam,” the voice sang back.
Ibrahim picked his way around the rainwater cistern. “I am Ibrahim,” he said. “Malik of the village you see below.”
“I am Vagabond Alaudin, occupant of the body you see before you.”
So he had a name! Vagabond Alaudin. Ibrahim thought about the Malang of the Sixty Steps. He too was a vagabond before he found a perch above Gardez, where he lived on leaves and twigs until the weather wore his clothes to rags. The people cut a staircase up to him, sixty steps hewn into solid rock, so that pilgrims might bring food and drink to the God-crazed man, so that people in need might touch his rags for healing grace. Miracles were reported after that around Gardez—miracles! What if Char Bagh had acquired such a hermit?
But then Ibrahim remembered the Howling Malang of Gulabad, who sometimes hit people with sticks. And what about the famous Slapping Malang? He could only hope Char Bagh had not acquired one of those!
“They tell me you’ve come a long way, Traveler. Come down to the village tonight. It may rain. Spend the night under my roof.”
“Long life to you, Chief, but I prefer to stay up here,” said the vagabond. “It won’t rain till Tuesday, God willing, and I’ve promised to let the stars take a look at me tonight. You can’t break a promise to that crowd. Unless your house has no roof, then it would be okay. Or if the roof has holes. Does your roof have holes, Chief?”
Ibrahim shook his head. The man certainly sounded like a malang. What if pilgrims started drifting in … ? “My roof has no holes, but as for rain, sahib, you never know in these parts. It can be clear at sunset and pouring by midnight. I can’t have a traveler spending the night in a downpour so near my house. Be my guest, I insist. My people are cooking a feast.”
“Your people have already given me bread and tea and sugar and more. My contentment is complete. You can hear the river from up here. Listen! Can you hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Can you hear it down below, from your house?”
“Not from inside unless you open the windows.”
“What about the frogs? Up here, after nightfall, they sing louder than people. How loud are they down there?”
The malik smiled. “Down there I’m sad to say the people are louder than the frogs.” Actually, the man did not seem as strange as a true malang. Aside from his peculiar insistence on staying outdoors, he seemed quite approachable. He might even be…but no: Ibrahim shut out that hope. A Sufi sheikh does not wander about in rags. “Frogs aside, sahib, I’m sure you will be more comfortable under my roof. Really, as malik of Char Bagh, I can’t have people saying that our hospitality fell short. Never!”
“No one will say such a thing of you, Malik-jan. If they do, I’ll get a big stick and beat them on the head. Who owns this patch of ground I sit upon?” The malang lifted his butt and patted the soil just beneath it.
“Who would claim this?” Ibrahim scratched his head. “It’s too steep. You can’t water it, you can’t farm it. This land is worthless.”
“Well, then, do I have your permission to sit up here and ponder God?”
“Certainly. But you can ponder God anywhere, can’t you?” Ibrahim moistened his lips. When the malang made no reply, he said, “Let me ask you one question, if it would not be rude to ask. Where are you going? South toward Kabul? North perhaps? Which way are you headed?”
The malang laughed. “South, north, east, west, what does it matter. My Beloved awaits me everywhere.” Then he shook his head ruefully. “ In short, I have decided to stop moving and wait for my Beloved to embrace me right here.”
A couplet of Rumi’s suddenly popped into Ibrahim’s mind. All you tribes who went to Mecca! Where have you been? All along, the Beloved was right here …Come in. For so many years, reading such lines, Ibrahim had longed to know what those poets knew, to feel what they so obviously felt. Even as a child, when his father had taken him along on that epic journey to Mecca, he hungered for the actual warmth of Allah in his heart. At the Ka’ba, he had performed all the rites in tremulous hope; but when his turn came to stone Satan, he hit another pilgrim instead, and everybody laughed. Everybody forgave him, of course. He’s just a little boy, they said, as if for him the pilgrimage was just some sort of game. It was never a game for Ibrahim, not even then. He could not remember a time before the hunger gnawed at him. Even now, no one knew how it gnawed at him. No one knew the loneliness of a man who could read and had twenty-two books of his own, filled with mystical verses that he couldn’t fathom, a man who had no companion with whom to share his books or any master who could help him puzzle out what they contained.
“Traveler,” he choked out. “I think I know what you’re talking about. I too would open my arms to the Beloved. I too…” But he had lost the thread. “Like the poet says…” he ventured hopelessly. Then another couplet from the lyrics of Maulana Rumi flashed into his mind—he knew so many thousands by heart—and it burst from his throat spontaneously. “Your heart brims from rim to rim with Me… Exile, break in. Break into the prison of love! Be free!
The malang nodded, staring out across the slope and toward the river far away, and then said, “Ever the sky whirls, the elements reel and stew. Earth, air, fire, water—all are drunk on You.”
Ibrahim breathed out. Oh, this was no mere malang, turning stones into birds and doing magic tricks. “Sheikh-sahib,” he croaked, tears stinging his eyelids. “Sufi-sahib!”
“Sufi?” the traveler laughed. “What is that? Don’t exaggerate, my lord. I am merely a Drunkard, that is all. Out of my gourd. Too besotted to leave this perch lest I stumble and fall. He
re I am, and here I’ll stay. Good day, malik. Good day, my dear. Good day, good day.”
6
The rice would turn sticky if he didn’t come soon. And yet she had to keep it warm. Biting her scarf to keep it in front of her mouth, Khadija heaped more live coals on the pot lids. Where was that headman? Where was he?
The outer gate rattled. Fifteen women flooded into the courtyard to bombard Ibrahim with questions. “Did you see him? What did he say? Is he really a malang?”
Followed by his women, young Hajji Ibrahim entered the house and discarded his cloak. “Brr.” He stamped his feet. “One thing I can tell you, the man intends to stay up there all night under the stars. To hear the frogs sing, he says. To hear the crickets. Isn’t it wonderful? I hope he doesn’t freeze.” The headman sniffed the air. “Do I smell a feast? Soraya, my rose, you have outdone yourself.”
Soraya ignored her husband, because one of the girls had put something in her mouth. She was tapping the child on the chin, coaxing her with, “Open… Open...”
“I hope it pleases you.” Khadija felt shy about taking ownership of the meal, but she said the words anyway. “Since winter is over, I thought why not celebrate? After all, we have a surplus and if a malang has come to Char Bagh—”
“He’s not a malang.”
Khadija felt slapped.
“He’s more than that. He’s a poet,” said the headman. “A poet and a Sufi sheikh! Yes! And a learned scholar, I believe.”
Soraya snickered. “Since when does a learned scholar sit on a rock all night listening to frogs?”
“Since when are you qualified to judge what learned scholars do?” the headman flashed. “How many scholars do you know?”
His unruffled wife cocked an eye at him. “Just you,” she said.
