Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation

by A. W. Hill

  “Is this a preview of what we’ll be passing through?” he asked.

  “Sad to say, yeah,” Dante replied, checking the fuel injectors. “There will be some quieter stretches away from the border, and after we cross the Buzul Dagi into the Old Man’s autonomous region, it’s a no-go zone. Until then, we’ll see a lot of this.”

  “How the hell are we going to avoid checkpoints?”

  “Have faith, rafiq. You’re not our first pilgrim.”

  “I might be the first to have a price on his head.”

  Dante reseated the injector cable and lowered the hood. “Not even,” he said, and gave Francesca a thumbs-up. “We all do.”

  At six o’clock, after ten hours of hard driving that had gained them barely three hundred miles, they came to a small village in the Mardin Daglari range, tucked into a transverse valley about sixty miles north of the border and an equal distance south of Batman, the closest town of any size. This village could not have been home to more than three or four hundred people, yet it had the look of a destination. Its cobblestone main street was lined with brightly painted dwellings and shops bunched on a precipitous slope, slipped into place like colored beads on a string. In the angled light of late afternoon, the place gave rise to a deep sense of dislocation in Raszer.

  “Does it have a name?” he asked Francesca. “This village.”

  “No,” she replied. “That’s one of its charms. According to the stories, the villagers figured out centuries ago that if you didn’t name your town, it didn’t get on the map, and if it wasn’t on the map, no one came looking for it. It was an enclave of Nestorian Christians fifteen centuries ago. Now it’s a kind of refuge for renegades of all stripes. And we are welcome here.”

  “Nestorians,” Raszer repeated, lifting Adi’s muzzle gently from his thigh.

  “They rejected the notion that God suffered on the cross,” Francesca said, “or that Mary was literally the mother of God. Jesus was an avatar, not a god.”

  Francesca signaled for the group to follow her down the oddly empty street. “The Nestorians made too much sense, so they condemned them as heretics.”

  They were joined by the dog, who came straight to Raszer’s side. “Weird time, the fifth century,” he said. “This whole part of the world consumed by the issue of what Jesus was: Arians claiming he was wholly physical, and Docetists and Monophysites claiming he was wholly spiritual, and the Church frantically trying to hold the middle by insisting he was both. You have to give them credit for taking their religion seriously, but they all sort of missed the forest for the trees, didn’t they?”

  “Which forest?” asked Dante, catching up.

  “Well, as far as I’ve been able to tell, Jesus never claimed he was the only one with keys to the kingdom. He said he was one with the Father, but if anyone had asked, I think he’d have said it was pretty much the same for all of us.”

  “Every man both lord and vassal,” said Dante. “That’s what Ibn Arabi says.”

  “Where is everybody?” Raszer asked. Not a shop seemed to be open, nor was there evidence of life behind the dwellings’ fancifully painted shutters.

  “They’re all getting ready for the Jam,” answered Francesca. “The Jamkhana. The festival. It’s the big finish of the Naruz celebration. New Year’s. Tomorrow, there’ll be one hell of a rave.”

  “It’s a shame we’ll miss it,” said Raszer.

  Francesca came to a stop in front of an absurdly narrow one-story building with a blue door, wedged between two somewhat larger stone structures. “We won’t miss it,” she corrected. “Not for the world. We’ll be staying here two nights.”

  “That’s news to me,” said Raszer. “I’d love nothing better than to take in the local color, but we have miles to go—”

  “Trust us,” said Francesca. “Those miles will go much faster after you’ve been adjusted.”

  “Adjusted to what?”

  “This village is a crossover, Stephan. A pardivari. A sort of bridge.”

  “Okay. So it’s like getting used to the altitude before going for the summit,” Raszer said.

  “Right,” Dante answered, pushing in the door and holding it for his companions. “And the crossing begins here.” They filed in, the wolfhound bringing up the rear.

  Raszer’s first adjustment was to the darkness of the little tavern, which appeared at first no larger than a generous cupboard. It was a minor masterpiece of spatial planning, as the proprietor—a gaunt figure with a luxuriant moustache—had somehow found room for an eight-foot bar of rough cedar and four stools. All the booze must have been stowed beneath the bar, as there was space behind it only for the rib-thin owner and a large, tarnished mirror that gave the place what little depth it had. An oil lamp cast a faint glow on the man’s face. The rest of the room receded into blackness.

  Francesca greeted the proprietor in what Raszer took to be Kurdish. It was a language he knew nothing of, and had had no time to crack. She motioned for them to sit, but Raszer remained standing. His eyes were drawn to the stranger in the mirror—the stranger that was his transformed self—and to the glints of gold floating behind its aged surface. The proprietor smiled and nodded to each of them in turn, then uncorked a tall bottle and set four glasses on the bar. He poured from it a clear, thick liquid.

  Raszer lifted the glass to his nose and sniffed. Anise. Herbs. And a lot of alcohol.

  “Ouzo?” he asked Francesca.

  “The local version: raki. If you don’t want to melt your intestines, stick with Altibas or Tekirdag grade. This is Ismet’s own family’s Tekirdag, and it’s got a few extras.”

  In practiced fashion, Ismet, the bartender, topped off each of the four glasses with water poured from a clay pitcher, then stepped back an inch and tipped his head.

  “We drink,” said Dante.

  “We drink,” echoed Francesca.

  As he swallowed, Raszer felt fire pour down his gullet.

  A chuckle, soft as the padding of an animal in damp underbrush, came from a table in the rear of the tavern, an area that was only now becoming visible, and dimly at that. Raszer turned. The man at the table was twice its width, and his robes draped the chair. He wore a fezlike cap of black felt and wool on his head, and his enormous fingers were wrapped around a little glass.

  “We’re not the only ones here for cocktail hour,” Raszer told Francesca.

  “That’s Baba Hexreb,” she replied. “Local wise man. It’s him we came for . . . and Ismet’s raki. When the stars are aligned, the combination is awesome.”

  “Will you introduce me?”

  “Of course,” Francesca said, nodding to the bar. “Bring your glass.”

  Before they had risen from their stools, Baba Hexreb cleared his throat and began to tell a story, peppering his throaty English with Arabic.

  “A Bektashi was in a mosque one day, listening to the hodja give a sermon. He was about to nod off from boredom, when the hodja began talking about the beautiful virgins that awaited the faithful in heaven. When he heard the word heaven, the Bektashi came to himself and asked the hodja excitedly, ‘Hodja efendi, will wine and raki be served to the faithful in heaven also?’ The hodja became furious and shouted back, ‘You pagan, what do you think heaven is . . . a tavern?!’ The Bektashi smiled and replied, ‘Ha! And what do you think heaven is, efendi . . . a whorehouse?!’”

  “I’ve got one for you, Father,” said Raszer, drawing out a chair. “A Bektashi approached the hodja after prayers. ‘Tell me, learned one,’ he asked, ‘if you set both a bowl of water and a bowl of wine in front of your donkey, which will he drink?” The hodja replied without hesitation: ‘The water, of course, because my donkey is a pious servant of Allah.’

  “‘Well,’ the Bektashi said, ‘you are correct on one count: He will drink the water—but not because he is pious. He will drink the water because he is an ass.’”

  Baba Hexreb chuckled and lifted his glass to Raszer, saying, “Sit, sit, my friends. It is the eve of the fe
stival, and for now, we have Ismet’s place to ourselves. Tomorrow, we will not have room to stand.” He took a drink, then leaned forward and laid his forefinger on Raszer’s wrist. “And who, my friend, are you . . . who dresses as a servant of Christ and speaks as an intimate of the Sufis?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that Christ had found hospitality here,” said Raszer. “If he were here today, he might dress as a Bektashi like yourself—”

  “Sshhhtt!” said Hexreb, putting a thick finger to his lips, the corners of his mouth curling around it in a grin. “Don’t give me away. There are still witch-hunters about.”

  “Apologies, Baba,” Raszer offered, indicating the holy man’s black cap. “Your taj gave you away.”

  The baba rolled his coal black eyes warily upward, as if expecting to find a perching bird on his head. He removed it quickly and hid it in the folds of his lap, looked from side to side, and then shrugged. “A taj is just a taj. Perhaps I am only an imposter. What is the English word? A sham.”

  “I doubt that,” said Raszer. “But I expect to find a few where I’m going.”

  “And where is that, Father?”

  Francesca leaned in. “This is Frère Deleuze, Baba. Or, at least, we have made him so. We are taking him to El Mirai. He is here to bargain for the release of an American girl who has been enslaved there. We’ve come here to seek your blessing.”

  Hexreb gave Raszer a second inspection. “I don’t know how well you bargain,” he said, “but your guise is convincing enough. Or it will be when you’ve put on your robes. Take it from one who knows deception.”

  “Is the Bektashi order still outlawed here?” Raszer asked.

  “Officially, yes, but we abide. Our tariqah—our spiritual path—has always annoyed officialdom, whether it be Ottoman, secularist, or Islamist.”

  “Because you hold that Allah is in the heart, and not in the law . . . ”

  “Because we tweak their noses with truth,” said the baba.

  The dog, which had until then remained on guard at the door, came to Hexreb, its claws clicking rhythmically on the rough plank floor. It sat to await his acknowledgment, which he gave quickly and respectfully.

  “Hello, dedebaba,” he said in Arabic. “Welcome back. And how is life as a dog, the most blessed of lower creatures?” Adi gave his beefy hand a lick. “Ah, I see. Yes, I will convey this most important of precepts. Thank you for reminding me.”

  Baba Hexreb summoned the proprietor to bring the bottle of raki, then folded his hands on the table. Together, they made a mass of flesh the size of an ox’s heart. It seemed to Raszer that the size of the man was a factor of his accumulated goodness, and that if he grew wise enough, he might become a giant. For all the weight he carried on his frame, his face showed not the slightest strain. He replaced the taj on his bald head and spoke.

  “Shaykh Adi reminds me of something too easily forgotten by humans, who are not as adept as dogs at sniffing out malice. We are inclined to believe—because the ascetics have taught us so—that to enter the world of spirit is to escape evil, as if the Devil dwelt only in flesh. We think if we leave our prison of bones, we can soar freely over the ocean that has kept us from the sublime. But evil does not stop at the water’s edge. Like the serpent, it simply swims across, our soul’s own shadow on the waters. True, the essence of marifah—real knowledge—is distilled in spirit, and this is why we seek that far shore. But woe to him who fails to grasp that the Devil has demons to match God’s angels. This is haqiqah—reality. Has there ever been a thing acquired by virtue that evil does not wish to have by theft?”

  “Granting all this, Baba,” Raszer inquired, “why hasn’t the world already gone to the Devil?”

  The holy man chuckled. “Look around, Father. Would you not say it has?”

  “I take your point . . . but as long as people like yourself—and my friends here—are around, I have to believe that the better angels have a chance.”

  “Indeed,” Hexreb affirmed. “Because even bad men were once children. Even the worst of us carries the seed of Allah in his heart, and sometimes waters it.”

  “And the man I am going to see . . . is Allah to be found in his heart?”

  “If indeed he is a man, yes. We have the most to fear if he is merely a thought, enshrined in an idol, for these thoughts—unleavened by the human heart—are the most dangerous of creations. And there are men in whom the seed finally shrivels and blows dry, men in whom the soil has gone to dust. In these men, Shaytan may turn the mirror of the soul on his own face and deceive the man into thinking he sees the face of God.”

  He paused and turned his ear to the door. “Listen. Do you hear how the wind rises outside with the coming of night and seeks every chink in Ismet’s door? If you step outside now—in twilight—you may encounter evil disguised as townsman or beggar. The same holds true for the hours before dawn, and for the places of the world without history or tribe. A man may be on his way home, when Shaytan will put his leg in the path. Having tripped you, he will offer to help you up. This is where it begins.

  “We have but one task—on this, I know my young friends will agree—and that is to become fully human. The Ismailis of old—the Nizaris—were not wrong to say that resurrection must be our own doing. They were not wrong to think . . . may I say this in Arabic?”

  “Of course,” said Raszer. “I’ll try to follow.”

  “ . . . That we are swaddled in ignorance from birth. We are taught to trust in the perception of teachers, princes, and mullahs whose own vision is clouded by lies and laws. But the world is both more terrifying and more wonderful than what they describe. There are many—often the most pious—who reach manhood convinced of their righteousness, when in truth their souls have long since been seized by the Devil. Their errors are passed on like infection, generation after generation. And so Hassan-i-Sabbah taught that we all must allow the dai—the teacher—to strip us down until nothing remains but the original self, and then teach us to see anew. For only the man who has stood against Shaytan in the soul’s clothing can claim truth. This, however, requires great trust in the teacher. We have handed him our naked soul; what if, rather than tenderly wrapping us in his cloak, he should decide to ravish us? To shape our will to his own design and employ it as he wishes? The one you go to see is such a fiend.”

  “Can he be persuaded to let at least one child go?” Raszer asked.

  “I doubt that he can be persuaded by reason,” the baba replied, returning to English, “though perhaps you can turn his own unreason against him. It will be a bit like steering a ship without the stars, Father. You will be able to use only the lights of his world to find your way, and as those lights are false, all illumination must come from within you. Good luck, Father . . . may the breath of Allah be at your back.”

  Baba Hexreb finished the last of his raki and set the little glass down gently. He could easily have crushed it to powder in his palm. He rose, stooping to stroke Shaykh Adi’s head and accept one last lick, and then made his way out of the tavern, moving lightly for a man of his size. He left no wake, but Raszer felt a great vacuum in his absence, and a great longing to follow. The tavern suddenly seemed twice as large.

  Ismet came to their side and spoke to Francesca.

  “He’ll take us to our quarters for the night,” she translated.

  Raszer looked around for a door or stairwell in the still-murky light. “Our quarters?” he thought aloud. “Are they curled up in another dimension?”

  “In a way,” Francesca replied, and gave a nod toward the back of the room.

  There was, in fact, a doorway at the rear of the tavern, draped with a curtain and leading through a pantry that opened on a brick patio partially covered by a wooden trellis, lathed in intricate Islamic design and wound through with flowering vine. The accommodations had the look of a makeshift field hospital: six metal-framed cots side by side on the bricks, separated by small night tables of unpainted wood. An embroidered blanket served to cu
rtain off two more cots at the far end, which Raszer presumed were for female guests. There was clean, sweet-smelling straw on the brick and indigo-glazed pitchers of water on every nightstand. Beyond the patio, the white hills rolled away like breakers in the early moonlight, jeweled with the flickering firelight from nearby shepherds’ dwellings. It was a good spot.

  “Ismet will bring us some dinner,” said Francesca. “Technically, we should be fasting before the festival with the rest of the town, but we’re—”

  “I’m not averse to fasting,” said Raszer, “if it’s the custom.”

  “It’s your choice,” said Francesca. “But no one will fault you for eating. We have a slog ahead of us, and in two days you’re going to be burning through your protein.”