by Noah Gordon
He looked away. “Now she is buried and he is consumed. So that he sends old friends from him, and every day he walks the city alone, bestowing gifts to the poor.”
“Hakim,” Rob said gently.
Al-Juzjani stared.
“Hakim, shall I see you to your home?”
“Foreigner. I would like you to leave me now.”
So Rob nodded and thanked him for the wine, and then he went away.
Rob waited a week and then rode to the house in full daylight and left his horse with the man at the gate.
Ibn Sina was alone. His eyes were at peace. He and Rob sat together comfortably, talking sometimes, and sometimes not.
“Were you already a physician when you wed her, Master?”
“I became hakim at sixteen. We were wed when I was ten, the year I memorized the Qu’ran, the year I began the study of healing herbs.”
Rob was awed. “At that age I was struggling to become a faker and a barber-surgeon.” He told Ibn Sina how Barber had apprenticed him as an orphaned boy.
“What had been your father’s work?”
“A carpenter.”
“I know of European guilds. I had heard,” Ibn Sina said slowly, “that in Europe there are very few Jews and they are not allowed in the guilds.”
He knows, Rob thought in anguish. “A few are allowed,” he muttered.
Ibn Sina’s eyes seemed to pierce him gently. Rob couldn’t rid himself of the certainty that he was undone.
“You yearn so desperately to learn the healing art and science.”
“Yes, Master.”
Ibn Sina sighed, nodded, looked away.
No doubt, Rob noted with relief, his fear had been mistaken; for soon they talked of other things.
Ibn Sina recalled the first time he had seen Reza as a boy. “She was from Bukhara, a girl four years older than I. Our fathers were tax collectors both, and the marriage was amicably arranged save for brief difficulty because her grandfather objected that my father was an Ismaili and used hashish during holy worship. But presently we were wed. She was steadfast all my life.”
The old man turned his eyes on Rob. “You still have the fire in you. What do you want?”
“To be a good physician.” The kind only you make, he added silently. But he believed Ibn Sina understood.
“You are already a healer. As for worthiness …” Ibn Sina shrugged. “To be a good physician, you must be able to answer an unanswerable riddle.”
“What is the question?” Rob J. asked, intrigued.
But the old man smiled in his sorrow. “Perhaps one day you may discover it. That is part of the riddle,” he said.
47
THE EXAMINATION
On the afternoon of Karim’s examination, Rob went through his customary activities with special energy and attention, attempting to divert his mind from the scene he knew would soon take place in the meeting room just off the House of Wisdom.
He and Mirdin had recruited Yussuf-ul-Gamal, the kindly librarian, as their accomplice and spy. While going about his duties in the library Yussuf was able to witness the identities of the examiners. Mirdin waited outside for the news, which he promptly brought to Rob.
“It is Sayyid Sa’di for philosophy,” Yussuf had told Mirdin before hurrying back inside for more. That wasn’t bad; the philosopher was difficult but would not go out of his way to fail a candidate.
But from then on, the news was terrifying.
Nadir Bukh, the autocratic, spade-bearded legalist who had failed Karim on his first examination, would test for the law! The mullah Abul Bakr would question on matters of theology, and the Prince of Physicians himself would examine on medicine.
Rob had hoped that Jalal would sit on the board for surgery, but Rob could see Jalal at his usual duties, tending to patients; and presently Mirdin came rushing in and whispered that the last member had arrived and it was Ibn al-Natheli, whom none of them knew well.
Rob concentrated on his work, helping Jalal put traction on a dislocated shoulder, using a clever device of ropes of Jalal’s own design. The patient, a palace guard who had been thrown from his pony during a game of ball-and-stick, finally lay like a wild animal in rope restraints, pop-eyed with the sudden release from pain.
“Now you will lie for several weeks, at ease while others struggle with the onerous duties of soldiering,” Jalal said cheerfully. He directed Rob to administer astringent drugs and to order an acid diet until they could be certain the guardsman had not developed inflammation or a hematoma.
The binding of the shoulder with cloths, not too tight but sufficient to restrain movement, was Rob’s last chore. When he was finished he went to the House of Wisdom and sat and read Celsus, trying to hear what was being said in the examining room and gaining only the unintelligible murmur of voices. Finally he abandoned the effort and went to wait on the steps of the medical school, where presently he was joined by Mirdin.
“They are still inside.”
“I hope it is not drawn out,” Mirdin said. “Karim isn’t the sort who can deal with too long a testing.”
“I am not certain he can deal with any testing. He puked for an hour this morning.”
Mirdin sat beside Rob on the steps. They spoke about several patients and then lapsed into silence, Rob scowling, Mirdin sighing.
After a longer time than they would have thought possible, Rob stood. “Here he is,” he said.
Karim threaded his way toward them through the clusters of students.
“Can you tell from his face?” Mirdin said.
Rob couldn’t, but well before Karim reached them, he shouted the news. “You must call me hakim, clerks!”
They charged down the steps.
The three of them embraced, danced, and shouted, pummeling one another and making such a row that Hadji Davout Hosein, passing, showed them a face pale with indignation that students of his academy should behave in such a fashion.
The rest of the day and the evening became a time they would remember for the remainder of their days.
“You must come to my rooms for refreshment,” Mirdin said.
It was the first time he had asked them to his home, the first time they opened their private worlds to one another.
Mirdin’s quarters were two rented rooms in a joined house hard by the House of Zion Synagogue, on the other side of Yehuddiyyeh from Rob’s neighborhood.
His family was a sweet surprise. A shy wife, Fara: short, dark, low-arsed, steady-eyed. Two round-faced sons, Dawwid and Issachar, who clung to their mother’s robes. Fara served sweetcakes and wine, obviously in readiness for the celebration, and after a number of toasts the three friends went forth again and found a tailor who measured the new hakim for his black physician’s robes.
“This is a night for the maidans!” Rob declared, and at eventide they were in a dining place overlooking the great central square of the city, eating a fine Persian meal and calling for more of a musky wine which Karim scarcely needed, being drunk on physicianhood.
They dwelled over each question of the examination, and each answer.
“Ibn Sina kept asking me questions about medicine. ‘What are the various signs obtained from sweat, candidate?… Very good, Master Karim, very complete … And what are the general signs that we use for prognosis? Will you now discuss proper hygiene for a traveler on the land and then on the sea?’ It was almost as though he were aware that medicine was my strength and the other fields my weakness.
“Sayyid Sa’di bade me discuss Plato’s concept that all men desire happiness, which I am grateful, Mirdin, that we studied so completely. I answered at length, with many references to the Prophet’s concept that happiness is Allah’s reward for obedience and faithful prayer. And that was one danger dealt with.”
“And what of Nadir Bukh?” Rob asked.
“The lawyer.” Karim shuddered. “He asked me to discuss the Fiqh regarding punishment of criminals. I couldn’t think. So I said that all punishment is based on the
writings of Mohammed (may he be blessed!), which declare that in this world we all depend upon one another proximately, though our ultimate dependence is always on Allah now and forever. Time separates the good and pure from the evil and rebellious. Every individual who strays will be punished and every one who obeys will be in complete consonance with God’s Universal Will, on which Fiqh is based. The command of the soul thus rests wholly with Allah, who works to punish all sinners.”
Rob was staring. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know now. I didn’t know then. I saw Nadir Bukh chewing the answer to see if it contained meat he hadn’t recognized. He seemed about to open his mouth to demand clarification or ask further questions, in which case I should have been doomed, but then Ibn Sina asked me to expound upon the humor of blood, whereupon I gave back his own words from the two books he has written on the subject, and the questioning was over!”
They roared until they wept, and drank and drank again.
When finally they could drink no more they staggered to the street beyond the maidan and hailed the donkey coach with the lily on the door. Rob sat in the driver’s seat with the pimp. Mirdin fell asleep with his head in the ample lap of the whore named Lorna, and Karim rested his head upon her bosom and sang gentle songs.
Fara’s quiet eyes were round with concern when they half-carried her husband into his rooms.
“He is ill?”
“He is drunk. As are we all,” Rob explained, and they returned to the coach. It carried them to the little house in Yehuddiyyeh, where he and Karim dropped to the floor as soon as they were inside the door, falling asleep in their clothes.
During the night he was awakened by a quiet rasp of sound and knew Karim was weeping.
At dawn he was awakened again, by the rising of his visitor.
Rob groaned. He should not drink at all, he thought gloomily.
“Sorry to disturb. I must go and run.”
“Run? Why, on this of all mornings? After last night?”
“To prepare for chatir.”
“What is chatir?”
“A footrace.”
Karim slipped out of the house. There was the slap-slap-slap as he began to run, a receding sound, soon gone.
Rob lay on the floor and listened to the barking of cur dogs that marked the progress of the world’s newest physician, roaming like a djinn through the narrow streets of Yehuddiyyeh.
48
A RIDE IN THE COUNTRY
“The chatir is our national footrace, an annual event almost as old as Persia,” Karim told Rob. “It’s held to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the month of religious fasting. Originally—so far back in the mists of time that we’ve lost the name of the king who sponsored the first race—it was a competition to select the Shah’s chatir, or footman, but through the centuries it has drawn to Ispahan the best runners of Persia and elsewhere and taken on the qualities of a great entertainment.”
The course began at the gates of the House of Paradise and wound through the streets of Ispahan for ten and one-half Roman miles, ending at a series of posts in the palace courtyard. On the posts were hung slings, each containing twelve arrows and assigned to a specific runner. Every time a runner reached the posts he took an arrow from his sling and placed it in a quiver on his back, then he retraced his steps for another lap. Traditionally the race began with the call to First Prayer. It was a grueling test of endurance. If the day was hot and oppressive, the last runner to remain in the race was declared the winner. In races run during cool weather men sometimes finished the entire twelve laps, 126 Roman miles, usually collecting the final arrow some time after Fifth Prayer. Although it was rumored that ancient runners had achieved better times, most ran the course in about fourteen hours.
“No one now living can remember a runner who finished in less than thirteen hours,” Karim said. “Alā Shah has announced that if a man finishes in twelve hours or less, he will be awarded a magnificent calaat. In addition he will earn a reward of five hundred gold pieces and an honorary appointment as Chief of the Chatirs, which carries with it a handsome annual stipend.”
“This is why you’ve worked so hard, run so far every day? You think you can win this race?”
Karim grinned and shrugged. “Every runner dreams of winning the chatir. Of course I would like to win the race and the calaat. Only one thing could be better than being a physician—and that is being a rich physician in Ispahan!”
The air turned, becoming so perfectly moist and temperate that it seemed to kiss Rob’s skin when he left the house. The whole world seemed in full youth, and the River of Life roared day and night with snowmelt. It was foggy April in London but in Ispahan it was the month of Shaban, softer and sweeter than the English May. The neglected apricot trees in the little yard burst into whiteness of stunning beauty, and one morning Khuff rode up to Rob’s door and collected him, telling him Alā Shah wished his company on a ride that day.
Rob was apprehensive about spending time with the mercurial monarch, and surprised the Shah had remembered his promise that they would ride together.
At the stables of the House of Paradise he was told to wait. He waited a considerable time; eventually Alā came, followed by such a retinue Rob could scarcely credit it.
“Well, Dhimmi!”
“Majesty.”
Alā Shah waved off the ravi zemin impatiently and they were quickly into the saddle.
They rode deep into the hills, the Shah on a white Arabian stallion that fairly flew with easy beauty, Rob riding behind him. Presently the Shah settled into an easy canter and waved him alongside.
“You are an excellent physician to prescribe riding, Jesse. I have been drowning in the shit of the court. Is it not pleasing to be away from all people?”
“It is, Majesty.”
Rob stole a look behind them a few moments later. Far back, here came the entire world: Khuff and his guardsmen, keeping a wary eye on the monarch, equerries with spare mounts and pack animals, wagons that rolled and clanked as they were dragged over the rough open ground.
“Do you wish a more spirited animal to ride?”
Rob smiled. “It would be a waste of Your Majesty’s generosity. This horse is suited to my mastery, Excellency.” Actually, he had grown fond of the brown gelding.
Alā snorted. “It is clear you are no Persian, for no Persian would lose an opportunity to better his mount. In Persia riding is all, and man-children emerge from their dames with tiny saddles between their legs.” He dug his heels exuberantly into the Arabian’s flanks. The horse sprang past a dead tree and the Shah turned in the saddle and fired his enormous longbow over his left shoulder, roaring with laughter when the great bolt of an arrow missed its mark.
“Do you know the story behind this exercise?”
“No, Sire. I saw it done by horsemen at your entertainment.”
“Yes, it is often performed by us, and some are excellently skilled at it. It is called the Parthian shot. Eight hundred years ago, the Parthians were just one of the peoples of our land. They lived east of Media, in a territory that was mostly terrible mountains and an even more terrible desert, the Dasht-i-Kavir.”
“I know the Dasht-i-Kavir. I crossed a bit of it to come to you.”
“Then you know the kind of people it would take to live on it,” Alā said, reining the stallion strongly to keep it by the gelding’s side.
“There was a struggle for the control of Rome. One of the contenders was the aging Crassus, governor of Syria. He needed a military conquest to equal or surpass the exploits of his rivals, Caesar and Pompey, and he decided to challenge the Parthians.
“The Parthian army, one-quarter the size of Crassus’ dread Roman legions, was led by a general named Suren. It consisted mostly of bowmen on small, fast Persian horses and a tiny force of cataphracts, armored horse soldiers wielding long, deadly lances.
“Crassus’ legions came straight at Suren, who retreated into the Dasht-i-Kavir. Rather than turn north into A
rmenia, Crassus gave chase, plunging into the desert. And something wonderful happened.
“The cataphracts attacked the Romans before they had a chance to complete their classic defensive square. After the first charge the lancers withdrew and the archers moved in. They used Persian longbows like mine, more powerful than the Romans’. Their arrows pierced Roman shields, breastplates, and greaves, and to the amazement of the legions, the Parthians kept loosing arrows accurately over their shoulders as they retreated.”
“The Parthian shot,” Rob said.
“The Parthian shot. At first the Romans kept their morale, expecting the arrows soon would be depleted. But Suren brought in new supplies of arrows on baggage camels, and the Romans couldn’t fight their customary war at close quarters. Crassus sent his son on a diversionary raid and the youth’s head was returned to him on the end of a Persian lance. The Romans fled under cover of night—the most powerful army in the world! Ten thousand escaped, led by Cassius, future assassin of Caesar. Ten thousand were captured. And twenty thousand, including Crassus, were killed. Parthian casualties were insignificant, and since that day every Persian schoolboy has practiced the Parthian shot.”
Alā gave the stallion his head and tried it again, this time shouting with delight as the arrow slammed solidly into the bole of a tree. Then he raised his bow high in the air, his signal for the others in the party to come up.
A thick rug was carried to them and unrolled and over it soldiers quickly raised the king’s tent. Soon, while three musicians softly played dulcimers, food was brought.
Alā sat and motioned for Rob to join him. They were served breasts of various game fowls baked in savory spices, a tart pilah, bread, melons which must have been kept in a cave through the winter, and three kinds of wine. Rob ate with pleasure while Alā tasted little food but drank steadily, all three wines.
