The Colour of Heaven

by Runcie, James

  It was midday. The sun bleached the sand so vividly that Paolo imagined it was snow. He tried to concentrate on cold flat plains, white peaked mountains, and streams of water: anything to avoid the pain of such heat. ‘Why are we doing this?’ he asked. ‘Why can we not admit that we are less than the desert?’

  ‘Now you are learning humility,’ Salek replied. ‘Let us walk and be patient. If we cannot find the camels then we will die. But who is to say what is beyond each dune?’

  ‘I never want to see sand again in my life.’

  ‘Do not say such a thing. You will remember it always. A man who has seen such sights will never forget them. What kind of life would you have if you had seen none of this?’

  ‘A comfortable life.’

  ‘And a life not worth living,’ Salek answered, nearing the peak of the dune. He smiled and waited for Paolo to join him.

  ‘There.’

  In the distance, Paolo could just make out the shapes of the animals under a solitary palm.

  ‘They have found water.’

  As Salek approached, one of the camels turned to look at him with an expression of careless bemusement, as if wondering why they had taken so long to catch up and enjoy the well.

  Looking at the animals, Paolo was uncertain which of his emotions was the stronger: relief at their discovery, or anger that they appeared so contemptuous.

  Because the camels now began to moult, their backs chafing in the heat, Salek insisted that they reverse their routine, travelling by night and resting each morning. Paolo found sleep in the bright heat of the day almost impossible. He wrapped every part of his body against the sun, protecting himself from its rays with dark swathes of cotton, but still the light hurt his eyes. He could feel the temperature rise inexorably and then, just when he thought he could bear it no longer, evening would fall and it became cold so fast that he was suddenly freezing.

  They were caught between extremes and at times Paolo was unable to tell the difference between the fire of the day and the ice of the night. Much of the water they found was brackish, the opium balm to ward off mosquitoes proved ineffective, and their supplies of food ran low. Now there was only enough water to moisten their lips. Each drop had to be conserved, every spring searched, and they dreamed of the dates they had shared in more fertile climes. The only signs of life were the bones of the camels who had gone before.

  By now Salek had begun to teach Paolo the rudiments of Arabic. First, the names of food and provisions: bread, water, wheat, fruit, and wine. Then his articles of trade: glass, jewels, beads, and mirrors; silk, cotton, wool, and hemp. He learned how to count in several languages and how to trade: less, more, and how much? What were the hundred words he needed to know? The thousand? The five thousand? He tried to number and name the stars even though he could hardly tell them apart, and he was told of the importance of religious invocation in keeping the path of righteousness. Praise to God. Thanks to God. God willing.

  Paolo wondered how many languages a man might need to travel across the world. His guide answered that a man might need a thousand, or he might need none – either in trade or in love. It did not matter.

  When Paolo asked what that meant, Salek told him to wait until they reached Masshad. There he would show wonders, heaven on earth.

  And so they headed further east, leaving the desert and passing through a series of rice fields and wooded hills where they saw wild boar and marmoset. Hunters offered them a share of their food, and they ate salads of fresh parsley, tarragon, chives, wild garlic, and mint. Yoghurt with beetroot or spinach was freely available in the small towns and villages along the route, and in the evenings they would indulge in great stews of fesenjan, poultry with ground walnut and pomegranate syrup sauce. On one road they passed a series of pigeon towers, built from brick and overlaid with plaster and lime. Salek explained that thousands of pigeons would nest in these towers, not for breeding or eating, but to provide guano with which to fertilise the local melon fields. Paolo vowed that he would never look at a melon in the same way again.

  Eventually they could see the gilded dome and minarets of Masshad, the holiest city in Persia, with the great mosque and mausoleum of Reza at its centre, surrounded by gardens of jasmine, iris, lily, and rose. The main square was filled with pilgrims and with merchants selling rosaries, clay tablets, perfume, and green fabric swatches for touching the grilles of the holy sanctuaries. Others stood behind high piles of saffron or precious stone, herbs or jewels, and Jacopo inspected the samples of turquoise laid out on tables before them.

  The three men slept in a Rabat outside the city, next to a rose garden. An avenue of white poplars led to a turquoise gate with Kufic inscriptions from the Qur’an, and then opened out into a small courtyard with a pool of water at its centre. The stream flowed into four channels, becoming the rivers of paradise: the Pison and the Gihon, the Hiddekel and the Euphrates.

  It was perfectly proportioned, each measurement calculated upon the human body: an arm’s length, a hand-span, the height of both men and women. Each path was tiled with mosaic floors in geometric floral designs, matching, in stone, the lotus flowers and peonies that grew under trees of peach and pomegranate. A group of peacocks strutted across the tiles and the air was scented with lavender and rose.

  ‘The flowers inspire the stone; the water mirrors the sky,’ said Salek. ‘Just as the garden reflects each item within itself, so the soul must find an echo with God.’

  It was a sanctuary of opposites. Here was water when all around was dry; shade when all around was exposed to the sun; fruit when all around was arid; perfume when all around was stench; life when all around was death.

  Beyond the formal gardens stood a meadow of wild flowers, where young couples appeared to walk towards each other, exchange gifts, and then part. They were at such a discreet distance that Paolo asked Salek what they were doing.

  ‘It is a place without words.’

  They watched a young girl pass them amidst the grasses, picking flowers. Her long dark hair was held in a red bow, and she moved slowly, dreamily, and with such natural grace that Paolo longed to talk to her.

  ‘Wait,’ said Salek, ‘her man will come. Then you will see.’

  A fine-boned young boy in a white tunic arrived, carrying a small bouquet. As he lay down, the girl held out a white lotus blossom.

  ‘You know what that means?’ asked Salek. ‘You understand?’

  Paolo could hardly see what was happening. ‘No,’ he answered.

  Salek continued. ‘She is speaking to him. She is saying, “Am I not pretty?” Now he will pick a flower of paradise, as if to say …’

  ‘You are lovelier than the flowers of paradise …’

  ‘Good. You understand.’

  Now the girl presented her lover with a blush rose: ‘Do you love to look upon me?’

  ‘Now look,’ said Salek. ‘He will give her a flower which answers her question. “As a tiger-lily loves to gaze upon its own shadow.”’

  The girl shredded a rosebud, pulling it apart: ‘Would you die for my sake?’

  The boy pulled a violet out of the grass: ‘Without question, I’ll submit my neck to the bowstring.’

  Then the two laughed and kissed.

  ‘You see,’ explained Salek, ‘love has its own language.’

  But Paolo couldn’t approach girls with flowers or sit quietly by and hope that one of them might kiss him. He wanted to speak to them in their own language, send them a note, or write them a poem. He knew that he should learn the flattery of flirtation, however absurd it might be. ‘I love the fall of shadow on your cheek. Your eyes fragment under the sun. They are as changeable as the sea.’ It sounded ridiculous, but he had seen men do this and they always seemed to be successful. Why was this? Was love no more than a game?

  He tried to practise in his head as he walked: ‘You have the perfect mouth,’ he said aloud. ‘Your walk is as beautiful as the flight of a swallow.’

  ‘What are you saying?’
asked Salek.

  ‘Nothing,’ Paolo replied.

  ‘You must be careful,’ said Jacopo sternly. ‘You cannot say such things aloud. Anyone might respond.’

  But Paolo began to think it hardly made any difference since these were the only two people who ever listened: an ageing Seljuk Turk and a Jewish merchant who missed his wife.

  Paolo found women distant and exotic, like rare orchids, and he wondered if he would ever know them; if there would ever be a day on which his beloved would turn to him and say: ‘No one has told me these things before. You alone must know my soul. Be with me now. Love me.’

  Looking at his hands that night, he wondered how long it might be until he loved, or if one day he would wake and find himself too old, and that he had missed out on such companionship altogether. He tried to think if each part of his body aged at the same rate, or whether it could be out of kilter. Could a person have old hands and yet a young face? When did the body stop growing into maturity and diminish towards death? Was there a single moment, or did each part of the body reach its peak at a different age, until, finally, every muscle, bone, follicle, sinew, and blood cell came together at last, united in decline, accelerating towards a final amen?

  He began to think of the oldest people he had ever seen, and those he had known who had died young. How long would he be here, on this earth, alone, with his inevitable deterioration, and how much longer might he live? How many summers? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? Or just one? How many winters? Should he really live each day as if it were his last? And if this was the day, how should he spend it?

  As he inspected his body, he wondered if anyone would ever look at it in such detail. Would some tender love once know his back as well as he knew his own thumb? How much of Paolo’s body would be known and loved by someone before it began to decay?

  Three weeks later they reached the city of Herat. It seemed to glow with the flames of small fires outside low clay dwellings and towers of beaten earth. They made their approach through an alley of dark pines where the cries of the pistachio sellers mingled with the distant sound of drumming on a dhol. Somewhere there must have been a wedding party. ‘Khorasan is the oyster of the world,’ said Salek, ‘and Herat is its pearl.’

  Outside the great mosque, scholars and philosophers sat discussing the essential questions of life, reassuring each other that only three kinds of men are wise: one who abandons the world before it abandons him; one who prepares his grave before he enters it; and one who has pleased the Lord before meeting him.

  Salek approached the men and asked where they might find lodgings for the night. They were then directed to a small Rabat where several traders and travellers had already gathered, roasting lamb and drinking the first of that year’s wine.

  When Paolo asked about the route ahead to Badakhshan, many of them refused to answer, convinced that an ill omen had befallen the place and they would suffer misfortune if they told any traveller where it lay. But then, at the end of the evening, the innkeeper asked Paolo to follow him across the courtyard.

  ‘The place you seek is of infinite riches and infinite pain,’ he whispered, ‘and few travellers return. It is bad to speak of such a place, but this man knows. He is called Yusuf. Be patient and he will tell you.’

  The man was cooking a cauldron of khoresht, a lamb stew with dill, coriander, dried limes, and kidney beans. Although his hair had faded and his face had wizened, Paolo could tell that the man must have been handsome in his youth, for he carried himself with pride. He wore a muraqqa, a patchwork coat made from ninety-nine different pieces of cloth, symbolising, so he said, all the illusions of the world, and he looked out into the distance as steam from the cauldron rose around him.

  Then Paolo noticed his eyes and the stillness of his gaze.

  ‘Are you blind?’

  ‘The emerald loses its richness, quartz becomes pale, and silver is tarnished,’ Yusuf answered. ‘It is not a disaster. I live.’

  ‘Was this a punishment?’

  ‘Perhaps. Why have you come to this place?’

  ‘I am looking for a blue stone.’

  ‘You search for sapphire?’

  ‘No. Not sapphire,’ Paolo insisted. ‘The stone from the mountains of Badakhshan.’

  ‘Ah.’ Yusuf paused. ‘Lapis. Why do you seek it?’

  ‘To know colour. To paint heaven.’

  Yusuf leaned over the cauldron. ‘Take food with me. There are bowls to the side.’

  Paolo suddenly felt uneasy, frightened by the man’s blindness, the blankness of his eyes.

  ‘I once knew a woman from those mountains,’ Yusuf said as he served out the food. ‘At first I thought that she too might be blind, for I was told that she was forever shielding her eyes from light. But in fact she saw too well. The beauty dazzled her. Everything was too luminous, too sharp. Her world was filled with a variety of hue and tone so infinite that she could not distinguish one object from another. There was no outline, no distinction; everything carried an equal light. It made her mad to see so well.’ His voice faded away. ‘But what does it matter now?’

  ‘But is it true, the story? There is a mountain of this stone?’ Paolo asked.

  ‘It is called Sar-i-Sang. But it is difficult to reach, and almost impossible to leave.’

  ‘How can we find such a place?’

  ‘It is a large kingdom, twelve days’ journey in length. The settlements are built on sites of natural strength, and many of the mountain routes are impassable; not only for mules but also for people.’

  ‘And where is the mountain?’

  ‘You must follow the path of the Hari Rud River, through Jam and Chakcheran and Bamiyan. Then take the Shibar Pass before going north to Pul-i-Khumri and Taloqan. From Taloqan you must go to Faizabad.’

  Yusuf stopped, and it seemed as if he was not trying to remember the route but his own youth.

  ‘It is there?’ asked Paolo.

  ‘No. It is not there. There is a river outside Faizabad which you must forge. It is icy and fast flowing, with strong currents. Then you must ride as far as Barak. After Barak you may have to leave your animals, but if you travel before the first snows then they may be able to take you. Choose good mules who are used to the mountains and pay whatever the men ask. If the tracks have not been swept away then you will be lucky enough.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘No,’ said Yusuf. ‘Still you have not arrived. You must travel high into the mountains for three days and two nights. Be careful in darkness because the winds are strong, and the precipice sheer. To fall is death. But if you have survived so far then the women will come out to greet you.’

  ‘The women?’

  ‘You will see no men.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Ask them. My beloved would have told you. I cannot.’

  Paolo noticed that the man’s blind eyes had filled with sadness. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I loved her. She died.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Sometimes I think she only loved me because I could not see at all. Like the others, she saw too well.’

  ‘And now you are alone?’

  ‘I live only in memory.’

  ‘And that keeps you alive?’ asked Paolo.

  Yusuf stood up, as if the conversation were at an end. ‘We must live for love if we live at all.’

  ‘I have not known such desire.’

  ‘Love is not the same as desire,’ Yusuf replied, ‘but I cannot tell you more until you know something of which I speak. Have you ever felt anything of love?’

  ‘I do not see well. One day a woman might take pity on me for that, but there are times when love seems too much to hope for.’

  ‘And will you ever see more clearly?’

  Paolo thought for a moment. ‘I cannot imagine such a thing. But I do want to know what it is to see into the distance and discover where I stand in the world, living life in all its fullness, able to look as others look, living with a greater knowledge of what
is close and what is far, understanding what matters and what does not.’

  ‘I am not sure you need eyes for that,’ Yusuf replied.

  SAR-I-SANG

  They were no more than a month away from Badakhshan but it was already early autumn. Salek warned that the mountain passes would soon be frozen and blocked by snow. ‘It is not good here,’ he muttered. ‘There is a wind that lasts one hundred and twenty days. Fully laden mules are carried away like leaves. Is stone worth death?’

  Jacopo was adamant. ‘We must have courage now that we have come so far.’

  After two more weeks they tracked the course of the River Kokcha, fringed with willow, wild cherry, hawthorn, and poplar. At times they could trace the route of those who had gone before, following the fluffs of cotton caught on the mulberry bushes. To the south lay a range of mountains, rising in terraces and covered with dark forests. The climb became steeper, and eventually debouched onto a green plateau, where the animals could graze. A pale-blue mist hung low between the peaks, shrouding the valley and path ahead. The colours separated and reformed, as if the mountains had become a prism of quartz through which light divided and conjoined, the landscape forever recreating itself, endlessly chameleon.

  Salek fretted. He told them that he had heard of a man from these parts who had made a profit by claiming that he could capture souls, stealing them from people while they were still alive. He would then either demand a ransom for their return or sell them on to criminals and sinners, terrifying his victims with the claim that they would never be able to live after death without his aid.

  It was best to trust no one and move swiftly through the mountain passes, making good ground when it was possible, and sheltering at the base of the hills when it was not. Salek was adept at anticipating the weather, urging his companions to stop and settle even when they complained that the skies were clear. He knew of the winds, the speed of change, and the dangers of adventure.

  Paolo wondered whether they would ever reach Badakhshan and how they could tell which of these mountains might contain the stone. He was saddle-sore, his calves and lower back ached, and he feared that his companions might turn on him at any moment, blaming him for this part of the journey.