“Really?”
“I don’t know whether jurists would term these whispered insinuations, but to tell the truth, I found a disorienting temptation in their arguments, even though I wouldn’t say they’re right.”
“Really?”
“But tell me how you answered them.”
The hero sighed deeply, the way exhausted and miserable people do. He clasped his hands behind his back, studied the horizon, which was flooded with copious late-morning sunshine, and then said, “What could a man whose profession has been learning how to grasp a sword—not dwelling on matters that require the intellect’s judgment—say? Yes, I told them each time that leadership has never been the responsibility of heroes. I told them that they ought to call on me during a raid and not approach my house during peacetime. I told them that my place is beside the leader, not on the leader’s throne. I told them that they would need to search for a leader among those who have learned to use their heads, not from men who only know how to use their hands.”
“You did well.”
“I don’t know whether I did well, because I detected nothing in their conduct to indicate that they were convinced.”
“It’s impossible for the tongue to convince a man who has decided to achieve his goal at any price.”
“You’re right. And what I realized was that they weren’t thinking with their minds but with their hearts.”
They walked through the Oases Gate. Beyond the wall of the oasis extended a level, barren wasteland that was constantly reborn and crossed by wayfarers gripped by a feverish longing for its eternal horizon.
Aghulli said, “What perplexes me is the use they make of tribal histories when setting their hearts on acquiring a leader who walks on two feet.”
“I’m afraid they’ve derived no benefit from these and are guided by desire, which led earlier generations of commoners.”
“Did you say ‘desire’? I won’t conceal from you my fear of this word … for some secret reason I don’t understand.”
“You’re right to fear desire. I heard a sage say that we will never fear the almighty Spirit World if we don’t fear desires.”
“Are we obliged to surrender to the desire of a people who have adopted desires as their law?”
“We have no choice.”
“Why are we obliged to submit?”
“Because we in the council of nobles are a minority and they in the oasis are the swarming majority.”
“In the wasteland, even though they were the swarming majority there too, the council never yielded to their desires.”
“The wasteland has a law and the oasis another. In the wasteland there is the desert, which is the finest coach for the desires of passionate people.”
“I never thought of that before. It seems the desert is truly sovereign over the hearts of the masses.”
“Don’t imagine that people obey a ruler merely because he’s wise. The desert, however, is a priestess on whom the leader depends more than on the prophecies of the diviner, the opinions of the nobles, or even the dicta of the ancestors.”
“I’ve really begun to share your point of view. In the past, power’s secret lay in the desert’s hand.”
“Today, though, power is in their hands, not the desert’s, because the walls of the oases nourish in people’s souls a ghoul that dozed when we lived in the desert.”
“Why didn’t I ever think of that before?”
“This ghoul is what we metaphorically and cryptically term ‘desire.’”
“Bravo! Bravo! I didn’t realize till today that you’re a sage.”
“My longtime companion, don’t try to beguile me with this praise, because when I dismissed them yesterday I told them to return to you today.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I told them they should fix on you, if the intention to select a leader from earthly folk overwhelms them, because you’re mentally the most suitable nobleman. Since my only skill is swordplay, choosing me for this august post might lead to an error it would be impossible to correct. That’s because they might find their heads falling to the ground during an angry outburst of the type generations have witnessed from heroes since antiquity. Hee, hee, hee. …”
The hero continued to cackle, and so Aghulli laughed along with him for a time. Then he stopped to ask in astonishment, “Are you serious about what you said?”
“Completely serious. I told them I would harvest their heads with my sword. So they got scared. Hee, hee. …”
“Did you really advise them to return to my house?”
“When you go home, you’ll find them at the door. I’ll bet a milch camel that they have increased in number and will shortly rush toward your house. Hee, hee. …”
He tightened his veil around his cheeks and lifted it to cover his nose. Then he said, “But let’s stop kidding around; I’ve never seen a nobleman more suited for succeeding the leader than you.”
“You shouldn’t give me so much credit!”
“Why shouldn’t I think well of you?”
Aghulli was silent for a time. He gazed at the horizon, which was washed with the forenoon’s rays. Then he asked morosely, “Have you forgotten the embarrassing episode with the she-jinni?”
The hero smiled. He rolled a stone with his sandal. He also fled to the eternal horizon. Then he said, “There’s nothing at all shameful about noblemen slipping into the bedchambers of beautiful women. We inherited this practice from our forefathers. Have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten, but fighting over a beautiful woman is shameful.”
“Here you’re mistaken. Warriors and noblemen only fight on account of beautiful women. Do you want them to fight—like the hoi polloi, of whom we were just speaking—to acquire possessions?”
“But our peers censured us in the council at that time.”
“They censured us with their tongues, but in their hearts they wished they had been us.”
“I’ve heard people define shame as one friend raising his sword against another on account of an itinerant soprano.”
“Don’t listen to everything that’s said. The only legitimate reason for a friend to raise his sword against his mate is a dispute over a belle. Haven’t you heard the panegyric poems written in our honor by young women?”
“What the women poets referred to as an exploit was called by wise men a reckless deed inappropriate for two pillars of the council of noblemen.”
“But I’m a warrior, and a warrior can’t live without passion, even if all the sages of the desert agree it was a reckless deed. Ha, ha. …”
“And what about a person who has never considered himself a warrior?”
“The whole tribe considers you a warrior, not merely because you confront enemies with a sword, but because of your splendor, which you didn’t inherit from an ancestor and didn’t receive from those before you, since it’s a gift that can’t be given. People call it nobility, and what is chivalry if not nobility?”
“You want me to forgive myself for that tomfoolery.”
“You know I’ve never said anything I don’t truly believe.”
“I know, but you exaggerate my good qualities.”
“Let’s set that aside and return to the question of leadership. Don’t forget that a crowd is waiting for you at the door of your house.”
“What do you want me to tell them when I find them there? Didn’t I tell you I’ve repeatedly dismissed them?”
“I fear you won’t be able to dismiss them this time.”
“What are you saying?”
“What’s fated is inevitable.”
“What do you mean?”
“That for you to yield to the public’s will is a thousand times better than for the people to have recourse to some adventurer and impose him on us as a sultan whose pawns we will become.”
“What moves you to this foul suspicion?”
“The law of the oases drives me to even fouler suspicions.”
“The law of the oases?”
“Yes. We shouldn’t forget that the desert hasn’t followed us to the oasis and trailed after us inside the walls. We’ve lost our ancient brace and must adopt the language of the oases and adhere to their laws, if we desire the life here.”
“I’ve actually never thought of that before!”
“The walls serve as a brace for commoners, but nobles will never be safe.”
“Amazing!”
“Walls are always the commoner’s homeland.”
“Amazing!”
“In the desert, tribes need wisdom to live. To live in an oasis, tribes need a stratagem.”
When his companion did not respond, he continued, “Indulgence toward the rabble is the first, secret clause in a stratagem’s protocol.”
“Indulgence?”
“Call it indulgence, leniency, or conciliation. Choose whatever name you like. But the obstinacy you detected in their behavior is what inspired me to think of a strategy that avoids riling or angering them.”
“Have things reached the point that we’re afraid of these people?”
“Here you forget that we’re now citizens of Waw and not residents of the desert. Here you’re forgetting that the throng knocking on the door of your house is the stronger power bloc, because the walls support them against us, granting them power seized from us. So beware!”
“I’m amazed by your words.”
The hero remained silent, and Aghulli repeated, “I’m amazed by your words.”
2
Ahallum spoke to him about splendor.
Ahallum said that he was a warrior too, because he cradled in his breast a gift he had not inherited from any forefather nor received from any predecessor.
Ahallum also said it was a gift that could not be bestowed and called it nobility. Did he believe this? If he did, was it possible for a man, in whose breast traits of nobility lingered, to plunge into the ocean of commoners, adjudicating their quarrels, settling disputes among merchants, laying down rules to restrain thieves, hooligans, and adventurers?
He acknowledged now that the insinuating whispers had grown louder whenever he had reflected on sovereign power. Even if he had not seen in the slumbering leader a model that joined nobility and wise governance, doubts would have multiplied inside him, and he would have known for certain that it was impossible to unite the splendor the hero referred to as nobility and the gravitas manifested by the minority—dubbed the elite—who received from the Spirit World power to take charge of people’s affairs.
The day’s discussion with the hero had revived his doubts about governance and awakened once more insinuating whispers, by distinguishing between the inhabitant of the oasis and that of the wasteland. Yes, yes, he had said that man in the oasis was formed of a different clay and unrelated to man as known to the desert tribe. Did he believe that? Did man change from one night to the next? Could man exchange his heart the way a snake sheds its skin? Could inanimate walls raised with rows of mute stones borrow the sovereignty of the Spirit World’s denizens and fashion from desert man another type of person—as the hero had suggested? How could piles of inert matter abrogate the Law and substitute another law for it merely by being lifted from the ground and placed in walls, roofs, and barricades? How could the desert act as a weapon in the hands of a desert tribe’s leader while walls became a weapon for inhabitants of oases to use against the rule of the oases’ leaders? Would it not be stupid for a person to renounce his peace of mind in order to take charge of the affairs of a community that owed its nameless authority to nameless stone?
He descended into Retem Valley, where he walked a long distance along the valley bottom. In the retem shrubs, a bird warbled a song, an ancient, touching melody that the tribes commonly scrutinized for omens, because this species of bird was heard but not seen. If one ever happened to show itself, the observer became incorporeal too, because he would not be able to accompany the bird to its realm in the Spirit World without losing his body in the human realm.
As he wandered, he listened carefully to the nameless song. The melody echoed in his ears for a long distance, until he had passed the Oases Gate and made the circuit of the empty area that bounded the wall on the southwest, in order to enter the oasis by the Western Hamada Gate. The singing continued to reverberate in his ears, reminding him at times of the leader. The bird’s mysterious melody did not fade until he traversed the alley to find a throng of commoners at the door to his house.
3
The council convened in the temple.
The men sat in a circle in the oblation chamber on mats woven from diss.2 Slaves carried in the venerable elder on a palm-branch litter and placed him at the front of the council after setting around him leather pillows decorated with designs and talismanic drawings. Propped up in this way, he looked even punier and more emaciated. Imaswan Wandarran leaned toward him and shouted in his ear, “Has this heresy reached our master’s ears? Have they told you they intend to replace the leader from eternity with a puppet selected from earthly people?”
Emmamma swayed from side to side. His beady eyes, which had lost the brilliance that had long glowed in them, hung in the void. He mumbled the obscure cry that in recent years had become his mantra. It was a melodious chant reminiscent of a song of longing: “Hi-y-y-yeh.”
The hero entered, decked out in blue robes. His waist was encircled by an expensive leather belt meticulously decorated and ornamented with small beads. At his left side hung an impressive scabbard, which was also covered with ridges of rich embellishment. In this lengthy scabbard was thrust his mighty sword, although its hilt, which was wrapped with strips of colored leather, jutted up haughtily. In his right hand rested an even more majestic weapon: a spear decorated with fascinating dangling leather straps that flowed down from the upper part of the shaft and quivered with a lovely tremor each time the spear’s blade struck the earth as it kept time to the steps of the warrior, who used his fearsome weapon as a walking stick in peaceful times.
He stood at the entrance and cast an all-encompassing look at the council. He spoke as if intending to stifle the song of longing in the venerable elder’s chest. “It would be best if you began. There’s a crowd following me. They’re swarming outside. If you don’t expedite matters, I can’t guarantee that they won’t storm the council.”
Amasis the Younger shouted censoriously, “Storm the council?”
The hero squatted beside Aghulli and asked, “What’s to prevent them? Haven’t you noticed that times have changed?”
“How have times changed?”
“Times have changed because the location has changed. The desert has a law but settlements have another.”
“I don’t know what the hero’s talking about.”
“We ought to start at once.”
Amasis the Younger straightened his veil and fastened the top over his nose. Turning toward the hero, he said, “The fact is, we didn’t wait on you. We began a little while ago. Imaswan said they intend to replace eternity’s leader with a puppet chosen from the earthly folk.”
Ahallum replied at once, “A change of place brings a change in the times. Only the wasteland’s people need the voice of the Spirit World, which you refer to as eternity. Worldly people want nothing from their world but worldly puppets.”
Silence reigned. The nobles exchanged stealthy glances, as they normally did whenever they disapproved of something, were biding their time, or were preparing to pounce on a proposal they opposed.
Imaswan Wandarran interjected, “Does the hero mean what he says or have I misunderstood him?”
Ahallum responded with the frigidity that tribes encounter only from true heroes whose exploits are transmitted by successive generations. “No, my stalwart comrade has understood correctly.”
“Do you think we should abandon the path of the one who—while he reposes—has left us this land and surrender control to a creature like one of us?”
“If you hadn’t acknow
ledged that we possess land, there would have remained at least one argument in your quiver; or, was your acknowledgment a slip of the tongue?”
“Does the possession of land change anything?”
“Yes, it does, comrade. Possession is also a choice. Didn’t the wasteland’s law teach us that a person who possesses land is possessed by his land? Didn’t our forefathers advise us to beware of remaining in one location for more than forty nights? The ancients included this among their precepts because they understood land’s secret nature, because they perceived that the wasteland’s law differs from that of the oasis.”
Outside, voices grew louder, but Imaswan Wandarran waved his hand in the air as if shooing away flies. Then he said emotionally, “Does the hero think we ought to agree to pick a leader from among us to humor the mob assembled outside this sanctuary?”
“What’s fated is inevitable.”
“Doesn’t the hero know that relinquishing our leader actually means relinquishing the prophecy?”
“What’s fated is inevitable.”
“Why do you think this is inevitable?”
“Because I know that settled people will never be satisfied with a prophetic leader. They have a greater need for a puppet chosen from the people of this world.”
“What are you saying?”
“They claim they want a leader they can see with their own eyes and touch with their hands, someone who will walk among them on two feet, who will resolve their disputes, supervise their affairs, make decrees to benefit them, and set penalties for fraud, burglary, plunder, and acts of vandalism. They say they want a leader, not merely because they need someone to whom they can submit their concerns, but because they can’t feel secure and sleep won’t find a path to their eyes unless they know that a creature of this kind exists somewhere inside the walls of this oasis.”
The Puppet (Modern Middle East Literature in Translation) Page 3
