When he looked down again, he saw that the froth had vanished, although the mug was still full. The guest’s spot, on the leather mat, however, was vacant.
THE PUNISHMENT
1
The next day the specter appeared in the walled alleyways, walked some steps beside him, and then said in the same husky voice as before, as if continuing their previous conversation, “You’ve collected vassals to assist you but have forgotten the bodyguards.”
“Bodyguards?”
“Didn’t I tell you that bodyguards are an amulet for sovereigns’ brows?”
“I actually don’t remember. But … who are you?”
“Now you abandon the momentous matter to chase after your curiosity the way worldly people do.”
“Did you say ‘momentous matter’?”
“Yes. When a man elevates worldly affairs while neglecting his own soul, he abandons momentous matters.”
“What do you mean?”
“Know that you possess nothing in the world besides your soul. If you don’t create a fortress for it, you’ll have only yourself to blame.”
“Are you speaking in a threatening way too?”
“No, I’m telling you to defend yourself against the threat.”
“But you want me to commit a heresy that no desert leader has yet committed.”
“You forget that you’re not a desert leader. You forget that you live among people who changed out their hearts by soiling their feet in their fields’ mires, by settling in houses, by turning metal into coins in the blacksmiths’ market, by allowing consumer goods to seduce them in the caravans’ markets, by acquiring gold dust from merchants and crafting from it jewelry to use to purchase maidens’ hearts. …”
“Not so fast! Slow down! Behavior like this doesn’t transform a person’s nature. A man doesn’t change into a ghoul overnight.”
“My master thinks well of creatures. But my master should beware, because such elevated opinions are deadly.”
“Deadly?”
“What matters to me is warning you.”
“I would feel embarrassed walking among the people surrounded by bodyguards.”
“Life is a gift more precious than specious shame, master.”
“Do you think the danger is this severe?”
“Life is a gift more precious than specious shame, master.”
While he traversed the eastern alleys that ran parallel to the blacksmiths’ market, the man was beside him. When the alleys ended at the temple plaza, however, he found that his companion had disappeared, as if the alleys’ shadows, which had spat him out, had returned to swallow him.
2
Shivering is not a typical reaction to danger, but it does suggest anxiety: a nameless anguish shackled by distress that drives one to panic, so that the afflicted person finds no room for himself.
He had felt panic-stricken for days. He could not sleep and felt ill at ease. So he fled to the wasteland to search for a cure. Prior to these panic attacks, while drifting between sleep and wakefulness, he had seen a snake. Taking this to be an ill omen, he had drawn from his kit an amulet to protect himself against evil. He added this to the necklace of talismans he wore. Now he proceeded through the empty land while attempting to recall the vision. He had seen the serpent stretched out in the shade of a retem tree and had walked a few steps closer. It was as long as an arm, svelte, clad in a rough skin, like the ridges in a lizard’s tail, and dotted with vile, loathsome, venomous spots that provoked a shudder and revulsion. He had found the sight entrancing and bent down over the creature. Armies of ants crawled around it; so he felt sure it was dead. He wanted to bury it and fetched a stick from a nearby tree. He lifted it with the end of this piece of wood, but it escaped after he took a couple of steps. As it slithered down, it touched his index finger. During that momentary contact, it struck him indolently with its fang. So he threw down the stick. In its eyes he saw a hostile, resentful, enigmatic look—a nameless look that said, “Have you forgotten that I don’t die? Have you forgotten that I’m called ‘The Snake’?” Although this look was hideous, the serpent’s gaze was rather slothful and indifferent. He examined the nick on his finger and discovered that it was bleeding. He started to shake and perspire, sensing that he was becoming feverish. Before the fever took hold, he had awakened to find his body bathed in perspiration and his limbs trembling. What did it mean for the reptile that had been a rotting corpse to return to life? What secret lay behind this lazy bite that had made him bleed?
He loitered in the wasteland for a time and brooded at length. Then he went to a diviner who had arrived from the forestlands the year before and erected a straw hut near the blacksmiths’ market.
The fetish priest listened to the vision indifferently and then commented just as lackadaisically, “This vision isn’t worth a trip to a diviner. In our country, even children can explain prophecies like these. I’m astonished that you haven’t recognized that the serpent represents an enemy. You’ll be exposed to an enemy’s cunning. So beware!” He started to leave, but the diviner called after him, “This world, master, is nothing but a den of vipers. The serpents in question are the people closest to us. If you want to be safe, don’t let any comrade out of your sight.”
3
That evening, the vassals came to discuss tariffs and the caravan traffic and to recount news of the tribes, foreign lands, and markets. Asen’fru, the tax administrator, commenced, saying that news of the campaign against gold had been carried by the jinn and thus had reached the lands to the south and the kingdoms to the north. Many merchants had ordered their caravans to change routes and bypass Waw. He affirmed, however, that the situation was not as grave as claimed by the oasis’s nobles, whose commerce had been injured by the attack, because the markets were still flooded with goods that surpassed the needs of the oasis, and the taxes collected from farmers, blacksmiths, shop owners, and professionals still showered the treasury with plentiful riches. Then, rubbing together coarse hands caked with a dry crust like a lizard’s scales, he concluded his presentation with the suggestion: “If my master would order the exchange of the gold that comes from the oasis’s inhabitants for pieces of silver from passing caravans, the wealth that would saturate the oasis would bring its people unprecedented prosperity.”
He exchanged a quick look with the chief vassal and also glanced at the campaign’s commander. Then, leaning forward, he ran the palm of one hand over the back of the other. The scales contracted into grim ridges with a distressing sound but relaxed once the palm of his hand passed by, and then settled once more into depressing gray lines.
Abanaban, the chief vassal, asked, “But will this prosperity last long if the oasis loses the confidence of the caravan trade?”
Although he spoke in a distinguished style well suited to a nobleman of the council, he had never been admitted to the council, despite belonging to one of the tribe’s most ancient lineages, despite the esteem in which his clan was held by the tribe’s other clans, and despite his wisdom, reputation, and the influence he exerted over other people.
The tax collector immediately replied, “Exchanging the confiscated gold for silver will suffice us until we develop a strategy to rebuild the merchants’ confidence and until we restore the caravan trade to the oasis.”
Tayetti, commander of the campaign, interjected, “Restoring the confidence of businesses that have left will take longer than optimists expect. So beware!”
He was the shortest, smallest, and plumpest of the men sitting there, but his impetuosity, passion, and precipitous speech and his body, which quivered while he spoke, showed he was also the most zealous. The oasis’s rabble assumed that the leader had chosen him to lead the campaign precisely for these traits. Abanaban inquired with the nonchalance typical of dignified ceremonial behavior, “Why these suspicions?”
The campaign commander’s whole body went into convulsions. He thrust his neck forward, and his entire body tensed and plunged after his neck, mak
ing it seem to the group that he was about to leap into the leader’s arms. In a voice that revealed both passion and certainty, he declared, “Commerce is like a runaway camel. Once it bolts, recapturing it won’t be easy. I hope you don’t forget this!”
The vassals exchanged discreet glances. Whenever they looked stealthily at one another, they turned just as covertly toward the leader to search for some clue in his eyes. The leader, who had been listening aloofly to them throughout, finally asked in a suspicious tone: “Who mentioned the noblemen’s caravans in this council?”
The vassals exchanged glances again—glances that suggested astonishment, doubt, and scorn.
The tax collector said, “I did, master.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to say what everyone knows, master. I mean, the matter has been public knowledge for a long time.”
“Which members of the council have sponsored a caravan?”
“All of them, master. The most recent is Amasis the Younger, who sold camels and slaves to send a caravan to the northern kingdoms.”
“You said Amasis the Younger?”
“He’s the latest, master. That’s why he’s been hit the hardest.”
“Why didn’t I hear about this before today?”
“We thought you would know more about it than anyone else, master, because it’s common knowledge.”
“Amazing!”
Again the vassals exchanged glances; then the leader repeated distantly, “Amazing!”
The vassals’ eyes revealed their astonishment, doubt, and scorn.
4
He was tormented by insomnia again that night.
The next morning his anxiety evolved into a lump in his throat as hard as dry dirt. Feeling nauseous, he tried to vomit. He went to Retem Valley, where he wandered for a time. Then he lay down beneath a bushy retem tree with branches decorated with new buds dripping sap. Northern breezes caressed them, making them quiver and sing. The weeping branches, which curved down, traced arcane designs like the symbols sorcerers inscribe on leather amulets.
He studied the signs on the ground and looked at the flower buds spreading down the branches. The mysterious buds reminded him of beads in an enchanting necklace on a beautiful woman’s neck.
He also listened carefully to the music.
The north wind was blowing intermittently in determined gusts. The branches responded with an energetic, communal dance, swaying in every direction like a group of ecstatic people, pulling back at times and then joining together before moaning a yearning melody.
Suddenly, in a nearby thicket, another melody broke forth.
This tune scared off the retem’s, stifling that other song. The valley’s stillness was violated, and the desert was menaced by disorder, because whenever the Spirit World’s bird sings for people in the valleys’ groves, a prophecy is embedded in its songs.
He sat up and straightened himself to listen hard and long to the melody. He observed the emptiness for a long time. The song of yearning in the retem branches was silenced. He told himself out loud, “This is an ill omen! This is a calamity!”
That evening, in a dark corner, an enemy stabbed him.
5
That evening, on his return from the shops, in the dark of an alley, a ruffian attacked him, plunging a ferocious knife into him with an apparently lethal and brutal thrust.
The first blow was the most forceful, striking him in the left side of the thorax, but his leather necklace of amulets blocked the blade’s tip, preventing the knife from finding its way to his heart. Then … then other blows followed that first strike—he did not know how many, because he blacked out immediately and did not regain consciousness for several days. He awoke to find the herbalist standing over his head, waving a necklace of amulets and saying, “Who can deny the power of amulets after this? Had it not been for these charms, master, the criminal would have slain you with the first blow. So learn from this!”
That evening the nobles visited him and sat on the kilim rug by the wall. They said a lot. They spoke, but he did not hear, understand, or respond to their questions with a single word. He lay on the other side of the room, by the opposite wall, wrapped in blankets. He felt nauseous and struggled to resist pain and unconsciousness by focusing on the remarkable craftsmanship of the handwoven palm-branch ceiling.
The noblemen left and the vassals entered.
They stayed for some time, chatting, but he did not hear, understand, or employ his jaws’ organ to speak a single word. So they fell silent and departed.
But … but a single specter remained huddled in the home’s right-hand corner—silent, dejected, and enveloped in stillness and darkness, taking no part in the discussion and not even opening its mouth to ask a question. It watched the invalid with lackluster eyes, closing them occasionally from exhaustion and pain only to open them again obstinately and inquisitively. At some point, when he did not know whether it was night or day, he found himself addressing a blunt question to his mysterious guest, “Who are you?”
The visitor did not reply and continued to hunch over its knees, clinging to its eternal silence.
He waited till the maid appeared to ask who the man was. She leaned over his ear to whisper, “He said he’s a comrade of my master’s. We found him in that corner, master, the first day of the calamity. He hasn’t eaten, moved, or spoken with the other visitors. Master, he’s an odd specter.”
6
Some days later a group of noblemen appeared.
They came by night. The vassals left immediately. The nobles sat by the wall in an awe-inspiring row and began the ritual with a lengthy silence. He realized immediately from this act that they had plotted something.
Slaves brought them cups of milk and platters of dates, but they clung to their stillness like a group of jinn. In the other corner, a specter hid, hunched over, recoiling till it almost became part of the wall.
Finally, the hero began, “We’ve come today to bring our master good news.”
He fell silent, and stillness returned, dominating the dwelling for a time. Ahallum then explained, “I mean to inform my master that we have been able to arrest, finally, the person who dared raise the criminal blade over my master’s head.”
He cast an inquisitive glance at him. So the hero asked, “Does our master remember the day he sentenced an oasis wretch to banishment in the desert?”
The leader’s sudden interest was obvious. So the warrior looked round at the nobles’ faces and then continued, “Didn’t my master ask the wretch back then why he had raised an iniquitous hand and stolen from the homes of immigrants a purse accepted as a trust?”
The leader shook his turban no in response to this suggestion. Then Ahallum explained, “My master doesn’t know that the wretch’s only reason for the theft was the lord of all reasons in the desert.”
He fell silent. Eventually, he declared, “A beautiful woman!”
The leader exclaimed involuntarily, “A beauty!”
“Yes, master. A beautiful woman is the cause. The wretch had fallen in love with a girl who had lost both parents. Her guardian was a disgusting woman, a distant relative. The wretch had asked the guardian for her hand in marriage, but the old woman exploited the girl’s beauty to humiliate the young man, requesting such a large sum of money that the lover could only acquire it by theft. After our master banished him from the oasis to punish his foul deed, he returned secretly to the settlement and tried to seize his beloved by brute force. His plot might have succeeded had the guards not cleverly stopped him at the last moment and pulled his poor beloved out of the sack. Then the rascal fled once more, but the wily schemer wasn’t content with this abominable deed and returned some days later to take his beloved to eternity.”
He fell silent. The leader gazed at him in astonishment and asked vacantly, “What are you saying?”
“I mean to say that he slaughtered her, master. He slew her and with the same knife sliced off her right breast before fleeing again.�
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“What are you saying?”
“He fled but returned, the way he had each time, because his thirst for revenge would not be slaked till he stabbed the person he held responsible for the calamity.”
“What are you saying?”
“He came back to stab our master, feeling certain that you had caused his suffering when you seized the purse of gold from him.”
“No!”
“We finally found him lurking in the groves in the fields. So we shackled his hands and locked him up. Tomorrow, in public, he’ll receive his punishment.”
“An unbelievable story. A tale fit for ancient storytellers.”
Ahallum exchanged a long, strange, enigmatic look with the chief merchant.
A naughty smile glinted in Imaswan Wandarran’s eyes. In the corner, by the wall, a muffled, evil, hoarse laugh—like a serpent’s hiss—reverberated.
THE WRETCH
1
The leader’s wretchedness was excruciating.
The leader did not know that, had the wretch been granted a choice, he would have chosen exile over any other homeland. The leader did not know that exile is a punishment only for inhabitants of oases and fainthearted desert dwellers. The leader did not know he had sentenced him to dwell in the other Waw, the original Waw, the real Waw, not the distorted Waw that tribesmen ironically, maliciously, and derisively referred to by this lofty name. The leader did not know. The leader, like all other leaders, was the last to understand that had it not been for the poor creature he left behind in the oasis imprisoned by crumbling structures, the wretch would not have returned and the miserable walls would not have received even a last farewell look from him.
But the beloved changed everything.
The beloved woman changed the desert paradise into a place of exile. His true love converted crumbling walls into a paradise. His true love transformed the real Waw into a despised exile and made the fraudulent Waw seem a heavenly oasis. This ordinary creature would not have been able to perform this magic, this ghostly figure would not have been able to turn the desert upside down, had she been a creature like any other, had she been a beautiful woman like all the others. She was, however, a belle from a different community, a creature from another lineage, and a ghostly figure of another temperament, because she reciprocated her lover’s love.
The Puppet (Modern Middle East Literature in Translation) Page 8
