The paradise where the immortal wasteland ended, the paradise that appeared suddenly in the abyss at his feet, was also a gift of the uncanny desert clouds.
11
He roamed through his paradise for days and nights. In the low-lying lands across the gulches leading down to the ravines, he plucked the fruits of this paradise. He found delicious truffles that made him forget his banishment and propelled him into kingdoms that one rarely reaches, sees, or even contemplates.
In the valleys he ambushed lizards, hunted hares, and gathered eggs from birds.
On the mountainous cliff faces he located caverns that contained pools flooded with running water.
The leader had sent him into exile, and then the most compassionate mother of all transformed his place of exile into a paradise.
He reveled in this gift, enjoying the stillness of his isolation. So he felt happy. Deeming himself content, he committed an offense that everyone savoring the taste of contentment inevitably commits. He raised his voice in worried songs and awakened in those uncharted areas the thousandfold love. It did not merely wake up; it intoxicated him as if he were in a trance. So he found himself trembling ecstatically and struggled with his fever, as if possessed. The carpet of grass disappeared from the slopes and the trees vanished from the valley bottoms. The earth swallowed the truffles, and the gazelles, lizards, hares, and every sort of bird fled from the area. The waters of the pools tucked into the caverns of the cliff faces evaporated, as this paradise turned into a tenebrous abyss.
He resisted for a time. He butted the boulders with his head for days. He charged through desolate wastes as if the jinn had possessed him. He thought he might outstrip his belly’s ghoul by racing, but these measures kindled the flame and the fever’s fire continued unabated. So he shot off running and continued running, running, and running. He did not stop running until the walls of the oasis halted him.
THE CONSPIRACY
1
He did not consider what he would do until the gate brought him up short. He did not think about the process that had brought him back from the lands of exile till he was slipping into the fields, pushing between trees like a madman. He did not premeditate anything. In the shadows of his affliction he sought no burning ember, because he did not wish to discover in the prisons of despair any fissure that would show the way. After he had left, he had surrendered his affairs to the desert, and the noblest of mothers had provided his heart a carefree indifference—the immortal nonchalance that destroys living creatures, terminates the migrant, eradicates passion, and also exiles the desert from the desert. The desert annihilates itself and watches the wasteland’s creatures from its new homeland in annihilation. Then no one believes any longer that there is an existence for the desert in the desert. No one believes any longer that anyone can traverse a desert that has no place in it for the desert. So the traveler, finally, doubts his own existence and soon migrates to the vicinity of the desert, in annihilation’s homeland, to become a cranny in extinction’s edifice.5
The traveler vanishes at times when the desert is veiled by indifference’s scarf, but passion refuses to keep company with indifference. The desert thinks that with indifference it eradicates passion the way it eradicates living creatures, but passion—like the serpent—is not eradicated and does not vanish. There is only one way to slay the serpent: to cut off its head. Passion, however, persists, even headless. It is possible to slay the passionate lover this way. It is also possible to deliver a coup de grâce to the beloved, but there’s no way to slay the passion. What is headless does not die, because a headless person does not vanish.
Tribal poets say this about a single passion. So what might they say if they discovered a thousandfold passion? Will they not believe, as I do, that the Spirit World, which is incapable of slaying even once a single passion, will be incapable of slaying a thousandfold passion a thousand times?
2
He hid in the fields till the curtains of darkness fell. Then he slipped out and entered the alleys. He concealed himself in a corner of the yard, waiting for the guardian to leave on a visit to a neighbor or to run an errand, but the despicable demon did not emerge. From his hiding place he listened intently but at first heard only the rumpus of children in nearby alleyways. He transformed his whole body into attentive ears and discerned inside the house a faint murmur but could not make out the voices. He pushed on the outside door but found it bolted from the inside. He inspected the yard’s wall on the alley side but found it was hard and smooth, without any sign of a bulge that might help him climb it. He turned the other way and checked the wall on the side parallel to the buildings down the neighboring alley, discovering that here the wall was shorter. In fact, it became increasingly insignificant the farther back it went. At the far corner, the wall was not only less substantial but rougher and more neglected as well. He climbed the wall and scaled it easily. He leapt to the inner courtyard, where he saw the treasure’s guard by the light of the fire next to the house’s door, which was ajar. She was tending a cauldron set on three stones, adding a stick to the fire at times and then returning to lean over the garment piled on her lap in order to favor herself—and perhaps the beloved, who was squirreled away in one of the house’s corners—with incomprehensible crooning.
He hugged the wall, cleaving to it till he became part of it. He scrutinized the she-demon: she truly was demonic. Her face was marked by deep wrinkles that rent her entire visage, increasing in width as they neared her “trussed” mouth, which was wrapped with another bandage of creases even uglier and more objectionable. Her hooked nose was also coated by a network of lines that resembled the protuberant veins that climbed up her face to encircle her sunken eyes and disguise her features until her whole head seemed to be a block covered by tree bark.
She stopped crooning and moaned an ancient melody. Her thread escaped from the eye of her needle, which she attempted to rethread, struggling for a long time. Then in an anxious and desperate motion, she thrust it toward her companion. At that moment he saw her. At that instant he saw her shadow as if he were seeing her for the first time. At that moment he saw his thousandfold beloved. At that moment a feverish ecstasy possessed him, and he perceived in an exalted flash—like sparks of illumination or a glowing ember of prophecy—that he had been created solely to become the mate of the thousandfold beloved and that the only reason she had been born was to become his. He also perceived that neither the desert’s laws nor the heavens’ fates could alter this situation and separate two creatures who had from the beginning, from before they were born, been a single being in two bodies.
3
He told her, once they were alone, that he had failed to acquire the treasure and that all they could do was flee. She replied in a tone unaffected by girlish shyness, “Do what you will.” He lifted her to his shoulders and carried her through the dark alleys once the oasis slumbered. He took the route beside the wall on the eastern side, avoiding the guards of the western and southern gates. He entered the fields and constructed a ladder from palm trunks. He probably would have succeeded had he not been denounced by the eerie scarecrow about whose conduct the oasis people recount legendary tales.
Today he realized that it had certainly never been a scarecrow. It was, rather, an unruly type of jinni wrapped in a scarecrow’s rags, for he heard a suppressed snicker the moment he finished preparing the trunks and was ready to take flight. This became a hideous chortle that rattled in the chest, sounding like repulsive keening—fit for the spawn of the Spirit World. The insane guffaw did not last long, however, because a commotion followed on its heels, swallowing every other sound. This was a mixture of human clamor, the cries of herdsmen, the chattering of the populace, and a disagreeable shriek like the braying of a donkey. The commotion did not merely cause the walls to vibrate but shook the entire oasis. His terror at what he heard lasted until the guards surprised him and grabbed hold of him.
He did not grasp what happened next.
&nbs
p; He remembered only that he broke free before they had conveyed the couple to the first alley. He bolted to the walls, reached the shadows, and then the gloom of the alleyways swallowed him.
When he slipped into her house some nights later, he heard from her lips the same charm: “Do what you will.”
He came to her after losing a sense of whether it was day or night. His struggle with mankind had left him dizzy; his quarrel with the fates had gotten the best of him, and fever, thirst, and fasting had exhausted him.
He came, but not the way he always had before. He did not bat an eyelid. His body did not feel feverish. There was no crazed look in his eye. He came like a ghost, crowding into the corner like any stranger. With eyes that did not even recognize her, he gazed at her by the light of the fire burning in the hearth. Was this a desperate person’s submission, the tranquility of a recluse, or the determination of a hero anticipating his final battle?
He said in a barely audible voice, “I’ve come for the last time.”
She replied in the same whisper, “I knew you would.”
“But I’ll never come again.”
She did not respond.
“Will you come with me?”
“I’ve always come with you. I’ve always been with you.”
“If I don’t take you today, the skin merchant will take you tomorrow.”
“I know. He has made preparations to take me even faster than you think.”
“Are you coming with me?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
“Yes.”
A gleam sparkled in his eye—a strange gleam. Was it a spark of inspiration? A flash of prophecy? The omen of an earthquake? This flash glowed with a sign unfamiliar to mankind. For this reason it would have struck terror into the hearts of even the jinn.
The gleam vanished, however. Immense submission returned to pulse through his eyes.
He whispered, “I haven’t wanted to do anything you don’t agree to.”
“I know.”
“The skin dealer won’t take you if you come.”
“I know.”
“No one will ever take you.”
“I know.”
“Your guardian, the leader, and the guards won’t bring you back.”
“I know.”
“Neither mankind nor the jinn will acquire you.”
“I know.”
“We’ll again become the single being we once were.”
Before she could murmur her “I know,” he left his corner quietly, and the look in his eyes blended submission, nobility, affliction, and certainty. He stood over her and removed the scarf from her head. He caressed the plaits of her hair with a cold, steady hand, which seemed an iron rod, not the palm of a thousandfold lover. He knelt down and with his other hand fondled her swelling breast, which tilted up, taut, like a bow. This hand was cold as well, but steady. Then he took her head with both hands and gazed into her eyes with the same stern look combining submission, nobility, affliction, and certainty. He stroked her entrancing neck and her right earlobe before his fingers slipped forward to close her eyelids. He trembled with a sudden shiver, but this passed, because his hands moved to her neck and clamped round her throat with an insane, eternal, iron grip.
She did not shudder or emit any death rattle. She did not experience the pains of a final death agony, because the two hands the commoners had likened to a jinni’s the day they seized him were better suited to achieving this objective than a sword thrust or a dagger blow.
4
This time he did not flee.
This time he did not have recourse to flight, because he saw no reason to flee. He had fled on the previous occasions not to escape punishment, not to enjoy freedom, but because he wanted to return, to seize an opportune moment to win his thousandfold beloved. Today, after he had realized his dream and gained the bride of eternity for eternity, his reason for struggling had been eliminated and his reasons for fleeing had vanished. So he walked on his own two feet to the guards and asked them to fetter his hands.
They shut him up in a dark place for days before they finally led him to the interrogation.
In the temple plaza, the citizens had gathered. On a hill beside the temple’s sanctuary, the chief merchant sat on a leather mat. Around him hovered nobles, guards, and vassals.
They brought him to a halt in front of the twin-veiled man, who began the interrogation. The wily fellow gazed at the setting sun and looked up as if searching the naked heavens for inspiration or a prophecy. He asked with a coolness inappropriate for the hideousness of the alleged crime, “Tell us first of all what you did to the girl.”
He looked around the area and saw that the alleys continued to spew forth bands of curiosity seekers as the crowds grew more congested. He replied just as coolly, “I did what I had been destined to do. I mean to say that I merely undertook to recoup what I lost one day.”
“Wretch, what did you lose one day?”
“I lost the creature my master refers to as ‘the girl.’”
“What are you saying?”
“I retrieved her from your hands. I retrieved her so that no eye could fall upon her. I hid her so she would remain out of sight. I took her from your hands by force; for this reason I understand my master’s anger, since people can’t bear defeat. People never forgive a victor his victory, even if they realize they will acquire something from his triumph.”
The man with two veils wagged a finger at him. “Watch out! We haven’t come to listen to you discuss what people can and can’t bear. We’ve come to hear you answer a question. So, again: beware!”
The temple plaza was still, even though it was packed with people. In the distance, at the mouths of the alleys leading to the plaza, children were making a ruckus.
The chief merchant asked, “You said you took the girl. But you didn’t say where you concealed her!”
“Master, she’s with me. With me for eternity.”
“If what you claim is true, why don’t we see the poor girl beside you.”
“Because … because my master is blind, like everyone else.”
“Blind?”
“Master, we’re once again, as we were one day, a single person.”
“Wretch, what day are you talking about?”
“A day before we were born.”
“What is this prattle?”
“I answered my master’s question.”
“But why did you remove the poor girl’s breast with a sword and conceal it in a feedbag?”
“I never removed a breast and have never in my life carried a sword.”
The man with two veils gestured to a guardsman, who took a step forward and removed a chunk of flesh from a bloody feedbag. It was tender-skinned and quivering. Dried blood and grains of sand had adhered to its underside. He waved it in the air, and the crowd responded with a suppressed snarl.
The accused man, however, was not shaken. He neither denied nor confessed the deed. In fact, it seemed he was not paying attention, because there was no change in his nonchalant gaze into the void.
The chief merchant resumed the interrogation. “Someone who has confessed to killing the beauty with his own hands would not find it difficult to seize the breast to take as a trophy the way tribes in the forestlands take their enemies’ heads. Isn’t this your secret, wretch?”
“I never removed the breast.”
“Didn’t you stab the leader to avenge yourself because he sentenced you to banishment to punish you for your first offense?”
“I didn’t stab the leader and I didn’t remove the breast.”
“Why did you stab the leader?”
“I owe the leader a payment for his benefaction, not an ungrateful stab wound.”
“Wretch, explain yourself.”
“Had I not left my beloved behind, the leader’s banishment would have been the noblest benefaction and I would never have violated his sentenc
e by returning to the oasis.”
“But you did return, more than once, after that.”
“I returned to retrieve a creature with whom I had once formed a single person.”
“Here we’re borrowing words from a fool’s lexicon again.”
At that moment the crowds were convulsed and people spread the news—like women gossiping—that a messenger from the leader was coming. This news spread quickly and reached the hill’s summit before the messenger did. Then the chief merchant leapt to his feet and gestured to a vassal, who drew his sword and advanced toward the lover. At that same moment the man with the feedbag sprang forward and knocked the turban from the victim’s head with a single blow. The bared head revealed a strange, small face, like a frog’s, crowned by a long braid coiled in a heap at the top of his skull. Cries resounded in the crowd, but the man with two veils gestured again sternly, and the man with the feedbag grasped the braid with his free hand. The swordsman’s weapon gleamed in the rays of the setting sun and then people saw the puny, headless body fall to the ground while the head, which resembled a frog’s face, remained grasped by the man, who brandished it on high. It was bathed by the rays of the setting sun, and people saw in its eyes the serenity of a slaughtered animal. Blood dripped from the bottom of the head, falling plentifully over the feedbag where the quivering breast was tucked.
The Puppet (Modern Middle East Literature in Translation) Page 10
