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5. Islamic mystics have used similar language—words like annihilation—in describing their quest to submit personal volition to God’s will.
THE GAME
1
The previous day, the serpent had invaded his solitude again.
It had emerged from a crack in the wall of an impregnable cave, and he had prodded it playfully with a stick. Its puny size deceived him, and he thought he would torment it a little before smashing its head. But the ignoble reptile leapt toward his lap and would have bitten him had he not jumped to one side just then. He saw two fangs in its mouth and remembered the ancients’ counsels that cautioned against small creatures, warning that snakes, like other animals, are all the more vicious and evil the smaller they are. As he started to shake, he attacked it with a cudgel. It did not succumb easily despite his desperate blows. When it finally died and he saw that its hateful body resembled a discarded rope, he stretched out beside it to catch his breath. He lay on his back and looked at the ancients’ pictures on the cave’s ceiling. He journeyed far away with these creatures. Some men wore strange round turbans with feathers on top, and other men—with bodies camouflaged by animal skins and long tails trailing behind them—were hunting Barbary sheep. Giant women had generous breasts. Pygmy-like figures held arrows, spears, and other weapons.
He went a great distance with his ancestors and then fell asleep, or nearly. He actually did fall asleep because he did not notice the fearful body’s emanation from the Unknown, the wall, or the puny body he had slain with the cudgel. He returned from his journey to find above his head a viper cloaked in burnished scales, threatening him with three, four … countless heads, each containing fangs more vicious than wild beasts’ tusks.
He tried to move to one side, but the reptile pursued him with its heads. So he stirred. He stirred to find the maid above him.
Placing a container of milk beside him, she asked, “Has my master had a dream?”
“I wish it had been a dream.”
Adjusting his position, he noticed that he was still short of breath and that his body was wet with perspiration. Then he told the maid, “It … was a nightmare.”
“There’s nothing strange about that. An invalid inevitably dreams and perhaps has nightmares. You’re still sick, master.”
He wanted to tell her about his vision and gestured for her to stay. He asked, “What do they say in your tribes if a man sees a snake when unconscious?”
Her concern showed in her eyes. She asked excitedly, “Did my master kill a snake?”
“The truth is, I don’t know. I thought I had killed it when I beat it mercilessly, but then I dozed off and roamed on a distant journey with the ancients. A hideous hissing woke me and I saw over my head a multi-headed viper. …”
“This is a horrendous evil, master.”
“Is that what they think in your tribe?”
“Did my master cut off the first snake’s head?”
“The truth is that I didn’t.”
“This is an enormous mistake, master.”
“Do they say that in your tribe?”
“In our tribe, a man never kills a snake unless he cuts off its head and buries it far away. The snake’s an enemy that isn’t killed by beating, master.”
“The diviner also told me that it represents an enemy.”
“The small snake is a small enemy. The viper is a large enemy, master.”
“Do they really say that in your tribe?”
“My master must be extremely careful.”
He noticed that she was trembling. She bit her lip hard and fastened her scarf tighter around her head to hide her anxiety.
2
The chief vassal visited him.
He spoke for a long time about conditions but did not mention the wretch.
Realizing that Abanaban was deliberately skirting this story, he wanted to chase down the secret. He toyed with the nap of the leather mat before saying, “Yesterday I sent the campaign’s commander to bring me the wretch, but he reached the gathering too late.”
His companion also sought relief in the floor mat and replied tersely, “I know.”
“It’s said that the chief merchant ordered him beheaded before the interrogation was concluded.”
“I’ve heard that too. …”
“It’s said he did that to prevent the prisoner from falling into my hands.”
There was no response.
“I know you always avoid meddling in the council’s affairs, but you ought to know, too, that magnanimity has frequently caused the destruction of the innocent.”
“I don’t catch my master’s drift.”
“I’m trying to say that you kept silent about the many evils committed by the council because of your magnanimity. Have you forgotten that you’re the chief vassal?”
“I acknowledge that I’m wary of intervening in the council’s affairs because of my respect for the Law that established tribal councils in the earliest times.”
“You can honor the Law in a council that honors the Law, but is it right for you to honor a council that doesn’t hesitate to attack the Law every day?”
There was no response.
“I wanted to tell you that I spoke with the wretch the day he committed the crime. It wasn’t difficult for me to understand the man. I say for certain now that the assassination attempt against me was totally out of character for a man like that.”
“I acknowledge that many people share my master’s suspicion.”
“Tell me, then: Who granted the chief merchant authority over the destinies of men and allowed him to issue verdicts against people?”
“I don’t know, master. We reached the temple plaza and found him seated on the hill like a bogeyman, surrounded by a vanguard of noblemen and vassals. It’s said the council chose him.”
“How could the council appoint the man with two veils to arbitrate a case in which he had a vested interest?”
“I don’t catch my master’s drift.”
“Doesn’t the council know that the chief merchant was the wretch’s enemy? Have you all forgotten that I sentenced the wretch to exile for absconding with a purse that belonged to the man with two veils?”
“It’s a truly shameful situation.”
“It’s not merely shameful, it’s suspicious. My intuition is that there’s a conspiracy afoot.”
“But my master shouldn’t forget that he would have received the death penalty in any event.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Didn’t the wretch slay the beauty?”
“Didn’t you hear they were acting to fulfill a vow?”
“That’s what people say.”
“Didn’t he say in the interrogation that he did what he did to retrieve a creature he had lost?”
“My master almost seems to have been there with us.”
“Didn’t he also say he didn’t cut off a breast and didn’t stab a leader?”
“My master almost seems to have been there with us.”
“How do you know I wasn’t? Do you suppose I pay no attention to people’s affairs? Don’t you know that the jinn relay news to leaders’ ears?”
“Our clan says that too.”
Feeling drained, he paused. He was not merely panting; he realized he was also trembling. He toyed with the edges of the leather mat. Ripping off some fuzz with sudden violence, he said cryptically, “I don’t want you to think too well of me.”
“I don’t grasp the wisdom of my master’s statement.”
“I meant to say that I don’t merely feel the punishment was unfair to the wretch and hardly a victory for justice, but I was trying to defend myself too.”
“What need should my master have to defend himself? Aren’t we all my master’s soldiers and guards?”
“You refuse to admit that the blows to my chest didn’t come from the wretch who was beheaded. Those blows sprang from a deceitful plot.”
“Who wo
uld gain anything from a deceitful plot against my master?”
“You should have addressed this question to the men who were so quick to sever the wretch’s neck to prevent him from falling into my custody.”
“Amazing!”
“I don’t need the mind of a diviner to grasp that, after attempting to convince me of his alleged hostility, the council didn’t want me to question the wretch.”
“Amazing!”
“You know the ancient stratagem a wily schemer uses to convince an inattentive person of a false tale. He recounts a true story—I mean the first part is true. Then he crams the second part full of falsehoods. This type of confusion is required to render the tale credible.”
Then the leader looked up at him with inscrutable, wretched eyes that released barely visible tears.
3
The day the leader had set to meet the people after his long convalescence, he discovered that groups had been gathering outside since morning, after closing their own doors behind them, in more massive throngs than the oasis had ever witnessed. Men elbowed each other aside, and women with children in tow jostled against them. Foreign residents, the masters of passing caravans, and bands of slaves formed an awe-inspiring ring around the area. The moment the leader appeared—encircled by vassals—women began to trill and shaykhs advanced, embracing him at length. He made his way through the congestion, heading for the temple plaza. Those in the crowd with special pleas rushed toward him, blocking his way. A woman began to complain about her husband, and an old man wept before him, alleging that his only son wanted to kill him because of a disagreement about a tract of farmland. A third person butted in to complain that another man had stolen his wife while he was away, traveling with a caravan. People surrounded him on all sides, and he could go no farther until the vassals intervened. He promised the people, however, that he would attend to their needs once the meeting with the nobles in the sanctuary was adjourned. He was not content merely to reassure the masses, but summoned the herald and ordered him to tell everyone he planned to address them about the campaign, metals, and the future of commercial transactions in the oasis’s markets. While the herald rushed off to make the rounds of the squares and to traverse the alleys, shouting his new tidings and summoning people to gather in the temple plaza, the priest from the forestlands emerged from his miserable hut beside the blacksmiths’ market and hastened toward the leader’s home. The maid told him that her master had just left, surrounded by more people than she had ever seen. The diviner interrupted her, saying that she must find a way to coax him to return home as quickly as possible. When she asked why, the diviner toyed with the cowries strung around his neck. Then he told her nonchalantly that he doubted she would ever see her master in his house again if she did not succeed in bringing him home at once.
She was floored by his tone and stood watching him rush off in the opposite direction, away from the throngs. He disappeared behind the buildings along the road that led to the fields. She told herself that she had never known a diviner, sorcerer, or any other individual involved with the occult who was not eccentric. She leaned over the bedcovers and then began to drag them to the courtyard to shake off the dust and to air them in the sunshine. She was humming an ancient tune she often relied on to revitalize herself and to energize her body. How delightful are melodies and how fine are lyrics that inflame sorrows! What would have happened to the desert and its people had they not inherited sorrowful poems from the mouths of their ancestors? What would have become of the desert and its people if the wasteland had lacked the antidote and the malady both called “yearning”? Yearning is the only secret that harbors its opposite within itself. It scorches the breasts of lovers with pains till they consider it a malady. When it dies in their hearts, the loss torments them and the privation slays them. Then they realize that it was an antidote. But God forbid that yearning be consumed without poetry’s flint stone to spark the fire! Poetry not only serves as a flint for longing’s fire; it is also the flint stone for everything in the desert. Were it not for poetry’s flint, the heart of a beautiful woman would never throb with passion. Were it not for poetry’s flint, thunder would not rumble in the sky to announce the thirsty earth’s inundation with rain. Were it not for poetry’s flint, real flint would not spark fire.
She remembered some funeral dirges.
The ghost of poetry cast her into the ocean of the epic that tribal poets had begun but not yet concluded. All poets have shared—just as warriors on fine camels all share in a race—in reciting an epic for eternity concerning thousandfold love. She had heard from neighbor women touching verses and from chatterboxes disturbing news about the conspiracy. They had said that the beloved woman’s death and her wretched true love’s beheading were not the end but the beginning of a catastrophe for the oasis. Their tongues had also relayed strange insinuations. From the prattle, her ears had plucked suggestions that the leader was in danger. Yes, the elderly neighbor woman, who spoke like a priest revealing a prophecy, had said that the leader. … But what relationship was there between old women’s gossip and the prophecy of the priest from the forestlands? Was it merely a coincidence that she heard today from the mouth of a forest priest—couched in allegorical language—the same information she had heard yesterday from a local priestess?
She cringed, cowering for a long time. Then she bolted for the door and raced through the alleyways toward the temple plaza.
4
Meanwhile, the specter was heroically battling the throngs as he attempted to reach the leader.
The congestion became even more intense near the foot of the mount adjacent to the sanctuary, because the herald’s cries had sparked curiosity in people’s souls. Groups poured out of houses, shops, markets, and even the fields. The vassals and guards who formed a protective buffer around the leader failed in their attempt to keep these groups at bay. People pressed his hands to congratulate him on his recovery. Some protested harsh taxes. Others deplored his attack on their treasures. Still other men declared their approval of the campaign and their hopes that he would keep up the good work. The specter fought bravely but the crowds proved stronger. Every time he pressed forward, arms shoved him back. Thus each time he thought he had advanced a few steps, he was actually a step further removed from his comrade.
The leader reached the temple door, and the circle around him became denser and more agitated. The specter made a heroic effort, but the common folk, who thought he was trying to get ahead of them to present a petition to the head of state before they could, were quick to treat him with a roughness not devoid of hatred. One of them whacked him with an elbow and another landed a fierce punch below his navel. So he screamed with pain.
Desperate, he shouted, but the clamor swallowed his cry. So he fell back on his final weapon and drew from his pocket a carefully folded piece of leather and waved it over the people’s heads, shouting to the leader, who finally noticed him—he thought. Perhaps he even recognized him, because the specter saw in his eyes the hint of a smile before he raised his hands to catch the leather sheet. He threw it to the leader, who caught it with both hands. He bent over it for an instant and would have spread it out to read had it not been for the crowd’s pressure. He folded it up and kept it in his hands. The specter screamed as loudly as he could, referring to the document, “Read it, master. Read!”
No one could tell whether this call, which resembled a cry for help, had reached the leader’s ears late that morning or if it had been drowned out by clamorous voices. Griots agree, however, that the whole crowd heard the final, grief-stricken call, for which the specter was only a conduit, because it could easily have been a heavenly revelation: “Master, you must read it now. You must read it before you enter that door!”
The leader, however, had disappeared through the door, and the guards formed an eternal barrier between him and the people.
The instant the leader disappeared into the temple, the maid arrived at a gallop.
5
> Inside the oblation chamber, once he had chosen a place among his peers, he joked, “A council of nobles wouldn’t really be a council of nobles if the meeting weren’t held in an oblation chamber.”
Imaswan Wandarran exchanged a secret glance with the warrior. Amasis the Younger said in a strange voice, “You’re right. You’re doubly right.”
“It’s appropriate for us to slaughter a sacrificial animal in honor of the leader of the Law’s return after a lengthy absence from his sanctuary.”
The warrior said with unusual zeal, “We’ll slay a sacrificial animal for the Law’s advocate; our master can be sure of that.”
“But why don’t I see the council’s treasure at the center of the council?”
They exchanged looks fraught with meaning. The chief merchant said in a disparaging tone, “The ‘treasure of the council’ can’t sit up anymore. Our master should remember that the treasure is more than 140 years old.”
“We’ll visit him directly, tomorrow. If the council’s treasure doesn’t come to the council, the council must visit the council’s treasure.”
Silence prevailed. Outside, the people’s commotion mixed with the herald’s cry. The noblemen exchanged stealthy glances. The leader suggested, “We’d best begin.”
They responded, almost in unison, “We’d best begin.”
The hero drew an elegant dagger from his robe, pulled the blade from the scabbard, and began to rotate it in his hands. The leader protested, “I thought we agreed a long time ago to ban weapons from the sanctuary.”
There was a brief silence. Bodies trembled in anticipation. Then Ahallum replied with unusual coldness, “How does our master expect us to slay a sacrificial victim to honor the sanctuary’s authority if we don’t bring a dagger into the sanctuary?”
The leader glanced about curiously. A mocking smile flitted across the men’s eyes. The warrior gripped the dagger by its hilt and tested its fearsome edge with his fingers.
Turning to Imaswan Wandarran, he asked, “Comrade, do you remember what I told you about points of articulation? Would you like me to show you how to find them?”
The Puppet (Modern Middle East Literature in Translation) Page 11
