by Robert Irwin
‘Then, as the days went by, another body was discovered and another and another, all men and all with their throats cut. It was like a plague epidemic and as it spread from the poor quarters of the town in the north-east to the smarter areas beneath the Citadel and along the river, it began to cause some concern to the government. Vigilante parties were sent out to roam the streets at night. Several times these parties were within an ace of rescuing a victim before the knife fell. Rumour ran wild. Many people said that these were ritual murders committed by thejews or Copts, and some members of the Jewish community had to leave the city for a while.
‘Well, one night the Father of Cats was wandering alone through the Village of Women. Whether he was hoping to gain money there or spend it one can only guess. He was wearing a hooded jallaba in the Maghribi style; people say that the Father of Cats came originally from the Atlas Mountains far away in the Western lands. He passed a veiled woman standing on the edge of the village evidently soliciting custom. He walked on and then he turned back for, mysteriously, he felt powerfully attracted. He came closer to her. She unveiled herself. She was smiling as she drew a long silver knife from the folds of her sleeves. Despite seeing this he was fascinated and sexually aroused. He could see that she was going to kill him and yet he could do nothing to pull himself away. Without feeling himself move, he still saw that the gap between them was narrowing.
‘“Ah, you would not,” he croaked.
‘By way of a reply she bared her upper half and there, incredulously, he saw that same aphrodisiac symbol that he had painted between the breasts of that woman Fatima some months previously. Now that the talismanic sign was visible, the unnatural attraction was redoubled. The Father saw that he was on the brink of being destroyed by one of his own lures. As a desperate last gamble, he called out to her, “Ah, unhappy woman, who has done that to you? You are marked for death, since you bear the emblem of Azrael, the Angel of Extinction between your breasts.”
‘There was a sudden flurry and the woman was gone, running into the darkness of one of the side alleys. He tried to follow her, for he still felt terribly attracted, but she had vanished. The murders ceased that night. Only now again, years later, there are unpleasant stories being told in the suqs of Cairo, and some fear that Fatima the Deathly has returned. If she ever existed,’ added Yoll thoughtfully. ‘The Father of Cats is certainly never to be altogether trusted or believed. It is a good story; I have told it many times.’
‘It is a strange story,’ said Balian cautiously.
‘You do not believe it?’
‘I believe that the Father of Cats told it for some purpose.’
‘The Father is mad,’ Yoll continued inconsequentially.
‘Sleep is such a pleasant, leisurely pastime. I know little and understand less of what he is doing, but I gather his science makes sleep a test and a peril to his pupils and patients. When I go to sleep, I like to go to sleep. I’ll see my visions when I am awake and can appreciate them properly. People go to the House of Sleep looking for something, some spiritual treasure perhaps. People are crazed by fantasies of treasure in this place. The people of Cairo believe that they can find treasure by lying down and going to sleep and maybe the djinn will tell them where it is, or I don’t know what. It seems to be that what the Father of Cats offers is the lazy man’s way to heaven. ’
‘Lazy men want to go to heaven like anyone else.’
‘Well, they won’t find their way to heaven with their eyes shut, dreaming on undigested food. Dreams make people want to sleep; my stories will make people want to stay awake. In fact, they will make sleep unnecessary.’
The torrent was in full flood again. Yoll believed that it should be possible to take dreams away from the dark kingdom over which the Father of Cats reigned and bring them out into the sunlight of happy fantasy. So with ceaseless industry (Balian found it hard to believe that anyone who drank so much could be ceaselessly industrious), with ceaseless industry, he worked to produce tales of porters who married princesses, marvellous isles of Paradise, mothers-in-law turned into mules and treasures available at the twist of a magic ring. The essence of it all was that the extraordinary should suddenly happen to an ordinary man. ‘A woman beckons from a strange house. An animal is heard to speak. I am a greater artist than Mutanabbi or Mutazz, but an essential of my art will he in my art’s concealment.’
Balian reflected that perhaps Yoll and the Father of Cats were not so very different in their bizarre schemes and ambitions, but he kept that thought to himself.
Yoll continued, ‘In truth, the lives of most people here are so miserable that they can be changed only by a miracle. That is the greater part of what my stories offer them. But of late the real world has been entering into competition with the storyteller.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It is hard to say. There are signs, if one can read them. There are these murders nightly, particularly in your quarter, the Ezbekiyya. Then there is your illness. Well, they tell you that it is an illness, but I am not so sure.’
‘Neither am I. I think that it’s only a nosebleed.’
‘Ah, but I think that it may be an omen. Only a week ago a baby was born near the Citadel with two heads and forty arms. Such things are harbingers of coming troubles, fighting and famine and perhaps a new holy—’
But here Yoll was interrupted. From outside there came a loud crashing sound of metal on wood, a recurrent thumping, something pounding on the door. Yoll’s face grew wide with fear.
‘Who is it?’ asked Balian.
‘I don’t know. They must be looking for you. Vane and the Father of Cats. Or perhaps Mamlukes. But we are not staying to find out.’ Yoll leant forward to blow out the candle. ‘It would not do for them to discover us together. Hold on to one another and follow me.’
Balian found his hand being clutched by Mary, and he was drawn through layers of hanging silks until they emerged at the foot of a staircase which led up to the roof. They raced up it on tiptoe, trying not to breathe too loudly. It was now deep night. On the roof Yoll turned to face them.
‘We should separate here. You go down that way, while I go downstairs now and open the door to our visitors. I think that I shall pretend that I have only just been woken up.’ Yoll seemed elated with childish glee. His head shook wildly. ‘Mary will take you to Bulbul’s. I will join you there as soon as I can.’
He spoke to Mary rapidly in Arabic. Mary’s lips parted briefly, but she said not a word. Having scrambled down the side of the house easily, she gestured that Balian should follow at a distance. She walked ahead at a steady pace down one lane after another. The streets were almost deserted except for lamplighters and the occasional soldier. Now and then, from the rare vantage point of an open place, Balian could see the Citadel of Qaitbay, looming over the little mud and wood houses on their left. They were moving away from the areas of Cairo he had become familiar with. Suddenly, coming out of a little alleyway, he found that they were walking alongside the Nile. Its turbid surface moved sinisterly, gleaming in the moonlight. Soon they were crossing a bridge which led to an island in the river.
‘Roda.’
There were few buildings on the island and these were mostly clustered on the waterfront. They passed into a wood that was also a cemetery. Balian had to follow close upon Mary’s silhouette in order not to lose his way. Soft and clinging things caressed his face; the branches of the trees were draped with cloths and rags, the votive offerings of the bereaved. Even at this hour the cemetery was not deserted, for veiled, wraithlike figures, carrying candles, darted among the trees. Mary slowed her pace and took his hand. Her hand was hot. They had come to a clearing and in the clearing was a cluster of houses of mud and wattle of the type Balian had become familiar with in the poorer parts of Cairo. They paused before one of these; this was presumably the house of Bulbul. A man emerged from it and Mary addressed him. She said very little but she spoke so slowly that Balian had ample time to contemplate the figure
before him: two glittering bright eyes set deep in the sides of a huge hooked nose, the curve of which was echoed in a wider arc by the curve of his paunch. His tongue darted, lizard-like, from side to side in his mouth as he replied. Then he began to speak also with his hands. Arms spread out expansively (but of course, be my guest), a gesture of salaam to Balian, a hand beckoning them in, eyebrows raised to deprecate the misery of his awful hovel and finally a sharp, lingering stare into Balian’s eyes that said more than could be interpreted. They went in. Bulbul almost danced around the room, as he mimed his craft and displayed products of his workmanship to his guests. He was a letter writer and, more than that, a calligrapher. Fists beat his chest, the best in Cairo.
When this charade was finished, he squatted down in a corner to make some tea—another little charade. While he was thus engaged, Mary was making signs with her hands, signifying that they would sleep there that night. Bulbul rejoined them with the tea and a sugar cone, which he proceeded to chip to pieces with a little hammer. Three cups of tea were ceremoniously drunk. Bulbul talked all the time to Mary, ignoring Balian save to pour out more tea and to offer him a piece of cake. Mary said almost nothing.
At length rugs were brought out, and they stretched themselves out to sleep. At least Mary and his host did so, but Balian lay alert, staring at the ceiling, lost in circular thoughts. He had dreamt twice since coming to Cairo, and he feared to dream again. Instead he shifted his weight from limb to limb, as he drowsily considered the warped symmetry of his experiences, dreams and facts all interlocked: two sultans, two beautiful women, two states of consciousness and so forth. Did everything in the universe have its corresponding partner in a pair, a left hand and a right hand? Might he too have his flawed twin? He was finding it difficult to think clearly; his thoughts were slowly turning over as on a spit in the hot night air.
Then there was a scuffling noise in the hut and, shifting his position slightly, Balian became aware of two figures standing over Bulbul, Mary and himself. He felt sick with a panicky sort of butterfly fear as he identified the two silhouettes as those of the Father of Cats and Michael Vane. Vane shielded a candle flame with one hand.
The Father turned to Vane and remarked with studied casualness, ‘Insomniacs have an actual terror of falling asleep. They fear lest the problems that threaten them when awake will fall on them and devour them when they are unconscious.’ Then, kneeling down and thrusting his face, pestilential with an old man’s bad breath, into Balian’s, ‘But you don’t know whether you are asleep or awake, do you? Hello, did you think that we could not find you? Did you think that I confine my teaching to the House of Sleep? Do you think that your new friends can be relied upon? I think it possible that you may be mistaken. If St Catherine and pretty Zuleyka can visit you in your sleep, surely we can too? Vane!’
He snapped his fingers impatiently. Vane produced a glass and the hammer that had been used earlier to break the sugar. He put the glass down on the dried mud floor and brought the hammer smartly down upon it. The glass remained unaltered, still bearing its dregs of tea within it, long enough for Balian to draw his breath in sharply with surprise. Then abruptly it shattered, scattering shards of glass and tea leaves over a wide radius. The sleeping forms of Bulbul and Mary did not stir.
Vane never took his eyes off his face as the Father began to speak again. ‘That was your first lesson, how to determine whether you are dreaming or not. The world you are in approximates closely to reality but not closely enough if one applies certain tests. The glass demonstrates that you are dreaming; more to the point, now I come to think of it, I am speaking to you in a language that you can understand. Clearly you are no longer in the world of reality, a world which is governed by the laws of God and logic. No, you are in the Alam al-Mithal, which, being interpreted, is the World of Images or Similitudes. With your co-operation, we hope to teach you to stamp your will on the Alam al-Mithal and, of course, even before that, to diagnose your sickness and discover the root of the bleeding. You should know that if we had not come here first, something much more unpleasant would have.’
Vane meanwhile had knelt down over the other two sleeping forms and whispered into the ears of first one and then the other.
The Father continued, ‘I think that we should examine you back at my house, but before we set out for it you must accept my initiation and you must trust us when we say that we desire only to cure and to guide you. Do you trust us?’
‘I do.’ Balian voiced his acquiescence in a jerky sort of croak. Actually he felt not trust, only pure blind fear of his nocturnal visitors.
‘It is good,’ said the old man calmly, and with his long nails he scraped some earth from the floor of the hut, gathered it together in his palms. Then, kneeling over Balian, breathing with difficulty, he said, ‘Look at me.’
Balian did so, and the old man blew the dust into his eyes.
The old man got up, his breath rasping. ‘Come with us,’ he said, and they went out into the night. The air was close, heavy, and the indigo sky loomed down on them, almost touching the tops of the minarets. Balian felt as if he was breathing through a straw. Soon they were making their way along the edge of the island. The moon had vanished and in the near-total darkness they were guided by the oily gleam of the water and the slapping sound it made against the mud embankments. Sometimes he stumbled against something soft that moved, one of the thousands of the poor of Cairo who slept in the streets.
‘We have to make a detour,’ said the Father of Cats apologetically as they passed over the bridge. On the other side they quickened their pace, for the way was better lit. Their path crossed and recrossed those of the night watch and the gypsy lamp-lighters. Three furtive figures, they toiled up under the walls of the Citadel.
‘This is the quarter of the Tartar Ruins, and here,’ said the Father, ‘is someone you should meet.’ Vane and Balian followed him into a tent. In the centre of the tent, on a carpet, a figure slumped in a curious posture. Something was wrong, but what it was that disturbed was difficult to make out in the darkness.
‘This is Saatih. He is a kaahin, a soothsayer, but God has cursed him and is turning his bones to jelly. His head will be the last to go. Naturally you will not meet him in real life; a figure like this exists only in dreams.’
Balian squatted down to take a look and rose up again hastily, swallowing back his rising gorge. The kaahin swelled, rolled and bubbled over the mat, moving restlessly this way and that. Only the head with its unwinking eyes remained motionless at the centre. A throaty voice came up from the carpet. ‘Welcome to the Alam al-Mithal.’
‘Saatih wanted to see you, to know if you might not be the man who suffers the Arabian Nightmare. It appears that you are not,’ said the Father.
‘God help you if you ever meet his companion, Shikk,’ said Vane.
‘Prophecy has passed and only dreams remain,’ said Saatih.
The Father of Cats knelt down beside him and for a few moments they conferred in low, inaudible tones.
‘Saatih was not the reason for coming up here,’ said the Father as they re-emerged into the night. ‘We are taking you to see the Dawadar in there,’ and he pointed to the walls of the Citadel that seemed to hang over them.
‘Why the Dawadar? Why now? Anyway wouldn’t it be better to see him in the morning when both he and I are awake?’ Balian was now distinctly irritated and had determined to put a logical bar in the way of the capricious fancies of the grotesque pair.
‘Because we wish to show you to him. He will ask a few questions, that is all,’ said the Father firmly.
‘Well, I think I am going to wake up,’ said Balian.
‘You fool! It’s terribly dangerous,’ shouted Vane as he threw himself upon Balian. The Father, more agile than his years should have allowed, followed. Vane had him by his legs, while the Father clung grimly to Balian’s back as they rolled and scrabbled down the path that led from the Citadel.
‘You’ll have to carry me with you wherev
er you go,’ shouted the Father, but Balian was beginning to pull away from his assailants and from the dust and from the night under the walls of the Citadel.
Yet there was little relief in breaking free from that nightmare. It was difficult to see in the dim and airless space. He seemed to be lying in a tent of hair. He could not move a muscle; he could not breathe. He thought his eyes were open, but it was difficult to be sure. Some great thing, soft yet heavy, pressed upon his chest and arms, suffocating and paralysing him. Only one part of him was not paralysed: his penis. It rose and swelled painfully. The thing lay upon him, close and intimate, evilly intent. Whatever it was, Balian sensed it as being, though physically close, infinitely distant from a human being and a human being’s concerns. It lay so close upon him that its interest should have been sexual, yet he conceived of the eyes in its face, if it had a face, as being pits of pure and endless nothingness. Balian began to pray silently. Slowly the pressure began to ease, and Balian became capable of distinctions. They were knees that pressed upon his arms. A woman knelt upon his chest, her feet pressed into his crotch, her hair hanging over his face. She was bending over his face, crooning. Slowly, as Balian grew in consciousness, she mysteriously withdrew. In the space where she had been there was nothing but the shimmering grey pearls of the false dawn.
He was in Zuleyka’s kiosk. She slept peacefully beside him. ‘Why should anyone come at dawn to kneel upon my chest?’ he pondered. ‘Perhaps it was the heat.’ He lay oiled in sweat. He shook Zuleyka awake.
‘Zuleyka, did you kneel upon my chest just now, or did I dream it?’
She looked at him. Her eyes were wide with seriousness. ‘Someone was probably following you, when you came back through the Roda Cemetery. You are a fool to enter a cemetery at night.’
