The Arabian Nightmare

by Robert Irwin

  ‘I have not seen her so far,’ said the porter, smiling happily. ‘As to the other matter, I shall enlighten you, but you must tell me first how you regained your proper form and station.’

  ‘So I shall. Simply, it was very sudden and mysterious. One afternoon the lady and I lay in the garden pavilion. She was embracing me and running her fingers through my fur when, on an instant, we looked up to see a man standing over us, shimmering a little in the hot air, his fists raised over his head in fury. A strange-looking man he was too. He was young but long white hair fell down to his shoulders. He wore a blue and silver cloak and he was a Christian, for he wore a great silver cross around his neck. He cursed the lady in many languages, kicked me away and then kicked her. When he had finished with his cursing and kicking, he turned to me again and examined me more closely. It seems that he saw my true form in my eyes, for he muttered some words and made a pass and I found myself a prince again. He took me by the arm to the door of the garden and told me to thank my God that I had been freed from the witch’s spell. He also admonished me, on pain of death or worse, that I should never return to the garden. Perceiving that he was a powerful magician, I saluted him and agreed to do as he said, and so I have done. Then I returned to my rejoicing, if somewhat puzzled, family.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the porter.

  ‘It is a somewhat inconclusive story,’ said the prince.

  ‘Perhaps what I have to tell you may go some way to concluding it,’ said the porter. ‘You see, I think that I was not the first to ask the lady that riddle. One evening, four or five years ago, at the end of a long and exhausting day, I had gone down to a house where secret drinking took place in defiance of the law to spend my hard-earned dinars in drinking and forgetting how I had earned them. I like to talk when I drink and I fell to talking with a Christian there—yes, he had long white hair and he wore a cross around his neck. He teased me about my drinking, though he was even drunker than I became. Eventually, in whispers, he revealed to me that he was a great magician. I did not believe him and became angry and then he became angry too. I said that if he was a great magician, he should live in a wonderful palace and have beautiful women to minister to his every need instead of furtively drinking with me in this low-class hovel. At this, to my relief, the Christian passed from being fighting drunk to being melancholy drunk. His story was so sad, he said, that he could not bear to tell it to me, but he would find somebody who would. To my astonishment he thereupon put his head under the table and called out in a loud voice, “Washo! Washo!”

  ‘In a moment Washo appeared. He was a talking ape—as you were once, my friend,’ said the porter, slapping the prince on the shoulder (who winced slightly). ‘Well, Washo seated himself on the table and, with the Christian’s permission, helped himself to some nuts and began, “My master is indeed a powerful magician. I am myself a creation of his sorcery—”’

  ‘Hold hard, Yoll,’ said Cornu, who had not ceased to walk around them like a hungry but undecided beast of prey, ‘I hope this preposterous farrago of yours is going somewhere.’

  ‘All will be unfolded in time,’ said Yoll.

  ‘I doubt if I have the time,’ said Cornu. ‘The more I listen to your tales, the more I am filled with doubt about their merits. It seems to me that you have wandered away from the great tradition of storytelling in favour of strolling aimlessly through unreal cities where the fruits of man’s labour are always uncertain for magic sets everything at naught, whose inhabitants are ever seeming to promise hidden treasures but never moral guidance, and where man’s very sex is threatened and destroyed by devouring females.’

  ‘But it is certainly true that the women of Cairo are ogresses, every one of them,’ interposed the friar.

  Cornu ignored this. ‘There is something worse too. Within the city lies the quarter; inside the quarter there is a street; in the street there is a house; in the house there is a room; in the room a box; in the box there is a... Who knows what is within the box? No man, but all men know that at the end of such a narrative there is certainly something of infinite evil. The way you frame your stories disturbs me, Yoll. The Ape is taking over and the Ape wishes always to hear stories about himself.’

  Yoll did not reply to any of this but looked nervous. He longed to continue but dared not.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ said Cornu.

  As he walked away Balian leant over to the friar to speak to him. ‘When I asked you in the caravanserai if there were not some strange conspiracy around me, you took me up on Mount Muqattam and told me there was not and beat your head against the rock, but now the Grand Master has said that there is.’

  ‘I always lie,’ said the friar and then put his finger to his lips, for Cornu was returning.

  ‘I suggest that you all get some sleep too,’ he said, ‘for the coming days and nights will be hard.’

  The lepers all obediently followed him. Balian, Bulbul, the friar and Yoll remained behind. Yoll was shaking. The friar begged him to continue the story, for they were all keen to hear the answer to the riddle.

  16

  The Interlude Concluded

  To have told the story in that cold dark cellar once was bad enough. To now describe in full how I told that story then is almost unendurable. If only I could find a short cut... Poor Yoll.

  As he began to talk, Yoll relaxed. ‘You will recall that I was in a coffee house surrounded by a hostile audience and that I was engaged in completing the story begun by the ape in the rafters and I was telling you what I told them about what the porter told the prince that he had been told by Washo, the ape of the white-haired Christian. Well...

  ‘“My master is indeed a powerful magician,” Washo began, spitting out the husks of some nuts as he did so. “I am myself a creation of his sorcery—so too is his glorious palace which he has erected some miles out from the city and furnished with the best that magic can conjure. However, he will not live in it until he has attained his heart’s desire.

  “Now I will tell you wherein lies his heart’s desire. Some years ago my master, lost in thought, was passing down a street on one side of which ran the wall of a rich man’s garden. Suddenly a ball bounced before his feet and from the other side of the wall came a childish wailing. A girl’s voice promised everything and anything if only some kind passer-by would throw her ball back over the wall. My master did not throw the ball back but, using a spell, passed through the wall, taking the ball with him. They were both struck dumb with amazement, she at his magic, he at her beauty, for though she was only a little girl and not yet mature, it was already obvious that one day she would be the most beautiful in the land. He resolved to make her his bride when that day should come. He told her this and boasted of his wealth and told her the story of how he had gained his magical powers, but she replied that although she was glad to have got her ball back, she was reluctant to marry him, for he was somewhat older than her and his hair, prematurely white, made him look much older. Then he promised to teach her how to practise powerful magic if only she would come away with him in seven years’ time, yet she still demurred. So then my master proposed to teach her all the best tricks of his art and to ask a riddle: if she was able to answer the riddle at the end of seven years, then they would be quits; if not, then she was bound to be his bride. After some thought she agreed and he asked her his riddle, which was as follows:

  I ask thee for the seven already named.

  They err not, cannot be forgotten, are both old and new.

  Whoever walks in them walks in both life and death.

  “The little girl was a rich man’s daughter and closely guarded, but nothing can be guarded from my master’s magic, so he came each day for a week thereafter to teach her his spells and incantations—how to charm snakes, how to tell fortunes in ink spots, how to fly in the air, how to make gold and... how to turn men into apes. Then he left her, telling her to enjoy herself and her new-found powers and warning her to wait faithfully for him for seven years, after which
he would return to find if she had solved the riddle and take her away if she had not. The reason I am telling you this story,” said Washo, “is that the seven years’ waiting are almost over and my master drinks to calm his fears that the girl may have solved the riddle. However, the riddle is difficult. I do not know the answer and I have been thinking about it for seven years.”

  ‘And with that he and his master vanished. Pouf! Quite suddenly, like smoke blowing away! Of course,’ said the porter, ‘when, as it happened by chance, I was brought to the garden by the lady’s maid, I recognized who she must be and whispered that riddle in her ear, hoping to save myself by frightening her. The seven years were almost over and she still did not know the answer.’

  ‘But I do,’ said the prince. ‘Was it—?’

  ‘Wait, Yoll,’ said Balian. ‘You said a little while ago that the Christian explained to the girl in the garden how it was that he gained his magic powers. I should like to hear that story.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Yoll. ‘It does not do to hurry these things. I must tell you that story.’

  Then, to everyone’s surprise, Bulbul, who had been sitting in a corner quietly scratching with his pen, suddenly spoke. ‘Be advised, Yoll, and do not tell that story. Think what may happen if Cornu awakens and comes back and finds you still telling stories. Beware!’

  Yoll wrestled with himself. ‘Well, I will tell it as briefly as possible. The story the Christian told the girl in the garden was this...’

  Years ago a Christian who was studying to become a learned and holy monk (our Christian, in fact) went out into the desert near Damascus to fast and to meditate. Then Iblis—who is also known as Shaitan or the Ape of God—perceiving that this man had become weak through fasting and solitude, went out to tempt him early one morning in the wilderness. The simplest wiles, were, he knew, often the most effective, so he did not trouble to disguise either himself or his aims in visiting the hermit. Instead he came straight to the point and offered the Christian three wishes, whatever he wanted, if only he would renounce the worship and obedience he owed to the One True God and would worship Iblis instead. The Christian sat thinking and thinking for a long time before finally he spoke.

  ‘O Iblis, you offer me anything I could desire in three wishes, but, as even simple men know, wishes often have a way of rebounding adversely on their wisher. Things are not always so simple as they seem.’

  Iblis shrugged his shoulders (which were covered with horrid scales). ‘True, Christian, so it has often fallen out, but perhaps you are so clever or so virtuous that you will find a way round the problem.’

  The Christian thought again. ‘So let it be.’

  Iblis grinned to himself (a horrid grin for his lips were thick and blubbery and his teeth were black), but it was Iblis who did not understand. Then the Christian renounced the One True God in a loud voice and made formal obeisance to Iblis. Iblis was well pleased and told the Christian to wish away.

  ‘For my first wish,’ said the Christian, ‘I wish you to bring me a pebble.’

  Greatly mystified, Iblis cast around in the wilderness and found a pebble near his foot and handed it to him.

  ‘Next I wish for a lizard.’

  Even more mystified, Iblis rapidly found a lizard, which had in fact been sheltering under the pebble just dislodged, and handed it to him. The Christian did not trouble to look at the pebble or the lizard but clutched them tightly in his hands and wished for the third time.

  ‘Finally, O Iblis, I wish that you render to God that same service and obedience which I have just renounced.’

  Iblis was appalled. He pointed out to the Christian that there was, by tradition, a convention which restricted the scope of what could be wished for and granted.

  The Christian replied that, as a simple hermit in the desert with little experience of intercourse with djinn, he could hardly be expected to know about such conventions. Besides he had been at great pains in his first two wishes to give Iblis as little trouble as possible. Moreover, in his third wish he had really only wished in the best interests of Iblis’s soul and spiritual well-being. So he thought that he ought to insist that Iblis grant him what he asked.

  Iblis was horrified and saw that he was neatly trapped. Desperately he offered the Christian three more wishes if only he would release him from the last dreadful obligation. Having gained assurances from Iblis that, apart from wishing Iblis to become God-fearing, there would be no restrictions on his wishes, with simulated reluctance the Christian agreed.

  In the first of his new set of wishes, he wished that he might be freed from his oath of apostasy and from his service to Iblis. Iblis did not like this but he was forced to assent. Secondly he wished before God that his good friend Iblis might always remain in good health. Iblis was enormously pleased by this, and, rubbing his horny hands, told the Christian so.

  ‘That is the least of what I am going to do for you, ’ replied the Christian, ‘for I wish you to have my third wish for yourself.’

  Quick as a flash before the Christian could unsay it, Iblis, flapping his scaly wings for joy, hastily unwished everything that had been wished for before, but of course he spoke too hastily, for no sooner were the words out of his mouth than he found that he was no longer in good health. Indeed, he was sickening so rapidly that he thought that he was dying. More desperate than ever, he offered the Christian three more wishes if only he might take back for himself that last wish which he had given to him. The Christian smiled and agreed.

  Then the Christian wished that Christianity might be true. Now there are some who hold that up to this time Islam had been the true religion, but from that moment on Christianity replaced it. There are others who hold that Iblis had no power to grant this wish, for all his power came from God and God cannot allow himself to be wished into existence. A minority faction reply to this that though God cannot wish himself to exist or not, he can delegate that power to another creature. The majority opinion, however, is that it is only a story.

  Be that as it may, the Christian still found himself with three more wishes (do not forget that Iblis had given one back to him), but because the sun was now so high in the sky and because he was beginning to weary a little of teasing Iblis (for teasing was all that it was), he wished that Iblis might tell him a story to pass the time. So Iblis told the hermit a story and it was as follows—

  ‘Yoll!’ This was Bulbul, warning.

  Yoll looked flustered. ‘Very well then, since time presses I will omit the story that Iblis told the hermit, though it is a good one and is called “The Tale of the Two Dwarves Who Went Looking for Treasure”.’

  When the story was over, the Christian felt sufficiently rested to wish again.

  (‘He would have done,’ said Bulbul, ‘for “The Tale of the Two Dwarves” is a very long one.’)

  Then the Christian, with the second of his four wishes, asked that he become Iblis and Iblis become him. This immediately happened, but as they thereby acquired not only one another’s outward appearance but also each other’s mind, soul and memories, there was not a great deal of difference to the eye of the uninstructed man.

  With his third wish the Christian (or should I rather call him Iblis?) wished for three more wishes. Iblis might again have protested that this was cheating and refused this wish, but he was not a trifle confused as to which of them he was, and he reflected that a new set of wishes might bring results favourable to him, so Iblis (whichever he was—but no, let him be Iblis) made no protest. The Christian then made a secret wish (which I shall reveal at a later time). Next he wished to become a sorcerer with almost unlimited powers. Then, deferring his next wish until a later date, he left the desert and returned to the cities of men to exercise his newfound powers for his own profit.

  Iblis watched him leave the wilderness and hugged his hairy body with delight. According to the storytellers, the reason for Iblis’s pleasure was as follows. The Christian who went out into the desert had indeed been a clever and virtuous
man, and the very first three of his wishes showed his unselfishness clearly, but, as the later wishes showed, he had progressively succumbed to the cleverness of his intellect and his arrogance had led him astray. So it seemed to Iblis, and God was indeed angry with the Christian.

  This was why, though the Christian now had unlimited wealth and almost unlimited powers of sorcery at his disposal, God made him lonely and drove him from city to city, weary and restless. This was the situation of the accursed man when he came to the garden of the rich man’s daughter. There he thought that he had found a companion and a mate.

  Now, to return to the encounter of the prince and the porter.

  ‘I know the answer to the riddle, ’ said the—

  ‘Stop a moment,’ interrupted the friar. ‘What about the remaining wishes?’

  ‘We shall return to them,’ replied Yoll. ‘Now—’

  ‘Another thing,’ interrupted Balian. ‘You told us at the beginning of the story that it took place in old Bagdad, but later you said that the porter told the prince that his encounter with Washo, the talking ape, took place in a coffee house on the banks of the Nile!’

  ‘A slip of the tongue,’ replied Yoll, ‘I meant the Tigris. Now if I may be allowed to continue...’

  ‘I know the answer to the riddle,’ said the prince. ‘Was it all just chance, everything that has happened to us? I will tell you something too strange for chance. I must tell you that when I lived in the guise of an ape I learnt the tongue of the monkeys, and I remember it still. Well, some weeks ago I was walking through one of the public gardens in the city when I heard some monkeys up a banana tree idly amusing themselves by asking each other riddles. The one which gave the monkeys most amusement was the one which you have just repeated to me. To the disappointment of the monkey who had posed the puzzle, it was easily solved by the other two. The answer they gave was the seven days of the week. If only I had known... Fate is indeed strange. Though the lady treated me cruelly, I now feel pity for her.’