A Poet of the Invisible World

by Michael Golding

  Maybe I can stop roaming the streets at night.

  Maybe I can stop smoking the infernal pipe.

  Maybe I can dive into one of the steaming vats and be cleansed like the laundry.

  He worked all day—stirring, wringing, rinsing, hanging, pressing, folding, and stacking. By the end, he was so tired he could barely lift the most gossamer sash from the plate of the press. Yet he knew that once he’d laid the final item in the basket he would head for Abdallah’s. So he balanced the last stack of things on the basket’s edge, raised his eyes to the steam-wrecked ceiling, and prayed for help.

  It had been so long since he’d turned to Allah, he did not really know what to say. But then he saw a white robe hanging from a wooden dowel, and he thought of Soledad. He realized that he’d been waiting for her to appear—leading a herd of goats over the hill—walking barefoot across the blazing sand—to help him sort out the mess he’d gotten into. So he closed his eyes and sent up a tender plea—not to God, who he felt quite sure had given up on him, but to his absent friend.

  “Help me,” he whispered. “I’m lost. And I can’t seem to find my way back.”

  Nouri could not have said what he hoped would occur. A sudden dispersal of the steam? A flash of insight? A flash of light? Or perhaps merely the simple strengthening of his will? He never could have guessed that the dowel that held the robe would suddenly snap, causing the garment to float into the air like an angel. Or that the splintered halves of the rod would come crashing down to knock him hard on the head and hurl him into the cavernous basket at his side. Or that the stack of clothes he’d placed on the basket’s edge would topple down and cover him. Or that he’d be so gone to the world he would not feel a thing as the men who’d been sent to deliver the finished laundry hoisted the basket and carried him away.

  * * *

  IT WAS A PERFECT MORNING: bathed in sunlight, laced with birdsong, soothed by a fragrant breeze. A few pale clouds were reflected in the tiny pool that sat at the center of the garden, and the argan tree that stood near the southern wall cast its shade on the grass. For the man in the thin white shift seated cross-legged on the ground, however, a veil covered the day. So he pressed his bare legs into the grass and tried to push through it.

  Despite the loss of his parents to a virulent plague that had swept through his village when he was six, the destruction by a savage dust storm of the farm he’d been taken to live on when he was twelve, and the trampling to death of his best friend by a runaway steed when he was twenty-one, Sheikh Abu al-Husain al-Ibrahim al-Khammas always insisted that his life had been exceedingly good. He’d always had food to eat, a roof over his head, and, most important of all, he’d found the purpose of his life at an early age. There was never any doubt that his path was toward God. The moment he heard the first words of the Qur’an, he knew there was nothing else worth pursuing. When he asked his elders how to take his devotion to a deeper level, they saw the mystic in his soul. So when he reached the age of sixteen, they sent him off to become a Sufi. He studied with a teacher named Sheikh al-Faraj al-Farid for nearly thirty years, until he was chosen to travel into the mountains to head the order in the clouds. He’d led that order now for even longer than he had studied and practiced at the first. And though its heyday had come and gone, and its ranks had dwindled, it still offered him what he needed to progress on his inner path.

  After six decades of practice, Sheikh al-Khammas found that nothing was left but his desire to be with God. The laws of a higher world had been revealed and they rendered mute the laws of common existence. He was no longer fooled by ambition or greed. He no longer felt the need to control anyone else. Such freedom, however, was accompanied by an inner wildness, which he tried to hide from his fellow Sufis. For with the loosening of the doctrines of his faith, he was left to govern himself.

  He knew, however, that as long as he had skin, blood, and bones he would have to labor to reach God. As he splashed the cold water on his face in the morning. As he roamed the hushed corridors at night. So now, as he sat on the grass, in the garden, by the pool, he attempted to pierce the veil that kept them apart.

  He tried to see the shadows of the branches that fell upon the gravel path. He tried to hear the rustle of the leaves. Then he raised his head, leaned back, and gazed up at the sky. A great scalloped cloud floated by like a galleon, at the center of which was a small square of blue. So he focused upon it, until he felt himself pass through into the void beyond.

  He could not say how long he remained on the other side. Time split its confining husk and ceased to exist. But eventually the light began to recede, and the damp grass began to penetrate his shift, and the thoughts—from which he’d been so blissfully free—came rushing back.

  How could he have let Rashid al-Halil take his clothes? The bedsheets? The tablecloths? The towels?

  Was Allah trying to say that he was meant to do without?

  After so many years, did he still need reminding of such things?

  Before he could spiral off any further into thought, he saw Abbas al-Kumar and Omar al-Hamid moving toward him.

  “Forgive us for interrupting you—”

  “Either now—”

  “Or at any time—”

  “But we thought you should know—”

  “That the basket of laundry—”

  “Has returned!”

  Sheikh al-Khammas gazed up at the two men. They were as different as goat’s milk and ink: Omar al-Hamid was thin and frail and myopic, Abbas al-Kumar was large and utterly rooted to the earth. After working and eating and praying together for so long, however, they were like the flip sides of a coin, and Sheikh al-Khammas had grown accustomed to hearing their words overlap as they finished each other’s thoughts.

  “They must have brought it back in the night—”

  “While we were sleeping—”

  “And then crept away—”

  “Into the darkness—”

  “Like a panther—”

  “Or a thief—”

  “But now it’s just sitting there—”

  “Like a battleship—”

  “Or an offering—”

  “Outside the gate!”

  Sheikh al-Khammas pressed his hands against the ground and rose. “Allah takes away. And Allah gives back.” He brushed the dirt from his hands and removed a twig from the hem of his shift. Then he started toward the entrance of the lodge and the two dervishes followed.

  When they reached the enormous basket piled high with laundry, Sheikh al-Khammas raised the lid, and the contents, now flawlessly white, gleamed in the sun. He instructed Abbas al-Kumar and Omar al-Hamid to carry it inside. But when they tried to lift it, they found that it was absurdly heavy.

  “Perhaps,” said Omar al-Hamid, “the weight of cleanliness is greater than the weight of grime!”

  “Perhaps,” said Abbas al-Kumar, “it’s been filled with rocks!”

  Even when Sheikh al-Khammas lent a hand, the basket was too weighty to budge. So he decided that the only thing to do was to remove a few things at a time and carry them into the lodge. He reached in and pulled out an armful of towels. Omar al-Hamid scooped up an armful of nightshirts. When Abbas al-Kumar took his turn, however, he froze. Then he cried out:

  “Fart of a choleric dog!”

  It had been thirty-four years since he’d last uttered this epithet, so he was as surprised as Sheikh al-Khammas and Omar al-Hamid to hear the words fly from his mouth. When they ran to the basket to see what had caused the outcry, however, all thoughts disappeared. For there—beneath the gleaming curtains—below the sparkling robes—lay a beautiful youth in a strange head garment, who seemed utterly dead to the world.

  Seventeen

  The stupor that Nouri fell into after he’d been abandoned by the marauders had lasted for several days, just like the one he had fallen into after he’d been deserted on the beach by Soledad’s father. This time, however—his body exhausted by his days at the laundry—his bloodstream
corroded by the fumes of Abdallah’s pipe—he tumbled down to the bottom of a dark chasm, where he remained for nearly a month. Upon finding him in the basket, Sheikh al-Khammas instructed Abbas al-Kumar and Omar al-Hamid to carry him into the lodge, remove his clothes, dress him in one of the freshly laundered tunics, and place him in one of the beds in one of the empty rooms. He advised them, however, not to disturb the strange head cloth he wore, as he was unsure of its spiritual implications.

  They left him to sleep for several days, checking in on him every so often to be sure that he was still breathing. When he refused to rouse after nearly a week, the Sufi master brewed a strong tea of black horehound and bayberry leaves and carried it to his room. Then he slapped him quite hard on both cheeks and when Nouri opened his eyes he placed the steaming liquid against his lips, and Nouri drank. That was when the struggle began: the fierce blood battle as Nouri’s polluted body tried to break free of the grip of Abdallah’s pipe. He thrashed in his sleep. He sweated through his bedclothes. He cried out unintelligible phrases. And day after day Sheikh al-Khammas poured the cleansing elixir into his mouth. Eventually, the thrashing and sweating gave way to nausea and trembling. Sheikh al-Khammas added ginger to the brew and had Omar al-Hamid massage Nouri’s feet. And at last the hallucinatory flowers worked their way out of his system.

  When Nouri finally opened his eyes after his tormented sleep, he was confused to find himself in the bright, airy room. The weeks since he’d been struck on the head at Shohreh’s laundry had seemed a feverish dream. And though he’d registered the presence of the man with the white beard—especially when he slapped his face and forced him to drink the foul tea—he was surprised, when the fog finally lifted, to find him sitting beside him.

  “You’ve come back.”

  Nouri looked into the old man’s eyes, which were tinged with fire. “Yes.”

  “It may take a while for your strength to return. But there’s no rush. You’re safe here.”

  Nouri closed his eyes for a moment. Sheikh al-Khammas drew himself to his feet.

  “Rest,” he said. Then he left the room and Nouri went back to sleep.

  When he awoke again, Nouri found himself alone, and for a long while he just lay there, trying to figure out how he’d reached such a sheltering port. Eventually, however, he rose and went to explore his surroundings. He surmised that he was in a lodge like the one in Tan-Arzhan. But unlike that place—whose walls seemed to protect it from the world—his present surroundings seemed to hover above the yearning of everyday life. As he moved past the windows that opened, in every direction, to the sky, it was as if the world had disappeared.

  When Nouri reached the doors that led to the garden, he stepped outside. Then he crossed the trimmed lawn to where the man with the white beard was tending the roses.

  “They’re a bit temperamental this year,” said the Sufi master as Nouri approached. “You don’t happen to know anything about roses, do you?”

  “A bit,” said Nouri. “I used to help in the garden when I was a child.”

  “Well, perhaps you can coax the life back into these.”

  Nouri nodded. “I can try.”

  Sheikh al-Khammas pulled a few brown-edged leaves from a stem. Then he turned. “What’s your name?”

  “Nouri.”

  “I am Sheikh al-Khammas.” He turned his attention back to the roses and snapped off a withered bud. “You must be hungry. Let’s go and find you something to eat.”

  He led Nouri into the lodge, down the hallway, and into a small kitchen that held a table, a pair of benches, and a bookcase lined with bowls and ceramic jars. He told Nouri to sit at the table. Then he drew a series of jars from the shelves and removed their lids. He reached for one of the bowls and filled it with a lumpy mixture. Then he added some seeds and a few cubes of cheese and sprinkled some oil on top. When he offered it to Nouri, it was not very appealing. But Nouri was hungry, so he reached for the heel of bread that Sheikh al-Khammas placed beside the bowl and gobbled it down.

  When he’d finished eating, he looked up. “How long have I been here?”

  “About a month.”

  “And how did I get here?”

  Sheikh al-Khammas smiled. “You seem to have taken flight in a basket of laundry.”

  Nouri thought back to that moment when the dowel had snapped and could only praise Allah for having devised such a means to deliver him from a life of fever and fumes.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “In a Sufi order.”

  “And you know what that means?”

  Nouri thought back to the lodge in Tan-Arzhan. “I was raised in one. But I seem to have lost my way.”

  “A true Sufi loses and finds his way many times. Often in a single day.” Sheikh al-Khammas paused. “You’re welcome to stay here. We’re a small order. But our aim is true.”

  “Thank you,” said Nouri. “I would like that.”

  Sheikh al-Khammas gazed at him a moment longer. Then he left the room and headed back to his cell.

  It had been years since anyone had joined the order. And though he did not wish to burden the arrival of this newcomer with any expectations, Sheikh al-Khammas could not help but feel that the youth would be with them for a while.

  * * *

  OVER THE FOLLOWING DAYS, Sheikh al-Khammas told Nouri the history of the order. Nearly eighty years before, a band of Sufis had made a trek into the mountains and had been so struck by the splendor of the views that they’d decided to create a new order in the clouds. It took twelve years to build the stone complex, and a few years more to cut the path that led up the side of the mountain to its doors. As soon as word of the place got out, however, it attracted devotees from near and far. At one point, nearly sixty dervishes lived beneath its roof, and Sufis came from the farthest corners of the realm to use it as a retreat.

  One day, however, the leader of a nearby order proclaimed that it was prideful to perch so high above the heads of the common man. He condemned the order, insisting that moving closer to the heavens could not bring one closer to Allah. A crisis ensued, and the order began to dwindle. That was when Sheikh al-Khammas was brought in. He turned the lodge into a hospice for the ill, trusting that the fresh mountain air would help to heal the infirm and that the task of caring for them would be a spiritual boon to the brothers. But it soon became clear that the times were changing. The young men who chose to embrace the Sufi life no longer wished to live in the clouds. The elder members of the order died. Eventually the lodge became a relic, its heyday described by wandering Sufis on long journeys across the desert or in the middle of the night when it was too hot to sleep.

  Now, in addition to Sheikh al-Khammas, there were only four dervishes left: Abbas al-Kumar, Omar al-Hamid, a frail fellow named Yusuf al-Wali, and a dervish known to the rest as “Brother Shadow,” who was off on the hajj to the Holy City. They swept away the sand that blew up from the desert. They tended the gardens. They cooked one another meals. And they cared for the sick and the needy when they appeared at the door.

  “We no longer seek alms,” said Sheikh al-Khammas. “With so few of us, we can live on what our lay brothers provide. Which allows us more time to care for the ill. And to commune with God.”

  For Nouri, the new surroundings were a relief. There was light, and space, and his supersensitive ears were not bombarded by sounds. On top of this, the terrible itching had disappeared. For the first time in as long as he could remember, the world was calm. He stood at the window of his room for hours watching the eagles wheel in the sky. He took long walks in the mountains and sat in the garden beside the pool. When he closed his eyes, however, either to sleep or to pray, he was greeted by painful memories. And though he tried to resist them, he could not seem to shake them away.

  One morning, as he was sitting on the curving terrace that had been carved into the western face of the mountain, Sheikh al-Khammas approached.

  “May I join you?”

  Nouri nodded. “O
f course.”

  The Sufi master lowered himself to the stone bench.

  “I’m curious about the head garment you’re wearing. I’ve never seen one that completely covers the ears.”

  “I’m quite sensitive to sound,” said Nouri.

  Sheikh al-Khammas nodded. “Sensitivity,” he said, “is a great gift to a Sufi.”

  There was a brief pause. Then the Sufi master spoke again.

  “Whatever you’ve been through, it was designed to make you stronger.”

  “I know that,” said Nouri. “But I can’t stop the difficult thoughts from coming.”

  “Let them come,” said Sheikh al-Khammas. “And then let them go.”

  “When I let them come, I feel like I’m on fire.”

  “Fire purifies. If you don’t resist, it will burn off the poisons in your heart.”

  Nouri wasn’t sure that he could bear the heat. But he tried his best to follow Sheikh al-Khammas’s advice. When thoughts of the attack on the lodge in Tan-Arzhan rose up, he tried not to will them away. When memories of The Right Hand pressed in, he allowed himself to burn. He found that if he didn’t resist, the fire burned hotter, and then gradually faded. He found that if he focused on the smooth stones beneath his feet or the vast sky over his head, the dark thoughts began to fade.

  So once more Nouri became a part of the new world to which fate had carried him. He rose each morning and ate breakfast with the brothers. Then he helped Sheikh al-Khammas tend the roses and keep the reflecting pool free of debris. He enjoyed the work. It brought memories of his childhood. It made his new surroundings feel almost like home.