Seven Veils of Seth

by Ibrahim Al-Koni

  “What evidence is there for that?”

  He fell silent. Stillness prevailed, the evening stillness. Along the horizon that lay beyond the fields and that encircled the low-lying, sword-type dunes to the extreme west, a reddish gloom advanced. The specter, who was dubbed the intellect’s advocate, spoke: “Tip your ears my way, so I can tell you a tale.”

  “We’re all ears.”

  “In ancient times, the oasis wasn’t an oasis. It was a lake. Like all bodies of water, it was swathed in solitude and stillness and its waters glittered with light from the heavens. The ancient Law referred to the creatures living in the lake as water nymphs. These jinnis excelled at singing. Their singing was not like that we hear from girls today. What we hear now is merely a poor imitation of the songs of these aquatic sorceresses. Indeed, any man who heard their songs forever lost his mind and his way. The men of that age were nomadic and destined to live happily, provided that they did not settle down. This was specified by clauses of a secret covenant of which later generations knew little. It is reported that the man with the despicable jenny led them to the lake to hear the water nymphs sing in a soirée they held whenever the moon turned full. The men heard the singing once, went insane, and lost their way, forever. They lost their way and clung to the location reserved for every wayfarer who has lost his way. For this reason, you will observe that whenever they hear singing they become tense and rowdy, try to break free of their fetters, and lapse into altered states of consciousness. The singing awakens within them their ancient reality, which they call ‘Longing.’ Then they try to escape from their bonds and to regain their lost selves.”

  “What a story!”

  “Each nation’s reality is encapsulated in a story; beware of mocking stories.”

  “I have no intention of slighting stories. I just don’t like to hear wretches blame their sins on the man with the jenny every time that passion blinds them or that a caprice overwhelms them.”

  He turned to face his host for the first time, returning from his journey to the horizon. He stared at him with wandering eyes, as if noticing his presence for the first time, as if all the while he had been addressing ghosts, not the man seated beside him. He inquired skeptically, “Do you think they accuse the man with the jenny unfairly?”

  “I’ve never doubted that. People inevitably make many more false accusations against those who wish them well than against those who wish them ill. Hasn’t my master learned from experience that they’re quick to fault him whenever he invites them to submit to the intellect’s guidance?”

  He stared silently at his face. Then he leaned forward to say sorrowfully, “The truth is that they fuss more at someone who asks them to submit to the intellect’s guidance than at anyone else.”

  His companion said approvingly, “You see? This should prompt us to revise the story. So we will say, ‘It was their passions that led them to fall into the embrace of the waterjinnis.’ We won’t say, ‘The man with the jenny subjected them to singing’s seduction.’ All the same . . . let’s set aside the story of the first people. Tell me about the intellect’s sovereign rule. Didn’t you visit me this evening to lead me down the intellect’s path?” His throat rattled with malicious laughter.

  Then intellect’s advocate replied, “The intellect is a messenger that leads but is not led. I did not come to convince you; you can satisfy yourself concerning it.”

  “I’m not a diviner. I can’t read the secret thoughts you detect in human breasts.”

  “Every intellectual is a diviner. In our world, the intellect is the greatest diviner.”

  “But a prophecy from the tongue of a diviner is more powerful. A prophetic maxim is nobler when spoken.”

  Darkness crept over the oasis, devouring the horizon as it went. Then it subdued the fields on its trek. In its grasp, the structures of the homes and huts of the farmers – scattered here and there – changed into ghosts. After a silence, the visitor said, “Let me mention then the intellect’s first maxim: ‘Don’t ever violate local custom. Never violate the customary law of a land where you settle as a guest.’ Am I wrong?”

  The pervasive silence was broken only by the distant chirring of grasshoppers. With his fingers he traced lines in the mound’s dirt, which was mixed with the powdered bones of the dead. Then he said, “You didn’t err, because you speak of the law of those who lead a normal life. I cannot recognize, however, the customary laws of strangers, because I don’t live their life.”

  “A man who lives with other people does not have the right to scorn their law. Do you know why?” Without waiting for an answer, he quickly supplied one: “Because he can’t do without other people.”

  The second man retorted self-confidently, “Not so fast! Not so fast! We truly can’t do without other people when we acknowledge our membership in their community. Even so, I cannot surrender my affairs to them or allow them to reduce me to being just a man like any other.”

  “What do you mean?”

  With even greater self-assurance he continued, “For us to convey the truth to the people, we must refuse to live like the people. For us to save the people, we must keep our distance from them.”

  “But people are children at times and wretches at others. How does it harm us to beguile them by hearing their complaints? What harm does it do us to respond to their weakness by accepting their offerings? What harm does it do us to humor them by sharing their amusements?”

  His companion stubbornly rejected this argument: “If we keep pace with them, they will draw us down to their world. If we pretend to approve of their games, they will multiply their foolishness, assuming that we share their passion. If we cede an inch to them, we will lose our selves and become one of them for ever.”

  “But you will never set the people’s minds at rest unless you reveal your intentions to them.”

  A cry of protest escaped from the other man: “I should reveal my intentions to them? How can I reveal my intentions to them when I realize that by so doing I will lose not only my intentions but my prophetic maxims as well? I will lose not only my maxims but my self.”

  He struck the earth twice with his staff and released a lengthy moan of longing, as if he – like others of the desert’s sages – was lamenting something that had died long ago. Rearing his head high – as if to address the heavens, which were strewn with the evening’s stars – he said: “This is the calamity of prophetic messengers. I swear by the supreme goddess Tanit that this is the way prophetic messengers speak. If messengers were lenient with people, hands would be raised to stone them.” Then, turning toward the other man, he asked inscrutably, “Are you a prophet?”

  His companion replied immediately, “All of us are prophets. Anyone with a will is a messenger.”

  Then his throat rattled with laughter, a prolonged laugh. Partially checked, it was sly and unwarranted.

  3 Yazzal

  When he returned after midnight from prowling through the orchards of the southern fields he found the diviner standing near his door. The ghostly diviner stood erect, facing the mausoleum as if praying. He was dressed entirely in black, from the cloth of his turban to the sandals concealing his feet. In the darkness he appeared a true shadow, a jinni shade. Although darkness and his veil disguised the visitor, out of the whole lot, he was the only creature the stranger could not mistake. So he decided to tease him: “Doesn’t the Law’s representative fear possible violence from the spirit world’s inhabitants when he loiters among the graves late at night?”

  The specter immediately parried this jest: “Is there any place in our whole desert more appropriate for a representative of the Law than the ancestors’ tombs or the solitary countryside?”

  “I’m delighted to hear that prophecy’s champion approves of cemeteries and deserted wastelands.”

  “If an advocate of prophetic counsel avoided solitary open spaces, he would be forced to seek refuge from stupidity in lethargy, which slays the heart.” He continued, “What we do not a
ttain by the spirit’s journeys, we won’t attain by the body’s. We cannot provide the nomad anything he has not himself attained, as you well understand.”

  The jenny master puffed out fiery breaths. He had apparently decided to terminate the debate, for he invited his guest to sit with him. They crouched down, facing each other, however, as if their hostilities were destined to continue.

  The jenny master said, “I understand you, but the Law does not. You practitioners of the Law are the first to betray it. By blowing the spirit’s riddle out of proportion you’ve caused us to forget the body’s existence. You have made the spirit such a master that we feel certain we are an incorporeal spirit. You’ve caused us to forget that we possess nothing in this world besides the body, which we are destined to carry about – just as it carries us about – because we know we’ll lose everything in the deal if we denigrate it. Our concern for the riddle you all call the ‘spirit’ is secondary to our concern for this sacred trust that generations have told us is perfected only by nomadism and ruined only by sedentary life.”

  “I actually didn’t come to debate the relative merits of spirit and body.”

  “Have you also come to invite me to drink from your tainted waters?”

  “No, I’ve come to invite you to sip the earth’s water, which originates with heavens’ water.”

  “Only the desert’s water is heavenly. The water in the oasis is surface run-off. Don’t try to tell me otherwise.”

  “You have settled as a guest in our community, and all we want is to receive the guest as specified by the maxims of the Law, which states that a guest is always a messenger who bears glad tidings to people – without twisting your arm to honor us by embracing our customary law or by becoming one of us.”

  “But what does the messenger of glad tidings do when he considers the people’s invitation a threat to the glad tidings?”

  “I’m sad to hear this.”

  “I’m sad too, but the law of hospitality is less binding than the law of glad tidings.”

  Silence reigned.

  An owl hooted in the orchards of a southern field.

  PART I Section 4: The Others

  1 The Burden

  On the way to the market he traversed alleyways blanketed in grey dust. In the late morning’s light, chips of ancient bones glittered like gold dust scattered across the earth. Other narrow trails crossed his route, some descending and some leading to higher ground toward the peak of the mountain composed of graves of the dead and skulls of the ancestors. Near a section of the ancient, ruined city wall, he found remains of mud-brick buildings that had collapsed, leaving only depressing debris to inspire grief and to awaken the certainty that anything that rises from the earth will crumble and sink back into the dirt one day, becoming part of the soil, constituting the true nature of this earth over which creep the arrogant shades who call themselves human beings. Here are the remnants of the wall that sheltered man one day. Here are the ashes of the hearth that fed man one day. Here are the shards of crockery that were the vessels of the dwelling’s master one day. Here are pieces of bone studded with mysterious pearls that glow in the light with the allure of inscrutability. These are all that remain of the master who once tyrannized the home. How comical it is that the house’s master should be routed and annihilated, while his utensils linger on as the sole evidence that he ever existed. Is the utensil stronger than the owner and longer-lived? The person who trampled others underfoot, who spilled blood, and who tread the earth with all the superiority of one eternally immortal has disappeared like a mirage, leaving an earthenware shard as the only evidence of his existence.

  Fragments of skulls crumble away gradually to form part of the dirt of the road, walls collapse, sinking to the level of the ground from which they rose, and the bits of pottery will fritter away to return eventually to clay, so that nothing remains on the earth save earth. How then can the arrogant creature doubt that he is no more than one of the earth’s vulnerable sprouts that cause havoc on the earth?

  Nevertheless, he had always admired this creature, simply because man had the courage to thrust his head toward the stars while hiding out among the grains of dirt. His humblest utensils in this world provide his elegy, but despite that fact, he feels arrogant, never losing his certainty that the trip will eventually lead him to occupy the throne of heaven. What is most amazing, however, is not man’s preoccupation with the celestial but his tenacious adherence to the worldly, the way he clings to the lowlands and surrenders to the earth, from which he should flee, instead of relying on it, since he understands that one day he will become a morsel in the earth’s belly. Man betrayed the prophetic advice of his ancestors, who adopted the law of migration, believing that sedentary people are the only dead ones, since they alone possess bodies that arouse the earth’s greed. Nomadic people, who never stay anywhere or settle down on the earth, own nothing to provoke the earth or arouse its greed. They possess nothing: no gear, no walls, no bodies, not even dreams. All they possess is their voyage, nothing more. They possess a single riddle, over which the earth holds no sway and for which the lowlands can offer no explanation. This is deliverance.

  Was he acting rashly now – fettered by the weight of an amulet (known as deliverance) that generations had fastened to his neck – when he descended to the lowly arena to remind people of a commandment?

  From the north came a breeze moistened by the breath of a distant rain. He inhaled this with thirsty lungs and then exhaled it in a hissing puff.

  2 The House

  Before he passed by the mud-brick buildings on the way to the market square, an impudent creature jumped from behind a ruined wall to obstruct his way. At first he did not recognize the fellow, but his expression softened once he identified the fool in his coarse rags. He decided to tease him: “Is this your house to which you once came to invite me?”

  He answered tersely, “This isn’t my house.” He was silent for a moment and then added, “That day I invited you to another house.”

  “A house for strangers?”

  “No, a house for the elite.”

  “The elite?”

  Letting his fist fall on his chest, he explained, “Here! In my heart!”

  “I asked you about your house in the physical world, not a house in the land of Longing.”

  “I possess no other house.”

  “But a man must have some refuge unless he continually moves and sets course for the horizons.”

  “The only refuge a man can rely on is the heart.”

  They walked side-by-side on their way toward the market square and proceeded along a narrow alley lined on either side by houses. In the distance they heard the hurly-burly of the jostling throngs in the market. He continued needling the fool, “Where would you take me then, if I decided to accept your invitation?”

  “To my heart. Is there a residence in this world more secure than the heart?”

  “Let’s skip this tale of the heart.”

  “That day I wanted to introduce you to my heart, but you were arrogant. I came to you that day as a messenger for everyone’s hearts, but you put on airs for some secret reason that will not remain hidden for too long.”

  “Ha, ha . . . here you are talking about unseen mysteries, claiming a diviner’s role too.”

  “Who in the desert is not a diviner?”

  “But don’t you think the best topic of conversation for two men is women?”

  Edahi glanced at him anxiously before asking, “Did you say ‘women’?”

  He winked slyly and replied, “That covey of she-jinnis. I was told in the oasis that there are six gorgeous she-jinnis, who resemble each other like so many barleycorns and who sing even more beautifully than the birds.”

  “I think you must be talking about the water nymphs.”

  “Water nymphs?”

  “Haven’t you heard the story of the water nymphs who were responsible for founding the oasis, once upon a time?”

  “I think I
’ve heard something along these lines. But I haven’t heard of a definite link between the she-jinnis of the oasis and the water nymphs.”

  “Those six maidens are descendants of the water nymphs.”

  He stopped his companion, hoping he would say more, but they had reached the market’s outskirts, where a short, stout man in frayed garments approached them, introducing himself as Amghar. He described himself as the chief merchant.

  3 Love

  Accompanied by the two other men, he entered the crowd and was distracted by watching people buying, selling, pitching their wares, and shilling. Some forgot the item they had come to the market to buy and spent their money on another product they had not even considered buying, only to feel the pangs of remorse later. Others were busy haggling, speculating, and bargaining. They would sell, because they had come expressly to sell, because the law of commerce is for the merchant to sell. Even if a seller discovers he has lost money, he will not be discouraged, since he knows he will make up with a deal the next day the amount he lost the day before. He also realizes that he will ruin the game and violate the customary law of trade if he ever hesitates and declines to sell for fear of taking a loss, since cowardice is the one offense commerce does not excuse, because buying and selling are even more important than making a profit. The game’s most important aspect is motion – whether it is winning and losing or charging and retreating – because motion, because winning and losing, because charging and retreating are not simply a set of rules for the game of trade but a legal code for the puppet that is the entire world. For this reason, commerce has always been the mate of its bedfellow, the material world; neither ever lives far from the other.

  The head merchant, who might almost have been reading his mind, observed, “Commerce is the secret heart of our world. Had trade not been invented, the physical world could not have come into existence.”