Seven Veils of Seth

by Ibrahim Al-Koni

  3 The Omen

  He nearly choked on his disquieting laughter once more, because he resembled the ancients’ legendary jackal, which only grinned when hungry, since it realized that hunger is inevitably followed by satiety, and only wept when satisfied, realizing full well that hunger inevitably follows a good meal. He likewise would laugh till his throat rattled when sad, because he knew better than anyone else that sorrow always ends with joy, and would weep through joyful events, since he knew that joy ends with sorrow.

  He swallowed his laughter and descended the hillside to meet – at the bottom of the hill – the chief merchant, who was upset. His anxiety was apparent in his eyes, and his veil, which was pulled back from his mouth, revealed the deep scar of an ancient wound that had marked his left cheek, crossing his upper lip.

  He brought the merchant up short with the question: “Has some evil befallen you?”

  He glanced up at the stranger absentmindedly before responding: “What is there in our world but evil? The moment we catch our breath from one evil, we encounter another. Didn’t you hear the public announcement?”

  “I heard the announcement and watched from my vantage point as your herald made his rounds.”

  The chief merchant stared at him with red eyes: “Yesterday all the pregnant women miscarried.”

  ”No!” His disquieting laughter, however, rumbled, and he chortled a bit until he could ask, “Why did that happen?”

  “A malady this widespread isn’t a medical issue; it’s a punishment.”

  “And as you know, a punishment is often a message of deliverance. Should we fear it this much and lapse into anxiety?”

  Amghar waved his hand as if to drive away flies and then asked desperately, “What shall we do with women whose bellies are barren?” He reached out to seize the end of his veil, which had pulled away from his mouth, twisted it around his index finger a little, then pulled it up toward his left ear and tucked it into the fold so his nose was completely hidden. He asked with an unexpected sigh: “Tell me: Is a woman with a barren belly still a woman?”

  Confining his wicked laugh to his chest once more, he replied, “A woman with an empty belly is definitely not a woman, but she’s not a man either.”

  “Yesterday, after midnight, my wife suffered a miscarriage too.”

  “No!”

  “I was there when she ejected the stillborn child the way a she-goat ejects a kid.”

  “Ha, ha. . . .”

  “Writhing like a viper from her pain, she released a sound that reminded me of the bleating of a goat. Then she groaned and the fetus slipped out with the groan.”

  “Amazing!”

  “I wouldn’t feel so bad if I had children, like most men.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He looked up at the stranger blankly: “She’s the third woman to enter my home and the first to become pregnant by me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear this.”

  “The spirit world has decided to punish me for forgetting my vow.”

  “Vow?”

  “Yes, absolutely: my vow. I promised a banquet to the goddess Tanit if one of my wives became pregnant. When she suffered morning sickness, began to crave clay, and admitted to me that she was pregnant, I remembered the vow. By the next morning, however, I had forgotten it because I was busy with one of my caravans that had returned with goods from the forest lands. After that I forgot it altogether and never thought of it again until the affliction struck yesterday.”

  “Vows are destined to be forgotten. We never remember our vows until after disasters strike.”

  He cast a suspicious look at the stranger: “But the elders say you’re responsible.”

  “Me!”

  He glanced far away to remark, “They’re not sure, but evil’s always marked by an omen.”

  “Ha, ha . . . did they read in the tablet of the Unknown that I bring evil?”

  “The diviner did not confirm that but didn’t deny it either.”

  “They have a right to suspect me since I’m the only outsider to visit the oasis of late. They also have a right to think ill of me because I rejected their community the day I declined to eat with them.”

  “I suspect that refusing the invitation is the only reason.”

  “Yes, indeed; declining an invitation is a sign. Turning down a banquet is always an indication of a departure from the Law that everyone has prescribed for everyone to follow. But . . . but, what do you think?”

  He was silent for a time. Then he replied: “What does the victim think? The victim has a right to be suspicious. Only a person struck by an adder’s fang sees the rope as a snake.”

  4 Contraception

  He tucked the purse under his arm and went out. He had awakened shortly before dawn and stammered out his arcane incantations first thing. Then he had slipped into a corner of the entryway, where he poked his head into his kit, pulling out the scary satchel ornamented with talismans of the ancients. From this he removed two scoops of suspicious-looking, powdered herbs and then dumped them into a smaller, leather purse, which he tucked into his flowing sleeve, also embroidered with cryptic traceries. The purse bounced around the thin garment’s empty spaces. So he secured it under his arm and went out.

  With deliberate but haughty steps he crossed the open space between the fields and the mountain. When he reached the irrigation ditches fed by the heavenly spring, the scent of the earth and its vegetation and puffs of humid air assailed him. He took a deep breath. Then a string in the Unknown vibrated and a tear burst from his eye. He crossed the irrigation ditches with wide strides that mimicked a lunatic’s leaps, penetrated the palm groves, and stopped by the spring.

  The water was calm and the stillness surrounding it universal. The grasshoppers, exhausted from chirring all night long, had ceased, the dove had not risen yet, and the masters of the earth, blissfully united with their wives, had delayed their departure for the fields. The only remaining witnesses over the physical world were the crests of the sand dunes that served as a messenger from the vast desert, which was preparing – in the fullness of time – to swallow this insignificant tract of land, so that it could become an eternal bit of the enormous emptiness. Removing his sandals, he walked barefoot toward the spits of sand adjacent to the spring. Removing his garment, he knelt on the bank of the pool, reached out, and thrust his hand deep into the water, which was as warm, soft, and delightful as a beautiful woman. Before he knew it he had closed his eyes and released an intoxicated moan. He asked himself what need there was for beautiful women when water was at hand.

  He did not worry about trying to answer his question but hopped up and leapt into the water. He waded a few steps beside the bank, playing in the water with both hands at times and dousing his body with splashes of water at others. He dawdled and frolicked like a child before he told himself out loud: “The fact is that only a desert lover can grasp the true nature of water.” He walked out to where it was deeper before immersing himself. The whole spring-fed pool was convulsed and flooded the banks and the nearby sand spits.

  Although he lingered for a long time in the beloved’s embrace, once he emerged he immediately withdrew the leather purse from the sleeve of his garment. With the composure of a zealot, he loosened the fastener and then eyed the mysterious herb’s particles, which were interspersed with yellow-colored florets. He approached the revered spring to scatter over its depths the malignant contraceptive powder. Shortly after sunrise he returned by the same route, but no sooner had he left the grove’s thick vegetation and crossed the irrigation ditch than the fool jumped out at him from behind a pomegranate bush.

  PART I Section 6: The Interrogation

  1 Play

  In the crowded market the elders gathered around him. First, the chief merchant Amghar approached, accompanied by the self-styled warrior Emmar, his preternaturally large frame held ramrod straight. Emmar’s hands, which resembled camel hooves, were clasped behind his back. He had hunched his huge
shoulders so that his tiny head, which was lodged between them, seemed from a distance a spherical colocynth lodged between two boulders. The chief merchant stammered a greeting, which the stranger could not make out, since people’s clamor, tongues’ chattering, and vendors’ cries drowned his words, swallowing everything. He was astonished that the series of miscarriages, which had shaken the entire world and turned life upside down in the oasis, had not negatively affected this jinni called commerce.

  To make himself heard above the frenetic deal-making, he shouted at the top of his lungs: “The epidemic’s long arm has touched everything in the oasis, but not even an epidemic can rattle the market. I wonder which jinni commerce harbors?”

  The chief merchant came several paces nearer, shouldering men aside on his way. He replied, “Commerce’s secret is identical to life’s, for in this desert of ours whenever one man meets another, a contract is always a third party.”

  “Is that true?”

  “We never meet, master, except to make a deal.”

  “I know that when we meet to fight we deal in casualties.

  I also realize that when we meet for love we consummate a contract of glad tidings. I don’t understand, however, what we do when we meet to do nothing; I mean when we meet to play.”

  Amghar answered without any hesitation: “Play is also a contract!” He rolled a pebble out of the way with his sandal before he added with a bow, “Indeed, honored guest, play’s the biggest deal of all.”

  The visitor stopped dead in his tracks and suddenly confronted the other man. He faced him as if intending to attack, flee, scream, or do all of these at once. In total surprise, the warrior retreated several steps and then stretched out his calamitous hand, the camel’s hoof, to find the hilt of his sword. Meanwhile the strategist was standing right in front of the chief merchant. He proudly drew himself erect and glared at the other man but did not speak. The situation would not have been so threatening had he spoken. All three men seemed to feel that any action or gesture issuing from this riddle called man would not only remain ambiguous but would even become threatening, unless the man supplemented it with a comment from his tongue. Yes, indeed, man is a tongue,5 for when a man lacks the ability to speak, he becomes a shadow, a specter, and an apparition.

  Finally the tongue spoke. Finally the man within the strategist asked, “Is it appropriate for a devotee of commerce to play?”

  Amghar gave him a questioning look and the strategist repeated the question a second time, without once relaxing his provocative, threatening pose. At last the chief merchant countered, “Is there anyone for whom play is inappropriate?”

  Only at that moment did the two other men notice that the stranger was trembling, even though he made a heroic attempt to stifle in his chest a mysterious tumult for which they could discern no cause. He croaked out an indistinct, questioning noise, to which the chief merchant responded. This time he sounded as if he were singing. He waxed poetic, since he was discussing his beloved commerce, and cited again his childhood dream, which the stranger had already heard mentioned. Then he switched to contracts, praising them with a zeal comparable only to that lavished by ancient poets on epic battles. He spoke at length and chanted for a long time, until he finally observed that commerce is life and that anyone for whom play is unsuitable is unfit to live.

  He stopped singing to catch his breath but immediately added the final stanza of this epic: “Anyone who does not excel at commerce will not excel with contracts. Anyone who does not excel with contracts will not excel at play, and in this desert anyone who does not excel at play will not excel in life. So, woe to anyone who does not excel at play.”

  2 The Scheme

  The strategist did not yield, however. He decided to open a debate with the merchant about the difference between the physical world and life by asking one simple question: “Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for an advocate of free trade to say that commerce is our world rather than to finish by saying that commerce is life?”

  The trade advocate was not ready to yield, either: “This debate could take a long time, but I would like to end it before it leads to a quarrel, as always happens. With my master’s permission I wish to conclude it with a single sentence: for a merchant, commerce is a commandment, and each commandment creates a life for anyone who cherishes it. Am I on the right track?”

  “You’re right. My question contains the germ of a lengthy debate. Why haven’t you mentioned the epidemic?”

  “As is always the case, an epidemic is followed by chaotic confusion.”

  “Confusion?”

  “And confusion, as you know, is a blind witch that does not distinguish between proximate and remote causes.”

  “I really don’t understand.”

  “I mean the confusion has touched our master as well.” The stranger cast an inquiring look at Amghar, who abandoned his recondite language to explain, “The finger of suspicion has been pointed even at our master.”

  “Ha, ha. . . .”

  “The footprints of some strangers fill with heavy rain. The footprints of other foreigners are cracked with drought. On the heels of some strangers comes joy. On the heels of others comes foul play. Each step a stranger takes contains a secret.”

  “This has been said forever and a day.”

  “People associate the women’s miscarriages with your footsteps.”

  “Really?”

  The sage Elelli stepped in front of them. He was accompanied by the diviner Yazzal, who said, as if continuing the unfinished conversation: “Your arrogance has worked against you. If only you had accepted a bite to eat from people, the finger of suspicion would not be pointed at you now.”

  He replied immediately, as if to reconfirm their ongoing conversation: “I think people will continue to point accusing fingers, even if we accept a morsel of food from them.”

  “The morsel is a balm. A piece of food is an amulet that drives away insinuations and safeguards people against other people’s evil. Believe me.”

  “People are naturally inclined to look for a scapegoat.”

  “But there’s no question that people repeat with conviction the saying that a man who refuses food people offer is a man who fears people and that a man who fears people is frightening.”

  “Why should people fear a man who doesn’t care to eat with other folks?”

  “Because they feel sure he is a strategist; because they’re certain he’s hiding some scheme up his sleeve.”

  “Scheme?”

  “Yes, indeed. According to local custom, abstention is a scheme. Withdrawal from society is always considered a conspiracy by customary law.”

  The strategist exhaled generously in preparation for wading into a no-holds-barred debate, but the appearance of the tribe’s chief, accompanied by the fool, made it difficult to continue and made the group feel uneasy. So he swallowed his argument, preferring to remain silent.

  3 The Case for the Defense

  The tribe’s chief, in any case, did not go easy on him. Leaning on his staff, which was inscribed with mysterious markings, he confronted the stranger, asking him bluntly, “Doesn’t the son of foreigners realize that there are no hiding places for secrets in our world?”

  Sensing the threat implied by these words, he decided to attack as well: “Explain!”

  “You were seen scattering a suspicious powder into the spring. Do you deny it?”

  “Ha, ha. . . . Even a true accusation requires substantiation; so what about a false one?”

  Ewar’s veil dangled open to reveal the smallpox scars on both cheeks. He raised the end to fasten it beside his nose before he declared curtly, “There are witnesses.”

  He gestured toward the fool, and Edahi took a step forward and then a second one. On finding himself in the circle of nobles, he trembled and looked down at the ground. Then he said, “I saw you swimming in the spring at dawn. Before you left, I saw you scatter an herb over the pool, or something like an herb.”

 
A murmur spread through the crowd. Some men exchanged words and others glances. A second circle composed of vendors, nosey parkers, and the general public formed around the first one. The strategist felt more threatened by being trapped inside this mob than by the accusation. Like any alien, he felt alone, on his own; not merely alone in the market or in the oasis, but in the whole desert too. He had a deadly sense of being abandoned for all time, from cradle to grave. This feeling motivated him to mount his own defense, for who would defend a forsaken man, unless he did so himself?

  He decided to mount a strategic defense, using his mastery of the tongue to bait the accuser. “Our master has thrust in front of me a creature who has flung an accusation in my face. Could my master tell me to which community my accuser belongs?”

  Ewar waved his stick in the air twice, pointing toward the fool, and then without delay replied, “The accuser is the fool. Amazing! Didn’t he just recite his accusation for you?”

  The strategist responded with cunning malice: “He actually did recite the accusation, but you’re the only one I’ve ever heard say that he’s a fool.”

  “What does that mean?”

  The strategist ignored this question, however, and proceeded a step further with his interrogation: “I would like to ask whether ‘fool’ is the man’s name or an epithet like any other.”