by Noah Gordon
“I wouldn’t like to meet him.”
Aryeh smiled his superior smile. “Most men go through life without seeing a lion.”
The rabbenu of Kashan was a chunky man with sandy hair and beard. His name was David ben Sauli the Teacher, and Lonzano said he already had a reputation as a scholar despite the fact that he was still a young man. He was the first rabbenu Rob had seen wearing a turban instead of a leather Jew’s hat. When he spoke to them the worry lines came back into Lonzano’s face.
“It isn’t safe to follow the route south through the mountains,” the rabbenu told them. “A strong force of Seljuks is in your way.”
“Who are the Seljuks?” Rob said.
“They are a herdsmen nation that lives in tents instead of towns,” Lonzano said. “Killers and fierce fighters. They raid the lands on both sides of the border between Persia and Turkey.”
“You can’t go through the mountains,” the rabbenu said unhappily. “Seljuk soldiers are crazier than bandits.”
Lonzano looked at Rob and Loeb and Aryeh. “Then we have but two choices. We can remain here in Kashan and wait for the trouble with the Seljuks to pass, which may take many months, perhaps a year. Or we can skirt the mountains and the Seljuks, approaching Ispahan through desert and then forest. I haven’t traveled on that desert, the Dasht-i-Kavir, but I have been over other deserts and know them to be terrible.” He turned to the rabbenu. “Can it be crossed?”
“You would not have to cross the entire Dasht-i-Kavir. Heaven forbid,” the rabbenu said slowly. “You need only to cut across a corner, a journey of three days, going east and then south. Yes, it is sometimes done. We can tell you how to go.”
The four regarded one another. Finally Loeb, the inarticulate one, broke the thick silence. “I don’t want to stay here for a year,” he said, speaking for all of them.
Each of them bought a large goatskin waterbag and filled it before leaving Kashan. It was heavy when full. “Do we need this much water for three days?” Rob asked.
“Accidents occur. We could be on the desert a longer time,” Lonzano said. “And you must share your water with your beasts, for we are taking donkeys and mules into the Dasht-i-Kavir, not camels.”
A guide from Kashan rode with them on an old white horse as far as the point where an almost invisible track branched off from the road. The Dasht-i-Kavir began as a clay ridge that was easier to travel over than the mountains. At first they made good time, and for a little while their spirits lifted. The nature of the ground changed so gradually it disarmed them, but by midday, when the sun beat on them like brass, they were struggling through deep sand so fine that the hooves of the animals sank into it. All the riders dismounted, and men and beasts floundered forward in equal misery.
It was dreamlike to Rob, an ocean of sand extending in every direction as far as he could see. Sometimes it formed into hills like the great sea waves he dreaded, elsewhere it was like the flat smooth waters of a still lake, merely rippled by the west wind. There was no life he could detect, no bird in the air, no beetle or worm on the earth, but in the afternoon they passed bleaching bones heaped like a careless pile of kindling behind an English cottage, and Lonzano told Rob the remains of animals and men had been collected by nomadic tribes and piled there as a reference point. This sign of people who could be at home in such a place was unnerving and they tried to keep their animals quiet, knowing how far a donkey’s braying would carry on the still air.
It was a salt desert. At times the sand they walked on wound between morasses of salt mud like the shores of Lake Urmiya. Six hours of such a march thoroughly exhausted them and when they came to a small hill of sand which cast a shadow before the shallow sun, men and beasts crowded together to fit into the well of comparative coolness. After an hour of shade they were able to resume walking until sunset.
“Perhaps we had best travel by night and sleep in the heat of day,” Rob suggested.
“No,” Lonzano said quickly. “When I was young, once I crossed the Dasht-i-Lut with my father and two uncles and four cousins. May the dead rest. Dasht-i-Lut is a salt desert, like this one. We decided to travel by night and soon had trouble. During the hot season, the salt lakes and swamps of the wet season dry quickly, in places leaving a crust on the surface. We found that men and animals broke through the crust. Sometimes beneath it there is brine or quicksand. It is too dangerous to go by night.”
He wouldn’t answer questions about his youthful experience on the Dasht-i-Lut, and Rob didn’t press him, sensing it was a subject best left alone.
As darkness fell they sat or sprawled on the salty sand. The desert that had broiled them by day became cold by night. There was no fuel, nor would they have kindled a fire lest it be seen by unfriendly eyes. Rob was so tired that despite his discomfort he fell into a deep sleep that lasted until first light.
He was struck by the fact that what had seemed like ample water in Kashan had dwindled in the dry wilderness. He limited himself to small sips as he ate his breakfast of bread, giving far more to his two animals. He poured their portions into the leather Jew’s hat and held it while they drank, enjoying the sensation of placing the wet hat on his hot head when they were finished.
It was a day of dogged plodding. When the sun was highest, Lonzano began to sing a phrase from the Scriptures: Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. One by one the others picked up the refrain, and for a while they praised God with juiceless throats.
Presently there was an interruption. “Horsemen coming!” Loeb shouted.
Far off to the south they saw a cloud such as would be raised by a large host and Rob was afraid that these were the desert people who had left the travel marker of bones. But as the sight swept nearer they saw that it was only a cloud.
By the time the hot desert wind reached them the donkeys and the mules had turned their backs to it with the wisdom of instinct. Rob huddled as best he could behind the beasts and the wind clattered over them. Its first effects were those of fever. The wind carried sand and salt that burned his skin like flakes of hot ash. The air became even heavier and more oppressive than before, and the men and the animals waited doggedly as the storm made them part of the land, coating them with a frosting of sand and salt two fingers thick.
That night he dreamed of Mary Cullen. He sat with her and knew tranquility. There was happiness on her face and he was aware her fulfillment came from him, which made him glad. She began to work embroidery and, without his understanding how or why, it turned out that she was Mam, and he experienced a rush of warmth and security he hadn’t known since he was nine years old.
Then he awoke, hawking and spitting drily. There was sand and salt in his mouth and ears, and when he got up and walked it rubbed abrasively between his buttocks.
It was the third morning. Rabbenu David ben Sauli had instructed Lonzano to walk east for two days and then south for a day. They had gone in the direction Lonzano believed to be east, and now they turned in the direction Lonzano believed to be south.
Rob had never been able to tell east from south, north from west. He asked himself what would become of them if Lonzano didn’t truly know south or truly know east, or if the Kashan rabbenu’s directions weren’t accurate.
The piece of the Dasht-i-Kavir they had set out to cross was like a small cove in a great ocean. The main desert was vast and, for them, uncrossable.
Supposing that, instead of crossing the cove, they were heading straight toward the heart of the Dasht-i-Kavir?
If that was the case, they were doomed.
It occurred to him to wonder whether the God of the Jews was claiming him because of his masquerade. But Aryeh, although less than likable, wasn’t evil, and both Lonzano and Loeb were most worthy; it wasn’t logical that their God would destroy them to punish one goy sinner.
He was not the only one entertaining thoughts of despair. Sensing their mood, Lonzano attempted to start them singing again. But Lonzano’s was the on
ly voice raised in the refrain and eventually he stopped singing, too.
Rob poured a sparing final portion for each of his animals and let them drink from his hat.
What remained in his leathern bottle was about six mouthfuls of water. He reasoned that if they were nearing the end of Dasht-i-Kavir it wouldn’t matter, while if they were traveling in the wrong direction this small amount of water was insufficient to save his life.
So he drank it. He forced himself to take it in small sips, but it was gone in a very brief time.
As soon as the goatskin was empty he began to suffer thirst more severely than ever. The swallowed water seemed to scald him internally, followed by a terrible headache.
He willed himself to walk but found his steps faltering. I cannot, he realized with horror.
Lonzano began to clap his hands fiercely. “Ai, di-di-di-di-di-di, ai, di-di di, di!” he sang, and went into a dance, shaking his head, whirling, lifting his arms and knees to the rhythm of the song.
Loeb’s eyes glinted with tears of anger. “Stop it, you fool!” he shouted. But in a moment he grimaced and joined in the singing and clapping, cavorting along behind Lonzano.
Then Rob. And even sour Aryeh.
“Ai, di-di-di-di-di-di, ai, di-di di, di!”
They sang through dry lips and danced on feet that no longer had feeling. Eventually they fell silent and ceased the mad prancing, but they continued to plod, moving one numbed leg after the other, not daring to face the possibility that they were indeed lost.
Early in the afternoon they began to hear thunder. It rumbled in the distance for a long time before it heralded a few drops of rain, and shortly afterward they saw a gazelle and then a pair of wild asses.
Their own animals suddenly quickened. The beasts moved their legs faster and then began to trot of their own volition, scenting what lay ahead, and the men mounted the donkeys and rode again as they left the extreme boundary of the sand over which they had struggled for three days.
The land evolved into a plain, first with sparse growth and then more verdant. Before dusk they came to a pond where reeds grew and swallows dipped and wheeled. Aryeh tasted the water and nodded. “It is good.”
“We mustn’t let the beasts drink too much at once or they will founder,” Loeb cautioned.
They watered the animals carefully and tied them to trees, then they drank and tore off their clothes and lay in the water, soaking among the reeds.
“When you were in the Dasht-i-Lut did you lose men?” Rob said.
“We lost my cousin Calman,” Lonzano said. “A man of twenty-two years.”
“Did he fall through the salt crust?”
“No. He abandoned all self-discipline and drank his water. Then he died of thirst.”
“May he rest,” Loeb said.
“What are the symptoms of a man dying of thirst?”
Lonzano was obviously offended. “I don’t wish to think on it.”
“I ask because I’m to be a physician, and not out of curiosity,” Rob said, and saw that Aryeh was gazing at him with dislike.
Lonzano waited a long moment and then nodded. “My cousin Calman became confused with the heat and drank with abandon until his water was gone. We were lost and every man took care of his own water. We weren’t allowed to share. After a while, he began to vomit weakly but there was no liquid to bring up. His tongue turned quite black and the roof of his mouth was a grayish white. His mind wandered, he believed he was in his mother’s house. His lips were shriveled, his teeth were exposed, and his mouth hung open in a wolfish grin. He alternately panted and snored. That night under cover of darkness I disobeyed and dripped a little water on a rag and squeezed it into his mouth, but it was too late. After the second day without water, he died.”
They lay silent in the brown water.
“Ai, di-di-di-di-di-di, ai, di-di di, di!” Rob sang finally. He looked into Lonzano’s eyes and they grinned at one another.
A mosquito settled on Loeb’s leathery cheek and he slapped himself. “The beasts are ready for more water, I think,” he said, and they left the lake and finished tending to their animals.
Next day they were back on their donkeys at dawn, and to Rob’s intense pleasure they soon found themselves passing countless little lakes surrounded by garlands of meadow. The lakes exhilarated him. The grass was as high as a tall man’s knee and had a delicious odor. It was full of grasshoppers and crickets, as well as tiny gnats that burned when they bit him and immediately left an itching welt. A few days earlier, he would have rejoiced at seeing any insect, but now he ignored the large and brilliant butterflies of the meadows while he slapped at bites and called down heaven’s curses on gnats and mosquitoes.
“Oh, God, what is that?” Aryeh cried.
Rob followed his pointing finger and in full sunlight he perceived an immense cloud rising to the east. He watched with growing alarm as it approached, for it looked like the dust cloud they had seen when the hot wind struck them in the desert.
But from this cloud came the unmistakable sound of hooves, as of a great army sweeping down on them.
“The Seljuks?” he whispered, but no one answered.
Pale and expectant, they waited and watched as the cloud came nearer and the sound grew deafening.
At a distance of about fifty paces there was a clatter as if a thousand practiced horsemen had reined up at a word of command.
At first he could see nothing. Then the dust thinned and he saw wild asses, in countless number and in prime condition, and ranged in a well-formed line. The asses stared in intent curiosity at the men and the men gazed at them.
“Hai!” Lonzano shouted, and the herd wheeled as one and renewed its flight, moving northward and leaving behind a message about the multiplicity of life.
They passed smaller herds of asses and enormous herds of gazelles, sometimes feeding together and obviously seldom hunted, because they paid the men little mind. More ominous were the wild pigs that seemed to abound. Occasionally Rob glimpsed a hairy sow or a boar with wicked tusks, and on all sides he heard the animals grunting as they rustled and rooted in the tall grass.
Now they all sang when Lonzano suggested it, in order to warn the pigs of their approach and prevent startling them and provoking a charge. Rob’s skin crawled and his long legs, hanging over the sides of the little donkey and dragging through the deep grass, felt exposed and vulnerable, but the pigs gave way before the male loudness of the singing and made them no trouble.
They came to a swift-moving stream that was like a great ditch, its sides almost vertical and rampant with fennel, and though they traveled upstream and downstream there was no easy place to cross; finally they just drove their animals into the water. It was very difficult, with donkeys and mules trying to climb the overgrown far bank and slipping back. The air was rich with curses and the sharp smell of crushed fennel, and it took them a while to complete the fording. Beyond the river they entered a forest, following a track like the ones Rob had known at home. The country was wilder than English woods; the high canopy of treetops interlocked and shut out the sun, yet the undergrowth was greenly rank and teeming with wildlife. He identified deer and rabbits and a porcupine, and in the trees were doves and what he thought was a kind of partridge.
It was the sort of track Barber would have liked, he thought, and wondered how the Jews would react if he were to blow the Saxon horn.
They had rounded a curve in the track and Rob was taking his turn in the lead when his donkey shied. Above them, on a large branch, crouched a wildcat.
The donkey reared and behind them the mule caught the scent and screamed. Perhaps the panther could sense overwhelming fear. As Rob scrabbled for a weapon the animal, which appeared monstrous to him, sprang.
A bolt, long and heavy and fired with tremendous force, slammed into the beast’s right eye.
The great claws raked the poor donkey as the cat crashed into Rob and unseated him. In a moment he was stretched on the ground choking on the
muskiness of the cat. The animal lay athwart him so that he was facing the hindquarter, noting the lustrous black fur, the matted arsehole, and the great right rear paw that rested inches from his face, with obscenely large, swollen-looking footpads. The claw somehow had been ripped recently from the second of the four toes, which was raw and bloody and indicated to him that at the other end of the cat there were eyes that were not dried apricots and a tongue that was not red felt.
People came out of the forest. Nearby stood their master, still holding his longbow.
The man was dressed in a plain red calico coat quilted with cotton, rough hose, shagreen shoes, and a carelessly wound turban. He was perhaps forty years old, with a strong build, erect bearing, short dark beard, aquiline beak of a nose, and a killer’s light still in the eyes as he watched his beaters pulling the dead panther off the huge young man.
Rob scrambled to his feet, trembling, willing himself to control his bowels. “Catch the fucking donkey,” he demanded of no one in particular. Neither the Jews nor the Persians understood, for he had spoken in English. At any rate the donkey was turned back by the strangeness of the woods, in which perhaps other dangers lurked, and now returned to stand and quiver like her owner.
Lonzano came to his side and grunted in recognition. Then everyone was kneeling in the prostration rite that later was described to Rob as ravi zemin, “face upon the ground,” and Lonzano pulled him down without gentleness and made certain, with a hand on the back of his neck, that his head was properly lowered.
The sight of this instruction gained the hunter’s attention; Rob heard the sound of his footsteps and then glimpsed the shagreen shoes, stopped a few inches from his obeisant head.
“It is a large dead panther and a large untutored Dhimmi,” an amused voice said, and the shoes moved away.
The hunter and the servants bearing his prey departed without another word, and after a time the kneeling men rose.
“You are all right?” Lonzano said.
