If only I had been beside the assistant cook! Two heroic men have more than double the strength of one heroic man, even though that seems contrary to the laws of mathematics. I was certain that with the valiant Thabouk, we would have saved Aboul Fazi. But it had been decided otherwise.
That fatal day was the fourth of the month of Rabr.
The Jesuits had started ringing the bells of their church as a sign of mourning.
“You see,” said my cousin Du Jarric, “We have gathered all the Christians of Agra.” The unique converted Hindu family was in the interior courtyard of the house.
The Jesuits were gathered in the main hall, talking about various things. They scarcely paused when I came in. For a long time I had been a cause of irritation and jealousy for them.
Each of them had his personal preoccupations and thought about them incessantly. Father Pigenro was exultant. A Jesuit who had spent several years with Father Ricci in Peking had arrived in Goa from China, and news had been sent from Goa to Agra to bring news of Benoît de Goës. He was dead. That death, certainly, filed Father Pignero with sadness, but indirectly, it brought him great joy. From what was known of Benoît de Goës’ journey, it resulted that all the map of Asia in the celebrated Ortelius atlas were false, and his own maps were confirmed.
The courageous and admirable Benoît de Goës, dressed as an Armenian merchant, had initially followed the annual Kashgar caravan. He had reached a town called Charikar, had crossed the Gobi desert and had entered China through the Jade Gate. After a thousand adventures and a thousand dangers he was no more than a short distance from his brothers, the Jesuits of Peking, and it was then that he had died. For a strange and rigorous law dictates that certain men are not to be able to carry through the realization their dream and that, by a derisory order, they shall fall just as they are about to reach their goal.
Father Pimenta thought he had made a discovery that troubled him greatly. A malign demon had penetrated into him, in order to aggravate enormously a plumpness that had always been his most serious preoccupation. He was the victim of the machination of a certain bearded magician who lived in a nearby house. He had had an argument with him on the subject of the delimitation of a small garden of the church. The pagan had sniggered like a man promising to avenge himself and some time thereafter, the Father had glimpsed him striking a tambourine and devoting himself on his own, to a sort of dance. That was not a sufficient reason to accuse him, someone objected, but Father Pimenta was sure of what he said, for the magician was striking with his left hand, sometimes his tambourine and sometimes his belly. That gesture was an indication of magical action. It designated the part of the body threatened. Now Father Pimenta’s belly was augmenting incessantly. He demanded a ceremony of exorcism.
I had prepared an oratory effect that I thought assured of success:
Good Fathers, it is wrong for you to have thought me ingrate. I have not forgotten that your Order had saved my life and that I was affiliated to it as a lay member. I am bringing my contribution to the common effort. The Jesuits have among their goals the conquest of material power in order to arrive at spiritual power. I might perhaps hold the thread leading to immense riches and I have come immediately to place it in your hands.
To take the floor in a conversation there is always an opportune moment. That was the moment for which I was waiting. Father Monserrate was speaking just then about the repercussion that the death of Aboul Fazi might have on their situation.
“It is a thing worthy of admiration to see how Providence skillfully causes good to come out of evil. I know, by virtue of one of the interior certainties that are never mistaken, that the Emperor Akbar has profound spiritual affinities with me. The law of sympathies and antipathies is the most mysterious in the world. As a river flows from its source to its mouth, sympathy flows from the Emperor’s heart to mine. Perhaps that is because of a gift that God has given; I won’t insist on that.
“Thanks to me, I’m certain that the Emperor Akbar would have been converted to Christianity had he not been turned away from it by his minister Aboul Fazi. The unrealizable and insensate dream that consists of combining all the gods of all the religions in one unique temple was that of Aboul Fazi. Now in that imagination, which is certainly demonic in one aspect, Our Lord Jesus Christ is placed on exactly the same footing as their Mohammed and their Buddha.
“It required a particularly erudite Brahmin, knowing Greek and Plato, to make the Mongol Akbar dress in the white robe of Julian and make him light the same sacred flame that comes from the first Zoroaster. That Brahmin is no more, that high priest of the sun has been slain by another pagan. We have rung the bell of the church as a sign of mourning, but in the depths of our hearts let us recognize that that has arrived for the greater glory of Jesus Christ.”
I was sitting by the door. I got up quietly, and I have no idea whether my departure was even noticed.
Many things have astonished me and have appeared mysterious to me, but none so much as the movements of my own soul. Perhaps the human soul, with its tidal changes and currents that come from who knows where, is the most incomprehensible thing there is in the world.
I paid no further heed to the head of Baphomet engraved on a stone in an abandoned tomb. I wondered, when I happened to think about it, whether it was not to the Emperor himself that it was appropriate to mention it. But I knew how dangerous a secret relating to wealth might be in regard to an all-powerful sovereign, and I always put it off until later.
In any case, the Emperor spent the months that followed the death of Aboul Fazi in a profound sadness. He had charged the noble Rai Raian,42 a very faithful but cunning man, with the punishment of Nar Singh and those who had participated in the assassination, Rai Raian set forth on campaign with an elite troop, but it was necessary to endure a pursuit through the mountains. The Vindhi Mountains are full of wild forests. The rainy season arrived. Rai Raian could not find any Rajput capable of indicating who had set the bandit Nar Singh in motion. Those who approached the Emperor at the moment of Rai Raian’s return, all saw that his feigned anger disguised the conclusion of a great anxiety.
Aboul Fazi was not avenged. Alaf and Kaouf, the two former war companions of the Emperor, who never quit him and served him as slaves, received the order one day to light a little fire of a few dry branches on the stone balcony of the palace facing the direction of the setting sun. They reported that the Emperor deposited in the midst of the flames a little book bound in the skin of a stillborn lamb, which was the book of friends. He sat alongside it, stoking the fire himself, and watched the leaves of parchment as they were consumed. Several times he repeated: “Aboul Fazi!” as if he were calling to his friend, and raised his head, as if he thought that he could see his face somewhere, in the sky. The binding took some time to be consumed, but the Emperor remained there until the fire was extinct and there was no longer anything of the book but the golden clasp, blackened and deformed, in the middle of a small heap of ash.
Was there a European woman in the Emperor’s harem? Or did she belong to Selim’s harem, or that of some high dignitary of the Court? I could not find out. The palaces reserved for women were immense and there was no possibility of penetrating into them. Fortuitous encounters could only take place in the Summer Palace, in the shade of the gardens of the Jumna. The amity that I had inspired in Djidji Anaga might have favored one of those encounters, but the epoch of great rains had begun and the Court had deserted the tents for the stone palaces of the city.
The same inertia that prevented me from going to lift up the stone marked with the seal of the Templars in the abandoned tomb of the Muslim saint, also prevented me from hastening my steps to discover Inès de Saldanna. I sometimes astonished myself by my incomprehensible inertia. In the minutes when one jokes with one’s own conscience and mocks certain traits of one’s character as if they were those of a stranger I said to myself: Is it not the invisible gift of the ascetic Narina that is acting on my nature and contributi
ng to detaching me from what was once the object of my passions?
And I surprised myself, in the evening, searching the sky to see whether I could discover the extraordinary star, the star that, according to the astronomer Li Tai, only shines on the land of India and that everyone only perceives once in his lifetime.
THE DEATH OF AKBAR
It was midnight. It is notable that far more dramatic events occur at that time than at any other hour. I have never been able to grasp the reason for that, but I believe that it must relate to astrological causes, and that only those who have a knowledge of the planets and their influence can explain it.
The room that I occupied at that time in the palace overlooked a long stone gallery. It was situated between other similar rooms where officers, literates and other intimates lived.
“Good evening! It’s midnight!” said a low voice in the distance.
I was not asleep because of the extreme heat, and, seizing a blanket, I was about o lie down on the gallery, along the balustrade. At that moment my life changed course and without my having anything to do with it, I was precipitated on to a new and unexpected slope.
I tried to go to sleep but I could not succeed in doing so. Anxiety kept me awake. Emperor Akbar was very ill and Hakim Ali, his physician, had emerged from his room with a somber visage and without wanting to say a word. Furthermore, an old elephant, named Lone, which had once been Akbar’s war elephant and which he often rode, started trumpeting desperately in the courtyard where it was penned, and no mahout had been able to make it shut up. The nocturnal palace was filled with its voice, in which it was easy to discern a mortuary plaint.
I heard footsteps in the gallery. Several men were marching without lanterns. They were speaking in low voices and as they advanced toward me, this is what I heard:
“It requires a few men of low intelligence but without scruples and courageous.”
“That one is entirely indicated.”
“Especially, having a hatred of Mohammedanism.”
“Oh, he can’t even know what it is. He’s a Christian. It’s him who killed Yacoub in single combat. That’s his room.”
I recognized Assad Bey, the man who had once lost me in the imperial stables on the evening of my arrival in Agra. He had always manifested a scorn for which I would have chastised him if he were not an old man. He was with Man Singh43 and Miran, the sage, the Emperor’s most faithful friends, the last of his generation.
Man Singh, who was in the lead, stumbled over me. I stood up, surprised and troubled by the presence of those considerable men. What could they be doing at midnight in a gallery that only led to the rooms of individuals who were subaltern, at least by their situation.
“Come,” said Man Singh.
The door of my room was ajar. They went in. I followed them. Assad Bey closed the door carefully. I apologized for not having a night-light, and lit one.
“Darkness is better for what we have to say,” said Miran.
“I hear that it requires unintelligent men,” I could not help saying, as I turned to Assad Bey. “I’m at your orders, and the Emperor’s orders.”
It was Man Singh who spoke; his voice was grave and emotional, and from his first words I was ready to do what he was about to order me to do, because I knew that he loved the Emperor.
It required unintelligent men, but courageous—he hesitated—and unscrupulous. That meant, he explained, without religious scruples. The Emperor might die at any moment. Who would succeed him? He had not absolutely designated his son Selim. He had thought about his grandson Khosro, a weak young man, not daring to accomplish any action because of the hatred it might excite. Selim had revolted against his father. The magnanimous Akbar had pardoned him. But it was not a secret for anyone that he hated his father. Those who loved the Emperor wondered whether the abrupt illness that had struck him, and which resembled a poisoning…but it was better not to think of that. If Selim reigned, Akbar’s work and the work of Aboul Fazi would collapse. Selim was a limited Muslim who had often said that the Koran was right in prescribing the death of those who did not believe in the true God. He was a cruel man. He had just flayed one of his servants is horrible conditions. A group of fanatical dervishes had already prepared the persecutions that the Hindus were about to suffer throughout the Empire. Foreigners, even the Emperor’s friends, would be massacred.
He stopped. There as a silence. It was Miran who spoke. In the semi-darkness I could see his white beard like a circle of light.44
“It’s Khosro who must be Emperor. We’ve put all our hopes in him. Khosro must be Emperor, even against his will, for the good of men. Just men will govern in his stead, if necessary. If the Omnipotent withdraws our master Akbar tomorrow, we’ll proclaim Khosro. Except that it’s necessary to prevent Selim….”
There was another silence. The wick sizzled in the oil of the night-light. I wanted to reanimate it. Miran stopped me with an abrupt gesture.
“No, no light, above all.”
Assad Bey started speaking in the tone of a man who thinks: It’s necessary to finish it.
“At the moment when the Emperor renders his last sigh, all those who have loved him and loved Aboul Fazi will cry ‘He has designated Khosro! It’s Khosro who is Emperor, by the will of his grandfather.’ It’s then that it’s necessary to make sure of Selim. He also has partisans. Among ours, many who ardently desire his fall won’t dare to raise a hand against him. He is still the son of the man who represented God on earth. And the fear of reprisals! The Gourzeberdars are with us; they will cry: ‘Khosro!’ But touch Selim! You would dare. You know full well that if Selim is Emperor you’ll be among the first victims. And he’ll reestablish the tortures abolished by his father, like impalement, which causes suffering without killing for an entire day.45 And you can be sure, whatever happens, that no one will reproach you for anything. Even….”
“No, I have no need of recompense for carrying out an order of arrest, even the arrest of Sultan Selim.”
The night-light went out, and I firmly believe that Miran had blown it out.
“There are duties that are without glory,” he murmured. “In any case, the anger will be great.”
Three Gourzeberdar officers were, as far as was possible to place themselves behind Selim at the decisive moment, and were to throw themselves upon him at the same time as me. I was told their names. I would have preferred that they had not chosen three despicable men given to drinking and ruined by debt. I sensed that more was expected of me than them.
“There are others as well,” said Man Singh, “but you, who are a warrior, know the importance in any action of the man who dares to strike the first blow.”
I could no longer see the whiteness of Miran’s beard. My three interlocutors went out like phantoms.
Alone in the shadows I wondered to whom I ought to address myself in order to know what I ought to do. I remembered my prayers of old, and a certain clarity that filtered over me through a stained-glass window on a Sunday afternoon when I once went to kneel in the little church of the Minimes near Toulouse. But Aboul Fazi had spoken to me about so many gods, all very good and very powerful. He had even told me that they were only one with Jesus Christ, But they were confused in my mind. They were too numerous. I did not know to whom to address myself.
I went to sleep.
The Emperor had had a marble hall built, surrounded by columns and refreshed by air currents, for the burning sands that surrounded Agra were the cause of an ardent heat. It was there that the throne made of precious stones was, where he received the Kings who were his subjects. He had himself taken to that hall and his bed was placed at the foot of the throne.
The rumor immediately went around that he was getting better, and was accredited all the more because he wanted his intimates, of which I was one, to gather around him. Nevertheless, the physician Hakim Ali, a modest man suddenly clad in an immense authority, demanded that they keep their distance—which was possible, given the size of the hal
l. The morning went by in the greatest optimism.
Selim only came to see his father momentarily. He had a distracted air, and recoiled if anyone came too close to him. He kept his right hand in a broad belt, in which the hilt of a dagger could be seen. He pretended to believe that his father was almost cured and looked to the right and left as he withdrew.
“He knows that the game is lost for him,” Omar Ali said to me in a low voice. “He’s secretly preparing boats in order to flee with his intimates on the Jumna if his father dies.”
The Emperor loved perfumes; aloe wood and certain essential oils whose formulae he had devised himself, were burning perpetually. He gave an order to have them extinguished. Then he demanded that the objects necessary for smoking tobacco be brought to him. That caused great surprise, and it was thought that the request was occasioned by the presence next to his bed of the physician Hakim Ali and of Assad. Several years before, Assad Bey, returning from an embassy to Bijapour, had brought back tobacco, then unknown, with wooden pipes. It was by way of a curiosity. The pipes came from China and had been brought to Bijapour by the Dutch. A great discussion had taken place. Hakim Ali considered the novelty to be dangerous. Assad praised it. But the Emperor, having tasted it, had not liked tobacco.
The old argument nearly resumed—but the Emperor was no longer thinking about it. That desire augmented the general optimism.
“He wanted to smoke,” everyone murmured—and that rumor spread out of the palace and was repeated throughout the city of Agra.
But in the course of the afternoon, the Emperor made a sign to Assad that he had an order to give him. His special function, for years—a function that conferred upon him the title of first Saibani—was to go and fetch Emirs to whom the Emperor wished to speak. He had the order repeated twice. The Emperor ordered him to fetch Mouzaffer Khan.
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