Jewel of the Moon
Page 11
She circled the tent, and then turned slowly to Zahir, who had watched with amusement as the girl had devastated his dear friend, Al-nujum. Now the slave girl thinks to enslave me.
The old merchant stroked his beard and sighed as Fana undulated before him, for he was too old to erect the tent-pole ever again, cursed be his misfortune. Why, o Lord, have you given your faithful servant such a brief time of joy?
He saw clearly through her silken costume to the smoothness of her young limbs, and felt a dreadful ache in his temples. His heart made no sense, his eardrums were pounding, may God protect me from a stroke. He waved her off with a limp gesture, but Fana remained, and through the billow of her silken pants he saw far too much, and heard women groaning somewhere in his head, deep groans of desire sounding, as if some hero of the desert were tormenting them with his prowess. And Zahir remembered, and knew from whence these memories came, remembered that he himself had once been that hero.
The old man wiped his brow. Really, this is too much. My forehead is perspiring; my pulse has quickened to a frantic rhythm; my old tent-pole—has risen as of old?
There is no God but Allah!
He had paid a fortune to astrologers, soothsayers, and potion-sellers, with never a sign of the great stiffening. But this simple girl—
Old Zahir luxuriated in her dance now, for tonight would be a marvelous adventure. When the dance is done, she and I will retire to coition, Allah watch over my blood pressure. He turned to Al-nujum. “I am delivered, my friend. The night is mine once more.”
But Al-nujum did not hear; the lonely camel driver was rising from his cushion. Fana would be his and no one else’s. There is none but Fana!
Old Zahir saw, as if in a dream, his friend Al-nujum draw his sword, and knew—it was for Fana. He rose and drew his own sword, a sudden fury in his limbs. He would not be cheated, not now, when his youth had been returned to him. And then as their weapons crossed with a clang, old Zahir had a terrible realization—that his friend was the better swordsman. This blade that passes through my ribs, piercing my heart’s chamber, this pain, this curse coming to me on the very night I have erected the old tent-pole again—I have always known it would turn out like this, for . . . I once overcharged . . . an . . . old woman.
The veiled musicians scrambled toward the tent door, only to die at Al-nujum’s maddened hand, their spirits rising to the Blue Mountains of Heaven where their ancestral tribe is encamped. Fana watched, amused, as one who is beyond the reach of good and evil.
Al-nujum carried her away, down the great avenues of the dunes, and all around them, stirred by the winds, sand devils danced. At dawn they reached one of the most terrible spots on earth, that place known as the Devil’s Garden, where the wind forms columns of sandstone and chalk, shaping them into objects resembling houses and huts, in which no sane man would ever seek to rest—and there Al-nujum rested.
Fana sat quietly in the doorway of one of the dream-twisted chalk houses, her thin costume touched by a gentle morning breeze. Al-nujum secured the camels and then came to her, and with bloodstained fingers caressed his prize. For this he would have slain the Angel of God himself. As Fana’s costume fell to the sand, as she returned his caress with her own, Al-nujum experienced the supernatural tumescence called el-hammache, the camel whip. He applied it according to tradition, and even Fana, goddess of love, groaned in the sand.
Al-nujum saw a thousand goddesses within him, bearing the substance of creation in cups of ivory, over which it spilled, jeweled and sparkling. “Fana,” he whispered, and she plunged him deeper into the mystery of being, opening the portal of his heart. There waited a white camel bearing a noble sheik. In the hoofbeats of the camel Al-nujum heard the drumming of time, and in the eyes of the sheik he saw the race of man. The sheik’s own heart was a flame which no man could extinguish, and here Al-nujum was inclined to rest—but Fana undulated once more.
He tossed upon her, and felt the earth, its wholeness and extension bearing every dream and flower, all beasts, gems, dragons, religions. All that humanity has done was done by me, explained the higher voice, within whose occult tone Al-nujum sought now to remain—but Fana pressed her thighs to his, and raised him higher.
His brain opened its guarded rooms, those reserved for vision of the shadow of God, and there Al-nujum saw the nature of the sun, secret of life beyond word and song.
Later, when his passion had been spent, and his illumination was fading, the grains of sand in Fana’s hair still sparkled for him with solar force. He would rest now, and reflect, for he knew the Secret.
“There is yet another veil before one passes through to Allah,” she said.
“And will you remove that veil for Al-nujum your slave?”
“It requires an offering,” she said.
“I can but offer my life,” said the camel driver.
“You may have to. Sultan Mahid-din has a claim on me. As long as he lives, some force will draw me to him, and he will confine me.”
They rode to the city of the sultan, and Al-nujum left Fana in the marketplace at nightfall. He slipped past one hundred warriors of the sultan, and entered the palace gates, for he was one who held the charm of love, which, while it burns, lends men grace. Ascending a balcony of gold, he entered the sultan’s bedchamber and smothered the royal sleeper with a white silken pillow.
Still protected by love, he escaped unseen and rejoined Fana in the marketplace. On the Street of the Carpet Beaters, they enjoyed rice with sesame paste. “The offering has been made,” he said, giving her the dead sultan’s ring.
“The last knot is violent undoing,” said Fana. “Are you sure you wish it?”
“There is a certain bird, do you know its song?”
“Very well,” said Fana, and touched his brow lightly with her fingertip. The restaurant walls dissolved before Al-nujum’s eyes, as did the city, the sands, the world. Then slowly, he began to perceive the stars of another world, soft and mellow, on a sky of dark blue cloth. “In this way are sins erased,” said Fana’s voice, and he saw that the sky was a tent, and the stars upon it were sewn of luminous thread, and this tent was Zahir’s, and he and Zahir were sprawled on cushions, and Fana was dancing before them. The old merchant was leaning toward him saying, “I just had the most astonishing vision, that you had killed me, dear friend.” He took Al-nujum’s hand. “You must forgive my dark thought. I am nervous, for tonight, very soon, when her dance is done—el-hammache!” Then, as if troubled by another dark thought, as if the vision of Al-nujum’s violence were still attending him, he turned to his friend once more and said, “She is young and wild. Perhaps you would care to tame her a little for me first, my friend. Go, take her, and I will enter later when she is quieter and less liable to give me heart failure.”
Al-nujum made his apologies, and when the dance was ended he withdrew and mounted his camel. As the musicians left the tent he heard the drummer say, “We smoke too much kif. I had a vision that we were murdered by the driver.”
“One can never smoke too much kif,” said the flute player.
“Perhaps you are right,” said the drummer.
Al-nujum urged his camel forward, across the star-shaped dunes where he resumed his lonely wandering.
* * *
Old Zahir, filled with new life and happiness, brought his caravan to the city of Sultan Mahid-din. Zahir’s course was clear, he must refund the sultan’s down payment on Fana, for he would not part with the girl now, not for all the sultan’s wealth. However, it was learned that no such refund was necessary, for the sultan had died peacefully, in his sleep. A white bird had been found on his chest that morning, speaking the single word, Fana.
Rejoicing over his good fortune, old Zahir returned to his camp to inform Fana of the great saving he’d made, a small fortune which he would give her as their wedding present.
“She has gone, master,” said the flute player, who was sitting on the sand, cleaning his instrument.
Old Zahir felt hims
elf growing white as the bird who could only speak the single word, Fana.
“She went off with the drummer. The pig took our three-hosed hookah as well, and a tremendous quantity of kif.”
“In trade,” said old Zahir, sadly staring out across the trackless sands, “many treasures pass through a merchant’s hands.”
JEWEL
OF THE
MOON
WILLIAM KOTZWINKLE
Pain and pleasure, ecstasy and horror fuse in this splendid array of worldly parables from the pen of a master.
What if you were a double amputee, singing for joy on the streets of New York . . . or a man who has actually held the earth in his hands? What if you were both the god and goddess in one of the most exalted erotic experiences in the universe . . . or the artist Correggio in the bitterness of his most sublime work . . . or a serving maid dreaming of love and luxury in a palace of death . . . or a man on a fatal mission, treading a battlefield ruled by a dying god?
If you have the spirit and the longing to imagine, come along on a journey to the heart of passion—where love and hate are mirror images, where the alternating pulse beats of craving and denial define desire.
Only William Kotzwinkle’s extraordinary talent could chart such a course, could send his vision soaring through so many forms of
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fancy. In Jewel of the Moon, he transcends even his own marvelous powers of invention to create a cosmology of constant surprise—and irresistible enchantment.
William Kotzwinkle—novelist, poet, two---time recipient of the National Magazine Award for Fiction, and National Book Critics Circle Award nominee—is known for his broad range of style and subject. Among his noted works are The Fan Man, Fata Monona, and Queen of Swords. His stories have been included in Great Esquire Fiction, Redbook’s Famous Fiction, and the O. Henry Prize Stories.
Jacket design © 1985 by Mike Stromberg
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