In Arabian Nights

by Tahir Shah

  Zohra cupped her hand round Timur's head and kissed him on the cheek.

  'Dar Khalifa is bleeding like an open wound,' she said. 'I told you it's sick.'

  'That's what the astrologer said. But I don't quite know what it means.'

  The maid flipped Timur on to her back and began to shuffle away down the long corridor.

  'I don't know what it means!' I called out.

  Zohra didn't turn.

  Ottoman was justifiably proud of his business achievements. He had created an empire with more than a dozen factories across Africa and the Far East and had more employees than he could count. He wasn't so proud of his former addiction to kif, or of his days as an underworld thief. But there was an element of the profession that did seem to touch him with pride.

  He called it 'The Art'.

  One afternoon, he invited me to take tea with him at a café called Baba Cool, in the Art Deco quarter, down by the port. We talked about all kinds of things that day, from a tailor's tricks of the trade, to the rising cost of Chinese sweatshop labour. The conversation turned to theft. Ottoman tore the corner off a sachet of granulated sugar and poured the contents carefully into his café noir.

  'Thieves should pay for their ways,' he said, 'and they will, on Judgment Day. I am ashamed of that life I lived, deeply ashamed. I will be punished. I'm certain of it.'

  'Did that part of your life teach you anything at all?'

  Ottoman glanced up, his face frozen. Very slowly, he smiled.

  'I learned so many things,' he said.

  'What?'

  'Dexterity, cunning, stealth, how to lie and how to make you look over there when the action is right here.'

  'Did you learn anything from other thieves?'

  'Yes, of course I did. We used to meet in places like this and tip one another off about people to rob. I learned a few techniques, if you could call them that. And I learned about Latif.'

  'Who's Latif?'

  'The patron of all thieves, a kind of hero, a mentor.'

  'Was he Moroccan?'

  'I'm not sure. But that isn't important. You see, thieves are very proud of him.'

  Ottoman stirred his coffee and jerked out the teaspoon.

  'Tell me about him,' I said.

  'It had been a long time since Latif the Thief had stolen from anyone at all,' said Ottoman. 'He had run out of cash and was so hungry he felt as if he was about to drop dead. The more he thought about eating, the hungrier and the fainter he became. Then, he had an idea. He looked round his den and found a sheet of paper, a pen and a metal cup. Scooping them up into his robe, he ran out and was soon at the vast plaza in front of the palace. When no one was looking, he wrote a sign on the paper, placed the cup beside it and lay down a few inches away. The sign read: WHO WILL GIVE A COIN TO HELP BURY A POOR BLIND BEGGAR?

  'Latif kept as still as he could and listened as coins fell into his cup from the hands of passing donors. All morning the charitable tossed in money, feeding Latif's greed. Then, just before noon, the king rode out of the palace. As his carriage passed the parade ground, he saw the supposed corpse, the sign and the tin cup. He called the coachman to halt the horses. What low times we live in, he thought, if a poor blind beggar cannot be given a decent burial! He called for his imam and ordered him to take the body to his home, wash it and ensure it was given a suitable send-off. "Once you have done this," said the king, "you may come to the palace and collect a purse of gold from the treasurer for your services."

  'The imam dutifully removed the corpse as Latif struggled to stay limp. He took it through the town on a cart to his own home. Once there, he began to strip it and to prepare for the ritual washing. But after a few minutes he noticed there was no more soap in the house. "I will have to go to the market and buy more soap," he said to himself, putting on his coat and leaving the body alone. No sooner had he gone than Latif the Thief ran to the imam's cupboard and helped himself to the grandest robe and the weightiest turban he could find. He put them on and went directly to the palace, where he sought out the royal treasurer. "I am the imam to whom the king has promised a purse of gold," he said.

  'The treasurer counted out the money himself. "Please sign here," said the treasurer, "to acknowledge you have received the funds." "Are times so desperate that you do not trust anyone, even a humble imam?" said Latif, putting on his most haughty voice. "Forgive me, your Reverence," replied the treasurer, "but there are so many thieves on the loose." "I quite understand your precautions," said Latif, taking a gold coin from the purse and sliding it across the desk to the treasurer. "You have been of great service," he said. "Don't mention it," said the official, pulling his own purse out from layer upon layer of cloth and slipping the tip inside. "If only there were more honest men such as yourself in the kingdom," he said, placing his gold-filled purse on his desk." "Alas," exclaimed Latif on his way out, as he snatched the treasurer's purse, "but there are so many thieves about!"'

  The next day I was back in the old Art Deco heart of Casablanca, near to the café where I had met Ottoman. I was searching for a man who could resole my shoes in leather. Morocco still retains some of the greatest craftsmen working anywhere on earth but, these days, cobblers prefer to use heavy-duty rubber imported from Taiwan. It's cheap to buy and, as they kept telling me, it lasts ten times as long as leather.

  After a great deal of walking up and down through the grand old arcades, where the French élite once strolled, I spotted a pair of lady's dancing shoes displayed in a grimy glass window. I peered in. An ancient man was huddled over a workbench, pulling stitches through the toe of a hobnail boot. The shop was not large, having just about enough space for a client and his damaged shoes. I went in, wished the cobbler peace and rummaged in my canvas satchel for my shoes.

  The craftsman had the kind of face that could hold the attention of the most distracted mind. The forehead was a web of dark furrows, the eye sockets shadowy and deep, the neck and jaw emaciated as if all the fat had been sucked out with a straw. His hands were so callused that the calluses had calluses. On his head was a seaman's navy-blue woolly hat.

  It was obvious he was the owner of the shop because of the way he sat at the bench. The world beyond the door may have been foreign to him, but this was his domain. It was a time capsule. I asked how long he had had the shop. He thought for a long time, pulled his hat off and played it through his fingers.

  'I can't quite remember the year,' he said. 'It was just after the end of the war. There's been a lot of change. Change for the worse.' The cobbler glanced at the boot he was holding. 'It was all very different down here then.'

  'All clean and new?'

  'Yes, like that,' he said. 'Casablanca was so clean, so sparkly, so filled with energy, with hope . . .' He broke off, stared out of the window at the street. 'It was like a new pair of shoes,' he said.

  I dug out the brogues I needed resoled. They were black with a small brass buckle at the side. I had bought them at Tricker's on London's Jermyn Street long before, in a time when there was money in my pocket. The left shoe had a hole more than an inch across.

  I placed the brogues on the counter. The cobbler took off his glasses, fumbled in a drawer and fished for another pair. He put them on.

  'These are very special shoes,' he said. 'Not like the rubbish people usually bring me.'

  I felt a twinge of pride run down my spine.

  'Can you resole them?'

  The cobbler looked me in the eye.

  'You want rubber?'

  'No, leather.'

  The old craftsman's eyes welled with tears. He turned round to the grimy wall behind his bench and tugged down a sheet of russet-brown leather hanging on a makeshift hook.

  'I have been keeping this since before my son was born,' he said. 'Every day I have looked at it, wondering if its time would ever come.'

  'How old is your son now?' I asked.

  The cobbler scratched his hat.

  'About fifty,' he said.

  In the stables,
Murad had finished one tale and moved on to the next. The guardians were lolling back on their chairs, smoking and listening hard. When I got home, they thanked me for hiring a storyteller for them.

  'From tomorrow, he'll be working in the bidonville,' I said.

  'But where will he tell his stories?' asked Osman.

  'In one of the houses,' I said.

  'Oh, no,' said the Bear, 'because the houses are very small and there won't be enough space for everyone.'

  'Well, out in the street, then.'

  'No, no, it's far too dirty and wet.'

  Murad lifted a hand from his lap and waved it outside.

  'We walked through a pleasant garden out there,' he said. 'I will tell the stories there and the people from outside will come in to listen.'

  The guardians said nothing. Like me, their memories were still fresh of the time their extended families had marched into Dar Khalifa and taken refuge within its walls. It had ended in catastrophe.

  'The garden can be used until we find a better place,' I said sternly.

  That evening Ottoman arrived and met Murad, who was still holding court in the middle stable.

  'We will hold the first storytelling session in our garden,' I said.

  Ottoman smiled.

  'Hicham would have liked that,' he replied, 'for a garden is a fragment of Paradise.' Then he seemed a little uneasy. 'Are you sure you want to hold it here?'

  Just as I was about to reply, the doorbell rang.

  Escorting visitors in had been Hamza's obsession. He would prowl up and down at the front door like a Rottweiler waiting to be fed. He saw it as his responsibility to vet anyone who came to call and would often turn people away, even invited guests, declaring that I was out, or that I was too busy to receive them. But now Hamza was gone, visitors had to wait until Rachana or I ran down. The other two guardians refused to go anywhere near the front door. They said it was beneath them.

  Every afternoon a stream of people turned up, hoping their problems would be magically dispatched by the foreigner who had been foolish enough to take on the Caliph's House. There were electricians who had lost their jobs, former employees of ours whose wives had left them, and children who needed their school fees to be paid.

  The doorbell rang again, longer and harder than before. Murad the storyteller began a third tale. The guardians looked at him adoringly. He was the answer to their prayers, their own personal entertainer. I walked across the lawn and opened the garden door.

  A frail squat figure was standing outside. He was carrying a claw hammer in one hand and a bundle of nails in the other, and seemed nervous. When he saw me, his jet-black eyes narrowed until they were no more than shiny specks. I greeted him. The man pressed a hand down to his wetted grey hair and introduced himself. It was then that I remembered him. His name was Marwan; he had done some carpentry work for us a few months before.

  'I am sorry, but we don't need a carpenter any longer,' I said.

  Marwan stooped, ducked a little more, and pressed down his hair again.

  'Oh,' he said.

  'I am sorry.'

  'My son is ill and my wife's eyesight is almost gone,' he said. 'I am willing to do anything, anything at all.'

  I apologized again. 'I wish I could help you,' I said. 'But I can't, unless . . .'

  'Unless?'

  'Unless you would like to work as a guardian. We had to let the last one go because he attacked a mason with his teeth.'

  Marwan's deep-set eyes glittered like shards of obsidian.

  'I promise to defend your house as if it were the Royal Palace,' he said.

  I thanked him.

  The carpenter put down the claw hammer and the nails and held my hands in his.

  'You are a good man, Monsieur Tahir,' he said under his breath.

  A few days later I went back to Sukayna the astrologer, at the mattress shop. I planned to ask her how a house could bleed. But the real reason I returned was because I had dreamed of the magic carpet again. This time, the princess was no longer locked in her tower. She was standing in the doorway, a sprinkling of snow covering the ground. A sackcloth hood had been thrown over her head. I couldn't see her face, but I knew it was the princess.

  Nearby, a gallows had been erected. The girl was about to be led out. Her hands were tied with twine, her feet bare. Just as she started moving, staggering, I woke up with a start. I was drenched in sweat.

  The astrologer welcomed me. She twisted the curtain so that it fell straight, hiding us from the mattress-makers in the shop. She didn't say anything at first, but looked at me with concentration, her bottle-green eyes staring into mine.

  'You did not come about the house,' she said.

  I sensed my mouth taste cold, as if in the presence of danger.

  'You said it was bleeding.'

  'I did, but that's not why you are here.'

  I sat down, cleared my throat. I told her about the dreams, about the flying carpet, the far-off kingdom and the princess.

  'She was being taken out to be hanged,' I said. I wiped a hand over my face. I was sweating again.

  The astrologer looked at me. I could feel her eyes scanning my face.

  'You have the answers,' she said after a long pause.

  I was going to deny it. But I knew the link between the princess and my life.

  Sukayna seemed to read my thoughts. 'Tell me about it,' she said.

  I stood up, pushed my hands on to the back wall of her room, leaned forward, my head down. I breathed in deeply, my ribs lifting and my chest swelling with air.

  'Last year while travelling through Pakistan,' I said, 'I was arrested by the secret police along with my film crew. They stripped me, blindfolded me, chained my hands high behind my back and took me to a torture jail. They called it "The Farm".

  'One morning I was taken out before dawn, blindfolded, manacled and stripped to my underwear. The guard told me to pray. He led me on to a patch of gravel. I could feel it under my bare feet. He said that the end of my life had come.'

  Sukayna breathed in through her mouth.

  'How long were you kept prisoner?'

  'For sixteen days. Most of it was spent chained up, all of it in a solitary cell. I was subjected to many hours of interrogation in a torture room.'

  'Have you ever been so scared?'

  I shook my head. 'The smell of my sweat changed,' I said. 'I was so frightened that my sweat smelled like cat pee. But the morning they took me out blindfolded to shoot me, I wasn't frightened any longer. I was just terribly sad – sad that I wouldn't see Ariane and Timur grow up. I knelt on the gravel as they ordered me, I held very still, waiting for the bullet.

  'Keep still and they won't botch it, I thought.

  'But the bullet never came.'

  NINE

  You possess only what will not be lost in a shipwreck.

  El Gazali

  WORD OF MURAD THE STORYTELLER SPREAD FROM DAR KHALIFA out into the shantytown. The imam approached me as I drove through on the way to Café Mabrook the next Friday afternoon. He was forever loitering outside the small whitewashed mosque, with a broom in one hand and a sharp-edged stone in the other, ready to hurl at the wicked boys.

  He thanked me on behalf of the community.

  'The television from Cairo is rotting their heads,' he said forcefully. 'It's time for them to remember their traditions, to remember the great tales we all heard in our youth.'

  He asked when the storyteller would begin his work.

  'Tonight,' I said. 'He will start tonight.'

  The imam stooped forward and kissed my hand.

  'Inshallah, if God wills it,' he said.

  At Café Mabrook, all the usual Friday afternoon characters were in position. Zohra's husband was sitting in the corner, lost in his own world. Hafad was telling Hakim about a grandfather clock he had bought from a junk shop in Derb Omar, describing the shape with his arms. Dr Mehdi was sitting at the same table, wearing an immaculate mustard-coloured jelaba and a pair of
matching baboush. He stood up to greet me and kissed my cheeks.

  Abdul Latif's thumbless hand slid me an ashtray and a glass of café noir.

  'We are together again,' said the surgeon.

  'Like old times,' said Hafad.

  'May we never be parted again,' Hakim added.

  I told them about my journey to Marrakech, about the shop where tales were for sale and of my new acquaintance with Murad the storyteller.

  Dr Mehdi asked if I had discovered the story in my heart.

  'Not yet,' I said, 'but Murad told me his: the "Tale of Mushkil Gusha".'

  The doctor smiled broadly, the smile of a man whose face masked an elevated mind.

  'Now that you have heard the story,' he said, 'I hope you remembered to tell it last night.'

  'To my children,' I said, 'before they went to bed.'

  Hafad the clock-lover lit a cigarette and choked out a lungful of smoke.

  'That story's nonsense,' he said. 'Only an idiot would tell the same tale every week. Nothing but stupid superstition!'

  We sat silently sipping our coffee, each of us pondering our own thoughts. Then, one of the henpecked husbands at another table stood up and came over. He was a regular, tall and nervous, with a thick crop of grey hair brushed down to the side. I had never spoken to him before, nor even heard his voice, for he was usually too henpecked to converse.

  'Excuse me,' he said in no more than a whisper. 'I heard you speaking about Mushkil Gusha, the remover of difficulties.'

  Hafad stubbed out his cigarette and grunted.

  'Yes, we were,' I said. 'Do you know the tale?'

  The henpecked husband inched forward until he was standing at the edge of our table.

  'That story saved me from death,' he said.

  Hafad rolled his eyes. Dr Mehdi pulled a chair from another table.

  'Please sit with us,' he said.

  The fearful man sat down and wished us peace.