In Arabian Nights

by Tahir Shah

  My father used to say that the answer to a fool is silence.

  And so, I refrained from correspondence. Then, on the Monday morning before I set out for the desert, Osman came to tell me there was a visitor at the door. I asked who it was. The guardian motioned the confused outline of a man.

  'He's both tall and short,' he said.

  'You'd better bring him in.'

  A minute passed. I had turned the dining room into a makeshift office and was working in there. Osman trudged through the house and stood to the side to allow the visitor to enter. I finished what I was doing on my computer. When I looked up a tall man with a hunched back was standing over my desk. He had a fatigued face, grey-blue eyes and a froth of salt-and-pepper hair. I hadn't been prepared and so did not make the connection. I introduced myself. The visitor extended his hand. It was rough and clammy.

  'José Gonzales,' he said.

  I narrowed my eyes, then opened them wide in an involuntary action.

  'As in . . . the José Gonzales?'

  The gentleman seemed content to have elicited a response.

  I stayed quite still. Perhaps he half-expected me to show him out.

  'My father is dead,' I said. 'He's been dead quite a while now.'

  Gonzales didn't flinch.

  'I have heard this before,' he said, in a heavy accent.

  'I wrote to tell you.'

  'Yes.'

  'And you have not believed me.'

  The visitor seemed to stoop a little lower.

  'I am searching for Truth,' he said.

  'Are you sure that you are not really searching for Idries Shah?'

  Gonzales looked at me coldly. He didn't reply.

  A year before my father died, he sat me down in a quiet corner of his garden. We shared a pot of Darjeeling tea and listened to the sound of a pair of wood pigeons in a nearby tree. I poured a second cup of tea. As I was putting the strainer back on its holder, my father said: 'Some time soon I will not be here any more. My illness has reached another phase. I can feel it.'

  I sat there, touched with sadness. I didn't say anything because I could not think of anything appropriate to say.

  'When I am not here,' my father continued, 'some people we have always trusted will betray us. Beware of this. Others will stand forward as true friends, people who were in the shadows before. Many more will ask who I left as my successor. They will hound you, asking for a name. It is important that you tell them that my successor is my printed work. My books form a complete course, a Path, and they succeed when I cannot be there.'

  He stopped talking, raised the porcelain cup to his lips and took a sip. I finished my tea and we walked back to the house. I was going to leave, when he told me to wait.

  'One day,' he said, 'you may meet someone who is misguided. It might not make sense now, but at the time when it happens you will know. If this happens, take this piece of paper and give it to him.'

  He held up the sheet, folded it in half once and then again and gave it to me. The following November he died. I grieved, but I was consoled by the thought that he was inside me, alive in the stories he had told. Our lives rattled forward. Ariane and Timur were born and we moved into the Caliph's House. Nine years eventually passed. The paper was kept safe in a box file, along with my own papers.

  And so came the morning on which I found José Gonzales standing over me. I took a deep breath and he repeated himself: 'I am searching for Truth.'

  I asked him to wait for me and I went into my storage room and rooted about until I found the file and the paper. It was still folded as it had been when my father handed it to me. Before I stepped back into the dining room, I opened out the sheet and read what was written on it.

  It was this story:

  There were once three men, all of whom wanted fruit, though none of them had ever seen any, since it was very rare in their country.

  It so happened that they all travelled in search of this almost unknown thing called fruit. And it also happened that, at about the same time, each one found his way to a fruit tree.

  The first man was heedless. He got to a fruit tree, but had spent so much time thinking about the directions that he failed to recognize the fruit.

  His journey was wasted.

  The second man was a fool, who took things very literally. When he saw that all the fruit on the tree was past its best, he said: 'Well, I've seen fruit and I don't like rotten things, so that is the end of fruit as far as I am concerned.'

  He went on his way and his journey was wasted.

  The third man was wise. He picked up some of the fruit and examined it. After some thought, and racking his brains to remember all the possibilities about this rotting delicacy, he found that inside each fruit there was a stone.

  Once he knew that this stone was a seed, all he had to do was to plant, and tend the growth, and wait for – fruit.

  FIFTEEN

  More harm is done by fools through foolishness than is done by evildoers through wickedness.

  The Prophet Mohammed

  AN HOUR BEFORE I SET OFF ON THE LONG JOURNEY TO THE Sahara, Ariane tied a pink ribbon round my wrist. She said that each time I touched my hand to the ribbon, or looked at it, it would mean she was thinking of me.

  In a small bag I had packed a few essentials and a letter of introduction from Dr Mehdi. I pulled the door of the house closed. The guardians were standing to attention in a kind of shambolic royal guard. They saluted and Rachana drove us out through the shantytown, up the hill, to the railway station at Oasis.

  We crossed the tracks and I waited for the train to Marrakech. Rachana was standing against the light, Timur on her hip, Ariane between us. There was a blast of a horn in the distance and the train rolled in, steel wheels grinding against the tracks. I kissed Rachana and the children.

  'I won't be long,' I said. 'I'll be back as soon as the favour is done.'

  'This isn't about a favour,' said Rachana, leaning forward to hug me.

  I climbed up, turned back to wave, and the train jolted away out of Casablanca towards the south.

  There is nothing like a train journey for reflection, and the passage from Casablanca to Marrakech is one of the most inspiring I know. Movement has a magical effect on the mind. It stimulates the eyes, distracts them, allowing real thought to take hold. I stared out of the window at a landscape changing by slow degrees from urban to farmland and then to a desert panorama – baked terracotta red.

  My mind jerked from one memory to another, scraps of people, places, smells and sounds. A single minute of recollection can be a roller coaster. I thought of the scent of summer flowers, drowsy with bees, at my childhood home. Soaring above the Amazon in a two-seater Cessna. Toes in the sand on a Brazilian beach. Lying on the cement floor of a Pakistani torture prison.

  For more than a decade I have travelled with two books. They are always with me, a part of my hand luggage. The first is my father's Caravan of Dreams. The other is Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines. They are my travelling companions, a source of stimulation on a dark night, or on a train journey south.

  I value The Songlines for the notes in the middle. Each one is a polished jewel, a splinter of wisdom, a piece of something much larger, but complete in itself. I dug out the book, opened it at random as I always do and read a line which says that a Sufi dervish wanders the earth because the action of walking dissolves the attachments of the world, and that his aim is to become a 'dead man walking', a man whose feet are rooted on the ground but whose spirit is already in Heaven. I have read The Songlines so many times. My eyes have scanned that passage again and again but, until then, I had not really pulled it through the machinery of my mind.

  As the train grumbled south over the first miles of brick-red desert, I absorbed it for the first time. It made absolute sense. I slipped the book back in my bag and gazed out at a herd of scrawny camels standing at the bottom of a low hill. My eyes took a mental photograph of them.

  But my mind was far away.
/>   That evening I retraced my steps through Marrakech's medina, in search of Murad. I wanted to rebuke him for running off with Osman's wife. I have no sense of direction and it took me three hours to find the corridor at the end of which he lived.

  Once there, I stood at the bottom of the ladder and called out the storyteller's name. There was no answer. I called again, and a third time. Then a muffled sound came from the chamber above. I crept up. Murad was sprawled on a heap of rags. I thought he was drunk at first, because he was lying back, in a kind of stupor. I greeted him frostily and asked about Osman's wife.

  'She was unhappy,' he said, 'so very unhappy that I agreed to help her escape.'

  'Where is she now?'

  The storyteller shrugged.

  'As soon as we reached Marrakech, she left,' he said. 'She was going to her relatives near Ouarzazate.'

  'But why did you do this? If Osman wasn't so depressed, he might have come to kill you.'

  Murad coughed hard.

  'A woman is a flower,' he said. 'And the saddest thing of all is for a beautiful flower to bloom unadmired.'

  That evening, I paid a visit to the Maison de Meknès, to have a chat with its owner, Omar bin Mohammed. I turned up quite late, but expected to find him reading in the lamplight near the door, or chatting to friends out in the street. To my surprise, though, the shutters were drawn. I banged on them. No reply. I assumed he must have gone home for the night. Then the owner of the next shop along rode up on a moped and held up a hand.

  'He's shut down, closed, gone away,' he said over the sound of the engine.

  'Why, where, how?'

  The shopkeeper shut off the fuel and his vehicle conked out.

  'In Marrakech there is a merchant tradition,' he said. 'We are proud of it, proud to be shopkeepers. Our Prophet – peace be upon Him – was a trader himself. But every moment you are in business, there is a clock ticking.'

  'So what happened to Omar and the Maison de Meknès?'

  The shopkeeper unlocked his front door.

  'His time ran out,' he said.

  The next day I was up at dawn. I wandered down to Jemaa el Fna, the great square. It was empty. No one. Not a bird, not a beggar, not even a storyteller. I stood there, right in the middle, and I thought of the history and the power of that place – the executions, the stories, the performances. Even when it was empty you could feel the energy. It almost knocked you down. I closed my eyes, shut my nostrils and put my fingers in my ears. Instead of feeling alone, I felt connected to every person who had ever traipsed across it. When I finally moved on, it seemed as if I was leaving with something new inside me, as though the soul of Jemaa el Fna had slipped in through my skin.

  I went to the bus terminal and bought a ticket for the first bus south to Ouarzazate. There was a sense of great expectation. Families hustling aboard with bundles of cloth and bags of dried fruit, packets of dates, blankets in plastic bags, and buckets tied up on strings. The driver tore the corner of my ticket and wished me peace. I took a seat at the back, behind a large wicker crate filled with chickens. They were alive but very silent, as if they hoped their owner might forget about them. Across from me sat a man with a striped kitten on his lap. The animal had smelled the birds, and was clawing to get nearer to the crate.

  We left Marrakech and thundered out into the open country, on what is one of the most scenic roads in the kingdom. The man with the cat said he was a schoolteacher and that he didn't trust his wife.

  'She hates animals,' he said. 'If she had her way, she would have them all poisoned – everything from the birds in the sky to the foxes in the forest.'

  He had a don't-mess-with-me kind of face, angry eyes and a wild, frantic mouth packed with jumbled teeth. I glanced down at the kitten. The hand smoothing back its fur was gentle beyond description. It was hard to believe such a tender hand could be attached to the same body as the face.

  'She must have had a bad experience with an animal,' I said.

  The passenger clicked his mouth.

  'She doesn't see their beauty,' he said. He stared down at the kitten, his angry eyes melting. 'But I hope she will change now.'

  The bus hit a pothole, rocked to the side and the chickens lost their cool.

  'Tomorrow's her birthday,' said the man. 'I've brought her this kitten from Marrakech. It's from an expensive pet shop. I spent a fortune on it.'

  'Do you really think your wife will change after a lifetime of animal-hatred?'

  The man held the kitten's head up to my ear.

  'Can you hear that?'

  I listened.

  'The purr?'

  'It is the sound of an angel,' said the man. 'When my wife hears it, purring in her own ear, how can she resist?'

  Dr Mehdi had told me to head south from Marrakech, to Ouarzazate, and then on past Zagora, until the small town of M'hamid, the end of the road. Once I got there, he said I was to make contact with his nephew Ibrahim, who would take me to the source of the salt. He gave exact instructions how much salt to bring back and how to pack it up.

  At Ouarzazate, I found a small hotel where the rooms were little bigger than the beds and where the owner spent his life in the kitchen, beside a huge cast-iron pot filled with lamb stew. He was called Mustapha. He had scars on his hands from decades of stirring the pot, and a way of talking that was very pleasing to the ear. His sentences flowed like syrup, one pouring into the next.

  The walls of the hotel were adorned with paintings of scenes from the High Atlas. I recognized one as the Berber bridal festival of Imilchil. There were no other customers, except for a pair of nervous Swiss tourists, who were travelling with their dog. I went into the dining room, where there was a single table. The Swiss were sitting there, tensely. When they saw me, they got up, apologized politely and left.

  Mustapha stepped out of the kitchen and said the stew was fresh. I ordered a bowl. He brought it to my table and blew the steam off the top.

  'It's very hot tonight,' he said.

  I tasted it. 'Delicious.'

  'I call it Morocco stew.'

  'But stew is not typically Moroccan.'

  Mustapha licked a fresh scar on his hand.

  'There are a mixture of fine ingredients,' he said, 'prepared with care, over just the right heat. The flavour is subtle, a little delicate, but a delight to the senses.' Mustapha licked his hand again. 'Just like Morocco,' he said.

  I pointed to the painting of a Berber girl in the traditional black and white striped robe of the Atlas.

  'I come from Imilchil,' he said. 'We are a famous Berber family.'

  When I had finished the stew, I ordered a second bowl.

  He refused to charge me. 'Your mouth's appreciation is payment enough,' he said.

  As I ate the stew, I told him about the favour I had been asked to do. I said that I was searching for the story in my heart.

  'We are all searching for that,' he said.

  'How can I find it?'

  Mustapha pressed his palms together and touched them to his nose.

  'I cannot tell you,' he said. 'But I can offer you something.'

  'What?'

  'A story that was given to me by my grandfather at Imilchil.'

  He pulled up a chair, took off his apron, and began.

  'There was once an island kingdom far away from here, where all the camels were tall and proud, and the men were skilled in making pottery, from the soft clay near the shore. The king was fair to his people and a state of harmony prevailed. No one went without delicious fruit, or fine cloth for their clothes.

  'Although the kingdom was prosperous, it was cut off from the world beyond, in the middle of the sea. Whenever anyone needed something not found on the island, a boat would be sent to the mainland to bring it back. But the waters all around were so perilous that these boats often sank, drowning all on board.

  'Now, there lived in this kingdom a man called Jumar Khan. He was young and he was handsome, and he had a boat that he used to ferry goods from the n
ext kingdom, far away. He would brave the high waves and travel there often. And on one such journey he spotted a stallion for sale. It was the colour of newly fallen snow, with a jet-black mane and eyes that shone like coals.

  'Jumar Khan had no wife or children to support and he had a bag of gold, the profit from many dangerous crossings. He asked the owner the price of the horse. He had just enough money, but the animal's owner said to him: "I will sell it to you on the condition that you promise never to sell it to anyone else."

  'Jumar agreed and paid the money. The animal was loaded up on to the boat and, in rolling seas, carried back to the kingdom.

  'A few years passed and everyone praised the stallion. Jumar Khan himself loved it a little more each day. Then, one winter dawn, he set sail as normal, but a giant wave struck and smashed his boat on to rocks. Jumar and the passengers were saved by the beneficence of God. But with no boat, Jumar lost his livelihood and was ruined.

  'He might have sold his horse, but he had made a promise never to do so. In any case, he loved it with all his heart and could not bear to be parted from it.

  'One day an important merchant visited the kingdom. He was known by reputation throughout the East and his name was Sher Ali. While staying on the island, he heard of Jumar Khan and the hapless circumstances in which he found himself. And he heard of the fabulous stallion and the promise not to sell it. But in the merchant's experience every object had a value.

  'He sent word to Jumar's home that he would like to view the animal, as it was said to be very beautiful. The next evening Sher Ali arrived.

  'With no money to afford staff, Jumar received his guest himself and prepared a fabulous meal of succulent meat garnished with vegetables grown by himself. Sher Ali ate until he could eat no more and, after a glass of tea, he asked about the horse.