Blind Man's Lantern

by Allen Kim Lang

was no larger than its neighbors, Moorish-styled anddomed-roofed like the others; but it wore on its streetside wallsdesigns cut into the stucco, scrolls and arabesques. Just above thedoorway, which opened spang onto the broadway of Datura, a grinningface peered down upon the visitors, its eyes ruby-colored glass.

  Waziri pounded the door for Aaron, and stepped aside to let his newemployer do the speaking. They were admitted to the house by a thin, oldman wearing a pink turban. As they followed this butler down a hallway,Aaron and Waziri heard the shrieks and giggles of feminine consternationthat told of women being herded into the zenana. The Amishman glimpsedone of the ladies, perhaps Sarki Kazunzumi's most junior wife, dashingtoward the female sanctuary. Her eyes were lozenges of antimony; herhands, dipped in henna, seemed clad in pale kid gloves. Aaron, recallingpointers on Murnan etiquette he'd received at Georgetown, elaboratelydid not see the lady. He removed his hat as the turbaned butler bowedhim to a plush-covered sofa. Waziri was cuffed to a mat beside the door.

  "_Rankeshi dade!_" the Sarki said. "May the Mother bring you the lightof understanding."

  "Light and long life, O Sarki," Stoltzfoos said, standing up.

  "Will the guest who honors my roof-cup taste coffee with his fortunatehost?" the Sarki asked.

  "The lucky guest will be ever the Sarki's servant if your Honor allowshim to share his pleasure with his fellow-farmer and employee, Wazirithe son of Musa," Aaron said.

  "You'd better have hired mice to guard your stored grain, O Haruna; andblowflies to curry your cattle, than to have engaged the son of Musa asa farmer," Kazunzumi growled. "Waziri has little light of understanding.He will try to win from the soil what only honest sweat and Mother'sgrace can cause to grow. This boy will gray your beard, Haruna."

  "Perhaps the sun that warms the soil will light his brains tounderstanding," Aaron suggested.

  "Better that your hand should leave the plowhandle from time to time towarm his lazy fundament," the Sarki said.

  "Just so, O Sarki," the Amishman said. "If Waziri does not serve mewell, I have an enormous boar who will, if kept long enough fromwholesomer food, rid me of a lazy farm-hand." Waziri grinned at all theattention he was getting from the two most important men in town, andsat expectantly as the turbaned elder brought in coffee.

  Stoltzfoos watched the Sarki, and aped his actions. Water was servedwith the coffee; this was to rinse the mouth that the beverage could betasted with fresh taste buds. The coffee was brown as floodwater silt,heavy with sugar, and very hot; and the cups had no handles. "You arethe first European I have seen for many years, friend Haruna," the Sarkisaid. "It is five years gone that the white off-worlders came, and witha black man as their voice purchased with silver the land you nowfarm."

  "They bought well," Aaron said; "the seller sold justly. When the fistof winter loosens, the soil will prove as rich as butter."

  "When the first green breaks through, and you may break the soil withoutoffense, you will do well," Kazunzumi said. "You are a man who loves theland."

  "My fathers have flourished with the soil for twenty generations," theAmishman said. "I pray another twenty may live to inherit my goodfortune."

  "Haruna," the Sarki said, "I see that you are a man of the book, thatvolume of which Mother in her grace turns over a fresh page each spring.Though your skin is as pale as the flesh of my palm, though you have butone wife, though you speak throat-deep and strangely, yet you and I aremore alike than different. The Mother has given you light, Haruna, hergreatest gift."

  "I thank the Sarki for his words," Aaron said. "Sir, my good and onlywife--I am a poor man, and bound by another law than that of thefortunate Kazunzumi--adds her thanks to mine for the rich gifts theChief of Datura presented us, his servants. In simple thanks, I havesome poor things to tender our benefactor."

  Waziri, perceiving the tenor of Aaron's talk, sprang to his feet andhastened out to the wagon for the bundles he'd seen under the seat. Hereturned, staggering under a seventy-pound bale of long-leaf tobacco,product of Aaron's father's farm. He went back for a bolt of scarletsilk for the Sarki's paramount wife, and strings of candy for the greatman's children. He puffed in with one last brown-wrapped parcel, whichhe unpacked to display a leather saddle. This confection was embossedwith a hundred intricate designs, rich with silver; un-Amish as aChristmas tree. Judging from the Sarki's dazzled thanks, the saddle wasjust the thing for a Murnan Chief.

  As soon as Kazunzumi had delivered his pyrotechnic speech of thanks, andhad directed that Aaron's gifts be placed on a velvet-draped dais at theend of the room, a roast kid was brought in. Waziri, half drunk with theelegance of it all, fell to like any other adolescent boy, and was soongrease to the armpits. Aaron, more careful, referred his actions to theSarki's. The bread must be broken, not cut; and it was eaten with theright hand only, the left lying in the lap as though broken. Belchingseemed to be _de rigueur_ as a tribute to the cuisine, so Aaron belchedhis stomach flat.

  Business could now be discussed. Aaron, having no pencil, traced with agreasy finger on the tile floor the outlines of the barn and farmhousehe envisaged. The Sarki from time to time demanded of young Waziri suchfacts as a carpenter's son might be expected to know, and addedlumber-prices in his head as Aaron's bank-barn and two-story farmhousetook form in his imagination. Finally he told the Amishman what the twobuildings would cost. Better pleased by this figure than he'd expectedto be, Aaron initiated the long-drawn ceremony required to dischargehimself from Kazunzumi's hospitality.

  As the Stoltzfoos wagon jolted out the gate of Datura, bearing the cotand clothes trunk of Waziri together with the owner of those chattels,the boys who'd jeered before now stared with respect. The black-hatted_Turawa_ had been to visit the Sarki; this established him as no safeman to mock. Waziri gave his late playmates no notice beyond sittingrather straighter on the wagon seat than was comfortable.

  * * * * *

  There was light enough left when they got back to the farm for Aaron andWaziri to pace out the dimensions of the barn and house. The bank-barnwould go up first, of course. No Christian owner of beasts could consentto being well-housed while his animals steamed and shivered in acloth-sided tent. Waziri pounded stakes into the frozen ground to markthe corners of the barn. Aaron pointed out the drainage-line that wouldhave to be ditched, and explained how the removed earth would be packed,with the clay dug for the cellar, into a ramp leading to the barn'ssecond story in the back. Come next fall, the hayladder could be pulledright up that driveway to be unloaded above the stalls. Aaron took theboy to the frozen-solid creek to show him where a wheel could be placedto lift water to a spillway for the upper fields. He introduced his newhelper to Wutzchen, and was pleased to hear Waziri speak wistfully ofpork chops. Waziri didn't want to meet Martha yet, though. As a properMurnan boy, he was not eager to be introduced to the boss' barefacedwife, though she bribed him with a fat wedge of applecake.

  When Waziri set out with the lantern to tend to the final outdoorchores, Aaron inquired of his wife's day. The Sarki's Paramount Wife,with two servants, had indeed visited, bringing more gifts of food andclothing. Somehow the four of them had managed to breach theHausa-_Pennsylfawnisch Deitsch_ curtain. "What in the world didyou talk about?" Aaron asked.

  "First, not knowing what to say, I showed the ladies a drop of vinegarunder the microscope," Martha said. "They screamed when they saw all thewriggly worms, and I was put to it to keep them from bundling back home.Then we talked about you, Stoltz, and about the farm; and when would Ibe giving you _Kinner_ to help with all the work," she said. Marthafiddled with the cloak she was sewing for her husband. "It was largelytheir heathen speech we used, so I understood only what they pointed at;but they ate hearty of anything without vinegar in it, and I laughedwith them like with friends at a quilting-bee. My, Stoltz! Those_Nay-yer_ women are lovely, all jeweled like queens, even the servantgirls; even though they have no proper understanding of Christianbehavior."

  "Did they make you feel welcome, then?" Aaron
asked.

  "_Ach, ja!_ They pitied me, I thought," Martha said. "They said you mustbe poor, to have but one wife to comfort you; but they said that if thecrops be good, you can earn a second woman by next winter. _ChuudesPaste!_"

  "I hope you told the Sarki's woman we've been married only sincehaying-time," Aaron said, "and it's a bit previous for you to be givingme little farmhands."

  "I did that," Martha said. "I told them, too, that by the time the oakleaves are the size of squirrel's ears--if this place has oaks, indeed,or squirrels--we'd have a youngling squalling in our house, loud as anyof the