The Arabian Nightmare

by Robert Irwin

  But here he broke off and was not allowed to finish, for the Mamluke boat had rowed alongside. His oarsman, seeing that it was all up, dived off and swam to the other side, where he succeeded in making his escape through the thick clumps of baobabs. The ‘sultan’, however, was clearly too drunk even to attempt this. The Dawadar and some of his fellow officers had him taken to the Arqana for examination and questioning. The resemblance to the real Sultan was indeed startling, even when viewed close to. The Dawadar found the appearance of this double eerie—more than that, profoundly disturbing—for it had long been a conviction of the Dawadar’s that the body was the mirror of the soul, that the body represented in flesh and substance the nature of the soul. We love a beautiful body because we recognize in it the beauty of the soul that so infallibly shapes the body. Physical resemblances, therefore, were not slight tokens. Perhaps some nature was shared in common between this drunken mountebank and the Sultan.

  Moreover, there was another disturbing thing. Under his robes the man was discovered to be a leper. He was bastinadoed lightly to make him talk (for a heavy bastinado killed), but the man sobered up quickly and said nothing.

  A message was sent to the Sultan asking if it would amuse him to see his double, but a message came back ordering his instant and painful execution. So he was taken on a hurdle to the place of execution outside the Zuweyla Gate and then, to the delight of the assembled populace, Melsemuth was brought out from the royal treasury. Melsemuth was an automaton, a seven-foot-high brass doll powered with springs and coils. The condemned would be strapped to the doll, leg to leg, chest to chest, arm to arm. Then the doll, wound up, would begin its funny clockwork dance. The gestures and kicks would get wilder and wilder. Finally as the coils were running down, Melsemuth would garotte its dancing partner and stop.

  Only at the last moment, as the false Qaitbay was being strapped to the automaton, did he break his silence and speak to the people from the platform. ‘May God forgive you. You have made a terrible mistake. If you kill me now, my twin will follow close behind. We share one fate.’

  A plea of desperation. Melsemuth began its ungainly hopping step. The Dawadar did not stay to see the end of the execution but returned to his duties in the palace in a sombre mood. The image of the Sultan, but ravaged by leprosy and alcohol, seemed to him to signify something more than a fatal prank and foolish demonstration. Perhaps the executed man had embodied the crimes of the state. Perhaps, rather, he was a talisman who warded off the attacks of sin and disease from the person of the Sultan. ‘For everything in the universe there was a left hand and a right hand.’ Was there also another Dawadar, his genius?

  The third outrage began in the Citadel the following day, though the Dawadar did not learn of its outcome until some time later and it was a long time before he was able to make any connection between this occurrence and the other two.

  In the depths of the Citadel Giancristoforo was pursuing his disordered meditations, when the sudden blaze of reflected torchlight on the waters of his cell drew him to the grille of his door. A jailer stood on the other side.

  ‘A friend asked me to give you this. He asks that you study it carefully. I shall be leaving you some light out here.’

  The jailer disappeared.

  A friend. That could surely only be Yoll. Giancristoforo examined Yoll’s gift doubtfully, a small wooden box with a piece of paper stuck to one of its sides. He read what was written on the paper. ‘Here is your release. It is said that “On the opening of every cunt is written the name of the man who is to enter.” This is the Box of Rapture from Cathay. Open it and find your name.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘It must be done, Bulbul.’ Bulbul looked glumly at Yoll and nodded. Of all those who were attempting the entrancement of sirr that day, Bulbul was the only one who had had previous experience of the operation, and so it was Bulbul who looked pale.

  ‘We have been lucky so far, ’ Y oil continued, ‘but if we leave it as much as a day longer, they will come for him and beat him and threaten him with Melsemuth and he will talk. It is a certainty. He does not really know why he is with us and he is a coward. He would talk, and when he talks we are lost. ’ A few days ago there had been wild talk of forging passes and a warrant for his release, of using the false Qaitbay or even the tightrope that still stretched between the minaret of Sultan Hassan and the Citadel to get him out, but, in the end realism prevailed. So Bulbul nodded again but he dreaded what was to come, not so much because of what it did to the victim as because of the effects it had upon the operator. All forms of sirr were exhausting; some might be lethal. Bulbul had learnt to dread that sensation of sinking deeper and deeper, through and then away from words and images, the slow and cautious willing of oneself to relinquish, piece by piece, all grip on external reality in order to manipulate the hidden world.

  A few houses away in a street in the same quarter a woman had already begun the operation, and elsewhere in the city three lepers sat on a wall, apparently enjoying the sun, meditating.

  ‘Let us commence,’ he said.

  A boy sprawled in the corner began to pluck at a lute. Bulbul and Yoll had a drawing, a self-portrait of Giancristoforo, to work with; across it was marked the design of calligraphic worms. They sat together at the window focusing first on the face then on the design, then back to the portrait, backwards and forwards. The design and the face drew Bulbul in until his black heart and Giancristoforo’s started to beat as one.

  Giancristoforo continued to stare at the paper long after he had finished reading it. The whorls of script were intricate yet self-contained; the hand was Bulbul’s, not Yoll’s. The ink seemed very black and the paper brilliant yellow. As he stared he saw that between the black lay great chasms of yellow that yawned beneath the writing, sandstone gorges in which one stood, lost in their immensity and marvelling at the black letters that raced and danced above.

  With an effort he turned his attention from the paper to the box. He looked back briefly at the narrow alleyways formed in the spaces of Bulbul’s sworling script. Three white-faced men sat on a sunny wall and beamed at him. His hand hovered over the box. And jerked forward to open it. The worm-like after-image of the script lingered on his eyeballs for an instant, black against the yellow of the torch flame. Then he perceived the box as empty. Only he thought he could hear a scuffling sound, so soft it might have been a dream whispering in his head. Hesitantly he lifted the Chinese box to his ear. Then, from the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a long yellow grub raise itself on its tail and extend itself over the side of the box, a brief squinting image of a mouth made to suck and pierce, a blob of black and yellow, then it was gone. He put the box down to float empty on a pool in the middle of his cell.

  Bending over the floating box, he became aware of something squelching and poking in his eardrum. He stuck his finger in his ear. Whatever it was, his finger seemed to have driven it further in. His next thought was of the worm and that thought was devoured by sharp, excruciating pain. The pain spread and ate away at all his thoughts. All that he knew was offered to the worm. It was his thought that it grubbed away in the carrion of his brain-pan and rendered it charnel liquor—and that thought too was swiftly consumed. The pain was behind his left eye now. Something pierced the eyeball and sucked at it like a raw egg. Now the vision of his left eye and his right eye warred with one another. The right eye saw his hand shaking over the box in the empty cell. The left eye saw the worm in the head, saw it swimming in the liquors of the brain towards a box that floated on those waters. The box opened and a second worm which had been nestling in the box heaved itself up over the edge to joint its brother. Now the pain was in both eyes and the inside of Giancristoforo’s skull was his cell, the inside of his cell his skull. And there was another box and, when opened, another worm and, inside that box, another cell that was also a skull and another worm, and another. The surface of his thoughts became covered with worms thrusting up and down, black and yellow, like a page of Ara
b calligraphy. His last knowledge was of the edges of his brain, how it rippled and heaved under the pressure of their maggoty feast.

  The strain on the operants outside was enormous, but Bulbul was their guide. The entry had been, as always, difficult. First there was the face with its unyielding profile hovering shakily before him and he slipped unsuccessfully from side to side on the edge of the skull. Then, quite suddenly, the face filled out and acquired dimension, so that Bulbul and the others could pass in. They wriggled like worms into the chambers of Giancristoforo’s head, mastering its structure. Then, familiarized with its pattern, they set to their work. In the later and most fascinating stages the operant became aware, albeit always dimly, of something small at the centre of the brain beyond reach of thought or memory, quite beyond conscious seizing—the primal matter of consciousness perhaps. One glimpsed from a great distance an area, brilliantly lit by internal flashes of lightning, in which tiny little men flickered and ran carrying letters, emblems and numbers amid blocks of flashing rods and colours. It was beyond meaning. Bulbul yearned to linger in this territory beyond meaning, but, held by the others, he drew away.

  The fascinated guard even came into the cell and sat and watched for a while. Giancristoforo was in continuous spasm. His hands clawed at his face, trying to pull the skin from the skull. The rhythm of the fit slowly and insensibly accelerated. The guard went off for dinner. After dinner the guard reported the matter to his superior officer. The officer reported the sickness, possibly mortal, of the prisoner in the Arqana to the archivist, who was delighted. After Giancristoforo’s consignment to the Arqana the record of his whereabouts had been mislaid; over nine hundred prisoners, living or recently deceased, were stored away in the cellars of the Citadel and there was space for more. Every day the Dawadar passed on to the archivist messages from Michael Vane insisting on the urgency of locating and interrogating the Italian spy. A search had been ordered but the head jailer followed instructions at his own pace and in his good time. A happy accident, then, that the Italian’s sickness had been reported to the archivist. The following day the archivist sent a message to the Dawadar and later that day the Dawadar descended into the Arqana. By then it was, of course, too late. The torch flares revealed the prisoner to be dead, hunched and knotted in the tight bonds of rigor mortis.

  ‘Sirr.’

  Later still the Dawadar reported to the Sultan, walking in the quincunx garden, and, as he had feared, the Sultan was angry. Then, after some tranquillizing silence, they agreed that the House of Sleep should be consulted again, before the pursuit, arrest and interrogation of the Englishman, Balian, was ordered.

  9

  How to Leave Cairo

  Sad about the fool in the boat. Qaitbay’s double, I mean. Yet at least you have been given an impression of the pleasures of boating on the Ezbekiyya Lake—if you should ever come to Cairo...

  Balian dreamt he awoke from troubled dreams to find himself staring at a man who floated above him, face down, a couple of feet or so beneath the coffered ceiling. The man was white from head to toe, with hair that fanned out from his head like tongues of white-hot flame.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The man replied in a draught of wind, ‘My body is of the night.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘My body is of the night. ’ He circled round the ceiling, then spoke again. ‘Rise up and join me.’

  ‘I cannot.’ But then to his mild surprise, Balian found himself standing beside the bed.

  ‘You must try, for it is possible if you will. The air is heavier than you think and your spirit lighter.’

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Wriggle your ankles and kick your feet very rapidly.’

  Balian did so.

  ‘Now spread your arms outwards and bring them in again. And again.’

  At first Balian glided along the floor. Then he began to ascend. Slowly he pulled his way up to the ceiling.

  ‘You must not think of yourself as lower than you are,’ the whispery voice rustled in his brain.

  Balian and the white man floated towards one another. The man pointed out of the window to the city, all spires and domes.

  ‘You are awkward. You must learn to do this better. All that should be yours.’

  ‘Teach me to fly properly. Be my master.’

  ‘I belong to this place. I will not be your master—nor your servant, which is what you mean.’

  Balian, who found this all very difficult, replied, ‘Why should I fly? I don’t like it. ’ He was angry, but the man smiled.

  ‘Flying is only a figure for something else. If you cannot succeed here at this, then you will fail elsewhere at other things. You must strengthen your will, for you do not need a master. In truth, you have too many masters. It is being said that everyone is your master.’

  And with that, the man or spirit flitted out of the window and, with a couple of low swoops, disappeared through the garden. Balian fell back on to the bed into sleep and other dreams.

  Later he asked Zuleyka about it. Zuleyka said that the only thing flying could symbolize was flying.

  ‘That man always talks nonsense. He’s just a flying instructor, somewhat deranged by conceit about his own very limited skills.’ Then she said again that she wished Balian would stop asking so many questions and would concentrate on improving his performance in bed.

  He awoke as day was breaking, feeling weaker than ever. The days were becoming hotter and yellower; it was as if the two great spheres of Earth and Sun were being ground together.

  It was imperative to make an early start. It was out of the question to go to the Citadel again. Even the attempt to revisit the caravanserai and reclaim his things and The Dream of the Old Pilgrim might be dangerous. Since seeing her broken on the wheel, Balian had lost his old enthusiasm for visiting the shrine of St Catherine at Sinai; besides, it could be said that he had already paid her a visit and fulfilled his vow. So he decided to leave Cairo for Alexandria, on foot and begging. He turned north, intending to walk out to Bulaq through the gardens and orchards on the fringes of the Ezbekiyya quarter. It was still pleasant in the long shadows of early morning. What made the light of morning so different from the evening light? Shopkeepers were sprinkling water on the ground before their shops to keep the dust down. He could actually smell the sunlight on the stone and the water on the dust. Balian’s heart rose. He passed from shops into narrow, leafy paths hedged in with bamboos and bulrushes, dark and damp. He turned to look at the minaret of Sultan Hasan and the towers of the Citadel, already wavering in the haze. Everything was so quiet. A gang of labourers made way for him on the narrow path.

  To be leaving Cairo! It seemed like a dream. Perhaps he should pinch himself to prove it was real. He recalled an observation in The Dream of the Old Pilgrim to the effect that there were two things one could not do in a dream, look at the back of one’s hands and remember one’s own name. He would.

  He did not break his pace as he looked down at his hands—or so he thought. But when he opened his eyes he saw that his hands were in the dust and his face was only inches above the dust. Blood trickled from his nose on to the backs of his hands. The sun was now high in the sky and he had not yet left the Ezbekiyya. He picked himself up and grimly set off again north-east towards Bulaq. But this time the roads were hot and dusty and the crowd was on the move and the grit got in his eyes. There was pressure on his chest. His legs were heavy. He should have set off earlier instead of sleeping until midday. The sleep had done him no good. But to leave Cairo! If only he could...

  He pressed on hopefully and anticipated reaching the groves and orchards he remembered so vividly from his last dream, but his body grew heavier and his eyelids seemed to be as heavy as his legs. His eyes blurred. He sat down at the foot of a fountain and then, finding this an unreasonable effort, lay down. He would look for the strength within him to continue. He felt his body undulate in waves of heat and he imagined his pores opening and closing in fast, irregu
lar rhythms. Awareness dissolved and flowed through the blood stream and hung, shaking, to the thunder of his bones before it finally fell into the web-like complex of sensations and humours. There was no centre of strength within him. Only heavy opiate sleep. He slept.

  He awoke and picked up his steps and slept and woke and walked and slept again. It was always like that. Sometimes he thought that he found its futile repetition more comforting than the prospect of escaping Cairo. Sometimes, misled by dust devils, he took the wrong path. A couple of times his path was blocked by the Father of Cats and his disciples casting about for him among the vagabonds who filled the open places of the city. He had seen the Mamlukes too making inquiries about him, but the description they had of him as a young foreigner, elegantly dressed in the Burgundian style so ill accorded with his present state that their chances of identifying him were negligible. Indeed, he was able personally to hinder them in their inquiries.

  His attempts to leave became increasingly ridiculous and faint-hearted. The exhortations of the white man came to mind and he decided to fly out of Cairo. He stood behind a wall where he could not be observed, fanned out his arms and fingers and, standing on tiptoe, wriggled his ankles—and pitched forward on to his face. It is all a matter of the will, he told himself, but how can I will myself to have the will I have not got? He tried to visualize himself as a ragged bird hanging, the cynosure of all eyes, over the crowded bazaars, floating on the heavy air and beating his way towards the Citadel, but the vertigo this induced was so strong that he was unable, momentarily, even to rise to his feet.