The Arabian Nightmare

by Robert Irwin

  Qaitbay did not close his eyes immediately and for a while the stars swung crazily above him, before drug-laden clouds blotted them from sight and the Father of Cats knelt beside him, whispering in his ear.

  Towards morning, a little before the fajr prayer, the Father came down to the courtyard and, checking that the Sultan’s companions were not looking, gave him a kick in the ribs. Then he recited to the still very groggy Sultan the old Arab proverb, ‘He that sleeps one-third of the night has done as well as he that sleeps half the night, and he that sleeps all night will awaken an idiot.’

  Pulling their woollen robes around them and shivering, the Sultan and his companions went out into the grey and misty streets of Cairo. Again they did not leave unobserved.

  Later that day, while he was engaged in a difficult and ultimately unsuccessful dissection of a cat’s brain, the Father paused wearily and wiped his instruments clean. He looked at the bloody cat. ‘Each man kills the thing he loves.’ Then he stared at Vane mockingly.

  Vane wondered who was supposed to be loving and killing whom, but he scowled and said nothing.

  The Father however was not to be deflected. ‘Have you ever killed anyone, Vane?’

  Vane, panicked into a patent lie, shook his head vigorously. The Father’s eyebrows shot up and he smiled slowly. ‘You should! Kill a man, Vane. It is good to kill a man. He who has killed a man sleeps easily.’

  Vane replied woodenly that he had always understood that murderers, having a bad conscience, slept very badly indeed. The Father denied that there was any truth in that fable of the market place and maintained that there were five things that a man had to do before he was fully a man: smoke opium, sleep with someone else’s wife, learn a craft, go on pilgrimage to Mecca—and kill a man.

  When the Father left the house that evening Vane, inspired by a sense of fun or by murderous impulses—it was not clear to him which—followed. The Father was walking slowly and apparently thinking deeply. Vane tiptoed behind him, bringing his knife out of his belt as he did so. And so they proceeded through street after street, an old man on his way to an unknown destination in the western part of the city, with Vane’s knife constantly hovering an inch or two from his backbone. Vane had resolved that if the Father turned, he would thrust the knife in. Indeed, he would have no alternative. Then suddenly they were in the crowded open space in front of the Zuweyla Gate. The Father walked on into the crowds and Vane perforce slipped the knife back into his belt.

  Then he doubled back towards the Ezbekiyya quarter, intending to spend the evening, as he had spent several previous evenings, in the almost certainly futile quest for the kiosk where Balian had said that he found Zuleyka, but some way short of the Ezbekiyya, to his delighted surprise, he saw or thought he saw the yellow robes and familiar form of Zuleyka.

  ‘Zuleyka?’

  But the smell of decay told him the answer before she spoke, revealing her face as she did so. ‘No. A prostitute and a pearl are alike; both will deceive you in the dark. Will you walk with me?’

  Vane matched his pace to Fatima’s teetering steps. ‘Let me touch you.’

  ‘No. I am falling apart.’

  ‘It is leprosy?’

  ‘No. Would that it were...’

  ‘I thought you had left Cairo. I went abroad in search of you.’

  ‘No. I can never leave Cairo.’

  ‘What do you do here? Consort with your sister?’

  ‘No. We separated after our escape.’

  ‘But Cornu and his brethren look after you. They are your friends?’

  ‘No. I thought so at first but we are only temporary allies. I make my killings and they shelter me when I am pursued.’

  ‘You kill at random?’

  ‘No. I am surprised at you, Michael. I should have thought that you or your master would have made the connection by now. Emirs or beggars, openly or in secret, they were all my father’s customers.’

  ‘Grandfather, you mean.’

  ‘No. His ideas and her body were my parents.’

  ‘You were not always like this, so oracular.’

  ‘No. Things are changing. My sister’s mind continues to deteriorate and my body with it.’

  ‘So will you kill the Father of Cats?’

  ‘No. He is too strong for me. I dare not approach him. You must do it for me. If you ever loved me, kill him. Kill him and take over the House of Sleep. Kill him before worse befalls you all. If you ever loved me, do it. Ease the old man into his grave.’

  It was on the tip of Vane’s tongue to say that he still loved her, but he thought of those reports of murders done nightly in Cairo and the revolting details that were circulated about them. The shy girl he had once known had been replaced by an implacable ghoul. They walked on in silence for a while. Vane thought about his walk behind the Father earlier that evening. He had no fondness for his teacher and he did not deceive himself into thinking that his teacher had any fondness for him, but the thought of killing the Father revolted him. He was so lean and stringy, the skin all dry and leathery and the sharp bits of the bones almost poking through. He would have preferred to kill him in the dark while the old man slept, but he never seemed to sleep. Vane visualized him extended on the floor, eyes open and unwinking, glaring at the ceiling.

  They were approaching the teeming thoroughfare of Bayn al-Qasreyn. She turned and raised her hand apparently in farewell. Vane was desperate. ‘Come with me. I’ll find you a place where we can stay.’

  ‘No. I told you, I’m falling apart. I’m losing strength and colour rapidly.’

  ‘Shall we meet again?’

  ‘No. Look for my sister. You should have loved her. She lusts after you and says yes to all men.’

  ‘Will I find your sister here?’

  ‘No, not any more, but you will often find her in the City of the Dead towards the end of the day. ’ And with that the murderess raised her hand again and slipped into the crowd.

  Vane went back to the House of Sleep and that night set himself to dream again that he was once more in the hidden room. Zuleyka turned to him and asked if her invisible playmate might appear. He nodded and she turned to the wall, singing as she concentrated. Slowly some of the cracks detached themselves from the wall and hovered in the air like tendrils of smoke. Then slowly too these tendrils of smoke assumed form and filled with colour and Fatima, pale and shaking, stood before them, moulding herself and coagulating in the air. They tested her with riddles. Zuleyka teased the spirit and amused herself, but Vane, fascinated by Fatima’s impassive round face and unfaltering answers, was drawn on by deeper feelings. Zuleyka ran her hands over him incessantly, feverishly, but he sat there not noticing, staring and staring at her imaginary playmate.

  He dreamt also of the somnambulist at the Zuweyla Gate. Knife in hand, the somnambulist emerged from his cage. The street was unsteady under the huge negro’s feet, and light and shadow swept through the enclosed space in irregular diagonals. Once the somnambulist’s face turned and the torchlight showed the distended whites of his eyes and a tracery of silver sweat.

  12

  An Impression of a City Garden

  Why, I ask myself, do I dislike Balian so much? Now that’s odd! I might have expected to find ear wax in my fingernails but why earth? I start again. Why, I ask myself, do I dislike Balian so much? He is perfect material for my story, malleable and dreamy. I suppose that his virtues as material for a story must be considered as vices in a person. I judge him to be spineless and passive. He just lies there waiting to be entertained or, alternatively, unpleasantly surprised. I therefore have great pleasure in relating what happened to him next. Lie back on your couches, relax and listen! Hear what happened to him next...

  Balian was in the Bayn al-Qasreyn, scavenging in the market for rotten fruit and vegetables—with little success, for the Arab boys were there too and they were more practised than he, diving on the decayed morsels like birds of prey. Then Balian became aware that someone, a woman, was looking
at him and trying indeed to catch his eyes in hers. He raised his head to find a young woman, only lightly veiled, caressingly eyeing him over. The eyelids fluttered; she turned away and, with a barely perceptible movement of her hand, she motioned him to follow.

  Soon they left the broad highway of the Bayn al-Qasreyn and moved up through stepped and cobbled alleyways that became progressively narrower and darker. In this part of Cairo it was as if one walked in perpetual night. Only the occasional ruin allowed light and space. The woman hurried on, never looking back, until at length they found themselves in a small courtyard. She knocked at a door set deep in the wall and cried out to those behind it. A Nubian of enormous proportions opened the door and she, stepping in, turned to beckon him to do likewise. Balian followed her into a garden. A beautifully tended walk between cypresses stretched before him, at the end of which was a summer house. Seated on the steps of the summer house sat a young lady, a girl almost, unveiled but heavily swathed in silks and embroidered brocades. A golden eye hung over her forehead and her hands were covered with jewelled rings. One hand supported her pensive head, while with the other she dangled a peacock feather fan.

  She did not stir as Balian entered the garden but stared moodily into the distance. Although Balian’s guide had disappeared, they were not alone in the garden, for an old man in a dirty white turban sat sunning himself in front of the summer house and the porter stood close behind Balian. He started towards the lady, but after some paces the porter’s hand fell on his shoulder.

  ‘Watch and listen,’ said the Nubian.

  An ape appeared from the shadows of the summer house. It wore a golden collar and chain and it stood erect and scratched itself. It bowed to the lady and then turned to Balian, displaying perfect rows of teeth. ‘You are a Frank?’ it said.

  Balian’s jaw hung loose with astonishment, and the lady tittered.

  ‘Watch this,’ said the ape and, turning to the lady, he began to address her or to recite rather, for Balian, listening carefully, determined that the ape was reciting poetry in Persian. It sounded very sonorous and grand. Then the ape approached the lady and stroked her hand with his paw, and, putting an arm around her shoulder, he whispered what were presumably endearments to the lady. She appeared amused at first, then bored and finally she offhanded him. Rolling his eyes at Balian, the ape said, ‘Approach. My mistress wishes to know who makes a better lover, an ape or a Frank. Let us see if you can do as well as I.’

  Balian felt the Nubian’s grip on his shoulder relax and he advanced. He was dizzy with hunger and astonishment. The lady shifted her position. She looked at him encouragingly, but he found it difficult to speak. He had the sensation that he had done this before, had stood in this same garden and found difficulty in speaking to this same lady. Not necessarily very long before. Perhaps only a few seconds ago? Or was it not rather that one day in the distant future he would find himself in the same situation again? Or it might be that he had expected something exactly like this to happen. It was impossible to tell. The feeling was both vague and powerful.

  ‘Lady,’ he began at last. ‘I am honoured to be your guest and gladly would I talk with you and perform whatsoever you wish, but first I beg you to give me something to eat and drink, for I have not eaten for many days and I am faint from hunger.’

  Now the old man in the turban sat upright and spoke. ‘The lady wishes you to seduce her with fine words and gestures. She offers herself to you, if you will but persuade her, and she is easy to be persuaded. Hurry up. She only offers herself once.’

  Yet Balian had the sensation that she would offer herself again—or was it that she had already done so? He wished to argue. ‘Gladly...’

  ‘Surely you can do better than an ape?’

  ‘Lady, I do not know what you want of me, but for the love of God give me food.’

  ‘He is no good,’ said the ape, sitting beside her, and he began to gibber triumphantly.

  Balian tried to rush at them, but he saw from the corner of his eye the porter moving. He turned and the porter’s fist smote him between the eyes.

  When he came to he was not in the beautiful garden, but dumped beside a fountain on a public way in another part of Cairo altogether. His head ached abominably and he was still hungry. Shall I ever find that door and see that lady again? he asked himself He fell to pondering the performance of the amazing ape. What did it mean? He had read that the philosopher, the blessed Niko of Cologne, maintained that apes and men were closely related. In his De senectute naturae Niko argued that apes were descended from men, that apes were the barbarous and degenerate offspring of men, just as men were the barbarous and degenerate descendants of the perfect Adam in the Garden. Some vestigial ability to speak, Niko claimed, had been reported by travellers who had observed certain tribes of apes in the heart of Africa...

  This chain of thought was interrupted by a funeral procession. A band of mashaliyat—scavengers and washers of the dead—were coming down the road towards him. Their shoulders supported a plank. A cotton-shrouded corpse was precariously balanced on the plank. Hoping to beg a crust of bread from them, Balian rose dizzily to his feet. Since he blocked their way, they stopped and set down their load.

  ‘It is an act of charity we perform.’ Their leader jerked his thumb behind him as he addressed Balian. ‘We bury those we find dumped outside the Citadel, the scourings from the Arqana—still there are pickings to be had. ’ And, so saying, he reached into the voluminous folds of one of his sleeves and produced a small box of intricate oriental construction. ‘Two dinars to you. A nice piece of work. I can see you have an eye for it.’

  ‘Do I look like the owner of two dinars?’

  Their leader shrugged. ‘In this city few people are as they appear.’

  ‘A crust of bread, I beg you, or is your charity only for the dead?’

  They all shook their heads. ‘We have no food to give. Yet follow us. We are going to the City of the Dead. You will surely find food aplenty there.’

  Somewhat mystified, Balian followed them. By the time they reached the City of the Dead it was late afternoon and the sun of late afternoon warmed Balian’s bones while the rising breeze cooled his skin. The view into the City of the Dead was extraordinary. Scores of families and couples picnicked among the mausolea. The mashaliyat, with Balian following, threaded their way between the jolly families and the tombs. They were trying to sell the box and he was begging for food, both without success. Suddenly they heard a voice, above their heads and to the left. They were being called back. Something yellow was indistinctly glimpsed in the shadow of a marble pavilion. Only when he too moved into shadow was Balian able to recognize that it was Zuleyka sitting crosslegged on the stone platform of the pavilion.

  ‘To me! To me, scavengers! To me, you night-soil men!’ The mashaliyat hastily dropped their load, letting the corpse roll off the plank into the sand, and they hurried over to her. Balian had thought that she was wanting the mashaliyat to bring him to her, but as he staggered on behind them he became aware that she had eyes only for the box.

  ‘The box! My Chinese box! It’s come back to me!’

  There was a conference at the edge of the platform. She shook coins from her yellow robes into the outstretched palms of the mashaliyat and the box was passed up to her. They then returned to their corpse and, hoisting it up once more, proceeded to the burying ground.

  At last Zuleyka turned to Balian. ‘This is my box, you know. It was stolen from me.’

  Balian looked up at it. ‘Is there something to eat in the box?’ he asked hopelessly.

  ‘Something to eat in the box?’ She echoed him cryptically, then reached down her arm to him. ‘You too have come back to me. You haunt me like a ghost.’

  ‘A hungry ghost.’

  Then he found himself sitting with her on the platform. Zuleyka had a basket of sugared zellabies with her. She called to one of the keepers of the tombs and paid him to bring them some coffee. Balian reached over for the zellabies,
but her hand caught his wrist. ‘No. You shall not eat until you tell me all that has been happening to you.’

  He protested, but he was forced to tell her, though he related the adventure as briefly as possible. Only then was his hand free to lunge towards the food.

  ‘I don’t know. Sex with apes is very fashionable in certain circles.’

  He paused in his chewing to protest, ‘But the ape talked!’

  ‘True... perhaps it was an enchantment.’

  ‘So the ape really was a man and the lady a sorceress?’

  ‘Perhaps. It is more likely that the ape was a sorcerer and the lady his mate disguised in human form. Knowledge of magic is not unknown among the animals.’

  ‘So I almost made love to an ape!’ Balian shuddered.

  ‘Who but an ape would desire you in your present ragged state? But as usual you lost your opportunity by asking for too much.’

  It grew cold. The picnickers were beginning to leave the City of the Dead and the beggars and the birds moved in behind them, foraging for their crumbs. Gorged on the last of the sweetmeats, Balian let himself fall back and closed his eyes.

  ‘You believe the whole adventure was a dream, don’t you?’ Even as he asked he was drifting, but he thought that he heard her reply.

  ‘Of course. That was the Ape.’

  ‘What is the Ape?’

  This time he heard no reply. It was necessary to find sleep, even if only in nightmare.

  He was roused briefly by shouting. Zuleyka was gone. Instead the pavilion was surrounded by Venetians and others from the caravanserai. Balian’s nose started to spurt blood once more, and he closed his eyes again so that he might not see it. Drowsily he heard the Italians arguing over him. They had come to the City of the Dead that afternoon after hearing rumours that one of their number, having mysteriously vanished, was dead and was being buried here. Some wanted to go on looking for him. Others, though, thought that Balian looked close to death and wished to carry him back to the safety of the caravanserai. Balian was only vaguely interested. The wrangle continued for a while. Then he felt strong arms lift him.