by Robert Irwin
‘Of course you are not the Messiah. You are only a poor pilgrim, yet after arriving in Cairo you met Giancristoforo Doria, who was also, let us admit it, a spy like yourself who worked for us and then vanished into the Citadel. You yourself were taken into the House of Sleep, allegedly to have your illness treated. Then, at about the same time, you are seduced by Zuleyka, the bitch of Hell, you encounter Yoll on a street corner and you meet Emmanuel on the hill up to the Citadel. Now, friends or enemies, all these people are known to us.’ The friar stared at Balian, impassive. The measured tread continued. Balian wanted to break down and confess, but he had nothing to confess. ‘So? What of it? I did not seek them out. It was chance.’
‘Chance! Chance! Too many chances! Well—have you heard of the Arabian Nightmare?’
‘Yes, but I still don’t understand what it is.’
‘The story goes,’ began Yoll, ‘that, long ago in Arabia, the Nightmare was sealed in a bottle—’
But here Cornu cut him short. ‘That is a story and nothing more.’
Yoll started again. ‘It is said by others that Lazurus—’
But again Cornu cut him short. ‘I know that story too and it comes from the same source.’ He resumed his rhetorical interrogation of Balian. ‘All over the city men talk of the Arabian Nightmare and what is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Neither does Yoll, neither does anyone in this room save me, and I know because I have seen it with my own unclouded eyes come creeping out of the House of Sleep like a miasma. The Father of Cats breathes it out. He sits in that diabolic synagogue of his arranging things—meetings, mysterious miracles, repetitions, spreading his monstrous web over the city. Not long ago the men here talked about their work and their wives and tended their animals and baked their bread. They lived on the surface of their skins, where they could always feel the sun and the air. Now they forage around inside their unwashed bodies looking for hidden treasures and their talk is always of dreams and visions.
‘What is at stake between the Father of Cats and me is not a struggle between Islam and Christianity—I imagine that the Father of Cats has as much contempt for Islam as he has for our faith—but a struggle between the poisonous infections of the life turned inwards upon itself and the Truth that shall set us free. I have come to fight the Eastern Dream. Dreams are nothing marvellous. Any idiot can dream while the Father of Cats and his creatures, the Laughing Dervishes, make monkeys of us all. The regiments of the Alam al-Mithal march through the streets with the Father of Cats at their head and men do nothing, engaged in a stuporous nightmare of selfexploration which takes them through dream within dream into ever smaller circles looking for the man who is looking for the man. That mad heresiarch has arrogated to himself God’s prerogative of infinity, but, for myself, I know that Christ was crucified on a hill called Golgotha; He was not crucified within our skulls. Redemption cannot be found in dreams. Each dream and its interpretation, and every dream that dreams about its interpretation, puts us one stage further away from salvation. The Laughing Dervishes have put it about that in the Armenian Quarter there is a barber who shaves everyone in the quarter who does not shave himself and they beg everyone to go and see this prodigy. But what single useful thing can this man tell us about shaving or anything else? The Cairenes have reverted to infancy.
‘The man shaves everyone in the quarter who does not shave himself. He shaves himself then he doesn’t, then he does. Now you see him, now you don’t. Peekaboo! Then there is the little box that yellow whore Zuleyka circulates, doubtless on the instructions of her father.’
‘Her father is who?’
‘The Father of Cats.’
It was hard to say who was the more astonished, Balian, the lepers or the friar.
‘You did not know? One could even say that he has two daughters.’ Then, seeing the questions starting on Balian’s lips, Cornu motioned to Yoll. ‘Yoll, tell the story.’
Yoll gulped and bent and unbent and waved and began. ‘The story is as follows. The Father of Cats did and does indeed have a daughter, known as Zuleyka. After the death of Zuleyka’s mother, the Father of Cats became fearful for his daughter’s safety, for he knew that the schemes which he was even then hatching would attract the attention of dangerous and powerful enemies to his household. Therefore he had his daughter immured in a secret room high up in the House of Sleep and her name was thenceforth never spoken in public. Only he and a trusted mute servant ever saw her. So secret was her existence that Michael Vane spent many months in the house before he even suspected it. She was rarely visited by her father or the servant, and as she was a lonely girl and also her father’s daughter, she devised a strange and ultimately dangerous way of entertaining herself.
‘She created an eidolon, a thought-form in her own image, a little girl. She called the eidolon Fatima and Fatima became her playmate and the confidante of her solitude. Many children have invisible playmates, but Zuleyka was no ordinary child and, as she concentrated daily, Fatima gained in shape and tangibility until she was there in the room whether Zuleyka wanted to play with her or not. Even the Father of Cats and his servant could see her, and Fatima developed a personality of her own. While Zuleyka was impetuous and frivolous, Fatima was moody and stubbornly silent. Often the eidolon refused to play with Zuleyka and just sat there brooding and watching her speculatively. Now that she found herself sharing a room with a playmate who would not or could not communicate with her, Zuleyka’s loneliness was redoubled, and she began to take refuge within herself in a fanciful inner life fuelled by solitude and repressed passion. Any man but her father would have known that she was going slowly mad.
‘So things remained until Michael Vane arrived. Even after he had realized the existence of a secret room and located it within the house, he was still unable to discover the correct way in. It was therefore down a wind tower that he made his descent into the room, to astonish and delight the two girls. Once he had made their acquaintance, Vane became a regular and secret visitor; they played games together, flirted with one another, talked endlessly. Zuleyka, who had despaired of meeting any men other than her father and his mute, began to look on that ruffian Vane with amorous eyes.
‘Alas! Vane had eyes only for her quieter and more withdrawn “sister” and, as Zuleyka recognized this, the growth of madness within her accelerated. She longed to find other men to comfort her and she begged Vane to find them a way out of the room. Fatima, who had been born in the room and could not even imagine what it was like outside, did likewise. Eventually Vane, who dreamt of surreptitious excursions with the two girls, or young ladies as they were fast becoming, taught them one evening how to climb the wind tower. The following night, without telling him, they were gone. Zuleyka fell into bad company and wandered around the town with marabouts and masturbated them for the blessings of their seed. Fatima was not seen again—until recently.’
‘And what of the Father of Cats?’
‘The Father of Cats will have nothing to do with Zuleyka or her eidolon. Vane’s role in their escape he has apparently not suspected. It was disingenuous of Zuleyka not to tell you any of this, but now you know the story,’ Yoll concluded. ‘But we would like to hear what has been happening to you recently.’
Balian told them, concealing nothing. The tale he told, of his allurement in the market place and the lady who led him on to the garden where he met another lady and her talking ape and where he then received a beating, attracted Yoll’s interest particularly.
‘I learnt of a series of incidents curiously similar to the ones you have described,’ he said. ‘It happened some months ago. Walking along the banks of the Nile, I was drawn by shouts and laughter into a coffee house...’
15
An Interlude—the Tale
of the Talking Ape
I sense that we are fatigued and a little lost. We must pause and rest and, while we rest, I shall tell a story to divert you, a short story for diversion and no other purpose. But first
I must observe that what we really need in order to get our bearings is a clear distinction between dreaming and wakefulness and between one level of dreaming and another. If guidance was to be had on this, all would be clear and the tale would achieve an easy solution. As it happens, if there is one person in the city who can do the job, it is Dirty Yoll. An interlude first, then when the interlude is concluded I shall, with all due humility, present Dirty Yoll’s Great Touchstone, which distinguishes not only dream from reality but also sleep from death. (No, it’s not pinching yourself. You can as easily dream of pinching yourself and feeling pain from it as of anything else. And if you were dead, you would not even be able to think of pinching yourself.) An interlude first then, while I collect my thoughts on the subject. More ear wax! Urghh! But first, before beginning the interlude, a word about my name, Dirty Yoll. The dirt’s not really mine but the Ape’s. The Ape does not often appear when others are present, but he has been with me a long time and amuses me in my melancholy. It is the Ape who keeps me dirty. He has never been properly trained and he spits morsels of food which he finds indigestible on to my hair and shoulders. So dirty I may be, but I guard the Great Touchstone. Now, on with the interlude...
‘The hall was huge and yet it was packed with men all looking I will tell you a story concerning one of my ancestors. In days gone by, in the city of Bagdad in the reign of the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid, there lived a poor man called Mansour who made a living of sorts from portering, but he longed to be other than he was. Then one day in the market place he saw a young lady beckon to him. Greatly curious, he followed her and she took him to a part of Bagdad where he had never been before and into a garden where another lady awaited him. Seated beside her was an ape on a chain.
As Mansour approached, the ape greeted him civilly in the human tongue and Mansour was amazed at this. The lady mocked his astonishment and told him to watch while the ape fondled and caressed her. Mansour disliked this very much but fear held him back and he sat and watched while the ape and the lady had intercourse. Then the lady told Mansour, the poor porter, to do the same as or better than the ape and, seeing that he hesitated, added, ‘If you do not, I shall give instructions to my servants to have you killed.’ up at the ceiling. There in the rafters sat an ape with a brass chain around its neck. It shitted on its audience and then picked its teeth carefully before beginning...’
‘Mistress,’ said the porter, ‘that is all very well, but first I must tell you something,’ and, having said this, he went up to her and whispered for a long time in her ear. When he had finished, the lady looked very troubled and, motioning to her servants to attend upon Mansour and serve him food and drink, she disappeared into the house, saying that she would return shortly. As soon as she was gone the ape approached and asked Mansour what it was he had whispered in her ear.
‘I will tell you, ’ said Mansour, ‘if you will tell me your story first.’
The ape nodded and began. ‘I was once a prince, handsome, clever and amorous. Now, for many months I had been having an affair with a lady of the Barmakee house. For a long time I visited her secretly and I frequently begged her to become my wife, but she became melancholy and always refused me. She was beautiful and clever, but at length the lady and my unsuccessful pursuit of her began to weary me. So, politely, I told the lady this and told her that I should return no more to our place of assignation in the Garden of the Barmakees. At first the lady was very sad and begged me to change my mind. I suggested that she find other lovers, but she said that she had never known, nor ever would know, a lover as skilled as I. Then, seeing that I was obdurate, she became wrathful and threatened to make my form fit my spirit and to turn me into an ape. I laughed and turned away, but I did not know that the lady was in truth skilled in the art of sorcery and, as soon as my back was turned, she cast the net of her magic art upon me and turned me into an ape, albeit one with human speech and intelligence.
‘She made me her pet and required me to make love to her in that same garden where we had dallied when I was a prince. More than this, the cruel lady devised a curious contest, the manner of which I shall now tell you. Every afternoon she would send her maid into the streets of Bagdad to lure sturdy young men into the garden. There they would be challenged to match their amorous prowess with that of myself, who crouched and gibbered on a chain to egg them on. The young men were usually too astounded to do anything. If they refused the challenge, they were beaten unconscious and cast out of the garden. If, lured on by the great beauty of the lady, they accepted the challenge and failed (as they all did, for I who was once a prince and now an ape was indeed a skilled lover, having few other amusements with which to pass the time), then they were killed and their bodies cast into the Euphrates. So things have been and so they are still, but you are the first man whom she has not had beaten up instantly upon refusal to perform. What was it you whispered in the ear of the lady? Tell me your secret and tell me also how I may regain my original form.’
‘I will tell you all,’ replied the porter, ‘but first I must tell you—’
‘Here, I am afraid, I interrupted,’ said Yoll, ‘for while the rest of the audience listened agawp and thunderstruck into silence, I could restrain my fears and curiosity no longer. After all, my reputation as the best storyteller in all Cairo and perhaps even my livelihood were being put in peril by this ingenious talking monkey.
‘So I shouted up at the rafters, “Rather than proceed any further with this story of yours, tell us instead who you are.” There were murmurs from many in the crowd, who did not wish the story to be interrupted, but I persisted. “Are you not perhaps one of the djinn? An imp of Satan sent to tempt us? Or a product perhaps of powerful sorcery? Explain yourself.”
‘Now there were some shouts of agreement; many in the crowd clearly shared the feeling that there was something ungodly going on here, and there was very nearly a fight in the audience between those who wanted to take the ape for questioning to the Chief Qadi and those who wanted to hear this apparently miraculous monkey continue the story. But then an old man in a dirty white turban, who had been standing in the corner of the room, intervened.
‘“Sirs,” he said,“there is no sorcery here but only skill, and the skill is mine and not the ape’s; though together we have perhaps been guilty of deceiving you, yet we wished only to entertain. This monkey is my creature and there is nothing supernatural about him. I, not he, am the one who has been telling the story. I am a practitioner of one of the secret, though natural, crafts of the ancient Chaldees; that is to say, I am a ventriloquist, the last ventriloquist left in all Egypt. The ape’s lips moved, true, but when he seemed to speak, it was in reality only my voice projected up to the roof.”
‘The secret of true ventriloquism, he hastened to add, for he was obviously afraid of being accused by some in the coffee house of being a sorcerer, lay in manipulating the muscles of the stomach. If one’s stomach muscles were strong and fully under the control of the head, then by slowly expelling the air from one’s stomach one could send one’s voice this way and that, wherever one pleased.
‘At the end of this explanation the man shrugged and smiled, but in fact nobody in the room, least of all myself, was convinced by the disreputable-looking old man’s explanation. The ape had clearly been seen and heard to speak. Some of the audience were indeed objecting, when suddenly it was noticed that the ape was no longer sitting up on the roof. It had vanished. At this, the man in the turban was apparently greatly upset and, saying that he was going to pursue and recover his ape, he ran out of the hall into the streets and also disappeared from view.
‘There was uproar in the hall. Then people standing around me turned on me and said that, since I was responsible for interrupting the ape’s story, I must continue and finish it in a suitable fashion, and they added encouragingly that they would beat me up if I did not. They said that they wanted to know what the porter had whispered in the ear of the lady. So I picked up the story where the ape had left off...
‘Well,’ said Mansour the porter, ‘It’s like this, you see. I was prepared for just such an encounter as this, so when I had an opportunity, I whispered in her ear, “If die I must, then I must die, but first, lady, answer me this:
I ask thee for the seven already named.
They err not, cannot be forgotten, are both old and new.
Whoever walks in them walks in both life and death.
I think that you will not kill me till you have answered me that.”
‘And indeed,’ said the porter, ‘she did not know the answer.’
‘And neither do I,’ said the ape who was also a prince, scratching his head. ‘Tell me the answer. Your secret is safe with me. And tell me too why the lady must have the answer before she can harm you.’
But just then the lady returned. Saluting the porter humbly, she promised that he should have his answer within the year, asked him to be patient and, after ascertaining where he could be found, had him escorted out of the garden.
Three years passed and the porter was hurrying down a street to the Friday prayer when a man tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Hey there, Mansour, you don’t recognize me, do you? I was the ape in the garden of the murderous lady, but I am restored to my natural form and I am a prince again.’
The porter was astonished. ‘How can this be?’
‘I will tell you,’ said the prince. ‘But first you must tell me how it was that you asked the lady that riddle, and you must tell me also if she ever returned to you with the answer.’