A Poet of the Invisible World

by Michael Golding

As he moved toward the village, he tried his best to shake the thoughts from his mind.

  Feel the sun on your arms.

  Smell the grass.

  See the faces of the people who pass by.

  But no matter how hard he tried to root himself in the here and now, he could not stop thinking about Ryka. The hollow of his throat. His hands. His eyes. He’d been scrupulous about keeping him out of his verse—in the time since he’d arrived, he’d not written a single line to praise him—yet he knew, in his heart, that the youth was in each word he wrote. It was clear that Nouri loved him. And the Sufi’s labor is to love. But what troubled Nouri was that he wanted to touch him, hold him, be with him as he’d been with the men in the dark alleys behind the wharves. And this made him feel that he was not ready to be the next murshid of the order.

  He did not even realize he’d passed the house where he was meant to fetch the cubeb until he was wrenched from the struggle inside his head by the harsh braying of a donkey, and looked up to find that he was well past the schoolyard and only a short distance from the mosque. At first he thought that his conscience was taunting him about the illicit nature of his thoughts. But when the braying subsided, he heard the gurgling of the fountain, the shouting of the children, the rumbling of the carts rolling by.

  It wasn’t his imagination.

  Without a warning—without a reason—his hearing had come back.

  He ran the entire way back to the lodge: across the village, up the mountain, through the front gate. And what delighted him most was neither the cackling of the geese nor the crying of the fruit sellers nor the booming of the call to prayer—but the sweet, sweet thought that he would finally hear Ryka’s voice.

  * * *

  REGARDLESS OF THE SOAPS and powders employed—the scalding water—the stinging lye—it’s never easy to cleanse a vessel of contagion. A trace can always linger in a crevice or burrow inside a hairline crack. Then, in a flash, it can spread back over the entire surface. It was therefore only a matter of hours after Sheikh al-Khammas announced that Nouri would be his khalifa that Sharoud’s inner world was completely befouled. For though he’d spent more than three decades trying to cauterize the blackness in his soul, a particle of mean-spiritedness had always remained, and it took only a moment for it to course through his entire system. Nouri Ahmad Mohammad ibn-Mahsoud al-Morad had been a thorn in his side for too long. The only way to save the order—and himself—was to destroy him.

  The obvious thing would have been to reveal the four ears that lay hidden beneath his head cloth. But that was what had led to Sharoud’s expulsion from the order in Tan-Arzhan, and he was not going to make the same mistake twice. Sheikh Bailiri had been convinced that Nouri’s ears were a sign of his spiritual grace. So Sharoud decided that if he was going to taint him in the eyes of Sheikh al-Khammas, he’d have to focus on something that bound Nouri to the earth. And there was no better subject than the closeness between him and Ryka.

  In the years between his departure from Tan-Arzhan and his arrival at the mountain lodge, Sharoud had observed numerous intimacies between men. Some were affairs of the mind, involving debates over Qur’anic exegeses and jurisprudence, while others were deep friendships born of shared practice over long periods of time. Every so often, however, he witnessed a connection that seemed to go too far. A pair of brothers at the order in Shariwaz. A clerk and a stable boy at the court in Cairo. Nothing was ever said, of course, and the contact was always subtle. A hand that rested too long on the curve of a back. A furtive glance. But in each case it was clear to Sharoud that something illicit was going on.

  He had no proof that anything unchaste had occurred between Nouri and Ryka. The relationship between teacher and pupil was by necessity close, and they were both devoted to the path. But there was no doubt in Sharoud’s mind that they felt a physical longing for one another. At times, he could feel the heat rising from them. He could almost smell it in the air. And he felt sure that, sooner or later, they would cross the line. And since he knew that that would be an affront to the All-Seeing Allah, he felt obliged to reveal the nature of their connection to Sheikh al-Khammas.

  It was on the morning that Nouri’s hearing returned that Sharoud paid a visit to the Sufi master. He’d not been to see him since the day that he’d chosen Nouri to be his khalifa, and when he rapped on his door and Sheikh al-Khammas called out to him, Sharoud could tell that he was even weaker than before.

  “Come in!” cried the disembodied voice.

  Sharoud pushed the door open and when he stepped inside he could feel death in the air. He wanted to flee the room, but he knew there was not much time to convince Sheikh al-Khammas that Nouri was unworthy to take his place when Sheikh al-Khammas passed over to the other side. With the curtains drawn, he could barely make out the tiny figure that lay swaddled in blankets on the bed. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, however, he saw the stool perched beside him. So he went to it, and sat, and waited for the Sufi master to speak.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” murmured Sheikh al-Khammas. “We devote our entire lives to this journey. Yet most people don’t even know it exists.” He was silent a moment. Then he turned his head and peered at Sharoud through the darkness. “What a privilege it is to see what lies behind the veil.”

  Sharoud nodded. “A blessing that only Allah can bestow.”

  Sharoud waited for Sheikh al-Khammas to go on. But the Sufi master remained silent.

  “If it’s not a good moment,” he said, “I can come back later.”

  Sheikh al-Khammas smiled. “I’m afraid there is no later!”

  Sharoud ran his tongue over his lips and took a breath. He knew what he wished to say, but he also knew that he needed to be careful how he said it.

  “The work of a Sufi,” he began, “is to know God.”

  Sheikh al-Khammas nodded.

  “And to do so,” continued Sharoud, “he must cleanse his heart.” He paused for a moment. “And banish the dark thoughts from his mind.”

  Sheikh al-Khammas focused his gaze on the slender dervish. “Be plain. I have no time for riddles.”

  “Impure thoughts, if left unguarded, will lead to impure actions.” Sharoud paused again. Then he leaned in closer and whispered, “Nouri and Ryka.”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re always together.” Sharoud drew his body up tall on the stool. “I fear that it goes beyond what is proper.”

  Sheikh al-Khammas shook his head. “A closeness between brothers is an alms.”

  “But what if that closeness becomes tainted?”

  “By what?”

  Sharoud hesitated. “Longing,” he said. He peered into the Sufi master’s eyes. “Lust.” He waited, but Sheikh al-Khammas said nothing. “I needn’t quote the scriptures to you: ‘If two men commit a lascivious act, one must punish them!’”

  Sheikh al-Khammas turned his gaze back to the empty room.

  “Where you see darkness, Sharoud, I see light. Where you see impurity, I see only love.”

  Sharoud wanted to argue that the love between Nouri and Ryka was profane. But he knew that if he said any more he would only anger Sheikh al-Khammas. “Forgive me,” he said. “I simply thought I should share my concerns.”

  “You must be vigilant,” said Sheikh al-Khammas. “The enemy tricks us to our very last breath.”

  Sharoud said no more. But the seed had been planted. And he felt sure that Sheikh al-Khammas would soon see that what he had told him was true.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME HE REACHED the gates of the mountain lodge, Nouri was drunk with sound. From the snapping of a twig beneath his feet to the lowing of a cow, each noise was like a forgotten song to his reanimated ears. He was so pleased he was barely aware of the fact that his hearing had seemed to lose its hypersensitive edge, that his ears, though still doubled in number, were no longer doubled in sound. He only knew that when he saw Abbas al-Kumar standing in the doorway, he could not refrain from shouting: “Say
something!”

  Abbas al-Kumar placed his hands on his ample hips. “Where’s my cubeb?” he shouted back.

  Nouri, who suddenly remembered why he’d gone into the village in the first place, laughed. “I completely forgot!” he cried. “But my hearing has come back! Just like that!”

  Abbas al-Kumar was not convinced that this was an excuse for having forgotten the cubeb. But he was happy to hear it, just as Omar al-Hamid was when Nouri passed him in the hallway and told him the news.

  “The ways of Allah,” said the astonished dervish, “are truly unfathomable!”

  Nouri agreed, but he was too excited to stand with Omar al-Hamid and discuss God. So he clapped him on the shoulders and hurried off to find Ryka. After searching for him in the garden and the kitchen and the meeting hall, he finally found him sitting on the terrace.

  “Say something!” he shouted, as the youth looked up.

  Ryka, who thought it was a test of some sort, cleared his throat. “We return through the words of the Prophet to God. Who is beyond all words.”

  Nouri felt a rush of sweetness at the sound of his voice.

  “What is it?” said Ryka.

  “I can hear you! By the grace of Allah, my hearing has come back!”

  When Ryka heard the news, he rose from the bench and embraced his friend. When they found themselves in each other’s arms, however, they both felt a charge pass through them.

  “How did it happen?” said Ryka, as he withdrew from the embrace.

  “I’m not sure,” said Nouri. “A donkey brayed, and the silence was shattered.”

  They stood there a few moments longer, but the tension was too great.

  “I must tell Sheikh al-Khammas,” said Nouri.

  Ryka nodded. Then Nouri hurried off to the Sufi master’s cell.

  It was only a few hours after Sharoud had paid him a visit that Nouri entered Sheikh al-Khammas’s room. He was lying perfectly still in the darkness and when he saw Nouri, his joy bubbled up.

  “My child!” he cried.

  Nouri, who had not heard his teacher’s voice in nearly a year, was moved by the fractured sounds that floated up. He went to the stool—which was still traced with a faint emanation of Sharoud—and sat down. Then Sheikh al-Khammas drew his hands from beneath the covers and held them out.

  “Light a taper,” he said. “I know it’s hard for you to read my lips in the darkness.”

  Nouri grasped the old man’s bony hands and shook his head. “I can hear,” he said. “Every word. Every sound. It’s come back as unexpectedly as it went.”

  Sheikh al-Khammas smiled. “It was a labor,” he said. “A trial.”

  “I feel as if I’ve been inside a cave. Or under the sea.”

  “Now you know silence. That will help you when the time comes for you to lead the order.”

  Nouri released the Sufi master’s hands. “I don’t think I’m ready,” he said. “There are many veils that still shield my sight.”

  Sheikh al-Khammas could not help but think of what Sharoud had just told him. And had the suspicions come to him a year or even a month before, he would have warned Nouri to guard against the hungers of the flesh. But now, as he stood at the doorway to the other side, such words seemed foolish. What else could the flesh possibly do but hunger? Perhaps rather than lose oneself in such yearnings, one might find oneself. “You must not forget that Allah creates the veils as well as the sight. We see through them by confronting them. Not by turning away.”

  Nouri tried to imagine what would happen if he confronted his desire for Ryka. Would the veil fall away? Or would he find himself twisted up in its folds?

  He thanked Sheikh al-Khammas for his advice and took his leave. But for the rest of the day he could not stop thinking of what the Sufi master had said. He walked in the mountains. He sat at the desk in his cell and read the Qur’an. But no matter what he did, he could not wrest Ryka from his mind.

  The evening meal brought a host of forgotten sounds to Nouri’s ears. The crackling of the fire in the hearth, the burbling of the water as it was poured into the cups, the smacking of the brothers’ lips as they ate their food. Throughout the meal, however, Nouri’s awareness remained focused on Ryka. They tried to avoid each other’s gaze, but this only increased the intensity between them. So when the meal was done and the last call to prayer had been intoned, Nouri gathered his courage and made his way to Ryka’s room.

  Ryka seemed neither surprised nor alarmed when Nouri opened his door and stepped inside. He could feel his reversed heart beat so fast he thought it would split in two. But he could only remain frozen on the floor—where he’d been sitting cross-legged, reading beside a slender taper—as Nouri crossed the room and knelt down before him.

  Nouri’s heart was pounding as well, filling his head with blood and making his tender ears burn hot. He searched Ryka’s eyes for a sign of protest. But all he could see was love. So he placed his hand on his cheek, leaned forward, and kissed him.

  It was gentle at first. A kiss between comrades. A seal of their mutual respect. But the hunger in Nouri was too strong, and it quickly took over. He pressed his mouth hard against the youth’s. He grasped his shoulders and pulled him closer. And as the heat flashed through him—clouding his mind and rousing the serpent—he felt Ryka respond.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he said, as he drew back for a moment.

  “Yes,” said Ryka.

  Nouri wasn’t sure himself, but he was too aroused to turn back. So he rose, reached his hand out, and drew the slender youth to his feet.

  “Bring the taper,” he said. “I want to see you.”

  Ryka stooped down and grasped the taper. He felt as if the ground had vanished beneath him. As if the roof had parted to reveal the sky. He was not sure what Nouri intended to do, but he knew that he wanted him to do it. He was flushed with desire. So he followed him across the room to the narrow bed to see what would happen.

  When they reached the bed, Nouri removed Ryka’s robe and raised his tunic over his head. Then he loosened the tie at his waist and let his trousers fall to the floor. Ryka’s prick sprang upward like a cobra, fat and gleaming in the light. Nouri wrapped his fingers around it and Ryka gasped.

  “Are you all right?” said Nouri.

  Ryka nodded.

  “This isn’t too much for your heart?”

  “It would be too much for my heart,” said Ryka, “if we stopped.”

  Ryka reached out and tugged at Nouri’s robe. So Nouri released him for a moment and slipped out of his clothes, until the two men stood naked together. They both noted the differences between them: Ryka was slim where Nouri was solid; Ryka was smooth—except for the flash of curls at his groin—where Nouri was covered with hair. But there was not much difference between the hardness that rose up from beneath their bellies. So Nouri stepped forward, pressing their bodies close, and they kissed again.

  Eventually, they lay down upon the small, thin mattress and as they did, it occurred to Nouri that—for all the men he’d been with in his smoke-induced nights—he’d never made love in a bed. He knew that for Ryka there had been no other men. But the light was too dim and he was too inflamed with passion to see that—for the first time in his life—as his body entwined with Nouri’s—Ryka smiled.

  Twenty-Three

  As Sheikh al-Khammas moved closer to the precipice between this world and the next, he requested that Nouri become his sole caretaker. The pattern of Nouri’s days, therefore, became fixed: rising at dawn to bow his head and fall prostrate for the first call to prayer, eating the morning meal, carrying a bowl of yogurt to the Sufi master’s cell and feeding him, practicing zikr, bowing his head and falling prostrate for the second call to prayer, eating the midday meal, carrying a bowl of broth to the Sufi master’s cell and feeding him, tending the roses, bowing his head and falling prostrate for the third call to prayer, writing in his cell, bowing his head and falling prostrate for the fourth call to prayer, eating the evening
meal, carrying a bowl of lentils to the Sufi master’s cell and feeding him, reading in his cell, and finally, as the light bled from the sky, bowing his head and falling prostrate for the last call to prayer. His movements were simple. No excess. No strain. Each day was like the day that had come before. At night, however, when the hallways darkened and the brothers retired to their separate cells, Nouri abandoned himself to the constant surprise of being with Ryka.

  It was like nothing that he had ever known. The sweetest tenderness. The fiercest passion. The endless unfolding of their bodies as they gave pleasure to each other. At first, Ryka was hesitant. He seemed to vanish into smoke at Nouri’s touch. As time passed, however, he became confident in the feelings that coursed through him and he gave himself over completely. And Nouri only knew that—despite the doubts that rose up as he crept from the youth’s cell before dawn—he had never felt closer to God than when he was in Ryka’s arms.

  Sometimes, when the passion subsided and they lay intertwined in the darkness, Nouri would send up a prayer.

  Let me remain here, Allah, and I will never forget you. Not for an instant. Let me remain with him and I will remain with you. Forever and ever.

  But the night always passed. And Nouri always had to leave the warmth of Ryka’s embrace.

  As the days went by, the closeness the two men felt during the night began to spill out into the day. Their heads would tilt close together as they tended the roses. Their fingers would touch as they entered a room. And while these things were too subtle to be perceived by either Abbas al-Kumar or Omar al-Hamid, not a word—not a gesture, no matter how fleeting—went unnoticed by Sharoud.

  What surprised Nouri most about his feelings for Ryka was how they changed his writing. His verse became leaner. More muscular. More intense. It also became deeply erotic, for he found that when he raised his pen he could not keep his passion for the youth from pouring out. At times, when he read over what he’d written, he would blush. Yet he could not help feeling that his longing for Ryka was merely an expression of his longing for God.