The oasis experienced such chaos that the sages referred to it as an earthquake, because reliable sources had mentioned nothing like it in the history of the oases.
3
It had never crossed anyone’s mind that taxes were sacred until the ruler of the oasis circulated his new edicts. In previous ages, people had thought taxes were an ignoble innovation concocted by heads of state and the ruling elite to ruin the affluent and to devastate the poor and people with meager incomes in order to satisfy their own greed for luxuries. Citizens began to rise respectfully when they heard the word “taxes,” however, after the cunning ruler made scoffing at taxes, tax evasion, or tax fraud into capital offenses. This punishment astonished people, because they had never previously encountered this penalty in the laws of the oasis, of the desert, of neighboring tribes, or even in the legal codes of any of the other oases scattered through the desert, where it was considered an ancient certitude inherited from the laws of the first peoples that banishment is the harshest punishment—harsher even than death.
The cruel penalty in the new legal code was accompanied by a decrease in taxes for farmers, artisans, and anyone else with a limited income. To offset the losses resulting from this tax cut, duties and taxes were increased on caravan merchants in transit, wealthy people in the oasis, landowners, and goldsmiths who melted down gold dust, minted coins, and turned the metal into jewelry and decorative items. People wanting to acquire gold dust also found in the new constitution a clear text sanctioning transactions with this metal and therefore viewed the day it was promulgated as a beginning that would free their hands—which had been restrained from such transactions by the ancient Law the ancestors had bequeathed to their heirs in other times when people had different characters, souls, appetites, and goals.
Owners of gold took the new legal code as good news, despite the alarms of weak-kneed folks and the exaggerations of anxious individuals who were terrified by the tax increase. Gold’s supporters circulated happily among the people, repeating a prophecy that said it was only right for the governor to raise taxes, because he knew better than anyone else that releasing the demonic afreet from captivity would bring people profits that would offset any losses the tax hike caused.
4
In the period following Aggulli’s assassination, skeptics became convinced of the ability of the spiritual lands to influence the desert lands once they saw how the age mocked the betrayed leader’s aides. Tayetti, for example, the leader of the attack against the calamitous metal, knocked persistently on the doors of the noblemen to ask for help—to no avail. They also saw that when Abanaban, the chief vassal, succumbed to a serious illness, not even his closest relative stopped by his house. They observed the wretched condition of Asen’fru, the miserable tax administrator, who wandered about alone after all his companions in evil and playmates in fraud renounced him, once circumstances changed and time frowned on him.
Now that the stars had shifted, the spheres had settled in inauspicious mansions, and the Spirit World had decided to turn the system upside down and to return the order of things to its ancient mansion, people who were in denial discovered that an age had passed and that another was asking permission to come. Then they saw that those individuals who had risen above the heads of creatures by some degree and had adopted the arrogance of peacocks had begun to bend and to bow their heads. Meanwhile those who had once been abased and considered weak were stretching out treacherous hands to attack their former master deceitfully and now found themselves aides, lords, and generals in the era of the new leader.
It was said that the new lords surrounded their master the day the herald toured the alleys and plazas repeating the cryptic call that spoke of souls being destroyed by what they desired. Then the chief vassal, Abanaban, said to his master, “It perplexes me, master, that the Spirit World should have destroyed upright lords and spared Ah’llum, whom Aggulli trusted more than anyone else, even though he was the first to strike the leader treacherously on that fateful day.”
It was said that the mysterious emissary was silent for a long time that day and then rolled up his sleeves to reveal his dark arms—something he always enjoyed doing—and began to pursue with his eyes the early-afternoon mirage that was rushing through the open countryside. Finally he replied in a way that people thought opaque: “If we had been granted knowledge of the natural characteristics of the Spirit World, we would have the right to make rules for things. We have frequently thought that we have been afflicted by an evil only to learn quickly that the act was good for us. We have frequently seen a matter we reckoned good turn bad. So what proof do we have that those we think have gone to death and damnation have not been chosen for another destiny that we find no path in our world to attain, namely happiness? What leads you to believe that the Spirit World only keeps a person alive to inflict suffering on him?”
The group was still for a long time, and a gloomy silence prevailed. They discerned a mournful look in the master’s eyes and prepared to leave. The emissary of the Spirit World, however, stopped the chief vassal, to whom he remarked, “Here’s some advice for you from me. I wouldn’t confide this to you if you weren’t going to be my right-hand man. Don’t hold a grudge for any evil. Don’t gloat over the suffering of someone who harmed you one day. Remember, as well, that this is not merely a condition imposed by someone the Spirit World has chosen to rule the people, but that you must learn that the source of happiness is hidden here. So beware!”
BLINDNESS
1
Suns do not rise or set, days do not come and go, stars do not vanish because they do not appear, and the stars do not appear because the skies have fled from the heavens, and the desert has disappeared because there is no existence for a desert in a homeland in which the sky has no existence. Nights also do not fall, because night has swallowed everything and nothing exists except the night.
For the first time an earthquake struck the two immortal companions and produced the obscure fissure separating time from space, its bosom friend. Then spaces vanished from every space and swam in the dark recesses’ void, where time also was stifled. Since anyone who does not find a space for himself in space does not live, anyone who ceases to exist in a space is also abandoned by time. Then he traverses the sacred Barzakh isthmus to gaze at an eternity that exists only in those tenebrous depths that blindness creates. No one knows why past generations have feared blindness so much that the forefathers considered it the ultimate punishment for malefactors, gouging out the eyes of criminals to deprive them of the enjoyment of looking at their beloved desert. They continued this tradition for long ages until an enlightened generation viewed this punishment as so cruel that it was suitable only for barbaric tribes. Then they debated with the people and discussed the matter with soothsayers, sorcerers, and leaders. So, nations enacted new laws that replaced blinding with the expulsion of criminals from the encampments and their forcible exile.
During the first period he enjoyed his exile and thought about time—which only dies in the tenebrous depths—and asked himself repeatedly about the secret of blindness, about the ability of this alleged ghoul to transform the pattern of life, about how it becomes something that people always consider worse than anything else. Yet it infuses the body with other fresh breaths and prolongs a transitory lifespan into flourishing lifetimes that the wilderness does not muddle, futile days do not sully, and visions do not confuse. Instead they evolve into a different journey that slithers forward with the elasticity of serpents, flows like the tongues of torrents down valley bottoms, and stretches to extend to an indeterminate end time. Perhaps peace of mind plays a role in this upheaval. Perhaps the key factor in this miracle is tranquility. Perhaps the reign of the dark recesses is a nodal point in space, and perhaps the disappearance of space eliminates its companion—time—from the desert. Then peace settles in the heart and confers delight in the Spirit World.
But what type of delight is achieved in the Spirit World? When was the life
of the Spirit World a comrade for the life of the desert? Does someone who has lost the desert truly live when he no longer finds a space for himself in space?
2
In another time, or perhaps beyond another time—perhaps far from all times—he discovered that what he had thought was an existence beyond the desert and beyond space and time, and what he had believed to be bliss in the realm of the Spirit World, was merely the abyss of the dark recesses and the most hideous visage of blindness, and that the tribes of the first peoples had not erred when they blinded evildoers, making that their ultimate, harshest punishment. He discovered that life in the tenebrous depths is not a blessing, as he had once thought, that it is not bliss in the realms of the spiritual worlds, as he had always consoled himself, that it is not tranquility in the shade of retem trees or acacias, that it is not a life in life, because it is outside of life and man cannot be satisfied with a life outside of life—even in a paradise in the kingdom of the dead, even if he were installed as a god over life in a realm in which life did not exist. He discovered that his discounted realm did not become the neighbor of eternity simply through its liberation from the dominion of the desert lands. He discovered that his kingdom was more wretched than he had originally suspected, because its magic came from his—the hero’s—liberation from the fetters of the futility with which men had always manacled him. When time afflicted him and folks pitied him for his calamity, they dropped him and shunned him. Then the only companions he found were solitude, loneliness, and the tenebrous depths of blindness. So he relaxed, reposed, and for the first time savored peace.
This torpor deceived him, enticed him, and led him far away. This daze cast him into lands he did not know and dropped him in territory he had never considered, because recluses have learned from long experience that isolation is a secret that steals a novice from his soul and that hurls a person who loves it passionately to a world that can destroy the minds of weak souls, because it is a world that can be reached without travel. The elite do not ride donkeys when searching for it, because it lies hidden in a space nearer to its master than his jugular vein.
Was his realm inspired by recluses’ fantasies?
Shouldn’t he call things by their true names and refer to his presumptive paradise by its true name? Wasn’t the abyss of the tenebrous depths a dungeon more hideous than any other? Weren’t the ancestors justified in casting evildoers into this pit, which obviated the need to build a wall or prison around anyone the fates condemned to this destiny? Finally, was darkness a deprivation of seeing the desert—as fools believed—or a deprivation of that riddle called life?
3
Just as the newborn’s scream is a sign of childbirth, a genuine prophecy must be preceded by a sign.
Shortness of breath and gasps like death rattles were his first sign.
He did not recognize how, when, or why the labor pains began. What he did perceive was a vision like the inspiration of a prophecy. Sparks like a flint’s shot from a location in the vast ocean of tenebrous depths. There was no flame. There was no flash of lightning, no firebrand like that preceding dawn’s birth. There was, instead, an insignificant light—a depressing, faint, meager glimpse, a snuffed-out gesture lacking even a shadow to celebrate the light or to remind a person of greedy fires; but this feeble gesture lit a blaze in his breast on that day.
The blaze began the moment the spark fell into the ocean of blackness. Then it faded, waned, and almost vanished. Soon, however, it ignited in the heart a strange tingling that long before had become part of forgetfulness. The tingling proceeded to blaze, to accelerate, and to grow large enough to swallow the entire continent of dark recesses. Light flowed out, inundating every space. Then he found himself leaping naked into the air the way young boys celebrate the arrival of a cloudburst, raising his hands high to catch beams of the noble light in his palms. The heavenly deluge showered his naked breast, scoured his skin, and washed it with its rays. He was cleansed by the beams of light and imbibed this lost light like a thirsty man imbibing drops of rain after a drought. Golden strands woven from the linen of innocence, translucence, and diffidence crisscrossed to traverse the body of the creature who had no body, to transform his body into innocence, translucence, and clustered diffidence, to exchange places with the gift, to turn the light into a body, to transmute his body into a cluster of charm, translucence, and light, so he became light and that light became a creature called the hero.
But … but the inspiration died, and the sign soon died out.
The sign was extinguished, and so the illumination vanished.
The tenebrous darkness descended and became more tyrannical than at any prior time. He searched for the prophecy. He sought out his lost true love. Then the darkness exhaled a viper’s hiss into his face. His chest constricted, and he began to choke. He gasped for breath. The fire blazed in his chest. So he leapt and roared like the forestland’s lions.
He kept rubbing his eyes as mercilessly as if wishing to pluck out his eyeballs. He roared with a ferocity no one had ever experienced from him before that day.
4
His slaves came to help, assuming that their master had been stung. They gathered around him in alarm, but he kicked one of them and drove others away with his left hand. His right hand was still digging into his eye sockets in a lethal attempt to pluck out his eyes.
During this struggle, the haughty hero, who in the oasis was exemplary for his dignified conduct, screamed in a horrid voice that could only be compared to the sounds produced by prime camels when herders crouch over them to remove their testicles: “Ah … ah … ah … ah … ah … ah….”
The hero’s wife fled from their home in alarm while men, slaves, herdsmen, boys, and gawkers approached their dwelling.
Then the hero was able to escape into the alley, shaking off the slaves while continuing his lethal attempt to pluck out his eyeballs.
Abanaban, the chief vassal, arrived and went to the head of the group. He asked, “Is the man possessed?”
No one replied, because at that moment the group saw the hero seize his beloved mamluk’s neck, which he gripped, and drag him along while he bounded around. The poor man began to foam at the mouth, to choke, and to rave as his eyes bulged out and his veil fell off. “Master! Master! Master!”
Someone shouted, “Watch out! The wretch will die at his hands!!”
A band of slaves rushed to save him, but the hero brushed them aside as easily as if they had been a swarm of flies and returned to his painful song, even though its secret meaning escaped them: “Ah … ah … ah … ah … ah….”
The hero proceeded to hop and leap from place to place while retaining his stranglehold on his favorite slave and continuing to dig at his eyes with his other hand. Short, potbellied, and breathless, Tayetti—leader of the attack on the forbidden currency long ago—approached. He shouted as loudly as he could: “Ropes! Where are the raffia ropes? Where are the men? Where are the guards?”
As some individuals galloped off in search of ropes, he cautioned the remaining group, “Watch out! I think the wretch is dying!”
Some members of the crowd summoned their courage and rushed to save the slave, who continued to struggle to free his neck from his master’s grip. Finally his powers failed him, and he went slack. He yielded, despaired, and foamed profusely at the mouth. Two large eyeballs—red with terror, astonishment, and blood—protruded from their sockets.
Some men grabbed the hero’s two hands, and the demonic afreet jerked them across the earth for a short time. Then he hurled them into the void, and they flew through the air like a couple of scrawny puppets stuffed with straw.
They landed far away.
Men carrying coils of rope arrived and assailed the hero from two opposite directions, grasping their savage, twisted rope. Tayetti gave them a stern signal. So they exploded and galloped round the afreet, employing the strategy customarily used on raging camels in seasons of rut. They tightened the rope around the afreet. The
n they stopped and waited for another signal. When Tayetti was slow to give one, the men stopped waiting. Screaming like madmen, they pulled the ropes right and then left in a heroic effort to topple the hero.
But the onlookers saw the group’s iron men thrown to the earth, while the hero continued to run around and roar like a jungle lion.
Someone called out the desperate prophecy, “I fear the wretch has died!”
The group grumbled, and the strongmen felt desperate. Then the leader appeared.
The crowd made way for him. He advanced through the plaza in a black garment—like a crow from the badlands—and stopped only a few feet from the hero. Stillness descended on the plaza—a stillness broken only by the afreet’s screams.
The leader asked sarcastically, “Instead of fetching waterskins, you send for raffia ropes?”
Tayetti approached inquisitively. Then the leader scolded him indignantly, “Don’t you know that fire’s enemy is water—not ropes?”
Tayetti replied like an idiot, “We actually didn’t understand, master.”
The leader chided him, “Put out the blaze! Bring water!”
Astonished, Tayetti retreated, and men rushed to fetch water. It was said that the hero calmed down and collapsed once people had poured two skins of water over his head, but the poor slave had been strangled by his grip.
WANTAHET
1
It is related that the hero—once he was liberated from possession by the jinn—retreated to a corner of his house and wept for his dead slave there for days. The herbalist came to treat his bloody eyes, which he had almost plucked out during his temporary insanity on that ill-omened day. He found his patient swaying side to side like a person in an ecstatic trance. His veil was dangling down, revealing the lower half of his face. From his chest rose a muffled, painful wail, and with his fist he was pounding a monotonous beat on the house floor—which was covered with skins—as if keeping time to an unknown tune no one else could hear.
The Scarecrow (Modern Middle East Literature in Translation) Page 8