Escape from Baghdad!

by Saad Hossain

  “They took us separately to different chambers. I never saw my brothers again, for which I was most aggrieved for many years. I remember being blindfolded and then drugged. I could hear the voices of Geber and Avicenna. I was afraid of them. Then they left, and I heard the voice of my caliph and felt at peace. He assured me that I, at least, would live. I remember numerous needles all over my body, hot stings from some devilish instrument. I was violently sick. I remember terrible pain and swelling everywhere.

  “I believe I fell into a coma, for I have no clear memory of several months. That could be due to my later misfortunes, however. When I recovered my wits, I found out that disaster had struck us.

  “My two brothers, also tested, had both died. I had lived, and it seemed as if they believed that I was a successful outcome. The Druze elders said that some weeks after the experiment, there was a terrible fire in the subterranean chambers of Geber. The cabal had betrayed itself. Geber had been burnt alive. Avicenna and Al-Hakim both had fled in different directions, one to Baghdad and one to the village by the Chouff. The great game seemed over.

  “Of course, it was not. I had thought their experiment a failure. When I studied the bodies of my brothers, I found them both deliberately burnt with oil. It was one more crime I am certain can be laid at the feet of Avicenna, for Al-Hakim would never burn the bodies of his beloved Druze, even by mistake. My master was now working feverishly, and although I was his most trusted lieutenant, I was so weak that he had no use for me but bade me rest. Still I slept close to him and kept my weapons by me, for we expected Avicenna to strike at us.

  “I later learned that we had not failed but succeeded. What was done to me had worked. Incredibly, both Avicenna and Al-Hakim believed I was now virtually immortal. I learned that in the last few years of their collaboration, each of them had grown so mistrustful as to hide their separate research from each other. They had in effect split up the work so that no one man might know the entire process. Avicenna, in seducing and then killing Geber, had the secret of Tawkin, and perhaps the lion’s share. Yet my master had retained the critical part of it, the technique of the final transformation, which unleashed the body’s own power and made the change permanent from mortal to immortal. He alone knew how to turn off the death clock.

  “I told him that I remembered the hot needles striking every part of my body and the terrible pain afterward, and he merely smiled. He said that was it. This was the secret. This was what Avicenna lacked, what he must never find because by now we were sure that the man was evil. What a terrible curse on humanity to have such a man become immortal! We grieved sorely for poor burnt Geber, my master particularly, for although they had fallen out near the end, they had worked and lived together for generations.

  “Now our lonely work started. My master abandoned his other works and devised a system for hiding the knowledge. He split up our people and sent them across the world, carrying the doctrine of the Druze. Hidden in it was the truth—to be revealed only to a few—of the nature of what we protected. Then he made several artifacts to carry the precious knowledge itself. I helped him in all his endeavors, although I never understood then that he was in fact preparing for his own death. He was creating the apparatus that would fight the enemy from beyond the grave, which would protect us all from his wrath.

  “To the people of the Druze, he bequeathed ignorance. Only the elders knew of the true nature of the faith, and so The Enemy found no profit in persecuting the laity and left them alone. To me, he had already given immortality and great physical prowess. He gave me also the master lists of all the Druze Elders of the Chouff, those men and women he had scattered throughout the caliphate. They were to be my succor in his absence. Finally, he showed me the watch. He said that it carried the final secret.

  “And then, he and the watch disappeared. For many years, I cherished the hope that he lived, but it came to nothing. Avicenna had won. He came after the Druze, and he came after me. We all went into hiding. I was chased relentlessly, for several lifetimes, until I had covered almost every blade of grass in the world. For years, I hid in peace, but always the old man Avicenna would find me.

  “Finally in the outer reaches of Mongolia, his men captured me. I then learned what he had been doing, what he wanted. His experiments on me were gruesome. He had the arts of Geber, and his intellect was such that he had improved on it immeasurably. He was able to prolong his own life, although the foul alchemy he relied on took up much of his time and, I believe, caused him great misery. I remember the efforts that poor, crippled Geber undertook merely to keep his heart beating.

  “Avicenna knew that Al-Hakim had the final secret, that I was the living testament. It was his belief that he could get it out of me. The unspeakable things he did to me I will not divulge. I was his captive for over six years before I managed to escape. I believe I went mad during this time. Certainly my memories are bizarre, truncated. I had by this time given up hope that my master was alive. Of the three Old Men, two were fully dead. It fell to me, then, to carry the fight to the last member of the cabal.

  “I marshaled the Druze and struck back in the silent war. This was over four hundred years ago, you understand. We crippled Avicenna’s networks, killed his men—it was all things unexpected to him. In fear, he went into hiding, believing that Al-Hakim had returned for vengeance. Still, the spider was not so easily quashed. He had gathered wealth and power for hundreds of years. He held powerful men in thrall with the arts of his alchemy, his powers to cure illness and prolong life.

  “Bit by bit, he built the foundations of the Mukhabarat, his own secret apparatus to counter the power of the Druze. In this way, we fought a slow war over the centuries. It became a political game with many players, but always at the heart of it were he and I. He wanted Tawkin. I wanted to kill him and end this ungodly ambition. I speak no ill of my master, but I curse the day that Geber started on this path to cheat death, for it has brought no happiness to any of us. What use is unending life when one is forced to run and hide and fight continuously for every breath of air, every scintilla of shade?

  “The centuries of life had taught us to stay hidden. We had outlived our enemies, none knew of our existence; our hatred grew into obsession. It was now the era of the Ottomans. We lived in the shadow of that great empire, pulling strings. Our war faded somewhat, as we each became diverted with other things. Avicenna’s lust for power and wealth bore dividends. He accumulated a great deal of both. I thought him finally sated and relaxed my guard.

  “And then, suddenly, I received word of the watch. It seemed incredible, but it had survived and resurfaced somehow. It gave me hope that my master was still alive. I began to hunt in earnest. It was inevitable that Avicenna, too, would come for it. I found it first, buried in a thief’s warren in Smyrna. It was damaged. I had never learned the secret of the watch. I did not crave for eternal life, I had that already. It had brought me nothing but misery. But I still had faith in Al-Hakim. I had to hope that if the watch had survived the centuries then why not my master? I believed, naively perhaps, that in his hands this power would have done some good to mankind.

  “It was the beginning of the end for me. The watch invited a convergence. There were others in the shadows, other men and women who had tinkered with immortality, who had approached Tawkin from their own unique angles. I had been aware of them, had foolishly ignored them. I did not understand that the watch would draw them like ravens. Too late I learned that Avicenna was not my only enemy.

  “I was at a disadvantage, you must understand. I was fighting men and women of rare genius. Yet I was an accidental warrior, a footnote elevated to the principal role. What luck I had was used up. In the summer of 1585 of the Christian era, in the battle of Ayn Sawfar, the Ottoman Empire was induced to send the cream of their Janissary corps against my poor Druze. In truth, it was an attempt to capture or assassinate me, to destroy the flower of the Druze elders who carried the legacy of Al-Hakim.

  “It was the witch M
other Davala who got me in the end, her power that turned the tide against us. I can only imagine what blandishments Avicenna offered to ally her. You have seen war, but let me tell you that there is nothing more awesome in this world than the sight of the Janissary corps advancing on you, firing their muskets in clockwork succession. It is like a mechanical scythe: remorseless, meat-grinding fire. They were the finest army in the history of mankind up to that point.

  “My Druze were swordsmen. What chance did they have against Janissary bullets? We died in waves. The elders were wiped out, and those who survived and scattered were picked off by Avicenna. He was playing the long game. It was his plan to infiltrate the Druze organization, to kill the head, and replace it with his own sycophants.

  “I was once again on the run, unsure now of my own people. In the chaos of battle, the watch was lost; more than one immortal was fighting for it now. The Witch Mother Davala had it for some time, I believe. In the disarray of the Druze, many vultures came to take advantage. I do not know if Avicenna ever got his hands on it. If he did, he never kept it for long.

  “Luck favored me for a time. I was able to hide in distant China, with enemies of the Alchemist. Avicenna too fell ill for a time. His struggle to cure himself took precedence, giving me some years of breathing space. It was not for long though. He recovered, and his power grew with the modernization of the world. In the turn of the previous century, he caught wind of me finally. He lured me back here to Baghdad, the center of his web, again with the promise of the watch. It is a lure I can never resist. I curse this watch. I curse Al-Hakim for ever leaving behind this relic. It has brought us nothing but heartbreak.”

  “The rest of it, I think you know,” Afzal Taha said. “I have been in and out of medical facilities for a hundred years, tortured, medicated, experimented on. When I escaped from the last round, I was disoriented, suffering from memory loss. Those months I was hiding in Shulla, I barely knew who I was. I thought I was schizophrenic. When you attacked me, I panicked and ran. I have since recovered, remembered.”

  “You’ve been brutal,” Dagr said. “Punished innocents in the name of your suffering.”

  “I will make no excuses,” the Lion shrugged. “I am not a saint. I’m just better than the alternative.”

  “You can have the watch back,” Dagr said.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s not broken you know.”

  “The hands do not move. It has been broken ever since I remember.”

  “It sends an irregular pulse of vibration if you hold it in a certain way,” Dagr said. “I know because I have held it clenched in my palm for three days straight without eating or sleeping.”

  The Druze immortal looked dumbstruck, which gave Dagr a jolt of satisfaction.

  “I was really bored at that time,” Dagr said. “Al-Hakim was a mathematician, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “It makes sense because I think there is a mathematical code in there,” Dagr said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out the watch.”

  34: THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN

  YAKIN DIDN’T KNOW THE WOMAN WHO STOOD BESIDE THE OLD Man, but she was clearly a class apart from anything he had ever seen in his short life. This was, he reflected bitterly, the kind of woman he deserved. The way she wore her scarf, it was a fashion statement, a sex bomb, not what the clerics had had in mind when they had dreamt up the hijab. This was the kind of piece he should have been with. But would he ever get the chance? Would she ever give him a second look? Fuck no. She was even throwing the imam off balance. He could literally see the smoke coming out of Hassan Salemi’s ears. Or actually that was real smoke, for bits of his clothing were smoldering. Not for the first time Yakin wondered whether the Imam was actually mentally impaired.

  The Old Man had been affable the last time, offering them refreshments. He sat like an emperor now, granting an audience. Hassan Salemi’s stock had diminished somewhat in recent times. Kinza had burnt down his house and killed his men. His retaliation had netted him a few hostages and little else. No Kinza, no professor, no watch. What was the world coming to when any random street tough could come and rough up a Sadr parliamentarian candidate in Shulla? They were at the denial stage now. No mention was to be made of the name Kinza ever.

  “So, Salemi,” he said. “I cannot say this meeting brings me any great pleasure.”

  “You sent us into a trap, Old Man.”

  “A trap? Of what? Women and servants? Mad librarians?” Avicenna laughed. “Your reputation has been exaggerated indeed.”

  “There were djinns there, Old Man,” Salemi’s voice was flat. Yakin could see a little muscle jumping in the side of his neck. The lunatic was on the verge of doing something stupid. “The demons made of smokeless fire.”

  Yakin tried to maneuver himself away from his master, but an enormously brutish looking man with a shotgun glared at him. He looked like a torturer. They said he was Mukhabarat and that the Old Man was Mukhabarat through and through. Just that word alone was enough to make most people piss their pants. Yakin slumped. He was so tired he wanted to lie down on the floor and go to sleep.

  “Djinns were there? Floating around? Possessing the furniture perhaps?”

  “No,” Hassan Salemi said. “They were in jars. Great earthenware jars stoppered with red wax, which were cold to the touch and covered with sediments from the ocean. Do you think me stupid, Old Man? There was a room full of sealed jars!”

  “Jars, you say?” Avicenna leant forward. “Now you interest me. Have you brought them?”

  “My men shot them,” Hassan Salemi said.

  “Oh dear.”

  “Everything exploded then.”

  “Yes,” Avicenna said bitterly. “If one is stupid enough to shoot up a room full of djinns, then anything might happen. I trust that you searched the wreckage of the house?”

  “What house?” Salemi laughed bitterly. “The entire block was destroyed. Cluster bombed, more like. I have lost all my men but four.”

  “So the witch Davala held the djinns of Solomon, it seems,” Avicenna said to the lady beside him. “I wonder why she never unleashed them. Is she dead at least?”

  “I don’t know about the old witch,” Hassan Salemi said. “But you spoke of three women there. I have brought you two of them.”

  “Have you now?” Avicenna said. “Well, that is good. Very good. I warned you that the women were dangerous. Still, you haven’t done too badly.”

  “What now then?”

  “Now we must prepare. Imam, I must open your eyes. You have stumbled unfortunately into a war long in the making. It is, I believe, reaching a watershed moment,” Avicenna said. “Our enemies have never been weaker. You have broken the witches’ power. The cursed Druze is addled and alone. The watch is in the hands of a petty psychotic who lacks the intelligence to even know its value. We are in a position, imam, to sweep the board. You will be in at the death, imam. In the end, I will restore you to your former puissance and fearsome reputation.”

  Yakin groaned. Big words aside, the Old Man was ready to fuck them all over again.

  Hoffman had crafted a diabolical escape plan. It would end with Behruse incapacitated, the Dog Boy out of commission, and Sabeen completely in his power and lovingly grateful to him for saving her life. The plan involved rope, a belt, Scotch tape, nails, a Swiss army knife—a plan of such genius that it could not help but succeed through sheer chutzpah alone.

  All he needed to do was kill time now. It occurred to him that Behruse was taking overly long to visit him this time. Normally the fat man came every three days to change the water, food, and slop buckets. It was now the fourth day. Hoffman wasn’t hungry or thirsty because he had appropriated Dog Boy’s rations. Dog Boy was on hunger strike, refusing any food and only drinking a third of his portion. Hoffman had tried to reason with him, but Dog Boy wasn’t having any of it.

  He wanted his own cell back and a return to the old administration. In his more lucid moments, he made a list
of demands that included immediate reinstatement of Dr. Sawad, single cells for every prisoner, and at least one electro-therapy a week to keep the juices flowing. Hoffman spent his idle time trying to train Dog Boy to use the slop bucket properly and dreaming about taking revenge on Sabeen, which would involve her being wrested from her evil grandfather and somehow converted into his caring, devoted follower, perhaps a second lieutenant to replace Tommy.

  Her casual betrayal had in fact enflamed his passion from mere love to something transcendental. He craved physical contact with her, was sure he could turn her! He wrote poetry about her (not rhyming) and recited these verses to Dog Boy, taking care to ensure that Dog Boy understood clearly that the poetry was not meant for him, and he should not take it as any sign of encouragement. By the fifth day, he was getting a bit worried. Behruse still hadn’t arrived. It was possible that something had happened to the fat man.

  By the sixth day, he was hungry and thirsty and starting to rethink his strategy. He had almost despaired when loud noises at the door woke him from lethargy. There was a small explosion, the wood splintered out, cutting him in some places and setting off Dog Boy into fairly weak paroxysms (he was near dead from the hunger strike).

  When Hoffman managed to open his eyes, he saw in front of him a most fearsome old woman holding a gnarled walking stick and an ancient six-chambered revolver, still smoking. Her face was singed: eyebrows gone, the wispy hair on her head burnt off in patches. She had lost her dentures and so spoke with a lisp, a single tooth sticking up visibly like a decrepit building.

  “You’re welcome, soldier,” said Mother Davala.

  “What? Er, you’re not Behruse.”

  “No.”

  Hoffman scratched his head. “Well could you fix up the door again?”

  “You want to stay in your cell?”

  “It’s just that I had this great plan for him.”

  “He’s left you for dead, soldier,” Mother Davala said. “You and your men.”