Seven Veils of Seth

by Ibrahim Al-Koni

  They all laughed again, and their bodies swayed back and forth, as if dancing at a celebration of the full moon. They so dazzled his eyes that he whispered some advice to himself: “Had no beautiful woman ever entered the desert, it would have been preferable to put your head under the water and keep it there forever.”

  One of them, in a lilting voice, asked, “Why do you doubt we’re human?”

  Without any hesitation he answered, as he plowed through the water, “Your beauty!”

  They echoed in unison, “Beauty?”

  Even so, he replied with the wiles of a man well acquainted with women, “Not merely your beauty, but your similarity. You resemble each other like female jinn.”

  “Like female jinn?”

  They laughed merrily, and then the woman with the seductive voice suggested, “You speak about the female jinn as if you belonged to that nation.”

  “I’m not a jinni, but my first wife was one.”

  They cried out with genuine curiosity, “Really?”

  Then they started laughing again as they leaned their alluring figures over the bank of the spring. One of them requested, “Tell us about the female jinn. What are they like?”

  In her eyes he saw a seductive look that no man experienced with women could have missed. He asked, “Do you mean in bed?”

  They all laughed with genuine gaiety and for the first time blushed in embarrassment. So he decided to push the game one step further: “I’ve never found anyone to equal them in bed. They’re like blazing fire.”

  The area resounded with their boisterous, flirtatious laughter, which no longer hid its bashfulness or seduction. He observed then that they were a covey of six beauties, each so comparable in allure and stature that it was hard to tell them apart. He seized the opportunity afforded by their mirth to ask, “Are you sisters?”

  More than one responded, “Of course not!”

  “As you know, I’m a stranger in this settlement, and the stranger is always entitled to consideration from the resident.”

  “Speak!”

  “I want to hear you sing at an evening party.”

  One replied, “We’re singers by profession. What good would we be if we didn’t sing for men?”

  He added mischievously, “A belle is only beautiful if she recites poetry. A belle is only beautiful if she slips into the bedchamber.”

  Some laughed but others said, “It’s not right for a man who has just made shocking remarks to ask women to sing.”

  “Shocking?”

  “Didn’t you say – moments ago – that water’s embrace is more delightful than a beautiful woman’s?”

  He disappeared into the water to seek prophetic inspiration to deliver him from this crisis. Then he said, “That was the tongue of the desert dweller speaking, not mine.”

  “The desert dweller’s tongue?”

  “Thirst’s tongue.”

  “Thirst’s tongue?”

  “A person who has never known the fire of the desert doesn’t understand the meaning of water; so forgive me.”

  The woman with the seductive voice said, “Before you obtain our forgiveness, I have a piece of advice for you.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Never insult a woman, not even in private.”

  “You’re right!”

  “Do you know why?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Just as the birds carry seditious talk to a leader, the air is charged with carrying insults to a woman.”

  “Are you a diviner?”

  “Every woman is a diviner. A woman is instinctively a diviner.”

  “You’re right, so right. I swear I’ll have to figure out how to repay you for this counsel, because advice is more precious than a pot of gold. That’s true even if it’s from the mouth of a fool; so, what then if it’s from the tongue of a beautiful woman?”

  “Are you a poet?”

  “Everyone in the desert is a poet; why ask?”

  “Because the only appropriate recompense for a woman is praise in verses that tribes broadcast and that subsequent generations repeat. Similarly, there is no punishment for a woman more harmful than mocking her in an ode that’s repeated by every tongue and enjoyed by the tribes.”

  He responded admiringly, “You’re right, so right.”

  The woman with the seductive voice approached him and introduced herself: “I’m Tafarat.”

  She stepped back so her companion could introduce herself: “My name’s Temarit.”

  She stepped aside so her neighbor could present herself: “My name’s Tamanokalt.”

  She drew back so the woman next to her could introduce herself: “My name is Tahala.”

  She stepped back so her neighbor could come forward: “My name’s Tamuli.”

  She stepped back so her friend could introduce herself: “My name is Taddikat.”

  Silence prevailed. The dove stopped its cooing and the grasshoppers quieted their refrain. Then the stranger said, “My name is Isan!”

  More than one of the covey exclaimed: “Isan! What a name!”

  Then the proud beauty who had given her name as Temarit moved forward to say, “May I give you another piece of advice?”

  When he nodded his bare head, she declared, “Be careful never to expose your head in a woman’s presence again.”

  He was quick to defend himself: “I thought it shameful for a man to remove his veil in the desert, but not in the water.”

  Temarit stepped back while Tamanokalt moved forward to elucidate the saying’s secret meaning: “If men realized how repulsive their faces are, they would never take their veils off.”

  “What?”

  “Their faces resemble camels’.”

  “Camel faces?”

  She stepped back so Tahala could add: “And their ears resemble donkeys’.”

  “Donkey ears?”

  She retreated, and Tamuli stepped forward to continue: “And their noses are birds’ beaks.”

  “Birds’ beaks?”

  She withdrew, and Tafarat presented herself to sum up: “Aren’t camel faces, donkey ears, and bird beaks a handicap for you?”

  Initially upset, he responded, “A handicap . . . a great handicap.”

  “Avoid letting a woman see you without your veil, because she will despise you even if you fashion a palace for her in your heart and have enough children by her to populate the desert.”

  Silence reigned again. They fetched their jugs to fill with water from the spring. First Tamuli bent over the pool. A black plait of her hair escaped from her wrap’s confinement to swing seductively through the air. In fact, it fell into the water. He crept toward her, as if to help fill the jug, but instead seized the braid in his hands, clasping it between his palms. A daring strategist well acquainted with women, he squeezed it till water sprayed out. He closed his fingers around it and affectionately fondled it. Then he leaned down to kiss it, inhaling its fragrance. Closing his eyes he said, as though to himself, “I never dreamt there were retem blossoms in the oases.”

  In a whisper like the rustling of northern breezes caressing the plumes of the retem bushes, she replied: “In the oases, there are flowers more fragrant than retem blossoms.”

  “You are a jinni!”

  Whispering once more, she told him, “A man’s favorite perfume is a woman’s scent, not a retem’s.”

  He clung to the plait and pressed it against his damp chest with an audacity ill-becoming a visitor who had only just entered an alien sanctuary. He had a strong incentive, however, for the inaccessible mystery guiding his steps granted him a prophetic insight that women tend to be animated and spontaneous with strangers but cautious and inhibited around kinsmen. Thus, he acted spontaneously, since he was certain the young women’s temperaments would not shine forth unless his did. Generally speaking, women are like dolls that are animated only when we manipulate them, when we show them how, for woman is a paste more malleable in a man’s hands than dough. He can trans
form her into a nun or an artiste, perhaps because her spirit is contained within man’s spirit. For this reason, no woman is corrupt unless a man corrupts her, and no woman is virtuous, unless a man has rendered her so.

  She bent over him, inundating him with her perfume, her genuine perfume, the fragrance of a woman – not that of retem blossoms – a fragrance that fells a man rather than anesthetizes him. This perfume, which turns some men into heroes and others into villains, can perfect life or lead to insanity. It can create life or extinguish it. This is the feminine scent. A beautiful woman’s fragrance is life-saving when she wishes and fatal when she so decrees. It can animate dead bones if she chooses to offer herself, but slays the entire world if she decides to withhold herself.

  A full breast escaped from her garment. She had leaned over so long that her virginal breast had lost patience and rebelled, jiggling and slipping down, liberating itself from its humble shelter. What he first saw was the nipple, which was bulging, promising, and as large as a date. It crowned her white, tantalizing, rounded breast, as if planning to escape or to liberate itself by swelling into a new breast atop the old. Sweating profusely, he went crazy and reached out to caress the full nipple that clung to the generous, bulging breast. Then an intoxicated moan escaped from the beauty: a deep, audible groan like the sorrowful lament in a hymn of longing. He drew back and responded to the water’s surge with an inaudible remark. The beauty raised her jug from the pool and stood proudly by the spring. She cast her gaze far away, toward the tops of the palms in distant fields, before asking, “Do you realize why the Law stipulated that man should cover his head with a veil?”

  “When the priestess speaks, the world can but listen.”

  “It’s because man’s most vulnerable point is his mouth, whereas woman’s is her body.”

  “I think I’ve heard a saying like this before.”

  “Since the Law proclaims it, not I, how could you have escaped hearing it?”

  “But I heard no reference to the mouth in the lesson you gave me a short time ago.”

  “We didn’t discuss the mouth, because our goal was to skirt the mouth. We did not mention the mouth, because we were obliged to circle the mouth and discuss its milieu, because a discussion of the mouth would have been an attack on its sanctity, or so the Law decrees.”

  “An image! A sign! The language of the Law is metaphorical. This is another proof that I hit the mark when I called you offspring of the jinn, not the daughters of human beings.”

  “What is the Law save words of advice from the jinn to the desert’s inhabitants?”

  “Really?”

  “Have you forgotten that Mandam, the desert people’s forefather, wasn’t expelled from Waw until the day his mouth devoured a fruit from the orchard?”

  “Oh . . . Mandam. . . .”

  “The mouth is the weak spot that led to our expulsion from the orchard and turned our world into a desert. Do you know the status of the mouth in customary law?”

  “I’m not a diviner; how would I know?”

  “A man’s mouth is comparable in every respect to the secret a woman conceals between her legs.”

  Silence reigned. He gazed at the faces of the other beauties and saw they really were a troupe of female jinnis. He submerged his body in the water. He dove to conceal not merely his body but head, face, and mouth. He decided to safeguard his mouth by hiding it beneath the water so the torrent would create a veil from its flow, but he heard the she-jinni say, “The mouth is man’s weak spot. Beware!”

  He dove into the water and disappeared up to his shoulders, neck, ears, and eyes. Then he submerged his whole head. He vanished, and the veil was complete, the veil of water. He held his breath and kept still for a protracted period. He swallowed some water but held his breath as long as he could. Then he sprang up to gulp in the air voraciously. He staggered and tumbled back before gaining his balance. He started to suck in air through his mouth and nostrils again, filling his chest. On discovering that the troupe of beauties had vanished, he assumed they really were children of the spirit world. He remembered what the priestess had said about man’s weak spot and laughed. He guffawed tipsily, reveling in the laughter. Then . . . then, rage overwhelmed him. At first he could not think why. Soon he discovered the reason. He wanted Tamuli and she desired him too. She liked his audacity but would not forgive his restraint. So she had decided to punish him, to avenge herself on him. Thus she had recited the myth of the mouth, of the weak spot, and of the grandfather banished from Waw because of the morsel he had stolen from the orchard. She had decided to mock him in front of her companions in order to humiliate and punish him for cowardice. She had decided to say he had no right to reach a hand into woman’s orchard unless he was certain he was capable of plucking the fruit, because woman is like an enemy territory, which you do not raid unless you possess the courage to kill, because otherwise you will be killed. She had in effect told him: “Woman, too, is an arena where you will definitely meet defeat unless you resolve from the beginning to conquer.” He had unintentionally insulted her with his idiotic response and had revealed his ignorance of the secrets of passion to the covey accompanying her.

  Choked with rage, he beat the water with both hands. Then, hoping they would hear his maxim, he shouted as loudly as he could: “Hear my law, wretched spawn of the jinn: Unless a man bares his weak spot to a beauty, he will never win her.” He guffawed with insane laughter while slapping the water.

  3 The Water

  Singing water’s praises, he crawled out of the spring and remembered the last time he had plunged into a torrent. That had been when the Amehru Ravine had flooded in the Tassili region, more than a year before. He chanted an ancient song in which the poet praised his master – water – in recondite verses. He had previously chanted these refrains repeatedly without ever discerning their secret meaning as clearly as he did now on emerging from the spring-fed pool. He said, “The bard was right to take water for his Beloved, since it’s the only entity that traverses the heavens to fall subsequently to the pits, inundating even the darkest, most remote areas. It cleanses itself in lights supernal and returns to hide in the lowlands. It explores the unknown as a creator when it turns to vapor and returns to earth as a created object when it becomes visible.” Then he asked aloud, “Who are you, water?” He answered, “Like us, water, you’re on a journey. Like us, you are launched on your migration by a fire. Like us, you recuperate by regaining the homeland.” He lay down under a palm tree and murmured the ancient song for a while. Then he observed, “Fire makes us fathers. Water makes us mothers.” He hoisted himself on his elbows and watched dusk’s flood spill over the calm pool, dazzling the eye with a captivating, golden reflection. Two lovers – the sky’s light and the earth’s water – exchanged a playful and meaningful look. This flirtation continued for a time till prophecy gushed forth in his heart. He grinned with a strategist’s malice and then muttered, “Beloved of long standing, I will fulfill my pledge to you. With your assistance, master, I will wreak vengeance, since vengeance is not really punishment unless our master water plays a part.” He inhaled the scent of the field – of the trees, mud, oasis crops and of the humidity that perfumed the air – until he felt dizzy. He laughed quietly before reaching in his kit to extract a dismal-looking cloth. Dropping it on his lap, he focused on his singing again. He leaned over the piece of fabric, never ceasing his mysterious refrain. Like the forest-land priests who never execute their mysterious rites without first reciting spells, he swayed back and forth to the haunting melody as he gazed at the surface of the nearby pool. He reached for the cloth and held it by the end so the rows of charms printed in white lines across the cloth were visible. These had faded, either from wear or perhaps from long exposure to the desert’s sunlight. When he fastened this end to his forehead, another amulet was visible in the veil’s “tongue.” This charm was stuffed into a case made of an unusual type of leather, which was also embossed with magical symbols. He began to wrap t
his alarming veil around his head as he intoned mysterious lingo like forest dwellers’ cant. Then he fell silent and reminded himself privately that the time had come for him to draw on his inner reserves and to twist his serpentine veil around his head to hide from the world his ears, which the shrew had recently likened to donkey ears. Women are descended from such a wily creature! Anyone who thought he could hide something from this community, even once, was a fool a thousand times over. The beauty had perspicaciously and instantly observed what he had concealed from mankind for ages. She had immediately seen his ears and had similarly discovered his tail. She had not seen the tail hiding behind his back or the one lurking between his thighs; she had glimpsed his real tail, his secret tail, his tail that had eluded the most cunning analysts. From that day forward, he would admit that woman is the mistress of cunning and the sovereign of all tacticians. She had been right to say: “Man should not expose his head.” When he exposes his head he actually exposes his intentions. A man who exposes his intentions is not a man or – for that matter – a woman. The head is man’s vulnerable point, not because it is crowned with the two horns that fools perceive as ears, but because it hides secrets. It hides thoughts, which – should they be laid bare – will reveal his true vulnerability. The concealed weak point is in the mouth, in the tongue, in the mystery that hides within the tongue. It is not the same as the body’s weak spot, which dangles between the thighs. Glory to the veil! Veils truly are glorious, because a message needs a veil. Prophecy would not be prophecy unless concealed behind a veil.

  After fastening the veil securely round his head, he approached the water to inspect himself in its mirror. He leaned over the surface of the submissive pool, which was flooded by the golden dusk and saw another creature there: a haughty, terrifying demon, as unfathomable as a god. Amazed, he remarked: “It’s right for desert folks to shun a person who removes his veil. It’s right for the desert’s offspring to shun a creature who disguises himself that way. The lost Law decreed correctly that any tribesman who sheds his veil should be shunned for this bare-faced disguise. It similarly ordered that any tribesman sporting the veil should be honored, even if he belongs to an alien tribe or has entered the desert as a immigrant.”