Ollie's Cloud

by Gary Lindberg

  “No. He never said anything about them. Why? Is Ali all right?”

  The kelauntar had sighed deeply. For a moment Ali had thought that this pear-shaped man might deflate into an empty bag and blow away, but at last the sigh ended and a fierce, angry expression swept over the kelauntar.

  “Ali and his mother have been kidnapped by the English missionary,” the kelauntar had explained unconvincingly. If this were true, why had he asked about Ali’s plans, or his mother’s? “Come with me!”

  The kelauntar had marched Jalal, accompanied by the angry musketeers, to the mosque where a terrible sight confronted the boy. In the courtyard, lying on his back, was Omar, the caravanserai gatekeeper. Two men had removed Omar’s shoes and begun to lift Omar’s legs, passing his feet through leather loops hanging from a long pole. Two others had then rotated the pole by its handles, and this action had turned Omar’s soles upward, tightening the ankle loops so Omar could not writhe out of them. Jalal had heard about this torture, the bastinado, but his father had never permitted him to witness it.

  Two floggers had approached Omar’s feet with glances at the kelauntar, who had nodded his consent to begin. Hundreds of willow wands, each of them soaked in water to keep them from breaking too early, were piled next to the floggers. Plucking a wand from the pile, each flogger had begun to thrash the tender white soles of Omar’s feet. Cries and curses had filled the courtyard.

  After both wands had been broken on the bleeding feet, the kelauntar approached Omar saying, “We know you helped them. If you tell us where they are going, we will stop the bastinado.”

  “I don’t know.” These had been Omar’s only words, at least as far as Jalal can remember.

  The floggers had begun again with fresh sticks. More questions had been asked, more curses and screams had tortured Jalal's ears. Over a hundred wands had been broken before the kelauntar had mercifully ended the torment. By this time Omar had passed out. The deep and throbbing pain, temporarily relieved by unconsciousness, would return as he awakened. His feet would swell until the skin burst; infection would spread. For weeks the slightest movement or touch would send bolts of fiery pain throughout his body.

  As Omar’s feet were being freed from the restraints, the kelauntar had grabbed Jalal by the shoulders and issued another threat. “I’m warning you, if you do not tell me the truth your father will suffer the same fate as Omar! Confess what Ali told you. I know you boys—you share everything. Tell me now!”

  He had shaken the boy so hard that Husayn had dropped his sword. The dazzling blade had glimmered in the sunshine, scattering particles of light in every direction.

  The sword had seemed to mesmerize the kelauntar, calm him, speak to him in some mystical way. “I believe you,” he finally had said, and then he had placed the sword gently into Jalal’s hands. “Ali would have loved it.” The anger seemed to have been replaced with melancholy, but only for a moment.

  “What’s this I hear about Anisa?” A loud voice, coming from the fat-jowled vizier, had startled them. Followed by his showy attendants, the vizier had strutted to the kelauntar. “I’m told that you have allowed my future wife to leave Bushruyih. If this is true, I would not place bets on your future!”

  “It’s untrue that I allowed her to leave. The truth is that she has been kidnapped. But I’ve now obtained information about where to find her.” The kelauntar had gestured to the limp body of Omar and the vizier noted the dalandar’s shredded, bleeding feet.

  This is where Jalal had grown confused, the part that he now tries so hard to understand. Had the kelauntar given Ali’s mother to the vizier to marry? And since Omar had not provided any information under torture, how could the kelauntar have known the location of Ali and Anisa? If the kelauntar had believed that Anisa planned to leave willingly, why did he tell the vizier that she was kidnapped? And if this was a lie, would it not lead him into further trouble with the vizier, who clearly had struck some kind of bargain with the kelauntar?

  “They have only been gone for a short time,” the kelauntar had said to the vizier. “I suggest that you and your attendants accompany us as we go to find them. Twenty men are ready to leave as we speak. You may want to be there when we mete out justice to the English missionary.”

  The vizier clearly had relished the thought of torturing and killing this arrogant foreigner who had intruded on his happiness. “Yes,” he had said, “we will accompany you.”

  “Good. They will not have traveled far. But we must leave immediately if we want to make it back by evening.”

  Yes, Jalal is very homesick, but not for the kelauntar and his strange behavior. He misses his family and Ali, of whom only a mystery remains, for as the kelauntar and his twenty men had returned to Bushruyih on the evening of Ali’s disappearance, neither the boy nor Anisa were among them. The vizier and his attendants had also vanished. In the days that followed, before Jalal had left for Mashhad, rumors had circulated throughout the hamlet. It had been said that the kelauntar had caught up with the English missionary and killed him. That the vizier had taken Anisa with him and returned to Tabbas for their marriage. It had also been said that Ali had chosen to stay with his mother. For Jalal, the true story of his best friend’s disappearance remains a mystery and he prays that one day he and Ali will meet again.

  His eyelids sag with fatigue. While he has been indulging himself with memories, a half-hour has past. Precious time! There is so much studying to do. The pressures of the madrisih are intense and the students compete fiercely for the attention and praise of the instructors. Jalal glances across the dim room. On another mat, lit by candles, is a manuscript that holds the rapt attention of an older boy, Taqi, Jalal’s fourteen-year-old roommate.

  Since arriving at the madrisih with high expectations, Jalal has tried to see the bright side. But his experience here has been wrinkled with disappointments, stained with unanswered questions. He had hungered for spiritual fulfillment but had been given table scraps of musty dogma. He had wanted deeper understanding but had been chastised for his questions. Islam was ceasing to be that rare and wondrous mystery that invited exploration. It was becoming a tedious recitation of trivia and empty ritual.

  He longs for the appearance of the Qa’im. He now understands the tremendous need for the Promised One Who will reinvigorate the slumbering spirit of Islam, empower the righteous, and purify the world with Truth.

  Jalal does not want to study this evening. Instead, he craves the one thing that all the teachers and students and lectures and debates seem to deny him. Nearness to God. Just that. The clever arguments in the manuscripts will not help him achieve it. But one thing might.

  He blows out the candles, and in the darkness he talks to God.

  Chapter 6

  Mr. Russell is in a bad mood. It is rare when he is not. His pipe-thin body marches down the corridor with the stiffness of an octogenarian, though Russell is not yet forty. Whiskers sprout like crabgrass all the way to his jaw line, making a bushy frame for a tightly pinched face that many say has not smiled in years. His spine is straight and rigid whether he is sitting, standing or walking, and this inflexibility seems a manifestation of his unyielding and officious attitude toward the boys in his charge. As headmaster of Charterhouse, he has declared himself supreme ruler. No offense is unreported, no infraction unpunished. For this reason, Dr. Russell strides resolutely toward the classroom on another splendid mission of juvenile correction. He swings a four-foot bamboo cane thick as his index finger, the instrument of choice for administering discipline. He has reserved the exclusive right of caning for himself.

  In the hushed classroom, Ollie sits in a creaking chair, studiously analyzing the Latin words of the catechism. There is a pattern to these odd words, but he cannot quite make it out. The other boys seem to have been educated in this language, but no one had bothered to ask Ollie if he knew Latin.

  The oddly warped door to the classroom opens and all eyes turn toward the disturbance. Mr. Peele, the instructor,
swiftly stands up from his desk, accompanied by a chorus of gasps. Dr. Russell enters with a scowl and begins searching faces. Like a wildfire, terror races through the room as the stern headmaster, cloaked in a tight black suit, slowly and rhythmically slaps the cane against the palm of his left hand. For many of the boys, this stiff and terrifying man has become the picture conjured by the word Satan.

  “Mr. Peele,” Dr. Russell says, barely opening his mouth, “I understand we have a bed wetter in the room.”

  “Really, sir, I had no idea,” Mr. Peele replies.

  “Yes, it’s true, I’m afraid.” Dr. Russell begins pacing around the perimeter of the room. “The laundry told me just yesterday. They do not take kindly to bed wetters, and neither do I. This morning we inspected the beds of our students, and I am most happy to announce that we have discovered the identity of this undisciplined chap.” He fiercely slaps the cane against his palm. “Would you like to know who it is?”

  Ollie sinks slowly into his chair, trying to grow smaller. He knows that he is the prey of this monster. Since arriving at Charterhouse three weeks ago, he has sunk into despair and hopelessness. Two weeks ago the trouble had begun. One morning Ollie had dreamed that he was on the Prince Regent and suddenly had fallen overboard. The sea had surrounded him, pulled him deep into its bosom, and oddly he was not frightened but found it warm and restful, even peaceful. But then he had awakened, confused at finding himself in bed but still wet from the comforting sea. Sitting up, his arms and backside drenched, he finally determined the trouble. How could this be? It had never happened before! Yet the more he had tried to avoid the trouble, the worse it had gotten. He was always careful to cover his sheets in the morning. He had smuggled towels into bed to soak up the trouble. On laundry day he had bundled his sheets with many others so that no one could trace them back to his bed. But now he had been caught.

  Worse than the pain of caning is the prospect of public humiliation. Oliver the bed wetter. Everyone will know.

  “Can there be anything as repulsive as fouling one’s own bed?” Dr. Russell asks, taking a step closer to Ollie. “I can imagine that such a boy has little self-respect, for he is soiling himself as well, and in the process, sullying the reputation of the Charterhouse. Don’t you agree, Oliver Chadwick?” Dr. Russell is standing directly in front of Ollie, who trembles frightfully. The headmaster had seemed to dislike Ollie from the day he had arrived.

  “Yes, sir.” Ollie chokes out a croaking affirmation, knowing that he has agreed to the rightness of his coming punishment. It must be God’s will! He lowers his head, submitting himself to the purifying cane. Jesus, forgive me for my weakness. Muhammad, give me strength.

  Suddenly, Dr. Russell swivels and bends, grabbing another boy by the nape of the neck. The small boy yelps! Ollie raises his head and watches as tiny Edmund Phipps, his twelve-year-old roommate, is marched to the teacher’s desk.

  “Here is your bed wetter!” Dr. Russell announces to the room. “Wee Edmund Phipps wants to be a proper English gentleman. But before he can earn our respect, he must learn to respect himself by casting off this repulsive and repetitive act of self-loathing. Mr. Phipps, perhaps a caning will help you remember the lesson of this day. Drop your trousers!”

  Little Edmund Phipps begins to howl in fear. His face puckers into a tight fist that squeezes out tears as he says, “I didn’t do it… I didn’t!” Dr. Russell turns the boy around to face the teacher’s desk, and Edmund slowly, with shaking hands, unbuckles his belt and begins to lower his pants.

  The other boys are now laughing, partly out of relief. They start to taunt Edmund Phipps with name-calling: “Bed wetter!” and “Wee Wee Edmund!” Ollie watches in horror. What is happening? Could it be that Edmund Phipps is also guilty? Or that just this morning he wet his bed, perhaps for the first time, and had the misfortune of getting caught? Maybe they had found Edmund’s soiled bed and had stopped searching before finding Ollie’s wet sheets.

  Ollie watches as Edmund exposes his white buttocks and bends over the desk, sobbing and gurgling. He watches Dr. Russell raise the stiff cane and smack the boy with a startling crack. Edmund screams in pain, and for a moment this halts the laughter. A fiery welt blooms where the cane struck.

  Ollie stares in horror. Watching this torture is worse than preparing for his own punishment. He is certain now that a terrible mistake has been made, that Edmund is innocent and he is guilty.

  Dr. Russell raises the cane, but before he can strike Edmund again, Ollie cries out, “No!” The headmaster lowers the cane and turns to see Ollie standing.

  “What is it, young man?” Dr. Russell says.

  “It was not Edmund, sir. It was me. I am the bed wetter.”

  “I see. And you are not just trying to save your friend? We do not honor that kind of misguided deceit in this school.”

  “No, sir. I am certain the bed they found was mine, sir.”

  The headmaster turns to Edmund and says, “Well then, young man, you are off the hook, so to speak. Your roommate has just confessed to the crime.”

  Edmund, sniffling, raises himself from the desk and pulls up his trousers.

  “Oliver Chadwick, if you would be so good as to step to the front of the room, please,” Dr. Russell says. Ollie complies. As he reaches Mr. Peele’s desk, he looks at Dr. Russell. Up close, the man does not look like Satan at all. He is just a man. And the cane is just a piece of bamboo. Let him whack away! Nothing he can do will be as painful as Ollie’s forced separation from his loved ones. The image of Jalal comes into his mind, and the image calms him. It is almost as if his friend is communicating to him, telling him to be brave, to be proud for having done the right thing. He knows that is what Jalal would have told him.

  Without being asked, Ollie unbuckles his belt, lowers his trousers and bends over the desk. The air is cool on his bare buttocks. He thinks of Bushruyih, the wind and the sand, the courtyard garden. He thinks of Mum’s loving smile—she has not forgotten him, he is sure of it. He thinks of…

  Smack! The searing pain blisters his consciousness. Unbelievable pain! But he does not make a sound.

  “I would have given Edmund four,” the headmaster explains. “But for failing to speak up before your innocent friend was caned, I will give you eight.”

  Whack! Eight, yes, eight will be fine. Eight will take Ollie back to the painful Bushruyih sunburn, the scorpion sting on his thigh, the fall onto sharp rocks. Smack! Eight will take Ollie back to the heartache of abandoning his father, the anguish of seeing the gloomy hellhole of London for the first time.

  Crack!

  Chapter 7

  Awaking. Drenched with sweat. Gasping for air. The nightmare clings to him. Even as his eyes dart from wall to floor to sleeping mat, Jalal cannot shake the feeling that he has fallen from heaven and landed back in the madrisih.

  Taqi, his roommate, watches him struggle for breath. “Are you all right?”

  “No,” Jalal replies. “I am without hope. I don’t know how to escape this prison.”

  “You mean the school?”

  “I am suffocating here. They give me no room to breathe.”

  “They are just trying to give us a pattern for thinking.”

  “No, Taqi, they are trying to get us to repeat their thoughts without thinking for ourselves.”

  “Is that so bad? Your thinking may be flawed.”

  “How would they know? They don’t listen!”

  “You believe they are wrong?”

  “I believe they are giving us answers to questions that don’t matter, and I believe they have forgotten the important questions.”

  Jalal remembers the Shaykhi—the old man named Kujiri—and the memory comforts him. He revisits that memorable day—the day he learned about the ideas of the Shaykhis and backed down Mulla Ibrahim in the caravanserai. And then he understands what he must do to escape. Somehow, he must find a Shaykhi in Mashhad. Such a person could be the antidote for the anesthesia of the madrisih.

  Just
then a large man enters the room, startling both of the boys. The man is about the same age as Jalal’s father but wears a green turban, the symbol of a Siyyid—a direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad. His face is long and lean with many creases like the rays of the sun emanating from each of his eyes. Those eyes! Jalal can see an inner light illuminating them—no, probably just his own imagination. The man smiles, and when he speaks his voice is soft and gentle. “Jalal?”

  “Yes.”

  The man stands, uncoiling his frame, which is much larger than Jalal had imagined. “My name is Siyyid Mahmud of Mashhad. I have a message for you.”

  Jalal has been holding his breath. Now he lets it out. “From my father?” he asks expectantly.

  “When I told the mullas I was delivering a message to you, they assumed it was from your father. I’m afraid I did not correct them.”

  “But—if the message is not from my father…”

  “It is from someone you have not met but who knows of you. I was asked to deliver it in person to be certain that you received it.” He hands a sealed envelope to Jalal who eagerly takes it.

  “I do not recognize the seal,” the boy says.

  “It is the seal of Siyyid Kazim.” Mahmud can see that the boy does not recognize this name so he explains. “For many years Siyyid Kazim was a disciple of Shaykh Ahmad. Now that the Shaykh has begun a Pilgrimage—perhaps his final journey—Kazim is in charge of the Shaykhi school in Karbala.”

  “And he knows of me? But how?”

  Mahmud shrugs. “Perhaps the answer is in the message.”

  Jalal breaks open the seal and removes the message. Crouching by a candle, he reads it carefully and silently, except for one word that escapes his lips: “Kujiri!” When he is finished, he sits down as if stunned. After a few moments, he looks up at Siyyid Mahmud and says, “You are a Shaykhi.”