by Noah Gordon
“No one. That is,” Rob said hastily, “there was a nuptial agreement more than a year ago, but it wasn’t acted upon until now.”
“What is her name?” Karim asked.
“Mary Cullen. She’s a Scot. I met her and her father in a caravan on my eastward journey.” He told them something of James Cullen, and of his illness and death.
Mirdin seemed scarcely to be listening. “A Scot. That is a European?”
“Yes. She comes from a place north of my own country.”
“She is a Christian?”
Rob nodded.
“I must see this European woman,” Karim said. “Is she a pretty female?”
“She’s so beautiful!” Rob blurted, and Karim laughed. “But I want you to judge for yourself.” Rob turned to include Mirdin in the invitation, but saw that his friend had walked away.
Rob didn’t relish reporting to the Shah what he had seen, but he knew he had committed his loyalty and had little choice. When he appeared at the palace and asked to see the king, Khuff smiled his hard smile.
“What is your errand?”
The Captain of the Gates hurled a glance like a stone when Rob shook his head in silence.
But Khuff bade him wait and went to tell Alā that the foreign Dhimmi Jesse wished to see him, and presently the old soldier ushered Rob in to the royal presence.
Alā smelled of drink but listened soberly enough to Rob’s report that his Vizier had sent pietist disciples to meet and confer with a party of the Shah’s enemies.
“There has been no report of attacks in Hamadhān,” Alā said slowly. “It was not a Seljuk raiding party, therefore doubtless they met to discuss treachery.” He examined Rob through veiled eyes. “To whom have you spoken of this?”
“To no man, Majesty.”
“Let it remain so.”
Instead of further talk, Alā placed the board of the Shah’s Game between them. He was visibly pleased to encounter a more difficult opponent than heretofore he had met in Rob.
“Ah, Dhimmi, you grow skilled and cunning as a Persian!”
Rob was able to hold him off for a time. In the end, Alā ground him into the dust and it was as always, shahtreng. But each recognized that their game had turned a corner. It was more of a struggle now, and Rob might have been able to hold out even longer if he were not so eager to return to his bride.
Ispahan was the most beautiful city Mary had ever seen, or perhaps it was because she was there with Rob. She was pleased with the little house in Yehuddiyyeh, although the Jewish quarter was shabby. The house wasn’t as large as the house in which she and her father had lived by the wadi in Hamadhān, but it was of sounder construction.
At her insistence Rob bought plaster and a few simple tools and she vowed to repair the house while he was gone, her first day alone. The full heat of the Persian summer was on them, and the long-sleeved black dress of bereavement soon was sodden with perspiration.
In the middle of the morning the most handsome man she had ever seen knocked at the door. He was carrying a basket of black plums, which he set down so he could reach out to touch her red hair, frightening her. He was chuckling and looked awed, dazzling her with his perfect white teeth in his tanned face. He spoke at length; it sounded eloquent and graceful and full of feeling, but it was in Persian.
“I am sorry,” she said.
“Ah.” He understood at once and touched his chest. “Karim.”
She lost her fright and was delighted. “So. You are my husband’s friend. He’s spoken of you.”
He beamed and led her, protesting in words he couldn’t understand, to a chair where she sat and ate a sweet plum while he mixed plaster to exactly the correct consistency and spread it on three cracks in the interior walls, and then replaced a windowsill. Shamelessly, she also allowed him to help her cut out the large, wicked thornbushes in the garden.
Karim was still there when Rob came home and she insisted that he share their meal, which then they had to delay until darkness had fallen, for it was Ramadan, the ninth month, the month of fasting.
“I like Karim,” she told Rob when he had gone. “When shall I meet the other one—Mirdin?”
He kissed her and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.
Ramadan seemed a most peculiar holiday to Mary. It was Rob’s second Ramadan in Ispahan, and he told her it was a somber month, supposed to be devoted to prayer and shriving, but food seemed foremost on everyone’s mind because Muslims were proscribed from taking nourishment or liquid from dawn to sunset. Vendors of food were absent from the markets and the streets, and the maidans remained dark and silent all month, though friends and families assembled at night to eat and fortify themselves for the next day’s fasting.
“We were in Anatolia last year during Ramadan,” Mary said wistfully. “Da bought lambs from a herdsman and gave a feast for our Muslim servants.”
“We could give a Ramadan dinner.”
“It would be pleasant, but I am in mourning,” she reminded him.
Indeed, she was torn by conflicting emotions, at times racked by such grief that she felt crippled by the pain of her loss, at other times giddily aware she was the most fortunate of women in her marriage.
On the few occasions when she ventured from the house, it seemed to her that people stared at her with enmity. Her black mourning dress wasn’t dissimilar from the costume of the other women of Yehuddiyyeh, but doubtless her uncovered red hair marked her as a European. She tried wearing her wide-brimmed traveling hat, but she saw women point her out in the street just the same, and their coldness toward her was unabated.
Under other circumstances she might have felt loneliness, for in the midst of a teeming city she was able to communicate with but one person; but instead of isolation she felt a privacy that was complete, as though only she and her new husband peopled the world.
In that waning month of Ramadan they were visited solely by Karim Harun, and several times she saw the young Persian physician running, running through the streets, a sight that made her catch her breath, for it was like watching a roe deer. Rob told her about the footrace, the chatir, which would be held on the first day of the three-day holiday called Bairam that celebrated the end of the long fast.
“I’ve promised to attend Karim during the running.”
“Will you be his only attendant?”
“Mirdin will be there too. But I believe he will need the two of us.” There was a question in his voice and she knew he was troubled that she might consider it a disrespect toward her father.
“Then you must,” she said firmly.
“The race itself isn’t a celebration. It could not be considered wrong for one in mourning merely to look on.”
She thought about it as Bairam approached and in the end decided her husband was right, and that she would watch the chatir.
Early on the first morning of the month of Shawwal there was a heavy mist that gave Karim hope it would be a good day, a runner’s day. He had slept fitfully but told himself that doubtless the other competitors had spent the night the same way, trying to keep their minds from dwelling on the race.
He rose and cooked himself a large pot of peas and rice, sprinkling the coarse pilah with celery seed that he measured with careful attention. He ate more than he wanted, stoking himself like a fire, and then returned to his pallet and rested while the celery seed did its work, keeping his mind blank and serene with prayer:
Allah, make me fleet and sure of foot this day.
Let my chest be like unto a bellows that does not fail
And my legs strong and supple as young trees.
Keep my mind clear and my senses sharp
And my eyes ever fixed on Thee.
He didn’t pray for victory. When he was a boy, Zaki-Omar had told him often enough: “Every yellow dog of a runner prays for victory. How confusing for Allah! It is better to ask Him to grant speed and endurance and use them to take the responsibility for victory or defeat upon oneself.”
When he felt the urge he rose and went to the bucket, squatting a long and satisfying time to move his bowels. The amount of celery seed had been correct; when he was through he was emptied but not weakened, and he would not be deterred that day by a cramp in the midst of a lap.
He warmed water and bathed from a bowl by candlelight, wiping himself dry quickly because the dwindling dark contained a coolness. Then he anointed himself with olive oil against the sun, and twice wherever friction might cause pain—nipples, armpits, loins and penis, the crease of buttocks, and finally his feet, taking care to oil the tops of his toes.
He dressed in a linen loincloth and linen shirt, light leather footman’s shoes, and a jaunty feathered cap. Around his neck he suspended a bowman’s quiver and an amulet in a small cloth bag, and threw a cloak over his shoulders to guard against chill. Then he let himself out of the house.
He walked slowly at first and then more rapidly, feeling warmth beginning to unlock his muscles and joints. There were as yet few people in the streets. No one noticed him as he entered a brushy copse to indulge in one last nervous piss. But by the time he reached the starting point by the drawbridge of the House of Paradise a crowd had gathered there, hundreds of men. He made his way carefully through it until by prearrangement he came upon Mirdin at the very rear, and it was here a short time later that Jesse ben Benjamin found them.
His friends greeted one another stiffly. Some trouble between them, Karim saw. He put it out of his mind at once. This was a time to think only of the race.
Jesse grinned at him and questioningly touched the little bag hanging from his neck.
“My luck,” Karim said. “From my lady.” But he shouldn’t talk before a race, he could not. He gave Jesse and Mirdin a quick smile to show he meant no offense and closed his eyes and brought in blankness, shutting out the loud talk and boisterous laughter all around him. It was harder to shut out the smells of oils and animal grease, body odor and sweaty clothing.
He said his prayer.
When he opened his eyes the mist had turned pearly. Looking through it, he was able to see a perfectly round red disc, the sun. The air had changed and already was heavy. He realized with a pang that it would be a brutally hot day.
Out of his hands. Imshallah.
He removed his cloak and gave it to Jesse.
Mirdin was pale. “Allah be with you.”
“Run with God, Karim,” Jesse told him.
He didn’t answer. Now a hush had fallen. The runners and the onlookers were gazing up at the nearest minaret, the Friday Mosque, where Karim could see a tiny, dark-robed figure just entering the tower.
In a moment the haunting call to First Prayer floated to their ears and Karim prostrated himself to the southwest, the direction of Mecca.
When the praying ended everyone was screaming at the top of his lungs, runners and spectators alike. It was frightening and made him tremble. Some shouted encouragement, others called upon Allah; many simply howled, the bloodcurdling sound men might make when attacking an enemy’s wall.
Back where he was standing the movement of the front runners could only be sensed but he knew from experience how some were springing forward to be in the first rank, fighting and shoving, heedless of who was trampled and what injuries were inflicted. Even those who were not slow in rising from prayer were at risk, because in the churning maelstrom of bodies, flailing arms would strike faces, feet would kick nearby legs, ankles would be twisted and turned.
It was why he waited in the rear with contemptuous patience as wave after wave of runners moved away ahead of him, assaulting him with their noise.
But finally he was running. The chatir had begun and he was in the tail of a long serpent of men.
He was running very slowly. It would take a long time to cover the first five and one-quarter miles, but that was part of his plan. The alternative would have been to station himself in front of the crowd, then, assuming he wasn’t injured in the melee, surge forward at a pace guaranteed to move him safely ahead of the pack. But this would have used up too much energy at the outset. He had chosen the safer way.
They ran down the wide Gates of Paradise and turned left to stay for more than a mile on the Avenue of the Thousand Gardens, which dropped and then rose, giving a long hill on the first half of the lap and a short but steeper hill on the return. The course turned right onto the Street of the Apostles, which was only a quarter of a mile long; but the short street fell on the way out and was a laborious run on the return. They padded left again onto the Avenue of Ali and Fatima, and followed it all the way to the madrassa.
All kinds of people were in the pack. It was fashionable for young nobles to run for half a lap, and men in silk summer clothing ran shoulder to shoulder with runners in rags. Karim hung back, for at this point it wasn’t a race so much as a running mob, full of high spirits over the end of Ramadan. It wasn’t a bad way for him to begin, for the slow pace allowed his juices to begin to flow gradually.
There were spectators but it was too early for a dense crowd to line the streets; it was a long race and most people would come to watch later. At the madrassa he looked at once toward the long roof of the one-storied maristan, where the woman who had given him the amulet—it was a lock of her hair in the little bag—had said her husband had arranged for her to watch the chatir. She wasn’t there yet but two nurses stood on the street in front of the hospital and shouted “Hakim! Hakim!” Karim waved as he ran by, knowing they would be disappointed to see him at the end of the pack.
They wound through the madrassa grounds and on to the central maidan, where two great open tents had been raised. One for courtiers, carpeted and lined with brocades, contained tables bearing all manner of rich victuals and wines. The other tent, for runners of common birth, offered free bread and pilah and sherbet and appeared no less welcoming, so that here the race lost almost half its contestants, who made for the refreshment with glad cries.
Karim was among those who ran past the tents. They circled the stone ball-and-stick goals and then began to retrace the course to the House of Paradise.
Now they were fewer and strung along a distance, and Karim had room to set his pace.
There were choices. Some held with pushing the first few laps smartly to take advantage of the morning cool. But he had been taught by Zaki-Omar that the secret of completing long distances was to select a pace that would drain his last bit of energy at the completion, and to stay with that speed unvaryingly. He was able to fall into it with the perfect rhythm and regularity of a trotting horse. The Roman mile was one thousand five-foot paces but Karim ran about twelve hundred steps to a mile, each covering a little more than four feet. He held his spine perfectly straight, his head high. The slap-slap-slap of his feet against the ground at his chosen pace was like the voice of an old friend.
He began to pass some runners now, though he knew that most were not men in serious contention, and he was running easily when he returned to the palace gates and collected the first arrow to be dropped into his quiver.
Mirdin offered balm to be rubbed into his skin against the sun, which he refused, and water, which he took gratefully but sparingly.
“You are forty-second,” Jesse said, and he nodded and sprang away.
Now he ran in the full light of day and the sun was low but already strong, clearly signaling the heat to come. It wasn’t unexpected. Sometimes Allah was kind to runners but most chatirs were ordeals through the Persian heat. The high points of Zaki-Omar’s athletic career had been to win second place in two chatirs, once when Karim was twelve years old and again the year he was fourteen. He remembered his terror at seeing the exhaustion in Zaki’s red face and popping eyes. Zaki had run as long and as far as he had been able, but in both races there had been one runner who could run longer and farther.
Grimly, Karim removed the thought from his mind.
The hills seemed no worse than they had on the first lap and he ascended them almost without thought. The crow
ds began to be thicker everywhere, for it was a fine sunny morning and Ispahan was enjoying a holiday. Most businesses were closed and people stood or sat along the route in groups—Armenians together, Indians together, Jews together, learned societies and religious organizations en masse.
When Karim came to the hospital again and still couldn’t see the woman who had promised to be there, he felt a pang. Perhaps, after all, her husband had forbidden her to come.
There was a solid clump of spectators in front of the school and they cheered and waved him on.
As he approached the maidan he saw it was already as frenzied as if it were a Thursday evening. Musicians, jugglers, fencers, acrobats, dancers, and magicians played to large audiences, while the runners made their way around the outside of the square almost unnoticed.
Karim began to pass spent contenders lying or sitting by the side of the road.
When he collected his second arrow Mirdin again tried to give him an ointment to protect his skin from the sun but he refused it, though he knew with a private shame it was because the ointment was unsightly and he wanted her to see him without it. It would be available if needed since, by prearrangement, on this lap Jesse would begin to follow him on the brown horse. Karim knew himself; the first testing of his soul was coming, for he invariably felt distress after 25 Roman miles.
Problems came almost on schedule. Halfway up the hill on the Avenue of the Thousand Gardens he became aware of a raw place on the heel of his right foot. It was impossible to run such a long race without damaging his feet and he knew he must ignore the discomfort, but soon it was joined by a sticking pain in his right side that grew until he gasped whenever his right foot jarred against the road.
He signaled to Jesse, who was carrying a goatskin of water behind his saddle, but a warm drink tasting of goaty leather did little to ease his discomfort.
But when he drew close to the madrassa, at once he spotted on the hospital roof the woman for whom he’d been looking, and it was as if everything that had been troubling him fell away.
Rob, riding behind Karim like a squire trailing his knight, saw Mary as they approached the maristan and they smiled at each other. Dressed in her mourning black, she would have been inconspicuous were her face not unadorned, but every other female in sight wore the heavy black street veil. The others on the roof stood slightly apart from his wife, as if afraid lest they be corrupted by her European ways.