Pilgermann

by Russell Hoban

  There came a particular day that winter when the Franks ambushed the Turks who were planning to ambush them. We were told that seven hundred Turks died that day while the Franks had no losses whatever. It was a cold grey day, the tents and awnings of the Hidden Lion bazaar was snapping in the wind; it was one of those grey days, it was one of those winds when no matter how many people gather together each one of them looks utterly alone and too small under a sky that is far, far too big. Little leaning pitiful figures. The tax-collector that day was pacing with ostentatious self-importance, like a man who knows that people breathlessly await his words.

  There came to Hidden Lion then Yaghi-Siyan riding on his horse, his bodyguard with him as always. They were followed by a mule-cart covered with a tent-cloth. Yaghi-Siyan rode clip-clopping on to the tiles with the bodyguard clip-clopping after him and the mule-cart rumbling behind. He wore a helmet and a mail shirt with a gold-worked green robe over it. One couldn’t tell whether he had been in the battle or not; he looked fresh and clean. He had a bow slung on his shoulder; I had never seen him carry a bow before; he looked as if at any moment he expected to have to fight or fly for his life. His face was wild with rage and (I thought) with despair. He looked all around him while his horse danced and tossed its head. (How strange, I thought, to be a horse; one might be carrying on one’s back anything at all to anything at all: chaos to order; betrayal to trust; defeat to victory; death to life.)

  Everyone became silent, and in the silence there came on the wind snatches of singing from the Franks encamped by the Gate of the Dog. They were singing in Latin and the only words that came clearly in the gusting of the wind were: ‘Deus trinus et unus’, ‘God three together and one’.

  ‘Do you know what tongue they sing in?’ Yaghi-Siyan said to me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They are singing in Latin.’

  ‘Scholarly Jew!’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘And what do they sing?’

  ‘“God three together and one”,’ I said. ‘Those were the only words I could make out.’

  ‘“Three together and one”!’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘Which is it? Is it three or is it one?’

  ‘It is both three and one,’ I said. ‘The three are together in the one.’

  ‘How many gods do you worship, Jew?’ he said.

  ‘One,’ I said.

  ‘I also,’ he said. Still looking at me he said over his shoulder, ‘Bring Firouz here.’ One of the bodyguard rode off at a trot towards the Tower of the Two Sisters.

  Everyone waited in silence. There had been no command for silence nor was Yaghi-Siyan, Governor though he was, a commanding presence. It was clear to everyone, however, that something of great power was commanding him. The faces that were turned towards him were looking at what was commanding him. The awnings flapped and fluttered, the green-and-gold banner carried by one of the bodyguard snapped in the wind. Mount Silpius, continually surprising in its mountainness, seemed itself surprised to find itself where it was, surprised to find that the present moment had indeed arrived. I cannot say less than I must but I dare not say more than is permitted; for the first time in this narrative it comes to me that words are images, and what is sacred cannot be imaged. Still there is the obligation of the witness: though the world should pass away, what has been seen has been seen; the voice that does not speak is denying God.

  Yaghi-Siyan himself seemed to be snapping in the wind like the banner as he sat there on his horse in silence. The horse arched its neck, pawed with its hooves, dunged upon the tiles that at another time Yaghi-Siyan had taken off his shoes to walk upon.

  The guard returned, Firouz riding beside him. Yaghi-Siyan said to Firouz, ‘Get down off your horse, please.’

  Firouz dismounted, stood upon the tiles of Hidden Lion. The guard who had brought him took hold of the bridle of Firouz’s horse.

  ‘Firouz,’ said Yaghi-Siyan, ‘you have been a Christian, have you not?’

  ‘I bear witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God,’ said Firouz.

  ‘Yes, yes, we know that,’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘Now you are a Muslim. But you must tell me about the Christian god, the Three in One.’

  ‘What must I tell you?’ said Firouz.

  ‘You must tell me,’ said Yaghi-Siyan, ‘what this Three in One is. Is One the head and Two the body and Three the legs? What is this Three in One?’

  ‘One is the Father, Two is the Son, Three is the Holy Spirit,’ said Firouz.

  ‘Very good,’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘Here we are, you and I, upon Hidden Lion with its twisting serpents, contiguous with infinity: you are an Armenian, you have been a Christian and now you are a Muslim; I am only a simple Turk, I lack your experience in religious matters; I have always been a Muslim the same as I am now, I don’t know anything else. But you, having been a Christian, must know all about Christians—probably you can immediately recognize them when you see them. How is it with them, have they got lines upon their bodies dividing them into Spirit, Son, and Holy Father?’

  ‘Christians wear blue turbans,’ said Firouz.

  ‘Ah, yes!’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘Probably the blue signifies the Heaven that is waiting for those of them who are virtuous. In any case you will have no difficulty in knowing them on sight. And of course now that you have been living among Turkish Muslims you know very well what they look like, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Firouz.

  ‘Show him a Turk,’ said Yaghi-Siyan to the cavalryman on the mule-cart.

  The cavalryman lifted a corner of the cloth, put his hands into the cart, and lifted out a man’s head. He did not lift it up by the hair, he held it respectfully with both hands. The nose was smashed, the open eyes were covered with dirt, the face was broken and smeared with blood. I looked from the face to the mountain, from the mountain to the face.

  ‘This is the head of a Turk,’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘His name is Jhamil Muqtin. He was one of our bravest fighters, he was like magic with a horse, like magic with a bow. His body is not here, his body has been roasted and eaten by the Franks. They have slung his head over the wall with a stone-slinger. His wife, his two sons and his daughter have waited for his return from battle. His old mother has waited also. There are a hundred heads in this cart and there are hundreds more of our men dead. They are dead from treachery, they are dead because the Franks knew of our plans, they were lying in wait for us. We were betrayed by the Christians who live among us, Armenian and Syrian Christians. Now you must bring three hundred Christians to me here upon these twisting serpents. You will know the men by their blue turbans and the women by their blue headcloths. If you find Christians naked you will know the men by their uncircumcised members and you will know the women because they will be with the men. You will know the children because they will cry when you take the parents. I need these three hundred Christians urgently, I must send their heads over the wall to the Franks. They have sent me a hundred heads but as their god is three for one I must send them back three hundred.’

  Bembel Rudzuk spoke and his voice seemed to come from a very small quiet place far away, as from a cleft in the rock of a distant mountain. ‘Your Excellency,’ he said, ‘as you speak those words you are standing on tiles inscribed with the names of Allah The Compassionate, Allah The Merciful.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Yaghi-Siyan, ‘and that is why I shall overlook what you have just now said. A second time you won’t be so lucky.’

  Bembel Rudzuk came forward and knelt before Yaghi-Siyan. He took off his kaffiya, bared his neck, bowed his head. ‘Let my Muslim head then be the first of the three hundred,’ he said. ‘I cannot turn away, and it is better that I do not look upon what you are going to do.’

  Having no sword with me I went up to Firouz who was standing as if in a daze and I drew his sword from its sheath. With it in my hand I stood over Bembel Rudzuk. ‘I prefer not to look upon the death of Bembel Rudzuk,’ I said. ‘Who kills him will have to kill me first.’

  ‘Devoted Jew!’
said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘No one is going to kill either of you. I give you this gift because of what you have shown me with your Hidden Lion. But you shall not be allowed to interfere with what is going to happen here on your pattern that is contiguous with infinity. That is why it is being done here, that the beheading of these three hundred traitors may also be contiguous with infinity, may go on for ever and ever until time will have an end.’ From Firouz’s girdle he removed the sheath of the sword and slid it over the blade as I held the weapon in my hand. ‘Keep this sword and remember me in time to come,’ he said. ‘Go now in peace, go up to the top of your tower and bear witness that this is also part of the pattern.’

  Soldiers of the bodyguard came and led Bembel Rudzuk and me to the tower that stood on David’s Wheel. We climbed to the top, and when I looked down at the pattern it seemed for the moment not to have in it that motion that was always there; it seemed to be the frozen shards and fragments of a Law that was created unyieldingly hard and rigid and for ever broken. The red, the black, the tawny triangles were swarming with figures watching, figures waiting, staring eyes in staring faces. From the place above his shoulders where his head would have been I felt the tax-collector’s eyes on me. Tower Gate’s round face appeared in the crowd like the moon seen for a moment through the cloud-race of an angry sky. The Imam, the Nagid, and the Rabbi seemed to pass like sorrowing dark angels through that same sky. Ah! I thought, this would have been a good time to die; I ought to have killed Yaghi-Siyan when I stood before him with Firouz’s sword in my hand but I had not done it.

  Neither Bembel Rudzuk nor I sought death again that day. I knew that my time was coming soon, I knew that I must be alert to recognize the time and the place so that my death might be the best possible, the most useful possible. But even as that thought moved through my mind it was hurried on its way by another thought coming behind it. This second thought asked whether it might not be only vanity and a striving after wind to want so much for one’s death; whether it might not be better to require nothing whatever of it or for it but simply to welcome it whenever and however it might come, to welcome it as one welcomes the stranger to whom one must always show hospitality.

  As soon as I had taken in this second thought a wave of ease spread through me, a strong feeling that I had found the right way to be. With that feeling came an understanding that from then on every moment would be—indeed always had been—as the last moment. This wants to be made perfectly clear, it may be the only thing I have to say that matters; this idea has for me both the brilliance of the heart of the diamond of the universe and the inverse brilliance of the heart of the blackness in which that diamond lives: this moment that is every moment is always the last moment and it came into being with the first moment; it is that moment of creation in which there comes into being the possibility of all things and the end of all things; it is the blossoming jewel at the heart of the explosion, the calm quiet dawn at the centre of the bursting. This moment that is every moment—to see it whole is to synchronize one’s being with the whole of time, to be everywhere in it at the same time. It is to be with everything by letting go of everything. It is through this awareness that my present state of being has come about. It is associated with that purple-blue of indescribable luminosity of which I have spoken before.

  There are not three hundred Christians gathered here on Hidden Lion; there are one hundred; Yaghi-Siyan has said that he will balance justice with mercy, he will do to these Christians only what those Christians outside the walls have done to the Turks whose heads are in the mule-cart. That a human being should in this fashion show mercy is to me an equal horror with the rest of what is happening. Once only I look at the faces of the Christians as they are herded on to the tiles, then I look away, I look at their feet.

  Now at this moment and then at that moment, in this same moment that will continue for the duration of the universe, in this same luminosity of purple-blue, in this same heart of the diamond, I see the gathering of the Christians on Hidden Lion. The presentness of it, the nowness and for everness of it, is intolerable, and for this that is happening I curse God as Him, I curse God as It, that he made us, whether as He or as It. That he made us what we are, to sling heads over a wall from the outside to the inside and from the inside to the outside. This is what He has done with His omnipotence: this feeble masturbation in a dark and ill-smelling place.

  And yet, so are we made and such is the action of the everything in this one moment that is every moment, that another thought flickers over and under my first thought: what style God has! What a truly godlike extravagance, to burst out all at once with a universe in which everything is going at once and humankind is let run with nothing to stop it from doing anything at all. And to make this running-loose creature with a mind that knows what it is doing and a soul in which Hell burns always and Heaven is grasped so rarely and so briefly that it lives in us as a continual yearning for what can never be held on to, for what must always be lost—what invention!

  The sacred is not to be imaged, there is no image to put to what God is nor is there any reason to want an image of such a thing. The evil that he has created is also in its inexplicable way sacred and not to be described beyond a certain point. Suddenly are these long-legged shore birds, these gleaners of the tideline, netted. Suddenly, with their dark faces, their speechless mouths, their uncircumcised members, their frozenness into such time as there will be until the end of time.

  That is as far as I shall go with these words and the images they bring. What happened, happened.

  Afterwards the bodies are taken away in wagons. There remains of course the blood on the tiles, on the red and black and tawny triangles of Hidden Lion. It is darker than the tawny, darker than the red, lighter than the black. The same people who stood looking on while the Christians were being beheaded now stand looking at the blood. The butcher and his helper from the shop near by bring a bucket of sand, two buckets of water, a scrubbing brush.

  ‘No,’ says Bembel Rudzuk. ‘This blood is not to be washed away. It is now part of the pattern and it is obviously the will of Allah that it should be so.’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t remember,’ says the butcher, ‘but one of the tiles with blood on it is mine. My money is mortared into it and it is inscribed with the name of Allah The Truth, He whose existence has no change.’

  ‘I remember,’ says Bembel Rudzuk, ‘but this blood is not going to be washed away.’ He stands there with his arms folded on his chest. The butcher and the butcher’s helper look at him attentively, then walk away with their bucket of sand, their two buckets of water, and their scrubbing brush.

  In twos and threes the people drift away. Still Bembel Rudzuk stands there like a man of stone. He and I have read the Holy Scriptures together, and I know that those verses of Ezekiel that are now in my mind must be in his mind as well:

  Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD:

  Woe to the bloody city, to the pot

  whose filth is therein, and whose filth

  is not gone out of it! bring it out

  piece by piece; no lot is fallen upon it.

  For her blood is in the midst of her;

  she set it upon the bare rock;

  she poured it not upon the ground,

  to cover it with dust; that it might

  cause fury to come up, that vengeance

  might be taken, I have set her blood

  upon the bare rock, that it should not

  be covered. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD:

  Woe to the bloody city!

  After a time Bembel Rudzuk ceases to stand like a stone man, he begins to walk the boundaries of the square, then moves in a little, walking in progressively smaller squares, moving a little closer to the centre each time, walking slowly in concentric squares as if threading a labyrinth. When he reaches the tower he walks hexagonally around it, then walks from there outwards in concentric squares again to the outer limits of Hidden Lion. The tax-collector with his eyes that are
elsewhere stands watching quietly with me. The sky is growing pale. Bembel Rudzuk and I go home; the tax-collector remains on Hidden Lion.

  Bembel Rudzuk and I went up to the roof of his house and waited there for the day to come. It was unseasonably warm, the air was close and heavy, the morning seemed to hold its breath in the dull grey before-dawn light. In this light was something of that grey and rainy dawn in which I first had come to Suwaydiyya with Bembel Rudzuk. The port with its topography of morning, its long shadows, its low buildings, its boats rocking to the morning slap of the water on their sides, furled sails still heavy with night, crews moving slowly on their decks, the smell of cooking-fires—all this had without seeming to move grown smoothly bigger in my eyes in that particular way in which things reveal themselves when approached by sea, opening to the approacher more and more detail, more and more imminence of what is to come. And always, thus approaching, one feels the new day, the new place, coming forward to read the face of the approacher. Always the held breath, the questioning look of the grey morning.