Arabian Nights and Days (8 page)

“Do you accept?” he asked, ignoring what Abdullah had said.

“As you wish—and more,” he said quietly.

He performed this subsidiary task with complete ease and assurance, for he did not reckon it to be a significant addition to his basic function. His personal worries—Rasmiya and Husniya, and his wavering between life and death—though not erased from the surface of his mind, no longer troubled him, while his general worries had disappeared, as the waves of a river disappear into the open sea. The second person in his program was Yusuf al-Tahir or Adnan Shouma, whichever was easier. But he gave precedence over them to Ibrahim al-Attar the druggist, for an anomalous slight that had not previously occurred to him: Abdullah had once carried for him certain goods; they had quarreled about payment, and the powerful merchant had cursed and insulted him.

The lethal arrow became embedded in Ibrahim al-Attar's heart as he was returning home after the evening session at the café. Terror
erupted in the city and memories of the killings of al-Salouli, Buteisha Murgan, and al-Hamadhani were awakened.

Abdullah and Fadil met up on the steps of the drinking fountain at the height of the trouble. They exchanged alarmed looks while in vain trying to conceal their pleasure.

“What terrible happenings!” muttered Abdullah.

The other intuited his views and said in all innocence, “The assassination was not part of our plan.”

Feigning dismay, Abdullah said, “Perhaps it was an act of personal revenge.”

“I don't think so.”

“But he was no more corrupt than anyone else.”

“The upper class know that he was putting poison into the medicine of the governor's enemies.”

Abdullah said to himself that his friend knew as many people's secrets as he knew himself—maybe more. “If the assassination was not part of our plan, then who was the perpetrator?”

“God knows,” said Fadil irritably. “He kills and we pay the price.”

When he put out the candle and took himself to bed, he felt the strange presence crowding in on him. His heart quaked and he mumbled, “Singam!”

The voice asked him coldly, “What have you done?”

“I do in my own way what I believe is best.”

“It was more a reaction to the insult inflicted on you.”

“All I did was to give him precedence,” he said hotly. “His turn would have come sooner or later.”

“Your account is with Him Who is privy to what is in people's breasts. Beware, man.”

Singam vanished, and Abdullah did not sleep a wink.

Above the dome of the mosque of the Tenth Imam, in a session replete with tranquillity and the cold of winter, Qumqam and Singam sat enveloped in the cloak of night, while underneath it swarmed the forces of the police, out for revenge, sparks flying from their blood-red eyes. Qumqam whispered scornfully, “O the suffering of mankind!”

“All I did,” said Singam apologetically, “was to save Gamasa al-Bulti's soul from hellfire.”

“We never once interfered in their lives with things turning out as we wanted.”

“And to connive with them is more than we can bear.”

At that moment there passed below them Sahloul the bric-a-brac merchant. Pointing to him, Qumqam said, “I am happy for him that he lives with them as though he too were a human.”

Sharing his opinion, Singam said, “But he is an angel, the Angel of Death, Azrael's agent in the quarter. His duty requires of him that he mix with them night and day, and he is permitted to do things that we are not.”

“Let us pray to God to inspire us to do what is right.”

“Amen,” replied Singam.

The activities of Abdullah the porter were obstructed by an incident that troubled him. He had made his way with a large weight of nuts and dried fruit to the house of Adnan Shouma, the chief of police. He had not stopped mulling over the killing of Ibrahim al-Attar the druggist: how much was genuine holy war and how much anger and a desire for revenge? The path of God was clear and it should not be fused with anger or pride, or else the whole structure would collapse from its foundations.

Adnan Shouma's house lay in Pageants and Festivals Street, a short
distance from the house of government. It was a dignified street, on both sides of which were private mansions and large inns; it also had a garden and an open space where slave-girls were sold. As he entered the house he said to himself, “Your turn's coming soon, Adnan.” Then, about to leave, he was stopped by a slave, who asked him to go and see the master of the house. He went to a reception room, his heart quivering with unease. The man looked at him with his small, round face and cruel, narrow eyes as he fingered his beard, then asked, “Where are you from?”

“Ethiopia,” answered Abdullah humbly.

“I have been told that you have a good reputation and that you don't miss a single prayer.”

“It is by God's kindness and His mercy,” he said, having received the first breath of comfort.

“That is why my choice has fallen on you.”

The intended meaning circulated in his head like a strong aroma in a closed room. How many times, when he was chief of police, had he spoken just such words to some man, foreshadowing his recruitment into the organization of spies, the man knowing that to try to slide out of the assignment was tantamount to a sentence of death, that there was no choice but to obey!

“In this way,” said Adnan Shouma, “you gain honor in the service of the sultan and of religion.”

Abdullah pretended to be delighted and proud. He gave him such indications as would reassure him, at which the other said, “Be careful of that which brings the traitor to ruin.”

“It makes me happy to serve in the ranks of God,” he muttered enigmatically.

“Houses are open to you by virtue of your work,” said Adnan, “and all you lack are some directives, which have been set down in secret records since the time of Gamasa al-Bulti.”

He left Adnan Shouma's house bearing a new load, a load heavier than the one he had brought. On meeting Fadil Sanaan, he let him into his
new secret. Fadil thought about the matter for a long time, then said, “You have become two-eyed: one for us and one against us.”

But Abdullah was immersed in his worries.

“Don't you regard this,” Fadil asked him, “as a gain for us?”

“It is demanded of me that I show my sincere devotion to the work,” Abdullah said gloomily.

Fadil took refuge in his silent thoughts and Abdullah continued, “I wonder if he summoned me because he suspects me.”

“They are men of violence,” responded Fadil, “and they have no need of subterfuge.”

“I agree, but how should I prove my loyalty?”

Fadil thought for a time, then said, “Circumstances sometimes require that we send some of our people abroad. I'll point one of them out to you, so you can report him—and he'll slip away at just the right moment, as though by chance.”

“A happy solution, but not one that can be repeated,” said Abdullah, his eyes shining at the prospect.

“It's truly a way of putting them in a fix, though,” said Fadil, talking to himself.

“So at last you're thinking as I do.” And he asked himself whether he would be able to go on carrying out his secret plan.

Suddenly his thoughts were dispersed as he saw Sahloul crossing the street in front of them, paying no attention to anything. As usual his heart tightened, and he nudged Fadil.

“What do you know about this man?” he asked.

“Sahloul the bric-a-brac merchant,” said Fadil in a natural tone. “He was one of father's friends, and perhaps he's the one merchant who enjoys a blameless record.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“Nothing.”

“Doesn't his inscrutability arouse your curiosity?”

“His inscrutability? He's simplicity itself; an active, knowledgeable man who is not concerned with others. What makes you wonder about him?”

After a slight hesitation he said, “He has a penetrating gaze that makes me uneasy.”

“There is no basis for your suspicions—he is a virtuous exception to a corrupt rule.”

Abdullah hoped Fadil was right and that his own suspicions would be proved wrong.

From his previous experience he was certain that he would be placed under surveillance, as happened with all new plainclothesmen. It would be out of the question for him to undertake any new venture unless he removed Adnan Shouma himself from his path with a successful stroke.

And so he slipped into Adnan's house for a secret meeting and said to him, “Soon much fruit will fall. The quarter is full of infidels, but I think it best that I avoid coming to see you frequently.”

“I shall appoint a go-between for you,” said Adnan Shouma happily.

“That is sufficient for ordinary matters. But for important ones contact should be restricted to yourself.”

“We'll arrange that later.”

“The best kindness is the one soonest done,” said Abdullah, quoting the proverb.

“I am sometimes to be found outside the wall of the quarter,” said Adnan Shouma after some thought. “I think it is a suitable place.”

His scheming had worked out better than he had hoped.

With the assistance of Fadil Sanaan he forwarded a report about a young, unmarried man who lived on his own in a rooming house in the cul-de-sac of the tanners. When the force of troops swooped down on where he was living, it became apparent that he had left only minutes before to go on a journey. Adnan Shouma was furious and said to Abdullah, “You aroused his suspicion without realizing.”

Abdullah assured him he was more crafty than he imagined, but Adnan sent him away, unhappy with him.

The governor's residence was rocked to its foundations, as was the quarter and the whole city, by the discovery of Adnan Shouma's body outside the walls. Shahriyar himself was enraged. Mysterious fears loomed up before the eyes of eminent people, who crept out of their lairs in the darkness. Abdullah learned from his sources that the investigation was concentrating on discovering why the chief of police had gone secretly beyond the quarter's wall. And Abdullah had been the first to know of his victim's secret of going to a private house to meet Gulnar and Zahriyar, the two sisters of Yusuf al-Tahir, governor of the quarter. In fact, he had known the way of life of the two women since he had first joined the service and before Yusuf al-Tahir had taken up his appointment. So it was that the chief of police had asked to meet him in a pavilion in the garden of the mansion and had then sent him away. He had not returned, though, to the quarter but had hung about for him in the dark until he left the mansion before dawn, when he had met him with the fatal arrow. Now his sense of security was vanishing and he did not think it unlikely that some of those close to Adnan Shouma, women and men, had known of the secret meeting between him and the man.

He decided to make his escape, if only for a while. He therefore left the whole quarter and took himself off behind the open space by the river, close by the green tongue of land where he used to practice his hobby of fishing, the same spot where he had met Singam. Finding a towering palm tree, he threw himself down beneath it and sank into thought. Night came, the stars twinkled gently and it grew cold. Had he planned things well, he wondered, or had his eagerness to carry out his plan thwarted his objective? When and how would he be given the chance to take action again? How could he avoid his enemies and make contact with his friend Fadil Sanaan?

In the silence of the night there came to him a voice saying, “O Abdullah!”

He looked in the direction of the voice, toward the river, and asked, “Who is calling?”

“Come closer,” said the voice in a tone that diffused a sense of security, calm, and peace.

He approached the river, walking warily, until he saw its dark surface under the light of the stars. He saw too a spectral form, half in the water and half leaning with its arms against the shore.

“Are you in need of help?” he asked.

“It is you who need help, Abdullah.”

“Who are you and what do you know of me?” he asked apprehensively.

“I am Abdullah of the Sea just as you are Abdullah of the Land, and the grip of evil is tightening around your neck.”

“Sir, what keeps you in the water? What sort of living creature are you?”

“I am none but a worshiper in the never-ending kingdom of the water.”

“You mean it's a kingdom that lives under the water?”

“Yes. In it perfection has been attained and oppositions have vanished, nothing disturbing its serenity but the misery of the people living on the land.”

“Extraordinary are the things I hear but the power of God is without limit,” said Abdullah in wonder.

“Likewise His mercy, so take off your clothes and plunge into the water.”

“Why so, sir? Why ask this of me on a cold night?”

“Do as I say before the fatal grip closes around your throat.”

In no time Abdullah of the Sea had plunged into the water of the river, leaving him to make his choice. Urged on by some crazy inspiration, he took off his clothes and plunged into the river until he had disappeared completely. Then he heard the voice saying to him, “Return safely to the land.”

No sooner did he feel the ground underfoot than his heart settled
itself between his ribs and he felt himself to be as one of the predators of the sky, the earth, and the night. He was conscious, too, of a warmth. Then sleep came over him. He slept deeply and peacefully, and it was as if the stars sparkled only that they might watch over him. He woke before daybreak. Looking into his mirror in the first rays of light, he saw before him a new face not known to him before.

“Blessed are wondrous things if of God's making!” he exclaimed.