Escape from Baghdad! (12 page)

“Well then, sir, consider my salute entirely symbolic.” Hoffman smiled, still quivering with rigid parade intensity.

“At ease you ridiculous boy,” Avicenna said. “Now I presume you have found me for a reason?”

“I have some friends,” Hoffman said.

“How fortunate for you,” Avicenna said politely.

“They're in trouble,” Hoffman continued. “You may have heard of the killing of Hassan Salemi's son.”

“Heard about it? I am surrounded by oafs who speak of nothing else. I am heartily sick of Hassan Salemi and his dead son.”

“Yes, well, my friend might have been…
was
…responsible for that,” Hoffman said. “Unknowingly, I'm sure.”

“That is most unfortunate,” Avicenna said. “Your friend shot Hassan Salemi's son. Even now, that man is tearing apart the neighborhoods searching for the culprit. Your friends are most likely dead.”

“Not yet but they will be unless someone helps them,” Hoffman said.

“Do you imagine I can help them?” Avicenna smiled sadly. “Save them from Hassan Salemi? He has an army of gunmen and half of Baghdad's police force on his payroll. I merely have this workshop full of old trinkets.”

“Yes, about the workshop, I understand you're a watchmaker,” Hoffman said.

“I am, among other things,” Avicenna inclined his head. “Hassan Salemi, however, is not very interested in mechanical watches.”

“Hmm, it's just that my friend Dagr, who's a professor of higher mathematics, by the way, has in his possession a kind of artifact. The Druze watch is what they are calling it.”

“The Druze watch?” Avicenna smiled. “Behruse, do you have any reason to believe this drivel?”

“I interviewed ten witnesses who saw it with their own eyes,” Hoffman said. “It is an old mechanical watch with a large rotating rim and just two equal-sized hands. The man who saw it close up described it as ‘Fouad Jumblatt's watch, inscribed with a colored Druze star'.”

“Mr. Hoffman, as I am surprised Behruse has neglected to tell you, the Druze watch is an irritatingly recurring meme in the backstreets of Baghdad. Every dozen or so years, thieves and charlatans entertain each other with tall tales of a watch that tells no time, lumbering guardians with superhuman powers, and a secret gathering of evil Druze,” Avicenna said. “I think you have fallen into a tourist trap.”

“Well, this watch actually came with an evil guardian,” Hoffman said. “Someone called the Lion of Akkad, the King of Cats, who possessed inhuman strength, superman speed, and imperviousness to bullets. They ran him off and found the watch in his hiding place, with other papers and books, all of which I have in my hot little hands.”

“I saw it all,” Behruse said. “There are drawings of a watch, diagrams and such.”

“Witnesses, you say?” Avicenna asked. “Hysterical old women and gullible boys?”

“More like gnarly old shopkeepers and street thugs,” Hoffman said. “They hadn't heard about any mythical watch, and they didn't care about any Druze either. They were more than happy to hand over everything from the sorry mess and forget the thing ever happened.”

“Tell me, Hoffman, are you a treasure hunter?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you dream of some vast Druze conspiracy?”

“No, sir. I dream only in American.”

“What then, do you want?”

“I want you to help my friends. In return for the watch,” Hoffman said. “Behruse said you were
somebody.
”

“And who do
you
represent, Mr. Hoffman?”

“Me? No one at all,” Hoffman shrugged. “I'm just a cog.”

“Alright, we'll leave it at that for now,” Avicenna said. “When we are further along in our partnership, we might revisit your identity. Now come with me.”

10: FURTHER INSIDE THE WATCHMAKER

T
HEY FOLLOWED
A
VICENNA OUT OF THE WORKSHOP INTO A NARROW
archway, which opened abruptly into a small courtyard garden ripe with the smell of olives. Hoffman, long accustomed to finding strange hidden places in this city, was nonetheless stunned by the geometric perfection of this space. An empty bird cage hung from a stunted tree, the small door unlatched. Beneath the cage, there were two weathered benches, shaded no doubt in the morning heat, now deliciously cool and speckled by moonlight. Avicenna motioned them to sit and then rang a small bell. A manservant came from the interior, bearing a silver tray of refreshments and glasses of black coffee. After the service, the old man turned to them.

“Now, gentlemen, what do you know about the Druze in Iraq?”

“There aren't supposed to be any,” Hoffman said. “It's right there in the CIA country report. I checked.”

Behruse sniggered.

“Hush, Behruse,” Avicenna said. “You're quite right, Hoffman, there are no civilian Druze in Iraq. What do you know about the religion?”

“Nothing,” Hoffman said. “A cult?”

“Close enough,” Avicenna said. “What faith are you, Hoffman?”

“Protestant agnostic.”

“Clever,” Avicenna smiled. “Would you agree that every religion has an esoteric core underneath the orthodox
literal
meaning?”

“Man, I don't even understand what that means,” Hoffman fiddled with a vest pocket and produced a joint. “Do you mind if I light this up?”

“Feel free,” Avicenna said. “The smoking of hashish was a common practice for the founders of this city. I was speaking of hidden metaphoric meaning, beneath the literal words and rituals of our religions.”

“I guess,” Hoffman coughed and waived away smoke.

“It is certainly one of the dividing lines of Islam,” Avicenna said. “Among our philosophers, the esoteric core is almost universally accepted. The Sunni orthodoxy maintain that the inner meaning is truly fathomable only by the divine will. It is out of reach of mankind, in other words, and we must be content with following the literal will of God.”

“Makes sense to me,” Hoffman said. “Most people don't bother with all this shit. Just give us clear easy rules to follow.”

“Other sects have different approaches, the gist of it being certain men can access the deeper meanings found in the religion, either through intellectual power or inspiration or through direct divine revelation,” Avicenna said. “I'm not boring you, am I?”

Hoffman, whose eyes had indeed begun to glaze over, now attempted to prop himself upright. “No, no, it's all fascinating,” he protested. “The fact book doesn't have any of this shit in it.”

“The Druze started as something close to the Ismaili faith, but its radical divergence was very fast,” Avicenna continued. “The Druze believe in layers and layers of arcane knowledge, each accessible to fewer and fewer people. A most secretive sect. Are you familiar with the concept of ‘Taqiyya'?”

“Erm, no,” Hoffman said.

“It is the art of dissimulation. A verse in the Koran allows us to hide ourselves, should we be threatened by unbelievers,” Avicenna said. “It is a practice the Druze have emphasized from the very beginning. They might spend generations pretending to be Sunni or Shi'a or Christian or Jew. They have been persecuted almost from the beginning of their founding. It has made them most adept at hiding.”

“Like the Mukhabarat,” Hoffman said.

“Precisely. Hidden in plain sight,” Avicenna said. “The modern day intelligence cells, or terrorist cells, are nothing compared to these people, who have hidden the core of their faith for over one thousand years. Their religion, too, is organized along ranks of knowledge. The laymen—the Jukkul—are exposed only to esoteric knowledge and make up the visible part of their population. They are mostly harmless, living in picturesque Syrian villages, campaigning for minority rights, etc.

Their leadership is veiled in layers of secrecy; the higher one ascends, the greater the knowledge and resources revealed. The true beliefs and aims of the Druze are known to only this upper echelon, the Uqqul. Indeed, there are higher levels that are not spoken of, the true power of the Druze on this earth, who would never reveal their face and who keep with them the most abstruse of the esoteric knowledge, the very highest truths they have discovered in their ages of study.”

“So you guys think these secret Druze are in Iraq?” Hoffman asked.

“Assuredly they are,” Avicenna said. “Behruse himself knows something of this. Speak, Behruse.”

“There were persistent rumors in the service some years ago,” Behruse said. “The Mukhabarat were compromised…
infiltrated
. Barzan Ibrahim the Tikriti, half brother to Saddam himself, ordered at least four known purges of the secret service. The word Druze was never mentioned explicitly. The official line was Syrian Ba'athists.”

“And did you find anything?” Hoffman asked.

“No Druze,” Behruse said. “No one confessed to being Druze. Over twenty low level agents confessed to being Syrian Ba'athists.”

“That is not surprising,” Avicenna said. “To understand fully, you must know certain other things about the Druze. First, the circumstances of their founding: their founding imam was the Caliph Al-Hakim Amr Allah, of the Fatimid Caliphate in Cairo. Caliph and messiah, two roles in one, a most powerful conjunction. His divinity was proclaimed by his people, among whom certain followers would
come to be known as the Druze. This was in 1010 AD. For a period of eleven years, the
entire
Fatimid Caliphate, one of the most powerful Islamic empires
ever
in existence, was run by the Druze. They became so powerful, in fact, that the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad grew alarmed. He gathered his Sunni and Shi'a scholars and created a doctrine that he had proclaimed from mosque to mosque.”

“Denouncing the Druze, I take it?”

“At that time, it was aimed largely at Al-Hakim, who was imam and caliph of all of Ismailidom,” Avicenna said. “Only later would the majority of the Ismailis abandon him. You see, Al-Hakim could not be defeated by force. He was far too powerful, and he enjoyed the full fervor of his people—
messianic
support. He was repeatedly proclaimed the Mahdi, the final prophet of the Ismailis. The Baghdad proclamation was aimed at defaming Al-Hakim. The Abbasids were afraid of him. Afraid that he was, in fact, the Mahdi, that he was the final caliph and imam on earth. They said that he was no true descendent of Mohammed and Fatima but, rather, the son of Christian and Jewish forefathers. The treatise on his lineage was shouted from minaret to minaret, all throughout the Abbasid demesne.”

“Let me guess. It didn't work?” Hoffman said.

“Indeed, Al-Hakim's philosophies were shaking the entire edifice of Shi'a. But then, in 1021, poof.”

“Poof?”

“He disappeared,” Avicenna said. “His practice was to go out of the city to meditate. His donkey was found, with bloody remnants of his clothes. No body, however.”

“So you Iraqis killed him,” Hoffman said. “No wonder the Druze are pissed.”

“Not so,” Avicenna said. “Well, perhaps. It is disputed what happened to Al-Hakim. His elder sister might have killed him. The Abbasids might have. There is a third alternative.”

“He went into hiding?”

“There is a Druze—and Shi'a—concept called occultation. Perhaps you are familiar with it, Mr. Hoffman?”

“Avi, dude, now you're just jerking me around,” Hoffman said. “This is worse than high school.”

“Necessary, nonetheless,” Avicenna said. “For you to understand what you are dealing with, certain background information is critical. Occultation is the disappearance of the prophet—the removal of his person from the earthly realm, in fact. The Druze claim that Al-Hakim removed himself from imminent danger and will reappear when the time of his kingdom is ordained.”

“Judgment day?”

“Not so much,” Avicenna said. “As I understand it, when his time comes, he will return to earthly rule and bring justice to the world. I have heard some versions where his return will reveal some power to his true followers—the faithful Druze—allowing them to rise up.”

“Like literally?” Hoffman frowned.

“There is such a train of thought,” Avicenna shrugged slightly. “But others say that his return is symbolic, that indeed, the concept of the last prophet,
the Mahdi
, is symbolic. Anyway, after Al-Hakim's disappearance, things went downhill very fast. His son, under the regency of his elder sister, started persecuting his followers. The movement centered on Al-Hakim's divinity: the Druze—was persecuted. The new caliph declared in no uncertain terms that his father was
not
the Mahdi. They were driven underground, the tenets of their faith derided and subverted. They were deemed heretical by both Sunni and Shi'a, accused of Gnosticism, devil worshipping, plurality, subversion of the Koran—the usual litany of heresies.”

“So they closed up shop. Went into hiding, started speaking in code, started creating cells of information, started chains of command to protect their top people.” Hoffman, stoned, happily imagined it all.