I left the palace in an angry daze. It was never safe to leave court for an indefinite period, but my resentment had deeper roots than that, deeper and infinitely more painful. This mission threatened more than the security of my post…
I had been aware, for a year or more, that all was not well with my son's health. He suffered a strange disturbance of vision and there was a weakness of the muscles in his arms and legs that was growing imperceptibly more pronounced with the passage of time. In spite of the reassurance of several doctors, I remained uneasy. We Persians were not noted for our skill in medicine—even the shah himself had dispensed with our native physic in favor of the services of a French physician. I did not wish to leave my home at this time and yet I knew I had no choice. To refuse an imperial commission was to court the shah's displeasure, and I knew of no quicker road to ruin and death.
That night, as I patiently explained to Reza why I must leave him in the care of servants during the period of my absence, I suddenly realized what a great disservice I had done him by failing to provide him with another mother. I had had my share of concubines, but since Rookheeya's death I had never been remotely tempted to avail myself of the four wives to which my religion entitled me. It had seemed disloyal somehow. Whenever the itch of manhood was upon me, I simply availed myself of the services of a woman in my household and continued to push all thought of marriage into the background. But now, staring at Rookheeya's pale and delicate child, I wondered if I had not betrayed them both with the selfishness of my grief.
There were tears, as I had known there must be. I had encouraged the boy to be overly dependent upon my affection, and now I could not even tell him when I would be back. So to buy myself smiles instead of tears, I told him that I was being sent to find the greatest magician who ever lived. And I promised him that, once my mission was accomplished, I would bring this eighth wonder of the world here to our home before I took him to the shah. How easy it is to distract a child with promises! If only guilt could be so easily appeased!
Watching Reza limp clumsily out of my apartments, I heartily cursed the khanum, whose accursed whim was forcing these bleak months of separation upon us. As for the mysterious genius I was now condemned to pursue, I wished he had never drawn breath to sing and enchant that garrulous fur trader from Samarkand. Better that he had drowned in the Volga rather than perform those astonishing tricks which had caused his fame to be carried from the wastelands of Russia by the trading caravans.
A thousand curses on you, Erik, I reflected bitterly, how I wish that you had never been born!
In order to arrive at Nijni-Novgorod before the end of the Great Yarmark, as its famous summer fair was known, I was obliged to cross the
Caspian with precious little delay. Rumor travels at a leisurely pace on the back of a camel, and the tale that had excited the khanum's bored imagination had been the best part of twelve months in reaching us. I had no time to assemble the elaborate entourage so beloved of the traveling Persian. I took with me a mere handful of servants—among them my trusted Darius—and we traveled as lightly as possible in the interests of speed.
I prefer to forget as much as I can about the sea crossing, which was surely as disagreeable as any crossing could have been. The summer storms were unimaginably bad, and our small vessel was tossed about like a piece of driftwood. I was in a vile humor by the time we reached Astrakhan, and the first thing I noticed about this famous Russian town was not the towering minarets of its dozen mosques, or the graceful cupolas of its innumerable churches, but the disgusting smell of decaying fish, which seemed to pervade the whole city.
I retired at once to a mean-looking, insubstantial wooden lodging house, leaving Darius to arrange our passage up the Volga by steamer. The landlady served a meal which seemed to consist chiefly of cabbage soup, cucumber, and watermelon, and I was gazing at this noxious fare, trying to decide whether I dared to send a mouthful down to my outraged stomach, when Darius returned, looking anxious. The Great Yarmark at Nijni had only a few more days to run and the steamer on which he had accordingly booked our passage was due to leave at noon.
Abandoning the watermelon in disgust, I watched our baggage bump unceremoniously down the rickety staircase. The indignation of the landlady was extremely vocal. When Darius joined me at the waterfront I noticed there were streaks of cabbage soup on his robe. If I hadn't been so furious, I might have been amused.
I suppose a leisurely trip up the Volga is a pleasant thing to those who are not burdened by severely limited time and a nerve-racking sense of urgency. Certainly my fellow Moslem travelers appeared to be enjoying themselves. Five times a day I joined them on the paddle box of the steamer to turn my face to Mecca and prostrate myself in prayer, but I am ashamed to admit that my mind often wandered from the ritual invocations. There was no thought in my head except the success of this mission, for only success would buy me a swift passage home to my son. We had arrived far later than I had first calculated, and I knew that time was against me now. Cursing the stately pace of the steamer, I paid a visit to the engine room to inquire whether our speed could not be increased. All I received for my pains was a lecture on the mechanics of steamer navigation and a tart reminder that things had been far worse in the days of the old
maschinas
, which had only recently receded from the waterways. Didn't I realize that it used to take as many weeks to complete this journey as it now took days?
"Admire the scenery and be patient," advised the old captain.
I wasn't interested in the scenery. The wooded hills of the Jigoulee, the idyllic coves and bays, were quite lost on me as I stared unseeingly into the distance, willing the boat to make greater speed. Sixteen hundred miles stretched endlessly before me as the days slipped away like sand in an hourglass. Saratov; Samara; Kazan…
And then at last the square whitewashed monastery of St. Macarius loomed up on the right bank and I realized, with intense excitement, that I was finally within five hours of my goal.
Heavily laden barges were moving up and down the congested river on either side of us, often passing so close that it was a miracle we avoided a collision. The country on the right bank had assumed a new aspect—a high, mountainous range now rising abruptly from the plain below. We turned sharply to avoid a sandbank and at that point I was afforded my first glimpse of Nijni's imposing setting. I saw the gilded cupola of the cathedral and the white crenellated wall of the ancient kremlin. The old town was reposing serenely under the shadow of its fortress, as though mildly surprised by the frenzy of activity that was taking place on the river below it. Later I was to think how much Nijni-Novgorod resembled the man that I had come to find —aloof, formidable, full of astonishing contradictions.
When we disembarked on the quayside, I sent my servants to acquire lodgings in the
haute ville
. I waited only long enough to ascertain an address, before hiring a droshky boy to drive me through the town to the western quarter, of which I had been told. Darius came with me, insisting that the fair was full of thieves and rogues and that it was not safe for a gentleman to venture into the throng alone.
Throngs there certainly were. The little Tartar horse could barely make headway against the tide of traffic that was sweeping out of the fair. No Persian bazaar could compare with this chaos. Crowds on foot, in carriages, and on horseback, droves of cattle, carts laden with jars and casks and boxes of every description, all served to hamper our progress, and I was amazed to see such activity so late in the day. Rain teemed down steadily, and the horse was up to its fetlocks in a quagmire of mud that suggested such torrential downpours were a depressingly regular occurrence. But neither the rain nor the mud discouraged the remarkable number of devots. On virtually every street corner that we passed there was a sacred shrine or image, surrounded by hysterical men and women, all flinging themselves down in the mud before the lighted candles and crossing themselves with feverish urgency, as though their lives depended on the gestures.
"Christians!" said Darius beneath his breath, and in his voice I heard all the ancient contempt of Islam for the unbeliever. I shared his beliefs, but not his contempt. I knew there was no God but Allah; I accepted that no infidel would ever be admitted to paradise—and yet I had made many friends in the Catholic missions in Persia, men whose moral integrity I respected even as I pitied their religious misguidance. They had no hope of heaven, but here, on this earth, I saw no reason to deny them civility or friendship. I could not hate with the indiscriminating simplicity of my servant.
So I made no response and we rode on in silence— though perhaps
rode
is hardly the right word to describe our progress. We lurched from side to side, we were constantly jostled, almost overturned, in the melee, and stinking mud was thrown up in our faces from all directions. At length I was forced to admit the need to abandon the road until the crowds lessened. The little droshky boy—a grimy-faced urchin—seemed delighted to relinquish the struggle and gladly directed us to an eating house, where we were served a passable dish of chicken and rice and unending pots of lemon tea.
Returning to the streets an hour or so later, I was dismayed to find that, though the livestock and carts had disappeared, the numbers on foot had increased tenfold. It seemed to me that half the world was bent on entering the western faubourg tonight in search of food and entertainment. There was plainly no point in attempting to navigate our way through this press of bodies by horse and cart. I paid off the droshky boy and we continued on our way by foot.
In no time at all we were lost. My Russian was not all that it could have been, and my attempts to gain direction sent us on a long series of false trails. Most of the bearded merchants and grave-faced Orientals appeared to be as bewildered and confused as I was myself. It was some time before we managed to reach the famous Kunavin suburb.
This area was situated at the farthest western extremity of the fair and was given over entirely to the pursuit of dubious pleasures. As darkness closed in, groups of drunken, riotous revelers lurched out of the eating houses and began to pick fights with each other on their way to the gambling dens and the whorehouses. Darius took out his knife and urged me to seek shelter, but I shrugged off his anxious restraining hand. I could not sleep tonight without discovering whether my prey had already flown. Fairs were scattered throughout the length and breadth of Russia, and I felt cold with panic at the prospect of failure at Nijni. I was condemned by the imperial edict to wander the entire face of this huge, bleak country until I found that damnable magician. I would walk these streets all night if necessary before I abandoned hope of an early success.
An hour later I turned a corner and came face-to-facc with the very sight I was looking for—the Kirghiz tent that had been described to me in such painstaking detail by the Samarkand fur trader. Oval shaped, like an enormous beehive, the huge black shadow seemed stark and rather sinister amid its gaudy and disreputable surroundings. I was surprised and unnerved to find that, having struggled so far to come upon this moment, my first impulse should be to turn and run. As I stood in that half-lit street I was overwhelmed by a powerful presentiment of ill omen and tragedy, unlike anything I had ever experienced before. All my instincts warned me against stepping into that domed tent which suddenly seemed so strangely and irresistibly threatening. My legs were like lead as I bade Darius remain where he was and hesitantly lifted the rush matting that served as a door.
It was like stepping into a mysterious womb. Everything before my eyes was red, the walls, the rich Persian carpet on the floor, the pennants suspended from the concave roof. Soft, subdued candlelight and a heady aroma of fragrant oils and incense made the atmosphere weigh down upon me like an enchanting cloud. A strange, heavy lethargy began to creep over me, and I had to blink to clear my head before I could focus on the man who reclined upon the floor cushions.
In stark contrast to the warm opulence of his surroundings, he was dressed from head to foot in black, and his face was entirely concealed behind a white mask. The effect suggested power, a cold and thrilling majesty; it was as though I had stumbled upon one of the ancient gods of mythology. He did not look up when I entered, and for a long time he continued to tinker with an intricate trick casket, while I hovered by the doorway, troubled by a growing sense of invisibility.
He ignored me so completely that I began to be persuaded that he was quite unaware of my presence, and consequently I allowed myself to stare at him with vulgar curiosity. I could not help noticing his fingers, which were extraordinarily thin, scarcely more than bones. They were of positively inhuman length and they moved with a graceful skill and dexterity that was oddly fascinating. Mesmerized, I stood and stared; and then suddenly I became aware that he was watching me stare. The scrutiny of those unblinking eyes behind the mask made me very nervous. There was something sinister, almost reptilian, in the stillness of that black-clad figure, something that reminded me uncomfortably of a cobra poised to strike.
"The performance is over for tonight," he said in faultless Russian. "If you wish to see my skills you must come back tomorrow."
My mouth dropped open in astonishment, for nothing in his grim and austere appearance had prepared me for his voice. Even in that cold, clipped comment its astonishing beauty was quite unmistakable. Only those who heard him speak and sing will ever know just what a voice could be, for it was necessary to
hear
the extraordinary resonance and depth of timbre to truly understand the magnitude of his power. I never expected to hear such a voice outside paradise. To encounter it here, in this drafty, ill-lit tent, held its own kind of terror, for who was he—
what
was he?—to be possessed of such divinity of sound? That first moment when I heard him speak I wondered whether I beheld an angel or a devil; and even now, after all these years, it is a question I still ask myself. For each time I thought I finally knew the answer, he would only confound me once again.