The Last of the Angels (36 page)

He dragged himself once more to the ruins where the other human beings had taken refuge. Even his fear had left him, but he was choked with emotions he had never known before. Amid the debris of his room, which had been hit by bolts of lightning, Burhan Abdallah discovered the book that Dervish Bahlul had given him. He dusted it off. Everything in it had been erased. Nothing was left but blank pages devoid of words. He said, “It's just a white notebook like any other.” He thought he would take it with him to use as a diary but declared, “There are lots of notebooks. What would I do with it?” En route, he tossed it in a blazing oven, “What was once a ledger for death will go up in flames.” He thought about another ledger for life but corrected himself, observing, “What need does life have for ledgers? It is itself the greatest ledger.” He ended up in an alley filled with people. They were frightened, but one of them recognized him, perhaps on account of his gray hat and prescription glasses, and cried out, “The Absent One has returned!” They crowded around, asking him, “Were you really absent and have you returned?” Burhan said, “Yes, I've returned after forty-six years in exile.” He had scarcely uttered these words when he saw that other people were gathering around and touching him. Then, in a fury of temporary insanity, they exploded with a chant in unison:

That was the last thing that Burhan Abdallah was expecting. O these poor wretches! They had encircled him, revolving around him. They were singing as tears poured from their eyes. The women began to trill, as if they were at a wedding. Burhan Abdallah turned to them and said, “You're mistaken. I'm not the Absent Mahdi you're awaiting. I feared for my life and fled into exile. I'm worse off than you are. I'm more afraid than you are.”

These words caused the crowd to grow more zealous and turbulent. An elderly man approached him and said lovingly, “A sign of the Absent One is that he denies his identity. And now you've done that.”

Burhan Abdallah, who was becoming exasperated with the foolishness of these people, began to scream, “I swear I'm not the man for whom you wait. I'm a forlorn man, who doesn't even know himself.” But his voice was lost in the hubbub and he remained standing there, not knowing what to do. He saw thousands of women, men, and children emerge from the rubble and from holes in the ground to swell the ranks of the human swarm that kept expanding. They were banging on tambourines and drums. A man rose to say, “The Absent One will conquer the army of Gog and Magog and restore order to the universe.” Burhan Abdallah thought, “My God, what a dilemma! They're clinging to a straw! I should never have returned to this city.”

The tumult had attracted Gog and Magog's troops, who surrounded the area, demanding that the last human beings return to their hiding places behind the boulders and amid the rubble. Panic crept into the hearts of the men, who threw down their tambourines. The women swallowed their trills, and even the children stopped crying. They all withdrew, crawling away on their bellies to hide in holes and pits and among the boulders, until they seemed almost not to exist at all. Burhan Abdallah stood his ground, waiting for the approaching soldiers, who brandished the bayonets of their rifles. He assumed that they would spear him repeatedly. “So this is the end, then.” The soldiers drew closer to him with each step. “It wasn't possible for me to obey their orders and bury myself in holes, like the others.” That was more than he could bear. He was alone and the soldiers were advancing on him, waving their bayonets. He said sadly, “I can't die. I can't imagine myself dead, even if the whole world has ended.”

He felt a tyrannical love for life and it brought him close to tears. The little green soldiers were only steps away from him. He could see their round eyes, which were washed in blood, burning and staring into his eyes. He raised his hands up high, like a man preparing to die. Just when he had lost all hope of salvation, he noticed that his hands were changing into prodigious wings. He beat the air with them. He lifted himself higher…higher…higher…until he soared into the sky, and disappeared.

This novel was written between April 12, 1987, and September 2, 1990, in Berlin and Nicosia, although small sections of it were written in Damascus, Tripoli, and Sana‘a.

As the character Burhan Abdallah observes in slightly different phrasing in this novel, each of my translations—even though the original works are not my books—becomes part of me. It is always a privilege to work with an Arab author, and each of my books is special to me. Having said that, I need to express my deepest thanks to Fadhil al-Azzawi for his encouragement, close reading, and corrections of my drafts of each of the twelve chapters of this novel, which is full of the kind of local color that can trip up even a translator with the best intentions. The glossary has been compiled from footnotes written by the author or the translator. I would like to thank Dr. Gaber Asfour, who invited me to the Cairo conference where I met Fadhil al-Azzawi in 2005. I also need to thank the National Endowment for the Arts for the literary translation grant for 2005–2006, during which period I completed the bulk of this translation. I thank Appalachian State University for allowing me to translate full-time during Spring Semester 2006. As always, I appreciate my family's tolerance of my enthusiasm for translation; so thank you, Sarah, Franya, and Kip Hutchins.

Ababil birds
: Reference to the way an Abyssinian attack on Mecca was repulsed miraculously circa
A.D
. 570.

Abdallah Goran
: Important twentieth-century Kurdish poet.

Abu Naji
: A common Iraqi nickname for an Englishman during the period of the Iraqi monarchy. The original Abu Naji is said to have been an Iraqi friend of the influential British official and author Gertrude Bell. What Abu Naji used to say about British policy reflected British intentions in Iraq. See “Returning to Abu Naji,” Khalid al-Qishtini,
al-Sharq al-Awsat,
London, no. 9010, 30 July 2003.

afreet
: Jinni or genie.

Bahlul
: Clown or buffoon.

“Beyond the mountains…”
: Ibrahim al-Daquqi,
Irak Türkmenleri
(Ankara: Güven Matbaasi, 1970).

Buraq
: Heavenly steed believed to have carried the Prophet Muhammad on his miraculous ascent through the heavens.

“Camel's hair, and a leather girdle…”
: Matthew 3:4 (Revised Standard Version).

Captain Chesney
: Francis Rawdon Chesney (1789–1872) was a British explorer, soldier, and entrepreneur. The narrator's account differs from that of General Chesney, whose iron steamship, the
Tigris,
sank in the Euphrates River “at the rocky pass of Is Geria” due to freak weather, not because of an attack, although some of its survivors later, when on board the sister ship the
Euphrates,
were attacked in the Lamlum marshes by Arabs, who allegedly attempted to kidnap one Mrs. Helfer. See Stanley Lane-Poole, ed.
The Life of General F. R. Chesney…by His Wife and Daughter
(London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1885), 326, 335–36.

“…concern and a striving after the wind”
: Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 2:11 (RSV).

dabke
: Levantine line dance.

dervish
: Sufi, Muslim mystic.

“Do not think that those killed serving God are dead…”
: Qur'an 3:369.

“Don't weep…”
: Ibrahim al-Daquqi,
Irak Türkmenleri
(Ankara: Güven Matbaasi, 1970).

“The faux-qur'an of the Liar Musaylima…”
: The Prophet Muhammad challenged others to attempt to reveal another sacred book like the Holy Qur'an. Musaylima, his contemporary, was one of those who attempted the feat.

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”
: Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:17 (RSV).

“God does not play dice.”
: Albert Einstein, “Letter 81,” in
The Born-Einstein Letters,
translated by Irene Born (London: Macmillan, 1971), 149.

Gog and Magog
: Hostile forces contained in the distant past but predicted to threaten human civilization once more as a sign of the end of the world.

al-Hajj/al-Hajja
: A man or woman who has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Ibn Sa‘ud
: Abdul Aziz ibn Sa‘ud (1880–1953) was founder of the Saudi Arabian monarchy; See: Wilhelm Kopf,
Saudiarabien: Insel der Araber
(Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1982), 78–79.

jamdaniyat headcloths
: Turkmen-style headcloth.

jinni
: Afreet or genie.

kaka
: Kurdish for “elder brother.”

Kakaiyeen
: Members of a Muslim religious sect in northern Iraq.

Khidir:
The name of a pre-Islamic prophet associated with fertile, green, life forces.

Kudamm
: Kurfürstendamm Street in Berlin.

al-Maydan
: Baghdad area that was famous for brothels until 1960.

mujtahid
: Islamic jurisprudent authorized to think independently about Islamic law.

Namlet
: An Iraqi soft drink from the 1950s, similar to Coca-Cola.

al-Nas
: The final chapter of the Holy Qur'an, sura 114: “Mankind.” It is a command to seek refuge with God from the devil's whispered suggestions.

nay
: A reed flute.

“Oh, when? / Will the Absent One appear? / Oh, when?”
: Shi‘i chant repeated in religious processions in southern Iraq.

Peacock Angel
: The chief angel who refused to bow before Adam, according to the Yazidis.

qadi
: Islamic judge.

“The rose's bed…”
: Abd al-Latif Bandar Ughlu,
al-Turkman fi ‘Iraq al-thawra
.

Ruq‘a, Farsi, and Kufic
: Styles of Arabic calligraphy.

Samanchi Qizzi
: Popular, twentieth-century Iraqi dancer who eventually married a diplomat.

Sayyid Qizzi
: Famed female miracle worker.

“The Spirit descending upon him like a dove”
: Mark 1:10 (RSV).

“The spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness…”
: Mark 1:12–13 (RSV).

“Ta‘am, Labam, Bacho Halam…”
: A magical formula, used by some magicians in Iraq. It has no meaning and its aim is to make things seem secret and vague.

“Thank God I am not God!”
: Allen Ginsberg, “Lysergic Acid,”
Kaddish and Other Poems 1958–1960
(San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1961, 1982), 87.

Throne Verse
: Qur'an, 2:255. A commonly recited celebration of God's omnipotence.

“The voice crying in the wilderness…”
: Isaiah 40:3 (RSV).

“Yazid is himself the sultan”
: Verses from a religious poem of the Yazidis in Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. Shaykh Ali, “Hawl al-Yazidiya,”
Majalla al-thaqafa al-jadida,
no. 205, January 1989.

Yazidis
: Northern Kurdish religious minority also known as Dasini, misdescribed as devil-worshippers, who hold a syncretistic set of beliefs based in part on Sufi and ancient Iranian influences.

Yunus Bahri
: Iraqi journalist who worked for Berlin's Arabic Service during the Nazi era. He died in Baghdad at the beginning of the 1980s.

Zurkhaneh
: A traditional Iranian system of physical training that involves a “pit” or ring for exercises.