Alamut

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was deathly quiet in Miriam’s pavilion when the eunuchs brought ibn Tahir in. They set him down and then, as silently as evil spirits, went out again with the litter.

Safiya pressed close to Khadija and sank her frightened eyes into the motionless body that lay under the black blanket. The other girls sat around the pool, petrified. Miriam knelt in an elevated area, leaning against her harp. She was staring ahead vacantly.

Her pain had just reintensified. So, Hasan really cared so little for her that he had sent her a lover! O, if she were to betray him without his knowing it, how much more she would love him afterward! Yes, she hated him now, she had to hate him. And along with him she also hated this youth, this blind, naive creature he had delivered into her care this evening. Her beauty and her skill were supposed to seduce him into believing he was in paradise! How thoroughly she despised him!

The body moved under the blanket. The girls held their breath.

“Rikana! Uncover him.”

Miriam’s voice was cold and firm.

Rikana obeyed her hesitantly. They were amazed when they saw ibn Tahir’s face. He seemed to be almost a child still. A first light down had barely begun to grow on his chin. His white fez had slipped off his head. He had a high forehead and thick hair cut short. Long lashes covered his eyes. His red lips pressed lightly together.

“That’s ibn Tahir, the poet!” Khadija whispered.

“He’s the one who seized the Turks’ flag this morning,” Sit said.

“He’s handsome,” Safiya observed.

Now Miriam looked at the sleeping guest. A smile passed over her lips. This is not how she had pictured her victim.

And this business about his being a hero and a poet? It seemed ridiculous to her.

“Why, he’s still a child,” she said to herself.

She felt somewhat relaxed now, after all. The challenge of convincing him he was in heaven began to appeal to her. Actually, the task Hasan had assigned her was fairly interesting. What a strange and wonderful man, that master of hers! His idea was either insane or magnificently horrible. Now he had set the apparatus in motion. She was one of its most important cogs. Wasn’t that a sign of his trust? Wasn’t it just petty vanity that had kept her from understanding him? After all, high drama had always been her passion. Hadn’t Hasan given her the perfect opportunity to get back into it? What did life have to offer her otherwise, except broad farce?

The other girls also felt a weight lift from their shoulders when they saw ibn Tahir’s young face. Even timid Safiya observed, “It won’t be hard convincing him he’s in paradise.”

Miriam drew her fingers over the strings of her harp.

“Start singing and dancing!”

The atmosphere in the pavilion grew relaxed. The girls picked up their instruments and their drums and got ready to dance. It was a delight to watch them free their limbs from their veils. Miriam smiled at them once they were moving and undulating seductively, as though their new guest were already watching them.

“He’s still not going to wake up,” Sit observed in frustration, setting down her drum and little bells.

“Let’s sprinkle some water on him,” Rikana suggested.

“Are you crazy?” Khadija scolded her. “What kind of first impression of paradise would he have then?”

“Keep singing and dancing,” Miriam said. “Let me try to bring him to.”

She knelt down beside him and gazed intently at his face. His features struck her as handsome and aristocratic.

She lightly touched his shoulder with her hand. He twitched. She heard some incoherent muttering. She felt both fear and intense curiosity at the same time. What would he say, what would he do, when he found himself in this strange place?

Softly she called him by name.

He shot up lightning-fast. He opened his eyes wide and looked around confused.

“What is this?”

His voice was shy and trembling.

The girls’ singing and dancing came to a halt. Their faces expressed intense strain.

Miriam quickly regained her footing.

“You’re in paradise, ibn Tahir.”

He looked at her astonished. Then he lay back down.

“I was having a dream,” he muttered.

“Did you hear that? He can’t believe he’s in paradise,” Khadija whispered, distraught.

Not a bad start, Miriam thought. Once again she touched him and called his name.

He sat up this time too. His eyes remained fixed on Miriam’s face. His lips began to quiver. His eyes expressed amazement verging on terror. He looked at himself, felt himself, and began looking at the room around him. Then he drew a hand across his eyes. His face was as pale as wax.

“This can’t be true,” he whispered. “This is crazy! This is a trick!”

“Doubting ibn Tahir! Is this how you repay Sayyiduna’s trust?”

Miriam looked at him reproachfully, but with a smile.

He stood up and his eyes began darting from object to object. He went up to the wall and touched it. He went up to the pool and dipped a finger in its water. Then he cast a frightened look at the girls and returned to Miriam.

“I don’t understand,” he said in a trembling voice. “Last night Sayyiduna summoned us and ordered us to swallow some bitter-tasting little balls. I fell asleep and had all kinds of strange dreams. And now I’m suddenly awake in some completely different place. What’s that out there?”

“Those are the gardens you know about from the Koran.”

“I want to see them.”

“I’ll take you there. But wouldn’t you like to bathe and have something to eat first?”

“There will be plenty of time for that later. First I have to know where I am.”

He went to the doorway and drew the curtain aside.

Miriam accompanied him. She took him by the arm and led him through the vestibule. They came outside and paused at the top of the steps.

“What an amazing sight!” he exclaimed when he saw the fabulously illuminated gardens before him. “No, there’s nothing like this at Alamut. And I don’t know a place like it anywhere nearby. I must have been asleep a long time for them to carry me this far away!”

“Aren’t you afraid of being so irreverent, ibn Tahir? Do you still refuse to believe you’re in paradise? Hundreds of thousands of parasangs separate you from your world. And yet, when you reawake at Alamut, just one night will have passed.”

He stared at her. Again he passed his hands over his body.

“So I’m dreaming? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve sworn that something I was dreaming was for real. I remember how one time, back at my father’s house, I discovered a jug full of gold pieces. ‘I used to just dream that I’d discovered treasure,’ I told myself. ‘But today it’s really happened.’ I poured the gold pieces out of the jug, counted them, and laughed to myself. ‘Praise be to Allah that this time it’s no dream,’ I sighed. Then I woke up. It really had been a dream. You can imagine how disappointed I was. This time I’m not going to be fooled. Though this dream is amazing and very lifelike. But that could be due to Sayyiduna’s pellets. I’d rather not be disappointed when I wake up.”

“Do you think I’m just an image in your dream, ibn Tahir? Wake up, then! Here, look at me, feel me!”

She took his hand and ran it over her whole body.

“Can’t you feel that I’m a living being like you?”

She took his head in her hands and looked deep into his eyes.

He shuddered.

“Who are you?” he asked uncomprehendingly.

“Miriam, a girl of paradise.”

He shook his head. He went down the steps and continued past the dozens of multicolored lanterns with moths and bats darting around them. Unfamiliar plants grew alongside the path, strange flowers and fruit he had never before seen.

“Everything seems enchanted. It’s a regular dreamscape,” he murmured.

Miriam walked at his side.

“So you still haven’t figured it out? You’re not on earth now, you’re in heaven.”

Music and singing came from the pavilion.

He paused and listened.

“Those voices are just like on earth. And you, you have perfectly human traits. It can’t be like this in heaven.”

“Are you really so ignorant of the Koran? Doesn’t it say that in paradise all things will be as they were on earth, so that the faithful will feel they’ve come home? Why are you surprised, if you’re a believer?”

“Why wouldn’t I be surprised? How can a living being, a man of flesh and blood get into heaven?”

“So the Prophet lied?”

“Allah forbid that I even think such a thing.”

“Wasn’t he here during his lifetime? Didn’t he appear before Allah, flesh and blood that he was? Didn’t he ordain that on the day of judgment flesh and blood would be reunited? How do you propose to partake of the food and drink of paradise, or enjoy yourself with the houris, if you don’t have a real mouth and real body?”

“Those things are promised to us only after death.”

“Do you suppose it will be easier for Allah to bring you to paradise when you’re dead?”

“That’s not what I meant. But it’s what has been said.”

“It’s also been said that Allah delivered to Sayyiduna the key to open to the gates to paradise for whomever he wishes. Do you doubt that?”

“What an idiot! I have to keep remembering that I’m just dreaming. But everything, this conversation with you, your appearance, these surroundings are all so vivid that I keep getting fooled. Such a pity it’s not for real!”

What a close game, Miriam thought.

“A pity! So you still don’t believe, ibn Tahir? Your stubbornness amazes me. Come take another good look at me.”

She approached a lantern that had a tiger’s head painted on it, jaws open and eyes gleaming. Ibn Tahir looked first at her, then at the lantern above her head. Suddenly he caught the scent of her perfumed body.

A new, insane thought flashed through him. Somebody must be making fun of him.

“This is a fiendish game!”

His eyes flashed in fierce determination.

“Where is my saber?”

Furiously he grabbed Miriam by the shoulders.

“Admit it, woman! All of this is just a mean trick!”

Pebbles crunched on the path. A heavy, dark body bounded through the air and knocked ibn Tahir to the ground. Mute with fear, he found himself looking into two wild, green eyes above him.

“Ahriman!”

Miriam took hold of the leopard and pulled him off of ibn Tahir.

“Poor thing! Now do you believe? You just about lost your life.”

The animal sat down tamely at Miriam’s feet. Ibn Tahir picked himself up off the ground. Everything was becoming more and more confusing for him. He should have woken up just now from fright, if he were only dreaming. So could it be true? Where was he?

He looked at the girl bending down over the strange, long-legged cat. The animal arched its back, let itself be petted, and purred contentedly.

“There mustn’t be any violence in paradise, ibn Tahir.”

She laughed so sweetly that it coursed through his marrow and into his heart. So what if he was the victim of a trick? So what if he was just dreaming and would eventually have to wake up? What he was experiencing was extraordinary, wonderful, fantastic. Was it really that important for everything around him to be true? He was really experiencing this, and that was the main thing for him now. Maybe he was mistaken about the reality of the objects. As for the reality of his feelings and thoughts, there was no mistaking those.

He looked around. Far off in the background he thought he could see something dark rising high up toward the sky, like some sort of wall.

That was Alamut.

With his hands he shaded his eyes against the light and looked hard.

“What’s that back there, rising up into the sky like some wall?”

“That’s the wall of al-Araf, which divides paradise from hell.”

“Absolutely amazing,” he whispered. “Just now I thought I saw a shadow moving on top of it.”

“Probably one of those heroes who perished for the one true faith with a weapon in hand, fighting against the will of their parents. Now they gaze longingly into our gardens. They can’t come here because they violated the fourth commandment of Allah. They don’t belong in hell because they died as martyrs. So they’re made to look in both directions. We enjoy, they observe.”

“Then where is the throne of Allah, and the All-Merciful with the prophets and martyrs?”

“Don’t expect paradise to be like some earthly landscape, ibn Tahir. It’s boundless in its extent. It begins here, beneath Araf, and then stretches onward through the eight infinite regions to the last and most exalted realm. That’s where the throne of Allah is. The Prophet and Sayyiduna are the only mortals who have been allowed there. This initial section is designated for ordinary elected ones like yourself.”

“Where are Yusuf and Suleiman?”

“They’re also at the foot of Araf. But their gardens are far away from here. Tomorrow back at Alamut the three of you can tell each other where you’ve been and what each of you experienced.”

“Sure, if my impatience doesn’t get to me first.”

Miriam smiled.

“If your curiosity gets too much for you, just ask.”

“First of all tell me how you know so much.”

“Each of the houris was created in a particular way and for particular purposes. Allah gave me knowledge to satisfy a true believer with a passion for knowing.”

“I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming,” ibn Tahir muttered. “That’s the only explanation. And yet no reality could be more vivid than this dream. There’s a perfect consistency to everything I see and everything this beautiful apparition tells me. That’s the difference between this and ordinary dreams, where everything is disjointed and usually vague. All of this must be the work of some incredible skill of Sayyiduna’s.”

Miriam listened intently to what he was muttering.

“You’re so incorrigible, ibn Tahir! Can you really think that your paltry intellect has embraced all the mysteries of the universe? There are so many more things that are veiled from your eyes! But let’s leave the disputations behind for now. It’s time for us to rejoin the houris, who I’m sure are longing to see their dear guest again.”

She released Ahriman and sent him bounding off into the bushes. She took ibn Tahir by the hand and led him toward the pavilion.

At the foot of the steps she heard a soft whistle. She started. Apama must have been listening in and wanted to talk to her now. She led ibn Tahir into the central hall and gently pushed him toward the girls.

“Here he is,” she called out.

Then she quickly ran back through the vestibule.

At the far end of it Apama was waiting.

“Apparently you’re keen on losing your head!”

She greeted her with these words.

“So is this how you carry out Sayyiduna’s orders? Instead of getting the boy drunk and confused, you engage in discussions of Allah and paradise with him while he’s still perfectly sober.”

“I have my own mind and can judge for myself what’s best.”

“Is that so? You plan to seduce a man with those things? Haven’t you learned anything from me? What use are your red lips and white limbs, then?”

“It would be best if you disappeared, Apama. He might see you, and then his last shred of faith that he’s in paradise will evaporate.”

Apama would have liked to rip her apart with her eyes.

“Slut! You’re gambling with your life. It’s my duty to tell Sayyiduna. You just wait!”

She disappeared into the bushes, while Miriam hurriedly returned to the central hall.

While she and ibn Tahir had been out, the girls had gotten slightly tipsy. They danced and sang, and were in an animated and playful mood. They drew ibn Tahir in amongst themselves, surrounding him and pushing food and drink on him.

When Miriam came in, they fell silent for a moment. They noticed the displeasure on her face and were afraid that they might have caused it.

Miriam hurried to comfort them.

“Our guest must first wash off his earthly fatigue. Be at his service and help him bathe.”

Ibn Tahir shook his head firmly.

“I won’t bathe with women around.”

“You are our master and we will do as you command.”

Miriam called the girls and left the hall with them. When ibn Tahir was convinced no one could see him, he dashed over to the beds, grabbed the pillows, inspected them, and felt under them. Then he went over to the tables set with food and picked up one piece of fruit after another, feeling and sniffing them. A number of them he didn’t know at all. He searched his memory to see if he hadn’t heard descriptions of them. From the food he went to the carpets hanging on the walls and looked to see what was behind them. He found nothing that could provide him with any indication of the land he was in. He felt unwonted apprehensions coming over him.

He asked himself if perhaps he really was in paradise. All of his surroundings seemed alien and unfamiliar. No, a lush valley like this with gardens full of exotic flowers and strange fruit couldn’t exist amidst his barren uplands. Was this really still the same night he had been summoned before the supreme commander? If it was, then the only possibilities were that he was the victim of some incredible trick and Sayyiduna’s pellet had conjured these false dreams, or that everything truly was as Ismaili doctrine taught, and Sayyiduna really had the power to send anyone he wanted to paradise.

Confused and divided, he took off his robe and slid into the pool.

The water was pleasantly warm. He stretched out on the bottom and yielded to its lazy pleasure. He didn’t feel like getting out of the pool, though he knew the girls could come back any minute.

Soon the curtain over the entrance was drawn aside and one of the girls looked through the opening. When she saw that ibn Tahir wasn’t frightened and was smiling at her, she went in.

The others followed her.

Rikana said, “Finally ibn Tahir has realized he’s master here.”

“Just say whenever you’re ready to get out and we’ll give you a towel.”

They vied with each other to do him favors.

But when Miriam entered, his awkwardness returned. He asked for a towel and his clothes.

Instead of his robe they offered him a splendid coat of heavy brocade. He put it on and belted it. He looked at himself in a mirror. This is what princes looked like in old pictures. He smiled. He couldn’t resist feeling that he had undergone a change.

He stretched out on some pillows and an all-out banquet began. The girls served him, one after the other. Miriam gave him wine to drink. She couldn’t shake off some strange, relaxed lightheartedness that progressively overwhelmed her. While each glass she drank before ibn Tahir’s arrival had made her more sober, now she suddenly felt the pleasant effects of the wine. She felt like having a good talk and having a good laugh.

“You’re a poet, ibn Tahir,” she said with a charming smile. “Don’t deny it, we know. Let’s hear one of your poems.”

“Who made you believe that?” ibn Tahir blushed as red as scarlet. “I’m not a poet, so I have nothing to offer you.”

“Would you rather hide? Isn’t that false modesty? We’re waiting.”

“It’s not worth talking about. They were just exercises.”

“Are you afraid of us? We’re a quiet and appreciative audience.”

Khadija asked, “Are your poems love poems?”

“How can you ask something like that, Khadija?” Miriam contradicted her. “Ibn Tahir is a warrior for the true doctrine and is in service to the new prophet.”

“Miriam is right. How can I write poems on a subject I know nothing about?”

The girls grinned. They were pleased to have such an inexperienced youth in their midst.

Ibn Tahir looked at Miriam. A sweet terror came over him. He recalled the previous evening, the evening before the battle, when he lay in the open air outside of Alamut, gazing at the stars. A far-off longing for some unknown thing had taken hold of him then. He was tender and sensitive, and he loved his companions, especially Suleiman, whom he saw as a model of human beauty. Didn’t he have an intimation even then that he would soon encounter another face even more beautiful, more perfect than his? At least at that instant, when he looked into Miriam’s eyes, he felt as though he had been waiting precisely for her and nobody else. How heavenly everything about her was! Her finely arched white brow, her straight nose, her full red lips, whose curve had an ineffable charm, her large, doe-like eyes, which gazed at him so intelligently, so omnisciently: wasn’t this image the perfect incarnation of some idea he had always carried inside himself? What power must be inside those pellets of Sayyiduna’s, that they could animate his imagination and reconstruct it outside of him as this fabulous creature? Whether he was dreaming, or whether he was in heaven or in hell, he sensed he was on the way to some gigantic yet unknown bliss.

“We’re waiting, ibn Tahir.”

“Fine. I’ll recite several poems for you.”

The girls arranged themselves comfortably around him, as though in anticipation of a special treat. Miriam lay on her stomach and leaned against him, her breasts grazing him lightly. His head began spinning with a strange, aching sweetness. He lowered his eyes. In a quiet, unsure voice he began reciting his poem about Alamut.

But soon an intense fervor came over him. Indeed, the words of his poem struck him as impoverished and empty, but his voice gave them a completely different meaning, something of what he was feeling inside.

After “Alamut” he recited the poems about Ali and Sayyiduna.

The girls understood the hidden feelings that his voice conveyed. How clearly Miriam sensed that he was speaking to her and about her! With no resistance she yielded to enjoyment of the knowledge that she was loved, and loved perhaps as never before. An enigmatic smile arched her lips. She listened intently within herself. The words ibn Tahir was speaking reached her as though over a great distance. She started only at the poem about Sayyiduna. If only he knew!

“All of it is worthless!” he exclaimed when he finished. “It’s miserable, totally empty. I feel hopeless. I want to drink. Pour me some wine!”

They reassured him and praised him.

“No! No, I know too well. Those aren’t poems. Poems have to be completely different.”

He looked at Miriam. She was smiling at him, a smile that struck him as unfathomable. That’s how a poem should be, he suddenly realized. Yes, that’s how a real poem ought to be! Everything he had admired and loved until now had just been a substitute for her, the one he had gotten to know tonight.

In delectable horror he realized that he was in love for the first time, and that this love was vast and deep.

Suddenly he became aware that they weren’t alone. The presence of the other girls began to bother him. Oh, if they were alone now, as they had been earlier, he wouldn’t bother asking a hundred irrelevant questions! Now he’d take her by the hand and look into her eyes. He would tell her about himself, about his feelings, about his love. What difference would the nature of the gardens they were walking in make to him now! Whether they were the figment of a dream or reality, he didn’t care. What mattered was that his feelings for this heavenly apparition were as real as life. Hadn’t the Prophet said that life in this world was just a shackled image of the beyond? But what he was feeling now, and what had given rise to that feeling, couldn’t be the shackled image of something unknown. It was itself exalted. It was perfect in its own right.

But perhaps his body was still lying in the dark room at the top of Sayyiduna’s tower. And a fragment of his self had split away from his soul and was now enjoying all this luxury. One way or the other, Miriam’s beauty was reality and so were his feelings for her.

He took her by the hand, by her delicate, rosy, wonderfully shaped hand, and pressed it to his forehead.

“How hot your forehead is, ibn Tahir!”

“I’m burning,” he whispered.

He looked at her with glowing eyes.

“I’m all aflame.”

So much passion! Miriam thought. Her heart was moved. Will I catch fire too, around so much ardor?

He began to kiss her hand. Hotly, unthinkingly. He took hold of the other and began kissing them both.

She looked over his head. Her eyes seemed absorbed in thought. This is how Mohammed loved me when he carried me off from Moses’s. Only he was more mature, wilder. She felt stung by the thought. Why do all the best things come too late?

The girls were crestfallen when they saw that ibn Tahir wasn’t paying any attention to them. They grew quieter, talking in whispers, and they felt more and more awkward around the enraptured couple.

At last ibn Tahir whispered to Miriam.

“I’d like for us to be alone.”

She went over to the girls and asked them to go to their rooms and entertain themselves there.

They obeyed her. Some of them were hurt.

“You want to have everything for yourself,” Rikana said softly. “What will Sayyiduna say when he hears you’ve fallen in love with another?”

Miriam just smiled playfully.

“Girls, we’ll take the wine with us! We’ll be the only ones having fun, if that’s how it has to be.”

Taviba made peace with fate. Miriam could sense her power, and so didn’t take offense. She gave each one of them a kind look, and she gently hugged Safiya.

“We’ll compose a song about how you’ve fallen in love,” Sit threatened. “When we come back we’ll sing it so he can hear.”

“Go ahead, compose it and sing it.”

She dismissed them and returned to ibn Tahir.

He was feeling awkward, and this carried over to her too. She poured wine into both their cups and toasted him.

They gazed into each other’s eyes.

“You were going to tell me something, ibn Tahir.”

“Every word is too pale to express what I feel now. I feel as though I’ve undergone an illumination. I’ve understood so many things in this short time! Do you know the story of Farhad and the princess Shirin? Since I first saw you, I’ve felt that we’ve already met somewhere before. Now I’ve finally figured it out. You’re how I’ve always imagined the princess Shirin. Except that the image in front of me now is far more perfect. Don’t smile at this, Miriam. As Allah is in heaven, now I understand poor Farhad. To look at so much beauty every day, and then be separated from it forever! Wasn’t that a punishment from hell? Farhad couldn’t help but go mad. He couldn’t help but carve the image he’d constantly had before him out of the living rock. Allah, how horrible his pain must have been! For there can’t be anything more terrible than to be aware every day of the loss of such limitless happiness that will never come again.”

Her eyes were lowered. She was half kneeling, half leaning on the pillows. Her body shone through her veils like a marble statue. The oval shape of her face, her arms and legs, her size, everything was in such wonderful proportion. He stared at her, mesmerized. He felt as reverent as before a sacrament. His soul was shaken by so much perfection. He moaned with delectable pain. Suddenly he noticed tears dropping on his hands.

Miriam was frightened.

“What’s the matter with you, ibn Tahir?”

“You’re too beautiful. I can’t bear your beauty. I’m too weak.”

“You crazy, silly boy!”

“Yes, I’m crazy, I’m insane. This instant Sayyiduna and the martyr Ali mean as much to me as the emperor of China. I could dislodge Allah from his throne and put you in his place.”

“You really have gone mad! Those are blasphemous words. You’re in paradise!”

“I don’t care. Let me be in heaven or in hell. As long as you’re with me, my Shirin, my heavenly Shirin.”

She smiled.

“You mistake me for another. I’m not Shirin. I’m Miriam, a girl of paradise.”

“You’re Shirin. Shirin. And I’m Farhad, doomed to be separated from you and go mad with the pain.”

What fiendish wisdom to send this passionate boy precisely to her! Indeed. Ibn Sabbah was the horrible dreamer from hell.

Her decision was quick. She wrapped her arms around ibn Tahir’s neck and brought her face close to his. She looked deep into his eyes from close up. His entire body began to shake. A weakness overcame him, as though his body were too fragile a vessel for the violent passion overtaking it.

She kissed him on the lips.

He didn’t move. He didn’t embrace her. Slowly he began to lose consciousness. The summit of bliss was approaching.

During this time the girls had crowded together in one of the bedrooms. They threw some pillows down on the floor and spread out comfortably on them. They poured themselves full cups of wine and began drinking in earnest. They grew more and more boisterous. They began to sing, then they bickered, and made peace again, kissing and hugging each other.

This was the mood that Apama found them in. At first she cautiously lifted the curtain. But when she was convinced there was no danger of intruding on their guest, she walked in noisily.

“Where have you got the visitor? Where is Miriam?”

She was shaking in anger and agitation.

“They’re in the room alone.”

“Is this how you carry out Sayyiduna’s orders? This will mean your heads! The woman could be giving away secrets to that boy this very minute, and you sit here whinnying like a bunch of fillies!”

Some of them burst out in tears.

“Miriam ordered us to leave them alone.”

“Go back to them this minute! Throw yourselves at the boy and try to get out of him how many of our secrets the slut has revealed to him. One of you come report back to me. I’ll be waiting behind the white rose bush to the left of the pool.”

When they entered the central hall, they were greeted by a strange sight. Ibn Tahir lay motionless and pale like a corpse. Only a blissful smile played across his lips. Miriam was bent over him, gazing intently into his face. Slowly she turned her eyes from him and caught sight of the companions. She could tell from their timidity that something must have happened. She got up and went over to them.

“Apama?” she asked.

They nodded. She shrugged indifferently.

“Did you compose a song?”

“We did.”

Ibn Tahir had woken up. He rubbed the drowsiness from his eyes and looked around serenely.

“With your permission, we’ll sing for you.”

“A song? It would be a pleasure.”

Ibn Tahir was visibly cheered.

They lifted their harps and bells and began boldly singing.

Meanwhile Apama had sent for Hasan. Adi waited for him and ferried him down the canal to a concealed location.

“Why did you call for me?” he asked irritably.

“Don’t be angry, master. Everything is going fine, except in this garden. Either Miriam doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to know, how to overwhelm an unfledged boy.”

She relayed what she had heard and observed.

“It appears to me Miriam has chosen the right approach. Ibn Tahir is quite different from the other youths. Is that all you called me here for?”

“Chosen the right approach? You say that to me, when you know that there wasn’t a man who could resist me? So I’m a bungler, and Miriam is the artist?”

Hasan suppressed a smile.

“Why bicker? Miriam just has different views about these things.”

“She has views? Merciful heavens! And where would she have gotten them? From her old Jew, maybe? Or from that desert wild man?”

“What if she has them from me?”

“You’re trying to humiliate me. Just remember, I have a sense she’s going to betray you to the boy. She’s fallen in love with him.”

Due to the darkness she didn’t notice the flush that suffused Hasan’s face. But she did sense that she had touched a sore spot.

“They’re kissing and cooing like doves. He’s a poet, you know, and that never fails to have an effect on a woman’s heart. From now on she’s going to worry about him. She intentionally sent the girls out of the room so she could be alone with him. She’s going to warn him to be careful.”

The ground crunched under footsteps. Adi had brought Rikana. She shuddered when she saw Hasan next to Apama.

“Don’t be afraid. What are the two of them doing now?”

“It looks like ibn Tahir has fallen in love.”

“And Miriam?”

Rikana lowered her eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“I’d like to speak with her,” Hasan said.

Rikana looked at Apama, perplexed.

“What are you shilly-shallying about?” he asked.

“How am I supposed to tell her? And what if ibn Tahir goes with her?”

“She has to come. She’ll find an excuse.”

She bowed and dashed off. When she came in, Miriam quietly confronted her.

“Did you see Apama?”

“Yes. And Sayyiduna is down by the water. He’s waiting for you. Think up an excuse to tell ibn Tahir and go see him.”

Miriam went back to ibn Tahir.

“Do you really love me?”

“You doubt it?”

“Prove it. Write me a poem.”

Ibn Tahir panicked.

“How is a wretch like me supposed to compose something worthy of you? Miriam, don’t put me to shame.”

“If you love me, write a poem.”

“How could I? With you around …?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t get in your way. I’m going out to the gardens to pick you some flowers. In the meantime, you write a poem about your love.”

She turned to face the girls.

“You stay here with him and play him some music.”

As she left, she whispered to Rikana.

“Don’t let him out of the hall. You’re all responsible.”

With her coat on, she hurried into the gardens.

Near the boats she caught sight of Hasan. He took firm hold of her hand.

“Does he believe he’s in paradise?”

“He’s in love, so he believes he’s in paradise.”

“That’s not an answer. You look different to me somehow. You know there will be no mercy if the boy doesn’t prove himself.”

“I guarantee he will. Now tell Apama to stop lurking around like a ghost and interfering with my work.”

“It would be better if you’d kept cool. Be careful you don’t lose control of the reins.”

Had she heard right? Hasan felt hurt? So he did care about her, after all.

“Don’t worry, ibn Sabbah. I have the reins firmly in hand.”

“I expected no less. How did you excuse yourself when you left?”

“I gave him an assignment. I told him to write me a poem.”

He took her by the arm and led her a few paces away from the shore.

“Do you think he’s fallen very much in love?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you?”

“Does that matter to you?”

“Probably not. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Ibn Tahir is a gifted youth. But he has a long way to go before he’s a man.”

“Go back now and put him to sleep as soon as possible.”

She couldn’t help giggling slightly.

He kissed her on the forehead and rejoined Apama.

“It looks like the master is jealous.”

“Maybe. In any case, less jealous than Apama is.”

He waved to her as they parted and then ordered Adi to ferry him back to the castle.

“When I’m back in the tower, I’ll give a sign to the trumpeters. There’s been enough excitement for tonight.”

Something was weighing down on his heart. He remembered Omar Khayyam, lying amidst his pillows in Nishapur and drinking wine, a beautiful girl serving him while he writes poems and laughs at the whole world. He was free to contemplate and perceive. To enjoy perfect tranquility. At this instant he envied him.

“Yes, he drew the best lot of the three of us.”

The girls noticed that Miriam had returned smiling. She brought in a whole armful of flowers and strewed them around ibn Tahir, who was leaning over a tablet covered with writing. They immediately felt relieved.

“Did you write the poem?”

“I tried, at least.”

“He already read us some of it,” Sit said. “Your head will spin.”

“I’m dying of curiosity.”

She picked up a pellet and held it firmly in her fist. She dropped to her knees beside ibn Tahir. She leaned up against him, looking over his shoulder at the tablet. She imperceptibly dropped the pellet into his cup.

He read:

Tears glistened in Miriam’s eyes. To hide them, she quickly kissed him. It hurt so much, she could have died.

Poor boy, she thought. So sincere, so good and so young. There’s no place in his heart for lies and deception. And I’m the one who has to get him ready to be Hasan’s sacrifice.

“What’s wrong, Miriam?”

“You’re so young and so good.”

He smiled and blushed.

He had grown thirsty. He emptied his cup.

Suddenly he felt weak. His head began to spin. New vistas appeared before his eyes. He grabbed his head and fell backwards.

“I’m blind! Allah, I’m blind! Where are you, Miriam! I’m sinking. I’m flying through space.”

The girls were frightened. Miriam embraced him.

“I’m here, ibn Tahir. With you.”

“I can feel you, Miriam,” he said and smiled in exhaustion. “O Allah, everything is changed. I was just dreaming. Allah, I’m flying back the same way. Before I just dreamed I’d arrived in the holy city of Cairo. Do you hear, Miriam! I entered the caliph’s palace. It was dark all around me. Oh, the same darkness is around me now. Hold me tight, Miriam, so I can feel you! It was dark in the great hall. If I looked back toward the doors it was perfectly light again. But when I looked toward the throne, I was blinded. I heard the caliph’s voice. It was Sayyiduna’s voice. I looked toward him. I was blind. I looked back toward the entrance and the hall was brilliantly illuminated. All-merciful Allah! Such weakness! I can’t feel you anymore, Miriam! Give me a sign, bite me, bite me below my heart, hard, so I can feel you, so I know you’re still with me.”

She drew his coat aside and bit him below the heart. She felt unspeakably miserable.

“Now I can feel you again, Miriam. Oh, what vistas! Look! That city beneath me! Look at that golden cupola and those green and red rooftops! Do you see that azure tower? There’s a thousand banners fluttering around it. Nothing but long, colored flags. Oh, how they flap in the wind. Buildings and palaces are flying past me. Oh, how fast! Hold on to me, I beg you, hold on to me!”

He fell over and groaned deeply.

The girls were terrified.

“Misfortune is going to befall us,” Sit said.

“It would have been better if we’d leapt into the river,” Miriam murmured.

Ibn Tahir was in a deep state of unconsciousness.

“Cover him with his robe!”

They obeyed. Miriam lay back and stared, dry-eyed, at the ceiling. When Abu Ali and Buzurg Ummid had been left alone atop the tower, they looked at each other questioningly. Then they looked out over the battlements for a long time.

Finally Buzurg Ummid asked, “What do you say to all of this?”

“We’re in a net from which it’s going to be hard to disentangle ourselves.”

“I say, ‘As Allah is Allah, so ibn Sabbah is insane.’”

“A dangerous companion, at any rate.”

“Do you think we should stand by with our arms crossed and just watch? What does a tiger do when he runs into a wolf snare?”

Abu Ali laughed.

“He bites through it.”

“Well?”

“So bite through it.”

“Aren’t you afraid he could send the two of us to some paradise like this?”

“If it’s a good one, we won’t resist.”

“We won’t resist even if it’s a bad one.”

He stepped right up to Abu Ali.

“Listen, Abu Ali. Tonight there’s still time. It’s just the three of us on top of this tower.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“May I confide in you?”

“One crow doesn’t attack the other. Better the two of them take on the eagle.”

“Let’s wait at the entrance for when he comes back. I’ll strike him over the head from behind with my sword handle, to knock him out. Then we can throw him over the battlements into Shah Rud.”

“And the faithful?”

“We’ll make them believe he never returned from the gardens.”

“But the eunuchs will know that he did. We won’t get out of here alive.”

“By the time the truth comes out, you and I will already be God knows where.”

“There isn’t a believer who wouldn’t risk his life to avenge him. The net really is drawn around us tight.”

“All action requires risk.”

“It would be less risky for us to wait for the succession.”

“Hasan is insane.”

“Not so insane he couldn’t guess what we’re thinking.”

“Are you afraid?”

“You aren’t?”

“It’s exactly why I’d like to be able to breathe easy again.”

“I know he already senses our thoughts. Keep as quiet as a tomb. The eunuchs are a terrible weapon.”

“The fedayeen could be even worse.”

“All the more reason for us to keep quiet. They’ll be a weapon in our hands, as well as his.”

“You could be right, Abu Ali. Hasan is a fearsome master. There’s no going back for us. We’ve been initiated into his secret, and any deviation could mean death.”

“Let’s just follow nicely in his footsteps.”

“Listen! He’s coming back. I’ll admit, this experiment of his tonight is really unusual.”

“More than that. It’s extraordinary.”

At that moment Hasan came gasping to the top. He cast a quick glance at the grand dais and smiled.

“I hope you haven’t been too bored, my friends. You had quite a bit to talk about, and I trust you didn’t lose any time.”

“We were worried about how things were progressing in the gardens, ibn Sabbah. What did Apama call you for?”

“Feminine jealousy. The old and the new philosophies of love had come into conflict down there. The dangerous question of how best to seduce a man had to be decided.”

The grand dais burst into laughter. They felt a pleasant relief. The crisis was over.

“I think you prefer the new theories to the old ones,” Abu Ali said.

“What can we do. The world is constantly evolving and we have to give up the old to make way for the new.”

“I assume ibn Tahir fell into the grip of the new theory?”

“Well, look at you, Abu Ali. You’ll become a great psychologist yet!”

“You’re an odd lover, by the beard of the Prophet! If I cared as much for a woman as I do for a torn robe, I’d sooner kill her as let another have her.”

“You’ve already demonstrated that, dear Abu Ali. Which is now why you have neither the old nor the new ‘theory.’ As far as my case is concerned, you must bear in mind that I’m a philosopher and value above all what’s tangible. And that is not going to change in the slightest in one night.”

Abu Ali laughed.

“Also a good point,” he said. “But I believe that principle holds for you only in matters of love. Didn’t somebody say this morning that he planned to build his institution on pure reason?”

“You’re after me like a hound after game,” Hasan heartily laughed. “Do you really think those two opposites are irreconcilable? How could body and spirit go hand in hand otherwise?”

“If hell knew any saints, then you’d be such a saint.”

“By all the martyrs! My princess is of the same opinion.”

“A happy coincidence, indeed.”

Abu Ali winked at Buzurg Ummid. Hasan lit a torch and gave a sign to the trumpeters in the gardens.

“Enough heavenly pleasures for tonight. Now let’s see what results we’ve gotten.”

He received a response from the gardens, then extinguished his torch and set it aside. “Yes, yes, they’ve got it easy down there,” he said, half to himself. “They’ve got somebody over them to think and make decisions for them. But who’s going to relieve us of our sense of responsibility and our agonizing internal conflicts? Who will drive away our sleepless nights, when every second that brings you closer to morning resembles a hammer stroke to your heart? Who will save us from the terror of death, which we know ushers in the great nothing? Now the night sky with its thousands of stars still reflects in our eyes. We still feel, we still think. But when the great moment comes, who’s going to provide balm for the pain we have from knowing that we’re setting out into the eternal dark of nothingness? Yes, they have it easy down there. We’ve created paradise for them and given them confidence that eternal luxuries await them after death there. So they really do deserve our envy.”

“Did you hear, Buzurg Ummid? Hasan could be right.”

“So, has it begun to make sense to the two of you? We know that we’re masters of an infinitely tiny point of the known, and slaves to the infinite mass of the unknown. I’d compare us to some vermin that glimpses the sky overhead. ‘I’m going to climb up this stalk,’ it says. ‘It looks tall enough that I should get there.’ It starts in the morning and climbs until evening. Then it reaches the top and realizes that all of its efforts were in vain. The earth is just a few inches below. And above it the starry sky arches just as immeasurably high as it did when it was on the ground. Except that now it doesn’t see any path leading farther upward, as it did before it started to climb. It loses its faith and realizes that it’s nothing against the inexplicable vastness of the universe. It is robbed of its hope and its happiness forever.”

He nodded to the grand dais.

“Let’s go! We need to welcome the first believers ever to return to earth from paradise.”

The girls around Fatima noticed through the glass that the eunuchs were approaching with the litter.

“Like three gravediggers,” Sara said.

“Fatima! Uncover Suleiman so we can take one more look at him,” Zainab asked.

Fatima exposed the sleeping youth’s face. He lay peacefully, breathing almost imperceptibly. There was something childlike to his appearance now.

The girls stared at him wide-eyed. Halima put her fingers in her mouth and bit down on them. She felt unbearably miserable.

Fatima quickly covered him up again.

The eunuchs entered and wordlessly lifted him onto the litter. They left just as silently.

The curtain had barely dropped behind them when the girls burst into tears. Halima shrieked with pain and fell to the floor like a stone.

When the Moors carried Yusuf away, only Jada and Little Fatima cried. Zuleika mutely followed their arrival and departure with her eyes. Pride didn’t permit her to give free rein to her emotions.

“Now your fame is over too,” Hanafiya prodded her when they were alone again. “You had a husband for one night. Now you’ve lost him forever. Those of us who didn’t have him at all are better off.”

Zuleika tried to say something nonchalant in reply. But the pain was so much for her that she rolled up on the floor and buried her head in some pillows.

“You’re heartless, Hanafiya,” Asma said angrily.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

She went over to where Zuleika was and stroked her hair. Others also came and tried to comfort her. But Zuleika kept crying until she fell asleep.

When the eunuchs walked out with ibn Tahir, Miriam called on the girls to go to their bedrooms. There were few of them that night, because the ones who had been with Fatima and Zuleika stayed in their pavilions.

Miriam also slept alone. But tonight, of all nights, she wished Halima were there, with her lively talkativeness. Who knows how she made it through this fateful night? What had happened with the other girls? She worried about them. If only morning would come!

Oppressive thoughts stayed with her all the way to dawn.

The eunuchs brought their live burden into the cellar. Hasan asked them, “Is everything all right?”

“Everything is fine, Sayyiduna.”

They set the litters down inside the cage. The three commanders went in behind them. In silence they waited for the invisible arms of the Moors to lift them to the top of the tower.

Once there, Hasan uncovered the sleeping youths.

“They look exhausted,” Buzurg Ummid whispered.

Hasan smiled.

“They’ll sleep until well into the morning. Then comes the awakening, and then we’ll see if we succeeded.”

He left the curtain over the entrance to the cell raised, so that the youths would have enough air. He posted a guard to the door. Then he dismissed his two friends.

“This brings us to the end of the second act of our tragedy. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

Down in the gardens the eunuchs were extinguishing and removing the lanterns. Some of them had already burnt out. Here and there a flame still flickered in the night. One light after the other sputtered out. It grew darker and darker all around. Startled moths fluttered over the men’s heads. Bats swooped after the night’s last vermin. An owl hooted from a thicket. The snarl of a leopard answered it.

The last lamp had sputtered out. It was a wonderful summer night with its thousands of mysteries. Stars shone in the sky, blinking and shimmering, remote, inexplicable riddles.

Mustafa circled a torch above his head, causing it to flare. He lit the path ahead of him with it, and six eunuchs followed him to the boats.

“Let’s look in on the girls on the way,” dance master Asad suggested. “This evening was a hard test for them.”

They went to the pavilion where Fatima was asleep with her companions. Asad pushed the door open and lifted the curtain over the entrance. Mustafa entered the room holding his torch high.

The girls all lay athwart the pillows. Some of them were completely naked, others were barely covered with coats or blankets. One or the other had already managed to remove her jewelry. Most of them, however, were still wearing theirs. Their lovely, soft limbs sank lightly into the silk and brocade. Their breasts rose and fell.

“This one sure mowed them down,” Asad said in a low voice. “They’re strewn around like casualties on a battlefield.”

Mustafa shuddered. The torch practically slid out of his hand. He bounded outdoors and hurried back toward the river, wailing out loud.

“Man is a beast. O Allah! What have they done to us?”