People who cooked on TV programs made it sound as if cooking was about inspiration, originality, and creativity. Their favorite word was “experimenting.” Ella disagreed. Why not leave experimenting to scientists and quirkiness to artists! Cooking was about learning the basics, following the instructions, and being respectful of the wisdom of ages. All you had to do was use time-honored traditions, not experiment with them. Cooking skills came from customs and conventions, and although it was clear that the modern age belittled such things, there was nothing wrong with being traditional in the kitchen.
Ella also cherished her daily routines. Every morning, at roughly the same time, the family had breakfast; every weekend they went to the same mall; and on the first Sunday of every month they had a dinner party with their neighbors. Because David was a workaholic with little time on his hands, Ella was in charge of everything at home: managing the finances, caring for the house, reupholstering the furniture, running errands, arranging the kids’ schedules and helping them with their homework, and so on. On Thursdays she went to the Fusion Cooking Club, where the members merged the cuisines of different countries and freshened up age-old recipes with new spices and ingredients. Every Friday she spent hours at the farmers’ market, chatting with the farmers about their products, inspecting a jar of low-sugar organic peach jam, or explaining to another shopper how best to cook baby portabella mushrooms. Whatever she hadn’t been able to find, she picked up from the Whole Foods Market on the way home.
Then, on Saturday evenings, David took Ella out to a restaurant (usually Thai or Japanese), and if they weren’t too tired or drunk or simply not in the mood when they came home, they would have sex. Brief kisses and tender moves that exuded less passion than compassion. Once their most reliable connection, sex had lost its allure quite a while ago. Sometimes they went for weeks without making love. Ella found it odd that sex had once been so important in her life, and now when it was gone, she felt relieved, almost liberated. By and large she was fine with the idea of a long-married couple gradually abandoning the plane of physical attraction for a more reliable and stable way of relating.
The only problem was that David hadn’t abandoned sex as much as he had abandoned sex with his wife. She had never confronted him openly about his affairs, not even hinting of her suspicions. The fact that none of their close friends knew anything made it easier for her to feign ignorance. There were no scandals, no embarrassing coincidences, nothing to set tongues wagging. She didn’t know how he managed it, given the frequency of his couplings with other women, particularly with his young assistants, but her husband handled things deftly and quietly. However, infidelity had a smell. That much Ella knew.
If there was a chain of events, Ella couldn’t tell which came first and which followed later. Had her loss of interest in sex been the cause of her husband’s cheating? Or was it the other way round? Had David cheated on her first, and then she’d neglected her body and lost her sexual desire?
Either way the outcome remained the same: The glow between them, the light that had helped them to navigate the uncharted waters of marriage, keeping their desire afloat, even after three kids and twenty years, was simply not there anymore.
For the next three hours, her mind was filled with thoughts while her hands were restless. She chopped tomatoes, minced garlic, sautéed onions, simmered sauce, grated orange peels, and kneaded dough for a loaf of whole-wheat bread. That last was based on the golden advice David’s mother had given her when they got engaged.
“Nothing reminds a man of home like the smell of freshly baked bread,” she had said. “Never buy your bread. Bake it yourself, honey. It will work wonders.”
Working the entire afternoon, Ella set an exquisite table with matching napkins, scented candles, and a bouquet of yellow and orange flowers so bright and striking they looked almost artificial. For the final touch, she added sparkly napkin rings. When she was done, the dining table resembled those found in stylish home magazines.
Tired but satisfied, she turned on the kitchen TV to the local news. A young therapist had been stabbed in her apartment, an electrical short had caused a fire in a hospital, and four high-school students had been arrested for vandalism. She watched the news, shaking her head at the endless dangers looming in the world. How could people like Aziz Z. Zahara find the desire and courage to travel the less-developed parts of the globe when even the suburbs in America weren’t safe anymore?
Ella found it puzzling that an unpredictable and impenetrable world could drive people like her back into their houses but had almost the opposite effect on someone like Aziz, inspiring him to embark on adventures far off the beaten track.
The Rubinsteins sat at a picture-perfect table at 7:30 P.M., the burning candles giving the dining room a sacred air. An outsider watching them might assume they were a perfect family, as graceful as the wisps of smoke slowly dissolving in the air. Even Jeannette’s absence didn’t tarnish the picture. They ate while Orly and Avi prattled on about the day’s events at school. For once Ella felt grateful to them for being so chatty and noisy and covering up the silence that would otherwise have rested heavily between her and her husband.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ella watched David jab his fork into a cauliflower and chew slowly. Her gaze dropped to his thin, pale lips and pearl-white teeth—the mouth she knew so well and had kissed so many times. She visualized him kissing another woman. For some reason the rival who appeared in her mind’s eye was not David’s young secretary but a big-bosomed version of Susan Sarandon. Athletic and confident, she showed off her breasts in a tight dress and wore high-heeled, knee-high red leather boots, her face shiny, almost iridescent with too much makeup. Ella imagined David kissing this woman with haste and hunger, not at all the way he chewed his cauliflower at the family table.
It was then and there, while having her Culinary Artistry Made Plain and Easy dinner and imagining the woman her husband was having an affair with, that something inside Ella snapped. She understood with chilling clarity and calm that despite her inexperience and timidity, one day she would abandon it all: her kitchen, her dog, her children, her neighbors, her husband, her cookbooks and homemade-bread recipes.… She would simply walk out into the world where dangerous things happened all the time.
The Master
BAGHDAD, JANUARY 26, 1243
Being part of a dervish lodge requires far more patience than Shams of Tabriz possesses. Yet nine months have passed, and he is still with us.
In the beginning I expected him to pack up and leave at any moment, so visible was his aversion to a strictly ordered life. I could see that it bored him stiff to have to sleep and wake up at the same hours, eat regular meals, and conform to the same routine as everyone else. He was used to flying as a lonely bird, wild and free. I suspect several times he came close to running away. Nevertheless, great as his need for solitude, even greater was his commitment to finding his companion. Shams firmly believed that one of these days I would come up with the information he needed and tell him where to go, whom to find. With this faith he stayed.
During these nine months, I watched him closely, wondering if time flowed differently for him, more rapidly and intensely. What took other dervishes months, sometimes years, to learn took him only weeks, if not days. He had a remarkable curiosity about everything new and unusual and was a great observer of nature. So many days I found him in the garden admiring the symmetry of a spiderweb or the dewdrops glistening on a night-blooming flower. Insects, plants, and animals seemed more interesting and inspiring to him than books and manuscripts. But just when I would start thinking he had no interest in reading, I would find him immersed in an age-old book. Then, once again, he could go for weeks on end without reading and studying anything.
When I asked him about this, he said one should keep the intellect satisfied and yet be careful not to spoil it. It was one of his rules. “Intellect and love are made of different materials,” he said. “Intellect ties people in knots and ri
sks nothing, but love dissolves all tangles and risks everything. Intellect is always cautious and advises, ‘Beware too much ecstasy,’ whereas love says, ‘Oh, never mind! Take the plunge!’ Intellect does not easily break down, whereas love can effortlessly reduce itself to rubble. But treasures are hidden among ruins. A broken heart hides treasures.”
As I got to know him better, I admired his audacity and acumen. But I also suspected there was a downside to Shams’s unrivaled ingenuity and originality. For one thing, he was straightforward to the point of brusqueness. I taught my dervishes never to see the faults of other people and, if they did, to be forgiving and quiet. Shams, however, let no mistake go unnoticed. Whenever he saw anything wrong, he spoke out about it right away, never beating around the bush. His honesty offended others, but he liked to provoke people to see what came out of them in moments of anger.
Forcing him to do ordinary tasks was difficult. He had little patience for such jobs and lost interest in something as soon as he got the hang of it. When it came to a routine, he got desperate, like a tiger trapped in a cage. If a conversation bored him or somebody made a foolish remark, he got up and left, never losing time with pleasantries. Values cherished by most human beings, such as security, comfort, and happiness, had hardly any meaning in his eyes. And his distrust of words was so intense that often he went without speaking for days. That, too, was one of his rules: Most of the problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstandings. Don’t ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.
In time I became concerned about his well-being. For deep inside I sensed that one who could burn so fervently might have a tendency to put himself into dangerous situations.
At the end of the day, our fates are in the hands of God, and only He can tell when or how we each will depart the world. For my part I decided to do my best to slow Shams down and accustom him, as much as I could, to a more tranquil way of life. And for a while I thought I might succeed. But then came winter, and with the winter came the messenger carrying a letter from afar.
That letter changed everything.
The Letter
FROM KAYSERI TO BAGHDAD, FEBRUARY 1243
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,
My dear brother Baba Zaman,
May the peace and blessings of God be upon you.
It has been a long time since we have last seen one another, and I hope my letter finds you in good spirits. I have heard so many wonderful things about the lodge you built on the outskirts of Baghdad, teaching dervishes the wisdom and love of God. I am writing this letter in confidentiality to share with you something that has been preoccupying my mind. Allow me to start from the beginning.
As you know, the late Sultan Aladdin Keykubad was a remarkable man who excelled in leadership in difficult times. It had been his dream to build a city where poets, artisans, and philosophers could live and work in peace. A dream many called impossible given the chaos and hostility in the world, especially with the Crusaders and Mongols attacking from both sides. We have seen it all. Christians killing Muslims, Christians killing Christians, Muslims killing Christians, Muslims killing Muslims. Warring religions, sects, tribes, even brothers. But Keykubad was a determined leader. He chose the city of Konya—the first place to emerge after the great flood—to realize his big dream.
Now, in Konya there lives a scholar you may or may not have heard of. His name is Mawlana Jalal ad-Din but he often goes by the name Rumi. I have had the pleasure of meeting him, and not only that, of studying with him, first as his teacher, then, upon his father’s death, as his mentor, and, after years, as his student. Yes, my friend, I became a student of my student. So talented and judicious was he, after a point I had nothing else to teach him and started to learn from him instead. His father was a brilliant scholar, too. But Rumi has a quality that very few scholars ever have: the ability to dig deep below the husk of religion and pull out from its core the gem that is universal and eternal.
I want you to know that these are not solely my personal thoughts. When Rumi met the great mystic, druggist, and perfumist Fariduddin Attar as a young man, Attar said of him, “This boy will open a gate in the heart of love and throw a flame into the hearts of all mystic lovers.” Likewise when Ibn Arabi, the distinguished philosopher, writer, and mystic, saw the young Rumi walking behind his father one day, he exclaimed, “Glory be to God, an ocean is walking behind a lake!”
As young as the age of twenty-four, Rumi became a spiritual leader. Today, thirteen years later, the residents of Konya look up to him as a role model, and every Friday people from all over the region flock to the city to listen to his sermons. He has excelled at law, philosophy, theology, astronomy, history, chemistry, and algebra. Already he is said to have ten thousand disciples. His followers hang upon his every word and see him as a great enlightener who will generate a significant positive change in the history of Islam, if not in the history of the world.
But to me Rumi has always been like a son. I promised his late father that I would always keep an eye on him. And now that I am an old man who is nearing his final days, I want to make sure he is in the right company.
You see, as remarkable and successful as he no doubt is, Rumi himself has several times confided in me that he feels inwardly dissatisfied. There is something missing in his life—an emptiness that neither his family nor his disciples can fill. Once I told him, though he was anything but raw, he wasn’t burned either. His cup was full to the brim, and yet he needed to have the door to his soul opened so that the waters of love could flow in and out. When he asked me how this could be done, I told him he needed a companion, a friend of the path, and reminded him that the Qur’an says, “Believers are each other’s mirrors.”
Had the subject not come up again, I might have forgotten about it completely, but on the day I left Konya, Rumi came to me to ask my opinion on a recurrent dream that had been bothering him. He told me that in his dream he was searching for someone in a big, bustling city in a land far away. Words in Arabic. Delightful sunsets. Mulberry trees and silkworms waiting patiently in secretive cocoons for their moment to arrive. Then he saw himself in the courtyard of his house, sitting by the well with a lantern in his hand, weeping.
At the outset I had no idea what the fragments in his dreams indicated. Nothing seemed familiar. But then one day, after I had received a silk scarf as a gift, the answer came to me and the riddle was solved. I remembered how you were fond of silk and silkworms. I recalled the wonderful things I had heard about your tariqa. And it dawned upon me that the place Rumi saw in his dreams was none other than your dervish lodge. In short, my brother, I can’t help wondering whether Rumi’s companion lives under your roof. Hence the reason I write this letter.
I don’t know if there is such a person in your lodge. But if there is, I leave it in your hands to inform him about the destiny that awaits him. If you and I can play even a minute role in helping two rivers meet and flow into the ocean of Divine Love as one single watercourse, if we can help two good friends of God to meet, I will count myself blessed.
There is, however, one thing you need to take into consideration. Rumi might be an influential man adored and respected by many, but that doesn’t mean he does not have critics. He does. Furthermore, such a flowing-together might generate discontent and opposition and cause rivalries beyond our comprehension. His fondness of his companion might also cause problems in his family and inner circle. The person who is openly loved by someone who is admired by so many people is bound to draw the envy, if not the hatred, of others.
All of this might put the companion of Rumi in unpredictable danger. In other words, my brother, the person you send to Konya might never make it back. Therefore, before reaching a decision as to how to reveal this letter to Rumi’s companion, I ask you to give the matter considerable thought.
I am sorry to put you in
a difficult position, but as we both know, God never burdens us with more than we can bear. I look forward to your answer and trust that whatever the outcome, you will take the right steps in the right direction.
May the light of faith never cease to shine upon you and your dervishes,
Master Seyyid Burhaneddin
Shams
BAGHDAD, DECEMBER 18, 1243
Beyond dangling icicles and snow-covered roads, a messenger appeared in the distance. He said he came from Kayseri, and caused a stir among the dervishes, who knew visitors to be scarcer than sweet summer grapes at this time of the year. A messenger with a message urgent enough to be carried through snowstorms could only mean one of two things: Either something terrible had happened or something important was about to happen.
The arrival of the messenger set tongues wagging in the dervish lodge, as everyone was curious about the content of the letter handed to the master. But, shrouded in a cloak of mystery, he gave no hints whatsoever. Stolid and ruminant, and zealously guarded, for days he bore the expression of a man struggling with his conscience, finding it hard to reach the right decision.
During that time it wasn’t sheer curiosity that prompted me to closely observe Baba Zaman. Deep inside, I sensed that the letter concerned me personally, although in what way I could not tell. I spent many evenings in the praying room reciting the ninety-nine names of God for guidance. Each time one name stood out: al-Jabbar—the One in whose dominion nothing happens except that which He has willed.