Alamut

  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 lightheartedn
ess 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 ca
n’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.