Their only worry was for Halima. She cherished her memories of Suleiman with true devotion. She saw him as her master, and in private would ask just him for advice in all kinds of matters. She grew solitary. Alone, she could feel his presence and talk to him. Many times the others heard her whispering to herself, and a few times they saw her laugh charmingly or with abandon, as though she were actually having a conversation with someone else. At first they tried to persuade her that Suleiman might not come back. But when they realized that she thought their hints were motivated by meanness or mischievousness, they let her keep believing.
When she learned that youths would be coming that night, she shook like a reed in the wind. The color left her cheeks. She fell to the ground and passed out.
“Good God!” Miriam exclaimed. “What are we going to do with her?”
“Sayyiduna gave you permission not to be with the boys,” Zuleika told her. “Ask him to make the same exception for her.”
“She’ll think we’re intentionally trying to separate her from Suleiman,” Fatima objected. “Then she’ll really do something to herself.”
“How could she have gotten it into her head that Suleiman was ever coming back?” Rokaya asked.
“She’s in love with him. He said he’d come back and she believes that. In her eyes he’s a greater prophet than Sayyiduna.”
This was how Fatima replied.
Meanwhile, the girls had managed to bring Halima to. Halima looked at the girls, perplexed. When she remembered the news, a deep blush came to her face. She got up and ran to her room to get ready.
“I’ll tell her everything,” Miriam said.
“She won’t believe you,” Zuleika replied. “I know her. She’s stubborn, and she’ll decide we’re keeping Suleiman from her.”
“But it will break her heart if she sees someone else in his place.”
“Let her get used to it, like we’ve had to,” Sara said.
“Halima is different. I’ll ask Sayyiduna.”
“No, Miriam,” Fatima said. “Let’s work with Halima, instead. Maybe she’ll adjust.”
They went into her bedroom.
Halima was sitting in front of the mirror, adorning herself and smiling. Her brow knit when she noticed her companions. It made her angry that they were interrupting her in the midst of such beautiful thoughts.
Seeing this made Miriam’s heart ache.
“You talk to her,” she whispered to Fatima.
“Are you looking forward to tonight’s visit?”
“Leave me alone. Don’t you see I have to get ready?”
“Listen, Halima,” Miriam said. “Every visitor comes to our gardens only once. Do you understand that?”
Ahriman came through the doorway and started sniffing around Halima.
“Chase them out of here, Ahriman. They’ve gotten mean.”
“What Miriam is saying is absolutely true,” Fatima said.
“Will you get out of here?”
“You’re bull-headed,” Sara said angrily.
They left her bedroom.
“She doesn’t believe it,” Zuleika said.
“No. She doesn’t believe you, Miriam,” Fatima added.
Apama arrived with a strict order from Sayyiduna for each of the girls to change or swap names. None of them could make a mistake this evening.
Miriam and Fatima began assigning the new names.
“Halima! Tonight your name is going to be Safiya instead of Halima. Do you understand? Keep repeating the name to yourself so that you get used to it.”
Halima smiled. “Do they really think he’s not going to recognize me?” she said to herself.
“Quit that smiling!” Miriam scolded her. “This is a serious matter. The assignments to the gardens are going to be different this time too.”
It was only now that Halima got really worried. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“I hope you understand at last what you’re facing,” Fatima said to her.
Tears welled up in Halima’s eyes.
“You’ve all become so mean to me.”
She ran off and hid in an isolated closet.
Sara followed her and pulled her out.
“You don’t know yet that Fatima and Zuleika are pregnant,” she told her. “I overheard them confiding in Miriam. So don’t tell anyone that I told you.”
“Why just the two of them?”
“Well, look at you! Don’t tell me you want one too?”
Halima stuck her tongue out at her and turned her back.
Late that afternoon Hasan summoned Miriam to one of the empty gardens. She told him what was happening with Halima and that she was expecting Suleiman to return that night.
Hasan looked at her grimly.
“Your job was to get her drinking wine at the right time, and I’ll hold you responsible if anything goes wrong.”
“Spare her this disappointment, for my sake.”
“Today it’s her, tomorrow another one, and yet another girl the day after that. For twenty years while I’ve been developing my plan, I’ve never given in to any weakness. And now you want me to buckle under.”
Miriam cast him a hateful look.
“At least let me take her place.”
Hasan again grew hard and unyielding.
“No, I won’t permit it. You’ve cooked this mess of porridge yourself. Now you’re going to have to eat it … This evening, when the time comes, return to this garden. We’ll wait for the outcome together. Have I made myself clear?”
Miriam gritted her teeth and left without saying good-bye.
When she was back with the girls, she immediately looked for Halima.
“Do you understand that Suleiman won’t be coming here tonight? Be careful you don’t do anything stupid. It could cost you your life.”
Halima stubbornly stomped her foot on the floor. Her face was still red from crying. “Why is everyone being so mean to me tonight?”
Obeida had taken careful note of everything the first three fedayeen reported about their visit to paradise. Given his natural skepticism, he had wondered even then what he would have done, had he been in their place. There were many things that hadn’t quite made sense, and which raised his doubts.
That evening, when he and his two comrades stepped before the supreme commander, he was consumed by curiosity as much as by fear, yet he managed to control himself perfectly. He answered Hasan’s questions clearly and confidently.
The grand dais were not present this time, nor did Hasan need them. The first and most difficult experiment was already behind him. Now everything functioned like a well-installed block and pulley.
Jafar and Abdul Ahman felt seized with the fear of God when they found themselves alone with Hasan in the same chambers from which he ruled and administered the Ismaili world. No doubts troubled them any longer. They were happy to be able to answer his questions and carry out his commands.
When they heard that he would be sending the three of them to paradise, too, their eyes beamed. They were utterly in his power.
Obeida’s face turned slightly blue. He decided to observe carefully everything that was going to happen to him, without giving himself away.
Hasan led them into the lift and showed them their cots. He gave them wine to drink and placed a pellet in each one’s mouth. Jafar and Abdur Ahman swallowed them eagerly, but Obeida let his inconspicuously roll out at the corner of his thick lips and drop into his upturned palm, then hid it under his cloak. He watched through a slit between his eyelids as his comrades moaned and thrashed, and then he imitated everything they did.
Abdur Ahman was the first to lose consciousness. For a while Jafar resisted. Finally he too succumbed, rolled over on his other side, and fell asleep, groaning.
Obeida became anxious and barely dared squint through his eyelids at what was happening around him. Hasan stood motionless, holding up the doorway curtain and letting the light stream in from his room. Apparently he was waiting for al
l three of them to pass out. But what would he do then?
Obeida groaned and turned over onto his other side, as he’d watched both his comrades do. Then he began to breathe evenly. It became totally dark. He could feel Hasan throwing a sheet over him.
A gong was struck.
Suddenly the room swayed and began to drop. It was all Obeida could do to keep from shouting out in fear. He clutched onto the sides of his cot and waited in terror for what was to come.
His brain was working furiously. His senses were on alert. Then he sensed they had come to a stop. A chill air wafted around him. Through the sheet he could make out the flicker of torchlight.
“Is everything ready?” he heard Hasan’s voice ask.
“Everything is ready, Sayyiduna.”
“Be ready, the same as last time.”
Hands clutched onto and lifted his cot. He could feel them carry him over a small bridge. Then they set him, still in the cot, into a boat which rowed off. When they landed, they carried him into some room, from which he could hear music and girls’ voices coming as they brought him in. Then they took him by the ankles and shoulders and lay him down on the soft floor. Then they left.
So this is Our Master’s paradise? he thought. And it was so they could get back here that Yusuf and Suleiman killed themselves this morning?
An unspeakable revulsion came over him. What a fraud! he thought. And Abdur Ahman and Jafar don’t suspect a thing! What would become of them all? He couldn’t give himself away. What could he do if Sayyiduna ordered him to stab himself, like Suleiman? If he resisted, he would meet an even more terrible fate. “Horrible! Unbelievably horrible!” he gasped to himself.
Quick footsteps approached his cot. Now he would have to pretend to be waking up in paradise. Someone took the sheet off of him. For a split second he opened his eyes. It was enough time for him to imprint the image in his memory. He was surrounded by the most beautiful girls he’d ever seen, all of whom were staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and timidity. He suddenly felt an immense, insane desire. He would have liked to have jumped up among them and given full rein to his passions. But he didn’t dare, not yet. What was it Suleiman had said about waking up here? He pretended he was still fast asleep, but he listened intently. He could hear that something completely unexpected was going to happen …
No matter how many times they told Halima that Suleiman wouldn’t be coming back, it was no help. Her silly little heart was immovably obstinate in believing he would come. Once again, Fatima was her group’s leader, and Sara her companion, as they had been the first time. But Zainab and several others were elsewhere. The location was different this time too. They had been assembled in the central garden, where Miriam had been leader the first time.
Once the eunuchs had brought in the litter with the sleeping youth, she trembled over her whole body. She hid behind Sara’s back and waited fearfully for Fatima to uncover their guest. When that happened, instead of handsome Suleiman, Obeida’s Moorish face was revealed.
Halima felt thunderstruck. Her entire wonderful world collapsed. Her eyes opened wide and she couldn’t make a sound. She put her hand in her mouth and bit into it in pain. Gradually she realized that Suleiman was lost to her forever.
Suddenly she darted toward the doorway like an arrow in flight. Now everybody could laugh at her for refusing to believe them. She ran down the corridor, and before her companions could collect themselves, she was racing down the path toward the rocks where the lizards sunned themselves by day.
“Rokaya! Sara! Go after her!” Fatima ordered in a subdued voice. They both flew into the gardens after her. They didn’t even notice when Ahriman joined them. They ran straight toward the edge of the stream.
They caught sight of Halima standing on top of the rocks. Her arms flailed, and she went pitching into the waves. There was a desperate scream and a splash, and the current was carrying her off.
Ahriman leapt into the water after her. He caught up with her, grabbed her hair in his teeth and tried to drag her to shore. But the current was too strong. In mortal fear Halima clutched onto his neck. They came closer and closer to the cliff under Alamut. Used to the darkness, his eyes could make out the nearby shore. He tried to reach it with all his might, but his efforts were all in vain. He gave a labored snort and shook off his load. The lock of her arms was released and her body vanished in the waves. But now he was trapped between high cliffs on both sides. He reached them, but his claws slipped against the smooth rock surface. He tried to swim against the current, back to the gentler banks of the gardens, but his strength was gone. A whirlpool caught him and dragged him into its depths.
Sara and Rokaya went back with horror in their eyes. Zofana met them at the entrance and they broke out in tears.
“She’s gone. She jumped into the water. Into the rapids.”
“O Allah, Allah! But keep quiet about it. The boy has woken up and he’s behaving strangely. He doesn’t seem to believe that we’re houris at all. What is Sayyiduna going to say!”
They wiped the tears off their cheeks and followed Zofana.
Obeida was sitting on pillows, confidently embracing first Fatima, then Jovaira, and smiling disdainfully through it all. They tried in vain to get him drunk, but he barely moistened his lips in the wine.
Then, with a knowing smile, he began to tell the girls about life at Alamut, and he kept a careful look on their faces as he did. He noticed some of them exchange glances when he mentioned Suleiman’s and Yusuf’s names. With an almost fiendish delight he described their departure for paradise that morning. He saw them blanch and try in vain to conceal their emotions. This gave him a certain satisfaction. It bothered him that those two had enjoyed the delights of these beauties sitting before him.
Then he caught sight of Sara and was taken aback. “So that’s black Sara that Suleiman talked about, although her name is different now,” he said to himself. The blood of his ancestors stirred in him. This is what the slaves of their grandees must have looked like.
He reached out, seized her by the wrist, and drew her toward him. His nostrils flared. He tore the pink veil off of her. He embraced her so hard that they both felt their bones crunch. Then he groaned like a rutting cat and threw himself at her in total abandon. Sara even forgot about what had happened to Halima.
Now it became easy to get him drunk. Powerless and devoid of will, he accepted everything they offered him. The fatigue was so great that he soon dozed off.
“Rokaya! Go get Miriam fast! Tell her everything! That Halima jumped into the river and that Obeida doesn’t believe.”
A boat was moored to the bank of the canal with Moad sitting in it. Rokaya jumped in.
“Take me to Miriam! Now!”
“Miriam is with Sayyiduna.”
“Even better.”
The boat set out gliding across the water’s surface.
Along the way they encountered Mustafa, who was ferrying Apama back from another garden.
“Halima has drowned in the river!” Rokaya called out to her.
“What are you saying?”
Rokaya repeated it. The old woman and the two eunuchs were aghast.
“Show me the place! Maybe we can still save her.”
“It’s too late. The river’s long since carried her off past the castle.”
“Allah, Allah! What is the point of it all?”
Mustafa dropped the oars and buried his face in his hands.
For a long time Hasan and Miriam sat silently in the small hut. Finally he broke the silence.
“This will be news to you,” he said. “That night when I sent the fedayeen to paradise, my grand dais plotted to throw me off the tower into Shah Rud.”
Miriam looked at him in surprise.
“And why was that?”
“Because they couldn’t grasp that a man has an obligation to himself to complete what he’s begun.”
“Which is to say, they were horrified by what you’re doing. What have you done
with them?”
“Done with them? They’re still roaming around the castle grounds, as they did before. We are all full of evil wishes, so I don’t resent them. What could they do to me anyway? We all depend for our salvation on my machine functioning properly. I just hope it also succeeds in destroying our bitterest sworn enemy.”
He chuckled almost inaudibly.
“Which is to say, my old arch rival, my bosom foe, my mortal enemy.”
“I know who you mean,” she muttered.
Again there was a long silence. He knew what was weighing down on Miriam’s soul. But he avoided touching on this delicate subject himself, and she was reluctant to bring it up. Only after a long time had passed did she ask.
“Tell me, what have you done with the three boys who were in the gardens?”
“This morning Yusuf and Suleiman helped to fray the nerves of the sultan’s army that’s got us surrounded.”
She looked at him as though she were trying to read his innermost thoughts.
“Did you kill them?”
“No, they killed themselves. And they were happy to do it.”
“You’re a cruel beast. What happened?”
He related the story. She listened to him with a mixture of horror and disbelief.
“And you didn’t feel a thing when you sacrificed two human beings who were utterly devoted to you?”
She could see that this was difficult for him and that he was on the defensive.
“You wouldn’t understand. What I’ve begun, I have to finish. But when I gave the fedayeen the command, I had to shudder. Something inside me said, ‘If there’s a power above us, it won’t permit this. Either the sun will go out or the earth will shake. The fortress will collapse and bury you and your whole army …’ I’m telling you, I was trembling in my heart, like a child trembles before ghosts. I expected at least some little sign. It’s the truth, if just the slightest thing had stirred, if just then a cloud, for instance, had suddenly blocked out the sun, or if there had been a gust of wind, I would have reconsidered. Even after it was over, I was expecting a blow. But the sun continued to shine down all the same on me, on Alamut, and on the two dead bodies lying before of me. And this is what I thought: either there is no power above us, or else it’s supremely indifferent to everything that happens down here. Or, it’s favorably inclined toward what I’m doing. It was then I realized that somewhere secretly I still believed in a divinity. But that divinity bore no resemblance to the one of my youth. It was like the world itself, evolving in thousands of contradictions, yet firmly fettered to three dimensions. Limitless within its limits. Vast chaos inside a glass beaker. A terrible, grimacing dragon. And I knew at once that I had been serving it all my life.”