A Poet of the Invisible World (11 page)

The hand withdrew.

The curtain closed.

Then a parcel of braised meat and a small knife were tossed through the slit. Then a voice shouted a sharp command, and the chaise moved on.

When Nouri saw the meat, he managed to loosen the rope just enough to work his way down the trunk of the tree to the ground. Bending forward, he gripped the hilt of the knife between his teeth and moved it to where he could grasp it with his hands. Then he sliced himself free of his bonds and devoured the meat in a single gulp. It tasted like lamb glazed with honey, but it could have been mule brushed with tar for all he cared. When he was finished, he reached for his head cloth, which lay in the dirt, and re-covered his ears. Then he closed his eyes and lay back against the base of the tree.

Now that the marauders were gone, and he was no longer bound, Nouri was free to seek refuge. The trouble was, he had no idea where to go. He decided to head off in the direction the chaise had taken. But the ground was quite rocky and in no time his flimsy slippers were torn to shreds. A terrible thirst gripped him and it was not long before the sweet parcel of lamb seemed a distant memory. He tried to put one foot in front of the next and not think of how hot the sun was or how tired he felt or how barren the landscape seemed. He would take a few steps, then stop, then take a few more, until he could barely move. Then his head began to fill with fog, and the world went dark.

When he came to, he found himself lying on a thick bed of straw, wrapped in a blanket, in the back of a large wagon. It was night, but enough moonlight streamed down to let him perceive the kindness of the face of the slender man who sat beside him. For the next several weeks, he mostly slept, stirring every so often to find the man holding a damp cloth to his brow or spooning a bitter broth into his mouth. As he slept, he had feverish dreams: Habbib on the back of a large black bull charging toward the edge of a cliff; Sheikh Bailiri guiding a gilded boat down a river; Vishpar holding a bow that he aimed at a dragon growing out of his own body.

When at last he awoke, he found himself in a warm bed in a spacious room at the palace. And though no one ever explained how he'd come to live at the center of this sun-soaked court—with its soaring towers, and its ravishing gardens, and its intricate system that channeled crystalline water from the mountains into its fountains and pools—day by day, he was beginning to accept the place as his home.

Now, as he approached the lavish chamber of The Right Hand, his thoughts were quite far from the path he'd had to travel to get there. He was focused instead on the warmth of the tea, the crispness of the
naan,
and the exacting nature of the man who was about to receive them.

When he reached the chamber, he paused for a moment. He steadied the tray. He adjusted his tunic.

Then he took a deep breath and rapped on the door.

*   *   *

INSIDE THE CHAMBER, PROPPED
on a silk pillow on a wicker divan, the man known as The Right Hand was listening to a pair of youths play the most beguiling music. The older one—who was slender and had the faint beginnings of a beard—was playing a haunting melody on the
tar.
The younger one—who was still covered with a layer of baby fat—stood with his eyes closed, his arms floating like tendrils at his side, singing in a seraph's voice:

Away—away—

My beloved has gone—

Far away my beloved has gone.

And I here must stay—

Must stay—must stay—

From dawn until dusk until dawn.

The sounds were like sweet chestnut honey to The Right Hand. They relaxed him and brought thoughts of the pleasures he would partake of on his journey to the nearby city of Amanduena. The Sultan believed it was time to form an alliance between the two courts, and if anyone could grease the diplomatic wheels it was The Right Hand. He had a way of melting resistance. Of making differing points of view somehow converge. But what excited him even more than the political games—or the sumptuous feasts that accompanied them—were the games of seduction. He'd not been to Amanduena for several years, and he felt sure there would be a host of new beauties to choose from. Perhaps he'd find a small laundry girl with a devourable mouth. Or a young kitchen maid with flashing eyes and plenty of flesh to hold on to. He was so immersed in thoughts of the upcoming journey, he did not even notice that his food had not arrived. Only when he heard the rapping on the door did it cross his mind that his breakfast was overdue.

He shouted to the servant boy to enter. Then he studied the boy as he moved toward him with the well-heaped tray. It was clear from the way he spoke that he came from a distant part of the realm. And though the head covering he wore seemed a bit strange—it was not really a turban, and it wrapped right over his ears—he assumed that it was a fashion native to his land. The Right Hand had had many youths attend him over the years. But he could not remember one as tender and sweet-faced as this one.

For Nouri's part—although he'd entered the lavish room dozens of times by now—he never felt completely at ease in the chamber of The Right Hand. For one thing, it was always filled with the cloying smell of incense. For another, it was stuffed with too many glittering objects to allow a trace of Allah to enter in. Mostly, though, he was made nervous by The Right Hand himself: his booming voice, his gruff manner, his heavy-lidded gaze that seemed to peer right into his soul. He was kind to him, though. And he did not say a word about the lateness of his tray. So Nouri carefully laid out the cup and the bowl and the basket and the teapot. Then he poured some tea into the cup, knelt beside The Right Hand's divan, and waited to be dismissed.

By now, the youth who was serenading The Right Hand had moved on to a song about a journey across the sea. As The Right Hand reached for his cup of tea, Nouri listened to the angelic voice pour out into the room. When the song was finished, The Right Hand gestured to the two youths to depart. So they bowed their heads and left the room. Nouri waited for the command to depart, but it did not come. Instead, The Right Hand reached for one of the plump, ripe figs, popped it into his mouth, and—for the first time since Nouri had begun serving him—turned to him and spoke.

“Did you enjoy the music?”

Nouri hesitated. The court was still an elaborate mystery to him, and for all of his attempts to prove otherwise, he had no idea how a tea boy should behave. He knew that he had to say something, however. So he cleared his throat and said, “It was very nice.”

The Right Hand reached for a piece of
naan
and tore it apart. “Tell me your name.”

“Nouri.”

“And you're—let me guess—” The Right Hand peered at him. “Fifteen?”

Nouri nodded.

“And do you play an instrument? The
tombak
? The
tar
?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you draw then? Make pottery? Practice calligraphy?”

Nouri shook his head.

“The arts are a strong tonic to the spirit,” said The Right Hand. “Here in the court even the servants are encouraged to practice something. That is what it means to be enlightened.” He swallowed a hunk of
naan
and washed it down with a gulp of tea. Then he turned to Nouri. “Have you heard the word
enlightened
?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then you must find an art to pursue!”

Nouri was silent. He feared that if he said the wrong thing he'd be tossed, like a sack of squeezed lemons, out of the court. But he also feared that if he said nothing he'd find himself studying candle making or puppetry or playing the
oud.
He knew which art to pursue. He'd devoted himself to it for years. So though he worried that he might be speaking out of line, he said, “I like to write verse.”

The Right Hand gazed at him for a moment and then laughed. “Verse!” he cried. “Allah the Equitable! To think that a poet has been serving my tea!”

Nouri blushed. But before he could say more, The Right Hand spoke again.

“When you come tomorrow, bring me something you've written.” He made a brisk gesture with his hand. “You may go now.”

Nouri bowed. Then he rose to his feet and hurried from the room.

He had no idea what he would bring to The Right Hand when he returned with his tea the next day. But he knew that—with the high standards The Right Hand maintained—it would have to be good.

 

Nine

When Nouri left the chamber of The Right Hand, he headed straight to the kitchen to ask Leisha where he could find paper and a pen. When she asked what it was for and he told her, her mud-colored eyes grew wide.

“A poet!” she said, laughing. “Next you'll tell me you've been appointed to carve marble figures for the Sultan himself!”

When Nouri persisted, she led him to a cramped room at the end of a corridor on the third floor of the palace where a man with watery eyes was copying text from a large leather-bound book. When she told him that Nouri had been instructed to write a poem for The Right Hand, the fellow turned to him and squinted a few times. Then he handed him a few sheets of parchment, a pot of ink, and a matted quill.

“Be sure to use plenty of adjectives,” he advised. “The Right Hand will like it if it has plenty of adjectives.”

Nouri thanked the fellow. Then he carried the things to his room and returned to his chores.

That night, before bed, Nouri knelt on the floor and came face-to-face with the challenge of the task before him. He'd not written a word since the attack at the lodge, and he feared that if he raised the lid to the place where the poetry came from, the horror would rise up too. So he cracked it only a trace, allowing enough blood to warm the dozen or so lines he laid down about the sleek ginger cat that wandered the court.

When he read it the next day for The Right Hand, he was delighted.

“A poet!” he cried. “A veritable poet!”

He instructed Nouri to bring him a new poem the next day. And the next day. And the next. And soon, like the playing of the
tar
and the singing, Nouri's reading became a part of the morning tea.

As the weeks passed, Nouri grew more and more confident about his poems. Whatever he wrote about—the figs, the fountains, the mountains that ringed the palace, the eunuchs that tended the bathing chamber, the Caliph's horses, the Sultan's robes—The Right Hand would praise him and ask for more. Occasionally, when he raised the lid, a memory would slip out and grip him with terrifying force. But for the most part, the writing brought solace, and a sense of peace. Eventually he decided to find a place where he could write outdoors—with the sun on his cheeks and the open sky overhead—and not lose the solitude of his room. So he set out to explore the hidden corners of the palace and see what he could find.

It did not take long for him to discover that beside each of the stone towers that rose to differing heights throughout the complex lay a courtyard, each with its own name. Beside the Falcon Tower sat the Court of the Finches. Beside the Soldier's Tower sat the Court of the Running Brook. Nouri could not figure out why they were called what they were called—there was nothing sorrowful about the Court of Despair, and the Crimson Tower was a deep ochre—but he felt that he was learning the history of the place by learning the various names. What pleased him even more, though, was his discovery that behind a handful of the courtyards sat smaller courtyards where no one seemed to go. And behind one of these—the Court of Wrens, which sat beside the Tower of Retribution—was the Court of the Speckled Dove. Unlike the larger courtyards, it was clear to Nouri how it had gotten its name: at the center of its broken fountain sat a lovely bird carved of variegated stone. And Nouri knew the moment he found it that it was the perfect place for him to write.

Despite the daily calls to prayer—which were as consistent at the palace as they had been at the lodge—Nouri's spiritual life seemed to have vanished after his abduction by the marauders. The myriad things that Sheikh Bailiri had taught him seemed fragments of another world. His pledge to devote himself to God seemed as distant as a dream. One morning, however, while he was waiting in the kitchen for The Right Hand's tray, he overheard a conversation between the head pastry maker and the Sultan's chief attendant that made it all come rushing to the surface.

“They say that he can make water flow from a rock!”

“Ridiculous!”

“Hossein al-Farid saw him do it! And Ahad Zanzar claims he saw him levitate during
zikr
!”

When they left the kitchen, Nouri asked the pock-faced boy who brewed the Sultan's tea whom they'd been speaking about and the boy explained that a Sufi master named Ibn Arwani had taken a pair of rooms beside the stables on the edge of the city and in a fortnight had attracted a dozen followers. Nouri said nothing. But he felt as if a shaft of light had suddenly pierced the darkness. And though he knew that no teacher could ever match the wisdom of Sheikh Bailiri, that afternoon, when The Right Hand dozed off after a lunch of slow-roasted lamb, fried eggplant, and honeyed dates, he headed off through the winding streets to find him.

As he made his way along, he found it hard to believe that anything remotely holy could rise up from such dirt and din. The streets were scattered with fish bones and rotting fruit, his heels were nipped by chickens and goats, the shouts of food sellers and crying babies tortured his hyperaware ears. When he reached the stables, he found the rooms where the Sufi master had taken up residence. The windows were open, so he approached them and looked in. There were eleven men spread out across the room—their legs crossed, their heads bowed, their eyes shuttered to the world. And while there was no way of discerning the leader of the group by either his clothing or his position in the room, Nouri could instantly tell which one was Ibn Arwani.