A Poet of the Invisible World (4 page)

What finally gave things away were the elaborate stories Habbib told Nouri before bed. When Habbib was a child, his mother had filled him with tales from the Shahnameh. The story of Sohrab. The seven trials of Rostam. The reign of Ardeshir. She had repeated them, over and over, until each word was etched in his mind. As the years passed, however, the various components of these tales had become confused. Heroes were transformed into villains; young women gave birth to their own grandparents; warriors waged war against kingdoms they'd been sent to protect. Nouri, of course, did not understand a word. But each night, as he lay in Habbib's arms, he would suck on the tips of his withered fingers and coo with glee. What neither Nouri nor Habbib knew was that Sharoud had taken to listening outside the door to Habbib's cell, and heard every word.

At first, Sharoud thought that Habbib was telling the stories to himself. But when he heard the strange sounds of delight, he understood that he was harboring a child. Sharoud could not imagine where it had come from or why, of all people, it had come to Habbib. But it was clear to the dark, brooding dervish that the only thing to do was to flush the creature out. He crouched beneath the window of the cell and beat the
tambla.
He lit sticks of incense and slid them under the door. Yet nothing he did evoked the slightest reaction from either Habbib or the child.

It was only when everything else had failed that Sharoud resorted to using the snake. He was sitting on the low stone bench in the garden when it slithered through the thick grass and darted past his feet. And he instantly knew that it was the means to expose Habbib's secret. Grabbing it by the tail, he carried it to his cell and placed it in an earthenware pot. Then, when the others were asleep, he took the pot to the door of Habbib's cell and let it wriggle beneath. His aim was merely to frighten Habbib, and bring the infant to light. Yet he could not help but thrill at the thought that the creature might squeeze the life out of the child.

The snake, for his part, had no particular agenda. But when he found himself inside the cell, the obvious place to head was the crate that contained the sleeping child. When he reached it, he paused, using his sharpened instincts to discern the best way to slip inside. Before he could do so, however, Habbib bolted up in bed. When he peered through the inky shadows, he saw the snake. But in the split second before he could cry out, the snake recoiled, formed itself into a circle, and began to devour its own tail. That was when the cry issued from Habbib, which quickly led to doors flying open and candles being lit and bodies thundering down the darkened hallway into the cell.

When they saw the infant—not to mention the snake—the dervishes' faces grew wide. But before Habbib could utter a single word, Piran Nazuder suddenly shouted that they must rouse Sheikh Bailiri. Then he scurried off to find him and, a few moments later, returned with the great Sufi master at his side.

“O master!” cried Jamal al-Jani. “We need your help to understand!”

“Surely,” cried Hajid al-Hallal, “this is a sign from Allah!”

Sheikh Bailiri stood quietly in the doorway of the cell. He'd seen many things in his seventy-two years. And while he knew that the world the senses could perceive was an illusion, he also knew that a higher world sometimes revealed itself through the senses by using signs. So when he saw the infant with the strange head garment lying in his cradle beside the snake consuming its tail, he knew that he was no ordinary child.

“He's a breeze from God,” he declared. “We must treat him with the utmost care.”

He paused, half-expecting the child to float up toward the rafters or climb out of the square cradle and dance a
baba karan.
Nouri, however, just lay there and gurgled. So Sheikh Bailiri walked out of Habbib's cell, leaving the room in silence.

 

Three

Once Sheikh Bailiri gave Nouri his blessing, the brothers embraced him as their own. Indeed, they were so taken by him, Habbib had to petition for his rights as the child's primary caretaker. Eventually it was decided that each of the dervishes would be given a turn to feed the infant, to change his diapers, to hold him in his arms, but only Habbib would be allowed to bathe him and lull him to sleep. When he was asked where he'd found him, he was afraid to reveal that the child had fallen out of the sky. So he replied that an old woman had rushed up to him as he was heading to market, exclaiming that there'd been a fire in the next village and that she'd managed to save the infant in her arms from a house that had just burst into flames. Then she'd handed the baby to Habbib and run off in the other direction. When he was asked why the child wore the strange head garment—for despite the recent decree of the Shah that all men wear turbans, the rule was never applied to infants—Habbib replied that he had a terrible scalp condition and that they must never, never, never remove it. For Sharoud, this was clearly one
never
too many. But after the incident with the snake, he decided to lie low for a while.

So life behind the cool stone walls began to take shape for little Nouri Ahmad Mohammad ibn Mahsoud al-Morad. From the moment he was lifted from his cradle in the morning, he was never alone. Indeed, he was almost never out of the warmth of someone's arms, for when Habbib went to fetch the broom and do the sweeping, Jamal al-Jani or Piran Nazuder or Salim Rasa was always there, eager to hold him. Like a loaf of fresh bread, he was passed from one doting dervish to the next, unaware that he was blessed with the rare privilege of constant touch. Each night before bed, Habbib would rub a mixture of olive oil and crushed rose petals into his ears. Then the boy would listen to one of his fabulous tales and fall into a peaceful sleep.

As time passed, Nouri became a fixture of the community, present at all prayers, all meals, all meditation, his world a haven of order and calm. When he turned one (or thereabouts, as the brothers marked his birth as the day that Habbib had found him), they lit candles around the courtyard, placed Nouri at the center, and chanted the ninety-nine names of Allah. When he turned two, Habbib raised him up onto his shoulders and carried him out through the gates to see the world outside the lodge. When he turned three—after having said little more than “Habbib” and “hello”—Nouri suddenly began speaking in full sentences. The brothers would listen as he described in precise detail what he'd found in the garden or dreamed the previous night. Words came to Nouri like flight to birds. Each day his vocabulary grew richer, his phrasing more nuanced, his syntax more complex. Until one day he looked around and decided that everything was in need of a new name.
Chair
became “lotan,”
book
became “shawd,” and the brothers became entrenched in the task of trying to figure out what he was saying. The ritual of renaming, however, did not last long. For Nouri decided that once the objects had been released from the burden of having been called the same thing for so long, they could revert to their former names. The brothers, however, could not shake off the changes so quickly, and for years one might still hear a candle referred to as a “darpash,” a plate dubbed a “froost,” or a cat called a “kimbaloo.”

By the time Nouri turned four, his beauty was undeniable. His eyes, which had wavered between star anise and tamarind, deepened into the richness of black mustard seed. His nose, which might have grown to overcome his face, emerged as noble and straight. His cheekbones were high. His lips were bow-shaped. And beneath his head cloth grew thick waves of hair. Habbib considered that Nouri's bountiful tresses might be enough to hide the two sets of ears. But since he feared that a strong wind would blow in, he left the head cloth in place.

By the time Nouri turned five, it was clear that he was destined to follow the spiritual path. When Piran Nazuder made the call to prayer, Nouri would prostrate himself just like the others. Hajid al-Hallal said that this was merely imitation, that he was too young to know the true meaning of
salah.
When Nouri was late for meals, however, he was usually found sitting in the chapel. And when the poor came to receive the watery soup the brothers doled out twice a week, he was always the first to go among them offering hunks of Salim Rasa's dark, crusty bread. Sheikh Bailiri knew that the boy was too young to begin formal training. But there was a thirst in his eyes that the Sufi master was convinced nothing of the physical world could ever quench. He could feel—just as he'd felt when he'd first seen him—that the child was blessed.

Although the brothers would quite gladly have remained at Nouri's side, they soon found that the child longed to be on his own. If one of them became distracted for even a moment, Nouri would scamper off to some hidden corner to contemplate a leaf or a shattered bowl. When they found him, he'd smile up at them as if he'd never been happier to see anyone in his life. Then, when they turned their backs, he'd hurry off to find something new.

It was with this same curiosity that Nouri considered his extra set of ears. He was aware, from the attention Habbib gave them, that they were special. He'd giggle as Habbib massaged the soothing oil into their tiny lobes and along their gentle curves. He also knew, from the way Habbib added new strips to his head garment as he grew, that they were meant to be kept hidden from sight. He did not actually set eyes upon them, however, until he was six years old. It was a warm, sultry evening toward the end of summer. Habbib was telling the tale of Sam and the
simorgh,
as Nouri sucked happily on a piece of melon at his feet. When Habbib reached the part where the hero heads off into the mountains, there was a sharp knocking at the door.

“It's Ali Majid!” came the familiar voice.

When Habbib went to open the door, he found the gangly youth holding a large oval tray and a pair of candlesticks.

“Hajid al-Hallal told me to polish the silver. But I can't keep my eyes open any longer.”

Habbib gazed at the things Ali Majid held in his arms. “Put them there,” he said, pointing to the wall.

Ali Majid laid the objects down, knowing that Habbib would bring them to a gleaming shine before morning. Then he thanked the fellow and made his way out of the cell.

Habbib returned to Nouri and the tale. When he finished, however, and sat Nouri on the edge of the bed to massage the oil into his ears, the tray that Ali Majid had placed against the wall caught the child's reflection. And when he unwound the head cloth, Nouri saw his ears for the first time.

He gazed at the image and the image gazed back.

“Why?” he said.

Habbib had been waiting for this moment for years. Yet he was no closer to having an answer to Nouri's question than when he'd first seen the ears himself.

“Perhaps God was bored,” he said. “Or perhaps someday we'll all have four ears, and He simply started with you.”

Nouri stared at Habbib, unconvinced by either theory. Then he turned his attention back to the face that peered from the tarnished tray. He knew that having two sets of ears made him different. And he had to admit that they were intriguing, like satiny husks from beneath the sea. He knew, however—even at the age of six—that people's thinking was usually not so generous. He'd seen the man who sold eggs at the market mock Habbib's withered hand when his friend wasn't looking. He'd watched the older boys in the village place stones in the path of the blind fishmonger in order to make him trip. And he'd noticed the sullen gaze of Sharoud, and how it was firmly fixed on his head garment.

So Nouri accepted that his ears must remain a secret. And if he underestimated the dark dervish, it was only a matter of time before he learned just how cunning he could be.

*   *   *

ONCE IT SANK IN THAT
he had twice the number of ears as everyone else, Nouri began to understand why the subtlest sounds whipped through him like wind through a field of grass. Even with the muffling of the head cloth, Habbib's gentle humming sent shivers down his spine. The clicking of the spoon as Salim Rasa stirred the yogurt made him wince. And if faint sounds were palpable, loud ones were almost more than he could bear. Rain on the roof was a fusillade. A cough was an exploding bomb. The spiraling sounds of the
ney
made him drunk.

As time passed, Nouri found two principal ways to escape from the barrage of sound. The first was to help Piran Nazuder tend the garden. It was as if sound receded while he pruned and watered the plants. The buzzing of the bees no longer jangled his nerves. The song of the morning lark no longer pierced his heart.

The second form of escape grew out of the first. For when he was down on his knees, digging up the rich, dark soil or removing a few withered branches, Nouri's head would fill with words. At first they came single file, like the leaves tumbling down in autumn.
Prayer,
he would think as he cut back the roses,
dragon
or
oxcart
or
brushfire
as he watered the rue. As the days passed, however, they began to cluster into phrases.
The softness of a catkin. A ripple on the pond.
Until at last they began to gather into thoughts:

The pansies that grow along the path have no worries.

The smallest and bitterest seed is sweet to God.

The dinner gong; song of contentment; when will it ring again?

Nouri didn't know that such thoughts were unusual for a child of only six. But when he shared them with Habbib, Habbib felt that they should be written down. Since Habbib had never learned how to write, he asked Jamal al-Jani to become Nouri's scribe. Each night, Jamal al-Jani would come to Habbib's cell with a sheet of paper and record what the child had come up with that day. He'd make no comments as he scribbled the lines down. He'd simply shake his head, or laugh, or wipe away a tear. Then he'd hand the sheet of paper to Habbib and scurry back to his cell.