A Poet of the Invisible World (10 page)

When the four ears were finally revealed, Vishpar was stunned. But what he felt was neither love like Habbib nor disgust like Sharoud nor the glory of God like Sheikh Bailiri, but rather a deep sense of wonder.

“Amazing.”

“I just thought you should know.”

Vishpar took a step closer. “Were you born with them?”

Nouri nodded.

“And they function?”

“Extremely well, I'm afraid.”

Vishpar shook his head from side to side. “Amazing.”

Nouri raised the edge of the head cloth to one of his ears and began binding them again.

“Wait,” said Vishpar.

Nouri paused, the ribbon hanging in midair.

“Can I touch them?”

Nouri took another deep breath and nodded. Then he stood very still as Vishpar raised his fingers to his ears. He tapped them. He squeezed them. He moved their tender flaps forward and back. Then—when he was certain that they were real—Nouri covered them again. The following morning they met in the courtyard and continued working. And though Vishpar never mentioned the ears again, Nouri knew that they were closer now.

As work on the
chahar taq
neared completion, the whispers in the city grew louder. It was said that Shadira, a village only three hours away, had been routed. It was said that the invaders had set up camp along the River Tolna and were preparing for a new assault. As a result, many of the merchants in Tan-Arzhan closed their shops. Curfews were imposed, and the wealthier families shuttered their houses and headed south.

Sheikh Bailiri was too wise not to heed the threats. Yet he was convinced that a handful of poor dervishes was unlikely to be the target of an attack. So he instructed Jamal al-Jani to gather the order's few precious belongings—the silver candlesticks, the blownglass lamp, the leather-bound copy of the Qur'an—and bury them beneath the ash tree that stood by the eastern wall. Then he focused the brothers on the completion of the
chahar taq.

The morning on which the Sufi master proved to be naive was graced with an unseasonable warmth. So Sheikh Bailiri allowed the brothers to remove their robes and shoes and work in their loose cotton shifts. All that was left to be done was the final sanding of the arches and the placement of the last tiles upon the dome. But by the end of the morning—despite the freedom of their clothes—the brothers were bathed in perspiration.

“It's too hot to go on,” said Piran Nazuder.

“What's the point in building a
chahar taq
,” said Jamal al-Jani, “if we die of sunstroke before it's done?”

Sheikh Bailiri knew that with a little more effort the structure would be complete. But he could also see that the brothers were exhausted. So he instructed Salim Rasa to fetch a large pitcher of pomegranate juice and some cups and called for a break.

“The last efforts are always the hardest,” he said. “But it's important to take things slowly, and get them right.”

The brothers sat with their cups of sweet juice. Ali Majid slept. Habbib basked languidly in the sun. Only Nouri, with his two pairs of ears, heard the clamor of the horse hooves in the distance. Only he felt the disturbance in the air and the approaching danger. Before he could issue a warning, however, his ears rang with the music of a single plucked string. Then an arrow went whizzing through the air and struck Piran Nazuder dead.

In a flash, the courtyard was filled with men, their hulking bodies covered in pelts, their beards like black smoke, their eyes glinting with malice. Salim Rasa tried to flee, but he was struck as swiftly as Piran Nazuder. The others dropped down and hugged the ground, hoping that if they cowered they would be spared.

Nouri didn't cower. But neither did he leap up, seize one of the invaders' swords, and start doing battle. That was left to Vishpar. Like a panther protecting his brood, he bounded across the courtyard, toppled one of the attackers, grabbed his weapon, and—in less time than it would have taken to blanch an almond—dispatched a trio of the hot-blooded brutes. At the sight of him in action, Nouri felt a thrill shiver through him. He envisioned his friend single-handedly routing the entire pack. He pictured himself kneeling down before this hero who'd saved his life.

This was the image that flashed in Nouri's mind as someone grabbed him from behind and tethered his wrists. And it would have been the image that stayed with him had he not seen Vishpar rush forward in order to deflect the next blow and be pierced through with a gleaming sword. That was when they slipped the blindfold over Nouri's eyes and the world went black. And though other faces pressed in at the edges of the darkness—Sheikh Bailiri's—Habbib's—Ali Majid's—the look on Vishpar's face as the marauder ran him through was what remained in Nouri's heart as they carried him away.

 

PART TWO

 

Eight

Nouri gripped the silver tray with both hands, careful not to jostle it as he moved through the garden, but he was not prepared for the creature that suddenly swooped from the tree and darted across his path. Its body was the most dazzling blue he'd ever seen. And though its head was quite small, its tail was enormous. When it saw Nouri, the creature froze and cocked its head to one side. Then its tail began to spread out until it stood like a painted fan. Nouri remained perfectly still, aware that the pot of tea and the freshly baked
naan
he was delivering would soon grow cold. Yet he could not help feeling that the eyes that were scattered across the tail were staring at him and that if the creature could speak it would say,
“What, in the name of Allah, are you doing here?”

It was a question that echoed through Nouri's head quite often. For though the conditions of his new life were good—he had a large room and clean clothes and plenty to eat—he generally felt as if he'd taken a wrong turn and stumbled into somebody else's life. Everything around him was strange: the food, the landscape, the faces. When he thought of how things might have turned out, however, he tried to accept the confusion, and focus on the various tasks he was meant to perform each day.

At the moment, he was supposed to deliver the silver tray with the pot of tea, the basket of
naan,
and the bowl of figs to the ornate chamber of The Right Hand. He had no idea why they called the man he'd been ordered to wait upon The Right Hand. When he was first brought to his chamber to meet him, the swarthy fellow had just come from riding and Nouri had half-expected that when he removed his gloves he would find that his right hand was made of wood or covered in scales or scarred by fire. When it was revealed, however, Nouri saw that there was nothing strange about it at all.

The Right Hand was a set of contradictions to Nouri. Gruff, yet deeply attuned to beauty. Powerful, yet easily affected by what others had to say. Nouri heard the danger in his voice when he gave an order. He saw the blood rise to his cheeks when he was displeased. So he did not wish to anger him by bringing him a pot of cold tea, which meant that he had to get past the strange creature on the path.

He stepped to the right. The creature stepped to its left. He reversed his movements and it did so too. But before he could reach for one of the figs and hurl it at its head, the sound of a pair of hands clapping loudly and a voice crying “Shoo!” ricocheted through his head. Then the creature folded its gorgeous tail and flew off to a nearby ledge.

When Nouri turned, he found Leisha, one of the Sultan's serving girls, standing behind him, her thick hair pulled back into a braid, her dark eyes flashing with indignation above her veil. Like Nouri, she was part of the network of servants that flowed through the corridors of the palace. And though he was not sure what her mother tongue was—there was a flatness to her
a
's and a rough, husky sound to her
h
's—he'd studied enough Arabic to be able to converse with her easily, as with everyone else at the palace. She was coarse and loud and filled with opinions, which made her seem twice Nouri's age. But she was probably no more than a few years older than he was, if that.

Now, with her hands firmly planted on her hips and her brow deeply furrowed, she seemed ready to knock him to the ground.

“You're supposed to take The Right Hand his tea! Not dance with the accursed birds!”

Nouri wanted to say that he was as eager as she was to see that The Right Hand received his tea. But he knew that more words meant more delay. So he hurried off to deliver the tray.

*   *   *

SO HOW DID
Nouri Ahmad Mohammad ibn Mahsoud al-Morad wind up as a tea boy in a sultan's court in a barren country where people wore capes and ate goat and prayed to Moses and Jesus as devoutly as to Allah? What wind blew him westward, and then slightly south? What twist of fate led him from the marauders at the lodge to the bird with the extravagant tail?

For one thing—at least at the start—it was a journey of sound more than sight. For once the blindfold was slipped over his eyes, Nouri's doubled ears took the wheel of his perception and charted his progress forward. The cries of the brothers grew fainter and fainter as the footsteps of his abductor fell upon tile and then stone and then earth. He heard the clatter of horse hooves as they moved through the gates and then a whinny rise up as he was hoisted onto the back of a warm beast and clasped tightly around the waist by a pair of bearlike arms. That was when his sense of smell kicked in: even with a single nose he nearly retched from the terrible stench of the fellow. They sat there until the absence of clinking weapons and the thunder of approaching footsteps announced that the destruction was through. Then orders were shouted and horses were mounted and they set off.

He could not say how long they traveled. Days. Weeks. Time was a mist that tickled his cheeks as they galloped along. His captors would stop every so often to make camp—tossing Nouri a few meager scraps—laying out a hide for him to sleep on—but mostly they just rode. Someone always stayed with him when they descended upon a new village. But while the clash of metal and the gut-wrenching cries grew more familiar with repetition, the memories they evoked of what had happened at the lodge always startled him anew. He tried to press back the images when they came—the blood gathering in shiny pools on the new tiles, the fear in the eyes of the brothers—but over and over they would rise up again and batter his heart.

As they made their way from village to village, Nouri wondered why his blindfold was never removed. And one day, the same thought must have occurred to his captors. They'd stopped by a stream to water their horses and, as the day was warm, they decided to rest. So they lowered Nouri from the horse, tied his wrists with a rope, and bound him to a tree. Then they spread themselves out on the grass and fell into a heavy sleep.

In time, the dissonant clamor of their snoring settled into a steady hum. But before Nouri could give over to the calm, he heard the voice he'd come to recognize as their leader's suddenly bark out a command. In an instant, the others lumbered to their feet. Nouri heard a few of them laugh and a few stop to piss upon the grass. Then they saddled their horses and made ready to depart. As one of them began to untie the rope that bound Nouri to the tree, the leader shouted again. Nouri could feel the attention of the group shift to him. Then the leader shouted a third command and his blindfold was removed.

After weeks of darkness, the sudden exposure to the light was blinding. Gradually, however, rough shapes began to appear: the mountains, the horses, the men whom he'd been with since the attack at the lodge. As his eyes fully adjusted to the light, he saw the savage looks on their faces. Then the leader—a giant of a man, with soulless eyes—shouted again. Then the man who'd removed his blindfold tore off his head garment.

There was a stunned silence as their amusement transformed into horror, and then twisted into fury. One of the men drew his sword and raised it up high over Nouri's head, and Nouri's only consolation was the thought that he would soon be with Vishpar. Before the weapon came slicing down, however, the leader shouted another command, which stayed the fellow's hand.

The air hummed as the leader moved close to Nouri. He raised his choppy fingers to Nouri's ears, but then he recoiled. Then he drew back and—with a look of disgust—he spat in Nouri's face. He turned. He shouted again. Then the men gathered their things, mounted their horses, and left Nouri bound to the tree.

When the sound of the hooves died away, Nouri could feel the terror inside him begin to release. But as time passed, his mouth became dry and his stomach began to ache and he was faced with the fact that he was tied to a tree by a stream in the middle of Allah-knew-where. He tried to wriggle free of his bonds, but he could not do it. They'd left him, like a helpless beast, to roast in the scorching sun.

The hours crept by. His throat began to constrict and he grew light-headed and dizzy. Then, in the distance, he heard hooves and a pair of men on a pair of ash-colored steeds appeared. When they saw Nouri, they started toward him and he could feel the hope rise in his chest. When they reached him, however, and saw his ears, they spurred their horses and galloped away.

Nouri closed his eyes and tried to fathom his fate. He could not understand why an extra set of ears caused so much revulsion. He could not understand why he'd spent so many years learning so many things if he was meant to die like a sick calf tied to a tree. Was it possible that all he'd been taught was a lie? Could it be that there was no meaning to life after all?

He remained there a long while. But then, once again, he heard the clatter of hooves. And this time, when the riders appeared, they were carrying a large chaise, covered in cloth, that was suspended on a pair of wooden rails. When they reached Nouri, they paused. Then a hand decked with glittering rings parted the cloth and a pair of eyes peered out.