A Poet of the Invisible World (15 page)

Nouri waited for The Right Hand to regain his senses, certain that when he did he would call for the guards to come fetch him and take him to some dark corner of the palace, where they would chop off his head. But the body, having lapsed into a sated swoon, only grew slack. So Nouri slipped out from under the leaden weight, gathered his torn clothes, and hurried off.

 

PART THREE

 

Twelve

The snow covered the woodshed and the granary and the pasture and spread like a gentle sleep over the hills. It had fallen, in a great silent downpour, during the night. So when Nouri awoke and looked out through the little window over the place where he slept, there was neither a footprint nor the tracks of either a cart or a plow to mar the perfect white. Nouri had never seen snow in his life. So he could only think that some
djinn
had cast a spell over the landscape to make it disappear.

He knew, however, that,
djinn
or no
djinn,
he had to climb down the ladder and throw off his caftan and put on his warm clothes and head out into the icy air to tend the sheep. There were twelve of them: four rams, six ewes, and a pair of newborn lambs. It was his job to lead them out into the pasture to feed, to remove the twigs and dirt that matted their coats, and to make sure that they did not wander off. And while the snow was likely to complicate these tasks, he knew there was no choice but to carry them out.

Had someone asked him, Nouri would have been unable to say how long he had lived in the dusty barn on the simple farm on the side of the stony mountain. He assumed that his seventeenth birthday had come and gone, but he could not say when. One day blurred into the next, the heel of bread he consumed each morning varying only in the degree to which its crust was burned, the watery soup he ate for lunch never wavering, the bowl of grain he was given for supper being augmented with a scrawny carrot or a small scrap of meat only now and then. He rose. He worked. He slept. Each breath was an act of forgetting. Each action was a denial of all that had come before.

When Nouri had fled the wounding embrace of The Right Hand, he felt light-headed and dizzy. It was the hour of siesta, so no one saw him as he staggered over the colored tiles and back to his room. He removed his clothes, rolled them into a bundle, and changed into something unsoiled. Then he hurried through the palace, out the gates, and over the sleeping streets until the city was far behind him.

He had no destination. He just ran and ran—down the dusty roads, through the choppy fields, along the dried-up riverbanks—until he spied an abandoned farmhouse where he could spend the night. He was cold and hungry and there was little comfort to be found in its forgotten rooms. But he curled himself up into a ball beside the lifeless hearth and relinquished himself to sleep.

In the morning, he rose and went out to the parched garden, where he found a well. He drew enough water to fill the tub that sat on the broken porch. Then he removed his clothes and sank in. He did not think about what had happened the day before. He did not think about anything. But when he stepped from the water, it was as if his life at the court had never occurred.

Over the following days, he continued north, stealing food from the fields and gardens he passed, stopping only when his tired body could move no more. At times he found a barn or an old windmill where he could spend the night, but for the most part to keep himself warm he had to huddle in the clefts of the dry earth that were scattered along the way. He followed the roads, but took cover when he heard the sound of horse hooves. Even the simple gaze of a pair of eyes was too much for him to bear.

As he traveled on—his only motive to get farther from the court—he began to perceive that he was moving higher. The ground was less beaten, the air more fragrant and less tinged with salt. As he pressed on, the path grew narrow and snaked upward through great crags of rock. This meant that Nouri had to climb, and that there was less food to be found.

One morning—after tucking himself into a tiny cave he'd found on the side of a great bluff—he awoke to find that he was not alone. Surrounding him, in a fleecy ring, were ten sheep, their eyes closed in a communal sleep, their bodies filling the space with warmth. When he sat up, they stirred, but they showed no signs of fear. They simply blinked their elliptical eyes and bleated a few times.

Nouri felt safe at the center of the flock. But having drunk his fill from a meandering stream he'd passed the night before, he felt the need to piss. So he climbed over the circle and stepped out of the cave into the morning light. As he released a steady stream upon the ground, the sheep turned their heads to listen and watch the steam rise up. Then, when he'd brushed the dirt from his clothes and headed back to the path, they rose and started after him.

At first, Nouri was confused to find the wooly creatures dogging his steps.

“Be gone!” he shouted.

He waved his arms and tried to shoo them away. But their dark, vacant eyes just stared at him, and he soon realized that after being alone for longer than he'd ever been alone in his life he was grateful to have them near. So he turned back to the winding road and let them follow behind.

They remained at his heels the entire day. When he paused at a stream to drink, they drank too. When he came upon a patch of grass, he waited while they grazed. And when dusk came, he found a crevasse in the side of a mountain where the entire flock could spend the night. It was not as spacious as the cave where they'd sheltered the night before, but it was dry and protected from the wind, and both Nouri and the sheep seemed happy at the thought of settling in.

He removed a few stones scattered on the floor of the enclosure. Then he led the sheep in and they hunkered down. Before he could lay his own weary body beside them, however, he felt a shiver run through him, and when he turned he saw an old man hovering in the darkness. He was carrying a small torch, which cast shadows across his haggard face. But his eyes, set deep within his skull, blazed brighter than its flame. Nouri feared more for the sheep than for himself. But then the man suddenly shouted:

“Ven!”

The cry made Nouri's tender ears throb. But as the sheep rose to their feet and started toward the old man, Nouri knew that the flock was his. When they were gathered around him, the man turned and started off, and the sheep—just as they'd done with Nouri—followed behind. After a few paces, however, the man turned back. He glared at Nouri through the fading light and Nouri feared that he might draw a knife from the heel of his boot and slice open his throat. Instead he shouted:

“Venga!”

Then he jerked his head to indicate that Nouri should follow him too, and so he did.

By the time they reached the old man's farm, it was dark. Nouri watched as he led the sheep into an enclosure. Then he followed the old man into a small stone house, where he gave Nouri a hunk of bread and some tasteless soup. After the spare meal, he led Nouri out to the barn, showed him the ladder that led up to the narrow loft, and left him to sleep. When Nouri awoke the following morning, the old man handed him a wooden staff. And Nouri understood that his new job was to tend the sheep.

In the time since then, the weather had grown cold and Nouri had settled into life on the farm. In exchange for looking after the sheep, he was given food and shelter. The rest of the old man's world—the cultivation of the scraggly vegetable patch, the tending of the orchard, and whatever went on in the little house outside the times when Nouri was welcomed for meals—was none of his affair. Nouri performed his chores and followed his tasks. Each day was like the day that had come before.

Now, however, he'd awakened to find that the world had gone white. So he shook off the last traces of sleep and scrambled down the ladder to see what the strange substance was like. For with the past erased, and no guarantee of any future, what could match his state of mind more completely than a landscape that was hushed and numb?

*   *   *

AS TIME PASSED, A SIMPLE
fondness grew up between Nouri and the old man. With no common language, they had to depend on looks and gestures to communicate. If the old man raked his fingers across the sky it meant that more snow was coming. If Nouri mimed turning a key in a lock it meant that the sheep were in for the night. Nouri kept waiting for the old man to make some sort of reference to his head cloth, but he never did. So he assumed that it just seemed like another expression of his strangeness to the old man.

There was a flurry of activity when the two lambs were born. The first came quite easily, on a clear afternoon, and Nouri did little more than hold the bucket of warm water and watch as the sticky creature entered the world. The second, however, came at night, and was breech, so Nouri had to assist while the old man pushed it back, grasped one of its legs and pulled it into the birth canal, did the same with the other, and then guided the lamb out to safety. With no words to use, the old man was unable to tell Nouri what was needed, yet it was as if some deep-seated intelligence moved in and explained what to do. When it was clear that both the lamb and the mother would survive, the old man clapped Nouri on the back. It was a moment of connection. Otherwise, they simply nodded to each other as they performed their chores and, from time to time, stood together beside the barn to watch the sun slip behind the hills.

It wasn't until several months had passed that Nouri learned the old man's name. Nouri was sitting beneath the yew tree where the sheep liked to graze when he looked up to see the old man striding toward him. He assumed that he'd done something wrong, but when the old man reached him he peered into his eyes and thumped loudly upon his chest.

“Enrico!” he shouted.

Nouri was silent. Then he suddenly remembered that he also had a name. “Nouri,” he said, as he thumped his chest in return.

The old man nodded. Then he turned and marched back to the house and that was that.

Considering the amount of time he spent with them each day, Nouri was surprised he did not feel a deeper kinship with the sheep. He fed and watered them; he brushed their coats and took them on long rambles along the steep mountain paths; he even named them: the four rams were Abtin, Omid, Siamak, and Javeed, the six ewes were Ashtag, Chalipa, Yasaman, Ghamzeh, Malakeh, and Rasa, and the two lambs were Poupak and Kamal. But all that had occurred over the previous year kept his heart locked up tight, and the lambs could not enter in.

Sometimes, when the dullness of not feeling was almost as painful as the pain had been, Nouri would kneel down and pray. But without any access to his heart, the simple words that formed were just words. So he rose each morning and tended the sheep and slipped back into bed at night.

Wanting nothing.

Expecting nothing.

Content to let each excoriating day trickle into the next.

*   *   *

WHEN HE FIRST HEARD
the singing—augmented by his ears into the sounds of a choir—Nouri looked up, for he was certain that music so sweet could only come from above. He was carrying the hay out to feed the sheep, but the singing stopped him in his tracks. And when its source finally appeared—climbing the winding path that led up the mountain—he was surprised to find that it was merely a girl, about the same age as he was, carrying a large basket covered with a cloth. As soon as she saw Nouri, the girl stopped singing. But she kept her eyes on him as she approached, and when she reached the place where he stood she spoke.

“He traído el jamón para Enrico.”

Nouri, who could make little sense of the odd language, said nothing. He was unused to seeing a girl without a veil, so he could only stare at her dark, lovely face.

“Es especialmente bueno este año.”
She gestured toward the basket.
“Estoy seguro que le va a gustar.”

The girl waited for Nouri to respond, but he just stood there. So she smiled a faint smile and then headed toward the house. As she left, Nouri watched her: her dark hair swinging behind her, her feet making a slender trail in the snow. She reminded him of someone, but he could not say whom. He only knew that he was happy to see her.

When she reached the house, she rapped on the door. Then it opened and Enrico ushered her in. So Nouri shook the encounter from his mind and continued on toward the sheep. As he approached them, they bleated a few times and Nouri noted how they blended into the snowy landscape like chunks of
panir
in a bowl of unseasoned rice. With great care, he laid out the straw for them to eat. Then he made his way back to the barn, climbed the ladder to the loft, and peered through the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the girl. She did not appear, however. So he assumed that she must have departed while he was tending the sheep.

Two days passed. Then six. Then eight. Then, when he'd nearly forgotten all about her, the girl returned. He'd just finished brushing down the sheep and was sitting on the bench in the orchard when the sounds once again pierced the air. When she saw him seated beneath the empty plum tree, she went to join him. She smiled and sat down beside him on the bench. Then she began speaking again in that strange fluted tongue. And though Nouri did not understand a word, he was comforted just to hear the sound of her voice.

As the weeks passed, the girl came again and again. And each time she went to Nouri, and began speaking, and gradually the mysterious language began to unfold.

“Casa,”
she would say as she pointed to the house.

“Cielo,”
she would murmur as she gestured toward the sky.

Nouri would listen carefully to each word and then try to repeat what she'd said. And eventually, he began to join in the game. He'd point to the well and the girl would say:
“Pozo.”