Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation (63 page)

    
But everyone knew that things had gone far
beyond that. If someone wound up dropping a nuclear weapon on Mosul, it would
be the first time in history that a state had been destroyed before it had even
raised its first flag. Because the borders were where they were, it would also
be an act of war against Iraq, and against both U.S. and Iranian interests, and
that would be the beginning of the end—the twenty-first century’s Sarajevo.

    
It would have, Raszer thought, a symmetry
worthy of some grim bard’s epic poem: the nations of the world, spoiling for
apocalypse in the land that had first given rise to the notion of civilization.
If what Philby Greenstreet had told him was true, the end of civilization was
precisely what those cheering on the End Times wanted, for only then could the
self-anointed prophets of an avenging God reclaim dominion over Earth.

    
Francesca released the catch on the Land
Cruiser’s hood, and Dante got out to have a look. Raszer, itching for a smoke,
joined him on the overlook and gestured to the fireworks in the valley.

    
“Is this a preview of what we’ll be passing
through?” he asked.

    
“Sad to say, yeah,” Dante replied, checking
the fuel injectors. “There will be some quieter stretches away from the border,
and after we cross the Buzul Dagi into the Old Man’s autonomous region, it’s a
no-go zone. Until then, we’ll see a lot of this.”

    
“How the hell are we going to avoid
checkpoints?”

    
“Have faith,
rafiq
. You’re not our first pilgrim.”

    
“I might be the first to have a price on
his head.”

    
Dante reseated the injector cable and
lowered the hood. “Not even,” he said, and gave Francesca a thumbs-up. “We all
do.”

    
At six
o’clock, after ten hours of hard driving that had gained them barely three
hundred miles, they came to a small village in the Mardin Daglari range, tucked
into a transverse valley about sixty miles north of the border and an equal
distance south of Batman, the closest town of any size. This village could not
have been home to more than three or four hundred people, yet it had the look
of a destination. Its cobblestone main street was lined with brightly painted
dwellings and shops bunched on a precipitous slope, slipped into place like
colored beads on a string. In the angled light of late afternoon, the place
gave rise to a deep sense of dislocation in Raszer.

    
“Does it have a name?” he asked Francesca.
“This village.”

    
“No,” she replied. “That’s one of its
charms. According to the stories, the villagers figured out centuries ago that
if you didn’t name your town, it didn’t get on the map, and if it wasn’t on the
map, no one came looking for it. It was an enclave of Nestorian Christians
fifteen centuries ago. Now it’s a kind of refuge for renegades of all stripes.
And we are welcome here.”

    
“Nestorians,” Raszer repeated, lifting
Adi’s muzzle gently from his thigh.

    
“They rejected the notion that
God
suffered on the cross,” Francesca
said, “or that Mary was literally the mother of God. Jesus was an avatar, not a
god.”

    
Francesca signaled for the group to follow
her down the oddly empty street. “The Nestorians made too much sense, so they
condemned them as heretics.”

    
They were joined by the dog, who came
straight to Raszer’s side. “Weird time, the fifth century,” he said. “This
whole part of the world consumed by the issue of what Jesus was: Arians
claiming he was wholly physical, and Docetists and Monophysites claiming he was
wholly spiritual, and the Church frantically trying to hold the middle by
insisting he was both. You have to give them credit for taking their religion
seriously, but they all sort of missed the forest for the trees, didn’t they?”

    
“Which forest?” asked Dante, catching up.

    
“Well, as far as I’ve been able to tell,
Jesus never claimed he was the only one with keys to the kingdom. He said he
was one with the Father, but if anyone had asked, I think he’d have said it was
pretty much the same for all of us.”

    
“Every man both lord and vassal,” said
Dante. “That’s what Ibn Arabi says.”

    
“Where is everybody?” Raszer asked. Not a
shop seemed to be open, nor was there evidence of life behind the dwellings’
fancifully painted shutters.

    
“They’re all getting ready for the Jam,”
answered Francesca. “The Jamkhana. The festival. It’s the big finish of the
Naruz celebration. New Year’s. Tomorrow, there’ll be one hell of a rave.”

    
“It’s a shame we’ll miss it,” said Raszer.

    
Francesca came to a stop in front of an
absurdly narrow one-story building with a blue door, wedged between two
somewhat larger stone structures. “We won’t miss it,” she corrected. “Not for
the world. We’ll be staying here two nights.”

    
“That’s news to me,” said Raszer. “I’d love
nothing better than to take in the local color, but we have miles to go—”

    
“Trust us,” said Francesca. “Those miles
will go much faster after you’ve been adjusted.”

    
 
“Adjusted to what?”

    
“This village is a crossover, Stephan. A
pardivari
. A sort of bridge.”

    
“Okay. So it’s like getting used to the
altitude before going for the summit,” Raszer said.

    
“Right,” Dante answered, pushing in the
door and holding it for his companions. “And the crossing begins here.” They
filed in, the wolfhound bringing up the rear.

    
Raszer’s first adjustment was to the
darkness of the little tavern, which appeared at first no larger than a
generous cupboard. It was a minor masterpiece of spatial planning, as the
proprietor—a gaunt figure with a luxuriant moustache—had somehow found room for
an eight-foot bar of rough cedar and four stools. All the booze must have been
stowed beneath the bar, as there was space behind it only for the rib-thin
owner and a large, tarnished mirror that gave the place what little depth it
had. An oil lamp cast a faint glow on the man’s face. The rest of the room
receded into blackness.

    
Francesca greeted the proprietor in what
Raszer took to be Kurdish. It was a language he knew nothing of, and had had no
time to crack. She motioned for them to sit, but Raszer remained standing. His
eyes were drawn to the stranger in the mirror—the stranger that was his
transformed self—and to the glints of gold floating behind its aged surface.
The proprietor smiled and nodded to each of them in turn, then uncorked a tall
bottle and set four glasses on the bar. He poured from it a clear, thick
liquid.

    
Raszer lifted the glass to his nose and
sniffed. Anise. Herbs. And a lot of alcohol.

    
“Ouzo?” he asked Francesca.

    
“The local version: raki. If you don’t want
to melt your intestines, stick with Altibas or Tekirdag grade. This is Ismet’s
own family’s Tekirdag, and it’s got a few extras.”

    
In practiced fashion, Ismet, the bartender,
topped off each of the four glasses with water poured from a clay pitcher, then
stepped back an inch and tipped his head.

    
“We drink,” said Dante.

    
“We drink,” echoed Francesca.

    
As he swallowed, Raszer felt fire pour down
his gullet.

    
A chuckle, soft as the padding of an animal
in damp underbrush, came from a table in the rear of the tavern, an area that
was only now becoming visible, and dimly at that. Raszer turned. The man at the
table was twice its width, and his robes draped the chair. He wore a fezlike
cap of black felt and wool on his head, and his enormous fingers were wrapped
around a little glass.

    
“We’re not the only ones here for cocktail
hour,” Raszer told Francesca.

    
“That’s Baba Hexreb,” she replied. “Local
wise man. It’s him we came for . . . and Ismet’s raki. When the stars are
aligned, the combination is awesome.”

    
“Will you introduce me?”

    
“Of course,” Francesca said, nodding to the
bar. “Bring your glass.”

    
Before they had risen from their stools,
Baba Hexreb cleared his throat and began to tell a story, peppering his throaty
English with Arabic.

     
“
A Bektashi was in a mosque one
day, listening to the
hodja
give a
sermon. He was about to nod off from boredom, when the hodja began talking
about the beautiful virgins that awaited the faithful in heaven. When he heard
the word
heaven
, the Bektashi came to
himself and asked the
hodja
excitedly
, ‘Hodja efendi, will wine and raki be
served to the faithful in heaven also?’
The
hodja
became furious and shouted back, ‘You pagan, what do you
think heaven is . . . a tavern?!’ The Bektashi smiled and replied, ‘Ha! And
what do
you
think heaven is,
efendi
. . . a whorehouse?!’”

    
“I’ve got one for you, Father,” said
Raszer, drawing out a chair. “A Bektashi approached the
hodja
after prayers. ‘Tell me, learned one,’ he asked, ‘if you set
both a bowl of water and a bowl of wine in front of your donkey, which will he
drink?” The hodja replied without hesitation: ‘The water, of course, because my
donkey is a pious servant of Allah.’

    
“‘Well,’ the Bektashi said, ‘you are correct on one count: He
will drink the water—but not because he is pious. He will drink the water
because he is an ass.’”

    
Baba Hexreb chuckled and lifted his glass
to Raszer, saying, “Sit, sit, my friends. It is the eve of the festival, and
for now, we have Ismet’s place to ourselves. Tomorrow, we will not have room to
stand.” He took a drink, then leaned forward and laid his forefinger on
Raszer’s wrist. “And who, my friend, are you . . . who dresses as a servant of
Christ and speaks as an intimate of the Sufis?”

    
“It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that
Christ had found hospitality here,” said Raszer. “If he were here today, he
might dress as a Bektashi like yourself—”

    
“
Sshhhtt!
”
said Hexreb, putting a thick finger to his lips, the corners of his mouth
curling around it in a grin. “Don’t give me away. There are still witch-hunters
about.”

    
“Apologies, Baba,” Raszer offered,
indicating the holy man’s black cap. “Your
taj
gave you away.”

    
The baba rolled his coal black eyes warily
upward, as if expecting to find a perching bird on his head. He removed it
quickly and hid it in the folds of his lap, looked from side to side, and then
shrugged. “A
taj
is just a
taj
. Perhaps I am only an imposter. What
is the English word? A
sham
.”

    
“I doubt that,” said Raszer. “But I expect
to find a few where I’m going.”

    
“And where is that, Father?”

    
Francesca leaned in. “This is Frère
Deleuze, Baba. Or, at least, we have made him so. We are taking him to El
Mirai. He is here to bargain for the release of an American girl who has been
enslaved there. We’ve come here to seek your blessing.”

    
Hexreb gave Raszer a second inspection. “I
don’t know how well you bargain,” he said, “but your guise is convincing
enough. Or it will be when you’ve put on your robes. Take it from one who knows
deception.”

    
“Is the Bektashi order still outlawed
here?” Raszer asked.

    
“Officially, yes, but we abide. Our
tariqah
—our spiritual path—has always
annoyed officialdom, whether it be Ottoman, secularist, or Islamist.”

    
“Because you hold that Allah is in the
heart, and not in the law . . . ”

    
“Because we tweak their noses with truth,”
said the baba.

    
The dog, which had until then remained on
guard at the door, came to Hexreb, its claws clicking rhythmically on the rough
plank floor. It sat to await his acknowledgment, which he gave quickly and
respectfully.

    
“Hello,
dedebaba
,”
he said in Arabic. “Welcome back. And how is life as a dog, the most blessed of
lower creatures?” Adi gave his beefy hand a lick. “Ah, I see. Yes, I will
convey this most important of precepts. Thank you for reminding me.”

    
Baba Hexreb summoned the proprietor to
bring the bottle of raki, then folded his hands on the table. Together, they
made a mass of flesh the size of an ox’s heart. It seemed to Raszer that the
size of the man was a factor of his accumulated goodness, and that if he grew
wise enough, he might become a giant. For all the weight he carried on his
frame, his face showed not the slightest strain. He replaced the
taj
on his bald head and spoke.