We Others (40 page)

There is one major difference between the A and B versions of “Sinbad the Sailor”: the seventh voyage. In the seventh voyage of A, Sinbad is captured by pirates and sold to a master for whom he hunts elephants. In the seventh voyage of B, Sinbad is shipwrecked and comes to an island where he finds, under a mountain, a city whose inhabitants grow wings once a month and fly. In A, Sinbad returns alone to Baghdad; in B, he returns with a wife, and learns that he has been away for twenty-seven years. Burton, stating in a note that “All respecting Sinbad the Seaman has an especial interest,” offers the reader translations of each of the seventh voyages, first B and then A. His readers have the curious privilege of reading a brief report of Sinbad’s death and, immediately after it, Sinbad’s account of another voyage—the voyage beyond the final voyage.

So I descended into the ruined city and asked one whom I found there what had befallen that place. Answered he, “Know, stranger, that our King hath incurred the wrath of a great Rukh, who once a year lays waste our city. Now I desire that thou tell me who thou art; for none comes hither willingly.” Thereupon I acquainted him with my story, and he taking pity on me brought me food and drink from the ruins of his home; and when I was refreshed and satisfied he offered to lead me to his King, that I might acquaint him with my case; for it was a custom of that island, that strangers be brought before the King. Then I set forth with him and fared on without ceasing till we came to a great palace all in ruins, so that pillars of white marble lay scattered about the gardens, and many rooms and apartments stood without walls, and were exposed to view. We came to a garden where a great boulder lay beside a shattered fountain, and in the shadow of the boulder sat the King, who gave me a cordial welcome and bade me tell my tale. So I related to him all that I had seen and all that had befallen me from first to last, whereupon he wondered with great wonder at my adventures, and bade me sit beside him; and he called for food and drink, and I ate with him and drank with him and returned thanks to Allah Almighty, glorifying his name. Then when we had done eating I asked whether I might take ship from that port; but he sighed a sigh of deep sorrow, saying that all his ships lay sunk in the harbor; and he said no ship dared approach his isle for fear of the Rukh that was his enemy. Then the King fell into grievous silence. And I seeing the case he was in, and fearing to live out my days far from my native place, took counsel with myself, saying in my mind, “Peradventure this King will deal kindly with me, and reward me, if by permission of Allah the Glorious I rid him of his enemy the Rukh.”

I
n the warm shade of the orange tree, Sinbad imagines another Sinbad from across the sea. He is a Sinbad who lives in a land of rocs, giants, ape-folk, immense serpents, streams strewn with pearls and rubies, valleys of diamonds. One day, intending to do business on a neighboring island, Sinbad mounts the back of a roc and sets forth through the sky. A sudden storm blows the roc off course; in the wind and rain Sinbad loses his grip and falls through the air. He splashes into a river, swims to shore, and finds himself in Baghdad. The palm trees astonish him; he has never seen a silk pillow or a camel; he is enchanted by the miraculous birds no bigger than a man’s hand. He walks in wonder, entranced by a porter bent under a bundle, frightened by a ship with sails gliding magically along the river, amazed by a stone bench, a sticky date, a turban. One day he takes passage on a ship and arrives back in the land of rocs and giants. He tells his tale of wonders to a group of friends who listen in attitudes of astonishment, while beyond the open doorway rocs glide in the blue sky, serpents the size of palm trees glisten in the sun, somewhere a giant lies down and shuts his weary eyes.

Sinbad inhabits two Baghdads. The first Baghdad is a place of “ease and comfort and repose,” where he lives in a great house among servants, slaves, musicians, concubines, and a rather vague “family,” and where he continually entertains many friends, all of whom are lords and noblemen. It is the familiar and well-loved place, the place to which he longs to return in the midst of his perilous voyages. The second Baghdad is never described but is no less present. It is the hellish place of all that is known, the place of boredom and despair, the place that banishes surprise. In the second Baghdad he is continually assaulted by a longing to travel, a longing so fierce, irrational, and destructive that more than once he refers to it as an evil desire: “the carnal man was once more seized with longing for travel and diversion and adventure” (Burton, third voyage). The voyages, in relation to the first Baghdad, are dangerous temptations, succumbed to in moments of weakness; in relation to the second Baghdad, they are release and deliverance. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that hellish Baghdad creates the voyages, which in turn create heavenly Baghdad. In this sense the two Baghdads may be seen as spiritual states between which Sinbad continually oscillates. The restlessness of Sinbad, as he alternately seeks rupture and repose, is so much the secret rhythm of the story that it is difficult for us to believe in a Sinbad who chooses one Baghdad over the other, difficult for us to believe in a contented Sinbad who settles down peacefully with paunch and pantofles among his friends and concubines, a Sinbad who severs himself from the unknown, a Sinbad who does not set forth on an eighth voyage.

Then when I had taken counsel with myself I said to the King, “Know, O my lord, that I have a plan whereby to catch the Rukh; which if it succeed, I ask only passage from your port.” Now when the King heard this, he said that if I spake true, he would have me a great ship builded, and filled with pieces of gold; but if I lied, then he would command that I be buried alive. Then did my flesh quake, but I solaced myself, saying within, “Better it is to be buried alive than to live out my days in a strange land, far from my native place.” Then I bethought me of the frog folk that live under the ocean and conceal themselves in hollow dwellings when they would catch fish. And I instructed that a great egg be fashioned of marble, fifty paces in circumference, and left hollow within, and set in the meadowlands without the town. So the King gathered about him his engineers, his miners of marble, his sculptors and his palace architect, and devised how they should bring the stone to the field and fashion the egg therefrom. And when the work was accomplished, the people of the city gathered round it in wonder. Then I instructed that twenty great boulders be brought to the field and laid about the egg, and thick ropes fashioned by the ropemakers. Then the ropes were fastened about the boulders and the ends left in the grass. And a cunning door was in the egg, so that when the door was shut the egg was smooth. Then forty of the King’s chosen soldiers entered the egg, and the door was shut behind them.

T
he white column of the marble sundial shimmers in the sun. It stands in the center of the garden, far beyond the leaves that shade Sinbad and allow only small spaces of light to fall on his hands and lap. The sun beats down on the white sundial and the warm shade presses against Sinbad’s eyelids. In the intense light the sundial in its hexagon of red sand seems to tremble. It shimmers, it trembles, slowly it becomes a white roc’s egg in the sand. The egg begins to turn slowly and unwind. It is a white turban, unwinding. Sinbad grasps an end of the turban and ties himself to the leg of a roc. He feels himself lifted high in the air and sees that he has tied himself to a serpent. He undoes the turban and falls into a dark cavern where a giant with eyeteeth like boar’s tusks seizes the captain and thrusts a long spit up his backside, bringing it forth with a gush of blood at the crown of his head. Sinbad plunges the red-hot iron into the giant’s eye and sees his wife lying dead at his feet. He lies down beside her and touches her cheek with his hand. Her eyes open. Tears flow from her eyes and become red and green jewels. Sinbad gathers the jewels faster and faster and runs through the cavern of corpses with jewels in his arms. He stops to drink at the side of a stream and when he lifts his head an old man asks him to carry him across on his back. Sinbad feels oppressed. The old man begins to shimmer and tremble.

In Lane, “khaleefah”; in Payne, “khalif”; in Burton, “caliph.” In Lane, “Haroon Er-Rasheed”; in Payne, “Haroun er Reshid”; in Burton, “Harun al-Rashid.” In Lane, “wezeer”; in Payne, “vizier”; in Burton, “wazir.” In Lane, “The Story of Es-Sindibád of the Sea and Es-Sindibád of the Land”; in Payne, “Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Porter”; in Burton, “Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman.” In Lane,
The Thousand and One Nights: Commonly Called, in England, The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments
. In Payne,
The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night
. In Burton,
A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, Now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
.

And behold, the sun was suddenly hid from me and the air became dark. And looking up into the sky, I saw the Rukh, which was greater and more terrible than any I had seen, and I quaked for fear of the bird. Then the Rukh espied the white egg in the meadow and alighted on the dome, brooding over it with its wings covering the egg and its legs stretching out behind on the ground. In this posture it fell asleep, whereupon I rose from out my hiding place in the side of the hill and went down to the bird, which was greater than two ships full-sailed; and my gall bladder was like to burst, for the violence of my fear. So I walked in the shadow of the Rukh, each of whose feathers was longer than a man, till I came to the door in the egg, and there I released a pin. Presently the door drew open and the King’s forty soldiers came forth. And two going to one rope in the grass, and two to another, till all twenty ropes were in readiness, at a signal they rushed at the Rukh: and they placed four ropes about one leg where it lay on the grass, and four ropes about the other leg, and secured them with sliding knots; and they laid four great ropes across the tail where it rested on the grass, and they carried those ropes through the space under the tail, and secured them with sliding knots; and in like manner they carried four ropes about each wing, and secured them. Then when the work was accomplished we began to flee, but the great bird awoke. And when it made to lift its wings, lo! they were held down by great blocks of marble larger than elephants. So in its wrath the Rukh stretched down its head and seized one of the fleeing soldiers in its bill, whereat I heard his cries and saw his arms over the sides of the beak; and throwing him to the ground the Rukh thrust his bill through the man’s back, so that I heard the crack of bones. Yet did I and the others escape without harm, nor could the Rukh break free of his fetters, though he thrashed and cried out in mighty cries.

S
inbad, opening his heavy-lidded eyes, sees that he is in green water at the bottom of the sea. He is able to breathe in the water, a fact that does not surprise him. He moves his hand in the water and the water becomes a green garden. Sinbad sees that he is in a garden, sitting in the shade of an orange tree. The brilliant column of the sundial glows in its hexagon of red sand. He hears the plash of fountains, the cries of blackbirds and ringdoves. It occurs to him that perhaps the garden itself is his dream, perhaps he is fast asleep on a desolate shore dreaming of the warm shade of the orange tree and the bright column of the sundial, but for the moment, at least, he chooses not to think so. Sunlight and shadow tremble on his hands: is it a breath of air stirring the leaves? He looks forward to the evening meal, flute music, the laughter of friends. He will eat chicken breasts flavored with cumin and rosewater. Sinbad is in his garden. Peace, shade, and the cry of the blackbird. Perhaps in the evening he will walk past the needle makers’ wharf to the market of the cloth makers and look at bright-colored cloth from India, China, Persia.

Every reading of a text is limited and contingent: no two readings are alike. In this sense there are as many voyages as there are readers, as many voyages as there are readings. From an infinite number of possible readings, let us imagine one. It is a hot summer afternoon in southern Connecticut. Under the tall pines on the bank of the Housatonic, the shady picnic tables look down at the brown-green water. Bright white barrels mark the swimming area and bob up and down in low waves made by a passing speedboat. In the shade of the far bank stand little wharves and white houses at the base of wooded hills. The sky is rich blue, with a few thin, translucent sweeps of cloud. Between two pines, Grandma sits in the orange-and-white aluminum lawn chair reading a library book with a black mask and a knife on the cover. The boy is lying on his stomach on a blanket next to her, not too close, reading a book. The sun is shining on the backs of his legs, but his shoulders and neck are in shadow. He is deep in the second voyage of Sinbad and has come to the part where Sinbad, walking in a valley surrounded by tall mountains, discovers that the floor of the valley is strewn with diamonds, some of which are of astonishing size. They are probably the size of the fat pinecone lying on the blanket near his elbow. Beyond the picnic table his father is turning the hot dogs on the grill; drippings hiss on the charcoal. His mother is laying out the paper plates, opening the box of red, yellow, and blue paper cups, taking out the salt and mustard and relish and potato salad and cucumber slices and carrot sticks. His sister is trying to find a way to make her doll sit at the picnic table without falling over. She is trying to lean the doll against the thermos jug of pink lemonade. Suddenly he discovers great serpents in the valley, serpents the size of palm trees. The smallest of them can swallow an elephant in one gulp. Fortunately they emerge from their hiding places only at night. When dusk comes, Sinbad enters a small cave and closes the entrance with a stone. In the blackness of the cave Sinbad hears the hiss of serpents outside, and for a moment the boy experiences, with intense lucidity, a double world: he is in the black cave, in the Valley of Diamonds, and at the same time he feels his arm pressing against the fuzzy blue blanket and smells the smoking hot dogs and the river. The great mountains soar, waves from the speedboat lap the sand, diamonds glisten, the sun burns down on the backs of his legs, the serpents hiss outside the cave, a pinecone the size of a valley diamond lies on the blanket beside his mother’s straw beach bag and her white rubber bathing cap. He would like to prolong this moment, when the two worlds are held in harmony, he would like this moment to last forever.