The beggars moved forward. Someone threw an arm back to fling another stone and Naughton knew already where it would strike, on the forehead over his right eye, as if he had seen this in a dozen sweating dreams. He tensed his back against the scorching metal wall.
A long gleaming black limousine roared between Naughton and the beggars. Sand spattered across his shins. He heard the solid thunk! as the stone, meant for him, struck the window jamb of the car and bounced off. He dropped down and saw that Kaspar was barely breathing.
The car doors opened. Two white-robed Kuwaitis herded the beggars back. They obeyed, muttering in menacing tones but subservient all the same. Someone took Naughton’s arm and lifted him up.
“Are you injured?” the man asked. Dark darting eyes beneath the traditional headdress, a thin mustache above pouting feminine lips.
Naughton shook his head to clear it. “No. No, I’m all right. Another thirty seconds and it might have been different.”
The man grunted and nodded. He looked across and saw the old man but did not move to give aid. He said, “This scum is difficult. I am Haiber Talat Musallim. You’re an American?”
“Yes. My friend there…he’s hurt badly, I’m afraid.”
The man glanced down. Kaspar was lying in a pool of blood. “This scum is difficult,” he said. He motioned with a thick hand. “Please…my car.”
Naughton shook his head; he felt overcome and off balance. Leaning against Musallim, he staggered to the limousine. In the air-conditioned, perfume-reeking car was a white-uniformed driver and another man, blond and pale, in a dark blue suit. Naughton said drunkenly, “My friend is hurt. I’ve got to see about my friend.” He made a move to climb out of the car, but Musallim grasped him clawlike on the upper arm.
The man in the blue suit was staring at him with vacant eyes. He slowly opened the car door, rose to his feet, and said, “I’ll take care of your friend.”
Naughton said, “No, I…”
“I’ll take care of your friend,” said the pale man in the blue suit, and as he approached the figure on the ground Naughton saw that he walked with an aggravated limp as if something was wrong with his hip joint.
Musallim patted Naughton’s hand and said calmly, “You’re all right now. You’re among friends.”
And as the limousine roared off through the tangle of blinding walls and emaciated bodies, Naughton turned in his seat as weakly as if he had been suddenly drained of his lifeblood. He was almost certain that he saw the group of beggars moving forward again toward Kaspar, creeping creeping with their hands tight around new stones.
And the man in the blue suit stood watching.
Chapter 13
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“HERE,” MUSALLIM SAID as he took two thimble-sized silver cups from a tray held by a white-uniformed servant, “some tea would cool you. This heat, I know, must be unbearable to foreigners. Me, I was born in the desert.”
Naughton took the proffered cup and drank. The tea was black and very strong, with an aftertaste of cloves. The two men sat within Musallim’s magnificent gold-embroidered tent at the fringe of the encampment. Rich red and gold carpets were spread across the sand. Musallim sat behind a wide ornate desk and Naughton occupied one of two canvas armchairs in the tent’s blessed shade. Naughton said, “This is very good.”
“Someday I’ll control the desert,” Musallim said. “Already I’ve cut across it like the most skilled surgeon of your country. Water lines, gas lines… I’ve strung them through the sand as if I were,” he made a needle-and-thread gesture, “sewing stitches. The people appreciate me for that.”
Naughton nodded. In the distance, over Musallim’s droning voice, he could still hear the din of the people bubbling in the pot of the encampment. “Could you find out about my friend, please?” he asked.
“Your friend?”
“Yes, the man I was with. Mr. Kaspar.”
Musallim waved a hand and leaned back in his chair. Against the startling white of his dishdashah the man’s flesh was the color of rust. “He’s well taken care of. That rabble out there can be quite annoying. It is hot, isn’t it?”
Naughton finished the tea and put the cup down on a circular table beside his chair. He looked up into the flat, hooded eyes of the man across the desk. “I don’t understand what’s going on here,” he said. “I’ve been researching my book for several weeks and I’ve watched this crowd grow. Now it seems as though they’ve finally gotten out of control. I don’t know…” he ran a hand across his forehead to soak up the droplets of sweat that hung, eager to break, over his eyebrows, “I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s ugly. It—I don’t know.”
Musallim sat in silence for a moment, his ring-laden fingers toying with the golden scrolls that decorated the arms of his chair. “Mr. Naughton,” he said finally, “there are many things in this life that seem ugly. But later, on close and logical scrutiny, they begin to take on a special beauty. You’re disturbed by what is happening here because you do not yet understand. I’m at ease because I do. And I would not have donated this land for such a purpose if I did not feel it was worthwhile and very important. You’ll see, Mr. Naughton. History will record this flat plain of sand as a place of exquisite and divine purpose.”
Naughton had looked up sharply. “You own this land?”
“Yes, this land and miles beyond. Would you like more tea?”
“No. Thank you.” From the corner of his eye Naughton caught the sudden brilliance of a diamond as it gleamed from Musallim’s hand. “Please explain this to me. I see madness and death here. Do you see something else?”
“I see everything else,” the other man said. He gazed at Naughton for a few seconds and then his dark eyes flickered around the confines of the tent. He seemed to be choosing the correct words. “My family was of very poor stock, Mr. Naughton…or so I thought at the time.” He held up a finger for emphasis. “They were Bedouins, nomads of the desert. My father—oh I remember my father, his teeth flashing in the sun, astride a great foaming white horse. He was a strong-willed man who took what he wanted when he wanted and who,” he glanced at Naughton and smiled self-consciously, “beat his wife and children when he felt the need. He was a man of the desert, Mr. Naughton, and more important, he was a man of the spirit.”
“The spirit…?” Naughton asked.
“When he was still a young man he controlled six families and their water wells. He was a man to be reckoned with. Of course he…had his enemies. They despised him as cowardly dogs fear all noble wolves. And even his own family moved against him. I remember one night our camp was set up on stone bluffs where he could stand and look out to the gulf… I remember there was a full moon. And I remember our tents stirring in the breeze and the gulf crashing beyond. It was his brother Assaid who was the enemy…his own brother. He came to tell my father that he’d gone too far. Too far, said Assaid. Like telling the gulf to stop its gnawing of the land.
“My father had killed someone—one of the well-keepers who had cheated him—and he’d left his head on a stake to drip blood into the water, to poison it as a message to those who would not give my father the respect he deserved. And his brother had come to tell him that his family was through with him. He had disgraced their name, said Assaid. And he spit at my father’s feet. I remember that because I saw the spit gleam in the moonlight.”
The man’s eyes were shining. He leaned forward, his fingers tracing pictures in the air before Naughton’s face.
“Assaid turned to walk back to his horse,” Musallim said, “but that was not the end of it. Oh no. That could never be the end of it My father, as I said, was a strong-willed man. There was a knife at his belt. He unsheathed it and my mother put her hands over my eyes but I pulled away. And around the fire the rest of the men grinned as they saw the naked Made. My father never drew a knife and sheathed it clean. So he struck at his brother and the knife caught him here, up above the shoulder blade. But Assaid was a strong man to
o, though weak in the ways of the world. He turned and grasped my father around the throat; they battled there in the moonlight, my father cursing and Assaid gasping for air with the knife in him up to its black hilt. They reached the edge of the bluff and my father, with a twist of the knife that scraped against bone—I remember hearing that—tossed Assaid over onto the rocks at the foot of the gulf.” He looked up suddenly into Naughton’s eyes. “With no regrets.”
Naughton was shocked by the unconcern in Musallim’s tone of voice. The man didn’t seem to realize he had been witness to a coldblooded murder. Naughton said, “He killed his brother? Why?”
Musallim smiled faintly, cruelly, and there was something about his smile that mirrored a strange satisfaction. “Why? Why does a lion hunt a lamb? Why does a vulture wait for the last gasp of death? It’s the nature of the beast, Mr. Naughton; the glorious beast stalks, waits for the right moment, then—” he reached out as if catching something in the air “—the prize. The world spins on that circle of victims, Mr. Naughton. All of us either stalk or are stalked. It’s an inescapable fact.”
“But,” Naughton said, “hopefully a man has progressed far enough over the lions and vultures that he no longer needs to stalk.”
“Ah,” said Musallim, holding up a hand. “The God that created this earth and all on it was wise. He created the natural rhythm of life and death, the circle of victim and survivor. We act in blasphemy if we fail to observe His sacred wisdom.”
Naughton sat still. The din outside was rising. It seemed to thrash the folds of the tent.
“What noble creatures the lions are,” Musallim said, “to make themselves stronger over the bodies of the weak. How wise and kind are the talons of vultures, to rend away the dead and dying flesh and in so doing clear the way for the strong. The struggle of life and death is not a purposeless game, Mr. Naughton, it’s a thing of special beauty. Do you understand?”
Naughton reached for the cup of tea and swirled the residue at the bottom. He did not want to look into the face of the man before him because a strange and terrible philosophy glittered in Musallim’s eyes.
“The land my father left to me wasn’t much,” Musallim said, “but the secrets hidden from him were revealed to me. One day I found my land swimming in a thick dark pool that had flowed up from the depths. I scooped it up by the bucketful. I smeared it over my face and rolled in it. On that day I traded my modest clothing for the raiment of a wealthy man. On that day I finally knew the power my father had left to me. And now I can build cities and move mountains and change the course of water. Now I finally have the opportunity to communicate to the world the logic of my father.”
“I don’t understand.”
Musallim motioned for the servant to carry away the two silver cups. The man bowed and backed out of the tent. “I have met a man,” Musallim said after another moment, “who has taught me what I failed to see before. Through him I have grasped the beauty of power. It’s so clear to me, Mr. Naughton. He is the tooth of the lion, the talon of the vulture. I have given myself to him in order to live in glorious honor.”
The name the old man had spoken. Naughton couldn’t remember it. What had it been?
“At first I thought him only a prophet. Now I see him as so much more, so much more. The old prophets spoke of a god who saw things as they could never be. Baal sees what is and what shall always be.”
Naughton tensed involuntarily. Baal. Baal. That was it. He’d read something about it somewhere before. The word Canaan briefly came into his mind.
Naughton said, “Baal.”
“Yes,” Musallim said. “Baal. The living Muhammad.”
The other man stood up abruptly and walked to the tent opening. He could see the mad dancing figures in the encampment beyond; the rising smoke dimmed the setting sun. He was breathing heavily though he didn’t know why; he wondered if it was safe to try to get back to the city. He said, “This is madness. This is…madness.”
“No, my friend. The madness lies in not accepting the reality of the world as it is. To suddenly find oneself seeing life for the first time after so long being deceived…that is a recovery from madness, isn’t it?”
He was silent. He could see, in the shadows cast by the dying sun, the great oval tent erected beyond the encampment. He said, “This man has taken the name of a heathen god. No more, no less.”
“Has he?” the other man whispered. Musallim had moved quietly up behind Naughton. He touched the American gently, up over the shoulder blade, and the fingers reminded Naughton, oddly, of the touch of a knife. “That was my reaction also, until I saw evidence of his miracles. I’ve seen the holy fire leap from his fingers. I’ve seen him kiss the sand and cause a flower to grow. You’ll soon discover a truth that will silence all the lying voices. The crowd waits for Baal. His disciples have roamed this land whispering his name to those who would hear. I’ve seen the converts arriving, in increasing numbers, day after day. But this night, Mr. Naughton, Baal breaks his silence…there.” He pointed beyond to the huge tent and the humming generator. “And tomorrow will be the first day of a new world.”
Naughton turned and said hurriedly, “I need to send a cable immediately. Is there a telegraph office this far from the city?”
Musallim held up his hand to quiet the other man. “No time, my friend. No time.” And almost with the end of his sentence there began the deep hollow clamor of a bell somewhere in the encampment, over and over until it seemed as if first one person moaned with the bell, then a dozen, then a hundred, until the encampment reverberated with the sound.
“He is come,” said Musallim, his voice trembling with excitement. “He is come!”
Chapter 14
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THE DAY HELD ON to life by a thin red thread gashed along the horizon. Above it the sky was starless as a lowered blackout curtain.
All across the wide encampment the fires flickered, the lights of a city perched on the brink of a desert no-man’s-land. At the tolling of the bell the noise of the assembly, their howls and curses, suddenly rumbled to a halt until there was only the barking of the camp dogs.
And then, as Naughton stood cold and transfixed at the mouth of Musallim’s tent, the mass of humanity began to rise up from the smoke-enshrouded encampment. They had thrown all consideration of dignity away; Naughton saw them running for the tent beyond as if they were a pack of maddened animals, snarling and snapping at each other, most of them in filthy rags and many entirely nude. They called out the name over and over, shrieking and begging, as they sent a cloud of sand that spun whipping through tents like desert devil spirals. Naughton saw many of them trampled; one would fall, tripping a score of others, and then there would be a crush of bodies, all arms and legs and heads, fighting to get free and find room inside the great tent ahead. The wealthy ones, clad in shining gold robes and dazzling jewelry, ran shrieking with the rabble; their servants, in the lead, struck down people right and left with the butts of rifles. And still the bell boomed on and on like a great commanding voice and the assembly shrieked the answer Baal Baal Baal until it became so loud and terrible Naughton put his hands to his ears.
Wherever the main body of the assembly had passed, the torn ground was littered with the broken bodies of those dead and dying. Then came the sick, struggling through the thick sand on crutches and crawling on their bellies like snake skeletons while angry-eyed dogs nipped at their heels and, taking hold of ripped clothes, worried the wasted bodies mercilessly.
Musallim said quietly, “It is time for us to go, Mr. Naughton. Our place is waiting.” He opened a desk drawer and reached inside. His hand emerged with a shining ruby-encrusted revolver.
Naughton was watching a fight that had broken out at the tent’s aperture; men and women battled with each other to gain entrance and finally vanished in a swirl of sand. Musallim caught his elbow and urged him from his safe refuge into a maddened horde beyond.
As they neared the tent Naughton saw how h
uge it really was; its appearance had been deceptive. Now the wind beat at its billowing sides and the entrance swallowed swarms of ragged figures. Naughton heard a click! as Musallim eased back the hammer of his revolver. Around them the masses churned with glittering teeth and grasping hands, their voices calling out the name even as they battered each other. Musallim shouted at a group of beggars to make way and one of the men, a cruel savagery in his eyes, leaped for Naughton. Musallim’s arm jerked out and a pistol shot flung the man away.
They reached the tent entrance, which was clogged by the shouting hordes, and to Naughton’s horror Musallim began indiscriminately firing into the dark clot of bodies until a path was made and the two men were able to slip through.
Inside more than one thousand people crowded shoulder to shoulder, kneeling in the sand. Glittering golden chandeliers hung suspended by cables from the ceiling, illuminating in harsh white a sea of heads and bodies in motion like waves. Naughton followed Musallim as he elbowed his way through the mob, brandishing his gun and shouting threats, but the American kept a careful watch over his shoulder in case of an attack from behind. They reached the front of the shouting, sobbing mass and then Naughton saw the immense statue to which the assembly seemed to be praying. High atop a pedestal of gold was a primitive statue of a man. The arms were thrown across the chest in an attitude of superiority and the elongated head, almost triangular, showed thin slits of eyes and a cruel slash of lips. One of the most remarkable, and certainly most disturbing, aspects of the strange artifact was its sexual organs; the penis jutted forward almost four feet and the testes were great black spheres. Naughton stood motionless for a moment, staring at the figure; beside him Musallim fell to his knees and blended his own pleading voice with those of the others. The figure had been carved by a time-lost master; beneath the black stone actual rippling muscles bulged. The features were fierce and demanding. Its eyes seemed to follow Naughton as he stepped forth from the throng and reached out to touch the stone.