As soon as he was out of hearing, Sitarè said to me, “Tomorrow. At the kitchen door, where I let you in before. At this same hour.” And then she too was gone, somewhere into the back parts of the house.
I strolled on along the front passage, into the room from which I heard the voices of my father and the Widow Esther. As I entered, he was saying, in a muted and serious tone, “I know it was your good heart that proposed it. I only wish you had asked me first, and me alone.”
“I never would have suspected,” she said, also in a hushed tone. “And if, as you say, he has nobly exerted himself to reform, I would not wish to be the provocation of a relapse.”
“No, no,” said my father. “No blame can be laid to you, even if the good deed should turn out ill. We will talk it over, and I will ask flatly whether this would be an irresistible temptation, and on that basis we will decide.”
Then they noticed my presence, and abruptly dropped whatever it was they were privily discussing, and my father said, “Yes, it was as well that we stopped these few days. There are several items we need which are unobtainable in the bazàr during this holy month. When the month ends tomorrow, they will be purchasable, and by then the lame camel will be healed, and we will aim at departure the day after. We cannot thank you enough for the hospitality you have shown us during our stay.”
“Which reminds me,” she said. “I have your evening meal almost done. I will bring it out to your quarters as soon as it is.”
My father and I went together to the hayloft, where we found Uncle Mafio perusing the pages of our Kitab. He looked up from it and said, “Our next destination, Mashhad, is no easy one to get to. Desert all the way, and the very widest extent of that desert. We will be dried and shriveled like a bacalà.” He broke off to scratch vigorously at the inside of his left elbow. “Some damned bug has bitten me, and I itch.”
I said, “The widow told me that this city is infested with scorpions.”
My uncle gave me a scornful look. “If you ever get stung by one, asenazzo, you will learn that scorpions do not bite. No, this was a tiny fly, perfectly triangular in shape. It was so tiny that I cannot believe this tormenting itch it left.”
The Widow Esther made several crossings of the yard, bringing out the dishes of our meal, and we three ate while bent together over the Kitab. Nostril ate apart, in the stable below, among the camels, but he ate almost as audibly as a camel eats. I tried to disregard his noises and concentrate on the maps.
“You are right, Mafio,” said my father. “The broadest part of the desert to cross. God send us good.”
“Still, an easy route to keep to. Mashhad is just a little north of east from here. At this season, we will only have to take aim at the sunrise each morning.”
“And I,” I put in, “will frequently verify our course with our kamàl.”
“I notice,” said my father, “that al-Idrisi shows not a single well or oasis or karwansarai in that desert.”
“But some such things must exist. It is a trade route, after all. Mashhad, like Baghdad, is a major stop on the Silk Road.”
“And as big a city as Kashan, the widow told me. Also, thank God, it is in the cool mountains.”
“But beyond it, we will come to genuinely cold ones. We shall probably have to lay up for the winter somewhere.”
“Well, we cannot expect to go through the world with the wind always astern.”
“And we will not be on territory familiar to you and me, Nico, until we get all the way to Kashgar, in Kithai itself.”
“Distant from the eye, Mafio, is distant from the heart. Sufficient the evils of the day, and all that. For the time being, let us not plan or worry beyond Mashhad.”
3
THE next day, the last day of Ramazan, we spent mostly in just lazing about the widow’s property. I think I have neglected to mention that, in Muslim countries, a day’s beginning is not counted from dawn, as one might expect, or from the midnight hour, as it is in civilized countries, but from the moment of the sun’s setting. Anyway, there was no point in our haunting the Kashan bazàr, as my father had remarked, until it should be again fully stocked with goods for purchase. We had no other tasks except to feed and water the camels and shovel their manure out of the stable. Of course, Nostril attended to that—and at the widow’s request he spread the manure on her herb garden. Now and again, I or my father or uncle would go out for a stroll in the streets. And so did Nostril, in the intervals between his chores, and in the process, I have no doubt, managed to consummate some more of his nasty liaisons.
When I went walking out into the city in the late afternoon, I found a crowd of people standing at a corner where two streets intersected. Most of them were young—good-looking males and nondescript females. I would have assumed that they were merely engaged in the favorite occupation of the East, which is standing and staring—or, in the case of Eastern men, standing and staring and scratching their crotches—except that I heard a droning voice proceeding from the center of the group. So I stopped and joined the audience, and gradually worked my way through them until I could see the object of their attention.
It was an old man seated cross-legged on the ground: a sha‘ir, or poet, and he was entertaining the people by telling a story. From time to time, evidently whenever he spoke an especially poetic and felicitous phrase, one of the bystanders would drop a coin into the begging bowl on the ground beside the old man. My grasp of Farsi was not good enough to enable me to appreciate anything of that sort, but it was good enough at least to follow the thread of the tale, and it was an interesting tale, so I stood and listened. The sha’ir was telling how dreams came to be.
In the Beginning, he said, among all the kinds of spirits which exist—the jinn and the afarit and the peri and so on—there was a spirit named Sleep. He had charge then, as he has now, of that dormant condition in all living creatures. Now, Sleep had a whole swarm of children, who were called Dreams, but in that far-off time neither Sleep nor his children had ever thought of the Dreams getting inside people’s heads. But one day, it being a nice day, and Sleep not having much to do during the daytime, that good spirit decided to take all his boys and girls for a holiday at the seashore. And there he let them get into a little boat they found, and fondly watched as they paddled out upon the water a short way.
Unfortunately, said the old poet, the spirit Sleep had earlier done something to offend the mighty spirit called Storm, and Storm had been waiting an opportunity for revenge. So when Sleep’s little Dreams ventured upon the sea, the malevolent Storm whipped the sea into a frothing fury, and blew a driving wind, and washed the frail boat far out into the ocean and wrecked it on the rocky reefs of a desert island called Boredom.
Ever since that time, said the sha‘ir, all the Dream boys and girls have been marooned on that bleak island. (And you know, he said, how restless children become when subjected to idleness in Boredom.) During the days, the poor Dreams must endure that monotonous exile from the living world. But every night—al-hamdo-lillah!—the spirit Storm must wane in power, because the kindlier spirit Moon has charge of the night. So that is when the Dream children can most easily escape for a while from their Boredom. And they do. That is when they leave the island and go about the world and occupy themselves by entering the heads of sleeping men and women. That is why, said the sha’ir, on any night, any sleeper may be entertained or instructed or warned or frightened by a Dream, depending on whether that particular Dream on that particular night is a beneficent little-girl Dream or a mischievous little-boy Dream, and depending on his or her mood that night.
The listeners all made gratified noises at the tale’s conclusion, and fairly showered coins into the old man’s bowl. I tossed in a copper shahi myself, having found the story amusing—and not incredible, like so many of the more foolish Eastern myths. I found quite logical the poet’s notion of innumerable Dream children of both sexes and mercurial temperaments and meddlesome ways. That notion could even suggest an acceptable
explanation of certain phenomena frequently occurring in the West, and well attested but never before explicable. I mean the dreaded nighttime visitations of the ìncubo which seduces otherwise chaste women and the sùccubo which seduces otherwise chaste priests.
When sundown marked the close of Ramazan, I was at the back door of the Widow Esther’s house, and Sitarè let me into the kitchen. She and I were its only occupants, and she seemed in a state of barely suppressed excitement: her eyes sparkled and her hands fluttered. She was dressed in what must have been her very best garments, and she had put al-kohl around her eyelids and berry juice on her lips, but the pink flush on her cheeks had not come out of a cosmetic jar.
“You are attired for the feast day,” I said.
“Yes, but to please you, too. I will not dissemble, Mirza Marco. I said I was glad to be the object of your ardor, and I truly am. Look, I have spread a pallet for us yonder in the corner. And I have made sure that the mistress and the other servants are all occupied elsewhere, so we will not be interrupted. I am frankly eager for our—”
“Now wait,” I said, but feebly. “I have acceded to no bargain. You are a beauty to make a man’s mouth water, and mine does, but I must know first. What is this favor for which you wish to trade yourself?”
“Indulge me only for a moment, then I will tell you. I should like to set you a riddle beforehand.”
“Is this another local custom?”
“Just sit on this bench here. Keep your hands at your sides—hold onto the bench—so you are not tempted to touch me. Now close your eyes. Tight. And keep them closed until I tell you.”
I shrugged, and did as I was bidden, and heard her briefly moving about. Then she kissed me on my lips, in a shy and inexpert and maidenly way, but most deliciously, and for a long time. It so stimulated me that I was made quite dizzy. If I had not been holding onto the bench, I might actually have rocked from side to side. I waited for her to speak. Instead, she kissed me again, and as if practice was making her enjoy it more, and for even a longer time. There was another pause, and I waited for another kiss, but now she said, “Open your eyes.”
I did, and smiled at her. She was standing directly before me, and the flush of her cheeks had suffused her whole face, and her eyes were bright, and her rosebud lips were merry, and she asked, “Could you tell the kisses apart?”
“Apart? Why, no,” I said gallantly. I added, in what I imagined might be the style of a Persian poet, “How can a man say, of equally sweet perfumes or equally intoxicating flavors, that one is better than another? He simply wants more. And I do, I do!”
“And more you shall have. But of me? It was I who kissed you first. Or of Aziz, who kissed you next?”
At that, I did rock upon my bench. Then she reached a hand around behind her and drew him into my view, and I wobbled even more unsteadily.
“He is only a child!”
“He is my little brother Aziz.”
No wonder I had failed to notice him among the household servants. He could have been no older than eight or nine, and was small even for his age. But, once noticed, Aziz would have been hard to overlook again. Like all the local boy-children I had seen, he was an Alexandrian Cupid, but even more beautiful than the Kashan standard, just as his sister was superior to all the other Kashan girls I had seen. Ìncubo and sùccubo, I thought wildly.
I being still seated on the low bench, my eyes and his were at the same level. And his blue eyes were clear and solemn, seeming, in his small face, even bigger and more luminous than his sister’s. His mouth was a rosebud identical to hers. His body was perfectly formed, right down to his tapering tiny fingers. His hair was the same deep chestnut-red as his sister’s, and his skin the same ivory. The boy’s beauty was further adorned by an application of al-kohl around the eyelids and berry juice on his lips. I thought them unnecessary additions, but, before I could say so, Sitarè spoke.
“Whenever, in my hours off from attendance on the mistress, I am allowed to wear cosmetics”—she talked rapidly, as if to ward off my saying anything—“I like to do the same decoration of Aziz.” Again forestalling my comment, she said, “Here, let me show you something, Mirza Marco.” With hurried and fumbling fingers, she undid and took off the blouse her brother wore. “Being a boy, of course he has no breasts, but regard his delicately shaped and prominent nipples.” I stared at them, for they were tinted bright red with hinna. Sitarè said, “Are they not very similar to my own?” My eyes widened further, for she had whipped off her own upper garment, and was presenting her hinna-nippled bosom for my comparison. “See? His get aroused and erect, just like my own.”
Still she chattered on, though I was already incapable of interrupting. “Also, being a boy, Aziz of course has something I do not have.” She undid the string of his pai-jamah, and let the garment fall to the floor, and knelt beside him. “Is it not a perfect zab in miniature? And watch, when I stroke. Just like a little man’s. Now look at this.” She turned the boy around, and with her hands spread his dimpled pink buttocks apart. “Our mother always was punctilious about using the golulè, and after she died so was I, and you see the superb result.” In another quick movement, and without any maidenly coyness, she let drop her own pai-jamah. She turned and bent far over, so that I could observe the under part of her that was not veiled by dark-red fluff. “Mine is two or three fingers’ breadth farther forward, but could you truly distinguish between my mihrab and his—?”
“Stop this!” I managed at last to say. “You are trying to importune me into sin with this boy-child!”
She did not deny it, but the boy-child did. Aziz turned to face me again and spoke for the first time. His voice was the musical small voice of a songbird, but firm. “No, Mirza Marco. My sister does not importune, nor do I. Do you really think I would ever have to?”
Taken aback by the direct question, I had to say, “No.” But then I rallied my Christian principles and said accusingly, “Flaunting is as reprehensible as importuning. When I was your age, child, I barely knew the normal purposes that my parts were for. God forbid I should have exposed them so consciously and wickedly and—and vulnerably. Just standing there like that, you are a sin!”
Aziz looked as hurt as if I had slapped him, and knit his feathery brows in seeming perplexity. “I am still very young, Mirza Marco, and perhaps ignorant, for no one has yet taught me how to be a sin. Only how to be al-fa‘il or al-mafa’ul, as the occasion requires.”
I sighed, “Alas, I was again forgetting the local customs.” So I momentarily dismissed my principles in favor of honesty, and said, “As the doer or the done-to, you probably could make a man forget it is a sin. And if to you it is not, then I apologize for castigating you unjustly.”
He gave me such a radiant smile that his whole naked little body seemed to glow in the darkening room.
I added, “I apologize also for having thought other unjust things about you, Aziz, without knowing you. Beyond a doubt, you are the most bewitchingly beautiful child I have ever seen, of either sex, and more tantalizing than many grown women I have seen. You are like one of the Dream children of whom I have recently heard. You would be a temptation even to a Christian, in the absence of your sister here. Alongside her desirability, you understand, you must take only second place.”
“I understand,” the boy said, still smiling. “And I agree.”
Sitarè, also a figure of glowing alabaster in the twilight, regarded me with some amazement. She breathed almost unbelievingly, “You still want me?”
“Very much. So much, indeed, that I am now praying that the favor you desire is something within my power to grant.”
“Oh, it is.” She picked up her discarded clothes and held them bunched in front of her, that I should not be distracted by her nudity. “We ask only that you take Aziz along in your karwan, and only as far as Mashhad.”
I blinked. “Why?”
“You said yourself that you have never seen a more beautiful or more winning child. And Mashhad i
s a convergence of many trade routes, a place of many opportunities.”
“I myself do not much want to go,” said Aziz. His nudity was also a distraction, so I picked up his clothes and gave them to him to hold. “I do not wish to leave my sister, who is all the family I have. But she has convinced me that it is for the best.”
“Here in Kashan,” Sitarè went on, “Aziz is but one of countless pretty boys, all competing for the notice of any anderun purveyor who passes through. At best, Aziz can hope to be chosen by one of those, to become the concubine of some nobleman, who may turn out to be an evil and vicious person. But in Mashhad he could be presented to and appreciated by and acquired by some rich traveling merchant. He may start his life as that man’s concubine, but he will have the opportunity to travel, and in time he can hope to learn his master’s profession, and he can go on to make something much better of himself than a mere anderun plaything.”
Playing was much on my own mind at that moment. I would have been happy to conclude the talking and start doing other things. Nevertheless, I was also at that moment realizing a truth that I think not many journeyers ever do.
We who wander about the world, we pause briefly in this community or that, and to us each is but one flash of vague impression in a long series of such forgettable flashes. The people there are only dim figures looming momentarily out of the dust clouds of the trail. We travelers usually have a destination and a purpose in aiming for it, and every stop along the way is merely one more milestone in our progress. But in actuality the people living there had an existence before we came, and will have after we leave, and they have their own concerns—hopes and worries and ambitions and plans—which, being of great moment to them, might sometimes be worth remarking also by us passersby. We might learn something worth knowing, or enjoy a laugh of amusement, or garner a sweet memory worth treasuring, or sometimes even improve our own selves, by taking notice of such things. So I paid sympathetic attention to the wistful words and glowing faces of Sitarè and Aziz, as they spoke of their plans and their ambitions and their hopes. And ever since that time, in all my journeyings, I have tried always to see in its entirety every least place I have passed through, and to see its humblest inhabitants with an unhurried eye.