“Tell me, what have you done with the three boys who were in the gardens?”
“This morning Yusuf and Suleiman helped to fray the nerves of the sultan’s army that’s got us surrounded.”
She looked at him as though she were trying to read his innermost thoughts.
“Did you kill them?”
“No, they killed themselves. And they were happy to do it.”
“You’re a cruel beast. What happened?”
He related the story. She listened to him with a mixture of horror and disbelief.
“And you didn’t feel a thing when you sacrificed two human beings who were utterly devoted to you?”
She could see that this was difficult for him and that he was on the defensive.
“You wouldn’t understand. What I’ve begun, I have to finish. But when I gave the fedayeen the command, I had to shudder. Something inside me said, ‘If there’s a power above us, it won’t permit this. Either the sun will go out or the earth will shake. The fortress will collapse and bury you and your whole army …’ I’m telling you, I was trembling in my heart, like a child trembles before ghosts. I expected at least some little sign. It’s the truth, if just the slightest thing had stirred, if just then a cloud, for instance, had suddenly blocked out the sun, or if there had been a gust of wind, I would have reconsidered. Even after it was over, I was expecting a blow. But the sun continued to shine down all the same on me, on Alamut, and on the two dead bodies lying before of me. And this is what I thought: either there is no power above us, or else it’s supremely indifferent to everything that happens down here. Or, it’s favorably inclined toward what I’m doing. It was then I realized that somewhere secretly I still believed in a divinity. But that divinity bore no resemblance to the one of my youth. It was like the world itself, evolving in thousands of contradictions, yet firmly fettered to three dimensions. Limitless within its limits. Vast chaos inside a glass beaker. A terrible, grimacing dragon. And I knew at once that I had been serving it all my life.”
He looked past her with his eyes wide open, as though he were looking at indescribable wonders.
Insane devil, Miriam thought at that moment.
“Where is ibn Tahir?”
Hasan lowered his eyes.
“Did you send him to your ‘bosom foe’?”
Now he fixed his eyes on her, his gaze taking her in completely.
“Didn’t you once say that you didn’t believe in anything in the world and that you were afraid of nothing? Where is your strength, now that you have to endure the actions whose weight I bear? You have a heart for the small things, but sometimes you need one for the big things too.”
Just then Moad put his boat in at the waterfront. Rokaya hurried to Miriam. She was still trembling all over. She didn’t turn to look at Hasan as she exclaimed, “Halima has jumped into the river!”
Miriam clutched at her heart. She looked at Hasan, as though she wanted to say to him, “This is your doing!”
Hasan was also startled. He asked for the details.
“So when she saw that they’d brought in Obeida instead of Suleiman, she ran away? And you say that Obeida doesn’t believe he’s in paradise?”
He looked at Miriam, who had buried her face in her hands and was crying.
He stood up.
“See to it that everything goes as it should from now on!”
He went to the waterfront, where Adi was waiting for him in the boat.
“Back to the castle!” he ordered.
“I want you to strangle the one in the middle garden,” he told the eunuchs, “once you’re alone with him. Search him and bring me everything you find on him. Then bury him alongside the other two from this morning at the far end of the gardens, at the foot of the mountains. Send the pair from the other two gardens up to me.”
Stern and gloomy, he had himself hoisted up into his tower. Once at the top, he gave the sign that the time had come to leave the gardens. He was glad that neither Abu Ali nor Buzurg Ummid was with him. What did he have left to talk about with them? He would have to leave the world an explanation and apology for his actions. For the faithful, he would need to write a compilation of his philosophy, simply and in metaphors. To his heirs he would need to reveal the final mysteries. There was a great deal of work still ahead of him. But life was short and he was already old.
Exhausted to death, he returned to his room. He collapsed onto his bed and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t. By day he was afraid of nothing. Now he saw Suleiman’s face, down to the tiniest details. Yes, he had seemed to be happy. And yet, in the next instant the life was extinguished within him. Great God! What a horrible experiment!
Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Now he saw ibn Tahir riding toward Nehavend, obsessed with a single thought. Yes, that’s where his mortal enemy was staying. His “opposite principle,” the grand vizier Nizam al-Mulk, that brilliant and illustrious mind who professed everything that mankind saw as great and good. And yet, somewhere beneath it all there was a huge lie in him. He bowed down to mankind and its beliefs against the better convictions that Hasan knew he had. He had won the hearts of the masses and become powerful. He had achieved this through kindness, through generosity, and through more than a few concessions to precious human desires. Was there even room for another who was equal to him? Nizam al-Mulk had beat him at everything. He was more than ten years his senior. What option did he have, but to resort to the “opposite path”? He, smiling, I, grim. He the forgiving one, I the unyielding. He the gentle one, I the terrifying one. And yet he knew that the vizier was also capable of being ruthless and merciless. Even more than he. If I can force him to yield, I’ll be the sole ruler of Iran.
“If only this night would end!” he sighed. He put his coat on and went back to the tower’s upper platform.
He looked down into the gardens. The eunuchs had just turned the lamps down. Then he turned toward the foot of the mountains. Lights were shining there. He shivered. “They’re burying the dead,” he said to himself. A terrifying shudder came over him at the thought that one day he was going to vanish into nothingness.
We know nothing for certain, he thought. The stars above us are silent. We’ve been abandoned to our hunches, and we give in to illusions. The god who rules us is terrible.
He returned to his chambers and looked into the lift. Jafar and Abdur Ahman were fast asleep. He took the sheet off of them. The light from his room dimly illuminated their tired faces. He looked at them for a long time.
“It’s true, man is the strangest creature on earth,” he whispered. “He wants to fly like an eagle, but he lacks its wings. He wants to be as strong as a lion, but he lacks its paws. How horribly imperfect you’ve created him, Lord! And as punishment you’ve given him intellect and the power to recognize his own helplessness.”
He lay back down and tried to go to sleep. But he only managed to drop off as morning broke.
“Ibn Sabbah is a real prophet. He does believe in some god,” Abu Ali said to Buzurg Ummid that evening. He looked at him with bright, almost childlike eyes. Then he continued to confide in him.
“You see, I wasn’t mistaken about him. No matter how godlessly he may have spoken, I always believed that only he could be leader of the Ismailis. Because only he has the greatness of heart that’s needed. Praise be to Allah! We have a prophet!”
“A terrible prophet, indeed,” Buzurg Ummid muttered.
“Mohammed was no less terrible. He sent thousands to their deaths. And yet they all believed in him. Now they’re waiting for the Mahdi.”