“Riddles certainly fascinate you, desert nation.”
“Be a child and you’ll see that what the daughter of the desert has said is anything but a riddle. Return to the cradle of a newborn and you’ll know that the mother who plucked you from her belly, in whose arms you were carried, and in whose embrace you slept, is the only true one and that anyone else is fraudulent and counterfeit.”
“Fortunately for you, I can revert to my childhood. Fortunately for you, I had a greater sense of my mother’s presence than any other child and a greater sense of my father’s absence. Had I not lost my father I would not have begun my journey through the labyrinth and would not have lost my talisman while wandering.”
“I’ve come in disguise to you to help care for the talisman.”
“Is this another riddle?”
“Not so fast! I’ve come to bear you, from my womb, offspring who will trace their lineage to your mother’s clan, for you have not produced them from the womb of a foreigner but from the blood of a woman who is your sister. This is the only amulet that can safeguard the offspring of the desert against extinction.”
“But what about the father?”
“Haven’t we agreed on the fraudulent nature of the father? In this game, you are only a passing specter. Be careful, for the only refuge you’ll ever find for your offspring is my embrace.”
“Do you suppose this will quench my thirst? Do you think that rescuing my offspring will make up for my failure to find my father?”
“Leave your progeny to me and search for your father to your heart’s content, even though I’m certain you have sprung from a fraud and are becoming one yourself.”
“But what status will be granted me by the law of descent concerning the mother’s descendants?”
“It suffices that it will protect them from a she-demon named loss.”
“Loss is truly a she-demon. Loss is a ghoul that threatens the entire desert nation.”
“One must cling firmly to the mother’s tent peg to preserve the riddle of life over the course of a life. One must fasten the rope tight to the woman’s tent peg, because woman is the mistress of this world. Man cannot be relied on, because he, in the game, is always a disappearing dream. If man weren’t so obtuse, you wouldn’t have wasted your life searching for your father, miserable spouse.”
I perceived that she had deprived me of my strongest arguments, not because I had missed my father or killed my father or my father’s shadow, as the priestess referred to him and as the wanderer referred to all fathers, but because I had always lost my way to my father and had found myself isolated, forsaken, and lost whenever I thought I had grasped the reins of my truth. Thus I was content to accept the curse of Anubi as my destiny. Without meaning to, I stammered, “Anubi’s fate was atrocious. Let my clan trace their lineage according to the mother’s law, or any law, so long as that saves them from the fate of Anubi.”
Then I heard the priestess prophesy: “From this day forward, the banner will be in the hand of the sister’s son and not in the hand of the father’s son.”
With this, however, the priestess did not just place the staff of sovereignty in the hand of the sister’s offspring but also laid the foundation stone for the law authorizing marriage with one’s sister.
4 Sunset
ONE DAY, SHORTLY AFTER SUNSET, the sages escorted me to the congregation and their leaders told me that the time had come for me to assume power. They first discussed the law, telling me that its prophetic dicta are divided into two parts. The first half facilitates the affairs of this world and the second preserves our relationship with the spirit world. To the second belong those abstruse texts devoted to the community’s incontrovertible class structure. The most venerable of them stepped toward me and thrust in my face a scrap of hide imprinted with cryptic symbols. Then he said that the tribe was to be divided, according to the mandate of the spirit world, into three authentic castes. The offspring of Ragh would constitute the head, the progeny of the goddess Yeth, the spine and torso, and the clan of Seth, the flexible limbs. Then he examined the talismanic writing on the scrap of leather for some time before adding that the spirit world’s wisdom decreed the first clan should assume responsibility for governance, following matrilineal descent, on condition that they owned nothing and they kept their hands off worldly vanities, taking their cue from the divine progenitor, who possesses nothing, since he is sovereign over all.
Then he spoke of the second clan’s mission, saying that they were the cavalry of the supreme goddess and sons of the mother who gave birth to everything. They were destined to enjoy material possessions and to appoint kings from among the descendants of Ragh, on condition that they themselves never attempted to rule.
The strategic clan’s mission was to be cunning and to investigate everything, no matter how obvious or obscure, searching out whatever was useful, without defying the talisman.
Then this wily sage fell silent. He remained silent for such a long time that this stillness swallowed the world. When he returned from his spiritual journey, he proclaimed the final piece of the prophecy: “There will be disturbances and the whole tribe will be destroyed the day the law is violated, whether the lineage of Ragh covets possession of worldly vanities, the lineage of Yeth wishes to seize power, or the carnal self seduces the lineage of Seth to exceed the boundaries of what is appropriate in their pursuit of knowledge.” He fell silent, and stillness reigned over the earth once more. Then he concluded his pronouncement by saying, “Thus ends the revelation!” He approached me and handed me the pieces of hide imprinted with talismans. He bowed to me so deferentially that I was shaken. In a grave tone he recited, “You, master, from today forward, are master of these texts. You, master, from today forward are sovereign over the desert.” Then he gestured to the row of sages, who approached me, one at a time.
They bowed to my transient body, repeating the prophetic saying as if chanting a supplication raised to the spirit world: “You, master, from today forward, are master of these texts. You, master, from today forward, are sovereign over the desert.” Then the senior sage continued his address, emphasizing the need to respect the three goals. He said that a truth that cannot rest on one goal must inevitably rest on three but emended this statement to caution against the fourth goal, affirming that concealed truth contradicts surface truth, which is demolished if the fourth goal is lost. After that I heard him raise his voice in a heart-rending hymn of longing. Its sweetness set my heart to dancing and stirred tears from my eye, so I wept involuntarily. Still singing, he stepped toward me. Then he whispered in poetic words: “Master, man is a prophetic saying. The division is real. Don’t forget it!” Then … then he withdrew. He did not merely withdraw; he vanished like a mirage one pursues. He vanished and with him vanished the rows of sages. I never saw them again after that.
The sages left me to my own devices. As emptiness settled into my heart, I felt the void. I returned alone, feeling isolated and abandoned, despite the existence of throngs of people in the oasis and despite the presence of my consort beside me. That day I realized that there are creatures whose true nature is veiled from us until we lose them. I also realized that there are creatures no woman can replace, even if by virtue of her wisdom she is a priestess, and for whose absence even throngs of the very best sort of men are no consolation. I realized that loneliness is a beast that cannot be tamed, even by someone we choose for that task. It is, rather, a secret frittered away by people we do not attempt to befriend and do not seek out. I was obliged, once more, to recognize that I was none other than Anubi and that the destiny of Anubi in this desert is solitude.