—Tell me what it’s like, Sybille, to be the way you are now.
—Like swimming under a sheet of glass.
—I don’t follow.
—Everything is quiet where I am, Jorge. There’s a peace that passeth all understanding. I used to feel sometimes that I was caught up in a great storm, that I was being buffeted by every breeze, that my life was being consumed by agitations and frenzies, but now, now, I’m at the eye of the storm, at the place where everything is always calm. I observe rather than let myself be acted upon.
—But isn’t there a loss of feeling that way? Don’t you feel that you’re wrapped in an insulating layer? Like swimming, under glass, you say—that conveys being insulate, being cut off, being almost numb.
—I suppose you might think so. The way it is, is that one no longer is affected by the unnecessary.
—It sounds to me like a limited existence.
—Less limited than the grave, Jorge.
—I never understood why you wanted rekindling. You were such a world-devourer, Sybille, you lived with such intensity, such passion. To settle for the kind of existence you have now, to be only half-alive—
—Don’t be a fool, Jorge. To be half-alive is better than to be rotting in the ground. I was so young. There was so much else still to see and do.
—But to see it and do it half-alive?
—Those were your words, not mine. I’m not alive at all. I’m neither less nor more than the person you knew. I’m another kind of being altogether. Neither less nor more, only different.
—Are all your perceptions different?
—Very much so. My perspective is broader. Little things stand revealed as little things.
—Give me an example, Sybille.
—I’d rather not. How could I make anything clear to you? Die and be with us, and you’ll understand.
—You know I’m not dead?
—Oh, Jorge, how funny you are!
—How nice that I can still amuse you.
—You look so hurt, so tragic. I could almost feel sorry for you. Come: ask me anything.
—Could you leave your companions and live in the world again?
—I’ve never considered that.
—Could you?
—I suppose I could. But why should I? This is my world now.
—This ghetto.
—Is that how it seems to you?
—You lock yourselves into a closed society of your peers, a tight subculture. Your own jargon, your own wall of etiquette and idiosyncrasy. Designed, I think, mainly to keep the outsiders off balance, to keep them feeling like outsiders. It’s a defensive thing. The hippies, the blacks, the gays, the deads—same mechanism, same process.
—The Jews, too. Don’t forget the Jews.
—All right, Sybille, the Jews. With their little tribal jokes, their special holidays, their own mysterious language, yes, a good case in point.
—So I’ve joined a new tribe. What’s wrong with that?
—Did you need to be part of a tribe?
—What did I have before? The tribe of Californians? The tribe of academics?
—The tribe of Jorge and Sybille Klein.
—Too narrow. Anyway, I’ve been expelled from that tribe. I needed to join another one.
—Expelled?
—By death. After that there’s no going back.
—You could go back. Any time.
—Oh, no, no, no, Jorge, I can’t; I can’t, I’m not Sybille Klein any more, I never will be again. How can I explain it to you? There’s no way. Death brings on changes. Die and see, Jorge. Die and see.
Nerita said, “She’s waiting for you in the lounge.”
It was a big, coldly furnished room at the far end of the other wing of the house of strangers. Sybille stood by a window through which pale, chilly morning light was streaming. Mortimer was with her, and also Kent Zacharias. The two men favored Klein with mysterious oblique smiles—courteous or derisive, he could not tell which. “Do you like our town?” Zacharias asked. “Have you been seeing the sights?” Klein chose not to reply. He acknowledged the question with a faint nod and turned to Sybille. Strangely, he felt altogether calm at this moment of attaining a years-old desire: he felt nothing at all in her presence, no panic, no yearning, no dismay, no nostalgia, nothing, nothing. As though he were truly a dead. He knew it was the tranquility of utter terror.
“We’ll leave you two alone,” Zacharias said. “You must have so much to tell each other.” He went out, with Nerita and Mortimer. Klein’s eyes met Sybille’s and lingered there. She was looking at him coolly, in a kind of impersonal appraisal. That damnable smile of hers, Klein thought: dying turns them all into Mona Lisas.
She said, “Do you plan to stay here long?”
“Probably not. A few days, maybe a week.” He moistened his lips. “How have you been, Sybille? How has it been going?”
“It’s all been about as I expected.”
What do you mean by that? Can you give me some details? Are you at all disappointed? Have there been any surprises? What has it been like for you, Sybille? Oh, Jesus—
—Never ask a direct question—
He said, “I wish you had let me visit with you in Zanzibar.”
“That wasn’t possible. Let’s not talk about it now.” She dismissed the episode with a casual wave. After a moment she said, “Would you like to hear a fascinating story I’ve uncovered about the early days of Omani influence in Zanzibar?”
The impersonality of the question startled him. How could she display such absolute lack of curiosity about his presence in Zion Cold Town, his claim to be a dead, his reasons for wanting to see her? How could she plunge so quickly, so coldly, into a discussion of archaic political events in Zanzibar?
“I suppose so,” he said weakly.
“It’s a sort of Arabian Nights story, really. It’s the story of how Ahmad the Sly overthrew Abdullah ibn Muhammad Alawi.”
The names were strange to him. He had indeed taken some small part in her historical researches, but it was years since he had worked with her, and everything had drifted about in his mind, leaving a jumbled residue of Ahmads and Hasans and Abdullahs. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t recall who they were.”
Unperturbed, Sybille said, “Certainly you remember that in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the chief power in the Indian Ocean was the Arab state of Oman, ruled from Muscat on the Persian Gulf. Under the Busaidi dynasty, founded in 1744 by Ahmad ibn Said al-Busaidi, the Omani extended their power to East Africa. The logical capital for their African empire was the port of Mombasa, but they were unable to evict a rival dynasty reigning there, so the Busaidi looked toward nearby Zanzibar—a cosmopolitan island of mixed Arab, Indian, and African population. Zanzibar’s strategic placement on the coast and its spacious and well-protected harbor made it an ideal base for the East African slave trade that the Busaidi of Oman intended to dominate.”
“It comes back to me now, I think.”
“Very well. The founder of the Omani Sultanate of Zanzibar was Ahmad ibn Majid the Sly, who came to the throne of Oman in 1811—do you remember?—upon the death of his uncle Abd-er-Rahman al-Busatdi.”
“The names sound familiar,” Klein said doubtfully.
“Seven years later,” Sybille continued, “seeking to conquer Zanzibar without the use of force, Ahmad the Sly shaved his beard and mustache and visited the island disguised as a soothsayer, wearing yellow robes and a costly emerald in his turban. At that time most of Zanzibar was governed by a native ruler of mixed Arab and African blood, Abdullah ibn Muhammad Alawi, whose hereditary title was Mwenyi Mkuu. The Mwenyi Mkuu’s subjects were mainly Africans, members of a tribe called the Hadimu. Sultan Ahmad, arriving in Zanzibar Town, gave a demonstration of his soothsaying skills on the waterfront and attracted so much attention that he speedily gained an audience at the court of the Mwenyi Mkuu. Ahmad predicted a glowing future for Abdullah, declaring that a powerful prince famed throughout the world would come to Zanzibar, make the Mwenyi Mkuu his high lieutenant, and confirm him and his descendants as lords of Zanzibar forever.