I asked him many things. He merely grinned or grumbled. Nevertheless, my desire to possess Salome did not abate. She must pay for her pleasure! I was a Jew, and required payment. My generosity had been merely a gesture.
“Salome shall be mine! We go there again this evening, Kotikokura. Am I not God Ca-ta-pha?”
Kotikokura knelt. “Ca-ta-pha! Ca-ta-pha!”
The gate stood wide opened and unwatched. No sword, no eunuch. Two owls, perching upon it, hooted at our approach, and rocked it by merely flapping their wings. What the previous night had been a gorgeous garden was now a wilderness of giant weeds, which scratched our hands and faces, as we tried to make a pathway to the house. I looked in vain for the peacocks, and Kotikokura watched the palm trees, whose withered leaves were covered with a heavy white dust, to discover the monkeys. Only large bats brushed threateningly against our faces.
The steps leading to the palace, shook under our feet, and the door, hanging from one hinge, swung against us like a broken branch. We lit a torch. Rats, enormous worms and lizards, scurried into the large holes of floors and walls, or remained in the corners in menacing attitudes. Our faces became entangled in the cobwebs, which hung from the ceilings where diamonds had been glittering like lamps.
The couch Salome had sat upon crumbled at my touch; the canopy was devoured by sharp-fanged moths and other insects; the skeleton of a small animal, yellow and frail, like the tendrils of a large, fantastic leaf, cracked under Kotikokura’s step.
“Kotikokura, are we dreaming?”
He scratched his head vigorously.
“Were we not here last night? Was not this a palace, luxurious, gay?” His eyes galloped from corner to corner. The rest of the furniture was an indescribable hill of débris, except one huge bed which seemed intact. We approached it. Pathetically, like a living thing, in a vast cemetery, shone upon it Li-Bi-Do the exquisite tiny god of jade I had given Salome.
“It was not a dream, Kotikokura!”
He bent his head.
I struck the bed a heavy blow. It crumbled into a shapeless mass.
The foul air stifled me. My throat tightened. “Let us go out.” As we reached the spot where the fountain had been, I noticed a large stone basin, made white by the moon. “Was this basin here when we entered this evening, Kotikokura? Did you see it?”
He scratched his head.
“Are things changing under our very eyes, Kotikokura? Are we enchanted?”
The basin was deep. I looked into it. A large tortoise, whose back glittered like a great yellow and black jewel, lay within it motionless save for a tiny, sharp head which moved rapidly like the tongue of a bell.
“A tortoise, Kotikokura! Is this Salome? Was the Chinese philologist right? Was it this animal with whom you spent the night?”
Kotikokura grinned.
“We shall take it with us. Its name shall be Salome, in honor of the magnificent Princess.”
I inquired about Salome of many people. No one had ever heard of her. The castle had been in ruins for generations. It was a place haunted by evil spirits and queer beasts, but as I insisted that I had seen and spoken to a beautiful Princess there, whose retinue was enormous and magnificent, that peacocks spread their gorgeous fans at our approach, and monkeys hung on the branches of palm trees, the people smiled or laughed, and as I turned my face, pointed to their foreheads significantly.
One old woman, thin as a skeleton, with eyes as dazzling as the beads of a stuffed animal, hissed: “Salome? A witch, who died three hundred years ago.”
I would have considered the whole matter a dream, a nightmare, had I not found the little obscene divinity upon the bed. “And the letter!” I exclaimed suddenly. “You brought me a letter from her, did you not, Kotikokura?”
He nodded. As I reached for the missive, a thin stream of ashes fell to the ground, and I remained empty-handed.
For a very long time, I could think of nothing save Salome. I was quite certain that I had actually met her and that, much better versed in magic than I, she had been able to transform ruins and death into life and magnificence for a night. But why had she treated me so disdainfully, preferring an ape’s caresses to mine? Was I he whom she must shun?
Perhaps—and this pleased me and comforted me more than any other idea—she feared that if she yielded herself to me, her personality, weaker than mine, would be submerged and conquered.
Perhaps possession would slay desire.
No! Seeking was better than finding…
I laughed aloud. Kotikokura, frightened, crouched behind me.
XXXI: THE ELOQUENT HAMMER—KOTIKOKURA DISCOVERS TEARS—MOHAMMED OR JESUS?—I REACH THE OUT-SKIRTS OF MECCA
“HE is the Prophet!” shouted the horseshoer, dropping the animal’s leg, which he held in his lap.
“He is not the Prophet!” shouted back the owner of the horse, placing his foot into the stirrup.
“He is the Prophet!”
“He is not!”
A crowd gathered. The two men shouted back and forth their absolute convictions, adding insults, dealing with their physical appearance, their professions, their morals, their intelligence, and the probity of their ancestors.
Infuriated, the horseshoer struck his opponent a powerful blow. The man fell, his face covered with blood. The horseshoer raised his hammer over the victim’s head. “Do you believe he is the Prophet?”
The man grumbled, “I believe.”
Turning to the rest, his hammer still in the air: “Is there any man here who does not believe that he is the Prophet?”
No one answered.
“Is he the Prophet?” he asked Kotikokura, who was grinning.
Kotikokura nodded.
He glared at me. “Is he the Prophet?”
“Certainly he is. How could it be otherwise, when I see so much zeal! Is not zeal the sign of truth? Could a lie inspire such passion?”
The horseshoer replaced the hammer upon the anvil.
“Stranger,” the blacksmith said, “you deserve a place with the true believers in Paradise, where soft couches, delicious fruit, and beautiful virgins await us. So says the Prophet.”
“Whatever the Prophet says is truth.”
“The unbelievers refuse such delights, but we shall find ways to persuade them. Where kind words fail the hammer shall speak.”
“The eloquence of the hammer is indisputable.”
Kotikokura walked behind me, his body bent, his arms dangling. Since the affair with Salome, I had neglected him, and he was unhappy.
“Forgive me, Kotikokura,” I said.
He kissed my hands. His eyes filled with tears,—for the first time it seemed to me.
“If Mohammed is truly the Prophet, Kotikokura,—who knows…perhaps…we shall be parted forever.”
“Ca-ta-pha! Ca-ta-pha!”
I took his arm. “Kotikokura, you have been a great consolation to me.” Kotikokura threw his head backward and walked upon his heels, his face radiant.
Rumors of the new Prophet had reached me from many quarters. These rumors strangely disturbed me. Could it be Jesus returned to earth? Was it the second coming of the Messiah which John and Mary ceaselessly prophesied?
“Tarry until I come” he had said. If the second part of his command should prove as true as the first my pilgrimage was at an end. I was not prepared for such an issue. Every year had added new zest to my life. I did not want to relinquish it now. Nevertheless, some force beyond my own volition drew me inexorably to Mecca.
Soft couches, delicious fruits and beautiful virgins?
It could hardly be that the Paradise of Jesus was so earthly. It was possible, even probable, that the horseshoer had misinterpreted his words. Even Paul and Peter and his immediate disciples had misunderstood him; why not this simple fellow, whose arguments were the fist and the hammer?
I tried to visualize Jesus, to hear his voice. I could recall nothing save his luminous eyes, which I preferred not to remember. We reached the outskirts of Mecca and it began to rain,—a heavy perpendicular rain. We struck up our tents.