He fell into a stupor again but before beginning this trip into altered consciousness made the wish never to return from this journey to the beyond, but. . But what the spirit world wishes is always different from what we wish. The spirit world wants to return us from a voyage to the beyond when we do not care to. The spirit world takes us on this journey, which we do not even want to make. Its justification is that it provides us with a form of deliverance on each of these trips.
This time, too, the spirit world laid the type of snare that grows ever murkier the clearer we think it has become; this cunning strategist brought back to life this body, which was covered with sores and ulcers, by the hand of a messenger disguised in the rags of a wayfarer. He held tightly in his right hand the halter of a jenny, which trailed behind her a camel laden with his belongings, and his left hand grasped a prescription hidden in a fodder bag.
8 Fire
The jenny master bound his veil tightly around his nose, leaned over the inert body, and examined it for a long time. Once he had ascertained that maggots had yet to assail the body, which was awash in vile liquids, he straightened up and grumbled aloud, “Wherever there’s a putrid stink, there’s some plague. Wherever a plague holds sway, an oasis has played a part.” He removed his belongings from the pack animal and lit a fire in front of the tent. He took some herbs from the fodder bag and then selected from his belongings a container, which he filled with water. He steeped the pungent, grimlooking herb in the water and intoned a mournful song while waiting for the fire to transform the sticks to hot coals. From a stick he fashioned a poker with which he pushed aside the flaming logs. He then placed the earthenware vessel over the coals without pausing in his repetition of the mournful elegy. A traveler must sing. He sings even when nothing prompts him to sing, for — if he does not sing — he will speak, and the spoken word is what the traveler cannot bear, not because it is wrong for a solitary person to talk to himself, but because it distracts him from the wayfarer’s sole enjoyment, which is listening. Eavesdropping on the spirit world is impossible unless one listens carefully. Silence is the spirit world’s protective amulet that can only be foiled by adroit listening, for the desert’s sound is masked by other sounds and the desert’s sound is a prophecy. Prophecy is always located in a place beyond sound, in a place beyond place. Prophecy is the rambling man’s secret. Prophecy is the wayfarer’s goal. If he does not reach it through speech, he searches for it in silence. If he cannot attain it through silence, he circles its sanctuary by singing. For this reason, a wayfarer communicates through song, not words.
In the vessel, the herbal brew thickened and its color became even less appetizing. He removed the container from the fire pit and allowed time for the liquid to cool. From his kit he took out a wooden spoon marked with arcane symbols. He then carried his treasure to the body stretched out beside the tent pole. With difficulty he tore away the veil that had dried onto the victim’s face. He leaned the man’s head against his knee and started to feed him the disgusting liquid from the wooden spoon, which was decorated with talismans. He emptied the potion into the man’s belly, down to the last drop and then jumped up. Standing above the head of the prone body, he declared as if reciting a charm: “Now we shall see. Either you turn back or you proceed forward. Either way, you won’t lose much.” Then he left the tent and stood by its entrance, contemplating the eternal plain that spread to the four corners of the world; indeed its nakedness stretched all the way to the naked sky. There he sang another prophecy: “It’s not the disease that kills but the drug.”
He roamed across the plain. That evening, when he returned, he found the victim writhing in the tent, bickering with specters in an audible but indistinct voice. He raved for a long time in the language of the Unknown but finally said: “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
He continued to writhe as a new liquid oozed forth. This was not pus, purulence, or blood. It was disagreeable-looking too, but this liquid’s sharp scent was not that of pus or purulence. It was the scent of the suspect herb. He repeated again: “Fire! Fire! Fire in my belly!”
Tightening the veil around his nostrils first, he proceeded to examine his patient, on whose forehead he noticed beads of sweat. As this sweat coated the man’s whole body, the flesh started to liberate itself from the garment that had dried, adhering to the body’s flesh. He rejoiced in a loud voice: “Ha, ha. . I knew I wouldn’t succeed in saving the ailing body from destruction until I burned off its infected sweat.”
The miserable wretch moaned loudly and opened his eyes for the first time. His eyeballs looked so white that they did not seem capable of seeing anything. His eyes expressed astonishment mixed with fright. This was the astonishment of an eye that had grown accustomed to darkness and that had gazed into eternity for a long time. His eye was frightened by the light marking its return. It felt perplexed at having lost space and at having been deprived of the sensation of existing in space. Now the only evidence left to it of its existence in time was the fire burning inside it. The next moment the wretch screamed in a repulsive voice, repeating the appeaclass="underline" “Fire! Fire! A drop of water to put out the fire!”
He, however, did not grant his patient a drop of water to extinguish the flame, because he had no intention of putting it out. He knew that extinguishing the fire inside a body suffering from smallpox would allow the disease to gain the upper hand over the medicine. The fire was the medicine. The fire was a noble emissary because it would only overpower the strongest adversary. Smallpox, once established in a body, is stronger than the body. For this reason, he had bet on the nobility of fire, on the innate disposition of fire, which recedes unless it can combat champions. Smallpox was the champion to which he had dispatched the fire as a terminator. Now the fire was close to completing its mission. Here the belly was begging for help and thus announcing the victory of fire. Fire’s victory was the cure, a cure for which one paid a steep price in suffering. It was, however, still a cure. He knew the truth about fire, because he would not have been the lord of fire had he not known fire’s true nature.
9 The Promise
Following his patient’s recovery, he started a debate with him: “It would be better for you not to settle in an oasis again.” With total candor, the other man replied, “The truth is that I don’t know what I can do with myself if I don’t.”