“I sowed in your wombs six of the names. I cannot, however, divulge the secret of the seventh name.”
“Why not?”
“Because the seventh name is the only amulet I still retain for myself.”
“Curiosity will ravage our hearts tonight.”
“For your hearts to be ravaged by curiosity tonight is the lesser evil than for my heart to be ravaged by the Unknown tomorrow.”
PART II Section 4: The Law
1 The Message
He was walking back from the fields, when the fool waylaid him by suddenly leaping out of a clump of palms. He stood brazenly in front of him and stared vacantly at him, as if looking in his direction without really seeing him but focusing instead on some more distant point. This look has been perfected only by idiots, prophets, and the walleyed. He did not budge or speak; so the strategist commented: “You’re not satisfied with blocking my path on the roads but persist in blocking my path to the people’s hearts.”
He thought the fool released a contemptuous laugh, but it was more like a hearty, newborn cough than a laugh of someone with his wits about him.
He would have said more, but Edahi blurted out, “The mission of the street urchin is to bar the street.”
“I’ve never once called you a street urchin.”
“But the others do.”
“The others to whom you block my way?”
“I knew you would criticize me for that, but idiocy is my blanket excuse.”
“Use that line on someone who has no doubts about your idiocy.”
“I know you doubt everything. I know you raise doubts about everything. I know you believe nothing.”
“Wretch, how can you be so certain about this?” The fool chortled, tipping his turban back, but then straightened to say, “It’s the same certainty that leads me to carry loads for other people who detect nothing but idiocy in my intellect. It’s the certainty that shows me the truth you’re hiding in your heart.”
He examined the fool with interest and studied him for a long time. Then he asked, “What do you mean?” “I mean that your precepts will destroy the life of fools.” The strategist laughed hoarsely, adjusted his veil to cover his cheeks, and asked, “Do I destroy the life of your fools by criticizing lethargy?”
“They’re happy with their life; why do you want to agitate them?”
“They’re content with their distress, not with their life.” “A person who is content with his level of distress is luckier than one distressed about his happiness.”
“Ha, ha. . tell me this: Are we the ones who choose our message or is it the message that chooses us?”
“I would have to be the bearer of a message to reply.” “If you weren’t yourself a messenger, you wouldn’t have blocked the way of a messenger. So stop playing the fool.” A gleam shone in the fool’s eyes but he looked down at the ground. With a worn leather sandal he raked the earth into cryptic designs before he finally acknowledged, “Fine, I think the message chooses us, not the other way around.” “Had you not answered in this way, I would not have doubted your idiocy, but one messenger is another messenger’s mate, even if some enmity flares up between them. So how can you wish me to set aside something I did not choose myself, since you understand that a message — like a life — chooses us, not ever the other way round?”
The fool, however, obstinately replied, “You didn’t choose your message, but I didn’t choose mine either.”
“Oh! What intense hatred is sparked by a message!” He groaned with pain and then added, “I’m afraid we’ll part without ever concurring. I fear our separation will be eternal.” In a shaky voice, however, the fool interjected: “We’ll never part if you leave us on our path.”
“Ha, ha. . do you mean we’ll converge if we go our separate ways?”
Edahi nodded his head in the affirmative. The strategist laughed sadly. Then in a different voice he continued, “It’s preposterous to think that two men separated by a message should ever meet. It’s preposterous to think that one who comes to rescue the commandments should find common ground with one who wishes to bury them.”
“We often hear expressions of zeal for the welfare of the commandments from heretics.”
“Yes, certainly. . I don’t deny that liars have frequently misled the tribes into the Unknown through a pretense of saving the commandments, but you also will not deny that sedentary life in the oases has destroyed more commandments than have been forgotten over the course of countless generations.” “Loss also occurs with wandering. Migration also entails suffering.”
“The body is wasted by the travel; sloth lays waste to the intellect.”
“Is it a violation of the Law to rest our bodies, if we are still able to migrate in our hearts?”
He stared at him with bulging eyes, although the fool did not even flutter an eyelid. He too began to stare back at the strategist with blank but determined eyes.
With the candor of a priest revealing a prophecy, the strategist declared: “If you find a way to achieve that, you’ll have accomplished a heroic feat.”
“Unless a man has traveled with his heart, he’s not really a traveler.”
“That is a gift of the elite, not of the others.”
“Why don’t we teach people how to protect the commandments with journeys of the heart instead of journeys by the body?”
“This is the message of one who believes in people — not that of a person who has despaired of changing human nature.”
“Is there no way?”
The jenny master sighed despondently and raised his eyes to the horizon, which was being assaulted by the evening’s gloom. He kept his eyes fixed on the horizon for a long time. Then he said, “Had I not tried everything over the years, time would have spared me the pain.”
The fool, however, stepped closer, until he almost brushed the stranger with his scruffy turban, and gazed murkily into his eyes.
Then he asked, as if begging the stranger for a favor, “What do you think of me?”
The strategist glanced at him inquisitively; so the idiot said in the same tone of voice: “Has my master discovered any evil in my heart?”
The jenny master shook his head no. Then the fool clarified his question: “That’s the merit of journeying with the heart.”
The strategist acquiesced with a glance and muttered, “Certainly.”
“If we don’t risk our hearts, we’ll never risk anything.”
“You’re right, but the others will hardly understand that.”
“Perhaps the best way would be for us to spoon-feed them.”
The strategist shook his turbaned head no and muttered: “Futile!”
The idiot bowed his head. Then the strategist explained, “They’ll never have a dynamic heart unless we prod them with a poker as if they were pack animals.”
The fool nodded farewell, turned back toward the oasis, leaving the stranger standing there, and shot off, his head down.
2 Hatred
Encircled by a wall that was intersected by another older one, which had once been the oasis’ version of a fort, the chief ’s house sat on a hill overlooking the homes of the oasis from the north. The exteriors of the walls were topped by the symbols of the goddess Tanit, who was represented by triangular, earth-colored clay panels.
The elders assembled in the heart of this house while voices clamored outside. The assembly, however, was still. Everyone was waiting for the ruler to speak, but Ewar cloaked himself in silence. So the fool volunteered: “Should we expect any good from a man who substitutes a she-ass for a camel?”