“Bargain?”
“Have you forgotten? I received some fodder for my jenny and some food for myself from you in exchange for the glad tidings.”
The head merchant guffawed and then said gleefully, “There are glad tidings even in the homes of some from whom you did not receive commodities.”
“Really?”
“There is a baby girl in the warrior’s house.”
Isan shouted, “Tamuli?”
Amghar nodded. After a silence he added, “In the sage’s house too.”
Isan asked, “Tahala?”
Amghar nodded yes. He was silent for a moment and then added, “The diviner also will soon receive his glad tidings.”
“Taddikat?”
Amghar nodded yes. The strategist remarked, “But in Ewar’s home there is lamentation in place of glad tidings.”
“I’m sad to have that confirmed.”
They were both silent for a time. Then the chief merchant said, “There’s lamentation also in the fool’s heart.”
Isan asked: “Temarit?”
An anxious silence followed. Amghar gazed at his companion from behind his veil and said in a tone of voice as expressive as his words, “Is there any hope?”
His companion looked back at him and they exchanged a furtive glance. Then the strategist said, “What need do fools have of children?”
The master merchant smiled and said jokingly: “Even fools cannot live without children.”
“But Temarit’s not married to the fool.”
“She’s the fool’s sweetheart.”
“If we let a lover have kids with his sweetheart before getting married, we will distort the Law.”
“But, as you know, it’s the Law that forbade the marriage of fools.”
“If the fool acknowledges to the general public that he is a fool, and if the Law does not permit a fool to marry a beautiful woman, by what right do you want me to create for this wretch a fetus in the belly of a water nymph?”
The visitor was silent. Night had fallen and stillness shared joint sovereignty with it. In the distance grasshoppers chirred. The visitor said, “The truth is that I’ve brought you a message from the people. It’s directed to his excellency of glad tidings.”
“Bring it on!”
“After all these households have received glad tidings, the men of the oasis feel certain. . ”
“Ha, ha. . ”
“They want their share of the amulets.”
The jenny master laughed hoarsely. It was a long, choking, wicked guffaw, which he finally capped: “I’m afraid the time for that has passed.”
Amghar asked in astonishment, “What are you saying?”
The strategist replied coldly, “The amulets have been exhausted — like the provisions and like everything else in our transient world.”
“But. . but sterility is currently at epidemic proportions in the oasis. The women’s bellies are empty.”
The strategist interrupted him sternly: “When there is no medicine left, there’s no way to combat a disease.”
“But the oasis. . ”
“There’s no way!”
4 The Commandment
Where a master merchant goes, news always accompanies him. Merchants seem to convey the news on their tongues in the same way that their pack animals convey merchandise on their backs. The master merchant brought him fresh information when they met in the market. He reported tersely, “They’re migrating!”
A questioning look from his companion elicited this explanation: “The citizens. An entire caravan left the oasis today.”
“Bravo! Bravo!”
“They said that life in a land without water is easier than life in a land where the water’s contaminated.”
“I heard the diviner Yazzal repeat a phrase like this once, so bravo and bravo once more.”
“I heard one of them say that when the water is contaminated, it becomes a lethal poison, but the desert without water might bestow water generously.”
“It always bestows water generously. The desert is never stingy with its water for the faithful. The proof is that we have never heard of a nomad dying of thirst unless this thirst was a punishment for an unknown offense or unless a nomad had stopped migrating.”
A childish glee was apparent in his eyes. In the master merchant’s heart a suspicion was awakened: “Strategist, all that’s left for you to do is to rub your hands together in delight.” He kept his suspicions to himself, however, and jumped to another subject: “The fact is that I’ve presented you the good news about the migration in order to trade it for something else.”
“Bargaining’s the law of the world too, not just of commerce.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“Make me an offer!”
“The matter concerns the fool’s sweetheart.”
“Ha, ha. . didn’t I tell you that fools don’t need to bring children into the world?”
“Yes indeed.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
“Because fools are not begotten by fathers; because fools are fatherless offspring, hee, hee, hee. . ”
His hoarse, sadistic laughter rattled on for a long time. When he stopped, he wiped away some tears before he added, “Didn’t this fool of yours say he was different, because his father wasn’t on earth but in the heavens?”
“That’s right.”
“Even so, what I love best in your oasis is your fool. So why would you want me to put a shackle around his neck and produce offspring for him by his girlfriend?”
“As a matter of fact, it’s the girl’s wish not the fool’s.” “Are you her emissary?”
“You can say that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means her sister is the one who proposed this commandment for me.”
“Tafarat?”
“That’s right.”
“That she-jinni is crazier than all the others, but. . but I won’t be able to violate the Law, no matter what.”
“The Law can always discover a justifiable exception. The Law always acts as a panacea for the miserable.”
“I’m afraid my amulets may cause harm if I sow an embryo in the belly of an unmarried woman.”
He retreated into the fortress of silence and stole a glance at his companion. Then he said murkily, “Even if the Law allowed it, the amulets wouldn’t.”
“The amulets wouldn’t?”
“Didn’t I tell you the amulets are exhausted?”
“I thought the hyena’s den never lacked bones.”
“Don’t you think you might be wrong about that?”
The master merchant did not respond immediately. After a period of silence he said, “What a shame that some of the amulets were wasted.”
The strategist turned toward him curiously, and so the merchant explained: “Tamanokalt!”
The strategist looked away and said in a superior tone, “Lost amulets are always a matter of regret.”
5 Physical Space
Once night had settled, the guest he had long awaited halted by the door to his entryway. Like some spectral jinni, he stood at the entrance without uttering a word of greeting or making any gesture. He did not fall back on any commandment of the lost Law to justify his suspect stance, as nobles generally would have. He stood erect among the stones of the ancient cemetery: as alone, isolated, and deserted as if he were the stubborn holdout from a migratory caravan.
He, too, did not make any movement or hasten to attend to his guest. He did not move a muscle to ease the awkwardness for the other man. Indeed, he continued to sit at the entrance to his vault, gazing out at the emptiness and spying on the spirit world in the stillness as he had learned to do during his eternal wanderings across the eternal desert. Finally, the specter spoke. He heard him declare with the clear enunciation of haughty folk who feel insulted: “I did not come either to beg for reconciliation or to request a truce. I have come to tell you something that the chaos prevented me from telling you once.”