If there was anything in the desert that could excuse the beauty’s offense, it had to be her crazed hymn, which shook him and stripped away his ugly body, allowing him to flee as he did now, exploring the vast expanses of the place that no mother’s child had ever reached by any route, since it slumbers in hearts far away and can only be attained via the demon that tribes refer to as “longing.” Is this really you, ancient orchard? Is this really you, river of milk and honey? Is this really you, tree of obfuscation? Is this really you, enigmatic fruit? Is this really you, heavenly lote tree?
Then he bolted; he bolted and began running at breakneck speed. He raced as fast as the wind, indeed as fast as the jinn. He shot from his secluded spot in a second. He shot past the women’s circle in an insane leap and disappeared. He reached the fields in two seconds. He crossed over the spring in one second. He reached the sandy expanses in another second and collapsed there. He began to tremble and wail.
He heard himself weep like a child that has lost its doll.
PART I Section 2: The Messengers
1 The Fool
It was reported by oasis people that the fool’s ancestors — like theirs — were originally nomadic and that he had settled in the oasis with other stragglers from one of the northern tribes during a lean year when drought had decimated both people and herds. These survivors had sought refuge in the southern oases as they normally did whenever drought gripped the desert for an extended period. It was also said — on the authority of these nomads — that the wretch had first appeared in a herd belonging to a slave woman who had discovered him squeezing in among a crush of livestock to nurse from the teat of a goat. He had been murmuring monotonous sounds like a chant. She recited over his head charms derived from the forgotten language of the ancestors and waited fruitlessly for his mother to appear to reclaim him. So she was forced to wrap him in her cloak and take him home, adopting him. The infant, however, did not remain hers, for children dropped outdoors by the Unknown are not born to become some tribe’s offspring but to live as strangers among the tribes. The fates entrust them to the desert race not to adopt but to cradle, since — no matter what — they will not consent to domestication or incorporation into a clan. Privy to this secret, the tribe’s elders watched compassionately as the woman raced among the tents of the tribe’s settlement, searching for her foster son, who had not returned home for days. They were certain that this alleged offspring was not like other children and that the poor woman could not have claimed him as her son even if he had emerged from her belly. What then if he had arrived through some machination of the Unknown? The proof for this was that the womb that had carried him for months had disavowed him, thrusting him into a herd, because of the despair his destiny caused her once the unknown world revealed to her that an infant the fates have chosen as their messenger will resist all attempts by people to integrate him into a family, so that not even his mother will be able to make a son of him.
Although the child disappeared for days or even weeks, he would turn up occasionally, reappearing as suddenly as he had vanished. He would surface perhaps out of compassion for his mother, even though he would never tell her the secret reason for his absence or where he had been during those days. He would just laugh idiotically whenever his mother attempted to question him and then dart off to join his playmates outdoors. It was also said that these mysterious forays of his were responsible for his mental hiccups. He had once absented himself for more than a month, and the whole tribe had gone out searching for him, to no avail. Cunning trackers arrived and followed a trail, which ended abruptly at an impressive hill that was encircled by tombs of ancient ancestors and that overlooked arid Temarit Ravine, which leads to the western deserts. When his tracks stopped abruptly, the tribe was reduced to wandering aimlessly, gleaning news from shepherds, wayfarers, migrants, and hermits. More days passed, then weeks, but the lost lad did not turn up. It is always like this in the desert, for deliverance from affliction comes only after one despairs of relief. People had despaired and lost hope when the missing lad appeared one evening, carried on the back of a camel that was led by a migrant who dropped him off at the campsite and continued on his way into the unknown. The feverish and glassy-eyed child, who had foam trickling from his mouth, argued with unidentified companions no one else could see. The slave woman tended him with herbal remedies, twiggy brews, and charms. After a few days he was able to move about on his own two feet. Physically he was returning to normal, but the trip had scarred him. He had become noticeably squint-eyed, and his mind was even more clearly affected. His words seemed topsy-turvy. He saw things no one else saw and heard what no one else heard. Even on the coldest nights, he would sleep out in the open, terming tents and dwellings “prisons.” He would tear the shirt from his chest and run naked, referring to garments as “swaddling clothes.” He had an extreme distaste for gold and called the ingots over which the traders in passing caravans vied “copper.” He also referred to the beauties of the clans as “snares,” even though he enjoyed teasing them and conveying their messages to their lovers. He played with children his age but ridiculed them as “fathers’ tombs,” whenever he quarreled with them. These wretches would taunt him and call him “foundling” to his face. He would take this as a joke and retort as his ruined intellect dictated: “You boast of your earthly fathers, but show me your heavenly father.” If they bragged about their fathers when he was present, he would tell them, “We should not call a father a ‘father,’ unless he’s absent. We should not brag about our affiliation with a father we can see and hear, even if he is the tribe’s leader or priest.”
Then he would suddenly feel so downhearted that tears would glisten in his eyes. Gazing over the expanses of eternal wasteland, he would say, “We’re all foundlings in this desert!” Those wretches, however, ignored his sorrow, for they were too “intelligent” to catch the secret drift of his words. Instead, they took turns mocking him, repeating, “You’re a she-jinni’s kid!” He would respond just as derisively, “You’re fathers’ sons. I’m the sky’s son.” When they decided to push their provocation further to deride him for his mind’s handicaps, he would retort defiantly, “Praise heaven for liberating me from this tyrannical demon!” The mentally unchallenged children would all laugh at the logic of their playmate’s boast of being liberated from the intellect’s constraints. The fool would make fun of his mates who bragged about their hobbling intellects, since not even the wisest of the tribe’s elders from either faction could rule according to his mind.