‘Yes. I do! But everyone says it’s dangerous. They just won’t take me. Can it possibly be arranged?’
Karwan curved a smile. He was nibbling discreetly on another olive; he cupped his hand, and deposited the olive stone on the edge of the ashtray. ‘I can take you there. We are having a festival. It is not so dangerous.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. Five a.m. I will meet you here. And then I will bring you back. And then you can go and write about us, in that famous newspaper The Times, in England.’
‘That’s great. That’s fantastic-shukran!’
‘Good.’ The young man leaned and shook Rob’s hand. ‘Tomorrow we meet. Five a.m. So we must sleep now. Goodbye.’ And with that he stood up and disappeared along the sultry road.
Rob guzzled the last of his beer. He was happy. He was almost very happy. He was going to get the story. The first man to visit the sacred capital of the Yezidi! Our man with the Cultists of Iraq. He almost ran back to the hotel. Then he phoned Christine and excitedly told her the news; her voice sounded worried and pleased at the same time. Rob lay back on the bed with a smile, as they talked: he was going home soon, and he would see his daughter, and his girlfriend-with the job safely done.
The next morning Rob found Karwan waiting, as promised, by the café tables. Parked by the shuttered café was an old Ford pickup truck: loaded with flat bread, and fruit in plastic sacks.
‘Fruit for the festival,’ said Karwan. ‘Come. Is not very much room.’
There were three of them squeezed in the cabin of the truck. Karwan, Rob, and a whiskery old guy. The driver was Karwan’s uncle, it seemed. Rob shook hands with Karwan’s uncle, and Karwan said, ‘He has only crashed three times this year. So we should be OK.’
The truck rattled out of Dahuk up into the mountains. It was a long and spine-jarring journey, but Rob didn’t care. He was surely close to his story.
The road led up into pine forests and oak woods. As they ascended, the grey morning air began to clear. The sun was coming up bright and warm. Then the road dipped into a vivid green valley. Poor but pretty stone houses stood over rushing streams. Dirty children with dazzling smiles rushed down to the truck and waved. Rob waved back and thought about his daughter.
The road went on, and on. It snaked around a great mountain. Karwan told Rob the mountain was one of the Seven Pillars of Satan. Rob nodded. The road negotiated rushing rivers, on rickety wooden bridges. And then at last they stopped.
Karwan nudged him. ‘Lalesh!
He’d made it. The first thing he saw was a strange conical building, its roof oddly fluted. There were more of these conical buildings, placed around a central square. This central plaza of Lalesh was alive with people: parading and chanting and singing. Old men were walking in single file, playing long wooden flutes. Rob got out of the truck, along with Karwan, and watched.
A black-cloaked figure emerged from a grimy building. He walked over to an array of stone pots from which small fires were billowing. More men, in white robes, processed behind.
‘These are the sacred fires,’ said Karwan, gesturing at the yellow flames dancing in the stone pots. ‘The men must circle the sacred fires seven times.’
Now the crowd pressed forward, calling out a name. ‘Melek Taus, Melek Taus!’
Karwan nodded. ‘They are praising the peacock angel, of course.’
The ceremony continued. It was picturesque, and strange, and oddly touching. Rob watched the bystanders and the onlookers: after the initial flurry of ceremonial, many ordinary Yezidi had moved on to nearby patches of grass and the hillsides overlooking the conical towers of Lalesh: they were laying out picnics of tomatoes, cheese, flatbread and plums. The sun was high in the sky. It was a warm mountain day.
‘Every Yezidi,’ Karwan told Rob, ‘must, at some point in life, come here to Lalesh. To make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Sheikh Mussafir. He established the ceremonies of the Yezidis.’
Rob edged closer to peer through the dingy doorway of a temple. Inside it was dark: but Rob could just discern pilgrims wrapping coloured cloths around wooden pillars. Others were laying bread on low shelves. On one wall Rob saw writing that was distinctly cuneiform: it had to be cuneiform: the very oldest, most primitive alphabet in the world. Dating back to Sumerian times.
Cuneiform! As he ducked out of the temple again, Rob felt a thrill of privilege just to be here. It was a miraculous survivaclass="underline" the city, the faith, the people, the liturgy and ritual. And it was an admirable survival, too. The whole atmosphere of Lalesh, the festival, was lyrical, poetic, and preciously pastoral. The only menacing aspects were the lurid and sneering images of Melek Taus, the ubiquitous devil-god, who was pictured on walls and doors, even on posters. Yet the people themselves seemed friendly, happy to be out in the sun, happy to be practising their peculiar religion.
Rob wanted to talk to some Yezidi. He persuaded Karwan to interpret: on one patch of grass, they found a jocular, middle-aged woman pouring tea for her children.
Rob leaned in and said, ‘Tell me about the Black Book?
The woman smiled, jabbing a finger at Rob quite vigorously.
Karwan interpreted her words. ‘She says that the Black Book is the Bible of the Yezidi, and it is written in gold. She says you Christians have it! You English. She says you took our holy book. And that is why the westerners have science and education. Because you have the book, that came from the sky.’
The woman smiled warmly at Rob. And then she bit into a fat tomato, spilling vivid red seeds down her shirt, making her husband laugh very loudly.
The ceremony in the square was nearly over. Young girls and boys in white were in the central space, finishing their spiralling dances around the sacred flames. Rob regarded them. He took some discreet photos with his camera-phone. He scribbled some notes. And then, when he looked up, he noticed something else. Quite unremarked by the bystanders all the elite old men were ducking, one by one, into a low building at the far end of the square. Their action seemed somehow furtive, clandestine. Or at least significant. There was a guard at the door of this low building, though there were no guards on any of the other doors. Why was that? And the door they were using was itself marked out from the others. It had an odd black snake set beside it in stone. A long snake symbol right by the door.
Rob felt the tingle. This was it. Rob had to find out what was going on. He had to get in that mysterious door. But could he get away with it? He glanced around. Karwan was now lying back on the grass, dozing. The truck driver was nowhere. Probably asleep in his cabin. It had been a long day.
This was Rob’s chance. Right now. Sloping down the hill, he crossed the square briskly. One of the chanting boys had dropped his white headdress by the well beneath the spring. Rob checked left and right, and snatched the garment up and put it over his head. Again he checked. No one was looking. He slunk towards the low building. The guard was on the door: he was about to close the door. Rob had just one chance. He muffled and concealed his lower face with the white cloth, then darted over the threshold into the temple.
The yawning guard stared vaguely at Rob. For a moment he seemed puzzled. Then he shrugged and shut the door behind them. Rob was inside the temple.
It was very dark. The acrid smoke of the oil lamps fugged the air. The Yezidi elders were lined up in rows, chanting, murmuring and singing very quietly. Reciting prayers. Others were on their knees, kowtowing and bending: touching the floor with their foreheads. A blaze of light filled the far end of the temple. Rob squinted to see through the smoke. A door had briefly opened. A whiterobed girl was bringing an object covered in a rough blanket. The chanting grew a little louder. The girl set the object down on an altar. Above the altar the gleaming image of the peacock angel stared down at them all, serene and superior, disdainful and cruel.