“Why does every people agree that gold is an ignoble metal that — with its arrival — transforms a land’s finest people to its basest?”
“That’s because the people discussing this, master, have been nomads, moving through barren lands bereft of anything but mirage and sky. Those people fear gold dust, because they fear commerce. They fear commerce because they fear stress.”
“Now you’re close to disaster. Now you’re circling the ghoul’s cave. Beware!”
“Yes, I know I’m standing at the edge of the abyss. I know I’ll be forced to say something reprehensible, but I’ll say what must be said. I’ll say that your people flee life by fleeing from commerce and from gold, as if fleeing from a plague.”
“Bravo! Bravo!”
“In the desert peoples’ blood courses an odious enmity to life.”
“I’ve been expecting to see you tumble into this pit for the last hour.”
“I don’t feel embarrassed, master. The desert’s inhabitants are the born enemies of life.”
The leader stopped and gazed at the nearby specter of the scarecrow. He asked sternly, “Is this conviction your reason for twisting the stick in the Law’s hand and hoarding gold in your house despite the prohibition?”
The man with two veils also studied the enigmatic specter and then checked the upper fastening of his veil with his fingers. He responded with the firmness of someone expecting this accusation, “I didn’t hide the gold in order to speculate with it in hard times the way some members of my fraternity do. I have held on to it as a trust for a dear companion who left it in my safekeeping.”
“Really?”
“As you see, I haven’t violated the Law in any way, because the precepts forbidding possession of gold also encourage us to respect a trust and to return it to the rightful owner, even if we realize that these assets include gold ingots.”
“What a wily schemer you are!”
“The embargo notwithstanding, the day when owning gold will change from being a cause for suspicion to a cause for pride is near at hand, master.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Commerce, not I, is sure about this. I wanted to say that you all will recognize gold, if not today, then tomorrow, because you won’t be able to accept commerce and reject its spirit.”
“What a sneak you are!”
“Forgive me, master, but I’m still waiting for the trust.”
“What did you say?”
“Your slave hasn’t received the trust that wretch seized.”
“Do you really expect me to return the purse full of coins to you?”
“Does my master intend to seize people’s goods? Does my master intend to retain the assets of others?”
“But I’m not the one who revealed the assets’ secret. I’m not the person who told people that the purse contains a pile of gold.”
“My master shouldn’t forget that the law of trusts supersedes all others. My master shouldn’t forget that the legal system decrees that a trust should be returned to its owner, even if it is gold.”
“Can you persuade the oasis’s inhabitants that this is true?”
“Persuading people is the responsibility of the responsible person.”
“What are you saying?”
“I mean to say that addressing the masses is entirely my master’s responsibility.”
“What a shrewd schemer you are!”
“I just want to return the property to its owners.”
“It’s out of the question that what you consider a legal property should be returned to those you consider its owners, after everyone has learned the true nature of the serpent that the purse conceals.”
“My master is making a mistake!”
“What are you saying?”
“My master isn’t merely injuring my rights or those of the owner, but the rights of the Law too.”
“Speaking for myself, I say regretfully that after seizing the purse and its contraband contents, I cannot restore it to someone who deliberately attempted to conceal it from other people.”
“My master’s making a mistake.”
“Is this a threat?”
The chief merchant did not reply. Darkness overwhelmed the fields and stillness dominated the area, causing the spectral scarecrow to look even more august and eerie. They retraced their steps silently, their feet sinking into the muddy mires. A muffled sound rose behind them: a mocking, suppressed laugh, a sob of lament, or a phrase so choked in a throat that it emerged as an indistinct cry.
All sounds resemble each other when muffled.
All opposites seem concordant when a matter is confused.
THE CAMPAIGN
1
He chose them carefully. He chose men immune to ecstasy, men unaffected by yearning when they listened to melodies celebrating the full moon’s arrival. They were men who had never been observed to lower modesty’s wing in the presence of women or nobles. They had not passionately endeavored to retire with beautiful female jinn into the caves of the chain of blue mountains.
He chose the men with the toughest souls and the most ruggedly intrepid bodies, gathering them in a retreat where he addressed them in a mellifluous voice as if reciting verses of a satirical poem. “Know that we don’t combat the metal of misfortunes because it has, since the most ancient times, been a harbinger of chaos and that we’re not setting forth today to expel it from our homes out of loyalty to the ancient covenant that our ancestors concluded with the jinn tribes. We embark on today’s offensive with the sole aim of defending ourselves, because even youngsters know that this ill-omened metal’s arrival inevitably devastates a land and turns its most distinguished citizens into the most abject. Will you sanction a disgrace in your homes that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemies? Will you allow your souls to be humiliated by the forbidden dust in a way that you wouldn’t accept even from yourselves? Shall we violate a law that each generation has inherited from the previous one and submit to the wishes of greedy people in order to satisfy insatiable bellies?” He also discussed timing, the best moments to begin, and the importance of surprise. He counseled them to reconnoiter and to beware of underestimating tricky strategies and extolled secrecy at length, concluding that it was the key to the affair’s success. When he raised his right hand toward the heavens, his disciples understood that this gesture marked the campaign’s beginning.
2
The man with two veils was granted permission to enter. His protruding cheeks looked pale. The leader saw true anxiety in the man’s eyes. Behind the fading pastel double veils he detected concern.
This concern was soon voiced.
The chief merchant stopped at the entrance and cast him a rather threatening look. In a voice strained by anger, he said, “I thought we had agreed that day.”
“Agreed?”
“I thought you agreed with me when I told you that commerce is a maiden who becomes beautiful only in the shade of a sovereign’s sword. How can you have forsaken me today and slain her with that same sword?”
He smiled and gestured for his guest to sit beside him. The pallor of the man’s cheeks increased. He sighed deeply, and the sound resembled a serpent’s hiss. He told his guest, “Today you resemble an angry child. It’s not seemly for a rational adult to lose his balance, even if he sees raiders kidnap his beautiful maiden.”
“If only the men kidnapping the belle today had been raiders from hostile tribes! Enemies from marauding tribes kidnap. Internal enemies slaughter!”
“I’m grieved to hear you assert that an agreement was reached between us merely because I tried to listen to you like a friend.”