The temple plaza was still, even though it was packed with people. In the distance, at the mouths of the alleys leading to the plaza, children were making a ruckus.
The chief merchant asked, “You said you took the girl. But you didn’t say where you concealed her!”
“Master, she’s with me. With me for eternity.”
“If what you claim is true, why don’t we see the poor girl beside you.”
“Because … because my master is blind, like everyone else.”
“Blind?”
“Master, we’re once again, as we were one day, a single person.”
“Wretch, what day are you talking about?”
“A day before we were born.”
“What is this prattle?”
“I answered my master’s question.”
“But why did you remove the poor girl’s breast with a sword and conceal it in a feedbag?”
“I never removed a breast and have never in my life carried a sword.”
The man with two veils gestured to a guardsman, who took a step forward and removed a chunk of flesh from a bloody feedbag. It was tender-skinned and quivering. Dried blood and grains of sand had adhered to its underside. He waved it in the air, and the crowd responded with a suppressed snarl.
The accused man, however, was not shaken. He neither denied nor confessed the deed. In fact, it seemed he was not paying attention, because there was no change in his nonchalant gaze into the void.
The chief merchant resumed the interrogation. “Someone who has confessed to killing the beauty with his own hands would not find it difficult to seize the breast to take as a trophy the way tribes in the forestlands take their enemies’ heads. Isn’t this your secret, wretch?”
“I never removed the breast.”
“Didn’t you stab the leader to avenge yourself because he sentenced you to banishment to punish you for your first offense?”
“I didn’t stab the leader and I didn’t remove the breast.”
“Why did you stab the leader?”
“I owe the leader a payment for his benefaction, not an ungrateful stab wound.”
“Wretch, explain yourself.”
“Had I not left my beloved behind, the leader’s banishment would have been the noblest benefaction and I would never have violated his sentence by returning to the oasis.”
“But you did return, more than once, after that.”
“I returned to retrieve a creature with whom I had once formed a single person.”
“Here we’re borrowing words from a fool’s lexicon again.”
At that moment the crowds were convulsed and people spread the news — like women gossiping — that a messenger from the leader was coming. This news spread quickly and reached the hill’s summit before the messenger did. Then the chief merchant leapt to his feet and gestured to a vassal, who drew his sword and advanced toward the lover. At that same moment the man with the feedbag sprang forward and knocked the turban from the victim’s head with a single blow. The bared head revealed a strange, small face, like a frog’s, crowned by a long braid coiled in a heap at the top of his skull. Cries resounded in the crowd, but the man with two veils gestured again sternly, and the man with the feedbag grasped the braid with his free hand. The swordsman’s weapon gleamed in the rays of the setting sun and then people saw the puny, headless body fall to the ground while the head, which resembled a frog’s face, remained grasped by the man, who brandished it on high. It was bathed by the rays of the setting sun, and people saw in its eyes the serenity of a slaughtered animal. Blood dripped from the bottom of the head, falling plentifully over the feedbag where the quivering breast was tucked.
______________
5. Islamic mystics have used similar language — words like annihilation — in describing their quest to submit personal volition to God’s will.
THE GAME
1
The previous day, the serpent had invaded his solitude again.
It had emerged from a crack in the wall of an impregnable cave, and he had prodded it playfully with a stick. Its puny size deceived him, and he thought he would torment it a little before smashing its head. But the ignoble reptile leapt toward his lap and would have bitten him had he not jumped to one side just then. He saw two fangs in its mouth and remembered the ancients’ counsels that cautioned against small creatures, warning that snakes, like other animals, are all the more vicious and evil the smaller they are. As he started to shake, he attacked it with a cudgel. It did not succumb easily despite his desperate blows. When it finally died and he saw that its hateful body resembled a discarded rope, he stretched out beside it to catch his breath. He lay on his back and looked at the ancients’ pictures on the cave’s ceiling. He journeyed far away with these creatures. Some men wore strange round turbans with feathers on top, and other men — with bodies camouflaged by animal skins and long tails trailing behind them — were hunting Barbary sheep. Giant women had generous breasts. Pygmy-like figures held arrows, spears, and other weapons.
He went a great distance with his ancestors and then fell asleep, or nearly. He actually did fall asleep because he did not notice the fearful body’s emanation from the Unknown, the wall, or the puny body he had slain with the cudgel. He returned from his journey to find above his head a viper cloaked in burnished scales, threatening him with three, four … countless heads, each containing fangs more vicious than wild beasts’ tusks.
He tried to move to one side, but the reptile pursued him with its heads. So he stirred. He stirred to find the maid above him.
Placing a container of milk beside him, she asked, “Has my master had a dream?”
“I wish it had been a dream.”
Adjusting his position, he noticed that he was still short of breath and that his body was wet with perspiration. Then he told the maid, “It … was a nightmare.”
“There’s nothing strange about that. An invalid inevitably dreams and perhaps has nightmares. You’re still sick, master.”
He wanted to tell her about his vision and gestured for her to stay. He asked, “What do they say in your tribes if a man sees a snake when unconscious?”
Her concern showed in her eyes. She asked excitedly, “Did my master kill a snake?”
“The truth is, I don’t know. I thought I had killed it when I beat it mercilessly, but then I dozed off and roamed on a distant journey with the ancients. A hideous hissing woke me and I saw over my head a multi-headed viper. …”
“This is a horrendous evil, master.”
“Is that what they think in your tribe?”
“Did my master cut off the first snake’s head?”
“The truth is that I didn’t.”
“This is an enormous mistake, master.”
“Do they say that in your tribe?”
“In our tribe, a man never kills a snake unless he cuts off its head and buries it far away. The snake’s an enemy that isn’t killed by beating, master.”
“The diviner also told me that it represents an enemy.”
“The small snake is a small enemy. The viper is a large enemy, master.”
“Do they really say that in your tribe?”
“My master must be extremely careful.”
He noticed that she was trembling. She bit her lip hard and fastened her scarf tighter around her head to hide her anxiety.
2
The chief vassal visited him.
He spoke for a long time about conditions but did not mention the wretch.
Realizing that Abanaban was deliberately skirting this story, he wanted to chase down the secret. He toyed with the nap of the leather mat before saying, “Yesterday I sent the campaign’s commander to bring me the wretch, but he reached the gathering too late.”