He abandoned throne and glory, woman and child. He deposed himself, defeated before his heart’s revolt at a time when his people had forgotten his past misdeeds. His education had required a considerable time. He did not venture on the decisive step until the fear within him had gone out of control and his desire for salvation prevailed. He left his palace at night, wearing a cloak and carrying a stick and giving himself over to fate. Before him were three possibilities: to travel as Sinbad had done; to go to the house of al-Balkhi; or to take time to think things over.
His feet led him to an empty space close by the green tongue of land where a strange sound came to his ears. He listened under a crescent moon in a clear sky and was sure that it was the sound of a group of people mourning. Could it be someone was lamenting in this open space? He moved cautiously toward the sound until he came to a stop behind a date palm. He saw a rock like a dome, with men sitting squat-legged in front of it in a straight line. They continued their lamentation. His curiosity aroused, various thoughts came to his mind by turns. Then one of the men rose, went to the rock, and rained down blows upon it with his fist. Then, after returning to where he was sitting, he continued his lamentation with the others. Shahriyar looked keenly at the men and recognized several who had previously been his subjects: Suleiman al-Zeini, al-Fadl ibn Khaqan, Sami Shukri, Khalil Faris, HAsan al-Attar, and Galil al-Bazzaz. He thought of intruding upon their session to find out what they were about but caution restrained him. Before dawn one of them rose and said, “The time has come for us to return to the abode of torment.”
They stopped wailing and rose to their feet as they promised one another to meet up the next day. Then like specters, they made off toward the city.
*
What was the meaning of this?
Drawing near the rock, he circled right round it. It was nothing but a rock in the form of an uneven dome, a place anybody would pass by without noticing. Going up to it and feeling its surface, he found it to be rough. Several times he brought his fist down upon it, then was about to turn away when there came a strong sound that seemed o come from several directions. Underneath the rock an arched entrance revealed itself. He drew back, trembling with fear, but then he saw a gentle light and breathed in a fragrant and intoxicating smell. Fear left him. It was this door that the men were yearning to open and for which they had shed tears. He approached and put his head inside; he looked around and was captivated by the atmosphere. Hardly had he entered than the door closed behind him. He found himself in a passage, the charm of which took hold of him completely: illuminated though without any apparent light, sweet-smelling though without any window; redolent with a beautiful fragrance though there was no garden. Its floor was shining white, carved out of some unknown metal, its walls emerald, its roof embellished with coral of complementary colors; at the end of the passage was a gateway , shining as though inlaid with diamonds. Forgetting what was behind him, he proceeded unhesitatingly. He thought he would reach the gateway in a matter of a minute or two, but he found himself walking for a long time while the passage remained as it was, becoming no shorter and with temptation pouring out from its sides. He was apprehensive that it might be a road without an end, but he did not think of returning, nor of stopping; he enjoyed the fruitless never-ending walk. When he was about to forget that his walk had a purpose, he found himself drawing close to a limpid pond, behind which stood a burnished mirror. He heard a voice saying, “Do what seems good to you.”
Quickly he obeyed his sudden desires, stripped off his clothes, and plunged into the water. The throbbing water massaged him with angelic fingers, penetrating right inside him. Emerging from the water, he stood in front of the mirror and saw himself as new in the skin of a beardless young man, with a strong and perfectly proportioned body and a handsome face that breathed youthful manliness, with parted black hair and with a mustache just sprouting. “Praise be to the Almighty who is capable of everything!” he whispered.
He looked to his clothes and found trousers of Damascene silk, a Baghdadi cloak, A Khurasani turban, and Egyptian slippers. Putting them on, he became a wonder to behold.
He continued walking and found himself in front of the gateway. Before him was an angelic young girl he had not seen before.
“Who are you?” she asked with a smile.
“Shahriyar,” he answered in confusion.
“What is your trade?”
“A fugitive from his past.”
“When did you leave the place you live?”
“An hour ago at the most.”
“How weak you are at arithmetic,” she said, unable to stop herself from laughing.
They exchanged a long look, then the young girl said, “We have waited for you a long time-the whole city is expecting you.”
“Me?” he asked in astonishment.
“It is expecting the bridegroom promised to its exalted queen.”
She made a gesture with her hand and the gateway opened, giving out a sound like the plaintive moaning of the rebab.
*
Shahriyar found himself in a city not of human making: in beauty, splendor, elegance, cleanliness, fragrance, and climate. In all directions were buildings and gardens, streets and squares, decorated with all sorts of flowers, the saffron ground spread over with pools and streams. The city’s inhabitants were all women, not a man among them, and they were all young with the beauty of angels. Noticing the newcomer, they hurried to the royal highway leading to the palace.
*
As though he were a vagabond among his own people, he was dazzled by the palace. He believed now that his old palace was nothing but a filthy hut. The young girl led him o the throne room where the queen sat resplendent on her throne between two flanks of pearl-like young maidens.
The young girl prostrated herself before the queen and said, “Your promised bridegroom, Your Majesty.”
The queen gave a smile that made him lose his heart. He, in turn, prostrated himself with the words “I am nothing but Your Majesty’s slave.”
“No, you are my partner in love and the throne,” said the queen in a voice like the sweetest of tunes.
“Duty demands I reveal to you that in the past I lived a long life until I approached old age.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the queen sweetly.
“I am talking about the grip of time, Your Majesty.”
“We are acquainted with time only as a faithful friend who neither oppresses nor betrays.”
“Praise be to the Almighty, Who is capable of everything,” whispered Shahriyar.
For forty days the city celebrated the marriage.
*
The time was passed in love and contemplation-and worship too has its time, and it can be expressed in drinking, singing and dancing.
IT appeared to Shahriyar that he was in need of a thousand years to uncover the hidden secrets of the garden, and a thousand years or more to know the reception hall of the palace and its wings. Then, one day, in the company of the queen, he passed by a small door of pure gold, in whose lock was a key of gold decorated with diamonds; on it was a card on which was written in black handwriting “Do not approach this door.”
“Why this warning, my beloved?” he asked the queen.
“We live here in complete freedom,” she answered with her usual sweetness, “so that we regard mere advice as an unforgivable insult.”
“Or does it issue from you as a royal command?”
“The form of the imperative,” she said quietly, “is used with us only in matters of love, which has existed as you see it for millions of years.”
*
Once when embracing her, he had asked his wife, “When will we have a child?”
“Do you think of this when we have been married only a hundred years?”
“Only a hundred years?”
“No more than that, my love.”
“I had reckoned it as a matter of days.”
“The past has not yet been erased from your head.”
“Anyway,” he said, as thought apologizing, “I am happier than a human being has ever been.”
“You will know true happiness,” she id to hi as she kissed him, “when you forget the past completely.”
*
Whenever he passed by the forbidden door he looked at it with interest and whenever he had been away from the wing where it was, he returned to it. It pressed upon his mind and his emotions and he began to say to himself, “Everything is clear except for this door.”
*
One day his resistance weakened and he submitted to a secret call. Seizing an opportunity when the servants were not attentive, he turned the key. The door opened easily, giving out a magical sound and releasing a delightful fragrance. He entered, his heart agitated but full of hope. The door closed and there appeared before him a giant more terrible than anything he had seen. Pouncing upon him, the giant lifted him up like some little bird between his hands. In remorse Shahriyar called out, “Let me go, by your Lord!”
Complying with his plea, he returned him to the ground.
*
Shahriyar looked about him wildly.
“Where am I?” he asked.
The desert, the night, the crescent moon, the rock, the men and the continued wailing. Shahriyar and his stick and the polluted air of the city.
“Mercy! Mercy!” he screamed from a wounded heart, and brought his fist down on the rock several times until the blood flowed from it.
But the truth took hold of him and he was overcome by despair. His back became bowed and he became old. There was no choice. He went toward the men with faltering steps and threw himself down at the end of the row. He soon broke into tears like them under the crescent moon.
*
Before dawn the men went away as usual. He did not go nor did he cease to weep. Then someone, walking in the night alone, approached him and asked, “What makes you weep, man?”
“That is no business of yours,” answered Shahriyar crossly.
“I am the chief of police,” said the other, searching his face, “and I have not overstepped the bounds of my authority.”
“My tears,” said the Shahriyar, “will not disturb the peace.”
“Leave that for me to judge and answer me,” said Abdullah al-Aqil, as he went on scrutinizing his face.
“All creatures weep from the pain of parting,” said Shahriyar after a silence. It was as though he were heedless of the whole situation.
“Have you no place of abode?” asked Abdullah al-Aqil with a mysterious smile.
“None.”
“Would you like to dwell under the date palm close to the green tongue of land?”
“Perhaps,” he said with indifference.
Said the man gently:
“I give you the words of a man of experience, who said: ‘It is an indication of truth’s jealousy that it has not made for anyone a path to it, and that it has not deprived anyone of the hope of attaining it, and it has left people running in the deserts of perplexity and drowning in the seas of doubt; and he who thinks that he has attained it, it dissociates itself from, and he who thinks that he has dissociated himself from it has lost his way. Thus there is no attaining it and no avoiding it-it is inescapable.’”
Then Abdullah al-Aqil went off in the direction of the city.
- “The Grievers”, Arabian Nights and Days, Naguib Mahfouz. Translated by Denys Johnson-Davies.
