The Roman Ruins

He had been there for nearly an hour now, wandering among the ruins of the Roman fort while the sun climbed towards its zenith and the figure in white far below picked his way past the crumbling walls of ancient mess-quarters, clambered laboriously over the defenses and gazed up at the redundant columns that pointed up to the clear blue sky. It had been a veritable fortress, the last bastion of a by-gone civilisation's eastern frontier, still commanding the view over the intractable expanse of rocky desert that unfolded eastwards. As he gazed out over the hills of that strange, desolate landscape, he imagined the sense of abandon the Roman legionnaires freshly drafted from Europe must have felt when confronted with the convulsed mass of hills, cliffs and gullies that shimmered in the haze. Here their allegiance to imperial Rome would have been absolute, for the individual alone in the desert is a lost cause.
      As he stepped among the stones he felt the folds of his jacket and the brim of his hat fix the boundary between him and his surroundings. They shielded him from the sun's glare, while within, his bodily processes went unhampered about their business, pumping and filtering, absorbing and pulsating; his skin secreting films of salty water to be evaporated, maintaining Fabricus Humanicum's optimum temperature despite the heat of the desert sun. With every step he took, his water bottle reassuringly reminded him of its continued presence as it jogged and jolted at his side. That too, he decided, was also a part of the boundary that separated him from the desert, one of the defences holding its encroachments at bay. But if he included the water bottle, then should he not also include the taxi that had brought him here? It was, after all, a part of the lifeline connecting him to the town, to the harbour and the sea; and across the sea, the land from whence he had come. If the line were to become severed at this point he might never return, lying instead, dehydrated in the wilderness; the distinctions between him and the desert being eroded by the vultures who would pick and tear at the shrivelled skin. However, his water bottle was not punctured and his taxi did not desert him and so he was able to continue his course unperturbed across the campus of the fort.
      Presently he came upon a stone trough, hewn from the rock. Probably a water trough, fed by the underground cistern that had once collected the winter rains. On one side he noticed the traces of an inscription,, the fragments of the letters difficult to differentiate from the pitted surface. He squinted at them. Looked at through half-closed eyes, the stone's surface resembled the landscape of which it was a part; sandy forms merging into one another, fractured by a network of fissures and gullies, diffuse in the excess of light. Somewhere below him, a vulture circling in one of the valleys let out a cry. He looked to see if he could see it; but saw nothing and returned to the inscription, stooping to feel the grooves of the letters with his fingertips. One by one the letters re-emerged from the confusion of the crumbling surface. Hic sunt. The bird cried again. A lonely cry, the only sound he had heard in the course of the last hour, apart from the sound of his footsteps, crunching and stumbling over the stones. He traced the last letters, e-o-n-e-s, "Hic sunt leones," that was it! As the vulture cried and circled yet again, the cry and the words intermingled in his thoughts, echoing the barrenness of the place and the despair of the legionnaires, man and bird wheeling and turning beneath the watchful eyes of the blazing sun; the one a silent shadow gliding over the eastern face of the cliff, the other a trampling of feet from the west that raised the dust as the cohort marched into the campus of the far-flung outpost. They had arrived; and the sun was as fierce and merciless as to justify the inscription the previous commander had had carved on the trough from which the daily rations of water were drawn. Here are lions. The bird had stopped crying and the regime of silence had returned as he remembered the equation with which an astrologer had once summarised his horoscope:

He thought of the fate which had ordained it and which had brought him, a bundle of contracting muscle fibres and levering bones, to be confronted with the temples and vistas of his imagination - whose motto he had now found. And he thought of the lonely cry of the vulture and of its futility in the face of the perpetual stillness; and he was alone.
      With these thoughts, the Panama-hatted microcosm concluded his meditations on life in the Roman army, deserts and destiny; and proceeded to make his way down towards the waiting taxi.

Verraily a paradys wilt thou see
And as a kyng souereigne thou shalt be,
Longe daies by-neith the brennyng desert sonne
Shal seurly lede yow to thy kyngdom-come.

But thou ne having not a rewlyng graasp
Thine heuenly bliss will for not long laste,
So shal a maid be awengid bi fate
For the foul cryme thou hath parformed of late.

 

The Goat-herd

The goat-herd sat on the steps in the shady corner of the courtyard. A boy of seven or eight, waiting restlessly for his father. With a wave of his hand he scattered the flies and looked around him for the umpteenth time. How much longer?
      In the room above, the electric fan tracked back and forth, cooling Muhammad and his guest as they sat in the heavy heat of the afternoon. With each movement the visitor made, the cushions and rugs on which he sat would receive a light sprinkling of the road's dust. It had been a long journey. And each time the fan cast its refreshing stream towards him, its turbulance would stir this dust, blowing it over the rich, red fabric into dune-like formations. Grate-tata-terrrrrrr-rummmmm. Then it would swing away, the protective grill chattering in protest at the sudden change in direction. Grate-tata-terrrrrrr-rummmmm. Back towards him again.
      Kamal sat obediently on the steps leading up from the courtyard to the room and wondered how much longer it would take. He had hoped they would go to the market; but no, they had come here, to this courtyard. His father had promised they would go to the sea afterwards. He had never seen the sea before. He sucked at the sweet the woman had given him and tried to imagine what an endless expanse of water might look like; but the silk of her clothes rustled and the smell of her perfume drifted over the waters of his imagination. She had been carrying tea up to where his father was, passing him on the steps, she had smiled and given him a sweet. The door behind opened and he felt her fingers run through his shortly cropped hair as she made her way back down again. When she reached the bottom, she turned to ask his name.
      "Kamal," he replied.
      "Kamal," she repeated, and was gone.
      In the upstairs room, the men sipped the tea Sahir had brought them. Muhammad considered the problems involved. It would not be easy. At least to do it properly. He didn't have the contacts for that sort of thing. It would need time, perhaps a year. But in the long-run it could pay off, and handsomely. It would be up-market, less frequent and always unexpected. He had been wanting to change the style of his operations for some time; he had been doing alcohol and tobacco for too long. Now, here was a chance.
      The farmer looked down at the dust the fan had strewn across the cushions. He disliked going to towns and cities, and haggling with merchants; but at least Muhammad was treating him with respect. He had been right not to trade with the Bedouin. Maybe something would come of the windfall after all.
      "It'll be difficult," Muhammad said at length. "You have to have documents to sell that sort of thing - they want to know where it's come from." Nevertheless, he could picture himself sauntering through the bazaars of Istanbul, past the galleries and antique shops where the rich foreigners went. He had never been there; but he would build up connections and soon the owners of the shops would greet him by name and ask if he had had a good journey. As far as the farmer was concerned, he, Muhammad, had the upper hand and both of them knew it. His first export.
      "And what brought you here?" Sahir had reappeared in the doorway at the bottom of the steps. Kamal smiled shyly, but would not answer. His father had used those selfsame words the evening before, when he had told him the story of an African hunter who had come upon a clearing whilst out hunting in the jungle. Kamal wanted to tell her the story; but the stillness of the courtyard was foreboding and he hesitated. In the story however, the hunter had entered the clearing, like Kamal wary of the silence upon which he was encroaching. In the centre of the clearing he had found a skull, bleached white by time and the industry of birds and ants.
      "What brought you here?" the skull had asked. But the hunter had not replied. Instead, he had run as fast as he could back to the village.
      "In the forest there is a skull that talks," he told the chief, not knowing whether this was something to be considered good or evil. But the chief wanted to see the wonder for himself; and so, guided by the huntsman, he had set out with his retinue. They had entered the glade in silence and the hunter noticed how this time, the singing of the birds could still be heard even after they had entered the clearing. The chief and his warriors gathered round the skull that nestled among the blades of grass, and waited for it to address them. The birds twittered and chirruped but the skull remained stubbornly silent. In a fury at having been deceived the chief ordered the hunter to be beheaded on the spot. As soon as this was done, the royal party left the glade and the silence the hunter had previously known returned. After a few minutes, the stillness was broken by the skull,
      "What brought you here?" it asked.
      "Talking brought me here," the hunter's head had replied.
      Kamal smiled shyly.
      "So you're not going to tell me," Sahir prompted. Kamal shook his head resolutely but then smiled and laughed when she threw him another sweet.
      He hadn't talked. Even before his father had told him the story, he had known it was not to be talked about, something to be shared only with the goats. It had been his mother who had noticed the amber beads he had been playing with that evening. She had told his father; and the next day, father and son had set out together to the cleft in the earth, to where the goat had got stuck. His father had descended but had been unable to pass the place where the stones had fallen. So Kamal had squeezed through and passed the objects out one by one. Some were wrapped in strange bags, which had torn and crumbled when picked up, leaving a cloud of dust and a dry, choking smell. At one point, after groping around the dishevelled bits of animal skin, he had let out a scream; his fingers had strayed into the powdery eye sockets of a skull. A human skull. His father had reassured him though, by explaining that the soul had long since departed; nevertheless, he did not like to think of the empty hollows where once there had been the eyes of a man. Fortunately there had been no other bones and soon the cave was empty apart from the skull and the disintegrating leather bags.
      In the evening, before he went to bed, his father had told him the story of the skull in the forest, making him promise not to tell anyone about the cave or of what they had done that day. The next morning they had left early and had come here to this courtyard. He knew there was a connection between the story, the events of the last two days and their coming here, but he did not know what to make of it.
      One and a half times its value in weight Muhammad thought. Old silver was a risky business, he would say. A silver-smith would pay the scrap value and melt it down straight away; while the authorities would only confiscate it, giving him nothing but trouble: digging up his land, attracting tourists and probably building a museum as well. For his part, he would be taking the risk; the fines for exporting antiquities without a license could be crippling, or daunting, if translated into years in prison.
      Trying to sound knowledgeable, Muhammad asked the farmer to describe the pieces in more detail. Even if he ended up paying two or three times the scrap value, it would not matter. Muhammad listened impassively but was inwardly reeling with shock as, for the second time that month, he was told of lions, unicorns, griffins and strange dragons. Could this be what the Englishman was looking for? The farmer was describing the interlaced forms of the lions and unicorns that decorated the base of a chalice. How could he know about it? Or if he did know about it and had come all this way to look for it; then it must be important.
      "And on another there are the contorted bodies of men stricken with terrible afflictions," but Muhammad was no longer listening, he was recalling the Englishman's description, "which do face each other and fight, as is decreed, over a Crown Royal in Base."
      "Is there a crown?" he asked.
      "A crown?" The farmer was puzzled.
      "Yes," Muhammad said, returning to his senses, "You should look for a crown."

With the sore burden of that preshous weight
They iorneyed long threw the Palatinate,
In the desert they chose hir tyme to bide
And dyde hir tresour in a cauern hide.

Sone aftir the counsailers were ther found
And in a dungeon were for racoun bownd,
Yit thogh hir welth lay not far a-weye
Wher hit watz i-hidden they wolde not saie.

In sted these right straunge vers to Rhodes were sent
So few coude see whatte watz therin i-ment,
For in these rydels that here are i-posed
A menes of rescowe watz for hem disclosed.

 

Eastern Promise

His second desert excursion. He felt he was beginning to understand it: the stillness and the heat, the majestic silence. Here everything except sand was transitory; even the rocks had no other destiny than to one day crumble and be amalgamated into the anonymous dunes.
      What was he doing here, in this limbo, where time once passed, stood still? He recalled the cry of the vulture circling over the extruded emptiness. There was the essence of what he was seeking; there, the nameless terror of Adam after the gates of paradise had closed behind him and the weight of loneliness had descended. It was the confrontation with such naked truths which he sought; that his spirit might be rejuvinated and strengthened. Here on such desolate plains, it had all started and from this well of human origins, he would emerge, reborn and stronger than the harsh realities which crushed weaker souls.
      Being of the opinion that books and libraries were the memory of the world, where the Zeitgeist deposited the testaments of its changing moods - for him, deserts, jungles and the arctic regions were its subconscious, containing lost secrets and the memories of a time before writing. Such regions were the repositories of a knowledge that could only be won at a price; if not the price of hardship and suffering (for he had to admit he was not having too much of that), then it was years of preparation and apprenticeship that enabled men to tap from such eternal sources. Only so, he believed, could the claustrophobic longings of western man be remedied and ancient truths rediscovered. His own qualifications for this quest lay in the fields of literature and philosophy. Versed in a language that freed objects from the burden of self-identity and spared landscapes the tyranny of perspective, he was truly prepared to understand the poetry of the desert. By him the meanings of the purple shadows would be deciphered as they crept over the dusk at sunset. Amid the soothing fragrances of rooftop gardens he would sit beneath reddening skies; while before him, the ritual of evening would unfold. It would be then that the alleyways and keyholes would confide in him their secrets, revealing the mysteries they had held through the heat of the day.
      In this land of melancholy everything was elusive, was not quite what it was but was always hinting at something larger, something greater. Even Sahir was like that, referring to things as if they were part of some hidden mystery into which he was not yet ripe enough to be initiated. "Hazirin," she called him. On being asked why, she had asked for a piece of paper and something to write with.
      "It is writing that connects the visible world with the invisible one," she had explained; then on the back of his visiting card, she had written:

      "See! Its a magic bird, who is eating some grain that people have laid at his feet. He's very proud of his grain he is, like you are with me!" They had laughed and he had blushed. "One day I will tell you the story of Hazirin," she had added before slipping away.
      Since then however, their meetings had taken on the aspect of a clandestine adventure, enhanced by her glancing around distractedly, looking for someone or looking to see who was looking at them. Suddenly she might announce, "I must go now," and abandon him. Or, despite having promised to see him the next evening, days would then go by when their only contact would be fugitive glances snipped from amid the ambience of the bar's hubbub. "There are things you cannot understand," she would say by way of explanation, or, "You must be patient."
      Although he was prepared for the fact that she might be Muhammad's mistress, something told him that she was not and it was not without the flutterings of expectation that he would set off on his nightly outings. The limitations on her freedom, and her elusive statements, were probably due to the ambiguity of her position as an unmarried woman, he had decided. Nevertheless, the question still remained, did she have lovers? Or was she in a position to have them? In any case, she seemed to be more than just flattered by his attentions, and he had begun to wonder when the fabled tales which were entwining them, were going to lead to the intertwining of arms and legs. He thought of the bird she had drawn and of the cry of the vulture in the desert. Would he, after drinking his fill of the lifeless sands, then bathe in the forbidden waters of her sensuality?

[Translation]

 

Struthio Camelus Syriacus

Kamal tugged at the hand that clasped his own. Father and son were walking through the streets. They had come to the market and the son was excitedly trying to take in as much as possible; wanting to go into this shop, that store, wanting to touch the fruit and smell the spices. The market was drawing to a close, the stall-holders casually tidying their unsold wares away, folding up their tables and stacking crates and boxes into the recesses of their shops. Kamel was the only source of energetic activity, straining at his father's hand as he gaped at the carcasses hanging outside the butcher's, then stared at the fish lying in rows on the fishmonger's table.
      "Tell me what he told you that first evening. I want to know everything this time - you've been keeping things from me." Sahir lowered her eyes and hoped that by chance she would stumble on whatever it was Muhammad wanted to know. From what she could remember, she had told him everything.
      "He told me of a song and of a magical land where the natural order is reversed and nothing is what it seems."
      "And the song, what brought that up?"
      "I don't know," Sahir replied, "He just suddenly started singing it."
      "What was it about?"
      "It was about a lion fighting a unicorn. He only sang a bit of it. Then he told of the land were the lion and the unicorn come from, the magical land. He said there were dragons and winged lions and that there, ostriches eat iron and stone. It's as if he's looking for this land and thinks he'll find it here."
      "And what did he say about the crown?"
      "The lion and the unicorn were fighting over one in the song, though I didn't understand all of it."
      "And you didn't think to ask!" Muhammad retorted sharply. Sahir bowed her head and waited for his spell of annoyance to pass. "Didn't he give any clue as to where it might be?"
      "In the land he described, at the place where the lion and the unicorn fight." Muhammad sighed.
      "He's looking for the crown," he said slowly, exasperated at her lack of comprehension. "The creatures he described to you exist because they were made by a silver-smith a long time ago." Sahir raised her eyes, and they looked at each other. Muhammad's patience was returning. "The farmer who was here this afternoon has found them. He wants to sell them to me. Everything the Englishman told you about is there, chased in silver. He knows about it. Yesterday he was in the area where the things were found. The only thing is that the crown is missing - all they found was the silver and a skull. He must know something about it. Didn't he say anything else?"
      "He said it was a royal crown."
      "Then it's gold, with diamonds, rubies, sapphires ..." And he winked, as was his custom when alluding to bounteous wealth. Sahir felt the Englishman's fate begin to weigh upon her shoulders. From the very first he had made Muhammad jealous; but now he was getting into real difficulties. How could she convince Muhammad that "Haziran" was just a poet, living in a world of his own? Maybe in a few days' time. At the moment it was impossible.
      "Find out as much as you can," Muhammad concluded. "You know what you're looking for now," and with that he nodded, intimating that she could gather up the tea things and proceed down the steps.
      Once Muhammad had got an idea into his head, it was usually difficult to get rid of. Already the Englishman's mannerisms were to him signs of arrogance and aloofness. Now his love of the fantastic was being confused with a quest that threatened Muhammad's own interests. Would it ever be possible for him to grasp the fact that "Haziran" was not looking for material wealth? He loved knowledge for its own sake and this alone put him in a world apart from Muhammad and his smuggling cartels. But even if she did succeed in clearing up these misunderstandings, there would always remain the initial jealousy and fear; the jealousy of the Englishman's wealth and appeal, and the fear that he might indeed take his dancer away. Sahir gave an inward sigh. A life accompanying Haziran on his travels? She smiled at the thought. Would he dress her in western clothes and teach her to read from the books in his travelling library?
      Muhammad picked up the book they had found in the Englishman's room. A small volume, bound in leather, embossed on the front of which was a gilded emblem, the worn gold suggesting a succession of owners and the passing of many hands.

      Muhammad thumbed through the pages of rhyming couplets.

Of a feerful yvel thou shuldst beware
A wyngèd hed that thryfes on humayne fare,
Crepulyng al thos who folwen hir trail
And not levyng ony to tel the tale.

But if thou dost were the charme as a broach
Upon yow hir yvel will not encroach,
So seketh thou who hath the magyk seel
And seuenfold shal we rewarde thy zeal.

Threw fuyre and smoke thou most iourney a-lone
Defyng the pouer of iren and stone,
An ostrich who leeves hire eggs in the sonne
So shuldst thou be if to vs you will come.

 

The Seal

According to the "Shams al-ma' arif", al-Buni's major work, the seal is the highest name of God, "the beautiful name", to which, if summoned therewith, he answers. After discussing other names of God, al-Buni concludes that, "nevertheless, the seven first mentioned are as the highest seven letter name, famous because it proclaims good wherever it is declared. It is also said that it announces a judgment, that we will, if God -the sublime- wills, also transact".
      In his analysis of the seal, it is argued by Dr. Heinrich Winkler ("Siegel und Charaktere in der mohammedanischen Zauberei"), that the star derives from the Arabic letter "Ha", the last letter of the word "Allah". The letter "Ha", when written by itself, is written as something approaching a circle (): and indeed, the oldest occurrences of the seal (that predate the Shams al-ma' arif), have as the first sign, a circle. In Arabic, "" also designates the number five, and so Dr. Winkler argues, the circle representing the "Ha", soon became a five-pointed star, which in turn was sometimes drawn with six points. "O, Allah, I call you with the Ha of your highest name," al-Buni writes.
      The signs of the highest name are drawn from the Torah, the Evangelium and the Koran, and so Dr. Winkler suggests that the three staffs and the lance are an abstract representation of such formulas as:

or

designating three foreign letters joined by a horizontal line; while also being a symbol for the duality of Creation, which is unified by the all encompassing unity of God, this being a recurring theme in mystical tractates. Such formulas were widespread in the Arab world at that time, especially in Syria; while echoes of such interpretations are to be found in the later work of the magician al-Tilimsani.
      Similarly, Dr. Winkler traces the last two signs of the seal to the "Alpha" and "Omega" of Revelations. For, although in the poem, they are said to be a "Ha" and a "Waw", and thus remind one of the huwa (the term by which God is sometimes referred to in the Koran): nevertheless it is clear from the way they are described, that these signs mean more than simply the letters of this name. "Ah" and "Ha" are not so far removed from one another phonetically and visually an "a" can easily become a "" or "" (the form of a "Ha" when it begins a word); while it is not difficult for an "w" to become a "", when the last two points are joined together. Again in Syria, there are examples of the occurrence of these symbols:

and from Tabarca in North Africa, there is even the example,

That in the poem the "Ha" is described as "split", we can now understand as meaning that it is not a literal "Ha" that is being referred to (and not therefore the "Ha" of Allah or of huwa), but is rather a "Ha" in the visual sense of "a".
      Of the silent "Mim" and of the ladder, which al-Buni tells us, is not a ladder, Dr. Winkler can find no meaning. His interpretation of the four vertical lines, is however, of major importance for us. These, he sees as representing the Tetragrammaton of the Old Testament, the four lettered name of God,, which it is forbidden to utter in profane circles. In Hebrew this is called "ha shem", the name, or more commonly, "Shem ha-mephorash", the explicit name. It is not difficult to imagine this as having been shortened by the Muslims to Shemhoras, Shamhurras, Shamhurris, Shahmurras. Shamhurras, is one of the seven planet-demons, and is ruler and judge over the Djinn; while in the Cabbala, the Tetragrammaton is associated not only with the triumph and victory of the Lord of Lords, but also with the eternity and righteousness of the punishing Divinity. This symbol therefore has the double function of summoning both God and Shamhurras, so that, as al-Buni says, wherever it is declared, the seal brings righteousness.
      Had the guilty councillor explained this to his colleagues, or had he chosen to remain silent, hoping against hope, that fate might somehow deviate from the course imparted by the seal? He could hardly have shared his fears though. Had it not been he who had persuaded the counsellors that the young knight was the one responsible for the fiend's manifestation in the physical world? They had praised his cunning in springing the trap and sending the necrophiliac into the ambush. And who had said that they should wear the magic seal as a protection against this evil creation, dressing it with Christian interpretations?

From the hous of David a Kyng has come
To be perssit bi the nayles thre, launce oone,
And thogh hijs ceptre watz but a reed
With this ledder he dyde hijs throne succede.

Four lettres mokkynge him in cruel geste
A sponge of wyne hastynyng our biqueste,
For thogh the scythe of Deth neuer doth fayle
Yet do we reteyne hijs liffand grayle.

He could not tell them to discard the charm - not without revealing the truth of his misdemeanours. And if he did confess, he knew that as soon as they were free, his comrades would not hesitate in carrying out the retribution that was his due. Whether he remained silent or not, either way the seal was set to turn against him. All the wicked councillor could do then, was wait with the others, clinging desperately to the hope that nothing would befall the one who was to deliver them. And yet all the time he knew that their rescuer would be journeying towards them under the protection of the seal, the seal of which al-Buni had said would one day pronounce a judgment, a judgment that would balance justice with truth, combining them in measures of perfect equality, like the feathers of the ostrich, which are all of an equal length. Like Macbeth, the councellor could feel the world of the magician's signs closing in on him, and he silently cursed whatever it was that had made his colleagues use the image of the ostrich in their letters to Rhodes.

 

That evening his patience was rewarded. "Haziran was a magic bird," he heard her saying, her dark eyes looking down upon him through the quivering strands of the bead curtain. "Who came from far away ... ." She pushed them aside and sat herself down beside him.
      "After many days of travel, through the heat of deserts and the rough terrains of mountains and over vast expanses of open sea, he (Haziran) arrived, tired and hungry, at a village. He perched himself on the branch of a thorn tree, a short distance from the first houses and waited, his golden feathers shining in the late afternoon sun. The children were the first to notice him and rushed to fetch their mothers, who in turn told their husbands when they came home that evening.
      The next day, the whole village gathered to watch the beautiful bird that strutted about so proudly, "Ko-daak! Ko-daak!" he squawked, for he was hungry. Everyone agreed that it was a magic bird and that he was very beautiful; but there was not complete agreement among the men as to what should be done about their guest. Some said that they should feed the bird and encourage him to stay for, being a magic bird, he would surely ward off the influence of any evil djinns that might come to the village. Others protested at this waste of grain, saying that the words of the Koran were enough to keep the village protected from the evil influence of the djinn. "Go back! Go back!" they shouted angrily in response to Haziran's impatient call for food.
      The holy man of the village was consulted but he only remarked that in order to repeat sacred verses it was first necessary to know them, which, in these lax times, was not always something that could be counted on. The old men of the village were equally undecided, observing that if it were really a magic bird, then it would be perfectly capable of looking after itself; while, on the other hand, it was a sin not to give alms to the needy, and bad manners to refuse hospitality to a guest. Finally, it was decided that the bird should be made welcome for as long as it wished to stay, for it was after all a magic bird and, being a magic bird, it would certainly have the good sense not to outstay its welcome or impose an unnecessary burden on the village.
      This decision greatly pleased the children, who delighted in chasing through the streets after the bird that flapped, using just a few beats of its wings, from one rooftop to another while they, the children, had to run around corners and along alleyways, often having to double back as they found their path blocked by inopportune conglomerations of houses; and all this simply in order to arrive, puffing and panting, beneath the bird's newly chosen perch. They would point up to him excitedly as he paused to survey the rooftops and pick out his subsequent point of rest; then he would spread his wings and the chase would begin again.
      The decision to feed the bird also pleased the women of the village, who felt reassured when they heard the familiar "Ploof!" followed by scaley footsteps, as he landed on the roofs of their homes, his continued presence warding off any evil influences for yet another day. "Haziran" they called him, for this was the month in which he had come to them; and it was from this month on that they were to be protected from the wiles of the evil one.
      And so everyone seemed to be happy, or at least nearly everyone. For of course there were still those who objected that, as the bird did nothing that the villagers could not do themselves, they would do well to be rid of it; thereby saving grain, and probably God's blessings as well. At first this line of argument did not find any more popularity than when the bird had first arrived; but as it became noticeable that Haziran was getting fatter and fatter, and demanding more and more grain, so this line of reasoning was heard more and more often. Until, with the threat of a long, hard winter ahead of them, the young men of the village decided that it was time for "Haziran" to go. Gathering sticks and stones, they ran through the village looking for the bird; but he was nowhere to be seen. The old men laughed cynically in agreement with one another, saying that the bird had probably known what was coming and had already moved on to reap the good will of other horizons."
      With this rather abrupt ending Sahir concluded her tale, leaving the Englishman entrenched in his enclave, to grapple with the question of whether or not there would be an epilogue to her narration.

For follwynge this long and daungerous cours
Will lede yow slowliche to the mystik sours,
The fontayn of al wisdam and poesie
The myhti sete of oure philosophie.

So taake now thine hed from oute of the sond
Thou who hast the key to the Promysed Lond,
For ryches and secrets await yow ther
Thif to ioyn vs thou doth oonly dair.

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Prologue | Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III | Chapter IV | References | Table of Contents