A Poet of the Invisible World (18 page)

Nouri closed his eyes and tried to press back the feeling of dread that rose from his gut. But he could not avoid the fact that he was stranded in a foreign land with no friends—no money—and an itch like a madman roiling beneath his skin.

 

PART FOUR

 

Fifteen

Despite the number of twists and turns he had to take, the sleeping dogs sprawled across narrow alleys, the rancid smells rising from sun-soaked courtyards, Nouri knew when he saw the slender man draped in the tiger skin and seated beside the pipes that he'd reached the place he'd been sent to find. The pipes—which were strewn across the steps that led to the curtained door—were of all shapes and sizes: long wooden tubes topped with circular bowls, elegant hookahs of knobbed silver, carved ivory wands that curled up to flirt with the smoke that issued from their mouths. Exposed to the harsh glare of the midday sun, they seemed tame and ornamental. But Nouri could tell, from the faraway look in the man's eyes, that they were conveyors of real magic.

After living in the windswept town for nearly a week with no relief from his itching, Nouri needed whatever magic he could find. When Soledad's father had abandoned him on the beach, he'd just stood there, staring at the sea. When he finally turned back to the land, he was overwhelmed by the activity: the fishermen untangling their brightly colored nets, the women carrying large woven baskets on their heads, the men grilling fish in open pits that smoked like the portals of hell. So he crossed the beach to a narrow shelf that was sheltered by a string of palms, lowered himself to the cool white sand, and sat staring at the horizon, where the world he knew lay smashed like a broken toy.

He sat there the whole day. And the next day. And the next. And he might have sat there until the life drained from his tormented body had a man with a thick beard and dressed in a dazzling blue robe not approached and held out a ripe, gleaming pear.

“Unless you're just a figment of my imagination—in which case I should be home in bed and not selling fruit in a moth-eaten tent on the beach—you must be as hungry as a fucking mule after sitting here, staring at the whore-loving sea, for the last three days.”

Nouri was so stunned by the man's florid speech—not to mention the fact that the entire thing was in Arabic—he could not say a word.

“Take it,” said the man, as he offered the pear. “Or I'll slice your head off and sell it as an exotic melon.”

Nouri reached for the pear, took a bite, and a stream of sweet juice trickled down his chin. Then, in a single gulp, he devoured the rest.

“As I see it,” said the man, “you have three choices. Either you get up and go back to where you came from—which I assume, from the way you look, is a journey you're in no condition to make—or you come with me. Which will at least prevent the mosquitoes from eating you alive.”

Nouri waited for the man to go on, but he said no more.

“That's only two choices.”

The man gazed at Nouri and shrugged. “Or I'll slice your head off and sell it as an exotic melon.”

Nouri tried to consider the options. But he knew that returning to where he'd come from was not a choice. And despite the relentless nagging of his thoughts, he still valued his head. So he rose and shook the sand from his clothes.

“Lead the way.”

The man nodded. Then he started across the beach and Nouri, still light-headed and confused, did his best to follow behind. As they made their way through the crowded streets, he learned that the fellow's name was Sayid, that he'd spent his whole life in the bustling city, that he'd tried selling spices and leather before he'd settled on fruit, that he'd been with over three dozen women, that he could spit farther than any man he'd ever met, and that Nouri was welcome to stay with him until he figured out what to do next. Nouri had never heard anyone talk so much. One sentence flowed into the next until he was swept away on a torrent of sound. But he was tired, and hungry, so he let the fellow jabber away as he led him on.

When they reached Sayid's room—which was stuffed with books and jars and rugs and hides—there did not seem to be enough room for Sayid, let alone for Sayid and himself.

“There's a pump in the alley for water,” said Sayid. “And a place to shit. As for food, you can help yourself to whatever I have. Which isn't much. But then life can be lived on quite little, if you know what you like.”

Nouri was too dazed to respond, so Sayid took a broom, thumped the thin straw mattress that lay on the floor a few times, and told him to lie down.

“Sleep!” he cried. “The elixir of Allah!”

Nouri removed his shoes and added them to the clutter. Then he crawled onto the lumpy bed and fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, Sayid presented him with a mouthwatering
tagine
—laden with lamb, dotted with prunes, drenched in a sweet cinnamon sauce—which Nouri wolfed down. Then he took him out on a tour of the humming city. It was filled, he explained, with a hodgepodge of contradictions. Christians and Muslims. Tradesmen and clerics. Crusaders and pirates. Its bright face was as shining as its dark, hidden underbelly was grim.

“There's nothing you can't find here,” said Sayid. “And if you do think of something you can't find, there's always someone who'll venture off to where you can and bring it back.”

Nouri was amazed by the place: even the great city of Tan-Arzhan seemed lifeless by comparison. So when Sayid returned to the beach to sell his melons and pears and tangerines, Nouri continued on along the footpaths and through the alleys and the courtyards, intrigued by the fair-haired Berbers, the scholars dressed in their crisp black gowns, the long-masted galleys that towered like gray-haired wolves above the wharves. But though everything he saw filled him with wonder, he still felt as if a battle were occurring beneath his skin. So since Sayid had insisted that one could find anything in the clamorous city, he went down to the beach to inquire where he could find something to remove his itching.

When he reached the tent where Sayid hawked his fruit, the loquacious fellow was filling a small basket with kumquats. When Nouri told him about his itch, he just stood there a moment, stroking his black beard.

“There's a woman across the way who sells salves. And there's a man who lives near the countinghouse who can put people into a trance.” He waved his hand over a basket of ripe figs to scatter the flies. “But if you want my opinion, neither of these things amounts to a pile of cat puke.”

“Well, there has to be something.”

Sayid narrowed his eyes. “I guess it depends on how badly you want to escape your pain.”

“Badly,” said Nouri. “Very badly.”

Sayid was silent. Then he reached for an apple, threw it up high into the air, drew his sword, and as it tumbled back down toward the ground, sliced it in two, catching both halves with his other hand. Then he slipped the sword back into his belt and offered one of the halves to Nouri.

“Then I've got just the thing for you.”

That was when he told Nouri about Abdallah, who with a few draws from one of his pipes would make Nouri's itching go up in smoke. So Nouri followed the path that Sayid had described through the maze of streets until he arrived at the place where he stood now.

“Sayid sent me,” said Nouri. “He said to tell you that you should give me a ‘first-class passage.'”

The man draped in the tiger skin looked up. Then he rose to his feet and began to climb the crumbling steps, and Nouri followed behind. When they reached the top, the man drew the curtain aside and they entered a dark room. Nouri saw that he was in a narrow cell with no windows, the only light the flickering flames from a series of oil lamps that were scattered across the floor. Beside each lamp lay a man sprawled on a worn-out rug, sucking at the end of a slender pipe topped with a bowl that he held, inverted, over the flame. The tiger man—who by now Nouri assumed must be Abdallah—gestured to Nouri to take his place on one of the empty rugs. So he lay down beside a vacant lamp and waited to be shown what to do.

The man shuffled off to the far side of the room. Then he returned to Nouri with one of the long, lovely pipes. He opened the lid and placed a small pealike bundle in the bowl; then he replaced the lid, turned it over, and lowered it over the flame. Nouri watched as the heat rose in wavering plumes from the small glass chimney and warmed the contents of the bowl. Then the man handed the pipe to Nouri and nodded.

“Breathe!”

Nouri slithered close to the lamp, slipped the pipe between his lips, and drew in not smoke but a warm stream of vapor. Its taste was so acrid he wanted to pull the pipe from his mouth. But he decided that if the others could bear it, its reward must be great. So he persisted. Until at last his body relaxed, and his head grew light, and a sweet euphoria swept over him and carried him away.

*   *   *

THE BARGE WAS VAST,
and tipped with gold, and floated, cloudlike, over the vermilion water. Nouri lay back on one of the cushions that were strewn across the deck and gazed out at the men washing their camels along the shore, the glittering domes of the mosques, the round ships and cogs and
feluccas
taking their turns in the afternoon light. He felt weightless. Blissful. Without a care in the world. So he was unprepared when the deck suddenly lurched and he bolted forward as something—a schooner?—a whale?—struck the side of the barge.

“You can't just lie there all day, my indulgent friend! For the sake of Allah, it's time to wake up!”

Nouri opened his eyes and gazed at the smoke-stained ceiling. He was not on a satin cushion on a golden barge on a silver sea. He was in Sayid's room and it was neither a whale nor a schooner that had disturbed his calm but a sharp kick from Sayid's foot.

“No one understands the lure of Abdallah's pipes better than me. But you have to crawl out of the fog now and then. You have to eat. You have to piss.” He gave Nouri another kick. “And you have to work! Do you think such delicious visions come free?”

It had been two weeks since Nouri had first gone to the windowless room and inhaled the transporting vapors. And the pleasure he felt was so sublime—no itching—no sorrow—and a palpable muting of the sounds that assaulted his ears—that he returned each day until the narcotic fog enveloped him wherever he went. At night, he lay in Sayid's room, dreaming delicious dreams of the past: talking with Vishpar, laughing with Habbib, walking through the streets of Tan-Arzhan with Sheikh Bailiri. When he awoke, he stumbled off to Abdallah's and lay down with the pipe, never thinking about who was paying for his sweet escape. So despite the fact that Sayid's words came as something of a shock, he could only stare up from the sweaty mattress, not knowing what to say.

“Get up!” cried Sayid. He paused a moment and then gave Nouri a final whack.
“Now!”

Nouri attempted to raise himself from the bed, but he faltered. So Sayid went to the washbasin, lowered a cloth into the water, wrung it out, and brought it back to the bed. Nouri pressed it against his face and it dissolved a few outer layers of the fog. Then he went to the table, where Sayid fed him some dates and a bit of cheese.

“The woman who runs the local laundry,” said Sayid, “is in need of help. It's a stinking place. I can promise you that. But as far as I can tell, you're in no position to be choosy.”

Nouri couldn't argue. So Sayid rose from the table. “Come,” he said. “Before you float back into the clouds.”

Sayid led Nouri into the street. Then they moved through a series of shadowed passageways until they came to an open doorway that belched great billows of steam. When they entered, Nouri found himself in an airless room hung with caftans and bedsheets and turbans, all dripping in the filmy air. Sayid looked around the room and, when he found no one there, cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted:

“Shoh-reh! My speckled quail egg! It's Sayid!”

There was a momentary silence. Then a large woman, dressed in a tentlike shift, her face damp with sweat, strode into the room. “I've no time for fucking, Sayid! I've got too much work!”

“I'm not here to fuck. I'm here to introduce you to a friend.”

The woman looked at Nouri, a bead of moisture dangling from one of her chins. “For him, I suppose I can find the time.”

Sayid shook his head. “He's not here to fuck either. He's here because he needs a job.”

The light in the woman's dun-colored eyes went out. “I need help with the stirring,” she said. “And the wringing. And the hanging.” She drew a rag from one of the folds of her voluminous shift and wiped it across her brow. “You can start now.” Then she turned and vanished into the sea of clothes.

Nouri stood there frozen. So Sayid gave him a shove. “Get going!” he cried. “There are worse ways to pay for a journey to the stars!”

Nouri closed his eyes. The room was dank, and foul smelling, but then he remembered the bliss that awaited him at Abdallah's. So he took a deep breath and headed off into the haze.

*   *   *

WORKING AT SHOHREH'S LAUNDRY
was much harder than Nouri had expected. From the moment he arrived each day, just as the sun was coming up, until he staggered out, as it was setting, there was an endless list of things to be done. Once Shohreh had taught him the various tasks, she left him to tend to them on his own. As soon as he finished one stack of fetid clothes, however, the next would appear. By the end of the first week, his skin was raw, his hands were blistered, his back was knotted and sore. But the coins that Shohreh gave him at the end of the day felt smooth and cool in his pocket. And when he handed them to Abdallah and he handed Nouri the pipe, all thoughts of the grueling labor drifted away.

Day after day, Nouri shuttled between the laundry and the smoke-filled den: in the former, enveloped in clouds of steam; in the latter, in clouds of forgetting. The streets became a tunnel he floated through, the people he passed vague phantoms, Sayid a blur at the edges of sleep. At times, the fog in his head was so thick he could not find his way back home. At other times, his mind was so clear it was as if the rest of his life had been immersed in fog. He still slept at night, but as the weeks passed, his dreams began to sour. Instead of sweet memories of his days in Tan-Arzhan, he saw Habbib, tied to a wagon, being dragged through the streets, Soledad tending a flock of bloody sheep, Vishpar and Fortes making love. So despite the fact that the sweet vapors of Abdallah's pipes were able to relieve his itching, they could not take away his pain.