In Arabian Nights (25 page)

'To be a part of something very real and very ancient,' I said.

After their bath, I dried them and got them ready for bed.

Ariane put her hand on mine.

'I know you are worried,' she said.

'About what?'

'About finding your story.'

I kissed her head.

She pulled on my shirt until my face was level with hers.

'I already know what story is in my heart,' she said. 'The one
about the lion and the water.'

Before turning out the light, I read them the story of 'The
Lion Who Saw Himself in the Water', a teaching tale that my
father had told me, and fathers have been telling children at bedtime
for a thousand years or more.

'Once upon a time long ago there was a lion called Sher. He
lived deep in the jungle and was the proudest lion who had ever
lived. He had a great mane of hair, long, long teeth and claws
that were as sharp as razors. All day he would prowl up and
down scaring the other animals, until they told him that he was
the bravest creature in the kingdom.

'One day it was very hot and all the animals went down to the
waterhole to drink. They drank and they drank, and they drank
and they drank, until they could drink no more. Sher the lion
had been preening himself, but at last felt that his tongue was
very dry. He strode down to the edge of the waterhole and
opened his mouth to drink. But just before his tongue touched
the water, he saw a terrifying lion looking back at him, its mouth
open wide in a growl. Sher the lion jumped back in fear and ran
into the jungle to hide. The other animals wondered what was
the matter.

'One day passed, and then another, and the summer heat grew
worse. Sher the lion became thirstier and thirstier, until he could
stand it no more. He walked down to the waterhole once again,
and opened his mouth wide to drink. The lion was there as
before, glaring at him angrily, roaring. But this time Sher was
too thirsty to care. He drank and he drank and he drank until he
could drink no more.'

The moral of the story of course is not to be afraid of what you
cannot understand. By the time I had finished reading, Ariane
and Timur were sound asleep.

They always fell asleep before the end.

At dawn the next day, the stork returned. The guardians
regarded it as a miracle and forced me out of bed to come and
see. The bird was sitting awkwardly on the nest, rearranging
itself, trying to get comfortable.

'She's happy,' said Osman under his breath. 'She'll stay here
now.'

'I wonder why she's chosen our roof,' I said.

Marwan cleared his throat.

'Dar Khalifa has
baraka
,' he said.

Explaining the idea of
baraka
is not easy. It's a notion found in
Islam, but must surely be pre-Islamic: the idea that a person,
creature or thing is blessed. The blessing runs so deeply that it
touches every cell, every atom, so that any association with that
thing extends the blessing on to you.

When we bought the Caliph's House, the guardians believed
it was inhabited by jinns. Their fear had been so great that they
almost never entered the actual house. The idea of living there
before the spirits had been expelled was almost too much for
them to bear. Not so much because of what the jinns would have
done to us, but what revenge they might have exacted upon
them.

But now that Dar Khalifa had been exorcized, the guardians
– and the people living in the shantytown – regarded it as a place
with
baraka
. The Bear hinted that the house may have always been blessed,
a possible explanation why the jinns had chosen it in the first place. When
the renovations were over, I would take pride if a visitor praised the work
we had done. Renovations were like frosting on a cake, fodder for the eyes.
Baraka
was something far deeper, something connected to the soul.

All the talk of the stork and
baraka
got me thinking about
Sukayna. There had been no chalk graffiti for a while, but I
wanted to use the lull to investigate the matter of the holy man
she had mentioned. I sent a message to the astrologer and the
next day there was a ring on the bell.

When I went to the front door, I found a queue of people
already there. It consisted of the three guardians, the two maids,
the gardener, and a blacksmith who was making some furniture
for us at the end of the garden. They had formed a reception
committee. Sukayna shook the men's hands and kissed the
women's cheeks. Amid much whispering, she stepped inside.

First, I showed her the so-called heart of the house, the
courtyard where the exorcists had sacrificed the goat. Sukayna
lit a candle and placed it on the floor. She moved very slowly,
touching her fingers over the plaster, absorbing the energy. I led
her through into the main courtyard, with a large room at either
end. It was the original section of the Caliph's House, which
would once have stood alone, far from the city of Casablanca.

Sukayna removed her slippers and walked barefoot. In her
clinic at the back of the mattress shop, she had struck me as a
calm person. But she seemed all the calmer the moment she
entered the courtyard garden. We had installed an elaborate
mosaic fountain on the far wall, which backed on to the shantytown.
The sight of the fountain with its dazzling colours, the
sound of water flowing into the pool, and the coolness of
the liquid touching the skin stirred the senses.

The astrologer stepped over, dipped her hand in the water,
closed her eyes and said: 'I am overwhelmed.'

'What do you feel?'

'The energy, the
baraka
.'

'How did the energy get here?'

'The saint,' she said. 'I can feel him.'

'Where?'

'In this garden, in the walls.'

We ambled down the narrow path to the far end, to the
room where the jinns were believed to have resided. As she
entered the room, which is now used for guests, Sukayna's
eyes widened. She touched the walls, opened her mouth a
crack, swallowed.

'What do you feel in here?'

'Good and evil met in this room,' she said.

'The exorcists battled the jinns in here for hours. They spilled
blood and they sucked the jinns from the walls.'

'I know,' said Sukayna. 'I can feel it.'

'Have the jinns gone?'

She nodded. 'There are no bad spirits now.'

I pointed out where the stairs went down, the great mystery
of the house. They ended nowhere, at a blank wall.

'Why are there stairs?'

Sukayna stepped down, running her hand along the wall. She
was concentrating very hard, her back muscles tight with
anticipation. On the last stair she lit another candle, held her
palms upwards in prayer and, after several minutes, touched the
three walls with both hands.

'Where do the steps lead?'

'I will tell you,' Sukayna replied.

She climbed the stairs and we sat in the garden courtyard, the
sound of water flowing behind. Sukayna wiped her eyes and
smiled.

'There was a holy man,' she said. 'He was travelling along the
coast, to a shrine in the north. As he neared Casablanca, a winter
storm hit. Waves as high as mountains, rain so heavy that it
could knock you down. The sage was drenched, freezing cold.
He was by himself with a donkey.'

'What did he do?'

'He looked for shelter. There were no houses, just the bare
shore, sand and waves. He staggered inland a little way and,
through the pouring rain, he saw a house, this house. He called
out, and the owner, the Caliph, welcomed him, gave him dry
clothes, food, warmth. He stayed here for several weeks.'

'When did this happen?'

'A long time ago, a hundred years or more.

'Before he left, he touched the house with his hand. It wasn't
the same as you or me touching something. It was far more
powerful. His touch transferred energy,
baraka
. You can feel it,
it's still here.'

'What about the stairs, though? Where do they lead?'

Sukayna stood up and led me back to the room.

'Do you see how high the ceiling is here?'

'Yes, it must be twenty feet.'

'Is there such a high ceiling anywhere else in the house?'

'No.'

'These steps do not go down to anywhere,' said Sukayna.

'Then why are they there?'

'They are a symbol,' she said.

'Of what?'

'Of our condition.'

'What?'

'Down there is what is below and up there is what is above.'

'But the ceiling is much further than the bottom of the stairs.'

'Heaven is much further than the fire of Hell,' said Sukayna.

'What about here in the middle, where we're standing?'

'This is the realm of men.'

The next evening, I went out to the front of the house because I
heard someone ringing the bell. I saw a boy running away fast
down the lane. Marwan was there yelling for the prankster to
leave us alone. I wished him a good evening. Just as I was turning
to go back into the house, he lowered his head.

'Monsieur Tahir, do you have a moment?'

'Yes, of course.'

'I want to show you something.'

'Yes, Marwan, what?'

The old carpenter stuck a hand in his pocket and rummaged
around. He pulled out a long nail with a kink in the middle.

'A nail?'

'Yes, a simple nail.'

'It looks a bit bent,' I said.

'It is.'

'Ah . . .'

The carpenter passed me the nail.

'When I was a young carpenter, this nail was new and shiny,'
he said. 'I took it from a bag of nails at my master's workshop
and I hammered it into a big piece of wood. I was inexperienced
and foolish. The nail bent over as I struck it with the hammer. I
pulled it out of the wood with pliers. As I did so, my master, a
great carpenter named Moualem Abdul Majid, came over. I
tried to hide the nail, but he saw me. He picked it up.

'"This nail is you, Marwan," he said. "It's shiny and goodlooking,
but it's got a fault running down the middle. We could
straighten it out and give it another chance, put it to some good.
Over time it would prove its worth, but there would always be
the twist in the middle, a reminder of a time when action came
before thought."

'The great master struck the back of my head with his hand.
"Put that nail in your pocket," he said, "and carry it with you
always, as a way of remembering this lesson. Whenever you find
yourself too full of pride, put your hand in your pocket and feel
the bend in the middle of the nail."'

'Marwan, how long have you carried the nail around with you?'

The old carpenter blinked.

'Since 1966,' he said.

Fatima never spoke about her life. I took it as a form of modesty,
blended with a cultural reticence to voice personal matters to a
man from outside the family. One morning a girl of about ten
arrived at the door. She asked for her sister.

'Who is your sister?'

'Her name is Fatima.'

The young maid ran out of the kitchen and a conversation in
whispers followed. The sisters hugged, then wept, and slipped
into Fatima's room. The little sister remained in there for a
week. We tried to coax her to come out and enjoy the space, but
she refused, as if the outside world drowned her in fear.

At last, after seven days and nights in Fatima's room, the girl
emerged. It was the first time I got a good look at her. She had
small wood-green eyes, jet-black hair running down her back,
and a long, slender neck leading to a delicate frame. On her left
cheek there was a gash about three inches in length, and on her
arm a terrible bruise. We asked what had happened. Fatima
didn't want to say. I sensed that talking would be betraying
family honour. But that night, after her little sister had gone
home, Fatima told her story to Rachana.

One night about five years before, her father had come home
and announced that he was taking a second wife. He had chosen
his bride, a girl of about eighteen, and set the wedding for
the following month. Once the festivities had taken place, the
younger bride moved into the minuscule family apartment. It
was then that the fragile status quo began to be rocked. The new
bride lavished the little they had in terms of communal funds on
visits to beauty parlours for herself. Rather than reining her in,
the father brokered a marriage for Fatima to a business contact.
The wedding took place, two days after Fatima had met her
groom for the first time. She settled down to married life. But
then, three weeks after the wedding, her father fell out with her
husband and ordered her to come home. Fatima was still
legally married, but was forbidden ever to contact her
husband.

'Surely you could contact him?' Rachana had asked.

'My father will beat me, just as he beat my little sister,' she
replied.

'Then, you should go to the police.'

Fatima's eyes widened at the thought.

'In Morocco, a family is closed. An outsider can never see in,'
she said. 'It is like a house without doors or windows.'

Early the following week, I received a telephone call out of the
blue. An Italian voice was on the other end. It was Señor Benito
from Tangier, the man who had sold me his edition of Burton's
Arabian Nights
.

'I am journeying to Casablanca,' he said.

'Please stay with us.'

'You are very kind.'

'Are you coming for work?'

'No, no, just to visit an old friend.'

The next day, a pair of well-loved Louis Vuitton cases were
lugged into the house by Marwan. Señor Benito followed them,
coutured as before in an immaculate off-white linen suit, a silk
handkerchief flowing from his top pocket. Over the suit he wore
on his shoulders a navy cashmere coat. He held my fingertips,
thanked us in advance for our hospitality and sat on the corner
of the sofa.