Ollie's Cloud (7 page)

This is another blow, another loss. Leaving everything behind. Everything! Can he really do this? Can he totally abandon his life?

“Ali!”

Yes, he can.

The kelauntar’s second wife hands him a peasant chador. He eyes it suspiciously.

“You must wear it, Ali,” she says. “They must think you are a girl if our plan is to work.”

The boy’s face flushes with embarrassment. The three women gather around him. Their warmth is comforting.

Giving him no to time to think, they slip the chador over his sleeping garments and push soft sandals toward him. Anisa also covers herself in a coarse chador.

“You must go now!” the second wife says, shoving them from the room and steering them into the garden. Struggling with the bags, the group slowly makes its way to the compound’s rear entrance. It takes all of them to lift the heavy crossbar that secures the unused door. With a heave, the door opens, creaking loudly.

Outside the gate is nothing but blackness.

“Where are they?” Anisa says. She is suddenly afraid that something has gone wrong. “They were supposed to be here.”

“It takes a little while to get here from the caravanserai,” the third wife explains. “If Allah wishes you to succeed, he will guide them to your door.”

For a moment they are quiet, listening. And then they hear the faint clop-clop of mules hooves. Anisa’ heart pounds faster as the sound grows louder. She prays it is not the night patrol.

An orange glow appears around the corner of the compound’s wall. Then another. Five, six, seven lanterns. More.

It is the caravan. Anisa tearfully embraces the other wives before they silently slip back into the compound, closing and bracing the door behind them.

Hidden beneath his chador, Ali feels both exhilarated by the adventure and humiliated by his costume. For the first time he is experiencing Persian life as a girl.

“Ali,” his mother says, “do not say a word to anyone. Remember, you are disguised. Don’t give it away.”

The caravan stops at the compound’s rear gate. The charvadar, Nasrullah, gestures to the tall woman seated on a mule behind him. The woman gets off her mule and walks to Anisa and Ali, approaching them closely.

“There are two mules beside mine, one for each of you,” she whispers to Anisa.

Ali recognizes the tall woman’s masculine voice.

“Gordon?” Ali says.

Anisa grabs Ali’s arm and squeezes hard, reminding him not to speak.

The tall woman turns to Ali and nods “yes,” she is Gordon.

Ali suddenly feels better about wearing the chador. Gordon has to wear one, too.

Gordon gestures for Nasrullah to get the women’s bags packed on the spare mules. It is not unusual for a woman to remain silent when dealing with men, particularly men she does not know.

Nasrullah and four others begin to tie the bags onto mules as Anisa and Ali climb onto their animals. At last the job is done. The caravan starts up, making its way for the main gate of Bushruyih. The spray of lantern light and gentle percussion of hooves in the quiet night makes this an eerie but tranquil escape—except for the rapid beating of three hearts.

Within ten minutes the caravan approaches the main gate, which is closed. The gatekeeper blinks off the fog of sleep and stares at the caravan. It’s unusual for a caravan to leave the city at this hour of the evening, but not unheard of.

“Where are you going?” he asks. Not an interrogation, just a question.

“To Mashhad. We prefer traveling in the cool of the evening.”

“Well, you have a moon tonight.”

The gatekeeper and four guards unbolt and open the large city gate, allowing the caravan to pass through into the desert.

Was it just this morning that Jalal and I were at the mulberry trees staring at the clouds?
Ali wonders.
What will my friend do when he finds me gone?
The finality of his decision suddenly becomes more vivid, more real. With each plodding step of his mule, Ali feels his heart being torn from his body. He begins to weep. At first silently, glad that the chador conceals his tears, then loudly and uncontrollably.

Anisa steers her mule closer to his, reaches out and takes his hand. To the men in the caravan, this weeping is just a young girl’s melancholy. The weaker sex.

Gordon is lost in thought. How he wishes they could gallop away on Arabian stallions at high speed, putting greater distance between themselves and the search party that the kelauntar surely will launch in the morning. But it is better this way. When the searchers inquire about an Englishman, no one will have seen him. A woman and a boy? No.

As planned, a mile from the Bushruyih gate, where the pale road splits north to Mashhad and south to Tabbas, the caravan turns south. The gatekeeper will say that the only travelers to leave the village were going to Mashhad.

But Gordon’s course is set for Tabbas, then on to Kirman and finally Bushire, the port city on the Persian Gulf. In Bushire they will board a steamer and begin a civilized journey to Bombay, where Gordon will collect the belongings he had left at the missionary station there, and then travel on to England. His home. The home of Anisa’s family.

Both he and Anisa are returning home at last.

Only Ali is leaving.

PART 2

London 1823

Chapter 1

Standing on the rough deck, Ali can make out a dark scuff that mars the otherwise featureless fog into which the Prince Regent sails. From the pointing fingers of passengers all around him, and the excited cries of
England! England!
, he knows that his voyage is almost over. Dressed in English clothes purchased for him in Bombay, he looks like an English child with a tan. His mother stands behind him, her frail arms wrapped snugly around his chest to protect him from the damp air.

His stomach groans and cramps. Anxiety of the unknown. Another encounter with strangeness.
What is this gray streak that stains the horizon just ahead? Where is the sun?
He feels as if he is descending into the first level of hell. The other stops on this journey were temporary interruptions in the flow of his life, but he is told that London is to be his permanent home. Here he will likely spend the rest of his life. Ali looks around, astonished at the expressions of joy on many of the passengers.

Ali remembers the Bushruyih sun and heat, his proud Arabian stallion, the dry desert wind in his face, his friend Jalal. His heart swells with loneliness and regret. He has abandoned everything—his life and dreams, his father, even his God—and he has done so willingly, a full partner in the crime. Weeks ago his life had been filled with purpose. But now there is no madrisih in his future. Never will he be revered by the pious and called
mulla
or
mujtahid
. Praying to Allah will bring only scorn from those who love him.

On each previous day of this tiresome trip, as the m
u’a
dhdh
in had called to prayer the Muslims on board, Ali had felt pulled to prostrate himself, plead for forgiveness, offer his life as a sacrifice for the unfoldment of the great plan of Muhammad. But each time such thoughts had intruded, the prayer that tortured him would mercifully end, its faint echo would finally dissolve into the sea, and with it Ali’s passion would fade, only to be replaced by feelings of guilt.
How could he harbor such an attachment to the Prophet?
After all, had not the Christians staked an earlier claim to God? Was not Muhammad an immoral and murderous power-monger who invented a counterfeit rival to the Christian God as false authority for his worldly aims?

Gordon’s daily English lessons had fully burdened Ali with the sin of Adam, condemned him to eternal damnation, then washed him in the saving blood of Christ. Ali could neither wholly discard his previous beliefs nor completely accept these new teachings. For Ali, the absolutes of Christian and Islamic Truth eventually have merged into a new reality in which there are two deities, God and Allah, siblings who refuse to acknowledge each other. God is the older brother but has grown tired and feeble after leading his people into many battles over thousands of years. Allah possesses the strength and vigor of youth but lacks the authority of His firstborn brother. God is angry; Allah is strict. God loves the Jews; Allah loves the Arabs and Persians. Jesus was God disguised as a man; Muhammad was the Word of God—the Qu’ran—disguised as a man. Jesus died to save mankind; Muhammad lived to lead mankind.

For Ali, the main difference between those who favor God and those who follow Allah seems to be dietary. Christians drink blood and eat small uncooked pieces of God, calling it “communion”; Muslims neither eat God nor pork. Whichever menu one chooses, the final reward is heaven. God’s heaven and Allah’s heaven are the same place with different amenities. Muslim martyrs, at least the men, are promised seventy-two virgins upon arrival; Christian martyrs either are promised none, or—as Ali suspects—are just too embarrassed to talk about it.

Everyone seems to be expecting a Messiah to appear. According to Mulla Ibrahim, the
Qa’im
would be appearing very soon to renew the world. All Muslims are excited by the prospect. According to Gordon, who also seems very excited, Jesus had died but would be “coming again” very soon to renew the world. The Jews, Gordon said, were still awaiting the first Messiah but remained hopeful that he would come soon.

Perhaps all of these Messiahs are one! What sense could there be in so many “Promised Ones” appearing so near in time?

Anisa pulls Ali closer. They are surrounded by the staccato chant of seagulls. Ali looks for them but can only see shadows gliding through the mist. He peers ahead at the dark scuff now gaining form. Walls are rising up from the dismal sea. Black smoke from giant columns horizontally billows into the air, darkening the already dim sky. Made gauzy by the fog, everything appears shadowy and nightmarish. Rain begins to pelt Ali’s forehead. A cold breeze makes him shiver. Surely they are entering the very pit of hell with the fire gone out.

The enormity of this place astonishes him. Compared to the flat, baked-mud houses of the port city of Bushire, the utter magnitude of man-made structure here is both breathtaking and terrifying. The ship moves inexorably toward the maw of this beast and it seems to Ali that the Prince Regent is being swallowed whole by London just as Jonah was inhaled greedily by the whale.

Through the fog Ali can see the busy signs of the port—moored barges rising with the tide, coasting traders wrinkling the water’s black surface, Glasgow and Aberdeen steamers unloading goods, skiffs and wherries dancing nervously about like water bugs. And from everywhere the unintelligible curses of coal-whippers and scullers, the hammering and sawing of shipbuilders, the angry grunt and growl of pumps and engines and capstans.

The Prince Regent turns toward the wharf, dodging corroded chain-cables and clanging buoys and threadbare hawsers, then scattering a soggy flotilla of wood chips and splintered baskets before carving through rippling coal scum. Before long the ship pours out its passengers, a kaleidoscopic stream of turbans, fezzes, top hats, veils, robes of all colors and waistcoats and girdled gowns.

Exiting the customs-house, Ali’s eyes are drawn to a horse-drawn coach with a tired mare and bent driver. The rain is coming down hard and the driver pulls his slouchy hat down further.

A woman’s hand extends from the carriage window and gestures abruptly.

Ali looks up at Gordon, who waves back at the woman.

“It’s her,” Gordon says.

It’s
who
? Ali is confused.

“I’m sure I won’t remember her,” Anisa says.

“Don’t worry, she remembers you,” Gordon says.

They slosh their way to the coach and the door magically opens, revealing a dark cavity. From outside, Ali cannot see anyone seated within. And then two firm hands grab him by the waist and hoist him through the doorway. Anisa climbs in beside him. Gordon speaks to the driver, explaining where to pick up the baggage, then pulls himself into the dry cabin with a grunt.

“London, just as I remember it.” With a gloved hand, Gordon brushes a pond’s worth of rain off his broad shoulders. Then, as if remembering his job, he turns to the woman seated next to him, an old woman who has captured the attention of Ali and Anisa. “Mrs. Chadwick, may I present to you Anisa, your granddaughter.”

The old woman extends her hand toward Anisa.

“Oh my!” Anisa sighs. “I was not expecting… I did not think I would be so overcome with emotion.” Anisa slowly reaches for the old woman’s hand, taking it gently.

Ali detects a false note in his mother’s tone, as if she had rehearsed this moment.

Mrs. Chadwick closes her bony fingers around the small white hand but remains silent.

Ali stares at this strange woman with a long, leathery face and a foamy spray of white hair that cushions a small dark hat. The woman’s cadaverous skin and splotchy, stringy neck make her look dead, except for her eyes. There is a spark in those heavy-lidded eyes that betrays life inside.

“And this is Ali, your great grandson,” Gordon continues.

Mrs. Chadwick releases Anisa’s hand and turns to Ali. Yes, the spark is there, fanned now into a glow.

“So this is the boy,” Mrs. Chadwick says.

Her voice is much lower than Ali had expected, raspy and labored. When she suddenly smiles, the shock of it forces Ali back into his seat. But there is something about the old woman’s smile that warms him in the chill of the cabin. He resists looking into her eyes again, fearing that the glow might woo him. He is not ready to be seduced into a relationship with someone he does not know.

Mrs. Chadwick reaches out to him, both hands freckled with liver spots and knotted with arthritis. As her arms tremble from the effort, Ali looks up at her and sees tears. They do not quench the spark in her eyes, but fuel it, intensifying the genuineness of her offering, her hands.

He does not know what a great grandmother is, or why this withered old woman has touched him emotionally, but he is overtaken by an exquisite sensation of release. He takes her hands. They are not cold, as he expected, but warm and generous. Her thumbs stroke the backs of his hands, stirring the cauldron of his emotions. And then Ali notices that he, too, has tears in his eyes and a hot, crampy ball in his chest. Suddenly he weeps. He weeps for the loss of his father and his friend, the warm familiarity of home, the heat and dust and mothers and sisters; he mourns the evil he has done and the good he has not, his betrayal of Allah, praise be unto him, and the corruption of his future; he cries because he does not know where he is or where he is going.

Mrs. Chadwick leans forward and puts her arms around Ali’s neck, presses her forehead against his. Ali feels as if his thoughts are now streaming directly into the old woman. And he awakens to new thoughts, perhaps hers, and they calm him.
There, there, the journey is done. You are with your family. Back where you belong.

The old woman backs away now, plucks a lacy handkerchief from her velvet handbag, and dries the boy’s eyes. “Ali, Ali,” she says, trying the name out on her tongue with a hard accent on the last syllable. “I think you should have a proper English name, now that you’re about to become a proper English gentleman. Oliver! Yes, Oliver.”

Gordon looks at Ali. “Oliver it is, then. We will call you
Ollie
. Not such a change, after all.”

“Ollie,” Anisa says softly. This is taken as agreement, but for Anisa is something else entirely; it is acknowledgement of her sacrifice, for she knows that she has lost her son to England and Mrs. Chadwick.