The Book of Khalid (10 page)

FROM THE HOUSE OF LAW THE DERVISH KHALID wends his way to that of science, and from the house of science he passes on to that of metaphysics. His staff in hand, his wallet hung on his shoulder, his silver cigarette case in his pocket, patient, confident, content, he makes his way from one place to another. Unlike his brother dervishes, he is clean and proud of it, too. He knocks at this or that door, makes his wish known to the servant or the mistress, takes the crumbs given him, and not infrequently gives his prod to the dogs. In the vestibule of one of the houses of spiritism, he tarries a spell and parleys with the servant. The Mistress, a fair-looking, fair-spoken dame of seven lustrums or more, issues suddenly from her studio, in a curiously designed black velvet dressing-gown; she is drawn to the door by the accent of the foreigner’s speech and the peculiar cadence of his voice. They meet: and magnetic currents from his dark eyes and her eyes of blue, flow and fuse. They speak: and the lady asks the stranger if he would not serve instead of begging. And he protests, “I am a Dervish at the door of Allah.” “And I am a Spirit in Allah’s house,” she rejoins. They enter: and the parley in the vestibule is followed by a tête-à-tête in
the parlour and another in the dining-room. They agree: and the stranger is made a member of the Spiritual Household, which now consists of her and him, the Medium and the Dervish.

Now, this fair-spoken dame, who dotes on the occult and exotic, delights in the aroma of Khalid’s cigarettes and Khalid’s fancy. And that he might feel at ease, she begins by assuring him that they have met and communed many times ere now, that they have been friends under a preceding and long vanished embodiment. Which vagary Khalid seems to countenance by referring to the infinite power of Allah, in the compass of which nothing is impossible. And with these mystical circumlocutions of ceremony, they plunge into an intimacy which is bordered by the metaphysical on one side, and the physical on the other. For though the Medium is at the threshold of her climacteric, Khalid afterwards tells Shakib that there be something in her eyes and limbs which always seem to be waxing young. And of a truth, the American woman, of all others, knows best how to preserve her beauty from the ravages of sorrow and the years. That is why, we presume, in calling him, “child,” she does not permit him to call her, “mother.” Indeed, the Medium and the Dervish often jest, and somewhiles mix the frivolous with the mysterious.

We would still follow our Scribe here, were it not that his pruriency often reaches the edge. He speaks of “the
liaison
” with all the rude simplicity and frankness of the Arabian Nights. And though, as the Mohammedans say, “To the pure everything is pure,” and again, “Who quotes a heresy is not guilty of it”; nevertheless, we do not feel warranted in rending the veil of the reader’s prudery, no matter how transparent it might be. We believe, however, that the pruriency of
Orientals, like the prudery of Occidentals, is in fact only an appearance. On both sides there is a display of what might be called verbal virtue and verbal vice. And on both sides, the exaggerations are configured in a harmless pose. Be this as it may, we at least, shall withhold from Shakib’s lasciviousness the English dress it seeks at our hand.

We note, however, that Khalid now visits him in the cellar only when he craves a dish of
mojadderah
; that he and the Medium are absorbed in the contemplation of the Unseen, though not, perhaps, of the Impalpable; that they gallivant in the Parks, attend Bohemian dinners, and frequent the Don’t Worry Circles of Metaphysical Societies; that they make long expeditions together to the Platonic North-pole and back to the torrid regions of Swinburne; and that together they perform their
zikr
and drink at the same fountain of ecstasy and devotion. Withal, the Dervish, who now wears his hair long and grows his finger nails like a Brahmin, is beginning to have some manners.

The Medium, nevertheless, withholds from him the secret of her art. If he desires, he can attend the séances like every other stranger. Once Khalid, who would not leave anything unprobed, insisted, importuned; he could not see any reason for her conduct. Why should they not work together in Tiptology, as in Physiology and Metaphysics? And one morning, dervish-like, he wraps himself in his
aba
, and, calling upon Allah to witness, takes a rose from the vase on the table, angrily plucks its petals, and strews them on the carpet. Which portentous sign the Medium understands and hastens to minister her palliatives.

“No, Child, you shall not go,” she begs and supplicates; “listen to me, are we not together all the time? Why not leave me alone then with the spirits? One day you shall know all,
believe me. Come, sit here,” stroking her palm on her lap, “and listen. I shall give up this tiptology business very soon; you and I shall overturn the table. Yes, Child, I am on the point of succumbing under an awful something. So, don’t ask me about the spooks any more. Promise not to torment me thus any more. And one day we shall travel together in the Orient; we shall visit the ruins of vanished kingdoms and creeds. Ah, to be in Palmyra with you! Do you know, Child, I am destined to be a Beduin queen. The throne of Zenobia is mine, and yours too, if you will be good. We shall resuscitate the glory of the kingdom of the desert.”

To all of which Khalid acquiesces by referring as is his wont to the infinite wisdom of Allah, in whose all-seeing eye nothing is impossible.

And thus, apparently satisfied, he takes the cigarette which she had lighted for him, and lights for her another from his own. But the smoke of two cigarettes dispels not the threatening cloud; it only conceals it from view. For they dine together at a Bohemian Club that evening, where Khalid meets a woman of rare charms. And she invites him to her studio. The Medium, who is at first indifferent, finally warns her callow child. “That woman is a writer,” she explains, “and writers are always in search of what they call ‘copy.’ She in particular is a huntress of male curiosities,
originales
, whom she takes into her favour and ultimately surrenders them to the reading public. So be careful.” But Khalid hearkens not. For the writer, whom he afterwards calls a flighter, since she, too, “like the van of the brewer only skims the surface of things,” is, in fact, younger than the Medium. Ay, this woman is even beautiful—to behold, at least. So the Dervish, a captive of her charms, knocks at the door of her studio one evening and enters. Ah, this then is a studio! “I am destined
to know everything, and to see everything,” he says to himself, smiling in his heart.

The charming hostess, in a Japanese kimono receives him somewhat orientally, offering him the divan, which he occupies alone for a spell. He is then laden with a huge scrap-book containing press notices and reviews of her many novels. These, he is asked to go through while she prepares the tea. Which is a mortal task for the Dervish in the presence of the Enchantress. Alas, the tea is long in the making, and when the scrap-book is laid aside, she reinforces him with a lot of magazines adorned with stories of the short and long and middling size, from her fertile pen. “These are beautiful,” says he, in glancing over a few pages, “but no matter how you try, you can not with your pen surpass your own beauty. The charm of your literary style can not hold a candle to the charm of your—permit me to read your hand.” And laying down the magazine, he takes up her hand and presses it to his lips. In like manner, he tries to read somewhat in the face, but the Enchantress protests and smiles. In which case the smile renders the protest null and void.

Henceforth, the situation shall be trying even to the Dervish who can eat live coals. He oscillates for some while between the Medium and the Enchantress, but finds the effort rather straining. The first climax, however, is reached, and our Scribe thinks it too sad for words. He himself sheds a few rheums with the fair-looking, fair-spoken Dame, and dedicates to her a few rhymes. Her magnanimity, he tells us, is unexampled, and her fatalism pathetic. For when Khalid severs himself from the Spiritual Household, she kisses him thrice, saying, “Go, Child; Allah brought you to me, and Allah will bring you again.” Khalid refers, as usual, to the infinite wisdom of the Almighty, and, taking his handkerchief
from his pocket, wipes the tears that fell—from her eyes over his. He passes out of the vestibule, silent and sad, musing on the time he first stood there as a beggar.

Now, the horizon of the Enchantress is unobstructed. Khalid is there alone; and her free love can freely pass on from him to another. And such messages they exchange! Such evaporations of the insipidities of free love! Khalid again takes up with Shakib, from whom he does not conceal anything. The epistles are read by both, and sometimes replied to by both! And she, in an effort to seem Oriental, calls the Dervish, “My Syrian Rose,” “My Desert Flower,” “My Beduin Boy,” et cetera, always closing her message with either a strip of Syrian sky or a camel load of the narcissus. Ah, but not thus will the play close. True, Khalid alone adorns her studio for a time, or rather adores in it; he alone accompanies her to Bohemia. But the Dervish, who was always going wrong in Bohemia,—always at the door of the Devil,—ventures one night to escort another woman to her studio. Ah, those studios! The Enchantress on hearing of the crime lights the fire under her cauldron. “Double, double, toil and trouble!” She then goes to the telephone—g-r-r-r-r you swine—you Phoenician murex—she hangs up the receiver, and stirs the cauldron. “Double, double, toil and trouble!” But the Dervish writes her an extraordinary letter, in which we suspect the pen of our Scribe, and from which we can but transcribe the following:

“You found in me a vacant heart,” he pleads, “and you occupied it. The divan therein is yours, yours alone. Nor shall I ever permit a chance caller, an intruder, to exasperate you.… My breast is a stronghold in which you are well fortified. How then can any one disturb you? … How can I turn from myself
against myself? Somewhat of you, the best of you, circulates with my blood; you are my breath of life. How can I then overcome you? How can I turn to another for the sustenance which you alone can give? … If I be thirst personified, you are the living, flowing brook, the everlasting fountain. O for a drink—”

And here follows a hectic uprush about pearly breasts, and honey-sources, and musk-scented arbours, closing with “Your Beduin Boy shall come to-night.”

Notwithstanding which, the Enchantress abandons the Syrian Dwelling: she no longer fancies the vacant Divan of which Khalid speaks. Fortress or no fortress, she gives up occupation and withdraws from the foreigner her favour. Not only that; but the fire is crackling under the cauldron, and the typewriter begins to click. Ay, these modern witches can make even a typewriter dance around the fire and join in the chorus. “Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!” and the performance was transformed from the studio to the magazine supplement of one of the Sunday newspapers. There, the Dervish is thrown into the cauldron along with the magic herbs. Bubble—bubble. The fire-eating Dervish, how can he now swallow this double-tongued flame of hate and love? The Enchantress had wrought her spell, had ministered her poison. Now, where can he find an antidote, who can teach him a healing formula? Bruno D’Ast was once bewitched by a sorceress, and by causing her to be burned he was immediately cured. Ah, that Khalid could do this! Like an ordinary pamphlet he would consign the Enchantress to the flames, and her scrap-books and novels to boot. He does well, however, to return to his benevolent friend, the Medium. The spell can
be counteracted by another, though less potent. Ay, even witchcraft has its homeopathic remedies.

And the Medium, Shakib tells us, is delighted to welcome back her prodigal child. She opens to him her arms, and her heart; she slays the fatted calf. “I knew that Allah will bring you back to me,” she ejaculates; “my prevision is seldom wrong.” And kissing her hand, Khalid falters, “Forgiveness is for the sinner, and the good are for forgiveness.” Whereupon, they plunge again into the Unseen, and thence to Bohemia. The aftermath, however, does not come up to the expectations of the good Medium. For the rigmarole of the Enchantress about the Dervish in New York had already done its evil work. And—double—double—wherever the Dervish goes. Especially in Bohemia, where many of its daughters set their caps for him.

And here, he is neither shy nor slow nor visionary. Nor shall his theory of immanent morality trouble him for the while. Reality is met with reality on solid, though sometimes slippery, ground. His animalism, long leashed and starved, is eager for prey. His Phœnician passion is awake. And fortunately, Khalid finds himself in Bohemia where the poison and the antidote are frequently offered together. Here the spell of one sorceress can straightway be offset by that of her sister. And we have our Scribe’s word for it, that the Dervish went as far and as deep with the huris, as the doctors eventually would permit him. That is why, we believe, in commenting upon his adventures there, he often quotes the couplet,

The flies in his cup, however, can not be detected with the
naked eye. They are microbes rather—microbes which even the physicians can not manage with satisfaction. For it must be acknowledged that Khalid’s immanent morality and intel-lectualism suffered an interregnum with the huris. Reckless, thoughtless, heartless, he plunges headlong again. It is said in Al-Hadith that he who guards himself against the three cardinal evils, namely, of the tongue (
laklaka
), of the stomach (
kabkaba
), and of the sex (
zabzaba
), will have guarded himself against all evil. But Khalid reads not in the Hadith of the Prophet. And that he became audacious, edacious, and loquacious, is evident from such wit and flippancy as he here likes to display. “Some women,” says he, “might be likened to whiskey, others to seltzer water; and many are those who, like myself, care neither for the soda or the whiskey straight. A ‘high-ball’ I will have.”