The Honey Thief (28 page)

Jawad’s spirits, which had taken so long to return after his abandonment, now ebbed away. His good fortune seemed a worse affliction than ill fortune. Like his father and his mother the Woman Messiah, he asked himself if he could remain in Sangan where he was so scorned. He said, ‘I will go to the hills and live the life of a hermit.’ He could always use his nose to find water, and as for food, he would be content to live on beetles and grasshoppers.

*   *   *

He said goodbye to Baba Khadem and set off one morning carrying few possessions: a pot and a pan, a metal cup, a metal plate. He also took his pick and his spade, in case he should need to excavate a hole in the hillside in which to live. It was a mistake to take the pick and spade. Word quickly spread that the moon-worshipping son of the Woman Messiah was heading into the hills to dig for gold. All over Sangan, farmers and brick-makers and bakers and butchers chased after Jawad with picks and spades. Even the old men who loitered near the mosque polishing the boots of those at prayer threw their rags and shoe-black aside and hurried along the path taken by the fortunate young man. Whenever Jawad stopped for a rest, the crowd following him stopped and watched. When he spread his bedding on the ground and slept for the night, the crowd camped a short distance away, studying the poor fellow as a falcon in the sky studies the movement of a field mouse below. In the morning, Jawad could not even empty his bladder in private. It was thought that he might secretly cleave the earth with his pick and steal away with a sack full of gold.

In the hills on the afternoon of his second day of travelling, Jawad found a cave in which to take up his life as a hermit. He settled in the entrance with his legs crossed and prayed to the God of our faith for the crowd before him to go far away. He prayed with his eyes shut, but when he opened them again, a hundred people called in one voice: ‘Jawad, when will you dig for gold?’

Jawad replied, ‘Never! Go home!’

And the crowd cried out, ‘Jawad, when will you dig for topaz? When will you dig for green garnet?’

Nothing was left of Jawad’s smile, nothing was left of the laughter that he had once been known for. In his anger, he picked up a stone from the floor of the cave and threw it at the crowd, and then another stone, and another.

People in the crowd cried, ‘Aiee! He has gone mad!’ Then the baker of Sangan picked up one of the stones that Jawad had cast and peered at it closely.

‘
Lazhuward!
’ he shouted. ‘It is
lazhuward
that the moon-worshipper has found!’

‘
Lazhuward
’ is our Dari word for the stone known in English as lapis lazuli. But of course, Jawad had been seeking no such stone. He had only grasped what lay closest to him on the floor of the cave.

A stampede followed the baker’s words. Every man and woman in the crowd – and most shamefully, even some children – knocked Jawad aside in their haste to dig lapis lazuli from the cave. Those who had no digging implements made use of Jawad’s own pick and spade, and even his metal plate and cup, his pot and pan. When Jawad climbed to his feet he noticed that the mullah of Tayvareh who had declared his beans and corn impious was digging furiously for the precious stone.

Jawad left the crowd far behind as he climbed into the mountains. His face was wet with tears. All that he had left to him was the stone from his mother, once a part of the moon. That stone he kept close to his heart. He now understood why she had left Sangan.

High in the mountains he came upon a parrot of bright red and blue and yellow with a tail as long as the leg of a man. At the time of meeting the parrot Jawad was making his way north-east, thinking that he might settle in the land of China. But the bird disagreed with his plan. Perched high on a boulder with its bright tail hanging down, the parrot called to Jawad, ‘Young man! Turn your face to the south!’

‘To the south?’ said Jawad. ‘But I am on my way to China.’

The bird shook its head. ‘I advise against China,’ it said.

Jawad frowned and scratched his chin. ‘What will I find in the south?’ he asked.

‘What will you find in the south?’ said the bird. ‘Use your head! Your mother and father were bound for Kandahar.’

‘Do you mean that I will find my mother and father in Kandahar?’ Jawad asked in amazement.

‘Who knows?’ said the bird, and it beat its wings and flew out of sight.

Jawad thought it would be wrong to ignore the bird’s advice. He might wander for fifty years without meeting such an intelligent bird again. So he turned his face to the south and came down from the mountains into the valley of the Helmand.

He had lived on beetles and grasshoppers for months by the time he reached the banks of the great river and so he thought he would try his hand at fishing. But he had never fished before in his life and was ignorant about the means of catching fish. He was not far from the town of Zin and fishermen were to be seen on the banks. Jawad called to one of the fishermen, ‘Brother, how will I catch a fish for my supper?’

The fisherman laughed. He whispered to a friend before calling to Jawad, ‘It’s easy!’ he said. ‘Say, “Fish, fish, I am waiting for my supper!” One will jump into your lap!’

Jawad did not truly believe what he was told, but he had no better advice. ‘Fish, fish!’ he cried out, standing on the bank of the Helmand. ‘I am waiting for my supper!’

Within seconds not one but twenty fish had leapt from the water and landed at his feet – bream, barbel, silver carp, gudgeon, and the biggest of all, a pike. The fisherman who had told him the means of catching fish came running with his friend.

‘A wonder!’ said the fisherman. And his friend said, ‘I have fished here for thirty years and never seen a pike of such size!’

‘Keep it,’ said Jawad. He picked up a barbel to eat for his supper. ‘This will be enough for me.’

The fishermen did indeed scoop up the fish that were left. But even as Jawad was cooking his barbel on the riverbank, many more fishermen came shouting for him to call pike from the river, or at least sweet bream. Jawad called more fish, even a pike bigger than the first, but that was not enough for the fishermen. They plagued him with their demands until at last he stole away while the crowd was fighting over the bounty. He had not eaten his barbel and had to satisfy himself once more with brown grasshoppers.

*   *   *

Jawad made his way steadily south, keeping a distance between himself and the Helmand for fear he would be asked to empty the great river of fish. He crossed another river, the Arghandab in Zabol Province, without any thought of fishing, and came at last to the highway. With his heart full of hope that he would again see his mother and his father he began the final stage of his journey to Kandahar, the city of the south where pomegranates grew at their sweetest – the city where the world itself began many ages past.

He stood in the great bazaar of Kandahar where a thousand shopkeepers shouted the merits of their wares. He said in despair, ‘How will I ever find my mother and father in a city of so many souls?’ He asked a man who wore the turban of a tribe he had never come across before, and the man said, ‘I don’t sell mothers and fathers, I sell brass lamps!’ Jawad next questioned a seller of enamel chamber pots, saying, ‘I seek a woman with an earring of amethyst and the white stone of the moon-worshippers on her forehead, have you seen her?’ The chamber pot seller said, ‘May all moon-worshippers be taken by the devil!’ Hoping for more courtesy amongst the fruit sellers, Jawad approached a man who sold pomegranates the size of melons and asked if he had heard of a woman and a man who performed miracles with blackbirds. This time he was successful. The pomegranate seller said, ‘The moon sorceress? Oh yes. I followed her until my wife forbade it.’

‘Then where can I find her?’ said Jawad in relief.

‘You will find her in Korooshi Square at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. They’re hanging her.’

‘Hanging her? In God’s name, what reason could they have?’

‘The moon-worshippers usually escape with a warning. And the lizard-worshippers. Maybe she offended the mayor in some way. Go to the jail and ask her.’

Jawad found his way to the jail after many twists and turns. He pleaded with the sentry for admission, saying he was the son of a woman waiting to be hanged in the morning. The sentry was moved by Jawad’s tears and called the turnkey, who permitted Jawad to say goodbye to his mother the sorceress.

Jawad’s mother sat in her cell with her head bowed to her chest. Beside her sat her husband, who was also destined for the scaffold. Jawad called through the sturdy iron bars of the cell, ‘Mother! Father! It’s Jawad your son come to comfort you!’

Jawad’s mother and his father crawled across the floor of the cell, since it was forbidden to stand upright. Jawad asked for his mother’s hand to kiss, and his father’s.

‘What a fate awaits us, dear son!’ said the Woman Messiah. ‘We are to be hanged.’

‘But what is your crime, mother?’

‘Ah me, dear son! The Mayor of Kandahar says we must pay a million afghanis in taxes!’

‘Aiee! Why did he name such a sum for you to pay?’

‘Dear son, I told the mayor that I could command blackbirds to fly as high as wild geese and return with golden apples. The mayor said, “How many golden apples have the blackbirds fetched to you?” I said, “One hundred” and the mayor said the tax on one hundred golden apples was one million afghanis. Arithmetic, dear son. I never mastered it.’

It was plain to see that the sorceress was a broken woman. It was plain to see that the sorceress’s husband was a broken man.

Jawad said, ‘So . . . no golden apples?’

‘No golden apples, dear son.’

‘You must tell the mayor that you made a mistake. You must tell the mayor that you cannot command blackbirds to fly as high as wild geese and fetch golden apples back to you.’

‘Dear son, I did.’

‘What did the mayor say?’

‘That I must hang. And your dear father, too.’

Jawad’s mother began to weep. Jawad’s father helped her return to her corner of the cell. Then he crawled back to speak with his son.

‘Dear son,’ he whispered, ‘we have come to the end of the road. Your mother, alas, is mad. I have always known, but my love for her clouded my judgement. We abandoned you and that was a sin. Can you forgive your parents?’

Jawad answered, ‘A thousand times over.’

*   *   *

Jawad went from the prison to the mosque of our faith and asked to see the Imam. A mullah looked at Jawad’s untidy beard and ragged clothes and broken sandals, saying, ‘The Imam sees beggars on the third day of the week,’ and turned away.

Jawad called after him. ‘Sir, in the name of our faith, heed me for a single minute. I have not come to beg. I have come to borrow a pick!’

‘A pick?’ said the mullah. ‘What a curious man you are. Is the house of our faith a place to find a pick?’

‘And yet,’ said Jawad, ‘if you would search about, you may find one.’ Then he added, in the ancient Persian of the fire-worshippers, ‘If you would so trouble yourself, the bounty of Heaven will surely come to you.’

The mullah was an educated man. He had studied in Qom. He was amazed that a ragged man like Jawad had mastered such a difficult tongue. ‘Wait here,’ he said. While he was away the afternoon shadows crept almost to the eastern side of the square. But when he returned, he had a pick in his hand.

‘I bid you joy of the pick,’ said the mullah, and handed the implement to Jawad.

To the outskirts of the city went Jawad with all the haste he could manage. Once there, he knocked on the door of a dwelling that was held up with hope, such a house that a poor man would live in. And to answer the knock an old man appeared, as ragged in his clothing as Jawad himself.

Jawad said, ‘Brother, let me dig at your doorstep. A great reward awaits you.’

The old man looked at Jawad, looked at the pick, and looked at Jawad again. ‘Dig if you will,’ he said.

Jawad swung his pick at the hard earth, and again. Each time he struck the ground, nuggets of gold came to the surface.

The old man watched in wonder. ‘Were you sent by the Prophet?’ he asked. ‘I prayed for you many times over.’

Jawad gathered the gold in a threadbare blanket provided by the old man, paying him with five nuggets each as big as a sweet plum. He carried his cargo of gold to the mosque where he returned the pick to the mullah, leaving five nuggets each the size of a persimmon. Then he hastened to the palace of the mayor, calling over the fence to the esteemed man walking in his garden, ‘Sir, I come with ransom for the Woman Messiah!’ A command was given for the gates to be opened, and at the feet of the mayor Jawad poured out twenty gold nuggets, each the size of a pomegranate.

The mayor, who in his time had come to know gold when he saw it, studied Jawad with great interest. ‘And what is the sorceress to you?’

‘Sir, she is my mother, but alas, she is mad.’

‘And how did you come by this bounty?’

‘Sir, I prayed to the God of our faith and He sent it to me.’

The mayor considered for a minute more, thinking, ‘Better gold than a fee for the hangman.’ Finally, he gave orders for the release of the sorceress and her husband, and that very day, Jawad and his mother and his father walked out of the gates of the prison.

Under the blue sky, Jawad’s mother put her hands to her face and wept. Jawad’s father comforted her in his embrace.

‘I cannot send blackbirds into the sky as high as the wild geese and make them return with golden apples,’ Jawad’s mother said through her tears. ‘I have lived a foolish life.’

Jawad’s father comforted her. ‘But you did not lose the love of our son. Is that not the thing of most importance?’

And Jawad said, ‘Mother, there must be some greatness in you, for the stone you gave me from the moon led me to topaz and green garnet and lapis lazuli and fish by the bushel and nuggets of gold.’

‘Oh dear son!’ Jawad’s mother cried. ‘It was only a stone I found on the road, nothing more!’

‘Is that the truth?’ said Jawad. He took the moonstone that was not a moonstone from his pocket and gazed at it in amazement. Then he threw it away.