Beyond the Gate of Worlds Page 5

  By the faint light he saw that he had reached a sort of large pond. Its water looked to be a flat metallic green. Around its perimeter crouched a shadowy horde of water-carriers, crouching to scoop the green water into goatskin bags, spooning it in with gourds. Then they straightened, with the full bags—they must have weighed a hundred pounds—balanced on their heads, and went jogging off into the dawn to deliver their merchandise at the homes of the wealthy. Little ragged girls were there too, seven or eight years old, filling jugs and tins to bring to their mothers. Some of them waded right into the pool to get what they wanted. A glowering black man in the uniform of the Emirate sat to one side, jotting down notations on a sheet of yellow paper. So this was probably the Old Town’s municipal reservoir. Michael shuddered and turned away, back into the city proper. Into the labyrinth once more.

  A gray, sandy light was in the sky now. It showed him narrow dusty thoroughfares, blind walls, curving idleyways leading into dark cul-de-sacs. Entire rows of houses seemed to be crumbling away, though they were obviously still inhabited. Underfoot everything was sand, making a treacherous footing. In places the entrances to buildings were half-choked by the drifts. Camels, donkeys, horses wandered about on their own. rrhe city’s mixed population—veiled Tbaregs, black Sudanese, aloof and lofty Moors, heavy-bearded Syrian traders, the whole West African racial goulash—was coming forth into the day. Who were all these people? Tailors, moneylenders, scribes, camel-breeders, masons, bakers, charm-sellers, weavers, bakers—necromancers, sages, warlocks, perhaps a few vampires on their way home from their night’s toil—Michael looked around, bewildered, trapped within his skull by the barriers of language and his own disordered mental state. He felt as though he were moving about under the surface of the sea, in a medium where he did not belong and could neither breathe nor think.

  “Selima?” he said suddenly, blinking in astonishment.

  His voice was voiceless. His lips moved, but no sound had come forth.

  Apparition? Hallucination? No, no, she was really there. Selima glowed just across the way like a second sun suddenly rising over the city.

  Michael shrank back against an immense buttress of mud brick. She had stepped out of a doorway in a smooth gray wall that surrounded what appeared to be one of the palaces of the nobility. The building, partly visible above the wall, was coated in orange clay and had elaborate Moorish windows of dark wood. He trembled. The girl wore only a flimsy white gown, so thin that he could make out the dark-tipped spheres of her breasts moving beneath it, and the dark triangle at her thighs. He wanted to cry. Had she no shame? No. No. She was indifferent to the display, and to everything around her; she would have walked completely naked through this little plaza just as casually as she strode through in this one thin garment.

  “Selima, where have you spent this night? Whose palace is this?”

  His words were air. No one heard them. She moved serenely onward. A motorcar appeared from somewhere, one of the five or six that Michael had seen so fair in this city. A black plume of smoke rose from the vent of its coal-burning engine, and its two huge rear wheels slipped and slid about on the sandy track. Selima jumped up onto the open seat behind the driver, and with great booming exhalations the vehicle made its way through an arched passageway and disappeared into the maze of the town.

  An embassy car, no doubt. Waiting here for her all night?

  His soul ached. He had never felt so young, so foolish, so vulnerable, so wounded.

  “Effendi?” a voice asked. “You wish a camel, ef-fendi?"

  “Thank you, no.”

  “Nice hotel? Bath? Woman to massage you? Boy to massage you?”

  “Please. No.”

  “Some charms, maybe? Good grigri. Souvenir of Timbuctoo. ’ ’

  Michael groaned. He turned away and looked back at the house of infamy from which Selima had emerged.

  “That building—what is it?”

  “That? Is palace of Little Father. And look, look there, effendi—Little Father himself coming out for a walk."

  The prince himself, yes. Of course. Who else would she have spent the night with, here in the Old Town? Michael was engulfed by loathing and despair. Instantly a swarm of eager citizens had surrounded the prince, clustering about him to beg favors the moment he showed himself. But he seemed to move through them with the sort of divine indifference that Selima, in her all-but-nakedness, had displayed. He appeared to be enclosed in an impenetrable bubble of self-concern. He was frowning, he looked troubled, not at all like a man who had just known the favors of the most desirable woman in five hundred miles. His lean sharp-angled face, which had been so animated at the official reception, now had a curiously stunned, immobile look about it, as though he had been struck on the head from behind a short while before and the impact was gradually sinking in.

  Michael flattened himself against the buttress. He could not bear the thought of being seen by the prince now, here, as if he had been haunting the palace all night, spying on Selima. He put his arm across his face in a frantic attempt to hide himself, he whose Western clothes and long legs and white skin made him stand out like a meteor. But the prince wasn't coming toward him. Nodding in an abstracted way, he turned quickly, passed through the throng of chattering petitioners as if they were ghosts, disappeared in a flurry of white fabric.

  Michael looked about for his sudden friend, the man who had wanted to sell him camels, massages, souvenirs. What he wanted now was a guide to get him out of the Old Town and back to the residence of the English ambassador. But the man was gone.

  “Pardon me—” Michael said to someone who looked almost like the first one. Then he realized that he had spoken in English. Useless. He tried in Tlirkish and in Arabic. A few people stared at him. They seemed to be laughing. He felt transparent to them. They could see his sorrow, his heartache, his anguish, as easily as his sunburn.

  Like the good young diplomat he was, he had learned a little Songhay too, the indigenous language. “Town talk,” they called it. But the few words he had seemed all to have fled. He stood alone and helpless in the plaza, scuffing angrily at the sand, as the sun broke above the mud rooftops like the sword of an avenging angel and the full blast of morning struck him. Michael felt blisters starting to rise on his cheeks. Agitated flies began to buzz around his eyes. A camel, passing by just then, dropped half a dozen hot green turds right at his feet. He snatched one out of the sand and hurled it with all his strength at the bland blank mud-colored wall of Little Father’s palace.

  Big Father was sitting up on his divan. His silken blankets were knotted around his waist in chaotic strands, and his bare torso rose above the chaos, gleaming as though it had been oiled. His arms were like sticks and his skin was three shades paler than it once had been and cascades of loose flesh hung like wattles from his neck, but there was the brilliance of black diamonds in his glittering little eyes.

  “Not dead yet, you see? You see?” His voice was a cracked wailing screech, but the old authoritative thunder was still somewhere behind it. “Back from the edge of the grave, boy! Allah walks with me yet!”

  Little Father was numb with chagrin. All the joy of his night with Selima had vanished in a moment when word had arrived of his father’s miraculous recovery. He had just been getting accustomed to the idea that he soon would be king, too. His first misgivings about the work involved in it had begun to ebb; he rather liked the idea of ruling, now. The crown was descending on him like a splendid gift. And here was Big Father sitting up, grinning, waving his arms around in manic glee. Taking back his gift. Deciding to live after all.

  What about the funeral plans? What about the special ambassadors who had traveled so far, in such discomfort, to pay homage to the late venerable Emir of Songhay and strike their various deals with his successor?

  Big Father had had his head freshly shaved and his beard had been trimmed. He looked like a gnome, ablaze with demonic energies. Off in the corner of the porch, next to the potted trees, the three m
arabouts stood in a circle, making sacred gestures at each other with lunatic vigor, each seeking to demonstrate superior fervor.

  Hoarsely Little Father said, “Your Majesty, the news astonishes and delights me. When the messenger came, telling of your miraculous recovery, I leaped from my bed and gave thanks to the All-Merciful in a voice so loud you must have heard it here.”

  “Was there a woman with you, boy?”

  "Father— ’'

  “I hope you bathed before you came here. You come forth without bathing after you’ve lain with a woman and the djinns will make you die an awful death, do you realize that?”

  “Father, I wouldn’t think of—”

  ‘‘Frothing at the mouth, falling down in the street, that’s what’ll happen to you. Who was she? Some nobleman’s wife as usual, I suppose. Well, never mind. As long as she wasn’t mine. Come closer to me, boy.” “Father, you shouldn’t tire yourself by talking so much.”

  “Closer!”

  A wizened claw reached for him. Little Father approached and the claw seized him. There was frightening strength in the old man still.

  Big Father said, “I’ll be up and around in two days. I want the Great Mosque made ready for the ceremony of thanksgiving. And I’ll sacrifice to all the prophets and saints.” A fit of coughing overcame him for a space, and he pounded his fist furiously against the side of the divan. When he spoke again, his voice seemed weaker, but still determined. “There was a vampire upon me, boy! Each night she came in here and drank from me.”

  “She?”

  “With dark hair and pale foreign skin, and eyes that eat you alive. Every night. Stood above me, and laughed, and took my blood. But she’s gone now. These three have imprisoned her and carried her off to the Eleventh Hell.” He gestured toward the marabouts. “My saints. My heroes. I want them rewarded beyond all reckoning.”

  “As you say, Father, so will I do.”

  The old man nodded. “You were getting my funeral ready, weren’t you?”

  “The prognosis was very dark. Certain preparations seemed advisable when we heard—”

  “Cancel them!”

  “Of course.” Then, uncertainly: “Father, special envoys have come from many lands. The Czar’s cousin is here, and the brother of Moctezuma, and a son of the late Sultan, and also—”

  “I’ll hold an audience for them all,” said Big Father in great satisfaction. “They’ll have gifts beyond anything they can imagine. Instead of a funeral, boy, we’ll have a jubilee! A celebration of life. Moctezuma’s

  brother, you say? And who did the Inca send?” Big Father laughed raucously. “All of them clustering around to see me put away underground!” He jabbed a finger against Little Father’s breast. It felt like a spear of bone. “And in Mali they’re dancing in the streets, aren’t they? Can’t contain themselves for glee. But they’ll dance a different dance now.” Big Father’s eyes grew somber. “You know, boy, when I really do die, whenever that is, they’ll try to take you out too, and Mali will invade us. Guard yourself. Guard the nation. Those bastards on the coast hunger to control our caravan routes. They’re probably already scheming now with the foreigners to swallow us the instant I’m gone, but you mustn’t allow them to—ah—ah—ah—”

  "Father?"

  Abruptly the Emir’s shriveled face crumpled in a frenzy of coughing. He hammered against his thighs with clenched fists. An attendant came running, bearing a beaker of water, and Big Father drank until he had drained it all. Then he tossed the beaker aside as though it were nothing. He was shivering. He looked glassy-eyed and confused. His shoulders slumped, his whole posture slackened. Perhaps his “recovery” had been merely the sudden final upsurge of a dying fire.

  “You should rest, Majesty,” said a new voice from the doorway to the porch. It was Serene Glory’s ringing contralto. “You overtax yourself, I think, in the first hours of this miracle.”

  Big Father’s main wife had arrived, entourage and all. In the warmth of the morning she had outfitted herself in a startling robe of purple satin, over which she wore the finest jewels of. the kingdom. Little Father remembered that his own mother had wom some of those necklaces and bracelets.

  He was unmoved by Serene Glory’s beauty, impressive though it was. How could Serene Glory matter to him with the memory, scarcely two hours old, of Selima’s full breasts and agile thighs still glistening in his mind? But he could not fail to detect Serene Glory’s anger. It surrounded her like a radiant aura. Tension sparkled in her kohl-bedecked eyes.

  Perhaps she was still smoldering over Little Father’s deft rejection of her advances as they were riding side by side back from the Great Mosque that day six months earlier. Or perhaps it was Big Father’s unexpected return from the brink that annoyed her. Anyone with half a mind realized that Serene Glory dreamed of putting her own insipid brother on the throne in Little Father’s place the moment the old Emir was gone, and thus maintaining and even extending her position at the summit of power. Quite likely she, like Little Father, had by now grown accustomed to the idea of Big Father’s death and was having difficulty accepting the news that in would be somewhat postponed.

  To Little Father she said, “Our prayers have been answered, all glory to Allah! But you mustn’t put a strain on the Emir’s energies in this time of recovery. Perhaps you ought to go.”

  “I was summoned, lady.”

  “Of course. Quite rightly. And now you should go to the mosque and give thanks for what has been granted us all.”

  Her gaze was imperious and unanswerable. In one sentence Serene Glory had demoted him from imminent king to wastrel prince once again. He admired her gall. She was three years younger than Little Father, and here she was ordering him out of the royal presence as though he were a child. But of course she had had practice at ordering people around: her father was one of the greatest landlords of the eastern province. She had moved amidst power all her life, albeit power of a provincial sort. Little Father wondered how many noblemen of that province had spent time between the legs of Serene Glory before she had ascended to her present high position.

  He said, “If my royal father grants me leave to go—”

  The Emir was coughing again. He looked terrible.

  Serene Glory went to him and bent close over him, so the old man could smell the fragrance rising from her breasts, and instantly Big Father relaxed. The coughing ceased and he sat up again, almost as vigorous as before. Little Father admired that maneuver too. Serene Glory was a worthy adversary. Probably her people were already spreading the word in the city that it was the power of her love for the Emir, and not the prayers of the three saints, that had brought him back from the edge of death.

  “How cool it is in here,” Big Father said. “The wind is rising. Will it rain today? The rains are due, aren’t they? Let me see the sky. What color is the sky?” He looked upward in an odd straining way, as though the sky had risen to such a height that it could no longer be seen.

  “Father,” Little Father said softly.

  The old man glared. “You heard her, didn’t you? To the mosque! To the mosque and give thanks! Do you want Allah to think you’re an ingrate, boy?” He started coughing once again. Once again he began visibly to descend the curve of his precarious vitality. His withered cheeks began to grow mottled. There was a feeling of impending death in the air.

  Servants and ministers and the three marabouts gathered by his side, alarmed.

  “Big Father! Big Father!”

  And then once more he was all right again, just as abruptly. He gestured fiercely, an unmistakable dismissal. The woman in purple gave Little Father a dark grin of triumph Little Father nodded to her gallantly: this round was hers. He knelt at the Emir’s side, kissed his royal ring. It slipped about loosely on his shrunken finger. Little Father, thinking of nothing but the pressure of Selima’s dark, hard little nipples against the palms of his hands two hours before, made the prostration of filial devotion to his father and, with ferocious irony, to
his stepmother, and backed quickly away from the royal presence.

  Michael said, distraught, “I couldn’t sleep, sir. I went out for a walk.”

  “And you walked the whole night long?” Sir Anthony asked, in a voice like a flail.

  “I didn’t really notice the time. I just kept walking, and by and by the sun came up and 1 realized that the night was gone.”

  “It’s your mind that’s gone, I think.” Sir Anthony, crooking his neck upward to Michael’s much greater height, gave him a whipcrack glare. “What kind of calf are you, anyway? Haven’t you any sense at all?”

  “Sir Anthony, I don’t underst—”

  “Are you in love? With the Tbrkish girl?”

  Michael clapped his hand over his mouth in dismay. “You know about that?” he said lamely, after a moment.

  “One doesn’t have to be a mind reader to see it, lad. Every camel in Timbuctoo knows it. The pathetic look on your face whenever she comes within fifty feet of you—the clownish way you shuffle your feet around, and hang your head—those occasional little groans of deepest melancholy—” The envoy glowered. He made no attempt to hide his anger, or his contempt. “By heaven, Id like to hang your head, and all the rest of you as well. Have you no sense? Have you no sense whatsoever? ’ ’

  Everything was lost, so what did anything matter? Defiantly Michael said, “Have you never fallen unexpectedly in love, Sir Anthony?”

  “With a Turk?”

  “Unexpectedly, I said. These things don’t necessarily happen with one’s political convenience in mind.” “And she reciprocates your love, I suppose? That’s why you were out walking like a moon-calf in this miserable parched mudhole of a city all night long?”