The Theocrat: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (9 page)

At this point al-Hakim regained his normal consciousness, but stayed totally silent, almost as though he were in a swoon. When he started talking again, it was in short bursts. The exhausted young secretary found it utterly impossible to record them all and only managed to write down some snippets, such as:

“The desert, the desert!

“Tremulous hope and bitter words!

“I realize I’m making my way through a life where there is neither sweetness nor horizon.

“I know orphan exposure, whether on its own or with others. I know that it proceeds either alone or in mixed company, as it heads toward its pit or its own deviation before fragmenting.

“In the abode where there is neither movement nor strife, cogitation is good, planning effective. Then death arrives, fast-paced and on time, right on time….

“In vain do we grow old; we only learn about life when it is all over and we are close to the end.

“Death repeats itself, but without any originality! So what? I ask myself. The wombs of women bring forth humans, and the earth swallows them up. So what, I tell myself, if this process of bringing forth and swallowing up involves behavior that is prescient, pain that is reduced, and
harm that inflicts less damage? But what matters is the blindness, the space that shudders, the felicitous opportunity in a crisis. Instead of national refreshment, open space, and a change of air, there was smoke, crowd, and constricted space.

“Before the earth swallows me up, I told myself, here I am relishing the ultimate happiness, progressing toward the highest degree of certainty, moving ever forward till my head is held high and my talents are fully applied.

“I waited for her body to arrive, confident that my bride would come to me:

“a radiant gift of destiny to crystallize me,

“breasts that sigh

“chemistry of felicity and beauty.

“But not long after she came to me as my bride the whole thing turned into a disaster; her body became a mistake, chaff for the wind.

‘“Patience, patience!’ I told myself. So I waited till the clouds scattered, the sky was clear once more, and life came. But instead, calamity fell on me from an unexpected direction. Dangerous notions arrived, and misfortunes too. Survival there was, but it was endowed with multiple opportunities for downfall. I was unable to control this slippery slope; without lamp or axe, I had to engage in a fierce struggle to keep my head from exploding and my very face from collapse.

“I awoke one day and told the women who used to share my bed, ‘By my life, it would be a wonderful idea to put you all in closed coffins and throw you into the Nile.’ With that, I left them and went out into the early dawn atmosphere, there to resume my interest in smelling the scent of roses and listening to the beat of birds’ wings.

“The biggest issue of all: changing this world. The very love of change, that headlong rush to sever the ties that bind self, oppression, and want to each other; the very love of change, to abolish the contradiction between life and the things that overwhelm and destroy it. However, my dear devotees, why am I destined forever to drink wine and collect varieties of grass in order to foster this headlong spirit within me?

“My ruses and medicaments will all come to naught; my drugs will lose their efficacy one-after the other. I shall spend the rest of my life making countless attempts to understand what has happened, to comprehend those things that were not foreseen, to assess this sense of depression with an analytical eye, this suppressed feeling deep down that dogs human beings whether alone or in company, like a clap of thunder sometimes, and at others like a prolonged, plaintive refrain.

“Beyond what has already happened what else is there? What’s happened has indeed happened! What else is there besides depression? It comes in two types: a normal type that justifies itself and is deeply enmeshed in its own essence, the rusted tedium of passing days, the travail of preserving health and peace, and the assaults of others. Then there’s a second type, an exceptional kind that inhabits times of joy and clings to them like some hidden sense of fear that such times may soon disappear. Both types of depression are controlled by the sigh, something that can only be bested by the mastery of perpetual absence.

“In such cases of decline, and following the thousand and first absence, the thousand and first retreat, however severe may be the pain and difficulty, it seems I will probe my own self in order to confirm with astonishment that I am still alive and in control of you. It also seems that I will gather whatever is left of my presence and power and proceed erect through the cities and valleys of the land. As I proceed, I will ponder the fact that no one in power can take away my aura of prestige or interfere with my steadfast intent to achieve a linkage and pact between my lungs and the air. My thoughts must inevitably be drawn toward its eastern pole. Inevitably my capital must consist in keeping my head held high.

“What is most probable is that, after everything that has happened (and how I suffer over what has happened!), I will pace back and forth through the streets and alleys chanting a rousing song, with dervishes dancing before me. I am the unique atom, I shall say, so why should I care about my problems or fear death as though I were the first or last person who is going to perish?

“I shall compose fierce lampoons aimed at absence. I will spell every-thing in plural form and go in quest of unity and unification

“I have been walking and still am. Walking on foot, so philosophers and doctors have it, is good exercise that provides maximum benefit to the body and bolsters its resistance to depression whether psychological or nervous (despondent psyche, tread the earth’s uplands and pursue the posture of quest!). Yes, I have been walking and still am, as I contemplate writing reports of prohibitions and checks, a model for my tombstone while I am still alive. How amazing! Here I am, still seriously trying to convert to my own interest all the fates and mute trials that so dog my life.

“A few days later I had a fresh idea: maybe release might come with the diversion of a new marriage and in a panegyric to the bed; or else in learning the sounds of wild beasts; in hunting songbirds and butterflies or eating cold almonds. Maybe it lay in collecting severed heads or composing a volume on the benefits of jest.

“All this occurs whenever the water returns to its courses, calamities lessen their intensity, routine and habit return to quell the thunder and enclose bodies.”

An awesome silence now descended on the place. The trembling of the devotees in their corners was enough to blow out the candles close by. By now al-Hakim was strongly affected by both the wine and violet oil; sweat was pouring off him, and blood was coursing through his veins. Suddenly he leapt up and started talking in strident tones, as though delivering a sermon or recording minutes. The young scribe fell out of the pool and stayed where he was on the ground. Even though he was utterly exhausted, he tried to record as many of his master’s words as he could.

“To eradicate the concerns that reside in my vision,” he said, “1 took on the River Nile, as it did me; and I took on the birds, as they did me. To revive connections and relationships, I rode in a boat heading for the light, guided by the chant of the sea bird as I made my way to you, my devotees:

“With its mythic half my body is in quest of its destiny,

I lay down the foundation stone of its birthplace,

“I place the head between two crescents of embers,

“And open the path for the devotees of conscience and secrecy.

“Then I walk the earth unsheathing my sword and power

“Against anyone who would deny me through mind or magic.

“The sun never shines on me because I am a cave,

“A grassy cave, a grassy cave in ruins,

“A prison, an ancient prison, a map of secrecy …

“No, the sun never shines on me, but in my heart I see a gleaming star in search of its mate, of a country and people.

“I see myself grasping the last thread, projecting birds into the heavens to shoot down, banging on doors and asking who it is that is banging.

“The sun never shines on me, but in order to despair of my own despair and restore fire to my hidden places, I roam the country. And I will come …

“By the right I have to govern and reject! I will come again, my face aglow, from hidden realms and ultimate refuges; I will come from the markets of existence and places of this world, all in order to inform the morning and you. And so, my devotees, open your hearts and embrace me; lift up your hands and support me.

“I am the one that time has brought you.

“The factors of chance and lineage, they alone intercede for me.

“I am the child of that circumstance which seeks a place in existence and fate.

“I have it in me to oppose the wind through destruction and erection in the realms of architecture and stone.

“You can write what you will about me. My tents have need of the ropes of your love and hatred, just as the earth needs sun and rain.”

Al-Hakim went back and sat in the violet oil again. The young secretary joined him and continued recording his master’s words. As al-Hakim careered ahead at one moment and then slowed down out of sheer exhaustion, his tone of voice kept rising, then falling.

“Show me,” he said, “the kind of power I need, when people are cither asleep or distracted; and all the while the march of time works its unseen machinations to procure my end.

“I blacken the whiteness of days. I sense myself leaving the realms of existence and entering the clutches of mystery, secluding myself on the pathways of resolve and entrenchment.

“Politics is all toil. Nothing amazes me more than those who are hell-bent on acquiring yet more power.

“I am tired of it all, not because my intuition has run dry or the ulcer hasn’t healed, but rather because, at the best of times, my own share of its lofty intent and the flesh of my own fancies are entwined together in a common temptation.

“All I want from politics is to proceed on my way, leaving behind me heads in a state of contemplation and reflection or else frivolity and distraction. If success eludes me, then a pox on power, and perdition to all types of ruin by sword and pen.

“Every century has its own disaster.

“For this quarter-century I am that disaster.

“So transport me, the one who sits above you, beneath Cancer in the signs of the zodiac.

“Once in a while all I can perceive are darkness and blocked paths. My thoughts contort and enfold themselves on their own foundations, leading only to what is coincidental and profoundly wanting. It is then I realize that my soul is in dire need of the stars and supreme athleticism.

“The human body is all naked corruption, and the soul incites to evil. So where is the refuge to be found, and whence the escape?

“I stare long and hard into the bogs of nothingness, computing the number of bodies floating in its firmament. Eventually they fade away and I feel exhausted, or else I revert to my own navel and reside there with eyes closed and ears chained shut,

“However in both circumstances, even though I try every trick to distance my overwhelmingly powerful ego, my life is still filled with the clanging of bells which keep dancing around me and threatening me with their poison and their lethal extensions. I spend hours searching for the most effective ideas that will thwart their manifestation.

“Exempt me then from all discourse, save that which is both lively and instantaneous, that whereby utterance legitimizes the roaring of my blood.

“Let me search in the archives of the possible and impossible for something to dizzy the vision and roll the eyes, something to bring ideas carved out of earth and fire, to turn hair white and baffle minds and intellects.

“On this dark night by the light of this low-burning candle, I wonder, can you even conceive of the black notions floating in my mind, some like stinging insects, others like killer reptiles?

“By my donkey, Qamar. Did you but realize some of these dire things, you would head for exile in droves, or else you would dig yourselves in amid the thickets of silence and fatigue.

“For that very reason I intend to keep them suppressed and to strive to keep them apart from the realm of events. That is not out of a sense of pity or sympathy for you, but rather because I’m afraid that I may turn into a shepherd with no flock or God’s own sword that for harvest has only wind and dust.

“In the space between myself and confession I amuse myself by dipping my hands in the blood of some of my slaves or by staring at boys’ genitals. One after the other I ask them: Show me your moon. In that way I can distinguish those who will die from others who will be saved.

“There are times when I find myself overpowered by the desire to allow natural disaster to happen. The answer I give is: Just for today and no longer I give you this earth and the people in it. So launch your attack, toy with its laws and rituals; send a deluge to create it and formulate it afresh.

“How is it that my terrifying dreams spin in circles? Ever since I took up the mantle of rule by the order of God, I have been afflicted by dreadful nightmares. They beset me every single night as I try to fall asleep. Just to give a single example from among many, I see myself stabbed and falling to the ground, just like ‘Ali and al-Husayn; I see myself as a severed head rolling like al-Husayn’s head; I see myself failing and calling out for help, but no one moves an inch. Such is the pain and shock that I wake up and discover, much to my delight, that the whole thing was just a nightmare. But no sooner do I go back to sleep than the ravening hordes of conspiracy and extermination overwhelm me yet again, but without ever slaying me or robbing me of my consciousness. The entire dream may repeat itself in cycles, each one more horrific than the last. So picture me at the moment when I wake up, with every wrinkle on my face mirroring the varieties of terror and anxiety.

“How can I keep this face concealed from my own people? How can I walk among them without lighting my path and enveloping myself with the weapons of oppression and deceit?