“And to you,” Zelim said.
i
Zelim had seen enough; more than enough, in truth. The crowd was working itself up into a fresh fever as the bodies were being taken down in preparation for their beheading; children were being lifted up onto their parents’ shoulders so they could see the deed done. Zelim found the whole spectacle disgusting. Turning away from the scene, he bent down, picked up his flea-bitten dog, and started to make his way to the edge of the assembly.
As he went he heard somebody say: “Are you sickened at the sight of blood?”
He glanced over his shoulder. It was the woman who’d spoken of the unholy books in Samarkand.
“No, I’m not sickened,” Zelim said sourly, thinking the woman was impugning his manhood. “I’m just bored. They’re dead. They can’t suffer any more.”
“You’re right,” the woman said with a shrug. She was dressed, Zelim saw, in widow’s clothes, even though she was still young; no more than a year or two older than he. “It’s only us who suffer,” the woman went on. “Only us who are left alive.”
He understood absolutely the truth in what she was saying, in a way that he could not have understood before his terrible adventure on the road. That much at least the monks had given him: a comprehension of somebody else’s despair.
“I used to think there were reasons…” he said softly.
The crowd was roaring. He glanced back over his shoulder. A head was being held high, blood running from it, glittering in the bright sun.
“What did you say?” the woman asked him, moving closer to hear him better over the noise.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Please tell me,” she replied, “I’d like to know.”
He shrugged. He wanted to weep, but what man wept openly in a place like this?
“Why don’t you come with me?” the woman said. “All my neighbors are here, watching this stupidity. If you come back with me, there’ll be nobody to see us. Nobody to gossip about us.”
Zelim contemplated the offer for a moment or two. “I have to bring my dog,” he said.
ii
He stayed for six years. Of course after a week or so the neighbors began to gossip behind their hands, but this wasn’t like Atva; people weren’t forever meddling in your business. Zelim lived quite happily with the widow Passak, whom he came to love. She was a practical woman, but with the front door and the shutters closed she was also very passionate. This was especially true, for some reason, when the winds came in off the desert; burning hot winds that carried a blistering freight of sand. When those winds blew the widow would be shameless—there was nothing she wouldn’t do for their mutual pleasure, and he loved her all the more for it.
But the memories of Atva, and of the glorious family that had come down to the shore that distant day, never left him. Nor did the hours of his violation, or the strange thoughts that had visited him as Nazar and his gang hung from the gallows. All of these experiences remained in his heart, like a stew that had been left to simmer, and simmer, and as the years passed was more steadily becoming tastier and more nourishing.
Then, after six years, and many happy days and nights with Passak, he realized the time had come for him to sit down and eat that stew.
It happened during one of these storms that came off the desert. He and Passak had made love not once but three times. Instead of falling asleep afterward, however, as Passak had done, Zelim now felt a strange irritation behind his eyes, as though the wind had somehow whistled its way into his skull and was stirring the meal one last time before serving it.
In the corner of the room the dog—who was by now old and blind—whined uneasily.
“Hush, girl,” he told her. He didn’t want Passak woken; not until he had made sense of the feelings that were haunting him.
He put his head in his hands. What was to become of him? He had lived a fuller life than he’d ever have lived if he’d stayed in Atva, but none of it made any sense. At least in Atva there had been a simple rhythm to things. A boy was born, he grew strong enough to become a fisherman, he became a fisherman, and then weakened again, until he was as frail as a baby, and then he perished, comforted by the fact that even as he passed from the world new fishermen were being bom. But Zelim’s life had no such certainties in it. He’d stumbled from one confusion to another, finding agony where he had expected to find consolation, and pleasure where he’d expected to find sorrow. He’d seen the Devil in human form, and the faces of divine spirits made in similar shape. Life was not remotely as he’d expected it to be.
And then he thought: I have to tell what I know. That’s why I’m here; I have to tell people all that I’ve seen and felt, so that my pain is never repeated. So that those who come after me are like my children, because I helped shape them, and made them strong.
He got up, went to his sweet Passak where she lay, and knelt down beside the narrow bed. He kissed her cheek. She was already awake, however, and had been awake for a while.
“If you leave, I’ll be so sad,” she said. Then, after a pause: “But I knew you’d go one day. I’m surprised you’ve stayed so long.”
“How did you know—?”
“You were talking aloud, didn’t you realize? You do it all the time.” A single tear ran from the corner of her eye, but there was no sorrow in her voice. “You are a wonderful man, Zelim. I don’t think you know how truly wonderful you are. And you’ve seen things…maybe they were in your head, maybe they were real, I don’t know…that you have to tell people about.” Now it was he who wept, hearing her speak this way, without a trace of reprimand. “I have had such years with you, my love. Such joy as I never thought I’d have. And it’d be greedy of me to ask you for more, when I’ve had so much already.” She raised her head a little way, and kissed him. “I will love you better if you go quickly,” she said.
He started to sob. All the fine thoughts he’d had a few minutes before seemed hollow now. How could he think of leaving her?
“I can’t go,” he said. “I don’t know what put the thought in my head.”
“Yes you will,” she replied. “If you don’t go now, you’ll go sooner or later. So go.”
He wiped his tears away. “No,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
So he stayed. The storms still came, month on month, and he and the widow still coupled fiercely in the little house, while the fire muttered in the hearth and the wind chattered on the roof. But now his happiness was spoiled; and so was hers. He resented her for keeping him under her roof, even though she’d been willing to let him go. And she in her turn grew less loving of him, because he’d not had the courage to go, and by staying he was killing the sweetest thing she’d ever known, which was the love between them.
At last, the sadness of all this killed her. Strange to say, but this brave woman, who had survived the grief of being widowed, could not survive the death of her love for a man who stayed at her side. He buried her, and a week later, went on his way.
He never again settled down. He’d known all he needed to know of domestic life; from now on he would be a nomad. But the stew that had bubbled in him for so long was still good. Perhaps all the more pungent for those last