Omar Khayyam - a life (16 page)

Ayesha thought this pretty enough. When Mu'izzi asked anxiously for Omar's opinion, the lord of Kasr Kuchik said:

"I see now why thou art the King's poet."

Mu'izzi drank too much that night, and disputed with a Sufi whether he should have said 'curling' instead of 'darkling in his ode. The Sufi was full of strange words like Being and Not-being, and universal love. Ayesha paid little attention to him, but she listened readily enough when Mu'izzi cried out that he would tell a secret of a party of his own.

" 'Twas a jest, O my cup companions, and such a jest! To my house and my poor garden—only the shadow of this moon-adorned paradise—I summoned young nobles from the polo field. When we had eaten and drunk a little—not such spirit-exalting wine as this—I clapped my hands to fetch in the dancing girls. But they were not girls. I had hired boys fair as the new moon and dressed them in the garments of dancing girls, even to the anklets and veils. So, behold, they danced, and then ran away, while I whispered to my guests to catch them if they could. They all vanished into the darkness, and I waited for my guests to run back crying out at the jest I had devised for them. Behold they did not come—it was an hour ere the first one came!"

And Mu'izzi laughed, throwing back his head. Ayesha looked at Omar who gave no sign, either of amusement or dislike.

The Arab girl grew hot with indignation. So many Moslems, amusing themselves with boys, lost all desire for women. She remembered that she had found this harem of Kasr Kuchik deserted, and Zuleika had assured her that its master soon tired of singing girls from the city. But there was no trace anywhere of a beardless boy. Still, she hated Mu'izzi and devised names for him that would have startled the King's poet.

There was a Hindu, silent as a shadow, who whispered to a companion that Omar's secret knowledge was remembered from a previous life, without Omar's knowing that he remembered.

Ayesha could make nothing of that, but she understood vaguely that this Hindu was kindred in spirit to a youth with fearless eyes who wore only a camelhair
abba
and who came to the palace alone and barefoot. They called him Ghazali, the mystic.

When Ghazali talked with Omar, they paced the garden together, so that the girl could not catch all they said, and she understood even less. Odd snatches of words about the veil of the Invisible that men could not draw aside.
Omar:
"If we could see the heavens as they are, we would behold a new universe. Ah, we would do away with the old and find our heart's desire in the new."
Ghazali:
"That veil may not be lifted until we have perfected ourselves in love of God. . . ."

Once when Omar raised a goblet of wine to his lips, the mystic cried:

"That is accursed."

Omar drank, and set the goblet down empty, smiling a little. "Do not blaspheme wine. It is bitter only because it is my life."

His life! Ayesha, who was already jealous of Ghazali, wondered what would come next. But Ghazali merely argued that while there were many religions, there was but one God.

"Islam itself is a house divided, for we have the orthodox believers, and the Sufis who rebel against orthodoxy, and the Alyites who follow the tradition of Ali, and also those who await the coming of the Mahdi. All believe, and yet they follow different paths. Listen now to the story of the Elephant. ... In Hind it was that the keepers of the Elephant desired to show the Elephant to curious ones. Yet it was in a dark room. The seekers came and felt of it, since they could not see. One, laying his hand on its trunk, said, This creature is like a water-pipe.' Another, feeling its ear, said, 'Verily, it is a fan.' A third came upon its leg, and he said, 'Nay, beyond doubt it is a pillar.' Had any one brought a candle to the room, all would have seen the same."

"And where," Omar asked, "will you find a candle to enlighten the world?"

"In the dreams of the mystics," cried Ghazali. "For they can see what lieth behind darkness."

"And who are they?" Omar shook his head. "I have sought them, but where are they? They have not taken a step from their couches into the darkness of the Universe. They have told an old tale, and have gone back to sleep again."

For one thing Ayesha was grateful to Ghazali. After the mystic had departed on his wanderings, Omar wearied of Mu'izzi and the other cup companions. One evening when they were in deepest dispute, he led in Jafarak's white donkey, and when at length the guests fell silent, he assured them gravely that the donkey bade them take warning by its example—in a former life it had been a professor of an academy.

All the guests left after that, and Omar was pacing the starlit garden when Ayesha at last dared to approach him. She knelt beside him, pressing his hand to her forehead.

"Upon my lord be the peace."

"And upon thee, the peace."

"My lord, I watched. There was one who came creeping, and spied upon you. He hid there, behind the roses, and crept away again. I saw his face."

"Was it Ahmed, the gardener?"

"Ay, Ahmed. Let him be scourged!"

To the girl who had been weaned among the desert clans a spy was an enemy, to be struck down as one would strike a snake.

Omar was silent a moment. "Nay, let him go to those who sent him and tell of the donkey. If I beat him and cast him out they might send one more dangerous than Ahmed."

Ayesha wondered at this. Her master, then, had been aware of Ahmed's spying, even as he had known when he saw her first that she was not the daughter of the chief of the Safa clan. How great was his magic! Surely, he could read her thoughts, as she knelt beside him, while he stroked her tresses.

But Omar was following his own thoughts. "They talk of paradise, yet what is paradise but a moment's peace?"

Ayesha did not know, so she was silent.

"Here is a garden, and quiet. Yet even here the seekers come, and the talkers, and the watchers intrude. . . . Are my servants kind to thee, Ayesha?"

"Verily, they are. Will—will my lord be pleased to have me take my lute and sing?"

"It is late—in an hour it will be the light before the dawn. Go thou and sleep, Ayesha."

The girl returned to her quarters, obedient but resentful. With all these goings-on, how would the master ever notice her? He had stroked her head as if she had been one of the horses of the stable, and had sent her off to sleep like a child.

Omar sat by the pool, musing. Ghazali was no older than he had been when he rode to the wax with Rahim, and Yasmi gave him a rose. In Ghazali was the unreasoning sureness of youth. Why must the book of youth be closed? He himself was no more than thirty-four, but he felt that youth had deserted him. Who knew how, or whence? The book was closed, a new book opened.

Life, that was so assured to Ghazali, had become uncertain to Omar. To the ascetic, it lay open like a map, awaiting his coming. To the astronomer, it offered barriers within barriers.

"He will be a fine teacher," he thought. "And I could not teach."

Upon an impulse he clapped his hands. A servant came running from the house and paused respectfully at a little distance. "Bring me," Omar requested, "the case of my cameos and older coins. It is in the blue tiled chamber beside the pile of Chinese rugs—" he glanced up at the man's face for the first time—"Ahmed."

When the case lay upon his knees, he unlocked it with a key taken from the wallet in his girdle. It was necessary to keep this case locked because, while his servants would never steal the box itself, Zuleika or the maids would be tempted to pilfer the gold coins if it were open for their curiosity to pry into. Their fingers could never resist the soft touch of gold, although they would weep their hearts out if the master ever dared scold them for thieving.

"Is there something more, O master?"

"Nothing—thou hast leave to go, Ahmed."

For a few moments he took up the rare coins and inspected them. Here was a Byzantine piece, with the image of an emperor and his wife seated beneath a cross. Omar could make out the Greek letters—it was Justinian, in the sixth year of his reign, but the name of the woman was not there. And here lay a clay stamp, with the hollowed image of a flying bird, that he had picked up in the ruins of the desert city of Palmyra, where Zenobia had defied Rome not so long ago. What stories of human ambition these tokens had to tell!

Justinian had restored much of the power of Rome, but he had died upon a fruitless quest into Asia. Zenobia—Omar remembered that this queen of a caravan empire had been forced to yield at last to a Roman army and had been carried off captive to grace with her beauty a Roman triumph.

It was strange to hold in his hands the clear-cut heads of these long buried Caesars. Only the other day Nizam had announced that the latest Caesar of Constantinople had sent tribute to Malikshah. So the wheel of fortune had turned, until the west lay in chains before the triumphant march of Islam. . . . Ghazali thought that he, Omar, sought his ease. Yet for seventeen years he had not ceased doing the labor of three men, and now Nizam made greater demands upon him than before. . . . He wished that somebody else had brought him his coin case. Ahmed's impassive face reminded him of the secret supervision from which he could not free himself because it was carried out by Nizam's officers, and by Nizam's enemies. If he rid himself of the one, he would still have the other, and, after all, he had nothing to conceal. Still, they might have left him his rose garden with its solitude undisturbed.

Another servant appeared, and murmured a request.

"Nay, I will look at no letter! I will hear no message. And I do not wish a supper to be brought into the garden. Go thou, Ishak, and see to it that no one enters this garden. Take this accursed case and go!"

"But——"

"If even a jackal enters the wall, thy feet will be beaten."

The gatekeeper took the coin case and stood shuffling his feet uneasily. "But, master, there is one——"

"O God!" cried Omar, so vehemently that the servant fled.

The sun had set and twilight crept through the trees. A last breath of air stirred the surface of the pool and vanished. . . . Ghazali, walking alone down the hill paths toward the city, had found happiness in solitude. Yet Omar wondered if he himself, working among crowds, were not more alone than the mystic. Ghazali shared his thoughts with his fellow disciples; Omar had no one with whom to share his thoughts.

Out of the twilight came the low note of a lute, and a woman's song. The song was of men who came in from war to the well on the desert road, their camels laden with spoil—of the camels kneeling by the thorn bush, while the captives of the warriors wailed a lamentation. It was an Arab song, and presently Omar realized that the singer was near at hand, stroking the lute gently.

"What is this?" he demanded.

Out of the dimness Ayesha appeared. She walked with the grace of a gazelle, and she had taken the veil from her head. Kneeling close to him she bent over the lute again. "A song of the
banu's Safa
," she answered. "There is more—much more—of it. Will my lord hear?"

"I mean, why art thou here, Ayesha? I gave an order."

"But at the time of the order I was in the garden."

"Well, be quiet."

Obediently Ayesha put aside the lute, and curled her legs beneath her. She seemed perfectly satisfied not to make a sound. Still, she was not motionless by any means. First she thrust back the mass of dark hair, that smelled faintly of musk, from her shoulders. Then for a while she turned her face up as if contemplating the stars. After that she began to take the silver bangles from her bare arms. Whenever she moved, she turned fieetingly toward Omar.

He could not recapture the thread of his meditation. Instead he watched Ayesha's graceful hands, piling the armlets in her lap. She made the pile too high, and it fell over with a chiming of silver, and she caught her breath, like a child surprised in mischief. Her shoulder touched his lip, and he felt its warmth beneath the sheer silk covering. By now it was too dark to see anything very well.

Ayesha was concerned with her hair again, her arms raised to her head, bringing the faint scent of her body to him. Although she had said nothing at all, she had become part of the night that surrounded Omar, shutting him in from all that was outside. A few moments ago his words and his thoughts had been all-important, now only the girl's slight movements mattered.

His hand touched her knee, and a shiver ran across his flesh. Without lowering her arms, she turned her head toward him, her lips smiling. He bent down to kiss her, and suddenly she slipped away from him.

"Ayesha!" he whispered.

But this voiceless girl had altered in magical wise. She was no longer the submissive slave, fearful of his displeasure. She was a thing of the night, elusive and defiant. When he followed her she turned and fled back into the depths of the plane trees where even the stars were blind.

By chance his arm caught her shoulder and his hand fell upon the softness of her breast. Ayesha freed herself and vanished, her bare feet making no sound. All thought of kissing her had left Omar; his body was tensed in the pursuit of her, his blood quickening as they ran through the night.

Losing trace of her, he paused to listen—hearing only the throbbing in his ears, until her low laugh sounded beside him. He sprang toward it, only to stumble into a tree trunk. Again Ayesha's laugh mocked him, and this time he went toward her slowly, making no sound. She was poised to flee away when his arms caught her fast.

For a moment she struggled against him, but he was the stronger and his lips sought hers until she relaxed in his arms and her warm mouth pressed against his. Her loosened hair caressed his throat.

When he lifted her from her feet, and laid her on the ground she did not resist. Her arms closed about him and she was breathless, sobbing as the fire within her overmastered her.

A half hour later as they lay silent, relaxed and content, Omar could still feel the quick pulsing of her heart. The dancing girls he had known did not lie thus, half-unconscious. After her fashion the wild Arab girl loved him.