The Last of the Angels (8 page)

This was the first time that Hameed Nylon had ever failed to sell a person one of his ideas. He considered proclaiming a liberating, armed rebellion in the style of Mao Tse-tung, whom he greatly revered, but realized that he did not possess even a single rifle with which to fire the revolution's opening shot. Thus, Hameed Nylon retraced his steps home, but without losing hope, since a trip of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as Mao Tse-tung had said. This was a phrase that Faruq Shamil had frequently repeated to him.

A
fter a stay of several years, livestock dealer Khidir Musa returned from al-Hawija, but without the fortune he had dreamt of. In fact, he would have ended up in prison had he not paid many bribes: to the county manager, the police lieutenant, and the deputy lieutenant, not to mention the policemen who hovered around him like flies.

Actually, at first he had enjoyed a streak of good luck and in only a few months had become an influential figure who gambled on a regular basis with the county manager, the police lieutenant, and several tribal chiefs. First, he had worked as a butcher. Then he quickly switched professions to open, in a location near his home, a shop that sold sugar, tea, and cereals. Eventually he became—in return for the sum of one hundred dinars, which he used to bribe the government (in other words, the county manager and some police officers)—the sole government contractor approved to provision the county. In time, he learned that he should lose, although not too frequently, when he gambled with government officials. He was also obliged to demonstrate his support for the government on a regular basis with sacks of sugar and cereals and with Ceylon tea boxes, which usually contained small black elephants with ivory tusks. Policemen would, as a matter of course, volunteer to convey these souvenirs to their superiors at the behest of the contractor Khidir Musa. They were themselves gratefully satisfied with a scoop of sugar or a tea packet that the contractor would generously present to them.

All the same, truth be told, this trade did not compare with his previous career as a livestock dealer and butcher. At the beginning he had established strong ties with the tribal Arabs who came from the villages around al-Hawija by purchasing their sheep and goats, which he would dispatch to Kirkuk. In time, however, he had discovered that dealing in livestock drew him away from his store and demanded a lot of time and effort, which were not repaid by commensurate profits. So he had therefore retired from this trade, at least partially, after stumbling across another, more beneficial one. He had noticed that no commerce was as profitable as that in smuggled weapons, especially in Czech BRNO rifles, which every farmer who lived on the outskirts of al-Hawija coveted, for in these villages, which lay on the plains, the rifle symbolized social power and honor insofar as it was an instrument of death and a frightening weapon used to plunder and pillage or to confront hostile tribes, between which there were endless wars. Indeed, it was difficult for a tribal Arab to find a bride unless he was prepared to offer her father an excellent rifle as dower that he could reclaim if she left him or was barren. Because there was not a single tribal Arab man who did not think of procuring a wife or two, with the passing of time, ever since tribesmen had first acquired rifles from irregular Ottoman army units at the beginning of the nineteenth century—or perhaps even before that—the rifle had gained an exceptional value that not even gold itself could equal. Thus Khidir Musa had entered a new world that could easily have left him dead or in prison. It is true that he had readily purchased the government's blind eye and made lots of money, but matters had turned against him in the end in an unexpected way. He attributed this, quite simply, to luck or fate, the course of which was beyond his powers to influence.

One night, farm workers—and this was something that had only happened once before in ten generations—attacked the palace of the head of their tribe, Shaykh Mahmud al-Hindi himself, in a region beyond government control, in retaliation for the seizure of their lands and eviction from them. Shaykh Mahmud al-Hindi, however, had prepared for this eventuality by transforming his palace into an impregnable fortress. He and his men, who were armed to the teeth, counterattacked the attacking farmers and launched flares to unmask their foes' positions. These flashes of light were visible as far away as al-Hawija itself. Indeed, people say that his son sped to his aid in a helicopter that bombed the farmers. This battle, which lasted one whole night, resulted in the death of twenty-seven farm workers, whose bodies were transported by the police to al-Hawija the next day because there was not enough room for them all in the police station and perhaps because of the stench, which had begun to disrupt people's breathing—given the intense heat—after the police had lined up the corpses beside each other, uncovered, on the ground in front of the coffeehouse, which was opposite the police station, and beside a small waterwheel so that the feet of some corpses dangled in the water.

Although Khidir Musa was certainly not responsible for the deaths of these men, he had sold the rebels enough rifles to proclaim their rebellion against their chief. The county manager, the police commissioner, and the investigative officers who arrived in al-Hawija took advantage of this opportunity to strip Khidir Musa of all his profits, especially after Shaykh al-Hindi swore to kill him as punishment for his misdeeds. They nearly threw him in prison, but he offered bribes to everyone down to the lowest-ranking policeman in the county. Then, to save his skin, he fled with his family and never showed his face there again.

Khidir Musa returned to the Chuqor community, not knowing where to begin. He felt bitter, disillusioned, and world-weary—having turned fifty. He surrendered all the money he had to his wife Nazira, who was in business with her mother, the crone Hidaya, buying and selling fabric. For his part, he did nothing but sit for long hours, staring at people. During cold weather he would balance on the lip of the clay oven and dangle his feet in it, once the oven had cooled slightly after his wife had finished baking bread. He was the butt of his wife's complaints, to which he only rarely responded.

Then, suddenly, although he had never entered a mosque before, he began to pray. Hameed Nylon presented him with a set of amber prayer beads, which he never allowed to slip from his fingers, not even while he slept. Each Friday evening, he attended a Sufi dhikr service during which the brotherhood's master teacher would pierce his followers with swords and lances, which remained lodged in their bodies without a drop of blood falling or the scar of a wound showing. Tambourines rattled to the beat of Sufi chants that glorified the prophet and celebrated his memory. The dhikr's euphoria would overwhelm one or another of them as the word “Allah” was endlessly repeated rhythmically. Then people present would seize that man forcefully or shove him to the ground until after a while he calmed down once more, as they repeated the word “Allah” time and again. Khidir Musa would occasionally take with him his sister's son Burhan Abdallah, who was very excited to watch the dervishes tread on live coals and swallow glass, or see the brotherhood's shaykh slay one of his disciples. Once he had done that, they would throw a piece of cloth over the corpse to cover it. After murmuring his secret prayer, the shaykh himself would lift the cover, shouting in a voice that all could hear, “Rise now!” Then the man would rise as though he had never been slain. On a few occasions the man did not rise. When that happened, the dervishes would call out to the audience, “Someone here did not perform ablutions after having sex. He should please leave.” The slain man would not rise from the dead until one of those present had slipped out and left. Joyous chanting of the Islamic creed would echo through the Sufi circle when the spirit returned to the slain man and he rose again.

Khidir Musa would occasionally tell his nephew on their way home that the Sufi master, or shaykh, was a member of the Naqshbandi brotherhood and that not even bullets could harm him. He had once leaned against a wall and demanded that one of his followers empty the bullets of his revolver at him. So he did, and the bullets did not even scratch the shaykh. The boy thought the government should offer this Naqshbandi shaykh an appointment in the army to transform all the soldiers into dervishes. Then the government could send them to fight Israel. “Who do you suppose could defeat them then?”

Eventually Khidir Musa performed a retreat at a Sufi lodge located between the Chuqor and al-Musalla communities. He withdrew from human contact for a period of forty days, during which he spoke to no one and his food was shoved through an opening in a closed door. This was the ordeal chosen by persons who sought the truth and the saints. At first, people were surprised by the spiritual transformation that had befallen the livestock dealer, whose whole world had revolved around treasuring wealth. Indeed, even his sister Qadriya mocked him, saying, “You can bet he's found a path that allows him to cheat God and make more money.” Hameed Nylon suggested, “God disclosed to him the truth in the faces of the farmers killed by his rifles.”

Just as soon as livestock dealer Khidir Musa left his spiritual retreat, he announced in the mosque of the Chuqor community—to the astonished admiration of the other worshipers—that during his retreat he had received from the spirit world a message to set forth to search for his two brothers, who had been missing since World War I. These two older brothers had gone with the Ottoman forces to fight the Russians, but nothing had been heard from them since. Years later a rumor had spread to the effect that they had been killed in the war and buried in the Caucasus Mountains. Eventually people had forgotten the story of these two young men, whose effects Burhan Abdallah had discovered in the upper room. Here, however, was a message from the other side, revealed to their brother Khidir Musa more than thirty years later. It informed him that they were still prisoners in Russia and were waiting for someone to come and take them back to their home in the Chuqor community. Khidir Musa said, “I'll go; I won't return without them.” Although no one dared to question a message from the spirit world, even one that was scarcely credible, many hastened to convince him to set aside this impossible mission, declaring that Russia was now ruled by the Bolsheviks, who would not hesitate to behead him once they saw him pray. Hameed Nylon used logic on him, affirming first, that he did not possess his brothers' address and that Russia was an extremely large country; second, that he did not speak Russian and could not ask about the two prisoners; and third, that if they had not been killed in World War I, they probably had been killed in World War II. His wife Nazira accused him of being senile and insane. She threatened to tie him up with a rope and lead him to an Arab sayyid who lived in a hut at the edge of the city so this healer could cast out the demons from his spirit. People scolded her angrily, however, telling her that he was one of those whose heart God had enlightened, opening before their eyes the secrets of the Unknown.

Thus commenced Khidir Musa's one thousand attempts to escape from his home. They all ended in failure, for his wife Nazira overtook him every time and brought him back. The first time, she grabbed hold of his collar as he was crossing the stone bridge heading toward al-Qurya. The second time, she brought him back from climbing the hill of the water treatment and distribution facility at the garden of Umm al-Rabi‘ayn as he headed for the village of Shawan. The third time, she did not catch him until he was in the city of Alton Kopri. The fourth was in Daquq. The fifth was in Rawanduz, the sixth in Qurna, the seventh in Wadi al-Dhahab in the western desert. She bewailed her luck: “Wolves will devour him or bears dismember him before he reaches his brothers, and all that's left of them is their bones.” He found it perplexing to be forced to set out in no matter what direction, as if he would reach Russia whichever way he headed.

Finally, after many failed attempts, Khidir Musa disappeared, and his wife searched for him for three months, going from city to city and town to town without finding any trace of him. In despair, she returned, cursing the Ottomans, who had taken his two brothers away and left them to be slain by the spears of Russian soldiers somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains. Qadriya Musa, Khidir's sister, wept and said, “It's certain he'll die in the rugged mountains or in the desolate deserts.” Her son Burhan Abdallah was on the verge of tears too, under his mother's influence, but resolved instead to climb to the upper room and then descend into the valley of the angels to ask the three old men, who had been journeying since eternity—as they headed to the Chuqor community to bring it spring—for news of his enlightened uncle, who had gone in search of the two men killed in World War I. He hoped they might disclose his uncle's fate to him.

The three shaykhs, who resembled angels, were traveling through a desert that stretched without obstruction to the horizon and making footprints in the sand, which the wind was skimming. The sun was shining over their heads, and the earth, which was spotted with camel's thorn and Indian fig plants, blazed beneath their feet. In the distance Burhan Abdallah saw a camel caravan that was heading toward the golden domes of a legendary city on the horizon. He assumed that this must be a mirage and asked himself, “Why do you suppose these old men are traversing this desolate desert?” Then he told himself, “The route to the Chuqor community must pass this way.” The three men who resembled angels saw him and shouted, “So, you've come again, Burhan!” One of them teased him, “Come walk before us and share our exhaustion.”

Burhan Abdallah hesitated a little, however. He gazed at them and then said, “I've come to ask you about my uncle Khidir Musa's fate.”

One of them demanded, “What about him?”

Burhan Abdallah replied sadly, “He's gone to search for his two brothers. They've been lost for a long time in Russia.”

Smiling, one of the men asked, “Wouldn't you search for your brother if he were lost?”

Burhan Abdallah responded, “But they've been lost for a long time.”

Then one of the men put his hand on Burhan's shoulder and said, “Time does not bury the truth. Memorize that maxim, Burhan, and don't forget it.”