In Arabian Nights (18 page)

'Well, it was very bad here,' he said. 'I used to run from the
street into my shop and slam the door closed behind me. But
then suddenly this morning everything changed.'

'What changed?'

The cobbler stretched out an arm and pointed to the tree outside
his shop. Winter had robbed it of most of the leaves, and the
trunk was adorned with a mass of carved graffiti.

'Do you see it?'

'The tree?' I said.

'No, what is in the tree . . .'

I looked up and peered into the naked branches.
Noureddine's finger jabbed.

'Up there, up at the top.' The old man guided my gaze. 'Do
you see it . . . ? The nest.'

He was right. At the very top of the tree was a frail twig nest,
and sitting on the nest was a miniature brown bird. It looked
very ordinary.

'Can you hear it?' he said.

I listened hard. The traffic was so loud that it drowned out
anything natural. I strained, angled my left ear towards the tree.
Then, suddenly, the bird opened its tiny beak and went: 'Tweet,
tweet!'

Then Noureddine kissed his hat, praised God and led me into
the shop. Once in position behind his counter, he swivelled
round and rummaged in the pigeon-holes. He brought down my
suede brogues, soled in the fifty-year leather. They looked
brand-new. I thanked him effusively.

'It is you whom I should thank,' he said. 'Because you know
the value of fine shoes.'

I opened my satchel and pulled out the first volume of the
Arabian Nights
. The gold on the jet-black cloth caught the light.
The cobbler touched one of the books and kissed his hand. He
praised God again.

'This is one of the books I bought in Tangier last week,' I said.

The cobbler looked out of the window at the tree and up at
the nest. Then he gazed down at the book.

'This day has been full of wonder,' he said.

He asked if he might open the book.

'Of course you may.'

His callused fingers prised the covers apart and he scanned a
page.

'This is
Alf Layla wa Layla
,' he said in a whisper.

'Yes,
Alf Layla wa Layla
,
A Thousand and One Nights
.'

Noureddine slumped on his stool. He seemed overcome with
emotion.

'My grandmother told me these tales,' he said softly. 'I
remember them all.'

'Did you read them to your sons?'

'Of course! It's a tradition. Stories are our culture.'

'Did your sons read them to their sons?'

At first the cobbler didn't answer. He looked out at the nest
again, his enthusiasm gone.

'No, no,' he said despondently. 'They didn't read the stories.
The old ways are disappearing. My sons are too busy with their
foolish friends. Too busy ever to see their father and too busy to
read a word to their children.' The cobbler wiped a finger across
his eye. 'My grandchildren spend their time watching television,'
he said.

Rachana and the children were waiting for me nearby.
Apologizing, I put the book away and opened the door. Just
before I pushed out into the traffic and fumes, the old man called
back.

'Come here any day,' he said, 'and I will tell my favourite story
from
Alf Layla wa Layla
.'

'Which story is it?'

Noureddine grinned again.

'The "Tale of Maruf the Cobbler",' he said.

On my fifth birthday my father gave me an exquisite box. It was
crafted from turquoise micro-mosaic, with ivory beading along
the edges, was about twelve inches long and half as wide. My
father said it came from Paghman, the ancestral home of our
family in Afghanistan, and it had been passed down through
generations. I was used to being given wooden blocks and plastic
toys, and so the box caught my attention. It was the sort of thing
that is sometimes kept away from children because of its delicacy
and value. I laid it on my bed and carefully removed the lid.

Inside were three sheets of paper, all folded up.

I pulled out the paper, looked at the lines of type and asked
what all the writing meant. My father sat on the edge of my bed
and said that the writing was a story, a story as old as the world.
He said it was very important and that I would learn to love it
like one of my friends. I asked him about the box. I was so small,
but I remember his exact words.

'This box is very lovely,' he said. 'You can see the colours, and
the work on the sides. But don't be fooled, Tahir Jan, this box is
only the container. What's held inside is far, far more precious.
One day you will understand.'

I didn't understand. I didn't know what he was talking about.

To my eyes, the box was the box, and the story on the paper was
a story, and just that. The gift was put on a high shelf in my bedroom
and brought down from time to time to be admired. The
pages inside stayed protected by the box, but yellowed with time.
They are still in there, in the very same box, which now sits in
my library on my desk.

Sometimes when I feel the need, I open the box, take out the
story and read it.

It is the 'Tale of Melon City'.

Sleep with the remembrance of death,
And rise with the thought that you will not live long.

Uwais el-Qarni

ONCE UPON A TIME THE RULER OF A DISTANT LAND DECIDED TO
build a magnificent triumphal arch, so that he could ride under
it endlessly with great pomp and ceremony. He gave instructions
for the arch's design, and its construction began. The masons
toiled day and night until the great arch was at last ready.

The king had a fabulous procession assembled of courtiers
and royal guards, all dressed in their finest costumes. He took his
position at the head and the procession moved off. But as the
king went through the great arch, his royal crown was knocked
off.

Infuriated, he ordered the master builder to be hanged at
once. A gallows was constructed in the main square, and the
chief builder was led towards it. But as he climbed the steps of
the scaffold, he called out that the fault lay not with him, but
with the men who had heaved the blocks into place. They, in
turn, put the blame on the masons who had cut the blocks of
stone. The king had the masons brought to the palace. He
ordered them to explain themselves on pain of death. The
masons insisted the fault lay at the hands of the architect whose
plans they had followed.

The architect was summoned. He revealed to the court that
he was not to blame, for he had only followed the plans drawn
out by the order of the king. Unsure who to execute, the king
summoned the wisest of his advisers, who was very ancient
indeed. The situation was explained to him. Just before he was
about to give his solution, he expired.

The chief judge was called. He decreed that the arch itself
should be hanged. But because the upper portion had touched
the royal head, it was exempted. So a hangman's noose was
brought to the lower portion, for it to be punished on behalf of
the entire arch. The executioner tried to attach his noose to the
arch, but realized it was far too short. The judge called the ropemaker,
but he stated it was the fault of the scaffold, for being too
short.

Presiding over the confusion, the king saw the impatience of
the crowd. 'They want to hang someone,' he said weakly. 'We
must find someone who will fit the gallows.'

Every man, woman and child in the kingdom was measured
by a special panel of experts. Even the king's height was
measured. By a strange coincidence, the monarch himself
was found to be the perfect height for the scaffold. Victim procured,
the crowd calmed down. The king was led up the steps,
had the noose slipped round his neck and was hanged.

According to the kingdom's custom, the next stranger who
ventured through the city gates could decide who would be the
new monarch. The courtiers ran to the city gate and waited for
a stranger to arrive. They waited and waited, and waited and
waited. Then they saw a man in the distance. He was riding a
donkey backwards. As soon as his animal stepped through the
great city gate, the prime minister ran up and asked him to
choose the next king. The man, who was a travelling idiot, said,
'A melon.' He said this because he always said 'A melon' to anything
that was asked of him. For he liked to eat melons very
much.

And so it came about that a melon was crowned the king.

These events happened long, long ago. A melon is still king
of the country and, when strangers visit and ask anyone there why a melon
is the ruler, they say it's because of tradition, that the king prefers to
be a melon and that they as humble subjects have no power to change his mind.

As Ariane's fifth birthday was approaching, I decided to have a
special box made for her, a container for the 'Tale of Melon City'.
The next time I met Abdelmalik at Café Lugano, I asked if he
knew a carpenter skilled in the art of box-making. He leaned
back and flipped his sunglasses from his face up on to his hair.

'What do you need to be made?' he asked.

I told him about the 'Tale of Melon City' and my wish to pass
its gift on to my little daughter. Abdelmalik said that
Casablanca's carpenters were mostly thieves. It was something I
already knew. During the renovation process at Dar Khalifa, we
had employed dozens of them. If they didn't steal from us, they
lied, and if they didn't lie, they cheated us. Most of them had
stolen, lied
and
cheated. We sat in silence for a while, reflecting
on the sad situation of carpentry.

Abdelmalik clapped his hands.

'I will send you to Reda,' he said.

Since my previous visit to the astrologer, I had tried to put out of
my mind her conclusion that Dar Khalifa had been a refuge of a
holy man. In more usual circumstances I might have embraced
the idea, but after dragging Rachana and the children to live in
Casablanca I felt I had too much to lose. For months I had tried
my best to steer our lives away from talk of the supernatural and
follow Rachana's dream . . . the dream of living in an ordinary
house, stripped clean of surprises.

Seeking answers, I stopped in at the mattress shop in search of
Sukayna. The place was awash with daffodil-yellow cushions,
an order from a restaurant. The mattress-maker said the
astrologer was attending to a purification rite at someone's home.

'Casablanca is filled with evil,' he said darkly.

'Not all of it, surely?'

The mattress-maker threaded a needle.

'Every inch of this city is wicked,' he said. 'Why do you think
Sukayna has so many clients?'

'If it's so wicked,' I asked, 'why do you live in Casablanca?'

The tailor pulled a stitch through a square of yellow cloth.

'Because we have Sukayna,' he said.

The mood at Dar Khalifa depended greatly on the weather. At
the end of December it rained for five days and five nights. It
wasn't the usual light rain, but the kind of squall you get on the
high seas. We stayed cooped up indoors, all of us depressed
beyond words. The children caught flu, the maids spent their
time fighting for pole position at Timur's bedside and the
guardians shut themselves up in the stables and refused to come
out. Struggling against the lashing rain, I made my way down to
their retreat.

Marwan, Osman and the Bear were clustered round their
makeshift table playing cards and drinking watery mint tea.
They sat upright when they saw me and looked uncomfortable.
My presence tended to conclude in a demand, and demands
were always unwelcome, especially in the rain. For once, though,
I had nothing to ask of them. I had come to check how Osman
was bearing up. I hadn't seen him for days. He was sitting in a
shadow, his shoulders rounded forwards with melancholy, his
mouth turned down at the corners like a cartoon. A steady
stream of water was dripping on to his back, soaking him.

But he was too sad to care.

I took Marwan outside. We stood in the rain, sheltering under
the foliage of a banana plant. I asked whether there was any
news from Osman's wife. Marwan shook his head.

'Osman is miserable,' he said.

'Do you think he will ever be happy again?'

'Perhaps,' said Marwan. 'Perhaps, many years from now.'

'Maybe his wife will come back,' I said.

Marwan the carpenter scowled.

'He will never take her back,' he said.

'Why not?'

'She has brought shame, terrible shame. As far as Osman is
concerned, his wife is dead.'

Opposite the small railway station of Oasis, I found the address
Abdelmalik had written down. There was a newsagent on one
side and a pharmacy on the other. Between them was a narrow
furniture shop. It went back very far, like a bowling alley. There
was no sign, no name. I must have passed it thirty times before
and never noticed it. Most of our furniture had been shipped to
us from India, or was made from cane, bought cheap from a stall
on the highway to Rabat. We had never bought anything in a
Casablanca furniture shop.

In Moroccan homes there tend to be two types of furnishings.
The first are everyday items for use by the family. Such pieces
are usually simple, lacking expensive detail, but solidly made.
The second type of furniture is generally reserved for guests.
Those pieces are far more elaborate. They are beautified with
attractive upholstery and gilt, carved with pleasing geometric
designs. In Arab culture a visitor is held in very high esteem. No
amount of expense is ever too great to make sure he is more
comfortable than he would be in his own home.

As soon as I stepped up to the shop, I saw that it specialized in
the second type of furniture, the kind reserved for guests. There
were finely tooled sofas, exquisite tables, cabinets and chairs,
all of them inlaid with fragments of mother-of-pearl. At the
front of the shop sat a large wooden chest. Its top was arched, its
surfaces carved with the most intricate geometric design. Like
everything else on sale, it was a work of art. But I was confused,
for none of the furniture was in the Moroccan style. It was all
Damascene, from Syria.

I touched my hand to the wooden chest and caressed the
tooled surface. Then I bent down and smelled the wood. It was
cedar. My nose was pressed down on to the relief when I heard a
voice.

'The nose is a far worthier judge than the eye,' it said.

I jolted upright. A man was standing beside me. He
welcomed me. I took a step backwards. He was about sixty, with
a square head on squared shoulders and glazed-over eyes. There
was a gap between his two front teeth, a grey bristle pencil-line
moustache and a carrot-coloured blotch of nicotine between the
first two fingers on his right hand.

'I am looking for Monsieur Reda,' I said.

'At your service, sir.'

Reda lit a cigarette and led the way back through the shop,
shuffling in his tattered bedroom slippers, until we arrived at a
small office. As we progressed deeper into the heart of the building,
the fine decor and furnishings melted away, replaced by a
line of trestle tables. Standing over each was a craftsman
chiselling away at a great slab of beech.

The office was dark and functional, the walls hung with
sheets of geometric design and samples of wood. Monsieur Reda
stubbed out his cigarette and lit another straight away.

'Do you mind if I smoke?' he said in a gravelly voice.

I said I did not.

'It helps me to think,' he said.

I told the carpenter about the box. 'I need it to be exceptional,
for it will hold something very precious indeed.'

'Jewellery?'

'No, no, something far more valuable than jewellery,' I said.

Monsieur Reda coughed, thumped a fist to his chest and
coughed again.

'Gold?'

I shook my head. 'No, no,' I exclaimed. 'Much more valuable
than jewellery or gold.'

Reda thumped his chest again.

'The box will hold a story, for my little daughter.'

The carpenter stubbed out his cigarette and shook my hand.
His palm was soft, a little sticky, and smelled of Gauloises.

'I will create a masterpiece,' he said.

During the first year we lived in Casablanca, I employed an
assistant called Kamal. He had spent time in the United States,
spoke good English and had a genius for fixing unfixable
problems. Over the months he worked with me, his life became
intertwined with my own. We spent almost every day together,
from early morning until late at night. We became friends, but I
always harboured a deep unspoken fear of Kamal. It was something
about the way he looked at me, especially late at night,
when I caught him off guard.

There was hatred in his eyes.

While in the United States, Kamal had been married to an
American girl, a secret he kept from his family at home in
Casablanca. He had been interrogated by the FBI and claimed to
have been acquainted with Mohammed Atta, the leader of the
9/11 suicide squads. After the Twin Towers fell, his American
wife left him and joined the US Army. He claimed she had been
brainwashed against Arabs, turned against her own husband by
the Feds.

Late one night Kamal drove me out to the rocks near the
lighthouse. He turned off the engine and told me to get out. He
was very drunk, stumbling all over the place.

'Where are we going?'

'I'll show you,' he said.

He led me up on to the rocks, until we were staring out at the
black Atlantic waters. There was no sign of human life, not a
light, nothing. I half wondered if Kamal had brought me there
to kill me. It may sound dramatic, but he was the kind of man
who was completely unconcerned with right and wrong. We sat
on the rocks for a few minutes in silence. Then I asked Kamal
what he wanted to show me.

'If someone betrayed me,' he said, 'I would react.'

There was anger in his voice, a kind of cold rage.

'Has someone betrayed you?' I asked.