Vladimir Bartol - Alamut

Halima felt thunderstruck. Her entire wonderful world collapsed. Her eyes opened wide and she couldn’t make a sound. She put her hand in her mouth and bit into it in pain. Gradually she realized that Suleiman was lost to her forever.

Suddenly she darted toward the doorway like an arrow in flight. Now everybody could laugh at her for refusing to believe them. She ran down the corridor, and before her companions could collect themselves, she was racing down the path toward the rocks where the lizards sunned themselves by day.

“Rokaya! Sara! Go after her!” Fatima ordered in a subdued voice. They both flew into the gardens after her. They didn’t even notice when Ahriman joined them. They ran straight toward the edge of the stream.

They caught sight of Halima standing on top of the rocks. Her arms flailed, and she went pitching into the waves. There was a desperate scream and a splash, and the current was carrying her off.

Ahriman leapt into the water after her. He caught up with her, grabbed her hair in his teeth and tried to drag her to shore. But the current was too strong. In mortal fear Halima clutched onto his neck. They came closer and closer to the cliff under Alamut. Used to the darkness, his eyes could make out the nearby shore. He tried to reach it with all his might, but his efforts were all in vain. He gave a labored snort and shook off his load. The lock of her arms was released and her body vanished in the waves. But now he was trapped between high cliffs on both sides. He reached them, but his claws slipped against the smooth rock surface. He tried to swim against the current, back to the gentler banks of the gardens, but his strength was gone. A whirlpool caught him and dragged him into its depths.

Sara and Rokaya went back with horror in their eyes. Zofana met them at the entrance and they broke out in tears.

“She’s gone. She jumped into the water. Into the rapids.”

“O Allah, Allah! But keep quiet about it. The boy has woken up and he’s behaving strangely. He doesn’t seem to believe that we’re houris at all. What is Sayyiduna going to say!”

They wiped the tears off their cheeks and followed Zofana.

Obeida was sitting on pillows, confidently embracing first Fatima, then Jovaira, and smiling disdainfully through it all. They tried in vain to get him drunk, but he barely moistened his lips in the wine.

Then, with a knowing smile, he began to tell the girls about life at Alamut, and he kept a careful look on their faces as he did. He noticed some of them exchange glances when he mentioned Suleiman’s and Yusuf’s names. With an almost fiendish delight he described their departure for paradise that morning. He saw them blanch and try in vain to conceal their emotions. This gave him a certain satisfaction. It bothered him that those two had enjoyed the delights of these beauties sitting before him.

Then he caught sight of Sara and was taken aback. “So that’s black Sara that Suleiman talked about, although her name is different now,” he said to himself. The blood of his ancestors stirred in him. This is what the slaves of their grandees must have looked like.

He reached out, seized her by the wrist, and drew her toward him. His nostrils flared. He tore the pink veil off of her. He embraced her so hard that they both felt their bones crunch. Then he groaned like a rutting cat and threw himself at her in total abandon. Sara even forgot about what had happened to Halima.

Now it became easy to get him drunk. Powerless and devoid of will, he accepted everything they offered him. The fatigue was so great that he soon dozed off.

“Rokaya! Go get Miriam fast! Tell her everything! That Halima jumped into the river and that Obeida doesn’t believe.”

A boat was moored to the bank of the canal with Moad sitting in it. Rokaya jumped in.

“Take me to Miriam! Now!”

“Miriam is with Sayyiduna.”

“Even better.”

The boat set out gliding across the water’s surface.

Along the way they encountered Mustafa, who was ferrying Apama back from another garden.

“Halima has drowned in the river!” Rokaya called out to her.

“What are you saying?”

Rokaya repeated it. The old woman and the two eunuchs were aghast.

“Show me the place! Maybe we can still save her.”

“It’s too late. The river’s long since carried her off past the castle.”

“Allah, Allah! What is the point of it all?”

Mustafa dropped the oars and buried his face in his hands.

For a long time Hasan and Miriam sat silently in the small hut. Finally he broke the silence.

“This will be news to you,” he said. “That night when I sent the fedayeen to paradise, my grand dais plotted to throw me off the tower into Shah Rud.”

Miriam looked at him in surprise.

“And why was that?”

“Because they couldn’t grasp that a man has an obligation to himself to complete what he’s begun.”

“Which is to say, they were horrified by what you’re doing. What have you done with them?”

“Done with them? They’re still roaming around the castle grounds, as they did before. We are all full of evil wishes, so I don’t resent them. What could they do to me anyway? We all depend for our salvation on my machine functioning properly. I just hope it also succeeds in destroying our bitterest sworn enemy.”

He chuckled almost inaudibly.

“Which is to say, my old arch rival, my bosom foe, my mortal enemy.”

“I know who you mean,” she muttered.

Again there was a long silence. He knew what was weighing down on Miriam’s soul. But he avoided touching on this delicate subject himself, and she was reluctant to bring it up. Only after a long time had passed did she ask.

“Tell me, what have you done with the three boys who were in the gardens?”

“This morning Yusuf and Suleiman helped to fray the nerves of the sultan’s army that’s got us surrounded.”

She looked at him as though she were trying to read his innermost thoughts.

“Did you kill them?”

“No, they killed themselves. And they were happy to do it.”

“You’re a cruel beast. What happened?”

He related the story. She listened to him with a mixture of horror and disbelief.

“And you didn’t feel a thing when you sacrificed two human beings who were utterly devoted to you?”

She could see that this was difficult for him and that he was on the defensive.

“You wouldn’t understand. What I’ve begun, I have to finish. But when I gave the fedayeen the command, I had to shudder. Something inside me said, ‘If there’s a power above us, it won’t permit this. Either the sun will go out or the earth will shake. The fortress will collapse and bury you and your whole army …’ I’m telling you, I was trembling in my heart, like a child trembles before ghosts. I expected at least some little sign. It’s the truth, if just the slightest thing had stirred, if just then a cloud, for instance, had suddenly blocked out the sun, or if there had been a gust of wind, I would have reconsidered. Even after it was over, I was expecting a blow. But the sun continued to shine down all the same on me, on Alamut, and on the two dead bodies lying before of me. And this is what I thought: either there is no power above us, or else it’s supremely indifferent to everything that happens down here. Or, it’s favorably inclined toward what I’m doing. It was then I realized that somewhere secretly I still believed in a divinity. But that divinity bore no resemblance to the one of my youth. It was like the world itself, evolving in thousands of contradictions, yet firmly fettered to three dimensions. Limitless within its limits. Vast chaos inside a glass beaker. A terrible, grimacing dragon. And I knew at once that I had been serving it all my life.”