Vladimir Bartol - Alamut

He looked past her with his eyes wide open, as though he were looking at indescribable wonders.

Insane devil , Miriam thought at that moment.

“Where is ibn Tahir?”

Hasan lowered his eyes.

“Did you send him to your ‘bosom foe’?”

Now he fixed his eyes on her, his gaze taking her in completely.

“Didn’t you once say that you didn’t believe in anything in the world and that you were afraid of nothing? Where is your strength, now that you have to endure the actions whose weight I bear? You have a heart for the small things, but sometimes you need one for the big things too.”

Just then Moad put his boat in at the waterfront. Rokaya hurried to Miriam. She was still trembling all over. She didn’t turn to look at Hasan as she exclaimed, “Halima has jumped into the river!”

Miriam clutched at her heart. She looked at Hasan, as though she wanted to say to him, “This is your doing!”

Hasan was also startled. He asked for the details.

“So when she saw that they’d brought in Obeida instead of Suleiman, she ran away? And you say that Obeida doesn’t believe he’s in paradise?”

He looked at Miriam, who had buried her face in her hands and was crying.

He stood up.

“See to it that everything goes as it should from now on!”

He went to the waterfront, where Adi was waiting for him in the boat.

“Back to the castle!” he ordered.

“I want you to strangle the one in the middle garden,” he told the eunuchs, “once you’re alone with him. Search him and bring me everything you find on him. Then bury him alongside the other two from this morning at the far end of the gardens, at the foot of the mountains. Send the pair from the other two gardens up to me.”

Stern and gloomy, he had himself hoisted up into his tower. Once at the top, he gave the sign that the time had come to leave the gardens. He was glad that neither Abu Ali nor Buzurg Ummid was with him. What did he have left to talk about with them? He would have to leave the world an explanation and apology for his actions. For the faithful, he would need to write a compilation of his philosophy, simply and in metaphors. To his heirs he would need to reveal the final mysteries. There was a great deal of work still ahead of him. But life was short and he was already old.

Exhausted to death, he returned to his room. He collapsed onto his bed and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t. By day he was afraid of nothing. Now he saw Suleiman’s face, down to the tiniest details. Yes, he had seemed to be happy. And yet, in the next instant the life was extinguished within him. Great God! What a horrible experiment!

Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Now he saw ibn Tahir riding toward Nehavend, obsessed with a single thought. Yes, that’s where his mortal enemy was staying. His “opposite principle,” the grand vizier Nizam al-Mulk, that brilliant and illustrious mind who professed everything that mankind saw as great and good. And yet, somewhere beneath it all there was a huge lie in him. He bowed down to mankind and its beliefs against the better convictions that Hasan knew he had. He had won the hearts of the masses and become powerful. He had achieved this through kindness, through generosity, and through more than a few concessions to precious human desires. Was there even room for another who was equal to him? Nizam al-Mulk had beat him at everything. He was more than ten years his senior. What option did he have, but to resort to the “opposite path”? He, smiling, I, grim. He the forgiving one, I the unyielding. He the gentle one, I the terrifying one . And yet he knew that the vizier was also capable of being ruthless and merciless. Even more than he. If I can force him to yield, I’ll be the sole ruler of Iran .

“If only this night would end!” he sighed. He put his coat on and went back to the tower’s upper platform.

He looked down into the gardens. The eunuchs had just turned the lamps down. Then he turned toward the foot of the mountains. Lights were shining there. He shivered. “They’re burying the dead,” he said to himself. A terrifying shudder came over him at the thought that one day he was going to vanish into nothingness.

We know nothing for certain , he thought. The stars above us are silent. We’ve been abandoned to our hunches, and we give in to illusions. The god who rules us is terrible .

He returned to his chambers and looked into the lift. Jafar and Abdur Ahman were fast asleep. He took the sheet off of them. The light from his room dimly illuminated their tired faces. He looked at them for a long time.

“It’s true, man is the strangest creature on earth,” he whispered. “He wants to fly like an eagle, but he lacks its wings. He wants to be as strong as a lion, but he lacks its paws. How horribly imperfect you’ve created him, Lord! And as punishment you’ve given him intellect and the power to recognize his own helplessness.”

He lay back down and tried to go to sleep. But he only managed to drop off as morning broke.

“Ibn Sabbah is a real prophet. He does believe in some god,” Abu Ali said to Buzurg Ummid that evening. He looked at him with bright, almost childlike eyes. Then he continued to confide in him.

“You see, I wasn’t mistaken about him. No matter how godlessly he may have spoken, I always believed that only he could be leader of the Ismailis. Because only he has the greatness of heart that’s needed. Praise be to Allah! We have a prophet!”

“A terrible prophet, indeed,” Buzurg Ummid muttered.

“Mohammed was no less terrible. He sent thousands to their deaths. And yet they all believed in him. Now they’re waiting for the Mahdi.”

“Don’t tell me you’re waiting for him too?”

Abu Ali gave a cunning smile and replied.

“The masses have never waited for someone in vain. Believe me. History bears it out. Whether good or terrible, he’ll come, because the wishes of thousands and thousands of hearts will demand it. That’s the great secret of mankind. You don’t know when or where he’ll come from. All of a sudden, he’ll be here.”

“It looks like a form of madness is getting the better of you too. You believe! Even though you know that mankind lives on delusions.”

“If he believes, why shouldn’t I believe too?”

“I’m beginning to think that’s what all of you have always wanted.”

“The dais don’t trust us, because they think we’re the commander’s men. He has the key to the fedayeen. We have to go back to him.”

“All this shifting back and forth doesn’t feel right to me one bit. But you have a point. The dais have nothing to offer us. We don’t have our own people. So, then, our place is with the commander.”

At that moment, back in their residence, the girls were crying disconsolately for Halima. They assembled around the pool, and like a hawk attacking a flock of doves, Fatima told them how everything had happened. They timidly hung their heads and mourned their lost companion. The girls from the two far gardens also returned that night. The horrible news made them feel as though they were all one family.

“Halima was the best of all of us.”

“It’s going to be lonely and sad in the gardens without her.”

“It’ll be awfully boring.”

“How are we going to get by without her?”

Miriam sat alone to one side. She listened to what the others were saying and felt twice as bad. She realized that she was powerless and that nothing bound her to life anymore. Why should she even bother? As dawn approached, she told the girls to go to bed. She went to find a sharp blade, entered her bath, undressed, and lay down in the basin. Then she opened the veins in her wrists.