Vladimir Bartol - Alamut

“All-merciful Allah!” Abu Ali exclaimed. “I’d say you’ve also built a world ruled by unique laws, Hasan! You’ve built your own world, colorful, strange and awful. Alamut, that’s your creation, ibn Sabbah.”

He laughed and forced a smile from Hasan too. Buzurg Ummid looked at the commander and listened to him, thinking about the things he said and being amazed. He was gradually sliding into areas that were completely unknown and alien to him.

“There’s a fair amount of truth in your joke, Abu Ali,” Hasan continued, with his earlier smile. “I told you down below already that I had crept into the creator’s workshop and watched him at work. Supposedly out of pity he has concealed our future and the day of our deaths from us. We do the same thing. Where the devil is it written that our life on this planet isn’t just such a delusion?! Only our consciousness decides whether something is ‘for real’ or just a dream. When the fedayeen wake up again, if they learn that they’ve been in paradise, then they’ll have been in paradise! Because there’s no difference between a real and an unreal paradise, in effect. Wherever you’re aware of having been, that’s where you’ve been! Won’t their pleasures, their joys be just as great as if they’d been in the real heaven? Epicurus wisely said that the avoidance of pain and suffering and the quest for pleasure and personal comfort were the only models for human life. Who will have experienced a greater share of happiness than our fedayeen, whom we’ve transported to paradise? Seriously! What I’d give to be in their place! To be conscious just once of enjoying the delights of heaven!”

“What a sophist!” Abu Ali exclaimed. “If you put me on a rack and tried to persuade me, as you’re doing now, that I was cozier there than if I were lying on a soft feather bed, by the beard of Ismail, I’d laugh myself silly.”

Hasan and Buzurg Ummid burst out laughing.

“It’s time to have a look at what our heroes are doing,” Hasan said at last.

They rose and stepped up to the battlements.

“Everything is still quiet,” Buzurg Ummid summed up. “Let’s get back to our conversation. Ibn Sabbah, you said you would like to be conscious of having been in paradise. What will the fedayeen experience out of the ordinary, even if they do have that awareness? They’ll eat food they could have elsewhere and enjoy girls like thousands of others under the sun.”

“Don’t!” Hasan replied. “It isn’t all the same to an ordinary mortal whether he’s a guest in a king’s palace or in a simple caravanserai, even if they serve him the same food in both places. He also knows how to distinguish between a princess and a milkmaid, however much alike they may look otherwise. Because our pleasures don’t just depend on our physical senses. They’re a highly complex phenomenon, influenced by a whole range of circumstances. The maiden you see as a perpetually virginal houri will give you a completely different kind of pleasure than one you see as a bought slave.”

“Just now you’ve reminded me of a certain detail,” Abu Ali said, interrupting him. “It’s written in the Koran that the maidens of paradise will never lose their innocence. Have you accounted for that? Be careful that your entire plan doesn’t collapse over a detail like that.”

Hasan laughed uproariously.

“There’s not all that much virginity down there to begin with,” he replied, “which is part of the reason why I sent for Apama to come from Kabul. Believe me, her reputation as the finest lover from Kabul to Samarkand was well deserved. Let me tell you, after a dozen lovers she was still just as delicate as a sixteen-year-old maiden. She knew a secret of love which seems perfectly simple when it’s explained to you. But if you don’t know about it, you could well believe in perpetual, self-renewing virginity. It’s a mineral compound which, when properly applied in solution, contracts the skin and could easily lead a beginner to the wrong assumption that he’s dealing with an untouched virgin.”

“If you’ve thought of that too, then you’re Satan incarnate,” Abu Ali said, laughing.

“Look! One of the fedayeen is awake!” Buzurg Ummid exclaimed.

All three of them held their breath. Through the glass roof they could see the girls surrounding the youth, who was apparently telling them something.

“That’s Suleiman,” Hasan said, instinctively lowering his voice, as though fearing he could be heard from the gardens. “He’s the first mortal who has ever awakened in paradise.”

A deathly silence fell around Fatima when the eunuchs brought Suleiman into the pavilion. Wordlessly, they took him by the feet and shoulders and laid him down on some pillows. Then, just as noiselessly, they left with the empty litter.

The girls barely dared to breathe. They stared at the body, which was draped in a black coverlet. Zainab whispered to Fatima that she should uncover their sleeping guest.

Fatima approached him on tiptoe, bent over him to pull the coverlet off and remained there, motionless. However much she had expected, she hadn’t imagined Suleiman would be this handsome. He had rosy cheeks like a girl’s, and just barely covered by a light down. His cherry-red lips were slightly open, and a row of pearl-white teeth shone through them. His eyelashes were long and thick and cast finely articulated shadows on his cheeks. He lay on his side, with one arm under his body and the other hand lightly clasping the pillows.

“How do you like him, Halima?” Khanum asked in a subdued voice.

“I already don’t care for him.”

“Careful! The two of you are about to devour him with your eyes.”

Sara quietly grinned.

“You would have already, if only you could,” Zainab teased her.

“Look who’s talking!”

Fatima picked up her harp and began plucking its strings. When she saw that Suleiman was still asleep, she grew bolder and began singing half-aloud.

“Go ahead and talk as if you were alone,” Fatima said. “We may have to wait a long time yet before he wakes up.”

Being able to converse in a normal voice put the girls at ease. They started joking, teasing one another and laughing at each other.

Suddenly Suleiman began to stir.

“Look, he’s about to wake up!” Zainab called out.

Halima covered her eyes.

“No, he’s just having a dream,” Sara sighed with relief.

Halima looked again.

“Just don’t you cause me any trouble,” Fatima threatened her.

Then Suleiman rose up on his arms, opened his eyes for a moment and then shut them again. Then he opened them up wide again and stared dully at the girls’ half-frightened, half-curious faces. Then he shook his head, murmured something unintelligible, and lay back down where he had been.

“Do you suppose he thought he was dreaming?” Aisha whispered.

“Go to him, Fatima, caress him,” Zainab advised. “Maybe that will rouse him.”

Fatima noiselessly sat down on the pillows beside him. She hesitated for a few moments, then very gently stroked his cheek.

Suleiman twitched. He turned over and his arm slapped against Fatima’s thigh. It stung as though a flame had touched her. She held her breath and listened in shivering anticipation.

Once more Suleiman sat up. He forced his eyes open and stared at Fatima, who was trembling in front of him. Without a word, like a machine, he put his arms around her and pressed her close. Just as unconsciously and dully, he took possession of her.

Fatima wasn’t sure what had happened to her. Just as absently, she asked him, “Do you love me, Suleiman?”

Suleiman was bent over her. He gazed impassively at her face. He murmured, “Go on. You’re beautiful, but I know this is just a dream. Damn, if even these have to get spoiled.”