Mika Waltari - The Wanderer

I shook my head compassionately.

“You are ill, lord. Your poisoned fancy has given you these notions. An infectious stomach disorder is rife in the city, and I myself fell sick the day before yesterday after eating apples. I beg you, lord, to drink this soothing medicine that I have brought. You need sleep-you need to forget your clock.”

“So, you would give me a soothing drink, Michael el-Hakim! That, then, was the object of your visit. When you denied your Christ you did it to save your own miserable life. This time no doubt you have been offered more than thirty pieces of silver. You see, I know the Christian Scriptures.”

Looking him in the eyes I answered, “Grand Vizier Ibrahim, I’m a poor man indeed, for I suppose I have neither God nor holy book on which I may swear a binding oath. But you I have never betrayed, and never shall. Not for your sake, but for mine-though I cannot hope you will understand that, since I hardly understand it myself. Perhaps to prove to myself that I, renegade and backslider, can be loyal to at least one person in the world and stand by his side in time of need.”

Despite the conflict within him I believe my words made their impression, and when he had sat for some time gazing searchingly into my eyes he rose, walked over to a chest with a golden lid, threw it open and tossed out onto the floor a number of purses so stuffed with coin that the thin leather split and the pieces rolled over the floor. On the heap of purses he threw handfuls of pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other stones; not even at Khaireddin’s arrival had I beheld so much gold and so many sparkling jewels gathered together in one place.

“Michael el-Hakim! As sure as I am that there was poison in the fruit the Sultan ate, so sure am I that you are a betrayer. I ask only to know the truth. Not even the Russian can pay you so princely a sum as I can. Tell me the whole truth, Michael, and you shall take all this treasure away. This time no mutes stand behind the curtain. Truth alone can bring some relief to my burdened mind. The swiftest galley and a hundred sea janissaries shall take you to what country you please. Only have pity, Michael, and tell me the truth.”

I stared as if bewitched at the dazzling heap, but soon with a bitter taste in my mouth I said, “My lord Ibrahim, if I were to tell you that I am a betrayer you would believe it because you want to believe it.

But I cannot confess to what is not true. Let me kiss your hand in farewell and go, and no longer plague you with my presence.”

“If indeed you are loyal to me you’re simpler than I thought. In the world of statecraft, loyalty is a form of idiocy.”

I found the word of release and said smiling, “Then let us be two blockheads in the same boat. You are even more foolish than I, for you wear the Sultan’s personal seal and yet refuse to use it to save yourself.”

The Grand Vizier stared at me, and his eyes were weary with the struggle that rent his soul. His face was ashy pale and a dull film seemed to veil his eyes. In a lifeless voice he said, “Why, why do you stay by me? Are you bound to me by gratitude? It cannot be true. There is no more thankless creature than man, for unlike the beasts man hates his benefactor. Tell me why you will not desert me.”

I kissed his hand with veneration, sat cross legged on the floor before him with my head in my hand, and thought about myself and my life, and about him and his.

For a long time we sat in silence, and then I said, “The question is not easy to answer. It must be because of the love I bear you, noble lord. Not for your gifts to me, but because you have sometimes spoken to me and treated me as if I were a reasoning being. I love you for your beauty, your intelligence, your pride, your doubts, and your wisdom. Your like has hardly been seen upon this earth. It is true that you have your faults. You’re jealous of your power-you’re a spendthrift, a blasphemer, and many other things that people blame you for. But none of this affects my feelings for you. No one hates you for your human failings, Grand Vizier Ibrahim, though they like to talk of them and magnify them, to justify to themselves and to their fellows the malice they bear you. They detest you only because you stand so high above other men, and that is something that mediocre souls can never endure. And yet in each one of us lies the latent faculty of surpassing others. Of that I am sure.

“Perhaps I love you best for your high aims and motives and for never behaving with deliberate cruelty to anyone. Thanks to you no one in the Sultan’s dominions is persecuted for his faith, be he Christian or Jew. Do you wonder that men hate you, Grand Vizier Ibrahim? But because of these things I love you.”

He listened with a tired smile, as if mocking himself and admiring my talent for stringing words so pleasantly together. I tiptoed from the room and fetched the tray of covered dishes that servants had prepared, setting it beside him, lifting the silver lids and tasting a little of all the food to reassure him. Abstractedly he began to eat, and when I gave him the sleeping draught he took it without demur. I held his hand until he slept, kissed it once more respectfully, and then replaced all the money and jewels in the chest so as not to expose the servants to too great temptation. I called these men and ordered them to undress their lord and carry him to bed, and they obeyed me with gladness, having felt deep concern for the sleeplessness that the Grand Vizier had so long suffered.

Three days afterward Mustafa ben-Nakir appeared, unexpectedly, as was his custom. I feared the worst, for he seemed to bring with him a breath of cold menace. The silver bells at his knees rang as pleasantly as ever, but he was less carefully dressed and less clean than he was wont to be. He had even forgotten the Persian book. I asked where he had been and what he had been doing, and he said, “Let us go down to your marble quay and watch the stars come out. A poem is about to be born in my heart and I do not want your servants or even your wife to be present at this solemn moment.”

When we had made our way down to the water’s edge, Mustafa ben-Nakir looked about him and asked, “Where is your brother Antar the wrestler?”

I replied impatiently that I knew little of his movements, because since our return from Tunis he had gone barefoot, let his hair grow, and spent days together among the dervishes, watching their magic arts and listening to the shameless tales with which they beguiled credulous women into giving them money. Yet I called him and he emerged reluctantly from the boathouse, gnawing a bone.

“Ah, Antar, do you think to join our brotherhood?” asked Mustafa ben-Nakir in wonder at his appearance. Andy stared at him oafishly with his round gray eyes and said, “You see I have no lionskin over my shoulders. But my aim has indeed been to seek God upon the moun- taintops and in the desert. How could you guess my thoughts, when I have not hinted them even to the dervishes?”

Mustafa ben-Nakir was so greatly astonished that he touched brow and ground with his finger tips at Andy’s feet.

“In truth,” he said, “Allah is great and marvelous are his ways. This is the last thing I should have expected. Tell me what has led you to seek the holy path.”

Andy seated himself on the edge of the landing stage and dipped his weary feet into the water, gnawing meanwhile at his bone.

“How am I to explain to you what I hardly understand myself? While I had my friend Michael’s little dog beside me I felt a better creature. Rael hated no one and at once forgave all wrongs. If when I was drunk I happened to tread on his paws and make him yelp with pain, he’d come up to me at once to lick me as if asking forgiveness for having got in the way. He took the blame for my mistake, though over and over again I tried to explain the foolishness of this. On cold nights Rael would keep me warm. But who rightly values happiness and friendship before they’re gone? Not until that good dog found his well-deserved reward in the Seraglio did I see how much Michael and I had lost.”