Russell Hoban - Pilgermann

‘I no longer have any questions that require answers,’ said Bembel Rudzuk. ‘It is not in our power to know very much nor to understand very much. Perhaps the most we can hope for is to learn to encounter what comes without pissing ourselves.’ He said nothing for a while, then he said, ‘The heads of the Christians were slung over the wall but not the bodies. Do you know why?’

I knew why. Sometimes when the wind was blowing from the Franks to us I had smelled the smoke of their cooking. I listened to the twittering of sparrows, the crowing of cocks, I saw in my mind the blood on the tiles of Hidden Lion.

‘“And all as a garment will become old,”’ said Bembel Rudzuk,’ “and as a mantle thou wilt roll up them, as a garment also they will be changed …” This is the earth and the heavens being spoken of, the work of God’s hands, they will grow old and be folded up like a garment. You and I have read this together in the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews in the New Testament of the Christians, but for me it is no longer a matter of words; I can feel it in the air, I can feel the fabric of the world and its time collapsing upon itself like the folds of a tired garment.’ Bembel Rudzuk stood there solidly in the grey light with his arms folded, his moustaches as heroic as ever, his bearing as upright; but he looked like a deserted village.

‘In the Quran also one reads of this folding up,’ he said. ‘This too we have read together, in Sura 81, Takwir, The Folding Up:

‘In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

1. When the sun

(With its spacious light)

Is folded up;

2. When the starsbra

Fall, losing their lustre;

3. When the mountains vanish

(Like a mirage);

4. When the she-camels Ten months with young,

Are left untended;

(‘And you must know,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘that the camel being the jewel of the Arab’s eye and his special pet, the she camel almost come to her time is most especially precious; so when we speak of a time when such animals will be neglected we are speaking of the collapse of all things, the true and actual final folding up.)

‘5. When the wild beasts

Are herded together

(In human habitations);

(‘In this extremity,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘the animals will no longer be afraid of humans, the animals and the humans will be folded up together at the end of all things.)

‘6. When the oceans

Boil over with a swell;

7. When the souls

Are sorted out

(Being joined, like with like);

(‘I no longer know what to think about this matter of the sorting of souls,’ said Bembel Rudzuk. ‘Is there more than one kind of soul, do you think? Is the soul of Yaghi-Siyan different from your soul and my soul? Wait, hear more before we talk.)

‘8. When the female (infant)

Buried alive, is questioned—

9. For what crime

she was killed;

(‘There have been,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘Arabs who buried their baby daughters alive; they didn’t want to have to provide for them or be burdened with protecting their honour. These are only words and one can speak them but if one thinks of the actuality then one must look at what is intolerable to look at. I am thinking now of your Abraham and Isaac who are Ibrahim and Isma’il in Muslim tradition. Never before have I dared to say aloud these words that I am going to say now: the fundamental flaw in God is that He will say that He requires the sacrifice of Isaac/Isma’il; the fundamental flaw in man is that he takes his knife in hand to do God’s bidding. This story of God’s testing of Abraham has become an easy thing to read, an easy thing to say in words, an easy point of reference; but if you let it become real in your mind then you have to look at a boy tied hand and foot by his father whose knife is at his throat. Think of it! There lies the boy trussed like an animal, he lies on the firewood that he has borne on his own back to the place where the fire will consume him when he has been murdered by his father whom he has trusted all his life. Murder in the name of God! And Abraham has no hesitation! He is completely willing to murder his son because a voice in his head has made him mad. If I had ever in my life come upon such a scene, if I had ever come upon such a madman with his knife upraised over a child I should have killed that man before God had a chance to speak again. Wouldn’t you? See it in your mind! Be that father and look down into the eyes of your son while you raise the knife. What are you at this moment that is one moment away from murder, from human sacrifice? Will you call yourself the hand of God? Why should Yaghi-Siyan not call himself the hand of God a hundred times over? Word of God! If God is everywhere then every word is the Word of God, Yaghi-Siyan’s word as well as Muhammad’s. Wait, listen to more of this Sura of the folding-up:)

‘10. When the Scrolls

Are laid open;

11. When the World on High

Is unveiled:

12. When the Blazing Fire

Is kindled to fierce heat;

13. And when the Garden

Is brought near;—

14. (Then) shall each soul know

What it has put forward.

‘Here I have been quoting verses of the Holy Quran and I cannot even properly call myself a Muslim,’ said Bembel Rudzuk: ‘I don’t believe in a Last Day that will be different from any other day; I believe that the Last Day is every day; I believe that the Garden and the Fire are in each of us every day of our lives and we are in one or the other or somewhere between the two depending on our actions. I believe that every soul knows very well from one moment to another what it has put forward — do I not know what I have put forward with this Hidden Lion that I have called up? Do I not know how far I have overstepped the bounds of what is permitted in one’s approach to the Unseen?’

‘Why do you keep saying “I”?’ I said. ‘Whatever has been done with Hidden Lion has been done by the two of us; was it not I who drew the first unit of the pattern on the stone?’

‘Ah!’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘You see! You are trying to share the burden of blame because you know that there is a burden of blame!’

I thought of Hidden Lion, of its tawny triangles, its red and its black but as soon as the triangles came into my mind they were covered first by blood then by the terrified feet of the hundred chosen for death by Firouz. What should I have done in his place? Useless to ask such a question — he did what he did that day, I did what I did, each of us in our own place. It is so very, very easy to live one day longer than one ought.

‘You don’t deny what I have just said,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘you don’t deny that we have overstepped the bounds.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t deny it. Everywhere there are patterns of tiles to be seen, most of them far more ambitious in their complexity and finish than Hidden Lion, but I think one may say that they were done in innocence.’

‘They were done without presumption,’ said Bembel Rudzuk; ‘they were done modestly and with no other purpose than that of ornamentation. They were done without intent to observe the Unseen, without intent to violate its privacy; they harmlessly adorn buildings, walls, floors; they were not made for the sole purpose of seeing the Unseeable. We have done that which ought not to be done although you are not to blame; it was I who asked you to make the design, I with my stupid ideas of sulphur and mercury and triangles, I with my greed for the Unseen. And yesterday the Unseen said, “Do you still pursue me with your tiles? I have shown you, have I net, twisting serpents, moving pyramids, disappearing lions; I have shown you the surge of Me that is like a river of power, and still you crave more; very well then, I will show you more.”’