Ibrahim al-Koni - The Puppet

“This truly is childish!”

“My master will help himself first of all and secondly will benefit other people.”

“Is this a threat?”

“My master would be well-advised to act quickly before the suffering becomes even more widespread.”

The lower section of his veil slipped, revealing his lips. Then his host saw spittle trickling from them. He also noticed that his guest was trembling violently and suspected that he heard the man’s teeth chattering and clacking as if he were racked by fever. The pallor of the man’s projecting cheeks faded as a murky color suffused them. The man’s eyes narrowed and eyelids with irregular blue creases, which bulged out like tiny vipers, unfolded.

3

The leader swayed before his companion as if overwhelmed by yearning. He released the painful groan that springs from the chests of deranged people before ecstasy transports them to alternative realms. He moaned for a long time before he repeated, as if reciting a sad song, “Even you, companion of eternity! Even you, son of nobles! Even you, warrior hero!”

Ahallum, however, replied in a tongue uninfluenced by ecstatic people’s magical incantations, “Gold is the destiny of oases. Why don’t you accept this fact?”

The leader began to sway back and forth, lowering his veil over his eyes. He asked mellifluously, “How can you expect me to accept a matter that violates the Law? How can you ask me to profane the precepts of our forefathers?”

“We left our forefathers in the wasteland’s tombs. Now we inhabit oases. Today we’re Waw’s children. The wastelands have a legal code and the oases another. Why don’t you want to acknowledge that?”

“How can you ask me to acknowledge a matter that is calamitous, according to our precepts? Do I know more than our forefathers? Are you shrewder than our original grandfathers?”

“Our grandfathers didn’t tie themselves to the land. In their endless migrations they didn’t practice commerce.”

“What need does a nomad have for commerce? What need do caravans of migrants have for goods?”

“This is the problem: you don’t want to acknowledge that we haven’t been nomads for a long time. You don’t want to admit that we’ve been bound to the land for forty years. You’ve forgotten the Law’s precept saying that to stay for more than forty days in one place is a mark of bondage to the land. What if the number forty modifies years, not days?”

“Anyone who ties himself to the earth becomes the earth’s slave. Any slave of the earth finds himself exchanging goods for a profit and becomes a merchant. Anyone who adopts commerce for his profession acquires the dust of misfortunes. Isn’t this what you’re trying to have me believe? Isn’t that what seduced you into hiding the hateful metal in your house?”

“Yes. I’ll never deny that I — like all the nobles — have smuggled gold dust into my home. I smuggled it in not because I yielded to its beauty, which enslaves women and weak-willed men, but because its possession affords security.”

“Security?”

“Yes, master. Gold dust in the owner’s hand is a gift of security. Gold dust is life’s secret for everyone who chooses agricultural land for a homeland.”

“I’m amazed by what I hear!”

“This isn’t just my opinion; this is what all the nobles think. This is the opinion of the entire population of the oasis, including the person closest to you.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that gold was seized in your only daughter’s residence too.”

“No!”

“Didn’t the vassals tell you that?”

“No!”

“Now you’ve finally learned that your adversary is a specter found in every home in the oasis. It has dared invade your household too.”

He began to sway back and forth again, releasing his pain in a new moan. Ahallum asked, “Do you still consider the people’s sweetheart an enemy?”

The leader released a deep sound as if intoning an agonizing tune. His companion inquired, “Are you going to persist in plundering houses and destroying the metal?”

The leader began to tremble but did not reply.

4

That evening Imaswan Wandarran also visited.

He sat down on an expertly tanned leather mat, which lacked the typical colored wool embroidery and which was spread over a thick goat-hair kilim rug placed beside the wall.

The mixed-race maid brought in froth-topped camel milk in a wooden mug. He took the mug with both hands and gazed at the froth, which was slowly dissipating. Then he placed the mug on the leather mat. He listened to the froth’s whispering as it continued to disappear. He deliberately violated circumspection’s rituals. “If the goal of the campaign was to inform people of your majestic rule, then rest assured that you’ve succeeded. If the goal was to raise respect for the Law, then know that this lost constitution never ordered the violation of what people conceal in their hearts or homes. Have you finally realized that everything has a proper limit?”

The leader watched him inquisitively. He asked in an artificially complacent tone, “Is this the council’s advice or a warning?”

“It isn’t the council’s custom to warn those it has recommended for leadership, even though our customary law also affirms that those in power shouldn’t adopt a position the council hasn’t authorized.”

“I beg your pardon. It’s just that over the last few days I’ve grown accustomed to hearing a threat in the words of all those who have sat in this same corner.”

“If I were in your position, I would have excused them, since I wouldn’t know what to expect from people whose possessions and reputations have been assailed.”

“Answer one question for me: Why did you all select me from among yourselves if you didn’t mean for the leader to be the Law’s guardian even more than the people’s ruler?”

“The fact is that we never chose you. You know the hoi polloi selected you.”

“The rabble?”

“The problem is actually not the rabble’s choice, since the rabble have never been good at choosing, given that they never know what they are doing or what they want. The true affliction, however, has been your credulity.”

The leader waited for him to complete his statement, but the guest fell silent and went back to contemplating the vanishing froth in the mug of milk.

So he asked sternly, “In what sense have I been credulous?”

The guest responded casually, “You believed you really were a leader!”

“Who am I, by your lights, if not a leader?”

He retorted harshly, “You’re a puppet!”

“A puppet?”

“Didn’t you hear them say from the beginning that they couldn’t bear to be led by a leader who reposed in a sepulcher and instead wanted a leader from the earth’s residents: a puppet that walks on two feet?”

“That was a typical circumlocution. That was a linguistic trick to hide the meaning. You’re the first to take this literally.”

“Our master is mistaken if he believes so. The masses say exactly what they mean. Even when they intend to speak circumspectly, as you suggest, they fail and express themselves bluntly.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m trying to say that you committed a fatal error when you believed the lie and assumed that you could be a real leader instead of a puppet.”

“Here again I discern a threat! Admit immediately that you’re threatening me!”

“They wanted you to be their puppet like all the other political stooges, but you rushed to draw your sword the moment they handed you the sovereign’s mace.”

“What do you all want from me? Why don’t you reclaim your sovereignty if you want a puppet? Why don’t you release me?”