Ibrahim al-Koni - The Scarecrow

He donned a slave’s tattered rags and approached his rivals at noon, when they were hugging and pretending to like each other while performing rituals of mutual respect. He told them he was a mamluk of the leader and had come as a messenger from His Majesty to deliver an invitation to a banquet grander than any the desert had ever witnessed throughout its long history. They stared at him suspiciously at first. Then the advocate of anger darted at this messenger, demanding a sign from him. Before the wily strategist responded to this demand, the advocate of envy jumped up and pointed at the mount’s bridle, which was embellished with gold galloons and set with rows of precious stones. He asked, “How could a slave have a treasure like that bridle? When have slaves ridden beasts adorned with treasures? I wager, wretch, the donkey also belongs to your master!” The wily strategist prostrated himself till his turban touched the naked land’s dirt and asked reverentially, “Does a mamluk in our desert own anything besides his dreams, master?” So the fools chuckled together for a long time. Then the advocate of hatred remarked, “You’re right, wretch. We’re sure a slave doesn’t even possess his tongue, because his master can rip it out by the roots the moment he feels angry.” They guffawed together again. Then the emissary announced, “My master provided me with the gold bridle as a sign for you.” Doubts dissipated in hearts that had never known anything but doubts, and these master sorcerers raced each other to attend the leader’s banquet on the neighboring plain. The wily strategist seated them on a carpet of incomparable beauty, served them dishes more delicious than any people had ever tasted, and poured them a beverage so ambrosial they sang ecstatically. They became excited with desire and embraced each other according to banquet etiquette. When the wily strategist determined that the Day of Retribution had arrived, he rose to address them with a vengeful tongue for which these fools were totally unprepared.

“Does the advocate of anger recall the day he approached my tent as a traveler and I gave him shelter, fed him, and supplied him generously from my stocks? Does the advocate of blameworthy anger remember how he returned the favor before leaving my dwelling by strangling me with his bare hands after an innocent piece of advice from me awakened volcanic wrath in his breast? Advocate of envy, do you recall that I accompanied you in a caravan to the forestlands and that my commercial success there and the enthusiastic reception for my wares hurt your feelings so badly that on the way home you waited for me to fall asleep and then stabbed me with an enchanted dagger, plundered all my possessions, and fled from that place, thinking you could flee from punishment? As for you, advocate of hatred, on your behalf I repaid a major debt and freed you from the captivity of a clan determined to take you as a slave to their encampments for your failure to repay it. Then you slit my throat with your blade to reward me for my good deed. Did you fools assume that a person protected by good intentions could be harmed by a chokehold, a dagger thrust, or the slash of a sword? Cowards, don’t you know that innocents don’t die? Don’t you know why innocent people become immortal? Listen to a secret you’ll never hear again. Innocent people do not die, because they harbor in their hearts a ghoul named revenge. Innocent people do not die before they take their revenge. Innocent people do not even die if they take revenge, because revenge is the Law that prevents disorders and restores everything to equilibrium, because it is a talisman borrowed from the will of the Spirit World — not from the inhabitants of the wasteland.”

The cunning strategist pulled the dread carpet out from under their bodies, and the fools fell together into a bottomless abyss.

Successive generations have said that tribes gave the name “Wantahet” to the advocate of revenge. Other communities dubbed him the “Master of Deceit.” Some nations have lauded his heroism, but other lineages have satirized his wily ignobility in their epic poems. Some clans have applauded his spirit of vengeance and repeated a statement attributed to this cunning strategist that he had decided to do no evil because he was certain that the evil would inevitably turn to good, thanks to the Law of Contradictory Effect, and never to do any good, because the good would inevitably turn into evil.

It is also said that Wantahet’s faith in vengeance was responsible for turning this wily strategist into an immortal being.

1

The advocate of revenge does not die. Since he has embraced retribution, however, he must necessarily kill his enemies by tricking them, if he wants to avoid dying. Just as hermits disappear into distant mountain caverns, a person thirsting for revenge digs a cave for himself in a spot near the jugular vein in order to peer out at his foes. He does not lose his focus or blink, because he needs to keep his sight fixed on the rabble.

In himself he slays the man he knew, rids himself of his inborn character, and liberates himself from desires, passions, and pleasures. At first he snubs his fellow liars. Then he quickly disavows his father, mother, and child — and every other relative — in order to seclude himself with his idée fixe, which is a vision, inspiration, and whispered temptation. He begins with self-denial; he starves himself so he can dine on his dread treasure, goes thirsty so he can quench his thirst with the secret that dwells inside him, and slays his body’s senses to bring to life the invisible ghoul. He ogles death and even goes to the sacrificial altar to present his life as an offering, because he knows that sacrificing his life is the only price the ghoul expects as a precondition for taking the lives of his enemies.

The disciple of revenge is a creature who is ready to perish in order to reincarnate as the atrocious nightmare people refer to as vengeance.

2

He dispatched slaves to bring back sorcerers accompanying caravans heading to the north and soothsayers returning from trips to the east, west, or south. He closeted himself for long periods with these men and conversed with them at length before he headed out to the crowd with the lethal amulet that wiped out women, baffled sages, shook husbands, and turned the life of the oasis into a continual funeral. A day did not pass without men carrying on their shoulders a litter of poles on which the corpse of a woman lay. They would take her to a burial site on which they piled the stones of a mausoleum.

Children became motherless orphans, men married to the most captivating brides became widowers, and fathers grieved for beloved daughters. Then the oasis experienced chaos because of the calamity’s terror, and people investigated the secret of the epidemic in every nook and cranny, consulting sorcerers, diviners, and novice masters. They intercepted passing caravans to debate with travelers, wayfarers, and merchants who might have encountered a comparable epidemic during their unending travels — or who might have heard one day about a tribe afflicted in a similar fashion. But these people in transit and merchants declared that they knew of no epidemic that discriminated between men and women. In the history of the entire desert, they had never heard of a plague that afflicted beautiful women but spared the camel corps. They were unanimous in saying that the matter doubtless concealed an ignoble secret and that the citizens really ought to launch an investigation into the conspiracy, because an affair that the Spirit World did not establish in the ancient Law must be attributable to human volition.

In the early days, doubts hovered around the hero, and accusations — which directed fingers of blame at him alone — lolled on people’s tongues. The demise of his wife, however, quelled that rumor and dispelled suspicions about him.