Luke Williams - The Echo Chamber

…

There were details Father left out of the story, perhaps because he thought I was too young, perhaps because it changed with each telling. Sometimes, when it was late, the tale lasted five minutes. Other times Father talked for longer. The version I am relating now is, in a sense, a false rendering, since I am leaving nothing out. In fact, I realize that I am adding to the story even as I write.

Edrisi had a fearful temper. Yes, his temper was as changeable as the climates through which he had travelled. He was known among the courtiers of the Cappella Palatina — King Roger’s palace and chapel — as, variously, Procella, Al-Çáúçõyé, Cheimazô, La Tempesta.

His desires were as vigorous and variable as his temper. Edrisi had fifty-three wives. He had fathered sixty-two sons and seventy-eight daughters. In and around his chamber dwelt slave-girls, eunuchs, handmaidens and concubines.

He loved none.

At this point in the story Father switches to the present tense. He edges closer and slowly straightens his back.

Today in Palermo a ship has arrived. The cargo began its journey in Nubia, moving in a train of two hundred camels northward, following the River Nile up through Egypt, and to the sea-town of Alexandria; where it swung left, hugging the North African coast until it reached Benghazi. The cargo was loaded on to the ship, which for two days sailed up through the Gulf of Sirte and into the Mediterranean. Sailing through the channel between Scylla and Charybdis, it rounded the coast of Sicily and arrived, right on time, at Port Vieveria.

Palermo celebrates. From the port to the Cappella Palatina crowds of revellers throng the streets. There are jugglers, vaudeville shows, acrobats and fire-eaters. Belly dancers swing and ripple to the sound of flutes, pausing only when coins fail to drop at their feet. Every five years it is the same. There are sounds of caged birds warbling in various voices and tongues, turtledoves, nightingales, thrushes and curlews. There are gambling dens, clairaudients, beggars competing for alms. As the train of camels, each supporting a curtained palanquin, passes with its hidden cargo, the crowds hush. They know what the curtains conceal: stolen virgins. Five hundred maidens from Nubia.

The camels walk unconcernedly on, through noise and perfume, passing La Ferria, beyond the blue domes of the Jami’ Mosque, and now, climbing to the highest point in the city, draw near the gates of the Cappella Palatina. Outside, the carnival will continue long into the night. Inside, the courtiers of Roger’s palace wait — emirs and viziers, ushers and giandars — in eager anticipation.

And here is Edrisi himself, impatient, tugging at his beard, standing by the side of his king.

Father leans forward, placing a hand on each knee. He fixes his eyes on a point above my head and, imitating Edrisi, speaks in a guttural voice.

‘I tell you, Caliph, these maidens are fine. I gave instructions specially.’

‘How were they chosen?’

‘There is a province inhabited by infidels who are called Nubian, which is also the name of their city. They are a good-looking race with fair complexions. They are unlike other savages which inhabit that part of the earth. Their women are of a great beauty. I sent emissaries to Nubia to select their most beautiful maidens.’

Roger claps his hands, moving to embrace Edrisi …

But Roger is cut short. For now the bronze gates open; camel after camel lumbers into the courtyard, forming a wide circle around Roger and Edrisi and the courtiers. Roger beams. Edrisi feels faint; his eyes roll. Quickly he recovers his composure. The five hundred maidens from Nubia step, tentatively, blinkingly, into the courtyard. They are travel-weary. They are angry. They appear, to Edrisi, beautiful.

And among the throng, there is one whose indifference will provoke a crisis in Edrisi, one who will arouse in him a strange and disturbing emotion.

I’ll call it by its proper name: Love.

Father stands up, opens the bedroom door, crosses the hallway and steps out on to the veranda. I hear his shoes like handclaps on the hardwood floor. It is dark outside. I do not feel tired. The insects sing. ‘Go on,’ I call out into the boisterous dark. There is no reply. ‘Tell me more.’ Father stops. I hear his footsteps growing louder as he approaches my room; they pause; the door swings open; and suddenly he is squatting beside my bed and we are looking directly at one another through the mosquito net. ‘You can’t stop there.’

There was a time when mapmakers named the places through which they travelled after their lovers; for Edrisi, it’s the opposite. Each night, following the arrival of the Nubians, Edrisi calls a fresh concubine to his chamber. He looks her up and down, instructs her to turn around, then calls her by her new name.

There is Sala, so named because, like the peaceful province of Sala, a province rich in copper and seashells, she is, Edrisi thinks, calm, and her skin possesses the brilliance of copper.

There is Kaougha, a territory filled with mountain streams, from which prospectors sift gold dust, bit by bit, from the river bed; and Kaougha, named thus because Edrisi must tease from her silence her soft involvement.

Tonight, some five weeks since the celebration of the Five Hundred Maidens, Edrisi summons a new concubine. Inspecting her carefully, he is struck, not by her beauty, but by her gaze, which appears to him both serious and unyielding. He runs a gamut of names — cities, lands — through his mind, toying with each, trying to fit this bold maiden to a province. But he can’t think of any. She has something of the sea about her, he thinks, something sleepless.

‘I name you Abila,’ Edrisi says.

Abila says nothing.

‘Come, we’ll drink some wine.’

Abila pours wine into a cup, drinks, fills another cup and gives it to Edrisi. He drains it and thanks her.

‘You’re welcome,’ says Abila.

Edrisi fills his cup, drinks, pours wine into Abila’s cup and kisses her hand. Abila takes the cup, empties it and sits beside the bed.

They go on passing cup after cup until Edrisi begins to feel tipsy and is aroused. He kisses her hand, toys with her hair, plays little jokes, all the time feeding her sweets. They continue drinking until the wine gets the better of Edrisi, who begins to praise her beauty.

‘Abila, your forehead is like the new moon, your eyes like those of a deer or wild heifer, your eyebrows like the crescent in the month of Sha’ban; you have lips like carnelian, teeth like a row of pearls set in coral, breasts like a pair of pomegranates, and a navel like a cup that holds a pound of benzoin ointment.’

Abila says nothing.

‘You are like a dome of gold, as the poets say, a Queen bee, an unveiled bride, a splendid fish swimming in a fountain.’

Edrisi, in a fit of arousal, and all at once, takes off his clothes. He stands naked on the bed. Abila laughs.

‘Follow my example!’

Abila says nothing.

‘Reveal yourself.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You will pleasure me according to my desire.’

‘I will not.’

‘Undress and I shall take you.’

‘No!’

Edrisi covers his nakedness.

‘By god, you will!’

‘No!’

Each night it’s the same. Edrisi summons Abila to his chamber. They drink wine. He praises her beauty, then sheds his clothes. And, every night: ‘Undress and I shall take you.’

‘No!’

Edrisi doesn’t know what to do. He paces his room, the courtyard, the palace chapel, tugging at his beard. In between entreaties to Abila, he takes ever more concubines into his chamber. They satisfy him less, and less often. Spending increasing hours with his bees, but forgetting to wear his face-net and gloves, he is stung thirteen times. He arranges sprinting contests with the courtiers and wins without fail. He attempts to copy out Book XI from Pliny’s Natural History. Perhaps I am losing my charm, he thinks. It will be different tomorrow.