Chapter 32

THE DESERT

We remember seeing once a lithographic print representing a Christmas legend of the Middle Ages, in which a detachment of the Heavenly Host--big, ugly, wild-looking angels--are pursuing, with sword and pike, a group of terror-stricken little devils. The idea in the picture produced such an impression that one wished to see the helpless, pitiful imps in heaven and the armed winged furies, their pursuers, in the other place. Now, as we go through the many pages of Shakib's, in which he dilates of the mischances, the persecutions, and the flights of Khalid, and of which we have given an abstract, very brief but comprehensive, in the preceding Chapters, we are struck with the similarity in one sense between his Dastur-legend, so to speak, and that of the Middle Ages to which we have alluded. The devils in both pictures are distressing, pitiful; while the winged persecutors are horribly muscular, and withal atrociously armed.

Indeed, this legend of the Turkish angels of Fraternity and Equality, pursuing the Turkish little devils of reaction, so called, is most killing. But we can not see how the descendants of Yakut and Seljuk Khan, whether pursuers or pursued, whether Dastur winged furies they be, or Hamidian devils, are going to hold their own in face of the fell Dragon which soon or late must overtake them. That heavy, slow-going, slow-thinking Monster--and it makes little difference whether he comes from the North or from the West--will wait until the contending parties exhaust their strength and then--but this is not our subject. We would that this pursuing business cease on all sides, and that everybody of all parties concerned pursue rather, and destroy, the big strong devil within them. Thus sayeth the preacher. And thus, for once, we, too. For does not every one of these furious angels of Equality, whether in Constantinople, in Berlin, in Paris, in London, or in New York, sit on his wings and reveal his horns when he rises to power? We are tired of wings that are really nothing but horns, misshaped and misplaced.

Look at our French-swearing, whiskey-drinking Tataric angels of the Dastur! Indeed, we rejoice that our poor little Devil is now beyond the reach of their dripping steel and rickety second-hand gibbets. And yet, not very far; for if the British Government consent or blink, Khalid and many real reactionists whom Cairo harbours, would have to seek an asylum elsewhere. And the third flight might not be as successful as the others. But none such is necessary. On the sands of the Libyan desert, not far from Cairo and within wind of Helwan, they pitch their tents. And Mrs. Gotfry is staying at Al-Hayat, which is a stone's throw from their evening fire. She would have Khalid live there too, but he refuses. He will live with his cousin and Shakib for a while. He is captivated, we are told, by that little cherub of a babe. But this does not prevent him from visiting his friend the Buhaist Priestess every day and dining often with her at the Hotel.

She, too, not infrequently comes to the camp. Indeed, finding the solitude agreeable she has a tent pitched near theirs. And as a relief from the noise and bustle of tourists and the fatiguing formalities of Hotel life, she repairs thither for a few days every week.

Now, in this austere delicacy of the desert, where allwhere is the softness of pure sand, Khalid is perfectly happy. Never did he seem so careless, our Scribe asserts, and so jovial and child-like in his joys. Far from the noise and strife of politics, far from the bewildering tangle of thought, far from the vain hopes and dreams and ambitions of life, he lives each day as if it were the last of the world. Here are joys manifold for a weary and persecuted spirit: the joy of having your dearest friend and comrade with you; the joy of nursing and helping to restore to health and happiness the woman dearest to your heart; the joy of a Love budding in beauty and profusion; and--this, the rarest and sublimest for Khalid--the joy of worshipping at the cradle--of fondling, caressing, and bringing up one of the brightest, sweetest, loveliest of babes.

Najib is his name--it were cruel to neutralise such a prodigy--and he is just learning to walk and lisp. Khalid teaches him the first step and the first monosyllable, receiving in return the first kiss which his infant lips could voice. With what joy Najib makes his first ten steps! With what zest would he practise on the soft sands, laughing as he falls, and rising to try again. And thus, does he quickly, wonderfully develop, unfolding in the little circle of his caressers--in his mother's lap, in Shakib's arms, on Khalid's back, on Mrs. Gotfry's knee--the irresistible charm of his precocious spirit.

In two months of desert life, Najib could run on the sands and sit down when tired to rest; in two months he could imitate in voice and gesture whatever he heard or saw: the donkey's bray, and with a tilt of the head like him; the cry of the cock; the shrill whistle of the train; and the howling of donkey boys. His keen sense of discrimination in sounds is incredible. And one day, seeing a Mohammedan spreading his rug to pray, he begins to kneel and kiss the ground in imitation of him. He even went into the tent and brought Khalid's jubbah to spread it on the sand likewise for that purpose. So sensitive to outside impressions is this child that he quickly responds to the least suggestion and with the least effort. Early in the morning, when the chill of night is still on the sands, he toddles into Khalid's tent cooing and warbling his joy. A walking jasmine flower, a singing ray of sunshine, Khalid calls him. And the mother, on seeing her child thus develop, begins to recuperate. In this little garden of happiness, her hope begins to blossom.

But Khalid would like to know why Najib, on coming into his tent in the morning and seeing him naked, always pointed with his little finger and with questioning smile, to what protruded under the navel. The like questions Khalid puts with the ease and freedom of a child. And writes full pages about them, too, in which he only succeeds in bamboozling himself and us. For how can we account for everything a child does? Even the psychologist with his reflex-action theory does not solve the whole problem. But Khalid would like to know--and perhaps not so innocently does he dwell upon this subject as upon others--he would like to know the significance of Najib's pointed finger and smile. It may be only an accident, Khalid. "But an accident," says he, "occurring again and again in the same manner under stated conditions ceases to be such." And might not the child, who is such an early and keen observer, have previously seen his mother in native buff, and was surprised to see that appendage in you, Khalid?

Even at Al-Hayat Najib is become popular. Khalid often comes here carrying him on his back. And how ready is the child to salaam everybody, and with both hands, as he stands on the veranda steps. "Surely," says Khalid, "there is a deeper understanding between man and child than between man and man. For who but a child dare act so freely among these polyglots of ceremony in this little world of frills and frocks and feathers? Who but a child dare approach without an introduction any one of these solemn-looking tourists? Here then is the divine source of the sweetest and purest joy. Here is that one touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin. For the child, and though he be of the lowest desert tribe, standing on the veranda of a fashionable Hotel, can warm and sweeten with the divine flame that is in him, the hearts of these sour-seeming, stiff-looking tourists who are from all corners of the earth. Is not this a miracle? My professor of psychology will say, 'Nay.' But what makes the heart leap in that grave and portly gentleman, who might be from Finland or Iceland, for all I know, when Najib's hand is raised to him in salutation? What makes that stately and sombre-looking dame open her arms, when Najib plucks a flower and, after smelling it, presents it to her? What makes that reticent, meditative, hard-favoured ancient, who is I believe a psychologist, what makes him so interested in observing Najib when he stands near the piano pointing anxiously to the keyboard? For the child enjoys not every kind of music: play a march or a melody and he will keep time, listing joyously from side to side and waving his hand in an arch like a maestro; play something insipid or chaotic and he will stand there impassive as a statue."

And "the reticent hard-favoured ancient," who turns out to be an American professor of some ology, explains to Khalid why lively music moves children, while soft and subtle tones do not. But Khalid is not open to argument on the subject. He prefers to believe that children, especially when so keenly sensitive as his prodigy, understand as much, if not more, about music as the average operagoer of to-day. But that is not saying much. The professor furthermore, while admitting the extreme precocity of Najib's mind, tries to simplify by scientific analysis what to Khalid and other laymen seemed wonderful, almost miraculous. Here, too, Khalid botches the arguments of the learned gentleman in his effort to give us a summary of them, and tells us in the end that never after, so long as that professor was there, did he ever visit Al-Hayat.

He prefers to frolic and philosophise with his prodigy on the sands. He goes on all four around the tent, carrying Najib on his back; he digs a little ditch in the sand and teaches him how to lie therein. Following the precept of the Greek philosophers, he would show him even so early how to die. And Najib lies in the sand-grave, folds his hands on his breast and closes his eyes. Rising therefrom, Khalid would teach him how to dance like a dervish, and Najib whirls and whirls until he falls again in that grave.

When Mrs. Gotfry came that day, Khalid asked the child to show her how to dance and die, and Najib begins to whirl like a dervish until he falls in the grave; thereupon he folds his arms, closes his eyes, and smiles a pathetic smile. This by far is the masterpiece of all his feats. And one evening, when he was repeating this strange and weird antic, which in Khalid's strange mind might be made to symbolise something stranger than both, he saw, as he lay in the grave, a star in the sky. It was the first time he saw a star; and he jumped out of his sand-grave exulting in the discovery he had made. He runs to his mother and points the star to her....

And thus did Khalid spend his halcyon months in the desert. Here was an arcadia, perfect but brief. For his delight in infant worship, and in the new Love which was budding in beauty and profusion, and in tending his sick cousin who was recovering her health, and in the walks around the ruins in the desert with his dearest comrade and friend,--these, alas, were joys of too pure a nature to endure.

AL-KHATIMAH

"But I can not see all that you see."

"Then you do not love me."

"Back again to Swedenborg--I told you more than once that he is not my apostle."

"Nor is he mine. But he has expressed a great truth, Jamilah. Now, can you love me in the light of that truth?"

"You are always asking me that same question, Khalid. You do not understand me. I do not believe in marriage. I tried it once; I will not try it again. I am married to Buhaism. And you Khalid--remember my words--you will yet be an apostle--the apostle--of Buhaism. And you will find me with you, whether you be in Arabia, in America, or in Egypt. I feel this--I know it--I am positive about it. Your star and mine are one. We are born under the same star. We are now in the same orbit, approaching the same nadir. We are ruled by our stars. I believe this, and you don't. At least, you say you don't. But you do. You don't know your own mind. The trend of the current of your life is beyond your grasp, beyond your comprehension. I know. And you must listen to me. You must follow my advice. If you can not come with me now to the States, you will await me here. I am called on a pressing business. And within three months, at the most, I shall return and find you waiting for me right here, in this desert."

"I can not understand you."

"You will yet."

"But why not try to understand me? Can you not find in my ideas the very essence of Buhaism? Can you not come up to my height and behold there the star that you have taken for your guide? My Truth, Jamilah, can you not see that? Love and Faith, free from all sectarianism and all earthly authority,--what is Buhaism or Mohammedanism or Christianity beside them? Moreover, I have a mission. And to love me you must believe in _me_, not in the Buha. You laugh at my dream. But one day it will be realised. A great Arab Empire in the border-land of the Orient and Occident, in this very heart of the world, this Arabia, this Egypt, this Field of the Cloth of Gold, so to speak, where the Male and Female of the Spirit shall give birth to a unifying faith, a unifying art, a unifying truth--"

"Vagaries, chimeras," interrupted Mrs. Gotfry. "Buhaism is established, and it needs a great apostle. It needs you; it will have you. I will have you. Your destiny is interwoven with mine. You can not flee it, do what you may. We are ruled by our stars, Khalid. And if you do not realise this now, you will realise it to-morrow. Here, give me your hand."

"I can not."

"Very well, then. Good-bye--_au revoir_. In three months you will change your mind. In three months I will return to the East and find you waiting for me, even here in this desert. Think on it, and take care of yourself. _Au revoir._"

In this strange, mysterious manner, after pacing for hours on the sand in the sheen of the full moon, Mrs. Gotfry says farewell to Khalid.

He sits on a rock near his tent and ponders for hours. He seeks in the stars, as it were, a clue to the love of this woman, which he first thought to be unfathomable. There it is, the stars seem to say. And he looks into the sand-grave near him, where little Najib practises how to die. Yes; a fitting symbol of the life and love called modern, boasting of freedom. They dance their dervish dance, these people, even like Khalid's little Najib, and fall into their sand-graves, and fold their arms and smile: "We are in love--or we are out of it." Which is the same. No: he'll have none of this. A heart as simple as this desert sand, as deep in affection as this heaven, untainted by the uncertainties and doubts and caprices of modern life,--only in such a heart is the love that endures, the love divine and eternal.

He goes into Najma's tent. The mother and her child are sound asleep. He stands between the bed and the cot contemplating the simplicity and innocence and truth, which are more eloquent in Najib's brow than aught of human speech. His little hand raised above his head seems to point to a star which could be seen through an opening in the canvas. Was it his star--the star that he saw in the sand-grave--the star that is calling to him?--

But let us resume our narration.

A fortnight after Mrs. Gotfry's departure Shakib leaves the camp to live in Cairo. He is now become poet-laureate to one of the big pashas.

Khalid is left alone with Najma and Najib.

And one day, when they are playing a game of "donkey,"--Khalid carried Najib on his back, ran on all four around the tent, and Najma was the donkey-driver,--the child of a sudden utters a shriek and falls on the sand. He is in convulsions; and after the relaxation, lo, his right hand is palsied, his mouth awry, and his eyes a-squint. Khalid finds a young doctor at Al-Hayat, and his diagnosis of the case does not disturb the mind. It is infantile paralysis, a disease common with delicate children. And the doctor, who is of a kind and demonstrative humour, discourses at length on the disease, speaks of many worse cases of its kind he cured, and assures the mother that within a month the child will recover. For the present he can but prescribe a purgative and a massage of the arm and spine. On the third visit, he examines the child's faeces and is happy to have discovered the seat and cause of the affection. The liver is not performing its function; and given such weak nerves as the child's, a torpid liver in certain cases will produce paralysis.

But Khalid is not satisfied with this. He places the doctor's prescription in his pocket, and goes down to Cairo for a specialist. He comes, this one, to disturb their peace of mind with his indecision. It is not infantile paralysis, and he can not yet say what it is. Khalid meanwhile is poring over medical books on all the diseases that children are heir to.

On the fifth day the child falls again in convulsions, and the left arm, too, is paralysed. They take him down to Cairo; and Medicine, considering the disease of his mother, guesses a third time--tuberculosis of the spine, it says--and guesses wrong. Again, considering the strabismus, the obliquity of the mouth, the palsy in the arms, and the convulsions, we guess closely, but ominously. Nay, Medicine is positive this time; for a fifth and a sixth Guesser confirm the others. Here we have a case of cerebral meningitis. That is certain; that is fatal.

Najib is placed under treatment. They cut his hair, his beautiful flow of dark hair; rub his scalp with chloroform; keep the hot bottles around his feet, the ice bag on his head; and give him a spoon of physic every hour. "Make no noise around the room, and admit no light into it," further advises the doctor. Thus for two weeks the child languishes in his mother's arms; and resting from the convulsions and the coma, he would fix on Khalid the hollow, icy glance of death. No; the light and intelligence might never revisit those vacant eyes.

Now Shakib comes to suggest a consultation. The great English physician of Cairo, why not call _him_? It might not be meningitis, after all, and the child might be helped, might be cured.

The great guesswork Celebrity is called. He examines the patient and confirms the opinion of his confreres, rather his disciples.

"But the whole tissue," he continues with glib assurance, "is not affected. The area is local, and to the side of the ear that is sore. The strabismus being to the right, the affection must be to the left. And the pus accumulating behind the ear, under the bone, and pressing on the covering of the brain, produces the inflammation. Yes, pus is the cause of this." And he repeats the Arabic proverb in broken Arabic, "A drop of pus will disable a camel." Further, "Yes, the child's life can be saved by trepanning. It should have been done already, but the time's not passed. Let the surgeon come and make a little opening--no; a child can stand chloroform better than an adult. And when the pus is out he will be well."

In a private consultation the disciples beg to observe that there was no evidence of pus behind the ear. "It is beneath the skullbone," the Master asserts. And so we decide upon the operation. The Eye and Ear specialist is called, and after weighing the probabilities of the case and considering that the great Celebrity had said there was pus, although there be no evidence of it, he convinces Khalid that if the child is not benefited by the operation he cannot suffer from it more than he is suffering now.

The surgeon comes with his assistants. Little Najib is laid on the table; the chloroform towel is applied; the scalpels, the cotton, the basins of hot water, and other accessories, are handed over by one doctor to another. The Cutter begins. Shakib is there watching with the rest; Najma is in an adjacent room weeping; and Khalid is pacing up and down the hall, his brows moistened with the cold sweat of anguish and suspense.

No pus between the scalp and the bone: the little hammer and chisel are handed to the Cutter. One, two, three,--the child utters a faint cry; the chloroform towel is applied again;--four, five, six, and the seventh stroke of the little hammer opens the skull. The Cutter then penetrates with his catheter, searches thoroughly through the brain--here--there--above--below--and finally holds the instrument up to his assistants to show them that there is--no pus! "If there be any," says he, "it is beyond the reach of surgery." The wound, therefore, is quickly washed, sewn up, and dressed, while everybody is wondering how the great Celebrity can be wrong....

Little Najib remains under the influence of anaesthetics for two days--for two days he is in a trance. And on the third, the fever mounts to the danger line and descends again--only after he had stretched his little arm and breathed his last!

And Khalid and Najma and Shakib take him out to the desert and bury him in the sand, near the tent round which he used to play. There, where he stepped his first step, lisped his first syllable, smacked his first kiss, and saw for the first time a star in the heaven, he is laid; he is given to the Night, to the Eternity which Khalid does not fear. And yet, what tears, Shakib tells us, he shed over that little grave.

But about the time the second calamity approaches, when Najma begins to decline and waste away from grief, when the relapse sets in and carries her in a fortnight downward to the grave of her child, Khalid's eyes are as two pieces of flint stone on a sheet of glass. His tears flow inwardly, as it were, through his cracked heart....

Like the poet Saadi, Khalid once sought to fill his lap with celestial flowers for his friends and brothers; and he gathered some; but, alas, the fragrance of them so intoxicated him that the skirt dropt from his hand....

* * * * *

We are again at the Mena House, where we first met Shakib. And the reader will remember that the tears rushed to his eyes when we inquired of him about his Master and Friend. "He has disappeared some ten days ago," he then said, "and I know not whither." Therefore, ask us not, O gentle Reader, what became of him. How can _we_ know? He might have entered a higher spiritual circle or a lower; of a truth, he is not now on the outskirts of the desert: deeper to this side or to that he must have passed. And passing he continues to dream of "appearance in the disappearance; of truth in the surrender; of sunrises in the sunset."

Now, fare _thee_ well in either case, Reader. And whether well or ill spent the time we have journeyed together, let us not quarrel about it. For our part, we repeat the farewell words of Sheikh Taleb of Damascus: "Judge us not severely." And if we did not study to entertain thee as other Scribes do, it is because we consider thee, dear good Reader, above such entertainment as our poor resources can furnish, _Wassalmu aleik_!

IN . FREIKE . WHICH . IS . IN . MOUNT . LEBANON SYRIA . ON . THE . TWELFTH . DAY . OF JANUARY . 1910 . ANNO . CHRISTI . AND . THE FIRST . DAY . OF . MUHARRAM . 1328 . HEGIRAH THIS . BOOK . OF . KHALID . WAS . FINISHED

Transcriber's Notes:

Typographical problems have been changed and are listed below. Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved. Author's punctuation style is preserved. Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.

Transcriber Changes:

"_Les dessons[** Was 'dessous']_"--and the Poet who intersperses

under their heavy burdens, upsetting a tray of sweetmeats[** Was 'sweet-meats across lines]

occasionally meets with a native who, failing as peddler[** Was pedler]

nevertheless[** Was 'neverthelesss'] significant to remark that the City of

that makes me sad.'"[** Added closing double-quote]

land. See him genuflecting now, to kiss the curbstone[** Was 'curb-stone' across lines]

his _Al-Mutanabby_[** As originally printed]. In relating of Khalid's waywardness

Old Arabic books, printed in Bulaq,[** Added comma] generally

""No[** Added extra opening double-quote] more voyages, I trust, O thou Sindbad.' And

more than one vice to demand forgetfulness[** Was 'forgetfuless'].

keep at the Jesuits.'[** Removed closing double-quote]

can not understand them. They are like the sweetmeats[** Was 'sweet-meats' across lines]

each other, 'Ah, Adam, ah, Eve!'[** Added closing single-quote] sighing likewise

we will ..." Khalid makes no reply.[** Changed ',' to '.']

the _zeffah_ (wedding procession)[** Removed extra ')'] of none but she and

hermit."[** Added closing double-quote] (Strange coincidence!) "On your way here

out, so to speak, exposing its boulders, its little windrows[** Was 'wind-rows' across lines]

of the stars, I can tell thee this about them all:[** Original may be ';'] they

Health; in thy temples of worship, to universal Goodwill;[** Was 'Good-will' across lines]

on the _gulma_ (oustraation of animals)[** Added closing ')'], called forth, we

regret and sorrow.[** Changed ',' to '.'] That such a beautiful face should

"I am a Christian, too."[** Added closing double-quote]

Meanwhile, she goes to her room, brings some sweetmeats[** Was 'sweet-meats' across lines]

as a statue."[** Added closing double-quote]