PART ONE
Earth
THE THINGS THAT ARE SOLID, ABSORBED, AND STILL
Shams
AN INN OUTSIDE SAMARKAND, MARCH 1242
Beeswax candles flickered in front of my eyes above the cracked wooden table. The vision that took hold of me this evening was a most lucid one.
There was a big house with a courtyard full of yellow roses in bloom and in the middle of the courtyard a well with the coolest water in the world. It was a serene, late-autumn night with a full moon in the sky. A few nocturnal animals hooted and howled in the background. In a little while, a middle-aged man with a kind face, broad shoulders, and deep-set hazel eyes walked out of the house, looking for me. His expression was vexed, and his eyes were immensely sad.
“Shams, Shams, where are you?” he shouted left and right.
The wind blew hard, and the moon hid behind a cloud, as if it didn’t want to witness what was about to happen. The owls stopped hooting, the bats stopped flapping their wings, and even the fire in the hearth inside the house did not crackle. An absolute stillness descended upon the world.
The man slowly approached the well, bent over, and looked down below. “Shams, dearest,” he whispered. “Are you there?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but no sound came out of my lips.
The man leaned closer and looked down into the well again. At first he couldn’t see anything other than the darkness of the water. But then, deep down at the bottom of the well, he caught sight of my hand floating aimlessly on the rippling water like a rickety raft after a heavy storm. Next he recognized a pair of eyes—two shiny black stones, staring up at the full moon now coming out from behind thick, dark clouds. My eyes were fixed on the moon as if waiting for an explanation from the skies for my murder.
The man fell on his knees, crying and pounding his chest. “They killed him! They killed my Shams!” he yelled.
Just then a shadow scurried out from behind a bush, and with fast, furtive moves it hopped over the garden wall, like a wildcat. But the man didn’t notice the killer. Seized by a crushing pain, he screamed and screamed until his voice shattered like glass and flew all over into the night in tiny, prickly shards.
“Hey, you! Stop screaming like a maniac.”
“…”
“Cut that awful noise or I am going to kick you out!”
“…”
“I said shut up! Do you hear me? Shut up!”
It was a male voice that shouted these words, booming menacingly close. I pretended not to hear him, preferring to stay inside my vision for at least a bit longer. I wanted to learn more about my death. I also wanted to see the man with the saddest eyes. Who was he? How was he related to me, and why was he so desperately looking for me on an autumn night?
But before I could sneak another look at my vision, someone from the other dimension grabbed me by the arm and shook me so hard I felt my teeth rattle in my mouth. It yanked me back into this world.
Slowly, reluctantly, I opened my eyes and saw the person standing beside me. He was a tall, corpulent man with a hoary beard and thick mustache, curved and pointy at the tips. I recognized him as the innkeeper. Almost instantly I noticed two things about him: That he was a man used to intimidating people with tough talk and sheer violence. And that right now he was furious.
“What do you want?” I asked. “Why are you pulling my arm?”
“What do I want?” the innkeeper roared with a scowl. “I want you to stop screaming, for starters, that’s what I want. You are scaring away my customers.”
“Really? Have I been screaming?” I muttered as I managed to pull myself free from his grip.
“You bet you were! You were screaming like a bear with a thorn stuck in its paw. What happened to you? Did you doze off during dinner? You must have had a nightmare or something.”
I knew that this was the only plausible explanation, and if I went along with it, the innkeeper would be satisfied and leave me in peace. Still, I did not want to lie.
“No, brother, I have neither fallen asleep nor had a bad dream,” I said. “Actually, I never have dreams.”
“How do you explain all that screaming, then?” the innkeeper wanted to know.
“I had a vision. That’s different.”
He gave me a bewildered look and sucked on the ends of his mustache for a while. Finally he said, “You dervishes are as crazy as rats in a pantry. Especially you wandering types. All day long you fast and pray and walk under the scorching sun. No wonder you start hallucinating—your brain is fried!”
I smiled. He could be right. They say there is a thin line between losing yourself in God and losing your mind.
Two serving boys appeared just then, carrying between them a huge tray stacked with plates: freshly grilled goat, dried salted fish, spiced mutton, wheat cakes, chickpeas with meatballs, and lentil soup with sheep’s-tail fat. They went around the hall distributing them, filling the air with the scents of onion, garlic, and spices. When they stopped by my end of the table, I got myself a bowl of steaming soup and some dark bread.