“I’m not a Sufi,” Ella croaked impatiently, her voice sounding like the voice of someone else, someone older.
At that moment many thoughts crossed her mind: the death of her father, the pain of losing a loved one to suicide, the years and years of resentment and regret that followed, sifting through every little bit of memory of the one who is dead, wondering if things could have been any different had those details been shuffled differently somewhere.
“I know you’re not a Sufi.” Aziz smiled. “And you don’t have to be one. Just be Rumi. That’s all I’m asking of you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Some time ago you asked me if I was Shams, remember? You said I reminded you of him. As happy as I was to hear that, I cannot be Shams. I think he was way beyond and above me. But you can be Rumi. If you let love take hold of you and change you, at first through its presence, then through its absence—”
“I’m not a poet,” Ella said this time.
“Rumi wasn’t a poet either. But he was transformed into one.”
“Don’t you get it? I’m just a housewife, for God’s sake, a mother of three,” Ella exclaimed, breathing in huge gulps.
“We’re all what we are,” murmured Aziz. “And we’re all subject to change. It is a journey from here to there. You can make that journey. And if you are brave enough and if I am brave enough, we can go to Konya together in the end. That is where I want to die.”
Ella gasped. “Stop talking like that!”
Aziz watched her for a moment, and then his eyes dropped. There was a new expression on his face now, a distance in his tone, as if he were swiftly drifting away, like a dry leaf at the mercy of the wind.
“Or else,” he said slowly, “go home, Ella. Go back to your children and your house. You decide, love. Whatever you choose, I will respect your decision and I will love you till the end.”
Suleiman the Drunk
KONYA, MARCH 1248
Blood, sweat, and tears. Outsiders think drinkers are lazy people who have nothing else to do. Little do they know that drinking increasing amounts of wine every day requires a lot of effort. We carry the weight of the world on our shoulders.
Tired and petulant, I was dozing with my head on the table, having a not-so-pleasant dream. There was a big, black bull, angry as hell, chasing me on unfamiliar streets. I ran away from the animal without a clue as to what I had done wrong to stir him up, knocking over stalls and smashing merchandise, drawing the anger of all the vendors in the bazaar. Still running, I entered a thoroughfare that turned out to be a dead-end street. And there I bumped into a mammoth egg, bigger than a house. Suddenly the egg started to hatch, and out came the ugliest baby bird ever, wet and noisy. I tried to get out of the street, but the mother bird appeared in the sky, glaring down at me as if I had been responsible for the ugliness of her baby. Just as the bird began to descend, its sharp beak and even sharper claws pointed at me, I woke up.
I opened my eyes and realized that I had fallen asleep on a table by the window. Though my mouth tasted like rusty nails and I was dying to have a drink, I felt too tired to even move. So I kept resting my heavy head on the table, sinking ever deeper into my stupor and listening to the usual sounds in the tavern.
I heard a heated argument rising and falling like the buzz of swarming bees. It came from the men sitting at the next table, and though I briefly considered the possibility of turning my head to see who they were, I did not move a muscle. And that is when I overheard that ominous word: murder.
At first I dismissed their talk as drunken ravings. One hears all sorts of things in a tavern and in time learns not to take every spoken word seriously. But there was something in their tone too menacing and potent to disregard, so I pricked my ears and listened. My jaw dropped open when it finally dawned upon me that they were serious. But even deeper was my shock when I understood who it was that they wanted to kill: Shams of Tabriz.
As soon as they left the table, I stopped feigning sleep and jumped to my feet.
“Hristos, come here! Be quick!” I yelled in panic.
“What is it this time?” Hristos came running. “Why are you so distressed?”
But I couldn’t tell. Not even him. All of a sudden, everyone looked suspicious. What if there were more people involved in this conspiracy against Shams? I had to keep my mouth shut and my eyes wide open.
“Nothing! I’m hungry, that’s all,” I said. “Could you please bring me some soup? Make it with a lot of garlic. I need to sober up!”
Hristos stared at me quizzically, but, being used to my moodiness, he did not ask me any more questions. In a few minutes, he brought me a bowl of goat-intestine soup, spicy and scorching, which I ate in haste, my tongue burning. Having sobered up sufficiently, I dashed into the street to warn Shams of Tabriz.