The Emperor's Elephant(111)

To enquire about the rukh and griffin, we had made a cautious landing on a small strip of beach where a cluster of several dozen huts was half hidden among the ever-present palm trees. Two of Sulaiman’s sailors paddled us ashore in the ship’s boat. It was mid-morning on another hot, humid and sunny day, and there were just the three of us in the landing party – myself and Sulaiman with Zaynab as our interpreter. It was a struggle for me to keep my eyes looking ahead when I was so close to Zaynab, but I managed to keep my gaze on the beach, where a couple of small dug-out boats were drawn up at the water’s edge and a number of nets hung on stakes. The people themselves were timid, watching our arrival from a distance and standing well back as we set foot in the shallows. Zaynab called out a greeting and, hesitantly, four of them came forward. All men, they were barefoot and wore only loincloths. Slits in their ear lobes held small silver plates or ivory plugs. Zaynab explained that we came in peace and were in search of a great flying bird, large enough to carry away an elephant. She had to repeat herself several times before she was understood, and I tried to help by sketching a rough outline of a griffin in the sand, though without much success. The lion’s body could have been any four-footed beast with a tail, and the bird’s head was more like a chicken than an eagle.

The villagers examined my feeble attempt of a drawing, muttered among themselves, and then all of them shook their heads.

‘Ask if they’ve seen any trace of such an animal or even heard of it,’ I suggested to Zaynab.

She relayed my questions and again there was some sort of a conference, more animated this time. Then one of the men hurried back to the village. He disappeared inside the stockade and re-emerged holding something in his hand. When he came close enough for me to see what it was, my hopes soared. It was half of a very large hooked beak. Jet black, it had a sharp, cruel point.

I took it from the man, and turned it over to inspect more closely. Fully five inches long, it was much the largest beak I had ever seen, and as tough and hard as black glass. I could easily picture the sharp tip driving into flesh, twisting and ripping, hacking into bone.

‘Could this be a rukh’s beak?’ I asked Sulaiman, my excitement rising.

He did not answer me. He was staring at the object. ‘Ask where they got it?’ he said to Zaynab in a taut voice.

After a brief conversation, she replied, ‘One of the fishermen picked it up on the shore about a week ago. It was in an odd-shaped ball of something he thought was a piece of rotten fish. But now he’s not sure. Whatever it was, it had a bad smell and must have floated ashore when the wind was from the sea.’

I sensed that Sulaiman was hiding his eagerness, when he asked, ‘That lump of rotten fish – does he still have it?’

Zaynab was told that it had been thrown away because it stank. It was probably still on the village rubbish heap.

‘Can they find it for me?’ asked Sulaiman.

One of the men turned and shouted out to the onlookers. A lad broke away from the group and raced away, running behind the huts and out of sight.

We waited patiently until the boy returned, gingerly carrying in both hands a lump of something partly wrapped in leaves. It was the size of a man’s head and, judging by the lad’s wrinkled nose, it still had its unpleasant smell.

Sulaiman was not put off. He took the object and peeled back the leaves. To my eye it resembled a misshapen lump of greyish-black wax, soft and streaky. I caught a waft of its foul odour. It smelled like cow dung.

Sulaiman was not put off. He poked the unpleasant mass with his finger, then turned it over gently so that he could inspect it on all sides.

‘Tell our friends here that this is fish dung,’ he said to Zaynab. ‘I am willing to buy both the beak and the dung that surrounded it.’

The four men withdrew a short distance and stood talking. Finally the oldest of them came back to us, and through Zaynab told us that if we had fish hooks to sell, they would part with the beak for five hundred fish hooks and ten knife blades. Sulaiman could have the lump of fish dung for its weight in copper wire.

I was still holding the strange beak, and Sulaiman made me give it back to the villagers. ‘I’ll pay four hundred fish hooks for the beak and the dung, no more,’ he said, wrapping the leaves around the foul-smelling mass and placing it on the sand.

It took at least an hour to conclude the haggling, and Sulaiman settled for 450 fish hooks for the beak and a length of embroidered cloth for the lump of fish dung.

‘You paid a generous price for the beak,’ I observed to Sulaiman as his men paddled us back out to his ship, the trade completed. ‘Does that mean you’re prepared to believe in the existence of the rukh?’