Red Sea Pearls

No, friend, I'm not a holy man no more. What a question to ask! Do
you think I'd be sitting here playing backgammon if I were. I'd be away
in the mountains somewhere on my own, with my mind on very different
things. You think an ascetic would wear clothes like these? I bought
this robe from a tradesman in Cairo not three months ago, and I'll
thank you to notice the quality. That cotton's smooth as your mother's
arse!

No, I haven't called myself a Sufi for many years now and how I came to
leave all that behind really don't make a story. Or at least, not a
story I'm prepared to tell. If you talk to these bastards round here
you'll hear a half dozen stories but not one among them knows the
truth, so don't trouble your ears with them, my friend. That's my
advice to you, and advice I don't often give, so you'd best take heed.
No, there's no story in how I came to leave the order and embrace this
world - this life of wine and gambling and women. Hah! That's a tale
often told and more often lived, so I'll not tell it again now. Neither
is there any real tale in the life I lived in the order, and there's
certainly nothing exciting to tell of the years I spent alone in the
wilderness, thank God. The real tale I have to tell is of how I came to
seek God and become a Sufi in the first place. So, if you'll hear it,
call the boy and get us some more tea and some coals for the pipes as
mine is beginning to die down.

My father, God protect him, was a merchant who travelled this part of
the world trading in all the goods men could want from town to town and
city to city. As children, my brothers and sisters and I travelled from
Marrakech to Damascus and before my tenth year I had looked across the
sea towards the palaces of Andalusia. We lived very comfortably in
those days and my father had more slaves than many men would know what
to do with, but he employed them well and treated them fairly. I was
one of the eldest of my brothers, you see, and when I was old enough I
began to help my father in his business, as was expected of me. I did
well, I don't mind telling you. By the time I was seventeen my father
trusted me go alone into towns and barter for goods to buy. I wore fine
clothes and jewellery, but I wasn't proud. At my father's insistence my
brothers and sisters and I would pray together daily and sometimes go
to a Mosque on Fridays if there was one nearby. I went through the
motions of religion in those days - and I see the same in the boys
round here. You see, if there are enough people around you all doing
something, then you'll do it yourself. That's what it is to be a man.
And as a young man I certainly wasn't bright enough to go against the
grain and say I didn't believe or even believe something different. And
I don't reckon I really should have, neither. I performed my prayers,
for the most part, and went to the Mosque sometimes. I fasted . . .
Well, most of the time! But you know what I mean, ay? Good God, I know
you do! I see it in your face. Don't be shy with me, friend, I'm no
priest.

Anyway, that's by the by, and not the focus of this story, although
stories there are about that time. I could tell you about the girls of
Tarablus and the sights of Abyssinia, where my family came from, but
that's for another time perhaps. No, my story today, God willing, is of
how I came to be a mystic. Yes . . . have you ever seen a holy man? A
real one mind - not me or one of these fools who dance for money in the
street. I don't expect you have, not here in Cairo. No, it's hardly the
place for them, this. For us. Ha! Now, where's that tea?

Right then. Did I mention that my father, God protect him, was a pious
man, despite his wealth? Well anyway, he was. When I was about twenty
he decided that my two older brothers and I should make the pilgrimage
to the Holy Places. He'd never made the Hajj, you see, and he wanted it
for his sons. Now, I wasn't sure that I wanted to go just then. We had
been in and around Ghaza for a good long while and I had begun to feel
attached to the place. And its people, if you catch my drift. Ha!
Anyway, I wasn't very keen to go, but my father had organised
everything and there was really no getting around it. We travelled with
a group of other pilgrims who were travelling to Mecca through Ghaza on
their way from the west. I wasn't very impressed with them at the time.
Berbers, they were, and not very cultured. Did I say I wasn't a proud
young man? Well, perhaps just a bit! We set off though, my brothers,
Zayed and Omar, and me. The journey passed quickly and my brothers fell
in easily with the Berbers and Bedouin we travelled with, although the
caravan didn't compare favourably with our father's, which was at the
same time travelling south overland on the other side of the Red Sea.
We were to meet up with it again in Abyssinia, where my father, God
rest his soul, had some family business.

Now, I expect you're waiting for me to tell you how I had a revelation
whilst circling the Ka'ba in prayer and ran straight off to the hills
to live the life of an ascetic. Well, a story that would be, but its
not mine. We got to Mecca without complication and I performed the
Hajj, but, truth to tell, it had no great effect on me. But I was
impressed by its scale, mind - it'd be difficult not to. Have you made
the Hajj? No, you're young still. You should go . . . I know, I know -
you've seen me out here, night after night, pissed as a fart. But if
you'll listen to the words of one so impious, I urge you to go. I'd
never seen so many people united in movement and prayer. There's no
denying that it was a beautiful thing to see, even to a young man as
relaxed in his belief as I was. You've really just got to take heed of
so many people moving like they was one single thing and to be there in
the middle of them all is to feel part of something so much larger than
yourself. It was awe inspiring, but it wasn't what turned me onto my
new life. At least, not directly. Pass me that water, will you? Ta. No
. . . Now, ur, where was I?

Ah yes, I was just coming to the main part of my story, and the part
that you won't understand. No, no, I mean no offence, my friend. I
should better say we're coming to the part that you won't believe. Good
God, you shouldn't take my words so quickly to heart. I'm just an old
rogue these days, who doesn't know when to shut his mouth. I think
perhaps my years alone in the mountains have made me slightly strange
to the ways of conversation with men. Not to worry. Right . . . my
brothers and I left the rest of the group and headed for the coast,
where we were to take a boat to Abyssinia and meet up with our father,
God rest his soul, as I said before. Yes. Now, when we got to the port
we were supposed to be leaving from, the boat hadn't yet arrived and we
spent a few days there, with the rest of the passengers. It was a mixed
crowd of rich and poor, merchants and slaves, Abyssinians and others
from all the countries of the world. To tell you the truth, my brothers
and I kept our distance from the other passengers and mixed with them
no more than to share the odd bit of bread or to pass a few words about
the delay. We had no appetite to mix with the lower classes of people
and were naturally cautious of other tradesmen, as our father has
always taught us to guard our secrets well and only talk to competitors
when we had a fixed aim in mind. So most of the time we sat against the
wall of a house, wrapped in our shawls with our luggage around us,
watching the others, you see.

After the first few hours of our wait the groups that had arrived
together broke up and the crowd began to divide itself into two rough
groups according to their class. The poorer - not to say dirtier - lot
were crowded around the boat moorings, talking loudly and playing all
kinds of games on the floor. They were passing around date wine and by
sunset prayers of the first day a large number of them were dead drunk.
Well, as you can no doubt imagine, that didn't go down at all well with
the other crowd, most of whom had just finished the Hajj. Quite sniffy,
they got.

I remember Omar pointed out a figure sitting apart from the other
groups, leaning against a wall that faced out to sea. We joked that one
group wouldn't talk to him because he was dirty, and the other because
he was sober. Of course, I had no idea what effect he would have on my
life. He just sat on his own throughout the two nights and as many days
we spent in the port - whatever its name was. I've tried to remember if
I ever saw him take food or drink during that time. I convinced myself
in the years after that he had neither eaten nor drunk, but now I'm not
so sure. I don't think I can have paid him enough attention at the time
to know for certain. Nor can I say for sure if he was rocking slightly
and mouthing his chant - so as to always remember God, see - as he did
later.

For a port, it was a right boring place, with very little going on and
not much accommodation. My brothers and I shared one room just off the
main street and spent the days sitting under any shade we could find in
the road or by the harbour. It was very early in the morning, before
prayers, on the third day that the boat finally arrived to take us to
Abyssinia. We were woken by a slave boy walking along the front,
banging a huge pot and shouting: "The boat has come, the boat has
come," at the top of his voice. If I hadn't been so tired I would
probably have given that boy a beating to make his ears ring. We got
up, washed, prayed, and made our way down to the jetty where the boat
had pulled up. There was already a bustle of men, women, children and
slaves moving in all directions, carrying, being carried, pushing,
pulling, running and shouting. The sleepy little shit hole had come
alive almost straight off with the arrival of the boat. Most of the
poorer passengers had already gone aboard and started to find
themselves places on the deck but the merchants and nobility stayed on
the jetty, overseeing the loading of their luggage, pointing here and
there and being largely ignored by the stevedores. Since we fit neatly
into neither of these two groups, we made our way awkwardly aboard and
found a corner of the deck to settle down in.

We hadn't been there long when the loner from the harbour came aboard.
He stood at the top of the gangplank, his face dirty and hair
straggling in the wind off the sea. We nudged each other and Zayed made
some comment about his parentage that set the other two of us laughing,
you see. After looking quickly forward and aft, he came and settled
down a few feet from where we were sitting, curled into a tight ball
and appeared to fall immediately asleep.

Now, the start of the journey was quiet enough. There were only a few
cramped quarters on board, and I don't rightly know to this day who
took them. Most people was scattered around the deck, huddled up
between their belongings. The trouble by day was the heat and by night
the cold, so as you never quite knew where you was, what with the sea
wind and all. From where we sat, three quarters of the way up towards
the bow, we were staring straight at the passengers on the other side.
Jolly folk, they seemed to be as I remember, but they largely ignored
us - on account of us having ignored them at the port I suppose. There
wasn't much room for standing up or moving about on deck, but if I
heaved myself up onto my haunches, I could look over the sides of the
boat and see the coast we were following. Not that there was all that
much to see, mind. Just rocks, mostly. So the beginning of the voyage
was quite boring. Not unlike this story, you might be thinking! Well,
just wait, because the good bit's coming up. Good God, to have the
impatience of a young man again! I tried to listen in to what the folk
around us was talking about, but it was hard to hear over the slapping
of the waves against the hull.

After a bit I started to realise that the loner from the port, lying
not three feet away from me, was chanting over and over and over again
the name of God. "Allahallahallahallah..." he was saying, just like
that. Every time I listened to him, he was still at it - even when he
seemed to be asleep. Well, I'd never heard nor seen nothing like that
before, and I nudged my brothers to show them. Precious little heed
they paid him, though. Still, he'd got my attention right and
proper.

On the second day, I think it was, there was some kind of trouble
started up at the other end of the boat, in one of the covered
quarters. There were raised voices and people milling around the deck,
making the boat rock from side to side as it went. I thought I could
hear a woman's voice shouting for a moment, but that soon died down.
After a bit, word began to come down through the lines of people lining
the edges of the deck that some grandee's jewels had gone missing.
Apparently he was sure he'd brought them with him on to the boat, so
they must still be on board, unless whatever stupid bugger had knicked
them was also stupid enough to throw them in the sea. A few men, among
them the captain of the boat, were going down the line and searching
everyone. I guessed one of them would be the owner the jewels, whatever
they were, but I couldn't pick him out from the others. To be honest
with you, I don't see how anyone could have got into his quarters and
taken his jewels without being seen in the first place, but I held my
tongue, as is wise in such situations.

The search party made its way down the line, quite methodical, while
some other members of the crew watched everyone on board, I suppose
trying to see the marks of fear on someone. I don't mind telling you, I
began to feel a bit nervous myself, though I knew I hadn't done
nothing. Our muttering friend beside me, however, never moved a muscle,
but just kept on sleeping throughout. By the time the search party
reached us, I thought for sure he'd at least sit up and take heed, but
he never even twitched. The captain didn't take too much trouble over
us - I reckon he'd got tired of the whole process by this point. He
just ruffled through our bags briefly and found nothing but our clothes
and rightful belongings. The owner of the stolen jewels stood behind
him. Great fat man, he was, with a dull orange robe on and a beard
thinner than the hair on your arse. God bless you, my friend!

They moved on from us pretty sharpish, like I said, and had a go at
waking our friend but he was having absolutely none of it. Didn't move
a muscle as they tried to pull him on to his feet. The captain gave up
after not too long and spat on the deck beside him, after he'd briefly
down his dirty robes and found nothing. He turned to the grandee,
pronounced the man 'drunk as a bastard', and they moved on. I sat back
down again and wedged myself between our bags, passing a few words
about what was happening with my brothers. Our friend didn't seem
disturbed at all by what had gone on - didn't even seem to have noticed
it at all, truth be told. He was still muttering to himself.

It took them the best part of two hours to go through everyone on board
and by the time they finished, word came down the line that they hadn't
found the jewels on anyone. Now, as you might imagine, this caused not
a little concern and put everyone to looking at their neighbour as if
they might be hiding the jewels and putting everyone else as risk of
punishment for their theft. There seemed to be some kind of great
debate going on up at the other end underneath the captain's canopy and
then all of a sudden, the search party, plus a few other bodies I
didn't recognise from before, came storming down the deck directly
towards us. But as I should probably have expected, they weren't coming
for us but for our dirty friend. It seems as his card had been well and
truly marked by the grandee and his family. I wonder now whether it was
because he wasn't properly searched or because he perhaps had a
criminal smell about him. Anyway, whichever way it was, they soon had
him hauled up on his feet and the captain gave him a right old slap
across the face.

That woke him up alright - if he had been asleep at all, that is. He
held his head up and looked straight past the captain who had slapped
him and into the very eyes of the grandee. "I don't have your jewels,"
he said - so he must have known what was going on all along. His voice
was clear as a bell, although you might expect him to have been hoarse,
what with all that muttering. Well, the grandee looked him straight
back in the eyes buy doesn't say anything. The captain slapped him
again, straight across the chops, like that! But he still didn't do
anything - just stood there until after a while the captain dropped his
arms from the man's shoulders. In point of fact, the captain had to
reach up to his shoulders - he was much taller than he'd seemed before.
Everyone on the boat was watching this by now, as you might well
imagine, and they'd gathered tightly around us, forming something like
a wall of people so as there was hardly room for me to stand up.

There was something about the man that made everyone fall silent. I
can't very well speak for anyone else, but I for one was holding my
breath. After a while, during which all I could hear was the sound of
the sea on the sides of the boat, our man repeats himself, but louder
this time. "I don't have your jewels," he said. "But if it will cause
you to give these people some rest, then you should take your
satisfaction from these," and he gestured his open palm towards the
sea.

Now, I swear on everything I hold close to my heart that I what I tell
you now is the truth as I saw it with my own two eyes. As we all looked
out over the side of the boat where he'd pointed, the surface was
broken by the heads of dozens - perhaps hundreds - of these enormous
fish rising to the surface. As each one lifted its head clear of the
water, it opened its mouth and inside, resting on its tongue - if it be
that fish have tongues, that is - was the biggest pearl you've ever
seen in your life. As big as your very eyeball they were! A pearl for
each fish, and the boat was surrounded, so you can imagine the treasure
trove that was suddenly in front of us all. Well, no one moved at
first, as you might well imagine, but after a bit the man gestured the
grandee to step forward to the edge of the boat, and the fish lined up
one by one and neat as neat, to give him their pearls. Extraordinary, I
don't mind admitting.
Now, I can't claim to have taken all this quite in my stride, but there
was something hanging over everyone in the boat - some kind of mist,
almost - that stopped us getting over excited. What I can't believe
when I think about it now is that no one made the slightest move to
take one of them pearls for their selves. Everyone was just dumbstruck,
I suppose. When I looked back to see what our friend was up to, he had
already laid down again and seemed to be fast asleep, and I could see
his lips moving all the while.

After all the pearls were collected, the grandee went back to his
quarters with the strangest look on his face. Quiet as a lamb, he was
and I imagine he didn't know what to make of it all any more than we
did. After that, to be quite honest with you, the journey passed in a
bit of a daze and I can't rightly tell you all that happened. I don't
expect it was very much, compared to what had already gone on. I
remember at one point I tried to wake our friend and get him to tell me
a bit about what had happened, but he was having none of it and didn't
even stir. So I was left to me own thinking about what had gone on and
how I should make sense of it. My brothers didn't seem too keen to talk
about it at all, but rather started up about what our father would have
been up to whilst we were away. So all in all I began to feel like I
was quite alone sitting there on that boat.

I suppose it wasn't long after that we put in at the port in Abyssinia
- again I can't remember its name. I suppose I've got no real head for
names of places, unless its just ports that give me a problem. Anyway,
we unpacked our luggage from the boat along with everyone else, except
the grandee that is, who was keeping himself hidden well away until
everyone else had gone. I don't really know why - perhaps he was
ashamed of having all those pearls. Perhaps he'd even found his jewels
in a trunk!

Anyway, it was a day's travel to where we were going to meet up with
our father, God protect him, so we got lodgings in the port for the
night and pretty soon went to bed. I suppose you might be able to
guess, what with what I've told you already, that I didn't lie there
like a sleeping dog all night, because I couldn't get that man and his
seeming magic fish out of my head. They just kept going round and round
in my thoughts. I felt like I'd gone to bed in a familiar campsite
surrounded by my father's caravan and woken up suddenly in the open
desert without so much as a camel to carry me. I felt like I couldn't
see the edges of that strange desert, and I didn't know how to live
there, but at the same time it was the very the place I'd been born in.
That's the best I can describe it to you - I'm sure as there're men in
Cairo not far from here who are that much more learned than me that
they could tell you better than that, but for now you'll have to make
do.

After half the night trying to get to sleep I realized that there was
only one thing I could really do and got up, put on my heavy robe and
left the room without so much as a word to my sleeping brothers. I made
my way down to the docks and got straight back on the boat heading
towards Mecca, thinking I'd find people there who could tell me what
had happened. It was a strange thing for a young man to do, and I could
feel myself tugged in two ways, you see. I wanted to meet up with my
father again but at the same time I knew all of a sudden that I
couldn't carry on with the same life as before. So I just upped and
left. As it happens, I had to go a lot further than just to Mecca to
find what I was after, but I didn't know that at the time. By the time
I was on the boat and had paid my fare - using most of what money I had
left - there was no going back. Funny to think, but I didn't feel much
of anything as the boat pulled away.

***

A strange story, you think? By God, I know you do. The ramblings of an
old fool, I've heard it called more than once before now, but I urge
you, my young friend, to pay heed to what you've heard today. No, I
don't expect you to go running off in search of magic fish, or even to
believe what you've heard, leastways properly, but just be aware that
there are people all around who have stories like that one there.

I know what you're going to ask me - I've been asked it often enough
before, after all. If I've seen something like that - an honest to God
miracle - then how come I'm sitting here in Cairo like a drunk old fool
and playing backgammon all day and all night? Well, I told you at the
beginning of this story that I wouldn't go into the details of what
brought me down from the mountains, but I'll tell you this right
now:

When I get up in the morning and walk outside for the first time, the
sun hurts my eyes like buggery and I hold my hand up against and it's
all I'm concentrating on for the first few minutes. But after a while,
I get used to it, see. And I just go about my business without giving
it a second thought. But the sun hasn't changed, has it?

Everything fades, my boy. It has to, or we'd get nothing done. Now,
where's my tea?