“That’s ibn Tahir, the poet!” Khadija whispered.
“He’s the one who seized the Turks’ flag this morning,” Sit said.
“He’s handsome,” Safiya observed.
Now Miriam looked at the sleeping guest. A smile passed over her lips. This is not how she had pictured her victim.
And this business about his being a hero and a poet? It seemed ridiculous to her.
“Why, he’s still a child,” she said to herself.
She felt somewhat relaxed now, after all. The challenge of convincing him he was in heaven began to appeal to her. Actually, the task Hasan had assigned her was fairly interesting. What a strange and wonderful man, that master of hers! His idea was either insane or magnificently horrible. Now he had set the apparatus in motion. She was one of its most important cogs. Wasn’t that a sign of his trust? Wasn’t it just petty vanity that had kept her from understanding him? After all, high drama had always been her passion. Hadn’t Hasan given her the perfect opportunity to get back into it? What did life have to offer her otherwise, except broad farce?
The other girls also felt a weight lift from their shoulders when they saw ibn Tahir’s young face. Even timid Safiya observed, “It won’t be hard convincing him he’s in paradise.”
Miriam drew her fingers over the strings of her harp.
“Start singing and dancing!”
The atmosphere in the pavilion grew relaxed. The girls picked up their instruments and their drums and got ready to dance. It was a delight to watch them free their limbs from their veils. Miriam smiled at them once they were moving and undulating seductively, as though their new guest were already watching them.
“He’s still not going to wake up,” Sit observed in frustration, setting down her drum and little bells.
“Let’s sprinkle some water on him,” Rikana suggested.
“Are you crazy?” Khadija scolded her. “What kind of first impression of paradise would he have then?”
“Keep singing and dancing,” Miriam said. “Let me try to bring him to.”
She knelt down beside him and gazed intently at his face. His features struck her as handsome and aristocratic.
She lightly touched his shoulder with her hand. He twitched. She heard some incoherent muttering. She felt both fear and intense curiosity at the same time. What would he say, what would he do, when he found himself in this strange place?
Softly she called him by name.
He shot up lightning-fast. He opened his eyes wide and looked around confused.
“What is this?”
His voice was shy and trembling.
The girls’ singing and dancing came to a halt. Their faces expressed intense strain.
Miriam quickly regained her footing.
“You’re in paradise, ibn Tahir.”
He looked at her astonished. Then he lay back down.
“I was having a dream,” he muttered.
“Did you hear that? He can’t believe he’s in paradise,” Khadija whispered, distraught.
Not a bad start, Miriam thought. Once again she touched him and called his name.
He sat up this time too. His eyes remained fixed on Miriam’s face. His lips began to quiver. His eyes expressed amazement verging on terror. He looked at himself, felt himself, and began looking at the room around him. Then he drew a hand across his eyes. His face was as pale as wax.
“This can’t be true,” he whispered. “This is crazy! This is a trick!”
“Doubting ibn Tahir! Is this how you repay Sayyiduna’s trust?”
Miriam looked at him reproachfully, but with a smile.
He stood up and his eyes began darting from object to object. He went up to the wall and touched it. He went up to the pool and dipped a finger in its water. Then he cast a frightened look at the girls and returned to Miriam.
“I don’t understand,” he said in a trembling voice. “Last night Sayyiduna summoned us and ordered us to swallow some bitter-tasting little balls. I fell asleep and had all kinds of strange dreams. And now I’m suddenly awake in some completely different place. What’s that out there?”
“Those are the gardens you know about from the Koran.”
“I want to see them.”
“I’ll take you there. But wouldn’t you like to bathe and have something to eat first?”
“There will be plenty of time for that later. First I have to know where I am.”
He went to the doorway and drew the curtain aside.
Miriam accompanied him. She took him by the arm and led him through the vestibule. They came outside and paused at the top of the steps.
“What an amazing sight!” he exclaimed when he saw the fabulously illuminated gardens before him. “No, there’s nothing like this at Alamut. And I don’t know a place like it anywhere nearby. I must have been asleep a long time for them to carry me this far away!”
“Aren’t you afraid of being so irreverent, ibn Tahir? Do you still refuse to believe you’re in paradise? Hundreds of thousands of parasangs separate you from your world. And yet, when you reawake at Alamut, just one night will have passed.”
He stared at her. Again he passed his hands over his body.
“So I’m dreaming? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve sworn that something I was dreaming was for real. I remember how one time, back at my father’s house, I discovered a jug full of gold pieces. ‘I used to just dream that I’d discovered treasure,’ I told myself. ‘But today it’s really happened.’ I poured the gold pieces out of the jug, counted them, and laughed to myself. ‘Praise be to Allah that this time it’s no dream,’ I sighed. Then I woke up. It really had been a dream. You can imagine how disappointed I was. This time I’m not going to be fooled. Though this dream is amazing and very lifelike. But that could be due to Sayyiduna’s pellets. I’d rather not be disappointed when I wake up.”
“Do you think I’m just an image in your dream, ibn Tahir? Wake up, then! Here, look at me, feel me!”
She took his hand and ran it over her whole body.
“Can’t you feel that I’m a living being like you?”
She took his head in her hands and looked deep into his eyes.
He shuddered.
“Who are you?” he asked uncomprehendingly.
“Miriam, a girl of paradise.”
He shook his head. He went down the steps and continued past the dozens of multicolored lanterns with moths and bats darting around them. Unfamiliar plants grew alongside the path, strange flowers and fruit he had never before seen.
“Everything seems enchanted. It’s a regular dreamscape,” he murmured.
Miriam walked at his side.
“So you still haven’t figured it out? You’re not on earth now, you’re in heaven.”
Music and singing came from the pavilion.
He paused and listened.
“Those voices are just like on earth. And you, you have perfectly human traits. It can’t be like this in heaven.”
“Are you really so ignorant of the Koran? Doesn’t it say that in paradise all things will be as they were on earth, so that the faithful will feel they’ve come home? Why are you surprised, if you’re a believer?”
“Why wouldn’t I be surprised? How can a living being, a man of flesh and blood get into heaven?”
“So the Prophet lied?”
“Allah forbid that I even think such a thing.”
“Wasn’t he here during his lifetime? Didn’t he appear before Allah, flesh and blood that he was? Didn’t he ordain that on the day of judgment flesh and blood would be reunited? How do you propose to partake of the food and drink of paradise, or enjoy yourself with the houris, if you don’t have a real mouth and real body?”