He asked himself if perhaps he really was in paradise. All of his surroundings seemed alien and unfamiliar. No, a lush valley like this with gardens full of exotic flowers and strange fruit couldn’t exist amidst his barren uplands. Was this really still the same night he had been summoned before the supreme commander? If it was, then the only possibilities were that he was the victim of some incredible trick and Sayyiduna’s pellet had conjured these false dreams, or that everything truly was as Ismaili doctrine taught, and Sayyiduna really had the power to send anyone he wanted to paradise.
Confused and divided, he took off his robe and slid into the pool.
The water was pleasantly warm. He stretched out on the bottom and yielded to its lazy pleasure. He didn’t feel like getting out of the pool, though he knew the girls could come back any minute.
Soon the curtain over the entrance was drawn aside and one of the girls looked through the opening. When she saw that ibn Tahir wasn’t frightened and was smiling at her, she went in.
The others followed her.
Rikana said, “Finally ibn Tahir has realized he’s master here.”
“Just say whenever you’re ready to get out and we’ll give you a towel.”
They vied with each other to do him favors.
But when Miriam entered, his awkwardness returned. He asked for a towel and his clothes.
Instead of his robe they offered him a splendid coat of heavy brocade. He put it on and belted it. He looked at himself in a mirror. This is what princes looked like in old pictures. He smiled. He couldn’t resist feeling that he had undergone a change.
He stretched out on some pillows and an all-out banquet began. The girls served him, one after the other. Miriam gave him wine to drink. She couldn’t shake off some strange, relaxed lightheartedness that progressively overwhelmed her. While each glass she drank before ibn Tahir’s arrival had made her more sober, now she suddenly felt the pleasant effects of the wine. She felt like having a good talk and having a good laugh.
“You’re a poet, ibn Tahir,” she said with a charming smile. “Don’t deny it, we know. Let’s hear one of your poems.”
“Who made you believe that?” ibn Tahir blushed as red as scarlet. “I’m not a poet, so I have nothing to offer you.”
“Would you rather hide? Isn’t that false modesty? We’re waiting.”
“It’s not worth talking about. They were just exercises.”
“Are you afraid of us? We’re a quiet and appreciative audience.”
Khadija asked, “Are your poems love poems?”
“How can you ask something like that, Khadija?” Miriam contradicted her. “Ibn Tahir is a warrior for the true doctrine and is in service to the new prophet.”
“Miriam is right. How can I write poems on a subject I know nothing about?”
The girls grinned. They were pleased to have such an inexperienced youth in their midst.
Ibn Tahir looked at Miriam. A sweet terror came over him. He recalled the previous evening, the evening before the battle, when he lay in the open air outside of Alamut, gazing at the stars. A far-off longing for some unknown thing had taken hold of him then. He was tender and sensitive, and he loved his companions, especially Suleiman, whom he saw as a model of human beauty. Didn’t he have an intimation even then that he would soon encounter another face even more beautiful, more perfect than his? At least at that instant, when he looked into Miriam’s eyes, he felt as though he had been waiting precisely for her and nobody else. How heavenly everything about her was! Her finely arched white brow, her straight nose, her full red lips, whose curve had an ineffable charm, her large, doe-like eyes, which gazed at him so intelligently, so omnisciently: wasn’t this image the perfect incarnation of some idea he had always carried inside himself? What power must be inside those pellets of Sayyiduna’s, that they could animate his imagination and reconstruct it outside of him as this fabulous creature? Whether he was dreaming, or whether he was in heaven or in hell, he sensed he was on the way to some gigantic yet unknown bliss.
“We’re waiting, ibn Tahir.”
“Fine. I’ll recite several poems for you.”
The girls arranged themselves comfortably around him, as though in anticipation of a special treat. Miriam lay on her stomach and leaned against him, her breasts grazing him lightly. His head began spinning with a strange, aching sweetness. He lowered his eyes. In a quiet, unsure voice he began reciting his poem about Alamut.
But soon an intense fervor came over him. Indeed, the words of his poem struck him as impoverished and empty, but his voice gave them a completely different meaning, something of what he was feeling inside.
After “Alamut” he recited the poems about Ali and Sayyiduna.
The girls understood the hidden feelings that his voice conveyed. How clearly Miriam sensed that he was speaking to her and about her! With no resistance she yielded to enjoyment of the knowledge that she was loved, and loved perhaps as never before. An enigmatic smile arched her lips. She listened intently within herself. The words ibn Tahir was speaking reached her as though over a great distance. She started only at the poem about Sayyiduna. If only he knew!
“All of it is worthless!” he exclaimed when he finished. “It’s miserable, totally empty. I feel hopeless. I want to drink. Pour me some wine!”
They reassured him and praised him.
“No! No, I know too well. Those aren’t poems. Poems have to be completely different.”
He looked at Miriam. She was smiling at him, a smile that struck him as unfathomable. That’s how a poem should be, he suddenly realized. Yes, that’s how a real poem ought to be! Everything he had admired and loved until now had just been a substitute for her, the one he had gotten to know tonight.
In delectable horror he realized that he was in love for the first time, and that this love was vast and deep.
Suddenly he became aware that they weren’t alone. The presence of the other girls began to bother him. Oh, if they were alone now, as they had been earlier, he wouldn’t bother asking a hundred irrelevant questions! Now he’d take her by the hand and look into her eyes. He would tell her about himself, about his feelings, about his love. What difference would the nature of the gardens they were walking in make to him now! Whether they were the figment of a dream or reality, he didn’t care. What mattered was that his feelings for this heavenly apparition were as real as life. Hadn’t the Prophet said that life in this world was just a shackled image of the beyond? But what he was feeling now, and what had given rise to that feeling, couldn’t be the shackled image of something unknown. It was itself exalted. It was perfect in its own right.
But perhaps his body was still lying in the dark room at the top of Sayyiduna’s tower. And a fragment of his self had split away from his soul and was now enjoying all this luxury. One way or the other, Miriam’s beauty was reality and so were his feelings for her.
He took her by the hand, by her delicate, rosy, wonderfully shaped hand, and pressed it to his forehead.
“How hot your forehead is, ibn Tahir!”
“I’m burning,” he whispered.
He looked at her with glowing eyes.
“I’m all aflame.”
So much passion! Miriam thought. Her heart was moved. Will I catch fire too, around so much ardor?
He began to kiss her hand. Hotly, unthinkingly. He took hold of the other and began kissing them both.