‘The Watchful,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘He who observes all creatures, and every action is under His control.’
‘Why that one?’ said Firouz. ‘Why that particular one for me?’
‘It came into my mind when you asked, so I assume that it was put there by Allah,’ said Bembel Rudzuk.
‘“Every action is under His control,”’ said Firouz. ‘How can that be, really? Think of the dreadful things that are done in this world every day.’
‘The child is under the control of the parents, is it not,’ said Bembel Rudzuk; ‘yet must the child creep on its hands and knees before it can walk, and when it first walks it can go only a step or two before it falls.’
‘True, true,’ said Firouz. ‘That’s all we are: little children creeping on our hands and knees. The parent, however, doesn’t punish the child for falling, while Allah The Watchful will surely punish the sinner, will he not?’
‘The child who falls when learning to walk has not the choice,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘but the sinner has.’
‘That what was the use of bringing the child into it at all?’ said Firouz. ‘It’s a useless analogy, it’s no help whatever.’
‘It’s a perfectly useful analogy,’ said Bembel Rudzuk: ‘the consequence of not being able to walk is to fall and the consequence of not being able to maintain moral balance is also to fall. How could it be otherwise?’
‘To be in a fallen state,’ said Firouz, ‘that isn’t so dreadful; all sorts of fallen people ride about on good horses wearing fine clothes and who can tell the difference? I’m thinking about later, I’m thinking about the Fire where one burns and burns and is given molten brass to drink. Do you think that’s really how it is?’
‘I think that the Fire is in the soul of each of us,’ said Bembel Rudzuk: ‘those of us consigned to the Fire burn every day and every night.’
‘You don’t burn though, do you?’ said Firouz. ‘You’re cool and easy, your soul dwells in the Garden of its self-delight.’
‘Where my soul dwells is between Allah and me, not between, you and me,’ said Bembel Rudzuk.
‘You’re so comfortable!’ said Firouz. ‘You’re so easy, you’re like a cat that purrs before a dish of the milk of your own wisdom that is so delicious to you.’
‘I am as Allah made me,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘and certainly I never asked you to drink from that dish.’
‘Always a clever answer,’ said Firouz. He turned to me. ‘And you,’ he said, ‘what name of Allah would you write on the tile?’
‘God for me is nameless,’ I said.
‘Ah!’ said Firouz. ‘Profundity! How could I have expected otherwise!’ Again he executed his heel-turn and I thought that we had perhaps seen the last of him for that day but no, here he was turning yet again to speak to us once more.
‘How many tiles will there be in Hidden Lion when it is complete?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bembel Rudzuk. ‘We haven’t calculated that.’
‘How many tiles are there in it so far?’ said Firouz.
‘We have not counted,’ said Bembel Rudzuk. ‘Allah is The Reckoner.’
‘Of course,’ said Firouz. ‘This is part of the milk of your wisdom, is it not. And yet if the Governor should impose a tax on paving-tiles then you with all your piety would have to do some reckoning.’
The workmen were just then unloading a camel and two of them now approached the advancing edge of the pattern with a four-handled basket full of tiles. Firouz walked turningly towards them with his features composed in an official expression as if he were going to confiscate the tiles. The workmen stopped in their tracks and looked at him with fear and uncertainty.
It was at that moment that the Governor Yaghi-Siyan appeared, riding a horse and flanked by six of his bodyguard. At the edge of the stone square he dismounted and approached us. When he came to the outermost edge of Hidden Lion he ostentatiously took off his shoes and walked barefoot across the tiles to us. Bembel Rudzuk and I took off our shoes as well and made him a little bow. Firouz whirled round to face the Governor and seeing us all barefoot hurried to take off his shoes. He flung out a hand to steady himself against the basket that the two workmen were still holding between them; perhaps he leant on it too heavily or perhaps the workmen, already nervous and fearful of him, were startled by his sudden movement and let go of the basket — in any case it fell with its heavy load of tiles and there was a howl of pain from Firouz who had somehow contrived to have his foot under it.
The terrified workmen lifted the basket clear and while Firouz composed himself heroically I examined his foot and ascertained that the metatarsal bone was broken. A man was sent for bandages while I set the bone and bound it temporarily with my kaffiya. As I was doing this Firouz said to me, ‘I know that this design has come from your hand and not that of Bembel Rudzuk. It is your Hidden Lion, Jew.’
‘This Hidden Lion belongs to no one person more than to any other,’ I said. ‘It is simply the lion that remains hidden until it reveals itself.’
Yaghi-Siyan seemed unmoved by Firouz’s suffering. He looked down at him and said, ‘Tell me, Firouz, what have you done to this load of tiles that it should fall upon you like this, eh? Did it attack you or was it acting in self-defence? Were you perhaps threatening it? Or were you attempting to extort money from it?’
Firouz drew back his lips from his teeth in a ghastly smile. ‘This was a didactic load of tiles,’ he said. ‘It was teaching us that what is clay can fall.’
‘Also,’ said Yaghi-Siyan, ‘it was teaching you to step carefully.’ He looked steadily at Firouz until Firouz looked away; no more was said between them.
When I had properly bandaged Firouz’s foot I had the thought of further immobilizing the broken bone by stiffening the bandage with clay from the riverbank to enclose the foot in a mud-brick shell. This being done Firouz was set aside to dry in the sun.
‘Will you now write a name of Allah upon me?’ said Firouz to Bembel Rudzuk. ‘Will you fit me into your design?’
‘The tiles in this pattern,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘have not only been dried in the sun; they have also passed through the fire.’
‘Ah!’ said Firouz, but he said no more than that.
Yaghi-Siyan was standing before Bembel Rudzuk with a kind of aggressive humility, impatient for him to leave off paying attention to Firouz. ‘I am told,’ he said, ‘that this tiling is done for its own sake alone.’
‘Your Excellency,’ said Bembel Rudzuk, ‘this that we do here is only a kind of foolishness, a kind of vanity. It is done to be looked at.’
‘I don’t think it is foolishness,’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘I sense here the presence of Allah.’
‘That may well be due to your own virtue rather than to anything in the work itself,’ said Bembel Rudzuk.
‘I think not,’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘I think that this is something out of the usual run, something extraordinary, even inspired. Most things are a kind of commerce, even most piety: one gives something, one gets something. But this is original, this is abstract; it simply becomes itself, asking nothing.’
‘To hear your Excellency say this of course gives me great pleasure,’ said Bembel Rudzuk.
‘You’re being polite,’ said Yaghi-Siyan; ‘you’re being careful, you’re being closed. Say something careless to me, something open, something abstract.’
‘This is my abstraction,’ said Bembel Rudzuk indicating Hidden Lion with a sweep of his arm. ‘This is my openness, my carelessness, my impoliteness.’
‘May I climb your tower?’ said Yaghi-Siyan.
‘This tower is of course yours, Excellency,’ said Bembel Rudzuk. ‘It is my privilege to invite you to make use of it.’