The Journeyer - Jennings Gary - Страница 80
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“Aziz may not be chaste, by your standards,” his sister went on. “But neither is he promiscuous. As long as he is with you, he will be yours only, not lifting his zab or his buttocks or even his eyes to any other man.”
“I will be yours only, Mirza Marco,” he affirmed, with what might have been charming innocence, except that he held aside the garments in his hands, as Sitare had done, to let me look my fill.
“No, no, no,” I said, in some agitation. “Aziz, you are to promise not to tempt any of us. Our slave is only a beast, but we other three are Christians! You are to be totally chaste, from here to Mashhad.”
“If that is what you wish,” he said, though he appeared crestfallen. “Then I swear it. On the beard of the Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him).”
Skeptical, I asked Sitare, “Is that oath binding on a beardless child?”
“Indeed it is,” she said, regarding me askance. “Your dreary desert journey will not be at all enlivened. You Christians must take some morbid pleasure in the denial of pleasure. But so be it. Aziz, you may put on your clothes again.”
“You too, Sitare,” I said, and if Aziz had looked crestfallen, she looked thunderstruck. “I assure you, dear girl, I say that unwillingly, but with the best of will.”
“I do not understand. When you take responsibility for my brother, my virginity is worth nothing toward his advancement. So I give it to you, and thankfully.”
“And with all thanks I decline it. For a reason I am sure you are aware of, Sitare. Because, when your brother departs, what becomes of you?”
“What matter? I am only a female person.”
“In a person most beautifully female. Therefore, once Aziz is provided for, you can offer yourself for your own advancement. A good marriage, or concubinage, or whatever you can attain to. But I know that a woman cannot attain to much unless she is virginally intact. So I will leave you that way.”
She and Aziz both stared at me, and the boy murmured, “Verily, Christians are divane.”
“Some, no doubt. Some try to behave as Christians should.”
Sitare’s stare turned to a softer look, and she said in a soft voice, “Perhaps some few succeed.” But again, provocatively, she moved the screening clothes aside from her fair body. “You are sure you decline? You are steadfast in your kindly resolve?”
I laughed shakily. “Not at all steadfast. For that reason, let me go quickly from here. I will consult with my father and uncle about taking Aziz with us.”
The consultation did not take long, for they were in the stable talking it over at that very time.
“So there,” said Uncle Mafio to my father. “Marco is also in favor of letting the boy come along. That makes two of us voting yes, against one vote wavering.”
My father frowned and tangled his fingers into his beard.
“We will be doing a good deed,” I said.
“How can we refuse to do a good deed?” demanded my uncle.
My father growled an old saying, “Saint Charity is dead and her daughter Clemency is ailing.”
My uncle retorted with another, “Cease believing in the saints and they will cease doing miracles.”
They then looked at each other in a silence of impasse, until I ventured to break it.
“I have already warned the lad about the likelihood of his being molested.” They both swiveled their gaze to me, looking astonished. “You know,” I mumbled uncomfortably, “Nostril’s propensities for, er, making mischief.”
“Oh, that,” said my father. “Yes, there is that.”
I was glad that he seemed not unduly concerned about it, for I did not wish to be the one to tell of Nostril’s most recent indecency, and probably earn the slave a belated beating.
“I made Aziz promise,” I said, “to be wary of any suspicious advances. And I have promised to watch over him. As for his transportation, the pack camel is not at all heavily laden, and the boy weighs very little. His sister offered to let us pocket whatever money we can sell him for, which should be a substantial amount. But I rather think we ought merely to subtract from it the cost of his keep, and let the boy have the rest. As a sort of legacy, to start his new life with.”
“So there!” said Uncle Mafio again, scratching at his elbow. “The lad has a mount to ride and a guardian to protect him. He is paying his own way to Mashhad, and earning himself a dowry as well. There can be no further possible objection.”
My father said solemnly, “If we take him, Marco, he will be your responsibility. You guarantee to keep the child from harm?”
“Yes, Father,” I said, and put my hand significantly on my belt knife. “Any harm must take me before it takes him.”
“You hear, Mafio.”
I perceived that I must be making a weighty vow indeed, since my father was commanding my uncle to bear witness.
“I hear, Nico.”
My father sighed, looked from one to the other of us, clawed in his beard some more, and finally said, “Then he comes with us. Go, Marco, and tell him so. Tell his sister and the Widow Esther to pack whatever belongings Aziz is to take.”
So Sitare and I took the opportunity for a flurry of kisses and caresses, and the last thing she said to me was, “I will not forget, Mirza Marco. I will not forget you, or your kindness to us both, or your consideration of my fortunes hereafter. I should very much like to reward you—and with that which you have so gallantly forgone. If ever you should journey this way again …”
4
WE had been told that we were crossing the Dasht-e-Kavir at the best time of the year. I should hate to have to cross it at the worst. We did it in the late autumn, when the sun was not infernally hot, but, even without incident, that would by no means have been a pleasant trip. I had hitherto supposed that a long sea voyage was the most unvarying and boring and interminable and monotonous sort of travel possible, at least when not made terrible by storm. But a desert crossing is all of that, and besides is thirsty, itchy, scratchy, rasping, scraping, parching—the list of hateful adjectives could go on and on. And the list does go on, like a chant of curses, through the morose mind of the desert journeyer, as he endlessly trudges from one featureless horizon across a featureless flat surface toward the featureless skyline ever receding ahead of him.
When we left Kashan, we were again dressed for hard traveling. No longer did we wear the neat Persian tulbands on our heads and the gorgeously embroidered body garments. We were again loosely enwrapped in the Arabs’ hanging kaffiyah headcloths and ample aba cloaks, that less handsome but more practical attire which does not cling about a person but billows free, so it allows the dissipation of body heat and sweat, and affords no folds in which the drifting sand can accumulate. Our camels were hung all about with leather bags of good Kashan water and sacks of dried mutton and fruits and the brittle local bread. (It was to procure these foodstuffs that we had had to wait for the bazar to restock after Ramazan.) We had also acquired in Kashan some new items to carry with us: smooth round sticks and lengths of light fabric with their hems sewn to form sheaths. By inserting the sticks into those sheaths, we could quickly shape the cloths into tents, each just of a size to shelter one man comfortably, or, if necessary, to accommodate two persons in rather less comfortable intimacy.
Before we even got out of Kashan, I warned Aziz never to let our slave Nostril tempt him inside a tent or anywhere else out of sight of the rest of us, and to report to me any other sorts of advances the camel-puller might make to him. For Nostril, on first seeing the boy among us, had widened his piggy eyes almost to human size and dilated his single nostril as if he scented prey. That first day, also, Aziz had been briefly naked in our company—and Nostril had hung about, ogling—while I helped the boy doff the Persian garb his sister had dressed him in, and showed him how to put on the Arab kaffiyah and aba. So I gave Nostril some stern warnings, too, and toyed significantly with my belt knife while I was haranguing him, and he made insincere promises of obedience and good behavior.
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