The Journeyer - Jennings Gary - Страница 79

“Stop this!” I managed at last to say. “You are trying to importune me into sin with this boy-child!”

She did not deny it, but the boy-child did. Aziz turned to face me again and spoke for the first time. His voice was the musical small voice of a songbird, but firm. “No, Mirza Marco. My sister does not importune, nor do I. Do you really think I would ever have to?”

Taken aback by the direct question, I had to say, “No.” But then I rallied my Christian principles and said accusingly, “Flaunting is as reprehensible as importuning. When I was your age, child, I barely knew the normal purposes that my parts were for. God forbid I should have exposed them so consciously and wickedly and—and vulnerably. Just standing there like that, you are a sin!”

Aziz looked as hurt as if I had slapped him, and knit his feathery brows in seeming perplexity. “I am still very young, Mirza Marco, and perhaps ignorant, for no one has yet taught me how to be a sin. Only how to be al-fa‘il or al-mafa’ul, as the occasion requires.”

I sighed, “Alas, I was again forgetting the local customs.” So I momentarily dismissed my principles in favor of honesty, and said, “As the doer or the done-to, you probably could make a man forget it is a sin. And if to you it is not, then I apologize for castigating you unjustly.”

He gave me such a radiant smile that his whole naked little body seemed to glow in the darkening room.

I added, “I apologize also for having thought other unjust things about you, Aziz, without knowing you. Beyond a doubt, you are the most bewitchingly beautiful child I have ever seen, of either sex, and more tantalizing than many grown women I have seen. You are like one of the Dream children of whom I have recently heard. You would be a temptation even to a Christian, in the absence of your sister here. Alongside her desirability, you understand, you must take only second place.”

“I understand,” the boy said, still smiling. “And I agree.”

Sitare, also a figure of glowing alabaster in the twilight, regarded me with some amazement. She breathed almost unbelievingly, “You still want me?”

“Very much. So much, indeed, that I am now praying that the favor you desire is something within my power to grant.”

“Oh, it is.” She picked up her discarded clothes and held them bunched in front of her, that I should not be distracted by her nudity. “We ask only that you take Aziz along in your karwan, and only as far as Mashhad.”

I blinked. “Why?”

“You said yourself that you have never seen a more beautiful or more winning child. And Mashhad is a convergence of many trade routes, a place of many opportunities.”

“I myself do not much want to go,” said Aziz. His nudity was also a distraction, so I picked up his clothes and gave them to him to hold. “I do not wish to leave my sister, who is all the family I have. But she has convinced me that it is for the best.”

“Here in Kashan,” Sitare went on, “Aziz is but one of countless pretty boys, all competing for the notice of any anderun purveyor who passes through. At best, Aziz can hope to be chosen by one of those, to become the concubine of some nobleman, who may turn out to be an evil and vicious person. But in Mashhad he could be presented to and appreciated by and acquired by some rich traveling merchant. He may start his life as that man’s concubine, but he will have the opportunity to travel, and in time he can hope to learn his master’s profession, and he can go on to make something much better of himself than a mere anderun plaything.”

Playing was much on my own mind at that moment. I would have been happy to conclude the talking and start doing other things. Nevertheless, I was also at that moment realizing a truth that I think not many journeyers ever do.

We who wander about the world, we pause briefly in this community or that, and to us each is but one flash of vague impression in a long series of such forgettable flashes. The people there are only dim figures looming momentarily out of the dust clouds of the trail. We travelers usually have a destination and a purpose in aiming for it, and every stop along the way is merely one more milestone in our progress. But in actuality the people living there had an existence before we came, and will have after we leave, and they have their own concerns—hopes and worries and ambitions and plans—which, being of great moment to them, might sometimes be worth remarking also by us passersby. We might learn something worth knowing, or enjoy a laugh of amusement, or garner a sweet memory worth treasuring, or sometimes even improve our own selves, by taking notice of such things. So I paid sympathetic attention to the wistful words and glowing faces of Sitare and Aziz, as they spoke of their plans and their ambitions and their hopes. And ever since that time, in all my journeyings, I have tried always to see in its entirety every least place I have passed through, and to see its humblest inhabitants with an unhurried eye.

“So we ask only,” said the girl, “that you take Aziz with you to Mashhad, and that in Mashhad you seek out a karwan merchant of wealth and kindly nature and other good qualities … .”

“Someone like yourself, Mirza Marco,” suggested the boy.

“ … And sell Aziz to him.”

“Sell your brother?” I exclaimed.

“You cannot just take him there and abandon him, a little boy in a strange city. We would wish you to place him in the keeping of the best possible master. And, as I said, you will realize a profit on the transaction. For your trouble of transporting him, and your taking pains to find the right sort of buyer for him, you may keep the entire amount you get for him. It ought to be a handsome price for such a fine boy. Is that not fair enough?”

“More than fair,” I said. “It may sway my father and uncle, but I cannot promise. After all, I am just one of three in our party. I must put the proposition to them.”

“That should suffice,” said Sitare. “Our mistress has already spoken to them. The Mirza Esther also wishes to see young Aziz set upon a better road in life. I understand that your father and uncle are considering the matter. So, if you are agreeable to taking Aziz, yours should be the persuading voice.”

I said truthfully, “The widow’s word probably carries more weight than mine does. That being so, Sitare, why were you prepared to”—I gestured, indicating her state of undress—“to go to such lengths to cajole me?”

“Well … ,” she said, smiling. She moved aside the clothes she held to give me another unimpeded look at her body. “I hoped you would be very agreeable …”

Still being truthful, I said, “I would be, anyway. But there are some other aspects you ought to consider. For one thing, we must cross a perilous and uncomfortable desert. It is no fit place for any human being, not to mention a small boy. As is well known, the Devil Satan is most evident and most powerful in the desert wastes. It is into deserts that saintly Christians go, simply to test their strength of faith—and I mean the most sublimely devout Christians, like San Antonio. Unsaintly mortals go there only at great hazard.”

“Perhaps so, but they do go,” said young Aziz, sounding unperturbed by the prospect. “And since I am not a Christian, I may be in less danger. I may even be some protection for the rest of you.”

“We have another non-Christian in the party,” I said sourly. “And that is a thing I would have you also consider. Our camel-puller is a beast, who habitually consorts and couples with the vilest of other beasts. To tempt his bestial nature with a desirable and accessible little boy …”

“Ah,” said Sitare. “That must be the objection your father raised. I knew the mistress was concerned about something. Then Aziz must promise to avoid the beast, and you must promise to watch over Aziz.”

“I will stay always by your side, Mirza Marco,” declared the boy. “By day and by night.”