“But how long is this trial going to last?” I asked him once.
“A thousand and one days” was his answer. “If Scheherazade the storyteller managed to come up
with a new tale every night for that long, you, too, can endure.”
This is crazy! Do I resemble in the least bit that loudmouthed Scheherazade? Besides, all she did
was lie on velvet cushions twiddling her toes and make up fancy stories while she fed the cruel
prince sweet grapes and figments of her imagination. I don’t see any hard work there. She
wouldn’t have survived a week if she were asked to accomplish half of my work. I don’t know if
anyone is counting. But I surely am. And I have 624 more days to go.
The first forty days of my trial I spent in a cell so small and low that I could neither lie down nor
stand up and had to sit on my knees all the time. If I longed for proper food or some comfort,
was scared
of the dark or the loneliness, or God forbid had wet dreams about a woman’s body, I
was ordered to ring the silver bells dangling from the ceiling for spiritual help. I never did. This
is not to say I never had any distracting thoughts. But what’s wrong with having a few
distractions when you can’t even move?
When the seclusion period was over, I was sent back to the kitchen to suffer at the hands of the
cook. And suffer I did. But the truth is, as bitter as I might be toward him, I never broke the
cook’s rules—that is, until the evening Shams of Tabriz arrived. That night, when the cook
finally caught up with me, he gave me
the worst beating of my life, breaking willow stick after
willow stick on my back. Then he put my shoes in front of the door, with their fronts pointing
out, to make it clear it was time for me to leave. In a dervish lodge, they never kick you out or
tell you openly that you have failed; instead they make you silently leave.
“We cannot make you a dervish against your will,” the cook announced. “A man can bring a
donkey to the water but cannot make him drink. The donkey should have it in him. There’s no
other way.”
That makes me the donkey, of course. Frankly, I would have left this place a long time ago had it
not been for Shams of Tabriz. My curiosity about him kept me anchored here. I had
never met
anyone like him before. He feared no one and obeyed no one. Even the cook respected him. If
there ever were a role model for me in this lodge, it was Shams with his charm, dignity, and
unruliness. Not the humble old master.
Yes, Shams of Tabriz was my hero. After seeing him, I decided I didn’t need to turn myself into
a meek dervish. If I spent enough time next to him, I could become just as brash, steadfast, and
rebellious. So when autumn came and I realized that Shams was leaving for good, I decided to
leave with him.
Having made up my mind, I went to see Baba Zaman and found him sitting, reading an old book
by the light of an oil lamp.
“What do you want, novice?” he asked wearily, as if seeing me tired him.
As forthright as I could be, I said, “I understand that Shams
of Tabriz is leaving soon, Master. I
want to go with him. He might need company on the way.”
“I didn’t know you cared for him so much,” the master said suspiciously. “Or is it because you
are looking for ways to avoid your tasks in the kitchen? Your trial is not over yet. You can hardly
be called a dervish.”
“Perhaps going on a journey with someone like Shams is my trial,” I suggested, knowing that it
was a bold thing to say but saying it anyhow.
The master lowered his gaze, lapsing into contemplation. The longer his silence, the more I was
convinced he would scold me for my insolence and call the cook to keep a better eye on me. But
he did no such thing. Instead he looked at me forlornly and shook his head.
“Perhaps you were not created for life in a lodge, my son. After all, out of every seven novices
that
set out on this path, only one remains. My feeling is you are not fit to be a dervish and need
to look for your
kismet
elsewhere. As for accompanying Shams on his journey, you will have to
ask him about that.”
Thus giving me notice, Baba Zaman closed the subject with a polite but dogged gesture of his
head and went back to his book.
I felt sad and small, but strangely liberated.
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