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The Angel with One Hundred Wings

A Tale from the Arabian Nights

St. Martin's Press

After death, we are told, after Resurrection and the Last Day, we must all try to cross a bridge. Darkness extends above and on all sides, so that the world is a black vault; smoke rises from below. There is nothing to be seen, not a star and not a cloud, nothing except the bridge, the smoke, and a point of light that glitters in the distance — and that point is Paradise.

The good will fly over the bridge like lightning, led by the Prophet who shines like the sun. Yet when a sinful man steps forward, his feet will open and bleed, for the bridge is finer than a hair and sharp as an assassin's wire. As the sinner stands and sways upon the road to Paradise, heat sears his skin, smoke chokes his lungs, and the bridge itself cuts deeper and deeper into the soles of his feet. He cries out in agony and finally falls into the darkness, where he will cry forever.

They say too that between Heaven and Hell is a wall, meant for certain believers who have done evil and unbelievers who have done good. Able to see both the pits of Hell and the gardens of light, these reprieved ones will wait on top of this wall for centuries, until God releases them. Where does this wall lie, I wonder? It must be on the far side of the bridge, I think, just before the gates of Heaven. From what other place could one see both the light and the darkness? But how will this man, neither good nor evil, cross over the bridge? Being impure, surely he cannot travel with the Prophet, and so his passage will be neither easy nor swift; but since the Most Merciful God still considers him worthy of salvation, surely too this man must approach Heaven.

There are merchants who have traveled the world, sons of the earth who have sailed to China and India, the Greek empire and the Western kingdoms. When they return to the City of Peace, they bring not only furs and spices, swords and silk; they also bring stories. The Franks, one story goes, wear black to mourn their dead. For them black is the color of evil, and they believe that death is evil.

At first, I thought that my informants must have misunderstood. I know Christians here, and I know that their religion also tells them that death is no evil. Yet traveler after traveler has given the same report: the Christians of the West wear black to mourn. It is a beautiful custom, I think, one that could speak to my own heart that has so often feared death, but I still know that the old song speaks truth: "White is the true color of mourning. What mourning is sadder than the whiteness of hair?"

I am an old man. My friends have all left me except for one, and that one, the truest one that I had and the one whom I loved the most, I have risked my life in order to betray.

My beard is not as white as it once was. When I was younger, trying to win the dignity due a wise man rather than the envy due a shrewd one, I dyed it the color of snow. I kept my reputation for wisdom for many years; when I walked in the street, men bowed to me. "The ink of the scholar," said the Prophet, "is worth more than the blood of martyrs." All knew that the sultan had showered me with honor; all knew that I was the one man in the empire with whom he still played chess.

"What is this life," says another song, "but loving and surrender, to the drunkenness of wine and pretty eyes?" Those verses never pleased me. My own life has been free of wine, and I have known but one woman. "What is this life but surrender," I thought instead, "surrender to drunkenness and eyes?" For years and years, I have submitted to the eyes of others. In the last few weeks, though I still have not tasted wine, I have given myself up to a drunkenness that at moments has felt holy. Death could come at any instant, but I am no longer full of fear. I am eager to live.

Tonight I sit in my library. The gates of my villa are barred, my servants are in their quarters, and my wife is in hers. The room is luxurious, with tapestries, sofas and soft cushions, silk carpets from Persia and Armenia; but I am still most comfortable sitting on the floor, on a worn wool carpet that my wife wove, half a century ago. A gold lamp lights my paper, brought from Samarkand in dainty bundles of twelve sheets; a yellow ribbon holds the sheets together. When I am done writing a bundle, I shall roll it up and place it in a leather sheath, where it will await the eyes of a man who may choose never to look at it. I am lucky, so lucky that men now stare rather than bow when I walk in the street, but from this day on, I shall always wear white.

It is now forty-five years since the previous sultan decreed a new capital for his new empire and I bundled my terrified family onto a caravan bound for it. My fortune went to buy a stretch of mud in the new "city": a sea of tents encircling mounds of bricks, swarms of donkeys and camels and men, a few half-finished mud houses with timbers reaching up to the sky. Workers deepened irrigation ditches into canals; baskets hoisted men and bricks high up into scaffolding, behind which the Great Mosque and the Palace of the Green Dome took shape before my dazzled eyes. I had never seen a house with more than two stories; I had never lived in a land where water was so plentiful that men let it flow freely, day and night.

I soon had servants who scattered beyond the ever-growing city to gather herbs and flowers. Others roasted powders, boiled syrups, distilled aromatic baths, and mixed lotions. One assistant ran my shop inside the inner city; others ran my booths in more distant markets, in the bazaars of medicine and the bazaars of perfume. I became the most famous pharmacist in the city, and I made even more money from perfumes; everyone, man and woman, had to wear scents that came from my shop. The fragrance hardly mattered, so long as the ingredients came from distant lands: ambergris from whales, my lady, gathered at great expense and danger by fishermen in China; this frankincense is from the Holy Land, my lord, who knows if the Prophet Himself did not step upon the ground in which it grew; and of course, my lady, I use only dried rose petals from India, where the flowers are more fragrant. ... I often doubted that the rose petals and fragrant clumps that my agent bought in Basorah had originated anywhere other than Basorah, but if my customers did not ask questions, why should I?

Once established, I was more merchant than pharmacist, and for the past fifteen years I have done no real work; until recent events my time went to that fantastic ambition, turning lesser metals to gold. Yet every few days I still walked into my storeroom, where I picked out a few simple plants. One day I might take sebesten, cassia, and raisins to my laboratory, where I then brewed cough syrup in a furnace meant to melt lead. When longer occupation was desired, I could instead take flaxseed, vetch and almonds, pine cone, lily root, and gum arabic. The advantage of those ingredients was that besides boiling and crushing, which I did regularly for alchemy's sake, I had also to peel the root and crack the almonds.

When I retreated from pharmacy to alchemy, I retreated too from the company of men. No longer did I buy and sell, diagnose and consult; no longer did I go to the baths and to banquets, hoping to ingratiate myself with customers; no longer did I host dinners where servants hurled rose petals into the air, red slivers that then drifted down from the night, falling upon my nose and mouth, my eager eyes and wise white beard. For the past fifteen years I have spent my days alone, amidst furnaces and stills, mercury and sulfur, coal and ashes. I do not know if solitude was what I wanted, but I certainly did not want any more buying and selling, flattery and stratagems, insinuations and outright lies. I had no time for rose petals. I had grown tired.

There were two exceptions to my solitude, both remarkable for a pharmacist son of a rope maker, born to a humble tribe in a small village. One was the sultan himself, the Commander of the Faithful, the shadow of God upon this middle world. The other was Prince Abulhassan Ali of Persia, son of Abu Bakr, descendent of the men who had once called themselves kings of kings. Ironically, I met the prince through one of my submissions to the eyes of others.

Even after I had abandoned pharmacy, I continued to go to my shop every day, after afternoon prayer. There I greeted and sometimes served prestigious customers, but most of my visitors were young men from the empire's best families. "Seek ye knowledge, though it be in China," said the Prophet, and our young men are told to seek the conversation of older, wiser ones. More than any real knowledge, the sultan's favor proved my wisdom. My simple life and cautious words also gave me an aura of strict, old-fashioned village morality.

We sat on the thick carpets and soft cushions that I had bought for customers, and I explained Aristotle and Democritus, the humors that make up a man's body and the elements that make up the world. Sometimes too the conversation drifted to more general topics. What is virtue? Does free will exist? Was the Holy Book created by God, or is it coeternal with Him? Virtue I would happily discourse on, but religious controversy could be dangerous; almost every month there was some brawl in the street, or even a riot. Obey God, the sultan, and your father, I told my pupils; believe the word of God and leave foolish questions for the foolish. Be generous; live moderately; let your parents choose a wife for you, and have no more than one.

I should have enjoyed these discussions, but I soon realized that most of the young men cared nothing for my thoughts. They were there out of obligation, and after a few months, I was too; it would be awkward to turn away such powerful lords.

When the Prince of Persia first came to my shop, he had just the beginnings of a beard. He sat down with the others, but after a few moments, I felt his gaze upon me. When he spoke, his questions and comments were clearly chosen to win my approval. His father had died when he was an infant, I knew; his sudden affection was flattering, but it made me nervous.

One evening, the prince begged me for the honor of a private conversation. I assumed that his question was medical; over the years other young men had come to me in secret, seeking cures for shameful diseases.

The prince's dilemma was different. A few days before, he had asked the sultan to let him join the war against the Greeks. The sultan had refused.

"Why, my lord?" he asked me. "Why did his majesty refuse?"

Although Persia was ruled by a governor, and the prince had no real power, his name was still sacred to the empire's many Persian subjects. If he ever attained a position of influence, he could inspire a revolt as no other man could. I also knew, though this I did not tell the prince, that if his father and grandfather had not served the sultan so loyally, he surely would have died of a "mysterious disease" when he was a child.

The prince frowned, then began to pace about my library; he swung his arms about with a frantic air. "I can understand," he said. "I suppose I can't even blame him." He stopped pacing and turned to me. "But if the sultan will never permit me any real responsibility, then what am I supposed to do with my life? Please, my lord, advise me."

It was quite a question, I felt, to ask an old pharmacist. I could have responded as I did in my shop — run your estates with care, marry, and raise brave sons — but I sensed that he wanted more than that from life in this world. I shook my head.

"My lord prince, I don't know."

He looked at me a moment. "And you, my lord," he said softly. "You and your family have suffered greatly from war, have you not?"

I stared. "Yes. How did you know?"

He broke into a boyish grin; he was pleased that he had guessed right. "From what you said over the last few days, when we talked about war. I just knew it." Then, although he barely knew me, the Prince of Persia took my hand, gnarled and withered from years in the laboratory. "You are a man who has suffered much, my lord, and because of that you are wise."

Soon after, he again came to me. I hastily washed the coal and ashes off my hands, doused my beard in perfume to hide the stench of sulfur, and changed into a fresh robe, but it was still evident that he had brought me out of my laboratory. "Forgive me, my lord," he said, "for disturbing you in your important work. I beg your mercy to forgive me, when my own merits do not deserve it. I did not know that you were occupied, but a less foolish man than I would have guessed it. Please pardon a callow youth his thoughtlessness, and permit me to leave immediately. Let my foolishness serve as my excuse, and let my shame be proof of my respect for your lordship."

"Stay, my lord prince, I beg of you. An interruption such as yours is like sudden shade during the midday sun, and I only regret that my idle pastime kept me from greeting your lordship more quickly. I hope that my lord will honor my home by taking some refreshment, and I pray that he will grant me the boon of his company for the rest of the morning."

"No, my lord, I am too shamefaced to remain in your presence any longer. Your kindness only increases my awareness of my lack of merit. Please permit me to depart, my lord, leaving with you only my esteem, my apologies, and my readiness to be of service to your lordship."

So it went, back and forth, the game of manners which had long ago tired me — except that the prince seemed genuinely to regret having interrupted me, and I was truly eager for him to stay, so curious was I to know the reason for his visit.

He finally gave in, and agreed at least to stay long enough to explain what had motivated his visit. He wanted my advice. The previous day he had disguised himself and gone wandering about the poorer parts of the city, as the sultan himself had once done. "But, my lord, people look at me and are suspicious. When I try to talk to them, they become frightened." He bowed his head. "I am deeply ashamed that I have interrupted your work for such a trifle, but I had thought that you, with your wisdom and experience, might be able to explain to me my errors."

It was an unusual request, but I found that I was both flattered and intrigued. "How are you disguising yourself, my lord prince?"

"As a porter, my lord."

I nodded. "Sit down, my lord prince, I beg of you this honor."

"My lord ..."

"Not another word, my lord prince. I shall be offended if you refuse my hospitality."

We sat down. My salon for guests had rich carpets and embroidered sofas; the wooden grates on the windows were carved into floral patterns that let in light and air but maintained privacy. "My lord prince," I told him, "perhaps you would do better as a merchant. A silk merchant, or a dealer in carpets or some other merchandise of value. Your hands are too soft for a porter's, your speech too refined for a man unused to frequenting the houses of the great."

He lifted up his hands and stared at them. "Yes. Of course."

We gradually abandoned our formal tone. We talked about how men who are neither princes nor rich merchants live, and I remembered my own humble youth. How had the prince guessed that I really did know how poor people lived? We talked about discretion and feigned indifference, the indirect ways in which men communicate. It was his idea to complete his disguise with a Persian accent, so that he could pretend to be newly arrived, ignorant of our customs. As evening fell, my wife brought in cups of her famous sorbet: she made it with ice brought in from the caves outside the city and a mix of fruits whose recipe was more complicated than many of my medicines. "Prince Abulhassan," I said, "my wife, Fatima." For a moment the prince was too surprised even to stand up — my own wife and not a servant was bringing in refreshment? — but then he quickly bowed and tried to kiss her hand; she nimbly withdrew it from his grasp and waved him away.

And then, to the prince's utter bewilderment, she stayed. Calm in her plain cotton robe, she watched the Prince of Persia and me, who were both dressed in rich silk; gold thread embroidered our turbans and spelled out verses from the Holy Book upon the sleeves of our robes. My wife was unveiled, since it was her own house and she was too old to fear for her modesty. She looked at the prince and at me with a smile in her eyes that only I could see. I smiled back. "Would you like to sit with us, Fatima?"

The prince stared at me. Still silent, my wife shook her head. I turned back to the prince. I was happy at her presence, which had become rare in my life, but he was shocked at her presence in a conversation of men. "Fatima is my wife," I said simply.

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Excerpted from The Angel with One Hundred Wings by Daniel Horch. Copyright © 2002 Daniel Horch. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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