Hi there gentle reader. I really want to improve my craft, so if you find it worthwhile reading through my stuff, can I implore you, please, to comment frankly?

As regards this piece, what do you think the target market might be? What genre? How should the style and language be adjusted? What plot elements are lacking or should be discarded?

I will happily return the favour and offer constructive criticism – but only to those who invite me.

Many thanks,

Paul du Preez

One fine afternoon, as Salim guided his donkey through the arid moonscape of the near hills he saw something quite unusual.

He was taking a short cut back from market in the neighbouring valley – as many did. His donkey was laden with honey combs, Turkish figs, tubs of Greek yogurt, spices and a dozen other items requested by his housekeeper, other servants and, of course, his mother. He could have sent his housekeeper – she would have loved the opportunity for a dilatory afternoon’s gossip, spending more of his money than was strictly necessary – but he felt a need to live out the homilies of his good friend Sr Hassan and ‘get in touch with the reality of the common man’.

You would have thought he was proposing a reformation of the municipal code! But he was persistent. He overrode the disappointment of the housekeeper and had her furnish him with a detailed list and copious instructions; assured his mother that his sandals were stout enough and that he would wear ample head-dress and take water; and soothed the groom who was in a fluster as to which of his animals would prove the most tractable. And here he was, on his way back.

What Salim saw was a small cage. At first he merely glimpsed the bleached outline of an angular concatenation of sticks. He would have dismissed it, but a metallic glint gave him pause. As he drew near he saw that it was in fact a trap of sorts wedged between the harsh powdery rocks. And trussed within was the intimation of a living creature. With a most extraordinary appearance! Even amid the dust the parts visible seemed to shimmer with coppery accents as if lit by an inner fire.

As he crouched over the cage he was enveloped by a sense of enormity – enveloped, as an exposed doorway is inevitably buried beneath drifting sand. He could not yet tell what he was looking at, but somehow he knew that here was injustice and tragedy. Brittle sticks and twists of rusted wire confined something lustrous. Fur? Or, now that he peered more closely, strange feathers. Dead surely (and the sense of portent jogged his gut – like a rudely jesting fate). Cautiously he worked a finger between the sticks and wire (absently worrying about disease, and fleas). The flesh was still warm – probably the sun. It squirmed and he recoiled, shocked.

A torrent of indignant compassion welled up. In a rage of pity he laid hold of the cage and would have torn it apart with naked hands but the wire resisted, deforming, and the wounded creature writhed and gave a faint, weak mew of discomfort. Horrified, he wished he had a pair of tin snips to hand.

He tried to lift the cage. It shifted only a little. It seemed stuck between two of the powdery rocks. Gently, now! His mother would scold him for griming and scuffing his hands. Ignoring pain and unease (scorpions!) he forced his hands between the rim of the cage and the rocks, feeling for an obstruction. And something dislodged. Patiently he worked the cage loose. It was tethered to a stake. He pulled at the stake, doggedly, back and forth, trying to disturb the cage as little as possible.

At last, it was free.

In an anguish of tenderness, he balanced the bundle on one of the panniers and, steadying it with his left hand, persuaded the stolid donkey to walk. Every step seemed unacceptably jarring and in a froth of anxiety he prayed –half his mind naively petitioning the deity for the survival of his burden, the other half grimly focused on traversing the drifting sands of his shifting path.

*****

Salim, framed in the courtyard archway, imperiously summoned aid. Abandoning the donkey to the flustered housekeeper (‘put upon’, she was, as she remarked to the flagstones – a housekeeper, not a ‘donkey-manager’) he ordered the groom to fetch his tools and meet him in his apartments immediately.

“What sort of tools master?” the groom inquired, impressed by Salim’s sense of urgency and neglecting to inject his usual querulous note.

“Tin-snips, pliers, wire-cutters, what-have-you. I need to cut through this without damaging the contents!” He gestured at the bundle balanced on the pannier.

The groom peered blankly at it. Then his curiosity piqued: he had glimpsed enough to excite the gossip and meddler in him. But the edge of Salim’s voice brought him back.

“Quickly, before Mother comes!” And without further ado his master gathered up the bundle and cradling it in both arms glided swiftly up the exterior staircase to the balcony of his suite.

In haste, carrying an assortment of work boxes and draped with tool bags, the groom shuffled awkwardly up the staircase, announcing himself with impressive throat-clearing and a muttered afterthought of, “Master!” Salim did not turn but peremptorily waved him forward. ‘Not like his normal, courteous self’, the groom found time to reflect even as he responded to the urgency of the occasion: ‘What’s eating him?’

The bundle lay on the marble flags beneath the open balcony windows (even in his aroused state Salim baulked at getting muck on his Persian carpet). Demanding a pair of snips, Salim inserted the point beneath one of the wire strands and began to cut. With each snip the trap was unstitched, surrendering its integrity. Pieces were removed: bleached, fragmented sticks knotted with cruel barbs and twists of rusty wire littered the serenity of his polished floor. And within was revealed what he had never before seen or heard of.

It was a bird, long necked and with metallic coloured feathers that seemed to reflect every fiery hue of the spectrum. So intriguing was the brushed plumage that Salim involuntarily forgot his urgency and ran his finger lightly over the creature’s flank. Again, its flesh trembled.

Galvanised, Salim began to think rapidly: he must prepare a nest – the house keeper would have materials; and who would know about birds? – He must ask Sr Hassan. Wasn’t there an amateur falconer somewhere in the southern part of town? Bird-food? – better wait on someone knowledgeable.

The groom broke in on his thoughts: “I’ve got some liniment that’s very good master, if you’d like some…”

“For donkeys. This is a bird. Please go and tell Sr Hassan that I need him. I need someone who knows about birds. Ask him about the falconer in south town. And send the housekeeper up immediately. You can take these tools with you.”

‘And short with it’, reflected the groom, smarting as he trudged downstairs.

The house keeper arrived in her habitual fluster. Salim demanded nesting materials. In short order, the housekeeper returned with torn shirts and worn out sheets.

Then Mother arrived. Just as Salim, with painful tentativeness began to attempt to transfer the bird to the freshly improvised nest.

“Don’t hurt her!”

“Why do you assume it’s female?” Secretly, he was annoyed – this had been his find, his adventure.

Mother subsided with a disapproving moue while Salim, emboldened by his annoyance wrapped his hands gently around the bird’s chest and began to lift. It protested faintly and weakly tried to bat against his grip. Steeling himself Salim began to gather its wings firmly together as a prelude to decisive action. And then checked. There was something under the wings, shielded by them.

Two chicks were revealed, prostrate, spent in exhaustion.

Salim’s mother gave him a knowing look of vindication but disdained to verbalise her triumph. Instead she gave orders to the housekeeper in a tone that seamlessly synthesised injury, matriarchal authority and virtue: “milk, an eyedropper, spirit lamp and saucepan – quickly now!”

Salim perched on a coffee table while his mother fed the chicks with the eye-dropper. Sr Hassan arrived, exclaimed in learned wonderment and then, with hesitant gravitas, demurred, pointing out that birds don’t suckle their young – that being a mammalian trait – ‘and was Mother certain that milk was appropriate’.

“Everything that lives can take nourishment from milk”, pronounced Mother with feminine complaisance.

Sr Hassan started to embroider on lactose intolerance but was eclipsed by the arrival of the falconer. “Raw mince-meat, bloody if possible”, he pronounced. “From the hooked beak and talons you can see the dam is a bird of prey.” Salim ordered that meat be fetched. The housekeeper crossed paths with the groom as he straggled in from being sent after the falconer by Sr Hassan.

Peering between voluminous robes and bodies the groom saw that the chicks were still ravenous and Mother was refilling the eye-dropper. The bird strained her neck wearily at the sound of their squabbling and then, reassured, allowed her head to subside on the marble paving. Salim’s heart lurched – she had refused all food thus far.

The chicks demolished the mince, drank more milk, even ate crumbled biscuit slipped to them by the housekeeper and, no doubt, would have consumed even the groom’s tarry throat lozenges given the opportunity had not Salim quietly but decisively taken control. He ordered the housekeeper and groom out, profusely thanked the falconer and promised his attendance to consult that gentleman’s extensive library on avians and was left with Sr Hassan and his mother in attendance. After a further five minutes of concern and counter-protestation he shoe-horned his mother out of his door, but only after promising to allow her back in the morning to check on the patients (he pointed out that the mother bird obviously could not be moved and that it would distressing and deeply injurious to her to be separated from her chicks in her fragile state: therefore, the chicks would ‘best remain in my custody – thank you!’). Then, after a further quarter hour’s musings in which Sr Hassan informed him gravely and in detail that he had absolutely no idea what kind of bird it was – that worthy gentleman and scholar departed, leaving copious assurances that he would not rest until he had consulted every book of his acquaintance, and searched further afield if necessary in his quest to illuminate the mystery.

The bird had still not eaten. The chicks slept, snugged up under the curve of its wings, only their tiny beaked heads peeping out from shelter. Salim had failed to transfer the bird to its fabric nest. It still lay on the remnants of the dismembered cage and on the cold marble floor beneath. Worried, Salim asked, “What are we going to do with you?”

Silence deepened. He had paperwork to catch up on – the whole afternoon and evening had been spent on this…mission of mercy. He should focus. Distant street sounds intruded momentarily – laughter; the sound of a door closing. Then silence gathered again, thicker than before. He could hear the bird breathing – a slightly hoarse and laboured sound: he could even hear the counterpoint of the chicks’ lighter and more rapid breaths.

Work was impossible. He looked up from his desk. One of the bird’s pitch black eyes seemed to be regarding him. Impossible to tell – he could not imagine what thoughts or intentions lay behind that dark bead – or if the bird regarded him at all.

He fretted.

“Why won’t you eat?”

And, “Your babies were hungry enough!”

Then, “Don’t even think of dying on me!”

But there was no reaction.

Cast back on himself he considered what he should do.

Salim knelt of the flagstones besides the bird and began to pray. And as he began to pray he experienced an unexpected sense that something was listening to him. Fleetingly, he fancied wings whirring all about, as if he was in a dovecote populated by angels. But the impression dissipated and his perspective shifted. It was like plunging into ink-dark water – down, down. Concerns and pre-occupations ablated from his person and he drifted timeless and naked. After an immeasurable moment he opened his eyes and found that the bird had moved its head and was clearly regarding him. Tenderly he placed a gentle hand on its back and slipped once again into prayer. He had never experienced such certainty before: he told God, respectfully and with a trusting heart that it was imperative that the bird recover and he knew that he was heard.

For time unmeasured he remained in this posture, until his knees grew numb beyond feeling and he felt himself detached and serene.

He awoke just as the dawn rays were peering over the hills. He had never imagined that he could fall asleep in such an uncomfortable position, collapsed on his side, half on the Persian rug. He was cold.

The bird was also asleep. It had spent the night on the marble floor. He looked intently – it was still breathing. Subsiding he stared sightlessly at the ceiling and allowed his aches to present themselves.

‘Respectfully, one by one’, he mused: “Sir this is you knee reporting…”

‘I slept with a bird – how absurd! This is the morning after. Other young men would be curled up with a harlot – badge of manhood, isn’t it? Or a wench, somewhere. What the heck is a harlot anyway? In theory, yes. But what does one smell like, feel like. What does she talk like and what’s behind her eyes that I should desire? Where would I find one – no, let’s not think of that!’ (He dismissed images of thin outcasts hovering like flies in the vicinity of the town gate – instead Salim’s mind slipped voluptuously into imaginations of a tall regal woman of piercing beauty swathed in magnificent silks.)

“I spent the night with a bird. “

“Did anything happen?”

“No.”

“Are you Serious!?”

“Well, the bird didn’t die.”

“Hah! Is that what usually happens to you? Watch yourself Salim. You need to start living.”

The bird seemed stronger. Salim experimentally stoked a finger down the feathers of its back. It did not flinch.

“And, how are your chicks today?”

It seemed as if the bird stiffened slightly at his question. But it could have been his imagination. Where was the eyedropper? And the milk and other paraphernalia? But before he could stir himself he heard the soft swish of a robe and the muted footfall of his mother.

She had brought a hamper filled with all the necessaries. The chicks guzzled their milk and devoured their meat. They squabbled happily, heads bobbing frenetically. They seemed recovered, quite. But the bird ate nothing; merely watching with relaxed indulgence, if a slight relaxation of the long and plumed neck that supported that cruelly beaked head could be called ‘indulgence’.

“I’m going to pay Mrs Salomon a call this morning.”

“That’s nice, Mother”

“She says you haven’t visited Sophia in ages”

“For heaven’s sake, Sophia and I were friends in school!”

“Well, she’s turned out very nicely. And I heard that the two of you were close in conversation at the spring market?”

Salim did not deign to reply, and after a charged pause, Mother left, chin held high.

And left behind her an unwelcome and curious visitor. Unnoticed, her corpulent, long-indulged tomcat crouched behind drapes watching – his particular interest, the chicks. Lucy, as he was known (short for Lucifer – a girl’s name was not inappropriate; he was, after all, an eunuch) was possessed of a dark and greedy nature: as lord over all household vermin he thought the chicks (and their mother) quite within the ambit of his business and was determined to do something about them.

Salim washed himself, breakfasted; prepared to go about his business. Messengers arrived with letters, agendas, contracts, resolutions – paperwork of all kinds, and Salim received them at his desk in the adjoining office suite across the hall. And the bird, tempted by curiosity and boredom, came to the doorway, where she took up station ignoring the tide of feet that flowed respectfully around her.

That is when Lucy made his attempt. The first Salim knew about it was an ear-shattering call that blended the hauteur of the peacock with an eagle’s rage – and this piercing sound was immediately under-laid by yowling and hissing. Salim raced to the doorway, scattering papers and an astounded equerry behind him. He barely glimpsed Lucy – no more than a sooty smudge cowering in the orbit of the drapes – before his attention was entirely captured by the bird. Half turned away from him, her wings were outspread and glowing with metallic splendour. Her neck was outthrust and her beak wide – her sinuous tongue vibrating with the energy of her shrieking challenge – and one set of talons clawed upon the floor. The chicks, aghast, cowered beneath her. So brilliant was her rage that the air about her seemed to shimmer with colour, light and heat.

Lucifer made good his escape as Salim rushed forward. He reached out his hand towards the bird, as if to stay or comfort her; then thought better of it – she might easily amputate one of his fingers. But withdrawing his hand he was even more disconcerted. She was warm. Hot! He could feel the heat beating on his skin. He could feel it on his face, like the open door of an oven.

The rest of the morning passed routinely. Salim was, of course, disconcerted, even a little frightened at what he had witnessed. He was not completely sure that his experience was objectively real. There was some slight discolouration of the paint opposite where the bird had done her ‘pyrotechnic’ threat display; but then he could not swear that it had not been there before. He supposed that if the bird was similarly roused again she might display the same behaviour. But then, she might not – it could hardly be an objective test of something, the mechanism of which he had no understanding. In any case, the thought of deliberately upsetting her was not one which he found easy to entertain.

Early that afternoon, Salim set about providing the bird and her chicks a safer refuge. The falconer responded to his call for a consultation (bringing several choice trade pamphlets and periodicals with him) and waxed both lyrical and dilatory about the ‘magnificent predator’ needing a suitable eyrie amid ‘towering rocky crags’ and ‘close to heaven’. (The bird preened herself, approvingly – as if she understood.) Salim nodded and exclaimed in agreement and admiration of this disquisition. What he took from it however was that an elevated pillar should be constructed, topped by an overhanging platform inaccessible to (less magnificent) predators (such as Lucy). This he instructed the groom to accomplish and by evening it was done. The platform was even furnished with nesting material – sticks, twigs, a few rags – arranged into the semblance of a nest.

Salim approached the bird wearing thick workman’s gauntlets. “Do I need a fencing mask?” he asked, “or are you going to behave? It’s for your benefit… Actually, it’s mainly for the benefit of your chicks.” She made no resistance when, cradling the chicks in rough palms, he removed them to the top of the pillar. With a shrug of her wings she joined them there.

The rest of the evening passed off without incident. Unless the complaints of Salim’s mother, who had to mount a set of steps in order to feed the chicks might be counted as an incident. ‘My mother, God bless her’ – Salim let slip his thoughts in an uncharitable moment – ‘is a walking, talking incident all in a league of her own!’

During the night Salim smelled smoke. It didn’t smell like the groom smoking a pipe. It smelled altogether more acrid. Like wood burning. A house burning somewhere? He padded to the balcony, thinking fussily, ‘If it’s that groom, he’s going to get a talking to – I’m not having him smoking under my window.’

In the courtyard there was a faint glow of coals. By the bird’s nest! Salim propelled himself downstairs, judging in a split second that he did not have time to put on sandals. Ignoring things sharp that insulted his feet he reached the plinth on which the nest stood. It was smouldering. On tiptoe he swept away some of the nest material heedless of his singeing hands. But carefully now – he did not want to hurt the chicks further; if they were there… if they still lived!

He cursed the darkness. Fortunately there was some moon. But its light was uncertain.

Suddenly, like the belling of a curtain stirred by sudden airs, there she was, spreading the arch of her wings. She seemed to be glowing. He could see the chicks now, nestled in the sanctuary of her breast. Was she glowing or could he see them by the moonlight? The chicks seemed fine. She was radiating heat. His hands were burning. She looked at him disdainfully, down her beak, for all like a lady rudely disturbed in her private chambers.

“What is it with you?” he exploded, goaded by pain and fear. “Are you setting things on fire? Are you?”

If anything, she seemed to glow a little brighter. A twig burst into flame. The chicks were loving it. Basking!

It is, perhaps, to Salim’s eternal credit that his response was practical. After a brief stunned pause he simply said, “Oh well then, I suppose ordinary nest material won’t do for you. We’ll sort it out tomorrow.” With that he turned on his heel and hobbled back to bed, via the bathroom, where he applied a little salve to his hands. They were not badly burned. Not enough to fuss over and wake the house. Besides, he wanted to think about developments first.

But events superseded Salim or, to put it another way, he slept late – later than he should have. As he drowsily reached towards consciousness he became aware of conversation in the courtyard. Conversation marked by a certain tension of cadence! Rapidly concentrating his thoughts and moving with an alacrity unusual for his just having woken he reached the balcony and, keeping a low profile, peered over the balustrade.

The groom had discovered the burnt nest material. His mother, bent on her breakfast ministrations to the chicks, had encountered the groom. As water simmers in a pot coming to the boil their conversation had begun to percolate, not with any wise or efficacious objective in view, but with heat, noise and steam. Mother was, understandably affronted, concerned, even frightened; the groom was perplexed and waxing superstitious; the bird watched them both with haughty detachment, cosseting her drowsy offspring under the curve of a wing.

Salim pattered down the stairs: “Nothing to fuss about – entirely expected – just as the falconer predicted – it’s what they do, that kind of bird.” And flatly, in response to the grooms expostulation, “Yes, of course she set fire to the nest material: we should have realised beforehand.” (Aside, to Mother – “Don’t fuss so: the chicks are fine – I’m sure they will be grateful for the milk…and mince…are those dried figs!?) But before his momentum with the groom was lost: “Doesn’t Mother have a marble washbasin in storage – you know, for when her room is renovated? Well, could you please find it and bring it here!”

Within half an hour, spurred by the force of Salim’s ruthlessly manufactured optimism, they had installed the basin on the plinth, its plug-hole bunged with a nicely rounded stone. And, in turn, the chicks had been installed in the basin where they quickly developed an amusing game: half-clambering, half-propelling themselves up to the rim by frantic beating of their immature wings, they then slid down on their tail-feathers to collect in a tangled but hilarious heap around the bung. The mother bird, initially doubtful, had begun to get into the spirit of things and was softly cawing over them.

Salim felt he could allow himself a well-deserved breakfast.

Released from immediate duty, the groom, with a muttered excuse, headed straight for the courtyard gate and the street beyond. ‘And the coffee house’, thought Salim: ‘There goes trouble!’

“You stole my basin.”

“You wanted the chicks to have it.”

“You didn’t ask… And you’ve been promising me a new one ever since.”

“It’s been two weeks, Mother.”

“Months!”

“Mother! We’re not planning on doing the renovations before autumn.”

“I’ve invited some of your friends for supper this Saturday.”

“Oh… and I suppose you expect me to come.”

“I told them the invitation was from you.”

“You’re meddling. I’ll develop a bad flu, or something.”

“You can’t. Sophia is coming. You need to get out more in any case.”

“Mother, you are impossible. Sophia may appeal to you, but what about me?”

“What’s not to like about Sophia?”

“It’s just that…I don’t know…”

“She has good morals and is kind with it. Good family. And she’s a beautiful girl.”

“Yes, but…”

“I can’t claim to understand how men see these things, but she seems to have the… physical attributes that men look for. She is attractive isn’t she?”

“There’s nothing wrong with Sophia’s looks. Mother, this is embarrassing!”

“And she is a hard worker – skilled on the loom and in the kitchen, and she’s been groomed to be an excellent household manager....”

“Mother!” Salim growled a sub-vocal warning but was ignored.

“…If her mom is anything to go by… And she’s been to all the right schools.”

Salim raised an interdicting hand: “I can’t imagine you wanting competition, especially is she’s as competent as all that.”

“You misunderstand me. We’ll get on fine. God didn’t see fit to bless me with daughters but I grew up in a hard-working household. Ever since your father passed I’ve been dreaming of a good daughter in law.”

“To boss around, like me!”

“Boss around?... My boy, it may be all very well for you to follow in your father’s footsteps as an administrator, but I come from a family of merchants. I want someone I can work with.”

“It sounds like you’re more interested in what you want than who I might get on with. I’m sorry you felt stifled by father, but I’m not sure that using me to get what you want…what you wanted…” Salim foundered, momentarily still a boy, unprivy to the holiness of his parents’ griefs. But his mother pressed on, heedless.

“Your father was a good man, but there was such a lot of him…sometimes it felt like having a cow lie on top of you.”

“He was a bull!” spluttered Salim.

“Whatever! It felt like being covered in a carpet of meat. I had to be a thorn” – she laughed wryly – “a thorn in his side…just to keep a little breathing space: I was a good wife though.”

“How can you speak like that?” Salim responded, aghast, and then, ignoring his better judgement, “You’ve grown into a whole thorn bush since!”

“That is a bit unkind of you. I have become a tree.” And then archly, “A strong thorn tree. And if you look at my branches you will see that though the thorns are like bayonets – to impale my enemies – they are quite widely spaced and there is room for little birds to perch between them. There is room for you – there always will be – and there will be room for Sophia too.”

Salim glared blackly at his mother. ‘Meat blanket!’ he thought. She was a small woman but her weight sometimes seemed unbearable.

“There are other good reasons for you having your friends around on Saturday, and even better reasons for your courting Sophia, or at least being seen to pay her proper attention. The rumours about you and that bird of yours are undermining your reputation.”

“Ridiculous!”

“See it from the towns-folk’s point of view. You go everywhere with that creature perched on your shoulder, on that smelly leather apron thing.”

“Well, she invited herself along. And it’s a hawking-sheath – the falconer sold it to me.”

“And there are the stories the groom has been spreading about her fire-starting abilities: I hear increasingly lurid tales hinting at large conflagrations and heaps of charred corpses.”

“Damn! I warned him not to trifle….”

“…And I hear of an incident with the cooper’s donkey?”

“She has healing powers. The donkey was nearly dead.”

“From what I heard, the incident was quite colourful. The workshop was largely destroyed.”

“That’s an exaggeration. A few barrels were overturned.”

“I heard that she sank her talons into the animal’s rump; there was green fire and smoke and the donkey bolted in uncontrollable terror.”

Salim guffawed and raised entreating hands: “Back from the dead, Mother. And there was no fire. Once the cooper realised that the donkey was healed there were no complaints.”

“But that is not the story I heard – and it is not the story the townsfolk are hearing. You are being bruited as a wizard and the bird as your familiar.”

Sconces burned, casting their flickering light on the walls of the dining chamber. Salim sat in state at the head of the table. He was wearing his best clothes. He felt a little uncomfortable – overproduced – but at the same time he felt a tingle of excitement and pride. Mother and the housekeeper really had done quite a fine job. He was gratified: most of his friends had turned up. Sr Hassan was the oldest, and by his gravitas lent dignity (even profundity) to the proceedings. There were quite a few others, even a scapegrace cousin of his. But the most significant guest… (Salim could not help feeling she was illuminated, as if by raging fires, or the beams of the rising sun…or at least the moon – but this was entirely subjective – her illumination was accomplished by his latent sense of social awkwardness and a subliminal conviction that everyone was watching – in fact she was very demure)… the most significant guest was Sophia.

Her fine shawl, of delicate, dark muslin, was tightly drawn around her porcelain face which seemed to bob in the torch-lit shadows like a rising moon undulating on the waters of a slow river. So compelling was this momentary impression that Salim involuntarily lifted his eyes to the ceiling expecting to find the real Sophia floating there, serene and utterly still, regarding the party beneath her with a resigned and faintly melancholic compassion.

Instead he saw a flash of burnished copper: there was the bird, on her perch. Mother had insisted that the perch not be placed behind him – it would only reinforce the wizardly image that this party was designed to help him shuck. (But, before that, he had insisted that the bird be present – ‘If she wants to be.’) But he wasn’t sure that placing the bird behind Sophia was a well-considered idea.

General conversation pattered on, like the continuous babble of a reach of stony rapids. Salim found himself responding reflexively to questions and comments about municipal issues and political currents. Courses were served and wine was drunk. In due course he found himself on his feet attending among his still seated guests, murmuring greetings and platitudes of good cheer.

But when he reached Sophia, he found himself tongue-tied. She blushed deeply and looked down, shrinking. He wished a curse on all interfering relatives. Blundering forward, he reached out an inappropriate hand and mouthed something about it being ‘awkward’, and they should just ignore parents. She lifted a shocked and timid face to him, panic showing in her eyes.

And the bird gave a piercing scream and stooped from its perch, cruelly raking the shawl from her head with its talons. Shrieking, Sophia cowered and covered her head with delicate, hennaed hands. After a frozen instant, Salim launched himself forward, moving to bat the creature away. But she was too quick for him and in an instant had launched herself into the air and back, where she perched on a tall cupboard.

“How dare you!” roared Salim, his self-control vanishing in an instant conflagration of indignation and pity on behalf of the defenceless Sophia. ‘How dare you, after all that I have done for you?’ But this last was unspoken though, in Salim’s mind, the thought seemed to reverberate deafeningly.

She regarded him with burnished hauteur. Unmoving. The shawl burst into flame and disintegrated, falling piecemeal from her talon.

On Sunday morning Salim lounged by the pool in the central courtyard. It was quite a large pool. Water-lilies covered one end of it. Water fed from a spring dribbled into it. Dragonflies flitted about.

Salim was in a sulk, but in spite of that the bird was there, on her perch. They were like two lovers, angry with each other, but unwilling to do without.

“Damn!” muttered Salim. “Well, that was a pointless exercise. Self-destructive. Embarrassing… Very embarrassing!”

“And you!” He lifted a hostile glare at the bird. “You are your own worst enemy. Mother was outraged. Never mind how fond she is of your chicks, she will want you in a cage. Somewhere far away. For my good. No doubt she will say its for your good too.”

Salim ruminated blackly while water continued to slop into the pool.

“I suppose I’m just fooling myself. You are an animal. A wild animal – that’s what you are!” The bird fluttered down to perch on the arm of Salim’s chair.

“But I keep feeling that there is something more.” Salim looked up pleadingly. “How could you turn on Sophia like that? She is harmless. In fact, she is sweet. Gentle. And rather beautiful. She would make a good mistress for you, and a good wife.”

The bird snapped forward, drawing blood from Salim’s knuckle.

Convulsively, Salim whipped his hand back, crying out. And then, removing his hand from his mouth and inspecting it: “Blast! That’s it. I must be insane…crazy! But things are going to change. Right now!” Pointedly he told the bird, “You are going in a cage. You’re not riding on my shoulder anymore, or coming with me anywhere.”

And then in final, emphatic self-reproof: “Salim, boy, wake up! This animal is dangerous!”

After a long-drawn moment a single, black tear oozed from the corner of the bird’s eye. Salim froze as she gazed down on him, hurt and sad. Then, throwing up her head she spread her wings and with deep and powerful strokes soared into the ash-blue sky. Like a firework, she trailed sparks and flame, and at her apogee, high, small and bright, wings crucified against the heavens, she surrendered to fire. It consumed her, defacing, obliterating her once stately form. And down the remnants tumbled, a blazing, shapeless slag, to drown hissing and smoking in the placid pool. Water slopped carelessly against the edges and the ripples faded.

Gentle reader, all of you know the moment of shock, when the world is stripped of detail and form. There is no coherent thought yet, only a numbing bulk of wrongness that looms and intrudes. And in the grey there are flashes, harbingers of the storm of regrets that will batter and eviscerate in the weeks and months to come. But not yet. Now there is only amazement.

Salim staggered to the brink of the pool. And, as if compelled, over the brink. At the edge the water was knee-high. Bereft of volition, he subsided, coming to rest on the coping, his hands on his knees while he regarded the stilling waters with desolation.

*****

Concealed behind the gate arch, the groom had been watching for some time, leaning forward to peer between the pickets when he dared. There had not been much to see, but then, on Sunday mornings there was not much to do.

He could not easily be seen from the house – the scullery window was high and difficult to get to and bushes obscured the view from Mother’s apartments.

It was idle curiosity – that is to say, curiosity with no concrete goal in mind. Rather, it served to scratch his itch for significance, an unrequited compulsion to acquire importance that only grew more inflamed the more he gave it scope.

Like a worm birthing in his belly.

But he had garnered little this morning – nothing he could twist into a finely wrought work of innuendo and exaggeration (his calling had its own aesthetic rules and ethical constraints after all) – nothing he could embellish into a mesh of fantastical assertions, luminous with the beauty of their presumption. (Of course, the events of the previous night had been spectacular. And he was still smelting them in the furnace of his imagination, so to speak, before attempting any act of forgery.)

But when he saw the bird plunge, flaming into the pool he was so astounded and gratified that he forgot to conceal himself and stood upright, in full view behind the slats of the gate. Not that this mattered at all. Salim was far too distraught to notice anything. The groom watched as he staggered knee-deep into the pool and then subsided onto the coping, shattered and in abject despair.

But what happened next so utterly surpassed the grooms expectations that, for the duration of the event, it left him rooted in complete immobility.

A woman’s head emerged from the water, dark hair slicked back from her tanned and aquiline face. Jewelled droplets clung and dripped from her breasts and shoulders. She stood and the rippling waters lapped, caressing her thighs. Unashamed and glorious she waded slowly across the pool towards Salim.

In honesty, it could be said that she was rather enjoying the effect she was creating. Slack-jawed, Salim resembled a stranded fish. He, for his part, for all the confusion of his emotions, found time for her extraordinary beauty to pierce him through the heart (such are the imperatives of the male psyche).

A serene and secret smile toying on her lips, she nudged between his outspread knees and with her left hand pushed gently on his shoulder. He fell back leaning on both palms. Motionless, they gazed at each other. Eventually, she reached out her right hand, palm upward.

“Come”, she said.

Wordlessly, he took her hand, rose and followed her, up the stairs, to his apartments and to his bedroom.

The sudden quenching of her fire was a shattering pain, but from it resurged the visceral, brutal optimism of life and growth. Lifting her head above the water, the light seemed different and she resisted the impulse to turn her head sideways, to view Salim through one eye only for better focus. The water cascaded from her body as she stood. She felt spare without feathers – plucked: it had been a long time. She stalked towards her prey, high-stepping.

Not prey! A migraine-like curtain of light flashed across her thoughts. He had been mate-kind, sharing the warm and bloody carcass, tearing with beak and talon…

As her thoughts broke and shifted she registered that he was staring at her and something deep within engaged: she realised that she was naked and with that came a thrill of complex consciousness – ‘he wants me’, she thought, and was buoyed up, amused: ‘I will mate with him.’ Her stride deepened and her movements became more deliberate, something deeply human and deeply feminine in her emerging – she realised she was posturing and was enjoying the effect she was having on him.

Nudging between his knees she placed her left hand on his chest and pushed him back. For a long moment she regarded his fish-mouthed stare. Inside her, memories of human desire sprouted; maternal feelings of compassion and tenderness budded. Her throat moved, voice remembering. “Come,” she said.

“Without a stich of clothing on her!” said the groom to his attentive circle. The sounds of crockery being washed and coffee made intruded, filtering through the dim interior of the shop while his listeners shifted slightly in anticipation.

“There was this bird – like it was made of metal, it looked. And the Young Master, he had a thing going for it. Then it tore Mistress Sophia’s shawl off her head – what a flap that was. Anyhow, they was fighting – in a sulk, like. No…the bird and the Young Master! So the bird flew up in the sky and then it caught fire. No, listen – it was all burning up and it fell into the pond. Now here’s the thing!”

He paused, stretching the moment as much as he dared; feeling the expectation coil in his gut.

“What comes out is a young woman… beautiful as the dawn. Aye, and naked as the day she was born! She goes up to him and the next moment they’re going up the stairs to his apartment.”

The groom raised his arms to quell the murmur of incredulous ribaldry and fixing his gaze prophetically on a point somewhere well beyond the back wall went on, “Don’t mock! I worry about the Young Master. It’s unholy! He’s been bewitched. Bewitched by a messenger of hell!”

Grating through the gloom, a welcome voice broke the spell: “What you smoking, you old pervert?”

Afterwards. After the exchange of endearments and protestations of chemistry (even in the midst of this quite sincere intimacy, Salim felt himself ‘two-faced’: he was conscious of two levels of discourse – on a far deeper level, one that he was, as yet, powerless to articulate, he felt as if he had been thrust into another universe, one of immense significance and vitality, that spoke clearly, authoritatively of sublime mysteries, but in words that he could not yet comprehend) – after the endearments, she gathered her body in that practical way women have and said that she must see to her ‘babies’. Salim was immediately cast into a nest of quandaries – how to explain her presence; could he call on the housekeeper to find her clothing, and where would she stay…? But she forestalled him by the simple expedient of rising fluidly from the bed, snatching his bathrobe from its hook, opening the door and proceeding down the corridor.

Caught at a disadvantage, Salim followed her hastily, realised he was naked; realised he did not have time to put on clothes and, irrationally afraid of losing her (‘I closed my eyes and she walked out of my life…’) snatched up the bed-sheet and wrapping it inexpertly about himself, followed.

She made unerringly for Mother’s apartments and with careless familiarity flung open the door and entered. Arriving seconds later, Salim witnessed a coltish, dark-haired girl prettily dressed in skirt and blouse launch herself into an embrace with cries of, “Mom, we missed you!” On the sofa, a younger boy jinked a quick sideways glance before snapping back to grimly focus on his PlayStation – a fusillade of shots poured from the TV speakers and pixelated gore dripped on-screen.

“Ma,” she cried, still petting her daughter’s hair, “How you let Nicholas play that game? He have nightmare tonight!”

Salim’s mother, sitting duenna-like at a polished imbuia-wood table flinched slightly. “He kept asking”, she said. “And what’s the harm in it? I don’t understand the way people worry so now-a-days – boys have to be boys to grow up properly.”

“Oh Ma!” she said sidling up to slip a mollifying and affectionate arm around the older woman’s shoulders. “Nicky, turn it off! Now!”

“Aw mom, I’m nearly through to level four!” Then, in a welter of gore and dispersing body-parts, “darn it, you made me die!” His sister stuck out a pretty tongue at him.

But before this squabble could escalate all eyes were drawn to the spectacle of Salim in his haphazardly draped bed-sheet. His mother saw him first and her stillness alerted the others. The children regarded him with interest while their mother turned and giggled coyly. Salim’s mother spoke first: “Salim, there are children here. Please go and put some clothes on and then come back.”

“I still don’t know your name.”

She dropped her gaze: “You call me…Phoenix.”

“But, is that really your name?”

She still heard the swish of wings, felt the waft of air. Sometimes artefacts of vision intruded, particularly at the periphery – something mouse or rabbit-like sparking blood-lust. She had learned not to jink her head; forced herself not to. They were always innocuous – mundane objects – bits of clothing, pillows, what have you.

“Call me Phoenix. Ok!” She swung their clasped hands, idly, pendulum-like. “I love you. What is important. I love you, very much, ok.”

This was true. But love was bigger and more dislocated than she could grasp. Some of her feelings were feral – there were no words for them. So, she reasoned, she wasn’t really lying if she called it love, thought the word seemed too tight-fitting.

“And I love you too…Phoenix,” he said, in solidarity. “But we have only known each other for…less than a day!”

Indignation flashed – she knew! But could he know her? And, like a bloated corpse released to the surface by the vibrations of that thought, ghostly images of mistreatment – violent hands, bruises and blood, broken bones and worse. Flexing her wings she skimmed deep waters, pulling away.

“I know you many days,” she replied fiercely. “You are good man! Kind and honest.”

He had to concede her point.

“Phoenix,” he said, trying the name out on his tongue, “I’ve never seen you eat. Don’t you get hungry?”

“I don’t eat. Your love and prayers, it feed me.”

The groom had enjoyed himself. As he threaded his battered pickup through the downtown traffic he tinkered mentally, anticipating his peroration to that afternoon’s coffee session. They were hard-mouthed, like a stupid pack of mules, but he knew he had them moving. Moving his way! It was good! The worm was bringing a fine word. He couldn’t quite catch the drift yet but it was sweet. Maybe it was a prophecy – a word for him! He should have been a preacher! Maybe he was…

He was collecting Salim’s electric desk fan from the workshop that had repaired it. He felt no animus towards his ‘Young Master’. The boy had turned out alright, a ‘chip off the old block’! And no-one could begrudge him the girl (or whatever she was) – he was looking more cheery than he had in months. ‘No, it’s not for me to judge’, he thought with pretty hypocrisy.

‘The bird had these two chicks, a boy and a girl,’ he rehearsed silently, ‘I mean they’ve turned into a boy and a girl. It’s the Devil’s own work…’

The worm twisted again, electrifying him with tremors of sweet anticipation.

They had been getting to know each other. Salim felt more comfortable with his instant family. The girl, Catherine was a delight. Affectionate and open, she idolized her mother. Nicholas, unlike his mother and sister, had a shock of pale blond hair and light coloured skin. He was a serious boy and though there was no obvious bridge between them, Salim felt sure that, given the similarity of their temperaments, with time they would develop an understanding.

Phoenix was…like quicksilver? Salim dismissed the comparison, not because it was invalid, but because he was gushing, overwhelmed by an almost hallucinogenic deluge of complimentary images.

She pirouetted mischievously, up on her toes. “You like to see my home?”

“Your home?”

“Yes. Where I come from.”

“Where is it?”

“I take you.” She raised her arms and began to glow, faintly at first, but with intensifying colour and light. And heat!

“Ah! You can’t do that in here!” objected Salim, eying the drapes and cream painted ceiling. “Outside, in the courtyard. If you think it’s a good idea.”

Momentarily checked, she laughed apologetically and in a twinkle of heels was off down the staircase. Salim once again had the feeling that events were crowding forward, beyond his control. She tended to have that effect.

Following her downstairs he witnessed the conflagration reducing her lithe form to ashes. From the ashes emerged the bird, larger and more brilliant than before.

Flinging herself into the air she swooped at him, talons outstretched. Involuntarily he turned to flee, and stumbled. And found himself doubled over, sailing over rooftops suspended only by his belt. The ground fell away. Toy vehicles traced spider web roads, herds of goats became smudges on the dun felting of hillsides; forbidding mountain peaks faded to mere ripples on the earth. And once again, above him, he heard that elemental scream, blending peacock and eagle. He was beyond terror.

She descended on a spire of rock, high within an imposing range of mountains and released him on its table-like pinnacle. A few scales of granite lay scattered; only lichen and a few stunted shrubs grew. At the centre lay a cluster of roughly arranged rocks and Salim instinctively headed for this.

“My nest, for me and babies,” Phoenix announced proudly (she had transformed once again and was – of course – naked and seemingly impervious to the cold that had Salim’s teeth already chattering). “You like?”

“It’s lovely!” he responded mechanically.

“Come, I show you,” and linking her arm with his she led him to the precipice where, kneeling, her breast pressed possessively against his back, arm reaching up to where she could absently toy with his hair, and her mouth confidingly pressed to his ear, she began to explain. “There, between two tallest mountain is caravan trail – spices, elephant…teeth. And gold. There, at bottom – you just see it – sand colour and green – is oasis; many palms…” Her disquisition continued. In truth, he was beginning to enjoy it as his stark terror gave way to wonderment – the astounding view, her gentle voice and the warmth of her body pressed against his.

The glory of the flight still pulsed in her bones, coursed through her thoughts like a drumbeat. But she was anchored. Anchored to him by the pressure on her breast, the warmth of his body – the soft roundness of his earlobe was better than a mouse. He was so dear. She could feel his terror – a predator, she was, and knew and used such knowledge – but he was showing a strong exterior and was mastering his fear. And he was listening to her as she explained, curious about her world. Her heart beat with a fierce love. Fierce and defiant!

“What is that dark patch over there?” Twisting, he pointed towards a shadow that seemed to bell from the distant foothills.

“I don’t speak of that.” She stood. “Come! We go back to nest.”

Time passed in further intimacies and afterwards they lay there, cradling each other, seeking warmth (Salim was numb with cold).

Her thoughts were soaring, in free flight. Never had she felt so safe – it was as if she could leave her body far behind, wallowing in tenderness and pleasure, knowing that she would be adored, while she breathed the sky and listened to its secrets.

“It is very beautiful up here,” he said, “Majestic – but don’t you miss the comfort and convenience of an ordinary house – you know, a house like mine, for example.”

“It is good,” she considered. “It is cold here: we should go.”

He was strong – strong enough. She could be loyal to this man. His spirit cleansed her; valued her – she could be free; she could grow.

But she would never be free to love him as she should – her love for him was doomed to end in his destruction. She should leave – take her chicks and go. Fly while she could, even though there was nowhere in this world, or in the next, that she could fly to. But he would be spared.

She would leave tomorrow. Or the day after…

But now she was happy. Through her sufferings she had learned to savour the good moment, crack and suck the marrow from it.

The wind sang in her pinions: each breath was a draught of light that fed the sun burning in her breast, powering the mighty pectoral muscles that flexed, flighting her. She parted her beak and with all the essential force of her being, cried out – the imperious call of the phoenix, challenging fate, denying death, and embracing relentless life.

On the trip back she was in an exuberant mood and after depositing a shaken Salim in his courtyard did something of a victory roll over the rooftops of his neighbours before bursting into flame and plunging spectacularly into a nearby public fountain. Unfortunately, in her glorious self-immolation she set fire to the coverings of the market stalls sited there. Then she walked home happily oblivious to shocked stares and the approaching sirens of fire tenders.

“I told you,” cried the groom ecstatically: “A messenger of hell!” His voice rose theatrically as he elaborated.

Somewhere at the back of his swollen audience a harder, darker voice broke in, “If you’ve been hearing what I’ve been hearing round town this morning, boys – I think we should check it out.”

And, superseded, the groom found himself scurrying from the bar at the tail end of an efflux of purposeful workmen. Arriving at Salim’s gates they encountered Sr Hassan who was just entering. Sr Hassan turned and, drawing himself up – mantling himself in his full ecclesiastical authority – stood like a dam wall holding back this flash flood of stormy humanity. He glared at them, stonily silent and immobile as stragglers dribbled into the square, siphoned in the wake of the passing crowd. Eventually, faced with his stillness, they quieted.

“What is this?” he asked in sonorous and measured tones.

The ringleader replied, “Teacher, that bird, it’s…unholy.”

“That is for me to decide – not you!” Sr Hassan quelled him with an unbending stare.

Rallying, but speaking respectfully, the leader replied, “There’s been damage to property, teacher. And public disorder.”

“Is any of the property yours?” asked Sr Hassan, who recognised him as a metal worker – a panel beater. “Let the owners of the property lay charges. You speak of public disturbance. But are you an officer of the law?” And raising his hand to forestall interjections, “You are not an officer of the law. My brother, I know that you are a worthy man. Do not yourself become a source of public disturbance: let the proper authorities deal with this matter.” And with other grave words and bolstered by two public order officers who, arriving, took up station beside him, Sr Hassan persisted until the crowd thinned and dissipated.

“Salim, you are like a son to me. Ever since your father passed I have watched over you. You have done well: he would be proud.” Sr Hassan seldom spoke to him in this tone. Disapproval and injury were written in every line of his posture – he did not have to state the obvious question: ‘what is this disaster you are courting?’ Salim and Phoenix sat chastened in his presence.

“Young lady,” he said turning to her, not unkindly, “You are obviously a stranger to our ways – you do not wear a shawl.” Abashed, Salim cast about, urgently seeking something that would serve. A lace cloth under a vase of flowers. Conscious of un-guessed transgression, Phoenix submitted as he draped it over her hair.

“You have had intimate relations that are inappropriate for an unmarried couple.” Sr Hassan did not know this, but he trusted his instincts and neither of them demurred. “You are both fine young people. But I need assurances from you both that you will work to rectify the situation.” Salim nodded. Sr Hassan continued gently, “Phoenix, I am speaking to you in particular: I know Salim well. And I love him. Do you love him?” She nodded. “Then, will you work with me to ensure his, and your, happiness?” She nodded again. With slight edge Sr Hassan demanded, “Speak to me; let me hear your agreement.”

“Yes,” she whispered, meekly.

Smartly, demurely dressed, Phoenix, Catherine, Nicholas and Salim processed up the hospital corridor led by a young doctor, a protégé of Sr Hassan’s. As part of damage control, and after some imaginative (and mildly contentious) discussion, it had been agreed that Phoenix would attempt to win acceptance by exercising her healing powers. Whatever Sr Hassan thought of the provenance of these powers and the possible implications of their exercise, he graciously kept to himself. “Prayer is always a virtuous thing,” is all he said. But then emphasised this stricture: “Whatever you do, observe the forms of piety and propriety. Do not give Salim’s detractors any opportunity!”

The doctor led them into a ward containing twelve beds, eight of which were occupied, all by men. They began their ministry, Salim seated on one side of the bed, Phoenix on the other, and the children dutifully together at the foot. Seeing that Phoenix seemed hesitant, awkwardly unsure, Salim launched into formulaic introductions and solicitations. And prayers – of which the phrases and responses were so well known that they had a comforting (and soporific) effect while doing little to arouse any real hope in the patient’s breast. Reassured and bored, the doctor soon left them in order to attend to more pressing duties (while the children, their sense of duty slipping, began to fidget). And concluding with the first patient, Salim and his team proceeded to the next, and the next.

The fourth patient was a stout middle-aged man with one bandaged leg elevated in a sling. He had dropped his end of a heavy metal cabinet on his foot and sepsis had set in (so he informed them). The doctors would soon make a decision whether to amputate.

Salim began his prayers, but then faltered. Phoenix had moved to the foot of the bed and clasped both hands around the elevated limb. She was looking at the man’s puzzled face with a gaze that could only be described as a hawk-like: distant, other-worldly; driven by passions beyond human discourse, heedful of proprieties outside of human convention.

Far sight – she could see a rat leave its burrow from the clouds. But this was like flying through torn fog-banks of shimmering, different coloured light. Lines of sight shifted elusively, opening and closing. Somewhere below, there was prey. Straining her senses, she glimpsed movement, and with mounting compulsion – the imperative of the hunt – she committed, stooping below the mist and skimming above the gradually twisting landscape – colours slowly pluming and perspectives telescoping. And there… A distant, small rabbit-like shape went to earth.

Swooping on the burrow she clawed at the entrance in frustrated rage. Then peering into the hole, she saw, as if illuminated from within, the timid leporine face, glassy eyed with denial. Evanescent skeins and tatters of light writhed, extending to envelop them both and then there was no longer any tunnel, just the two of them, face to face.

She spoke with great effort, as if translating some obscure and appalling utterance into common speech, “You want leg get better?” After a moment she repeated the question, her voice slurring, seeming to echo through spatial dimensions different to those of the ward. And then snarling vehemently, “Do you?”

Salim raised a hand: “Hold on…”, while the man jerked back, suddenly fearful.

But Phoenix continued, unstoppable. “Liar!” she shrieked. “Get up, you man-shit! Get up!” She attacked him with her hands, pummelling his side and then raking at his face as he attempted to fend her off. The overhead truss collapsed with a crash and the patient bounded off the bed and fled down the aisle trailing bandages and wreckage. She swooped, cornering him by a bank of lockers at the end of the room, and there they fenced.

Behind her was bedlam: the bed-ridden patients yammered; a security guard and a nurse came pelting in. Salim stepped up and seizing her upper arms, roared, “PHOENIX!”

“See, he walks!” she cried, struggling and then subsiding in his grip.

And, indeed, he did.

Things calmed down. Salim kept a grip on Phoenix’s arm (more lest the security guard be tempted to take over, than from any fear that she would continue her misbehaviour). The doctor examined the patient and was perplexed to discover that his sepsis was gone: “Completely clear…how?” The man shook off cautionary and supporting hands and stepped to and fro, testing his limbs. (“Awesome, totally!” breathed Nicholas.) Pausing, weight on his previously injured leg, he regarded Phoenix with confused awe. When asked if he wanted to press charges, he declined. Salim thought it best to use the opportunity to leave.

And, later after the children were fed and settled and the house grew quiet, Phoenix explained her anger to Salim: “His healing there – right there! – in his face and he not take it!”

The word was out. The afflicted began to assemble at Salim’s gate next morning: hobbling, or on makeshift seating; stretcher cases, attended by family or friends. Suppurating wounds were unwrapped and bared in supplication; blind eyes stared heavenward in manic faith and hope.

Salim was appalled. He tried to get on with work, ignoring the shocked speculation in the eyes of the messengers who fetched and carried documents, threading their way through the rag-tag encampment. Phoenix had been withdrawn, resisting comfort. She was confused, distressed by the collision between what she knew so luminously in the depths of her nature and the shallow strictures of this unfamiliar culture. She had fretted that she was failing Salim. “I can’t help,” she pleaded, ”I see healing – is good, holy – and he don’t want see – like he don’t open his eyes – he keep them shut – very bad; very rude – he is lying to himself and to holy.”

“Yes,” Salim had compassionately replied, “You have a wonderful gift. And though I have no idea how it works, I can understand that you feel upset when people around you don’t see what you see. But, do you have to let your feelings show so…intensely? Could you just…talk to people and try to explain to them what they are missing?” Phoenix had burst into tears and Salim had given up on trying to reason and simply concentrated on comforting her. But when she subsided she husked in a low voice, “I will try – try to talk them.”

And she did. Around mid-morning, veiled and dressed in voluminous robes of pure white (Mother’s idea) she appeared at the gate, accompanied – for moral support (and guidance, and damage control) by Mother, herself dressed in purest flowing black. A few importunate supplicants pressed forward but Mother interposed herself and wordlessly, with a steely glare and a cutting hand gesture persuaded them to sit down. With dignity, the two women proceeded first to the handful of stretcher cases lying in the shade of a marquee pitched by some charitable and devout camp-follower. Kneeling next to the first they prayed with calm ceremony, Mother guiding Phoenix to gently place her hand on the patient’s forehead and prompting her in a few fragments of formal prayer. “Be calm now, my daughter,” she breathed and Phoenix shot her a grateful glance. (Mother really had no idea of how this venture in healing might work, but she had witnessed enough mumbo-jumbo in her lifetime, had a sense of theatrical proprieties, and knew how to comfort children.)

While praying for the fifth patient, Phoenix looked up with alarm, ”Is here – I feel…” And she fell silent, eyes rolling as she struggled to navigate two worlds at once.

Mother reached out clasping for her forearm and Phoenix clutched back, locking a desperate grip on Mother’s wrist. “Steady! Hold on to me,” intoned Mother, and continued with a low and urgent stream of encouragement. “What do you feel? Talk to the patient – talk to him!”

This time it wasn’t really like flying. She was still suspended, high in the uncertain mists, but her mutual grasp on Mother’s arm was like a bone-white bridge that extended above her into the sky, anchoring her.

It wasn’t at all like flying. Suddenly she felt like a human child – a toddler in the arms of its parent, pretending to fly. She had not known she had such memories – it must be a memory! Just like the toddler of her memories (or her imagination – she hoped not?) she wriggled in the secure grasp, directing her ‘flight’ closer to the object of her interest. She alighted near to the patient and began to run her hands through the tangles of light that separated them. She caught his eye: he thought she was waving at him childishly and, diffidently, he waved back, reciprocating her childish game. But she shook her head sternly and, asserting herself, directed his attention to the skeins of light, willing him to perceive them.

Phoenix locked eyes with the man and placing her hand over his abdomen said, “Here…green,” and, groaning deeply, began to make small stirring motions with her palm. The man’s eyes suddenly quickened in recognition and he grunted and began to move as if against resistance. “Hot,” breathed Phoenix and her face gradually relaxed and brightened, lit by a beatific smile.

The next day the encampment was larger. A few vendors of religious artefacts – of a variety of sectarian persuasions – had set up stalls (there was even a mobile kebab truck parked a few metres along the curb – just far enough away to display a makeshift religious respect). The devout had erected a second marquee. A charitable couple were dispensing bottled water. A religious devotee had found a niche in the lee of Salim’s boundary wall and was athletically abasing himself and ostentatiously intoning prayers. Faintly perplexed public order officers were called to attend and remained posted, ‘with a monitoring brief’.

And along with the supplicants a new group of protesters arrived. On the opposite side of the square conservative religious sentiment was expressed by a growing gathering of serious-faced people, many holding placards warning of apostasy. Every now and then one of them would climb up on a bench and preach divine retribution.

The groom found his chance there and for a delirious ten minutes of self-fulfilling demagoguery held forth on ‘the messengers of Satan’ and the imminence of hell – indeed, he assured all who listened, within the week a volcano rooted in the infernal furnace of the Devil’s own throne-room would spring up in this very place and consume the entire city!

Phoenix and Mother soldiered on in the face of this gathering storm, spending over an hour ministering to the needy. Three people were healed. A plausible and glib extrovert appointed himself caretaker of those recovered and began advertising a lesser known sect, appropriating events to his theology. By then Mother was too overwhelmed to object strenuously (and a little frightened) and Phoenix too tired.

At this juncture, Sr Hassan arrived to make his contribution to the evolution of this slowly gathering vortex. Various sources had kept him abreast of rumour and now he thought it high time to see for himself how his instructions had been obeyed. He regarded the gathering circus with distaste and some alarm, extracted the two women, ushered them within, and called for Salim and asked him in stern tones what he thought he was doing allowing the situation to develop as it had. No one, it seemed, had anything to say to him. Sr Hassan dismissed the thought of calling for a public order crackdown – it would probably spark a riot. But he would have to call an urgent council meeting to debate how things might be contained. He did not know how long he would be able to defend Salim and his…paramour.

Salim leaned against the parapet circling the tower – a three-story high folly patterned after a minaret that his father had built above the sleeping apartments. “Good for status, my boy,” he had said, “and good for prayer too, of course.” (And occasional preaching too – his father had been staunch and had sometimes taken advantage of his position as a respected civic leader to air faintly unorthodox and evolving views from this very platform.) He looked out over the square and its conflicting groups – a circus indeed! He could hardly believe how events had gotten so out of control, so quickly. He descended the stairs and entered the apartments. Phoenix was lying curled up on the bed. Salim sat down next to her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “It will be alright,” he said. She did not respond, so he lay down behind her and gathered her in his arms, squeezing gently. “It will be alright. I suppose this is all very strange to you.” He did not say that he still knew so little about her – whose daughter she was, what shaped her memories – egg or womb? Or what language was spoken where she came from. As yet he still had only had an inkling of how her gift shaped the way she thought! But he knew that he loved her. He knew that the shifting sands of his path had crossed hers and that in her was a God-sent opportunity and a challenge that would never come again.

“You are much loved,” he said. “I love you, and my mother loves you. Your children love you.”

She half twisted in his arms, trying to see him. He released her and raised himself on one elbow. Looking up at him she said, “I let you down. Now Sr Hassan unhappy with you. Everyone unhappy. They will make me go away!”

He saw that was her real fear. “I will never let you go.”

“But, I bad for you. You lose job. Lose house. Mother hurt also.”

Salim made himself laugh, “No-one can take our house – it belongs to Mother, and to me, outright. And I won’t lose my job. And even if I did, there are other ways to make a living.”

But, after calming her, he once again mounted the stairs to the tower. In the evening twilight he viewed the antics of the crowd. The supplicants and the faithful were preparing to camp out for the night. Here and there braziers were being lit. More vendors had arrived to exploit the emerging needs of this growing population of refugees – denied entry to heaven they were consigned to this transit camp of urban religious hope, signposted by a few inexplicable miracles. Performed by his orphan Phoenix.

Across the square the protesters had formed an impromptu choir and he could hear dirge-like hymns above the bustle and cries of hawkers. Misjudging their venue a troupe of acrobats and fire eaters arrived and began to perform. No, he saw – not misjudged: people gathered around them and threw down money.

In the midst of this maelstrom of human impulse Salim felt the need to assert himself in prayer. But not silently. Not passively. Entering the tower’s prayer chamber he switched on his father’s public address system: amplifier, speakers; mixer, microphone. He dragged his cheap portable keyboard into position and plugged it in (left over from a teenage enthusiasm). ‘If they can make a racket, so can I,’ he thought. ‘They probably won’t even hear me.’ He punched up a cheesy, out of date techno beat and as the rhythm barked out across the square began to riff on the keys, his fingers remembering. Jinking the microphone into position with his left hand he started to vocalise. He was by no means an accomplished musician or singer, but his anger, his sense of injustice, brought him words. He could never remember afterwards what he sang about, what it was he prayed, but golden themes of order and compassion seemed to unfurl before his eyes like celestial banners. He imagined he saw a vast hall of honeyed stone lit by torchlight. All about it fluttered cherubim and again he heard the whir of wings.

And as he played and sang and the night deepened, a soft, warm rain began to fall insinuating itself into every crevice, every fold of clothing of the crowd below, dripping through every canopy and protection, washing away all rage and anxiety.

*****

The next morning a cotton wool mist swathed the town. All was quiet and, in spite of it being a working day, a holiday languor pervaded. And, when, mid-morning, Salim answered his telephone to receive a hearty call from Sr Hassan, no mention was made of the events of the previous days. So disconcerted was Salim that as he returned the handset to its cradle he had to strain to remember the gist – some necessary manoeuvre that would have to be coordinated to smooth the way for extensions to the school. Nagged by a continuing sense of unreality he gingerly made his way downstairs. Peering into the kitchen, he saw the housekeeper blithely at work, the radio playing softly on the window sill. Crossing the courtyard, he glimpsed the groom tinkering with one of the vehicles.

At the gate he found a bored, uniformed security guard seated on a stool. On the exterior wall a plastic notice had been fixed. ‘Chambers of Healing’, it proclaimed boldly. Beneath this title was a schedule of opening hours and fees. There was a rubric concerning means-tested discounts which included comprehensive instructions regarding the accompanying documents necessary for verification. Outside, a half-dozen patients waited on a wooden bench. A gurney rested in the shade of an awning. A compact, red-lettered plaque dictated that ‘stretcher patients’ would have priority. At that moment a tightly-capped, white coated orderly appeared from within, ushering out three people, one of whom appeared to be in transports of rapture. The orderly fiddled with the gurney and began to wheel it awkwardly through the gate. Stepping forward to assist her, Salim saw that it was Catherine: she flashed him a shy, complicit grin of thanks.

“Bit heavy for you, isn’t it?” Salim remarked.

“I can get the security guard to help me,” she replied.

They aimed for one of the outhouses – in previous generations, a stable. Salim found it converted into a small office suite, blue institutional carpet on the floor, concealed lighting behind ceiling tiles. Behind a desk, counting money, sat his mother. Beyond the interior doorway, swathed in white, Phoenix received patients. After helping Catherine with the gurney Salim returned to peck his mother on the cheek (at that moment he felt at a loss for anything else to do, or say) and then went in to give Phoenix a hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck and fiercely, briefly pressed her body against his.

“Nice setup you have here,” he ventured.

“Yes,” she responded, already disengaging. “I have patient. See you later.” And then, as he made to leave, launched herself at him, planting a flurry of noisy kisses on his cheek, “Mhwah, mhwah, mhwah. I take good care of you!” She broke off, turning to her patient. Salim lingered in the doorway for a moment watching her.

She closed her eyes and passed her hands over the patient. She perceived the potentials in the room as gauzy skeins of different coloured light. She was aware of Salim’s watching presence behind her, sensed as a harmonious obelisk of luminosity, rose coloured at the centre, honey bright at the edges – the dear man! There were a few dull patches however – she would have to attend to that. But later – she had her patient to see to first.

“Mother, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean? She has a healing gift. You said so yourself. We only take a small consultancy fee if the person doesn’t get healed, just to cover costs…”

“What about yesterday?”

Mother stared at him blankly.

The amiable holiday mood persisted, covering the town like a drowsy blanket under which citizens were content to dream plump dreams of commerce and domesticity, religion and education.

At noon, Salim noticed a creeping canopy of darkness occulting the sky to the north. ‘That’s going to be a monster of a storm,’ he thought. As it crept closer he discerned flashes of lightning, like the deadly stinging tentacles of a jelly-fish, lashing out at the arid hills below. But, above the town, the sky remained limpid and the air still. ‘Time for lunch soon (and Phoenix!)’ thought Salim, leaning forward over his desk, returning to the perusal of a particularly obfuscatory letter.

A peal of thunder belled out over the hills, long, drawn out, rumbling back and forth into silence.

And again – and this time Salim imagined he heard words.

Again. “WHERE IS SHE?” Like a tape machine running on flat batteries, but amplified to a distant basso profundo roar.

“WHERE IS SHE. I KNOW YOU HAVE HER. GIVE HER TO ME. OR I WILL DESTROY YOU – YOUR FARMS AND HOUSES; BARNS AND MINARETS; FOUNTAINS AND MARKETS; SCHOOLS AND BRIDGES; MONUMENTS AND GAZEBOS…” The words rumbled on and on. And with them, suddenly, hammer-like, the wind. Buildings groaned and date palms threshed – a scattering of roof-tiles flew, shattering and detached foliage spattered against windward surfaces.

Salim and Phoenix met in the courtyard. He drew her into the shelter of the kitchen. “Are you alright?”

“It is my husband,” she replied answering the unspoken part of his question.

Citizens abandoned their business, peering out of doorways and windows. Market vendors, pre-occupied with limiting the damage to their stalls, still found time to glance up fearfully into the lowering darkness. People began to join together in the streets like the trickles of a gathering flood. Braving the lashing gusts, their movement gained impetus.

He held her tenderly while she confessed. She had been married at a young age, her husband, a powerful sorcerer (he could not quite make out whether she had been forced into it, or whether it had been her own, unwise choice – instead of interrogating her he chose to listen). Soon afterwards, abuse had started, emotional at first and then increasingly physical. But never crudely unimaginative. He had called on the resources of his art to lend sophistication to his brutality, at first in relatively simple and direct ways – for instance, suspending her in mid-air so that she could be beaten and violated by invisible hands – but later, as his empathy for her ruptured completely, he began to look on tormenting her as an art form and a vocation. “He turn me into bird,” she said. “I am strong. And he pretend give me freedom. Then he catch me, crush me.” Salim remembered finding her – the stifling cage of wood and wire. “Sometimes he forget me for long time, but he always come back.”

Salim steeled himself as her explanation continued. Her husband would never let her go. He was very powerful and would destroy the town. He would destroy Salim. She was bitterly sorry and wished tearfully that Salim had left her when he found her – perhaps she and her children would have died and been released from torment. But he had rescued her – she wished that she had taken her children and fled then, to spare him! But (she recounted) his kindness and purity of heart had been such that she could not bring herself to go. With each passing day she had luxuriated in his affection, feeling it wash her, cleanse her, restore her joy and self-respect. Now it was too late.

Among that gathering flood of citizens was the groom, deliriously conscious that his moment of destiny had arrived, the writhing worm within affirming his wild hopes and dreams. Issuing from Salim’s courtyard into the square he found a battered truck parked close along the kerbside. Vaulting onto its flatbed he began to caper, bucking the wind and prophesying as loudly as he could.

Salim comforted her, shushing her, stroking her. “It will be alright,” he said.

She looked at him disbelievingly. “He will kill you!”

“We’ll see about that. Don’t you worry. Go to Mother. And your children: they will need you now.”

Gently he pointed her in the direction of the interior door. Then he took his leave while she watched over her shoulder after him in fearful, fragile and temporary suspension of disbelief.

Salim mounted to the prayer room. It seemed an appropriate place for this showdown. He was aware that his quiet bravado had no foundation. But, he reflected, he had no real choice. He pictured himself abased, pleading for his life, claiming ignorance of Phoenix’s status and begging her husband to take her – and rejected the thought with a shudder of revulsion. The sorcerer would kill him anyway, he was sure: better to die with honour intact and conscience unblemished. He had not asked for this, but he had embraced it. He had embraced it from the moment he had first realised that the cage imprisoned a living creature.

He walked to the parapet and, feeling foolish, said quietly, “If you want her, you’ll have to deal with me first.”

At first nothing happened. Then he became aware of a thickening of the atmosphere behind him. Turning, he saw what seemed to be swirls of dust-motes gathering, growing denser, taking on form. Cold blue eyes glowed and a bleached, cruel and bearded face took shape around them.

“PUPPY!” the voice reverberated without focus. “I HARDLY NEED CONSIDER YOU. AT ALL. BUT YOU HAVE LED ME TO MY BRIDE. AND SO I THANK YOU!” Strangely fragmented hiccups of laughter punctuated this pronouncement, skittering about the square like the night calls of a pack of hyenas.

Salim faced down his terror. ‘This is just terrific! Wonderful!’ he thought, jollying himself. ‘Now, let’s do this in style!’ And out loud, his voice grating with strain, “Yes you do. If you take her now you’ll always know that she loves someone else: that she gave her heart and soul to someone other than you. And you’ll never be able to change that!”

Salim found himself face-down on the cement flooring, retching, his stomach heaving with indescribable nausea. “God help me!” he burst out in anguish! And the pain receded, to an extent at least. The sorcerer, now fully materialised, gazed down on him sardonically, but took no further action as Salim haltingly struggled to all fours and tried to gather his legs under him.

The sorcerer’s restraint was not motivated by mercy. Phoenix was visible to him, head and torso framed in the stairwell, and he had paused to consider possibilities and await developments.

Like someone aged and broken, she shuffled to the doorway, halting just across the lintel, her hands trembling and her face averted in terror.

“MY DARLING BRIDE,’ he rumbled, gratified, “I HAVE PINED FOR YOU SO. WORRIED ABOUT YOU SO. WHAT CRUEL THIEF HAS STOLEN YOU FROM ME AND CAUSED US BOTH SUCH PAINFUL ANXIETY. OH – FORGIVE ME… I SPEAK SELFISHLY – HAS CAUSED YOU SUCH ANGUISH?”

Lifting her eyes, she pleaded tremulously, “Let him go. He only try to help me. He not know about us.” She felt the impulse to add more, to speak of Salim’s goodness, elaborate on his innocence, but stifled it, knowing that it would do no good.

“LET HIM GO? BUT OF COURSE!” And turning to Salim,” BUT FIRST LET ME ASK YOU, LITTLE PUPPY, CAN IT BE RIGHT TO TAKE ANOTHER MAN’S WIFE?’

Salim, still nauseous and weak bided his time. But it turned out that no response was required – after a theatrical pause the sorcerer continued: “CAN IT BE RIGHT TO TAKE HIS CHILDREN, DEPRIVING THEM OF A FATHER’S LOVE AND CARE?” And spreading his hands oratorically, “NO, IT CAN NEVER BE RIGHT.”

“You liar!” Phoenix burst out, “You torture children and me for years.”

The sorcerer made a vicious cutting motion with his hand and then clenched his fist, squeezing. Phoenix gasped and began to choke. Salim could see black finger-like bandings constricting her throat, pressing in. Her struggles, at first frantic, began to weaken and her eyes glazed as she hung limply in mid-air.

A pillar of darkness, bearing down on her, smothering her, crushing her. And as she faded she discerned texture within its monolithic weight – tittering intimacies of violence, parasitic cruelties.

All the while, the sorcerer continued talking to Salim in a reasonable, avuncular tone,

“YOU SEE HOW UNGRATEFUL SHE IS? WHAT I HAVEN’T HAD TO PUT UP WITH!” And then deepening his tone in an imitation of the complicity of injured brotherhood: “YOU KNOW,” he said, “WOMEN NEED DICIPLINE. THEY LACK MORAL CAPACITY AND STRENGTH. GOD MADE MAN TO BE THE MASTER. AND IF WE DON’T SHOULDER THE RESPONSIBILITY TO EXERCISE THAT DISCIPLINE THEN WE ARE FAILING GOD. YES.. WE ARE GOING TO DISAPPOINT GOD – THINK ABOUT THAT!”

The sorcerer casually flicked his hand and Phoenix collapsed, discarded, her chest heaving as she hoarsely gulped air. Salim had never hated anyone with greater intensity, or felt more powerless.

Returning to his theme, “COME PUPPY, YOU’RE A MAN (OR YOU THINK YOU ARE) – IS IT RIGHT TO STEAL EVEN AN UNGRATEFUL WIFE, ROBBING HER HUSBAND OF THE CHANCE OF RECONCILLIATION - WITH HER AND WITH HIS CHILDREN – AND OF THE CHANCE TO PERFORM HIS GOD-GIVEN DUTY?”

“You filth, when I found her she was in a cage and nearly dead,” grated Salim.

“AND YOU STOLE HER. YOU TOOK THE CAGE AND STOLE IT. YOU PROVE MY POINT! WHEN I CAME TO LOOK FOR HER SHE WAS GONE. AND YOU TOOK HER!” Reining in his temper, “WE SHOULD GO TO LAW ABOUT THIS – YOU BOTH KNOW THAT THE PENALTY FOR ADULTERY IS STONING. YOU BOTH DESERVE TO BE STONED!” And then, calmer, toying with his victim, “IS THAT NOT RIGHT, PUPPY?”

“I know right from wrong,” said Salim, still too weak to stand, but craning his neck upwards in defiance.

“YOU KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG…! BUT IT IS WRONG – BY THE LAWS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH – TO STEAL ANOTHER MAN’S WIFE. A JUDGE WOULD SUPPORT ME – GIVE ME JUSTICE – YOU WILL BE CONDEMNED!” And drawing himself to his full, spindly height the sorcerer proclaimed, “IT IS I WHO HAVE BEEN WRONGED, I WHO HAVE BEEN TREATED UNJUSTLY – I CALL HEAVEN AND EARTH TO WITNESS!”

And once again, Salim heard the dove-cote whirring of wings.

Drawn to the epicentre, citizens began to flood into the square. The metal worker was among them. Most of the crew from the groom’s coffee house were among them. The religious protesters, among them. People of charity, acrobats, vendors, school-children, public order officers. Seeing them come the groom redoubled his efforts and, in the deserted square, framed by the backdrop of Salim’s stately house, wreathed in lightning and crowned with chittering shadow, he was the natural focus of people’s attention. Gratified by the swelling crowd gathering at the foot of his impromptu platform the groom gave his all. “Judgement is come!” he howled. “Even now; even as I speak, the fire of hell is rising beneath us. From the throne-room of Hell!” The worm flexed joyously and he savoured the word, elongating it, and decided to repeat it, “From the very throne room of Hell – a volcano such as the world has never seen…”

The crowd responded with screams and deeper shouts of affirmation and anger. The groom felt their mounting fear and passion in his belly, in the same way that an expert rider becomes one with his mount, drawing on its strength, feeling it feed up through his loins. Enraptured, he raised his arm to pronounce anathema and was gratified to see St Elmo’s fire wreathing its length, playing around his fingertips. The worm threshed eagerly within and he felt his stature swell: confidence and power the like of which he had not dared dream. He felt himself on the threshold of something greater.

With a searing voice he trumpeted the fate awaiting every man, woman and child. “For you have sinned!” he harangued them. “You have outraged the Almighty by entertaining a messenger of Satan – the hell-bird; the false enchantress with her counterfeit miracles…”

Gentle reader, you have arrived at the eye of the storm, where all is calm. Though cataclysm be unleashed all about, clawing land and sky in its elemental fury and giving voice to the inexorable, manic call of the vortex, at the eye, all is ordered and calm.

What Salim was not privy to – could not see or hear – nor could anyone else (though from where she lay Phoenix dimly sensed a mountainous weight, a vast cathedral of incandescent and fountaining light) – what none except the sorcerer could see was that a gigantic angel had manifested behind Salim

The angel braced itself, feet apart, standing squarely on what appeared to be an expanse of clear crystal suspended in mid-air. It regarded the pommel of its enormous scimitar with apparent pre-occupation before resting the tip on the glassy expanse and raising its head with elaborate insouciance. “You’d better be off,” it said.

Eying the angel with hyena-like apprehension the sorcerer made to lift his wand, but the angel shook its head: “Uh uh! Don’t do it. You’re completely outclassed and you know it.” And then after a brief moment of reflection, “Or actually, if you’re feeling charitable, do try something. You’ve got a lot coming to you and I’d be grateful for an excuse.” The sorcerer made no further move other than to sheath his wand.

Then, gathering impudence, he whined, “I WANT JUSTICE. MY BRIDE HAS BEEN STOLEN FROM ME. THERE IS A LAW IN HEAVEN…”

The angel shrugged, interrupting him. “Justice…” ruminated the angel, “You’ll get justice when you face the judge. I’m only the sheriff. And you… you are nothing more than a bully. As I said before, you’d better be off. And don’t come back this way.” And then, a touch wistfully, “Unless you want a hiding, that is?”

A pause lengthened between them, the angel once again subsiding into faint boredom, but waiting dutifully for a response.

Suddenly the sorcerer began to dematerialise. “Not so fast!” interjected the angel, flames running down its raised blade. “There’s unfinished business.” The angel held him frozen in its unwavering gaze and locked in fire.

At last the sorcerer spoke: “I DIVORCE YOU, I DIVORCE YOU…” He repeated this three times and then, licking his lips, found the courage to whine, “THERE IS A DEBT PAYABLE IN BLOOD…”

“Yes,” responded the angel, “But you can’t have Salim. He’s completely wrong for you, as you well know. This fellow will suit much better.” And with that, the groom found himself sprawling in front of the sorcerer who, after an instant’s hesitation, seized him by the collar and, with a last shifty glance at the angel, twisted his hand through the air in an arcane symbol. Captor and captive vanished in a puff of smoke and flame.

Only an instant earlier the crowd had seen the groom vanish in mid-sentence. Their hysterical screams were still mounting when, punctuated by a shattering peal of thunder, a vicious stab of lightning shattered the cupola of the tower. Masonry showered down and flames began to writhe upward along the splintered woodwork, fanned by the hissing wind. Fortunately, the rain, which had held off, was not long in coming. Nothing extinguishes fire, or ardour, or public spirit, or even memory faster or more completely than a deluge. The crowd began to thin immediately.

Luckily for Salim and Phoenix there were some hardier souls – public order officers, rescue personnel of various disciplines, men and women of grit – who took it on themselves to hammer at the gate. They were admitted by the hysterical housekeeper before their efforts succeeded in breaking it down and raced upstairs. There they found Salim, bloody and barely conscious, covered in plaster dust and lying beneath fragments of masonry, his head cradled in the lap of his sobbing, grateful lover.

*****

A stately woman, impeccably turned out in matching shawl and trouser-suit, she was a regular visitor at the hospital, sometimes accompanied by her mother-in-law, sometimes by her daughter (today she was alone). She brought small gifts for the patients, or verses of scripture, and spent time counselling them, praying with them. She was indulged because her manner was gentle and she could be counted on to comfort the neglected and lonely. Sometimes the people she prayed for recovered. That is to say, they recovered unexpectedly, sometimes when hope had been abandoned.

Her mobile rang and she answered. “Salim, darling, just a moment while I step into the corridor.”

Sometimes she thought of him her ‘Jacob’ – he had wrestled with an angel and persevered: whereas he used to be last, struggling doggedly to hold on, now he was a prince.

“Hello Irina,” he breathed warmly.

Two kilometres away, limping slightly as he crossed to the floor-to-ceiling window of his forty-fourth floor office, Salim searched the jumble of roof tops for the distinctive incinerator smoke-stack of the hospital. He imagined her within the warren of corridors, cool, beautiful, yet with a heart of magical fantasy and fire. “I managed to leverage tickets for the concert.”

“Oh wonderful!” she enthused. “Nicholas will be over the moon! Catherine too. And you? You will be there won’t you?”

“Of course,” he replied, “I wouldn’t dare miss it…”

“Great! I’m excited. Happy as a bird!”

“Love you lots!”

“Love you too. Bye.”

*****

Every new moon Tiger prowls the hills looking for pesky things to swat with her razor sharp claws.

The poor thing perches on her make-up stool in front of her mirror examining her stripes for signs of moulting or fading and wails, “I’m so unattractive, let me die…but first let eat the hearts of my enemies – and anyone who gets on the wrong side of me today. Is that a white hair???!” *ooooooOOOOOOHHHHggg* (keening tiger wail ending in coughing sob).

Enter Rhino, diffidently: “Tiger, dear, your almond eyes are of the deepest amber – I could lose myself in rapture for hours gazing into them.”

*oooooooooOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHhhhhggggg*

“There, there…for simply hours! You are lovelier than ever. No, your bum is not at all fat. That’s not a white hair: whiskers are meant to be white. And springy. Yes, that is a remarkably sharp claw. And very elegant. My angelic Tiger-Pooh, it is not really necessary for you to put it up my nose, even though you are quite correct that my nostril hair could use a trim – your claw, though elegant and razor sharp is perhaps not the best instrument. You will regret it (even more than I) should you slip (or be distracted by the animal within). No, I know you never slip. You are quite perfect my darling. The world loves you. And so do I. That’s better – gnaw quietly on my horn while I soothingly stroke your pelt.”

*oooo oooo oooooohhhh*

One fine afternoon, as Salim guided his donkey through the arid moonscape of the Jebel Hafaz he saw something quite unusual.

He was taking a short cut back from market in the neighbouring valley – as many did. His donkey was laden with honey combs, Turkish figs, tubs of Greek yogurt, spices and a dozen other items requested by his housekeeper, other servants and, of course, his mother. He could have sent his housekeeper – she would have loved the opportunity for a dilatory afternoon’s gossip, spending more of his money than was strictly necessary – but he felt a need to live out the homilies of his good friend Sr Hassan and ‘get in touch with the reality of the common man’.

You would have thought he was proposing a reformation of the municipal code! But he was persistent. He overrode the disappointment of the housekeeper and had her furnish him with a detailed list and copious instructions; assured his mother that his sandals were stout enough and that he would wear ample head-dress and take water; and soothed the groom who was in a fluster as to which of his animals would prove the most tractable. And here he was, on his way back.

What Salim saw was a small cage. At first he merely glimpsed the bleached outline of an angular concatenation of sticks. He would have dismissed it, but a metallic glint gave him pause. As he drew near he saw that it was in fact a trap of sorts wedged between the harsh powdery rocks. And trussed within was the intimation of a living creature. With a most extraordinary appearance! Even amid the dust the parts visible seemed to shimmer with coppery accents as if lit by an inner fire.

As he crouched over the cage he was enveloped by a sense of enormity – enveloped, as an open doorway is inevitably buried beneath drifting desert sand. He could not yet tell what he was looking at, but somehow he knew that here was injustice and tragedy. Brittle sticks and twists of rusted wire confined something lustrous. Fur? - Or, now that he peered more closely, strange feathers. Dead surely – and the looming sense of portent jogged his gut, like a rudely jesting fate. Cautiously he worked a finger between the sticks and wire (absently worrying about fleas, and disease). The flesh was still warm – probably the sun. Then it squirmed and he recoiled, shocked. And immediately a torrent of indignant compassion welled up. In a rage of pity he laid hold of the cage and would have torn it apart with naked hands, but the wire resisted, deforming, and the wounded creature writhed and gave a faint, weak mew of discomfort. Horrified, he wished he had a pair of tin snips to hand.

Gently he tried to lift the cage. It shifted only a little. It seemed stuck between two of the powdery rocks. Gently, now. His mother would scold him for scuffing and griming his hands. Ignoring pain and unease (scorpions!) he forced his hands between the rim of the cage and the rocks, feeling for an obstruction, an anchorage, some kind of tether. And something dislodged. Carefully, patiently he was able to work the cage loose. It was tethered to a stake. Doggedly he worked the stake back and forth, trying to disturb the cage as little as possible.

At last, it was free.

In an anguish of tenderness, he balanced the bundle on one of the panniers and steadying it with his left hand persuaded the stolid donkey to walk. Every step seemed unacceptably jarring and in a froth of anxiety he naively prayed – half his mind bluntly petitioning the deity for the survival of his burden, the other half grimly focused on traversing the drifting sands of his shifting path.

*****

Salim stood framed in the courtyard archway and imperiously summoned aid. Abandoning the donkey to the flustered housekeeper (‘put upon’, she was, as she remarked to the flagstones – a housekeeper, not a ‘donkey-manager’) he ordered the groom to fetch his tools and meet him in his apartments immediately.

“What sort of tools master?” the groom inquired, impressed by Salim’s sense of urgency and neglecting to inject his usual querulous note.

“Tin-snips, pliers, wire-cutters, what-have-you. I need to cut through this without damaging the contents!” He gestured at the bundle balanced on the pannier.

The groom peered at it, not really taking it in. Then his curiosity piqued: he had glimpsed enough to excite the gossip and meddler in him. But the edge of Salim’s voice brought him back.

“Quickly, before mother comes!” And without further ado his master gathered up the bundle and cradling it in both arms glided swiftly up the exterior staircase to the entrance of his suite.

In haste, carrying an assortment of work boxes, draped with tool bags, anything to hand, the groom shuffled awkwardly up the staircase, announcing himself with impressive throat-clearing and a muttered afterthought of, “Master!” Salim did not turn but peremptorily waved him forward. ‘Not like his normal, courteous self’, the groom found time to reflect even as he rose to the apparent urgency of the occasion: ‘What’s got into him?’

The bundle lay on the marble floor beneath the open balcony windows (even in his aroused state Salim baulked at getting muck on his Persian carpet). Demanding a pair of snips, Salim inserted the point beneath one of the wire strands and began to cut. With each snip the trap was unstitched, surrendering its integrity. Pieces were removed: bleached, fragmented sticks knotted with cruel barbs and twists of rusty wire littered the serenity of his polished floor. And within was revealed the like of which he had never yet seen, or even heard.

It was a bird, long necked and with metallic coloured feathers that seemed to reflect every fiery hue of the spectrum. So intriguing was the brushed plumage that Salim involuntarily forgot his urgency and ran his finger lightly over the creature’s flank. And one again its flesh trembled.

Galvanised, Salim began to think rapidly: he must prepare a nest – the house keeper would have materials; and who would know about birds? – He must ask Sr Hassan. Wasn’t there an amateur falconer somewhere in the southern part of town? Bird-food? – better wait on someone knowledgeable.

The groom broke in on his thoughts: “I’ve got some liniment that’s very good master, if you’d like some…”

“For donkeys. This is a bird. Please go and tell Sr Hassan that I need him. I need someone who knows about birds. Ask him about the falconer in south town. And send the housekeeper up immediately. You can take these tools with you.”

‘Unlike himself’, reflected the groom, smarting as he trudged downstairs.

The house keeper arrived in her habitual fluster. Salim demanded nesting materials. In short order, the housekeeper returned with torn shirts, scrappy blankets and worn out sheets.

Then mother arrived. Just as Salim, with painful tentativeness began to attempt to transfer the bird to the freshly improvised nest.

“Don’t hurt her!”

“Why do you assume it’s female?” Secretly, he was annoyed – this had been his find, his adventure.

Mother subsided with a disapproving moue while Salim, emboldened by his annoyance wrapped his hands gently around the bird’s chest and began to lift. It protested faintly and weakly tried to bat against his grip. Steeling himself Salim began to gather its wings firmly together as a prelude to decisive action. And then checked. There was something under the wings, shielded by them.

Two chicks were revealed, prostrate, spent in exhaustion.

Salim’s mother gave him a knowing look of vindication but disdained to verbalise her triumph. Instead she gave orders to the housekeeper in a tone that seamlessly synthesised injury, matriarchal authority and virtue: “milk, an eyedropper, spirit lamp and saucepan: quickly now!”

Salim perched on a coffee table while his mother fed the chicks with the eye-dropper. Sr Hassan arrived, exclaimed in learned wonderment and then hesitantly demurred, pointing out that birds don’t suckle their young – that being a mammalian trait – ‘and was mother certain that milk was appropriate’.

“Everything that lives can take nourishment from milk”, pronounced mother with feminine complaisance.

Sr Hassan started to witter about lactose intolerance but was eclipsed by the arrival of the falconer. “Raw mince-meat, bloody if possible”, he pronounced. “From the hooked beak and talons you can see the dame is a bird of prey.” Salim ordered that meat be fetched. The housekeeper crossed paths with the groom as he straggled in from being sent after the falconer by Sr Hassan.

Peering between voluminous robes and bodies the groom saw that the chicks were still ravenous and mother was refilling the eye-dropper. The bird strained her neck wearily at the sound of their squabbling and then, reassured, allowed her head to subside on the marble paving. Salim’s heart lurched pitifully – she had refused all food thus far.

The chicks demolished the mince, drank more milk, even ate crumbled biscuit slipped to them by the housekeeper (and indulged by mother) and, no doubt, would have consumed even the groom’s tarry throat lozenges given the opportunity had not Salim quietly but decisively taken control. He ordered the housekeeper and groom out, profusely thanked the falconer and promised his attendance to consult that gentleman’s extensive texts on avians, and was left with Sr Hassan and his mother in attendance. After a further five minutes of concern and counter-protestation he virtually shoe-horned his mother out of his door, but only after promising to allow her back in the morning to check on the patients. (He pointed out that the mother bird obviously could not be moved and that it would distressing and deeply injurious to her to be separated from her chicks in her fragile state: therefore, the chicks would ‘remain in his custody – thank you!’) Then, after a further quarter hour’s musings in which Sr Hassan informed him gravely and in detail that he had absolutely no idea what kind of bird it was – that worthy gentleman and scholar departed, leaving copious assurances that he would not rest until he had consulted every book in his library, and further afield if necessary in his quest to illuminate the mystery.

The bird had still not eaten. The chicks slept, snugged up under the curve of its wings, only their tiny beaked heads peeping out from shelter. Salim had failed to transfer the bird to its fabric nest. It still lay on the remnants of the dismembered cage and on the cold marble floor beneath. Worried, Salim remarked, “What are we going to do with you?”

Silence deepened. He had paperwork to catch up on – the whole afternoon and evening had been spent on this…mission of mercy. He should focus. Distant street sounds intruded momentarily – laughter; the sound of a door closing. Then silence gathered again, thicker than before. He could hear the bird breathing – a slightly hoarse and laboured sound: he could even hear the counterpoint of the chicks lighter and more rapid breaths.

Work was impossible. He looked up from his desk. One of the bird’s pitch black eyes seemed to be regarding him. Impossible to tell – he could not imagine what thoughts or intentions lay behind that bead – or if the bird regarded him at all.

He fretted.

“Why won’t you eat?”

And, “Your babies were hungry enough!”

Then, “Do not even think of dying on me!”

But there was no reaction.

Cast back on himself he considered what he should do.

Salim knelt of the flagstones besides the bird and began to pray. And as he began to pray he experienced an unexpected sense that something was listening to him. His perspective shifted: it was like plunging into ink-dark water – down, down – concerns and pre-occupations ablated from his person – he drifted timeless and naked. After an immeasurable moment he opened his eyes and found that the bird had moved its head and was clearly regarding him. Compassionately he placed a gentle hand on its back and slipped once again into prayer. He had never experienced such certainty before: he told God, respectfully and with a trusting heart, that it was imperative that the bird recover; and he knew that he was heard.

For time unmeasured he remained in this posture, his hand resting gently on the quiet bird, until his knees grew numb beyond feeling and he felt himself detached and serene.

He awoke just as the dawn rays were peering over the hills. He had never imagined that he could fall asleep in such an uncomfortable position, collapsed on his side, half on the Persian rug. He was cold.

The bird was also asleep. It had spent the night on the marble floor. He looked intently – it was still breathing. Subsiding he stared sightlessly at the ceiling and allowed his aches to present themselves.

‘Respectfully, one by one’, he mused: “Sir this is you knee reporting…”

‘I slept with a bird. How absurd. This is the morning after. Other young men would be curled up with a harlot – badge of manhood, isn’t it? Or a wench, somewhere. What the heck is a harlot anyway? In theory, yes. But what does one smell like, feel like. What does she talk like and what’s behind her eyes that I should desire? Where would I find one – no, let’s not think of that.’ (He dismissed images of thin outcasts hovering like flies in the vicinity of the city gate – instead Salim’s mind slipped voluptuously into imaginations of a tall regal woman of piercing beauty swathed in magnificent silks.

“I spent the night with a bird. “

“Did anything happen?”

“No.”

“Are you Serious!?”

“Well, the bird didn’t die.”

“Hah! Is that what usually happens to you? Watch yourself Salim. As the American’s say, ‘Get a life’.”

The bird seemed stronger. Salim experimentally stoked a finger down the feathers of its back. It did not flinch.

“And, how are your chicks today?”

If anything it seemed as if the bird stiffened slightly in disdain. But it could have been his imagination. Where was the eyedropper. And the milk and other paraphernalia. But before he could stir himself he heard the muted swish of a robe and the soft footfall of his mother.

Mother had brought a hamper filled with all the necessaries. The chicks guzzled their milk and devoured their meat. They squabbled happily, heads bobbing frenetically. They seemed recovered, quite. But the bird ate nothing; merely watched with relaxed indulgence, if a slight unstiffening of the long and plumed neck that supported that cruelly beaked head could be called ‘indulgence’.

“I’m going to pay Mrs Salomon a call this morning.”

“That’s nice, mother”

“She says you haven’t seen Sophia in ages”

“For heaven’s sake, Sophia and I were friends in school!”

“Well, she’s turned out very nicely.”

Salim did not deign to reply, and after a charged pause, mother left, chin held high.

And left behind her an unwelcome and curious visitor. Unnoticed, her corpulent and long-indulged tomcat crouched behind drapes watching – his particular interest, the chicks. Lucy, as he was known (short for Lucifer – a girl’s name was not inappropriate; he was, after all, a eunuch) was possessed of a dark and greedy nature: as lord over all household vermin he thought the chicks (and their mother) quite within the ambit of his business and was determined to do something about them.

Patiently he waited. Salim washed himself, breakfasted; prepared to go about his business. Messengers arrived with letters, agendas, contracts, resolutions – paperwork of all kinds, and Salim received them at his desk in the adjoining office suite. And the bird, tempted by curiosity and boredom came to the doorway, where she took up station ignoring the bustle of feet that flowed respectfully around her. That is when Lucy made his move.

The first Salim knew about it was an ear shattering call that blended the hauteur of the peacock with an eagle’s rage – and this piercing sound was immediately under-laid by yowling and hissing. Salim raced to the doorway, scattering papers and an astounded equerry behind him. He barely glimpsed Lucy, no more than a sooty smudge cowering in the orbit of the drapes, before his attention was entirely captured by the bird. Half turned away from him, her wings were outspread and glowing with metallic splendour. Her neck was outthrust and her beak wide, sinuous tongue vibrating with the energy of her shrieking challenge, and one set of talons clawed upon the floor. The chicks, aghast, clustered beneath her. So brilliant was her rage that the air about her seemed to shimmer with colour, light and heat.

Lucifer made good his escape as Salim rushed forward. He reached out his hand towards the bird, as if to stay her; then thought better of it – she might easily amputate one of his fingers. But withdrawing his hand he was even more disconcerted. She was warm. Hot! He could feel the heat beating on his skin. He could feel it on his face, like the open door of an oven.

*****

The rest of the morning passed without routinely. Salim was, of course, disconcerted, even a little frightened at what he had witnessed. He was not completely sure that his experience was objectively real. There was some slight discolouration of the paint opposite where the bird had done her ‘pyrotechnic’ threat display; but then he could not swear that it had not been there before. He supposed that if the bird was similarly roused again she might display the same behaviour. But then, she might not – it could hardly be an objective test of something, the mechanism of which he had no understanding. In any case, the thought of deliberately upsetting her was not one which he found easy to entertain.

Early that afternoon, Salim set about providing the bird and her chicks a safer refuge. The falconer responded to his call for a consultation (bring several choice trade pamphlets and periodicals with him) and waxed both lyrical and dilatory about the ‘magnificent predator’ needing a suitable eyrie amid ‘towering rocky crags’ and ‘close to heaven’. (The bird preened herself, approvingly – as if she understood.) Salim nodded and exclaimed in agreement and admiration of this disquisition. What he took from it however was that an elevated pillar should be constructed, topped by an overhanging platform inaccessible to (less magnificent) predators, (such as Lucy). This he instructed the groom to accomplish and by evening it was done. The platform was even furnished with nesting material – sticks, twigs, a few rags – arranged into the semblance of a nest.

Salim approached the bird wearing thick workman’s gauntlets – he had no wish to lose a digit. “Do I need a fencing mask?” he asked, “or are you going to behave? It’s for your benefit. Actually, it’s mainly for the benefit of your chicks.” She made no resistance when, cradling the chicks in rough palms, he removed them to the top of the pillar. With a shrug of her wings she joined them there.

The rest of the evening passed off without incident. Unless the complaints of Salim’s mother, who had to mount a set of steps in order to feed the chicks might be counted as an incident. ‘My mother, God bless her’ – Salim let slip his thoughts in an uncharitable moment – ‘is a walking, talking incident all in a league of her own!’

During the night Salim smelled smoke. It didn’t smell like the groom smoking a pipe. It smelled altogether more acrid. Like wood burning. A house burning somewhere? He padded to the balcony, thinking fussily, “If its that groom, he’s going to get a talking to – I’m not having him smoking under my window.”

In the courtyard there was a faint glow of coals. By the bird’s nest. Salim propelled himself downstairs, judging in a split second that he did not have time to put on sandals. Ignoring some things sharp that insulted his feet he reached the plinth on which the nest stood. It was smouldering. On tiptoe he swept away some of the smoking nest material heedless of his singeing hands. Bur carefully now – he did not want to hurt the chicks further… if they were there… if they still lived.

He cursed the darkness. Fortunately there was some moon. But its light was too uncertain. He could not see the chicks. Or the bird.

Suddenly, like the belling of a curtain stirred by sudden airs, there she was, spreading the arch of her wings. She seemed to be glowing. He could see the chicks now, nestled in the sanctuary of her breast. Was she glowing or could he see them by the moonlight? The chicks seemed fine. She was radiating heat. His hands were burning. She looked at him disdainfully, down her beak, for all like a lady rudely disturbed in her private chambers.

“What is it with you?” he exploded, goaded by pain and fear. “Are you setting things on fire? Are you?”

If anything, she seemed to glow a little brighter. A twig burst into flame. The chicks were loving it. Basking!

It is, perhaps, to Salim’s eternal credit that his response was practical. After a brief stunned pause he simply said, “Oh well then, I suppose ordinary nest material won’t do for you. We’ll sort it out tomorrow.” With that he turned on his heel and hobbled back to bed, via the bathroom, where he applied a little salve to his hands. They were not badly burned. Not enough to fuss about and wake the house. Besides, he wanted to think about developments first.

But events superseded Salim or, to put it another way he slept late – later than he should have. As he drowsily reached towards consciousness he became aware of conversation in the courtyard. Conversation marked by a certain tension of cadence! Rapidly concentrating his thoughts and moving with an alacrity unusual for his just having woken he reached the balcony and, keeping a low profile, peered over the balustrade.

The groom had discovered the burnt nest material. His mother, bent on her breakfast ministrations to the chicks, had encountered the groom. As water simmers in a pot coming to the boil their conversation had begun to percolate, not with any wise or efficacious objective in view, but with heat, noise and steam. Mother was, understandably affronted, concerned, even frightened; the groom was perplexed and waxing superstitious; the bird watched them both with haughty detachment, cosseting her drowsy offspring under the curve of a wing.

Salim pattered down the stairs: “Nothing to fuss about – entirely expected – just as the falconer predicted – it’s what they do, that kind of bird.” And flatly, in response to the grooms expostulation, “Yes, of course she set fire to the nest material: we should have realised beforehand.” (Aside, to mother – “Don’t fuss so: the chicks are fine – I’m sure they will be grateful for the milk…and mince…are those dried figs!?) And before his momentum with the groom was lost: “Doesn’t Mother have a marble washbasin in storage – you know, for when her room is renovated? Well, could you please find it and bring it here!”

Within half an hour, spurred by the force of Salim’s ruthlessly manufactured confidence, they had installed the basin on the plinth, its plug-hole bunged with a nicely rounded stone. And, in turn, the chicks had been installed in the basin where they quickly developed an amusing game: half-clambering, half-propelling themselves the rim by frantic beating of their immature wings, they then slid down on their tail-feathers to collect in a tangled but hilarious heap around the bung. The mother bird, initially doubtful, had begun to get into the spirit of things and was softly cawing over them.

Salim felt it was time for a well-deserved cup of coffee.

Released from immediate duty, the groom, with a muttered excuse, headed straight for the courtyard gate and the street beyond. ‘And the coffee house’, thought Salim: ‘There goes trouble.’

“You stole my basin”

“You wanted the chicks to have it”

“You didn’t ask… And you’ve been promising me a new one ever since.”

“It’s been two weeks, mother.”

“Months!”

“Mother! We’re not planning on doing the renovations before autumn.”

“I’ve invited some of your friends for supper this Saturday.”

“Oh… and I suppose you expect me to come.”

“I told them the invitation was from you.”

“You’re meddling. I’ll develop a bad flu, or something.”

“You can’t. Sophia is coming. You need to get out more in any case.”

“Mother, you are impossible. Sophia may appeal to you, but what about me?”

“What’s not to like about Sophia?”

“It’s just that…I don’t know…”

“She has good morals and is kind with it. Good family. And she’s a beautiful girl.”

“Yes, but…”

“I can’t claim to understand how men see these things, but she seems to have the… physical attributes that men look for. She is attractive isn’t she?”

“There’s nothing wrong with Sophia’s looks. Mother, this is embarrassing!”

“And she is a hard worker – skilled on the loom and in the kitchen, and she’s been groomed to be an excellent household manager....”

“Mother!” Salim growled a sub-vocal warning but was ignored.

“…If her mom is anything to go by… And she’s been to all the right schools.”

Salim raised an interdicting hand: “I can’t imagine you wanting competition, especially is she’s as competent as all that.”

“You misunderstand me. We’ll get on fine. God didn’t see fit to bless me with daughters but I grew up in a hard-working household. Ever since your father passed I’ve been dreaming of a good daughter in law.”

“To boss around, like me!”

“Boss around?... My boy, it may be all very well for you to follow in your father’s footsteps as an administrator, but I come from a line of merchants. I want someone I can work with.”

“It sounds like you’re more interested in what you want than who I might get on with. I’m sorry you felt stifled by father, but I’m not sure that using me to get what you want…what you wanted…” Salim foundered, still a boy, unprivy to the holiness of his parents’ griefs. But his mother pressed on, heedless.

“Your father was a good man, but there was such a lot of him…sometimes it felt like having a cow lie on top of y.ou.”

“He was a bull!” spluttered Salim

“Whatever. It felt like being covered in a carpet of meat. I had to be a thorn” – she laughed wryly – “a thorn in his side…just to keep a little breathing space: I was a good wife though.”

“How can you speak like that?” Salim responded, aghast, “You’ve grown into a whole thorn bush since!”

“That is a bit unkind of you. I have become a tree.” And then archly, “A strong thorn tree. And if you look at my branches you will see that though the thorns are like bayonets that impale my enemies, they are quite widely spaced and there is room for little birds to perch between them. There is room for you – always will be – and there will be room for Sophia too.”

Salim glared blackly at his mother. ‘Meat blanket!’ he thought. She was a small woman but her weight sometimes seemed disproportionately unbearable.

“There are other good reasons for you having your friends around on Saturday, and even better reasons for you courting Sophia, or at least being seen to pay her proper attention. The rumours about you and that bird of yours are undermining your standing.”

“Ridiculous!”

“See it from the towns-folk’s point of view. You go everywhere with that creature perched on your shoulder, on that smelly leather apron thing.”

“Well, she invited herself along. And it’s a hawking-sheath – the falconer sold it to me.”

“And there are the stories the groom has been spreading about her fire-starting abilities: increasingly lurid tales hinting at large conflagrations and heaps of charred corpses, I hear.’

“Darn! I warned him not to trifle….”

“And I hear of an incident with the cooper’s donkey…?”

“She has healing powers. The donkey was nearly dead”

“From what I heard, the incident was quite colourful. The workshop was largely destroyed.”

“That’s an exaggeration. A few barrels were overturned.”

“I heard that she sank her talons into the animal’s rump; there was green fire and smoke and the donkey bolted in uncontrollable terror.”

Salim guffawed and raised his hands entreating reason: “Back from the dead, mother. And there was no fire. Once the cooper realised that the donkey was healed there were no complaints.”

“But that is not the story I heard – and it is not the story the townsfolk are hearing. You are being touted as a wizard and the bird as your familiar.”

*****

Sconces burned, casting their flickering light on the walls of the dining chamber. Salim sat in state at the head of the table. He was wearing his best clothes. He felt a little uncomfortable – overproduced – but at the same time he felt a tingle of excitement and pride. Mother and the housekeeper really had done quite a fine job. He was gratified: most of his friends had turned up. Ser Hassan was the oldest, and by his weight lent dignity (even profundity) to the proceedings. There were quite a few others, even a scapegrace cousin of his. But the most significant guest… (Salim could not help feeling she was illuminated, as if by raging fires, or the beams of the rising sun…or at least the moon – but this was entirely subjective – her illumination was accomplished by his latent sense of social awkwardness and a subliminal conviction that everyone was watching – in fact she was very demure)… the most significant guest was Sophia.

Her fine shawl, of delicate, dark muslin, was tightly drawn around her porcelain face which seemed to bob in the torch-lit shadows like a rising moon undulating on the waters of a slow river. So compelling was this momentary impression that Salim involuntarily lifted his eyes to the ceiling expecting to find the real Sophia floating there, serene and utterly still, regarding the party beneath her with resigned and faintly melancholic compassion.

Instead he saw a flash of burnished copper: there was the bird, on her perch. Mother had insisted that the perch not be placed behind him – it would only reinforce the wizardly image that this party was designed to help him shuck. (And, before that, he had insisted that the bird be present – “If she wants to be.”) But he wasn’t sure that placing the bird behind Sophia was a well-considered idea.

General conversation pattered on, like the ceaseless babble of a cataract or a reach of stony rapids. Salim found himself responding reflexively to questions and comments about municipal issues and political currents. Courses were served and wine was drunk. In due course he found himself on his feet circulating among his still seated guests, murmuring greetings and platitudes of good will.

But when he reached Sophia, he found himself tongue-tied. She blushed deeply and looked down, shrinking. He wished a pox on all interfering relatives. Blundering forward, he reached out an inappropriate hand and mouthed something about it being ‘awkward’, and they should just ignore parents. She raised a shocked and timid face.

And the bird gave a piercing scream and stooped from its perch, cruelly raking the shawl from her head with its talons. Sophia shrieked, cowering and covered her head with delicate, hennaed hands. And after a frozen instant, Salim launched himself forward, moving to bat the creature away. But she was too quick for him and in an instant had launched herself into the air and back, where she perched on a tall cupboard.

“How dare you!” roared Salim, his self-control vanishing in an instant conflagration of indignation and pity on behalf of the defenceless Sophia. ‘How dare you, after all that I have done for you?’ But this last was unspoken though, in Salim’s mind, the thought seemed to reverberate deafeningly.

She regarded him with burnished hauteur. Unmoving. The shawl burst into flame and disintegrated, falling piecemeal from her talon.

On Sunday morning Salim lounged by the pool in the central courtyard. It was quite a large pool. Water-lilies covered one end of it. Water fed from a spring dribbled into it. Dragonflies flitted about.

Salim was in a sulk, but in spite of that the bird was there, on her perch. They were like two lovers, angry with each other, but unwilling to do without each other.

“Darn!” muttered Salim. “Well, that was a pointless exercise. Self-destructive. Embarrassing… Very embarrassing!”

“And you!” He lifted a hostile glare at the bird. “You are your own worst enemy. Mother will be outraged – never mind how fond she is of your chicks, she will want you in a cage. Somewhere far away. For my good. No doubt she will say its for your good too.”

Salim ruminated blackly while water continued to slop into the pool.

“I suppose I’m just fooling myself. You are an animal. A wild animal – that’s what you are!” The bird fluttered down to perch on the arm of Salim’s chair.

“I keep on feeling that there is something more.” Salim looked up pleadingly. “But how could you turn on Sophia like that? She is harmless. In fact, she is sweet. Gentle. And rather beautiful. She would make a good mistress for you, and a good wife.”

The bird snapped forward, drawing blood from Salim’s knuckle.

Convulsively, Salim whipped his hand back, crying out, “Aaah!”

And then, removing his hand from his mouth: “Blast! That’s it. I must be insane…crazy! But things are going to change. Right now! You are going in a cage. You’re not riding on my shoulder anymore, or coming with me anywhere.”

And then in final, emphatic self-reproof: “Salim, boy, wake up! This animal is dangerous!”

After a long-drawn moment a single, black tear oozed from the corner of the bird’s eye. Salim froze as she gazed down on him, hurt and sad. Then, throwing up her head she spread her wings and with deep and powerful strokes soared into the blue of the sky. Like a firework, she trailed sparks and flame, and at her apogee, high, small and bright, wings crucified against the heavens, she surrendered to fire. It consumed her, defacing, obliterating her once stately form. And down the remnants tumbled, a blazing, shapeless slag, to drown hissing and smoking in the placid pool. Water slopped carelessly against the edges and the ripples faded.

Gentle reader, all of you know the moment of shock, when the world is stripped of detail and form. There is no coherent thought yet, only a numbing bulk of wrongness that looms and intrudes. And in the grey there are flashes, harbingers of the storm of regrets that will batter and eviscerate in the weeks and months to come. But not yet. Now there is only amazement.

Salim staggered to the brink of the pool. And, as if compelled, over the brink. At the edge the water was knee-high. Bereft of volition, he subsided, coming to rest on the coping, his hands on his knees while he regarded the stilling waters with desolation.

A woman’s head emerged from the water, dark hair slicked back from her tanned and aquiline face. Jewelled droplets clung and dripped from her breasts and shoulders. She stood and the rippling waters lapped, caressing her thighs. Unashamed and glorious she waded slowly across the pool towards Salim.

In honesty, she was rather enjoying the effect she was creating. Slack-jawed, Salim resembled a stranded fish. He, for his part, for all the confusion of his emotions, found time for her extraordinary beauty to pierce him through the heart (such are the imperatives of the male psyche).

A serene and secret smile toying on her lips, she nudged between his outspread knees and with her left hand pushed gently on his shoulder. He fell back leaning on both palms. Motionless, they gazed at each other. Eventually, she reached out her right hand, palm upward.

“Come”, she said.

Wordlessly, he took her hand, rose and followed her, up the stairs, to his apartments and to his bedroom.

“I suppose I’m just fooling myself. You are an animal. A wild animal – that’s what you are!” The bird fluttered down to perch on the arm of Salim’s chair.

“I keep on feeling that there is something more.” Salim looked up pleadingly. “But how could you turn on Sophia like that? She is harmless. In fact, she is sweet. Gentle. And rather beautiful. She would make a good mistress for you, and a good wife.”

The bird snapped forward, drawing blood from Salim’s knuckle.

Convulsively, Salim whipped his hand back, crying out, “Aaah!”

And then, removing his hand from his mouth: “Blast! That’s it. I must be insane…crazy! But things are going to change. Right now! You are going in a cage. You’re not riding on my shoulder anymore, or coming with me anywhere.”

And then in final, emphatic self-reproof: “Salim, boy, wake up! This animal is dangerous!”

After a long-drawn moment a single, black tear oozed from the corner of the bird’s eye. Salim froze as she gazed down on him, hurt and sad. Then, throwing up her head she spread her wings and with deep and powerful strokes soared into the blue of the sky. Like a firework, she trailed sparks and flame, and at her apogee, high, small and bright, wings crucified against the heavens, she surrendered to fire. It consumed her, defacing, obliterating her once stately form. And down the remnants tumbled, a blazing, shapeless slag, to drown hissing and smoking in the placid pool. Water slopped carelessly against the edges and the ripples faded.

Gentle reader, all of you know the moment of shock, when the world is stripped of detail and form. There is no coherent thought yet, only a numbing bulk of wrongness that looms and intrudes. And in the grey there are flashes, harbingers of the storm of regrets that will batter and eviscerate in the weeks and months to come. But not yet. Now there is only amazement.

Salim staggered to the brink of the pool. And, as if compelled, over the brink. At the edge the water was knee-high. Bereft of volition, he subsided, coming to rest on the coping, his hands on his knees while he regarded the stilling waters with desolation.

A woman’s head emerged from the water, dark hair slicked back from her tanned and aquiline face. Jewelled droplets clung and dripped from her breasts and shoulders. She stood and the rippling waters lapped, caressing her thighs. Unashamed and glorious she waded slowly across the pool towards Salim.

In honesty, she was rather enjoying the effect she was creating. Slack-jawed, Salim resembled a stranded fish. He, for his part, for all the confusion of his emotions, found time for her extraordinary beauty to pierce him through the heart (such are the imperatives of the male psyche).

A serene and secret smile toying on her lips, she nudged between his outspread knees and with her left hand pushed gently on his shoulder. He fell back leaning on both palms. Motionless, they gazed at each other. Eventually, she reached out her right hand, palm upward.

“Come”, she said.

Wordlessly, he took her hand, rose and followed her, up the stairs, to his apartments and to his bedroom.

“The accommodations chosen to house the witness hardly argue for sentience!”

“Your Honour, defence is merely casting imprecations. The witness is a former population cluster leader from one of their most significant planetary sectors. As we speak, work is proceeding on proper envoy-level housing. His current accommodation is exigent – the, uh…facilities are the most appropriate available.

But, the overriding consideration is they are a sentient species; it is defamatory and illegal to name said species without consent!”

The judge signalled exasperation: “Calm down councillor, we know the law. The point is whether they were sentient when their discoverer named them.”

“Asked and given in evidence, your Honour!”

“Borderline sentience at best,” protested defence.

“That sounds like concession.” And while the judge appraised defence with brooding scrutiny, the prosecution pressed ahead.

“Furthermore, we give notice that when this court finds in our favour we intend to move for impeachment – we cannot have a Galactic Imperator who disregards the law –a criminal who rides roughshod over the rights of minorities!”

Shrubb regarded his immaculately reconstituted Texas ranch-house with disgust. Out back was garden prairie; out front was airless, shattered moonscape. Now and then a troop of fairy lights passed by. When that happened the front of the house turned transparent and he felt sure he was being observed.

The TV programs and books were years out of date by now but fortunately the reconstituted scotch was ok.

He remembered how he got there and wished he’d never been so stupid…

I was unwinding in a ritzy Manhattan bar with my people after some do when this dude schmoozed up – retro threads, silvery skin and a funny way of talking. Says he’s a galactic lawyer! But he had some wild party tricks and was a laugh so I told the service guys to lay off.

Later, he got closer and I knew he was going to pitch. I thought I’d heard them all.

He said, “What would you do if a ranking alien leader disrespected humanity?”

“You kidding! How so?”

“By calling you names.”

Now, I knew about not letting anybody disrespect me and what I stood for. I also knew people tended to get het up about negative stereotyping – sexism, racism , religious sensitivities and such-like.

“Can’t do that. I’ll whup his ass. What he say anyhow?”

“He claims he is the discoverer of humanity and he has named you ‘Gonnablowmi Ownaldtrumpeti’.”

“You kidding! He better watch his mouth!”

“Its been published in academic journals all over the galaxy.”

“He can’t do that. I’m gonna call him on it!”

“Are you sure?”

“Whadya mean? ’Course I’m sure.”

“Let us be absolutely clear on this,” he said, whipping out some kind of gizmo. “Would you, George Shrubb, stand up in galactic court and challenge the appellation of ‘Gonnablowmi Ownaldtrumpeti’ to your species?”

“Darn right I would!”

My Lawyer says I can’t go home till the trial is over. But I’m glad to be doing something for humanity.