10

Sherif lay down in the bed, the full moon lighting up his room from behind the glass of the window with a lovely silvery light. He fell asleep for a few hours, waking up to the sound of the dawn call to prayer. The muezzin’s voice gave him some measure of peace, with his repetitions of “al-Salatu khayran min al-nawm,” prayer is better than sleep. He had given up praying a long time ago, but now the phrase preoccupied him. He felt a sudden need to pray. He went out onto the balcony and saw several men hurrying to the mosque. He dressed and joined them.

In the large courtyard of the mosque was a fountain of white marble with brass taps for those who wanted to perform ablutions. He placed his hand beneath the cold water and slapped his face with it—once, twice, three times, not so much washing his face as slapping himself awake, slapping away the veil over his eyes to see life from a new perspective.

The inside of the mosque was an architectural masterpiece. Giant chandeliers hung from the ceilings; its walls were inlaid with shining marble and adorned with Qur’anic verses in beautiful calligraphy. The faithful arranged themselves in rows, shoulder to shoulder: a dervish’s headgear could be seen toward one of the front rows, taller than all present. After prayers, Sherif again glimpsed the man with the tall headgear. It was the same whirling dervish. Yes, it was he, the man from the oil painting on the restaurant wall, and the painting on the wall of the house. But how could he be here? It must be just an uncanny resemblance; the two men were centuries apart. Unable to resist his curiosity, Sherif went up to him. “Excuse me, but have we met?”

He couldn’t help noticing that the man had an extraordinarily bright complexion that seemed to be glowing. The light was not just coming from the man’s face: it was a glow that haloed him. He inclined his head slightly. “You must have seen me with the eyes of your heart.”

Sherif just stared. At the time, he had not known what the man meant, but something stopped his tongue and stilled any further questions. The man’s eyes, black as pebbles, penetrated Sherif’s defenses. In an instant he felt them going deep into him, into his innermost heart. “Follow your heart’s footsteps and release the fetters of the sins that weigh you down. Give your soul room to breathe.”

Sherif opened his mouth to rebuke this impertinent stranger, to say to him, “Who are you to say such things to me?” Instead, he found himself saying, “I’m trying. But it’s hard. Harder than I thought.”

The man smiled. “Nothing is hard.” He laid a gentle hand on Sherif’s shoulder. “Try, and you will succeed.”

His recollection of what happened after that was not very clear. He seemed to blank out for a moment; when he looked around him, there was no one. The man was gone. Sherif looked around in hopes of finding him in some corner or other of the mosque, but there was no trace of him. He hurried outside the mosque, looking left and right, still thinking he might find the man; there was only silence and darkness.

Back in his room, he couldn’t stop thinking. Was what had happened real, or was it a dream? But how could it be a dream when the man’s words still echoed in his ears, when he still could feel the loving touch of his hand on his shoulder, when the scent of his perfume still lingered in his nostrils? Perhaps it was only a dervish who looked like him; but then, why had he suddenly disappeared as though he had never existed?

He dismissed these speculations from his head, focusing instead on the man’s words: “Follow the footsteps of your heart and release the fetters of the sins that weigh you down.” But this advice only led to more labyrinthine avenues of confusion: how could this man have known that he wanted to leave everything behind and start anew?

He had strange dreams that night, but he could remember nothing of them. He breakfasted in the hotel restaurant, and at exactly ten o’clock, Borhan called, telling him he was outside the hotel to take him on a tour of the city as he had promised the previous day.

That morning, Borhan’s greeting was brighter and his demeanor friendlier than it had been the day before. “I hope you slept well?”

“Very well. Except for a few nightmares.”

“Oh,” the man smiled, “that always happens to me after I take a flight to a different country. Change of place and time zones, and all that.”

“Mr. Borhan,” Sherif ventured, “would you mind another visit to your grandfather’s house? I . . . would like to give it another look.”

The man seemed taken aback to hear Sherif’s request; Sherif, after all, had told him yesterday that everything was in order, and that he would commence writing his report. Noticing that he seemed disgruntled, Sherif hastened to reassure him. “Don’t worry. Everything’s still fine. It’s just that there are parts of the house that I didn’t assess carefully enough, and you know how important it is that my report to the company be complete.”

“Well, I’m at your service, Mr. Sherif. Let’s be on our way.”

He turned the BMW around and they set off. They opened the house to reveal the same perfume: the scent that had filled his nostrils the other day, the dervish’s perfume. “What’s that smell?” Sherif asked carefully. “Do you use a particular incense or freshener in here?”

“I actually can’t smell anything,” Borhan sniffed carefully at the air, turning his head this way and that, “but then again my sense of smell isn’t that acute. I can smell mold and mildew, but that’s all.”

This time, it was Sherif who led Borhan to the listening room. He walked straight up to the dervish’s portrait, standing directly before it and staring to make sure it was the same man he had seen in the mosque the other day. “What is it about this dervish?” asked Sherif.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Borhan said, his pleasant demeanor disappearing and his features tensing. “I’m sorry, what do you mean, ‘what is it about him?’”

More insistent now that he scented a secret, Sherif repeated firmly, “Who is he? What do you know about him?”

“Why are you asking about this particular dervish? Did someone tell you something about him? I know the people of this city, they never stop gossiping and making up lies and creating superstitions and making up stories!”

Sherif planted his feet more firmly on the ground. “Mr. Borhan, let’s be frank. There’s no need to beat around the bush. I’m here to write a report to close a big deal, and we’re going to be paying a lot of money. I’m asking you to be honest with me about everything to do with that dervish.”

Borhan mopped his bald pate and forehead. “Wouldn’t you like to look at some other part of the house?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go,” Borhan gestured nervously, “and I’ll tell you all about the dervish over coffee.”

Sherif reluctantly agreed. He didn’t really want to leave this place, filled with the spirit of a man who was no longer there. He wished the dervish would reappear, so that he could see and speak with him again. His presence had made Sherif feel at peace, and his conversation was a balm to his aching soul.

Borhan glared silently throughout the drive, as though some catastrophe had struck him and rendered him dumb—a stark contrast to his garrulousness of before. Finally, they sat at a sidewalk café and he ordered them two cups of coffee. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to be honest with you: I’ll tell you everything.” He mopped his brow again. “Let’s start at the beginning.

“One of my ancestors built this house to marry and start a family there. Then he joined a Sufi tariqa, or order, and became a prominent imam with his own followers and students, so he converted almost all of the house into a school and guest house for the dervishes. He and his family only lived in a small corner of it. As you know, these guesthouses open their doors to one and all, and dervishes from every corner of the globe are welcome to stay there for days, weeks, even months. On a cold December day, this man came knocking at the door of the guest house. He was trembling with cold, with snow in his hair and beard. They made him welcome and gave him a seat by the fireplace, and the cook gave him a bowl of hot soup. That day he didn’t speak much, only telling him that he had had a long journey, because he had come from Azerbaijan to Konya especially to study under my great-great-great-grandfather, now that he had become famous all over the world.

“My grandfather accepted him as one of his students, and he quickly became a favorite. He was a man of few words, and did as he was told. One time, as they were gathered in the listening room, playing and dancing, he asked to be allowed to dance in circles as they did. My grandfather refused, as he was not yet ready for the whirling dance.”

“But does that dance need any training?” Sherif asked, taking a gulp of his coffee. “It’s just turning around and around.”

“Mr. Sherif,” Borhan said seriously, “the thing is very different from what you imagine. It is an ancient ritual dating back to the start of what we call human knowledge—the knowledge that allows a human being to take the path back to the Lord. It was first known in Persia. The whirling dancer departs his earthly life to spin high up into the Kingdom of God. My grandfather warned him at the time, ‘Not yet. Transmutation hurts you if you are not ready. Transmutation touches the heartstrings, and brings on such a flood of emotions that it becomes a temptation. Such a temptation blocks spiritual growth for those who immerse themselves in it merely to fulfill their emotional longing. Because of this, before transmutation, the heart must first abandon its burdens. When a dervish goes forth to the whirling dance, this is his path to the Complete Human.’”

“The Complete Human?” Sherif repeated.

“Yes,” Borhan explained, “the Complete Human refers to the wise creature whose ultimate goal is to reach God. To reach Him, he must pass through four portals. The passageway leading to these four portals is the four parts of the dance. The first portal is sharia, religious law, and the second is the tariqa, the Sufi order, that is the mysterious inner dimension of the Mevlevi Sufi order. The third portal is al-ma‘rifa, knowledge, and the fourth is al-haqiqa al-mutlaqa, absolute truth, where the skirted dervish shares his wisdom: when he opens his right hand above his head, he is drawing blessings upon himself from God, and when he opens his left toward the floor, he is conferring these blessings upon others. And thereby the dervish is reborn.”

Sherif blinked. “I see.”

He had not known that the simple-looking whirling had such a weight of ideas and beliefs behind it.

“If you like, I can take you to a Mevlevi retreat, and you can see them for yourself.”

“I’d definitely like to do that, but tell me the rest of the story about the dervish.”

“There’s nothing to tell. This dervish refused to heed my ancestor’s advice. Once when they were dancing, he slipped in among them and began to whirl with them. My grandfather punished him by banning him from dancing for six months, even if he were to become ready during that time. But no one saw him again after that night, in the guest house or outside it. They looked for him high and low, but he was gone without a trace. Ever since, there have been rumors that his spirit roams the guest house and the streets, wearing his white skirt and performing the whirling dance.”

Sherif stilled, lost in thought. Clearly afraid he would change his mind about the house, or put down in his report ‘Dancing dervish in the house,’ Borhan started to convince him. “The only reason for all the rumors was the way the dervish disappeared. There’s no truth to them, none at all. Please don’t believe them.” He mopped his brow. “Or write them down in your report.”

Sherif let the man prattle on, finally cutting him off. “Where do you think the dervish went?”

Borhan took a breath. “Nobody knows. They do say he was a mysterious one, who never talked to anyone. And everyone knows that dervishes like to travel far and wide, across God’s green earth. Look, come on, let me take you to the retreat and show you the ritual.”

It was late at night when Sherif came back to his hotel room, after a long evening where Borhan had initiated him into the secrets of the dervishes’ hidden world. He had taken Sherif to a Sufi order, where he had watched the dance, and had the different parts of it explained to him by Borhan. The most enthralling to him had been the state of mind into which they entered while performing the whirling dance, the spiritual ecstasy so intense that he fancied he could see them levitating off the floor.

He thought long and hard about the divine love that transported them to this state, as though they were in a completely different world from ours. He wished he could have risen to join them and whirl and spin as they did, to join them in this world of theirs. But was he ready? It was then that he understood the dervish’s overpowering urge to dance.

Borhan took him to the graves of the dervishes with their tall hats carved into the top of their headstones, telling him that a dervish’s hat was always buried with him. The hat was an important part of the ritual, and the worst punishment that could befall a dervish who had committed some sin was to be forbidden from wearing it. They ended their tour by visiting the graves of the famous dervishes Jalal al-Din al-Rumi and Shams al-Tabrizi. Sherif was consistently astonished by the depth of the man’s knowledge about a world of which Sherif knew nothing: to him, before today, a dervish had been only a dancer in a white skirt.

Sherif flung his exhausted body down on the bed, and, unusually for him, fell asleep at once.

He saw himself wearing the costume of the dervishes, complete with tall hat, spinning and whirling. Suddenly, a voice whispered in his ear: “Not yet . . . not yet . . . transmutation hurts you if you are not ready.”

He bolted upright, turning his head this way and that in search of the voice. Had it been a dream? He had been asleep, but the voice that woke him . . . that had not been a dream.

The muezzin’s voice rang out with the call to dawn prayer: al-Salatu khayran min al-nawm, prayer is better than sleep. He leapt out of bed, did his ablutions, and went out to the mosque.

The wind whistled loudly as he made his way across the square, chilly gusts that nearly blew him off his feet. He crossed the road quickly and went into the mosque. He scanned the rows of the faithful, hoping to find the dervish among them, but he was not there.

Sherif did not leave the mosque like the rest of the men who had been praying. He sat in a corner saying fervent prayers, the name of God on his lips, praising Him and asking for His mercy and forgiveness. A ray of light shone down from the sky and found its way into his heart, filling it with light and faith. He didn’t know how long he sat there, apart from reality. Through the veil of his tears, he saw the hem of a white garment: looking up, he saw him standing there. “You?” he breathed, overcome with love and gratitude.

The man smiled without answering.

“But are you really the dervish who disappeared long ago? Tell me. Are you real, or am I imagining you? Dead or alive?”

“Dervishes never die. They live on in silence.” Sherif was still thinking of these words when the man went on, “Don’t stop. Keep going and you’ll get there.”

When Sherif opened his mouth to speak, the dervish began to whirl. He spun at breakneck speed, his perfume spreading like a breeze, then faded away and vanished, still spinning.

Dawn was breaking when Sherif left the mosque, a weak light trying to push its way up and dislodge the weight of the darkness. Gradually, it grew and grew until it filled the world with brightness, light, and warmth. The light dispelled not only the darkness in the sky, but also the darkness in Sherif’s heart and soul. This was the time of day he usually crawled out of the clubs he frequented, but he had never thought to notice the darkness gradually clearing the way for the sun to spread its light anew. The darkness that had settled over his soul had blocked him from seeing anything of beauty.

He didn’t feel like going back to the hotel. He went to a café and ordered tea and pastries stuffed with cheese and vegetables. He ate with great appetite, and then took a walk all around town. While the dervish didn’t appear again, he remained with Sherif in spirit. He saw him whirling and turning all around him, his wide white skirt touching the whole of creation.

Going into a stationer’s that stocked dervish-themed gifts, he found figurines of dervishes in different shapes and sizes, and books on their history. He bought several books on Sufi mysticism and their different orders, the dervishes, their lives, rituals, and guest houses. As he was walking out, he saw an enormous earthenware statue of a dervish, wearing a wide skirt, with one palm raised to the heavens and the other pointed at the floor. He bought it.

Back in his room, he checked his phone to find more than ten missed calls: from the office, from friends, and from his partner asking him for his report. There were also two calls from Borhan. Sherif returned these first. Borhan’s voice came tersely through the phone. “Good morning, Mr. Sherif. I called you a couple of times, but you didn’t answer. Did you sleep late?”

“Not at all,” Sherif said curtly. “I woke early.” He let him stew, imagining curiosity eating him alive. Borhan couldn’t very well ask him why he hadn’t answered his calls, and Sherif imagined that his short responses were making him uneasy.

“Mr. Sherif. Please don’t mention that business with the dervish in your report about buying the house. It’s just a superstition, I told you.”

“Of course,” Sherif took pity on him, “of course, I know it’s just a superstition. Don’t worry about it.”

“And about the dervishes buried under the house. . . . We can demolish the mausoleum, and move the remains somewhere else. They’ve been buried for three hundred years at least, and the remains won’t be more than a handful of dust.”

Sherif thought about all the years that the dervish had been in this world, the man who had disappeared from the city without a trace. Had he really left Konya? And if he had, why had his ghost remained in the same location, going around the place performing the dance of which he had been deprived, openly defying his imam? Here he had remained, for decades, dancing and dancing. ‘Dervishes never die . . . they live on in silence,’ he remembered. What had the man meant by that? Had he been hinting that his ghost and his soul were there for eternity? So many questions flashed lightning-fast through his mind, Borhan’s voice snapping him out of his reverie. “Mr. Sherif? Mr. Sherif? Are you with me?”

“Yes, yes.” Sherif took a breath. “Don’t worry about the house. It’ll all be fine.”

He did not leave his hotel room all day: he began to read a book of biographies of the dervishes in the Mevlevi order founded by Jalal al-Din al-Rumi. It gave details about their rituals, their lives, their clothing, their creed, their dances, their hopes and dreams, the circumstances of their lives, and even of their deaths. From time to time, he ordered coffee from room service to help him concentrate. Humming, he recited the dervish’s mantra that the author had quoted: There was a dervish . . . the dervish opened a shelter for dervishes . . . his wide skirts scattered secrets . . . but no one knows what they are. . . . There was a dervish . . . the dervish opened a shelter for dervishes . . . his dance rises high to the sky . . . his beard touches the ground below him . . . and his lips scatter secrets . . . but no one can hear them.

The book drew him in and filled him with astonishment. He couldn’t put it down until he had read it from cover to cover. He closed the book, still chanting the mantra. He contemplated the image of a dervish on the cover: suddenly the image changed to that of the familiar ghost, smiling and chanting.

He was still frozen with astonishment when he felt a strong hand pulling him up from where he sat. The dervish began to whirl around the room. Sherif found himself dancing with him, one hand splayed above his head and the other pointed at the floor, turning and whirling with the dervish. He felt an incomparable lightness, as though his soul had left his body and floated far away into another world. He was transmuted into nothingness; he was not present on this earth. He remained thus until a tremor through his body brought him back to the mortal plane, pulling him out of the spiritual.

Here he was, he who had sampled this world’s every pleasure and experienced the extremes of ecstasy, overcome by an ecstasy that was matchless, a pleasure that was peerless. He decided not to think: however he cudgeled his brains, he would not understand.

Sherif ended up spending twenty full days in the city. During that time, he went to the dervishes’ retreat that Borhan had taken him to, and met with their imam, and spoke to him of his desire to join their order. They had a long meeting that day: Sherif laid bare everything about his life and his past, and his desire to liberate himself from it and start anew. However, when he tried to mention the dervish, something stopped the words from coming out.

In his report on the house, he assessed the price accurately, not overpricing or underpricing it. It might have been the first time where he did not fudge his report, or try to convince the seller that his property was worth a lower price. It was his modus operandi to try and find a loophole to bring down the price, and if none existed, he would make one up out of whole cloth. Borhan’s property, with its Sufi order, was positively riddled with holes—all he had to do was tell Mr. Borhan that his house was haunted with the ghost of a dervish that wouldn’t leave, and he’d be forced to accept any price the company offered. But he didn’t.