One morning, as if speaking to himself, Sindbad said:
“If ever I were to go back whence I came, I wonder what I would say. When I returned from my past journeys, I would be brimming with stories, or so people said. This time it would be different. I might say I was coming back from an uninhabited island, with a mild climate, where nothing of what grows has been planted. Adding just one other thing: that there were pools of fresh water, more than in other places, and for no apparent reason.”
The following morning, Utnapishtim said:
“Every time you heard the buzzing in your blood that urged you to travel, you would leave Baghdad and go down to Basra. So without knowing it you passed by the city of Gilgamesh, Uruk, buried under soil and sand. It was no more than a mound in the plain, the rough hunched back of an ass, a tell like so many others.
“In Uruk stood the Eanna. Which means ‘temple of Anu.’ But that wasn’t the case. The Eanna in Uruk was the temple of Inanna. This was one of her most daring exploits. She had snatched Anu’s Eanna, stolen the temple of the supreme god. This was something that went against every law there was. Looking on, the Anunnaki couldn’t believe their eyes.
“Just as she had boldly gone down to the Underworld, violating the realm of her sister Ereshkigal, as if it were just another country to explore, so Inanna had boldly taken from the heavens what belonged to the heavens. Worse, she had changed the god to whom it was devoted. In the Underworld she had immediately been punished. But Anu didn’t react.
“It was a troubling story, something it was best not to talk about. Or to keep between a chosen few. While everyone, over the years, would tell and retell the story of Inanna going down to the Underworld. Even little children knew it.
“Uruk was called the Sheepfold, but it was a great city, the greatest of the great cities, with walls no other city could boast. Gilgamesh himself, together with the Seven Sages, the Apkallu, had designed and built them. They were the color of the prairies. The temples were built of mud bricks with strips of bamboo between them. But Inanna wasn’t satisfied. She wanted stone, marble, metal. She wanted to deck herself with lapis lazuli.
“Such things, people said, could be found only in the country of Aratta, to the east, beyond seven mountain chains. A king, Enmerkar, father of Gilgamesh’s father, boldly set out to cross those mountains. It was the first adventure to excite his grandson’s young mind.
“More than a warrior, Enmerkar was a resourceful man. Crossing the mountains, which seemed to surround him on every side, was grueling. Enmerkar fell ill before he could join battle with the king of Aratta. But there was more than one way for kings to fight, he thought. Bloodshed was not inevitable. Enmerkar knew that the king of Aratta was a master of riddles. Perhaps they could challenge each other with riddles. Then he could find out whether the best way forward was war or barter.
“Such was the message Enmerkar wanted to send to the king of Aratta. But it was too subtle, too unusual to be entrusted to a messenger. Very likely the messenger would make a mess of it. These people were used to delivering threats of massacres that could be announced in a few simple words.
“So Enmerkar began to etch signs on a clay tablet. They looked like seals. But Enmerkar was relying on the king of Aratta’s intelligence. If he were really such a lover of riddles, he would be able to solve these mute riddles, too. Invisible to each other, concealed in the mountain forests, Enmerkar and the king of Aratta sent each other riddles and answers to riddles. They realized they had never understood anyone or been understood so well, without needing to see each other. It was the first writing, the first reading.
“Enmerkar managed to solve all the riddles the king of Aratta sent him. Then they agreed that shipments of grain, barley, and dates would be sent to Aratta. And in return Aratta would send metals, gold and silver. Lapis lazuli, too. Inanna would be satisfied at last.”
“Enmerkar was Inanna and Ea’s favorite. As lover to Inanna, as king to Ea. But he wasn’t the only one. The king of Aratta was also a favorite of Inanna’s. Both men had celebrated ceremonies that involved the goddess getting up from their beds. Both were convinced that Inanna was on their side. Secret help was needed. When the king of Aratta challenged Enmerkar with a string of riddles, Ea, without ever appearing, suggested the answers. They could be signs etched on clay. Those tiny bars, like so many nails, would have other uses aside from resolving differences with the king of Aratta, barricaded away behind seven mountain chains. They would complicate and enhance the life of all the Black Heads. But Ea never claimed the invention as his own, as if he knew almost nothing about it. Unlike the Anunnaki, Ea never gloried in many of the things he had done.”
“There were three heavens, made with different stones and different colors. Reddish gleams filtered down from the highest. The middle one was sapphire. The lower, jasper. On this heaven, Anu, Enlil, and Ea chose to trace the script of the night sky. Like silent craftsmen, absorbed by their work, they etched signs on the jasper. Which became drawings. Stars and constellations. They served as a model for Enmerkar when he etched those signs on clay.
“One day Enlil went into the goddess Nisaba’s temple and laid a tablet of lapis lazuli on her knees. Then the council of the Anunnaki met. They spoke of something they called the Tablet of the Bright Heavens. It was a map of the signs that Enlil, Anu, and Ea had just etched on the jasper. From then on Nisaba would be invoked as chief scribe of heaven, goddess of the pure stylus. And an unbridgeable gap was established between Anu, Enlil, and Ea and all the other Anunnaki. These three alone had drawn a way through heaven. And they alone each possessed a portion of the sky.”
“In the beginning, men spoke one language. But understood one another too much. There were endless fallings out. Even more dangerous, though, were the moments when they reached a sudden agreement. Those were the times when they were most likely to disturb the Anunnaki. Just the noise they made had once led to the Flood. Without Ea’s help they would have been wiped out. Now, having achieved an improbable unity, they were convinced they could do everything, which of course was intolerable to those looking down from above.
“Once again, life was in danger of coming to an abrupt end. Then Ea contrived another of his unresolved riddles: he multiplied the tongues of men. At first bewilderment and confusion ran riot. Then people began to split up and withdraw into different regions, well protected from one another. A dim veil came down on each of these places. But the veil could be torn open by curiosity and study. The Black Heads weren’t sure whether they were more or less happy than before. They kept their eyes mainly on whatever was close to them, wanting to possess it forever. Gradually they came to forget the time when they had all spoken the same language. And the Anunnaki no longer looked on them with suspicion. Ea watched over it all in silence.”
“How can you recognize a god?” Sindbad asked.
“All the gods you have encountered, or will encounter, anywhere, at the farthest edge of whatever sea, are made of the same substance. There is a great gleaming tangle rolling over and over and constantly shedding bits of itself. And those bits are other gleaming tangles that go on rolling over and shedding other smaller bits, which again are gleaming tangles. This is the life of the gods,” said Utnapishtim.
“Here is a question I have never really fathomed: whether the Anunnaki forgot about me, here in Dilmun, sometime before being forgotten themselves; or whether they left me here with a precise role in mind, the role I have in relation to you and will very likely never have again: as one who passes on their stories. If that’s not the case, how can we explain why Ea, who was always such a shrewd strategist, should have taken me away from the Flood survivors to bring me here to empty, spellbound Dilmun.
“I’ll confess that for a long time I tried not to think of the person who would arrive here one day, tossed up by the waves, or stepping out of a magnificent ship. But I didn’t always succeed. I imagined, for example, someone who would listen to my stories attentively, skeptically. Then look at me as if I were a crazy, dangerous old man. Didn’t the legends speak of a deadly Old Man of the Sea?
“Instead you arrived, Sindbad, curious, childish, clear-sighted, cheeky: the perfect vessel to receive the stories entrusted to me.”
“The Black Heads worshipped the Anunnaki. And the Anunnaki worshipped the Tablet of Destinies. They were devotees of necessity, stiff, with staring eyes, thick calves, frizzy hair, cone-shaped caps, bow in hand. There was no ease or flow in their movements. Though all had their origin in Ea, who reigned over the waters. I realized this quite late, when Ea allowed me, from time to time, to wander in other lands, far beyond the two rivers, like some strange vagabond. Rather as Harun al-Rashid does in Baghdad. Had they found me out, they would have supposed I was a Chaldean con man.”
“I’ve been here so many years and still have no answers. I’ve given up asking for them. Ea didn’t grant me knowledge, only a life that never ends. And the sages who sometimes visit me, the Apkallu, the Holy Carp, do they have the answers? I have my doubts. Perhaps they think the world is not made to give answers.”
“I know you’ll be leaving soon. It’s what you’ve always done. And I, too, shall go on doing what I’ve always done: staying alive.”