Once Sheikh Bailiri gave Nouri his blessing, the brothers embraced him as their own. Indeed, they were so taken by him, Habbib had to petition for his rights as the child’s primary caretaker. Eventually it was decided that each of the dervishes would be given a turn to feed the infant, to change his diapers, to hold him in his arms, but only Habbib would be allowed to bathe him and lull him to sleep. When he was asked where he’d found him, he was afraid to reveal that the child had fallen out of the sky. So he replied that an old woman had rushed up to him as he was heading to market, exclaiming that there’d been a fire in the next village and that she’d managed to save the infant in her arms from a house that had just burst into flames. Then she’d handed the baby to Habbib and run off in the other direction. When he was asked why the child wore the strange head garment—for despite the recent decree of the Shah that all men wear turbans, the rule was never applied to infants—Habbib replied that he had a terrible scalp condition and that they must never, never, never remove it. For Sharoud, this was clearly one never too many. But after the incident with the snake, he decided to lie low for a while.
So life behind the cool stone walls began to take shape for little Nouri Ahmad Mohammad ibn Mahsoud al-Morad. From the moment he was lifted from his cradle in the morning, he was never alone. Indeed, he was almost never out of the warmth of someone’s arms, for when Habbib went to fetch the broom and do the sweeping, Jamal al-Jani or Piran Nazuder or Salim Rasa was always there, eager to hold him. Like a loaf of fresh bread, he was passed from one doting dervish to the next, unaware that he was blessed with the rare privilege of constant touch. Each night before bed, Habbib would rub a mixture of olive oil and crushed rose petals into his ears. Then the boy would listen to one of his fabulous tales and fall into a peaceful sleep.
As time passed, Nouri became a fixture of the community, present at all prayers, all meals, all meditation, his world a haven of order and calm. When he turned one (or thereabouts, as the brothers marked his birth as the day that Habbib had found him), they lit candles around the courtyard, placed Nouri at the center, and chanted the ninety-nine names of Allah. When he turned two, Habbib raised him up onto his shoulders and carried him out through the gates to see the world outside the lodge. When he turned three—after having said little more than “Habbib” and “hello”—Nouri suddenly began speaking in full sentences. The brothers would listen as he described in precise detail what he’d found in the garden or dreamed the previous night. Words came to Nouri like flight to birds. Each day his vocabulary grew richer, his phrasing more nuanced, his syntax more complex. Until one day he looked around and decided that everything was in need of a new name. Chair became “lotan,” book became “shawd,” and the brothers became entrenched in the task of trying to figure out what he was saying. The ritual of renaming, however, did not last long. For Nouri decided that once the objects had been released from the burden of having been called the same thing for so long, they could revert to their former names. The brothers, however, could not shake off the changes so quickly, and for years one might still hear a candle referred to as a “darpash,” a plate dubbed a “froost,” or a cat called a “kimbaloo.”
By the time Nouri turned four, his beauty was undeniable. His eyes, which had wavered between star anise and tamarind, deepened into the richness of black mustard seed. His nose, which might have grown to overcome his face, emerged as noble and straight. His cheekbones were high. His lips were bow-shaped. And beneath his head cloth grew thick waves of hair. Habbib considered that Nouri’s bountiful tresses might be enough to hide the two sets of ears. But since he feared that a strong wind would blow in, he left the head cloth in place.
By the time Nouri turned five, it was clear that he was destined to follow the spiritual path. When Piran Nazuder made the call to prayer, Nouri would prostrate himself just like the others. Hajid al-Hallal said that this was merely imitation, that he was too young to know the true meaning of salah. When Nouri was late for meals, however, he was usually found sitting in the chapel. And when the poor came to receive the watery soup the brothers doled out twice a week, he was always the first to go among them offering hunks of Salim Rasa’s dark, crusty bread. Sheikh Bailiri knew that the boy was too young to begin formal training. But there was a thirst in his eyes that the Sufi master was convinced nothing of the physical world could ever quench. He could feel—just as he’d felt when he’d first seen him—that the child was blessed.
Although the brothers would quite gladly have remained at Nouri’s side, they soon found that the child longed to be on his own. If one of them became distracted for even a moment, Nouri would scamper off to some hidden corner to contemplate a leaf or a shattered bowl. When they found him, he’d smile up at them as if he’d never been happier to see anyone in his life. Then, when they turned their backs, he’d hurry off to find something new.
It was with this same curiosity that Nouri considered his extra set of ears. He was aware, from the attention Habbib gave them, that they were special. He’d giggle as Habbib massaged the soothing oil into their tiny lobes and along their gentle curves. He also knew, from the way Habbib added new strips to his head garment as he grew, that they were meant to be kept hidden from sight. He did not actually set eyes upon them, however, until he was six years old. It was a warm, sultry evening toward the end of summer. Habbib was telling the tale of Sam and the simorgh, as Nouri sucked happily on a piece of melon at his feet. When Habbib reached the part where the hero heads off into the mountains, there was a sharp knocking at the door.
“It’s Ali Majid!” came the familiar voice.
When Habbib went to open the door, he found the gangly youth holding a large oval tray and a pair of candlesticks.
“Hajid al-Hallal told me to polish the silver. But I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.”
Habbib gazed at the things Ali Majid held in his arms. “Put them there,” he said, pointing to the wall.
Ali Majid laid the objects down, knowing that Habbib would bring them to a gleaming shine before morning. Then he thanked the fellow and made his way out of the cell.
Habbib returned to Nouri and the tale. When he finished, however, and sat Nouri on the edge of the bed to massage the oil into his ears, the tray that Ali Majid had placed against the wall caught the child’s reflection. And when he unwound the head cloth, Nouri saw his ears for the first time.
He gazed at the image and the image gazed back.
“Why?” he said.
Habbib had been waiting for this moment for years. Yet he was no closer to having an answer to Nouri’s question than when he’d first seen the ears himself.
“Perhaps God was bored,” he said. “Or perhaps someday we’ll all have four ears, and He simply started with you.”
Nouri stared at Habbib, unconvinced by either theory. Then he turned his attention back to the face that peered from the tarnished tray. He knew that having two sets of ears made him different. And he had to admit that they were intriguing, like satiny husks from beneath the sea. He knew, however—even at the age of six—that people’s thinking was usually not so generous. He’d seen the man who sold eggs at the market mock Habbib’s withered hand when his friend wasn’t looking. He’d watched the older boys in the village place stones in the path of the blind fishmonger in order to make him trip. And he’d noticed the sullen gaze of Sharoud, and how it was firmly fixed on his head garment.
So Nouri accepted that his ears must remain a secret. And if he underestimated the dark dervish, it was only a matter of time before he learned just how cunning he could be.
* * *
ONCE IT SANK IN THAT he had twice the number of ears as everyone else, Nouri began to understand why the subtlest sounds whipped through him like wind through a field of grass. Even with the muffling of the head cloth, Habbib’s gentle humming sent shivers down his spine. The clicking of the spoon as Salim Rasa stirred the yogurt made him wince. And if faint sounds were palpable, loud ones were almost more than he could bear. Rain on the roof was a fusillade. A cough was an exploding bomb. The spiraling sounds of the ney made him drunk.
As time passed, Nouri found two principal ways to escape from the barrage of sound. The first was to help Piran Nazuder tend the garden. It was as if sound receded while he pruned and watered the plants. The buzzing of the bees no longer jangled his nerves. The song of the morning lark no longer pierced his heart.
The second form of escape grew out of the first. For when he was down on his knees, digging up the rich, dark soil or removing a few withered branches, Nouri’s head would fill with words. At first they came single file, like the leaves tumbling down in autumn. Prayer, he would think as he cut back the roses, dragon or oxcart or brushfire as he watered the rue. As the days passed, however, they began to cluster into phrases. The softness of a catkin. A ripple on the pond. Until at last they began to gather into thoughts:
The pansies that grow along the path have no worries.
The smallest and bitterest seed is sweet to God.
The dinner gong; song of contentment; when will it ring again?
Nouri didn’t know that such thoughts were unusual for a child of only six. But when he shared them with Habbib, Habbib felt that they should be written down. Since Habbib had never learned how to write, he asked Jamal al-Jani to become Nouri’s scribe. Each night, Jamal al-Jani would come to Habbib’s cell with a sheet of paper and record what the child had come up with that day. He’d make no comments as he scribbled the lines down. He’d simply shake his head, or laugh, or wipe away a tear. Then he’d hand the sheet of paper to Habbib and scurry back to his cell.
In time, Nouri’s talent for words became a simple fact of the lodge. Salim Rasa would look up from chopping the onions as the boy passed the kitchen and call out, “Say something, Nouri!” Piran Nazuder would follow him around, hoping to witness the birth of a new thought. But it wasn’t until Sharoud paid a visit to Sheikh Bailiri that the Sufi master truly contemplated the boy’s gift.
From the moment he saw him lying in his cradle beside the self-consuming snake, Sharoud had been watching Nouri. He felt sure that the child had somehow bewitched the creature, and as he followed his development over the years, nothing swayed him from the belief that there was something ungodly about the child. Sometimes he would find him frozen in the courtyard staring at the sky. Other times he would spy him in the branches of a tree, as if it pained him to be too rooted to the earth. Most of all, he was convinced that some mark of the devil was concealed beneath the tightly wound folds of his head garment.
Sharoud knew such thoughts were unworthy of one who had given his life to Allah. So he tried as hard as he could to cast them from his mind. He decided, in fact, that the only way to fight his distrust of the child was to make some gesture toward him. So one morning he decided to pay a visit to Sheikh Bailiri’s cell.
The Sufi master was not accustomed to private visits from his murids, let alone a visit from Sharoud. So when the dervish rapped on his open door, he was rather curious about his purpose. “How may I assist you, Brother Sharoud?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” said Sharoud, “I wish to speak with you about Nouri.”
Sheikh Bailiri, who sat cross-legged on the floor, his falcon Kavan perched on his left forearm, gestured to Sharoud to sit. Sharoud complied. Then he launched into lavish praise of Nouri.
“It’s not often that a child is so perceptive,” he said. “He’s a prodigy. A wonder.”
Sheikh Bailiri, who by now was as aware as the others of Nouri’s gift, nodded. “I agree.”
“His seventh birthday is next week. I think we should honor it with a celebration.”
The Sufi master shifted his awareness to the geometric patterns in the prayer rug, the weight of the majestic bird upon his arm, the rising and falling of his breath. He did not need Sharoud, or anyone else, to tell him that Nouri was special. Yet he could feel that, despite his dark impulses, Sharoud was making an effort to reach out to the boy.
“It’s a fine idea,” he said. “Let’s make a celebration for Nouri.”
As he said this, Kavan turned his head to Sharoud and shouted:
“Kaw! Kaw!”
And though Sheikh Bailiri did not speak a word of peregrine falcon, he knew that he would have to keep on the alert.
* * *
WITHIN DAYS OF SHAROUD’S conversation with Sheikh Bailiri, preparations for Nouri’s birthday celebration were under way. The brothers did not have the means to take the festivities too far. But Piran Nazuder erected a tent over the courtyard, Jamal al-Jani got down on his knees and scrubbed the stones, and with the help of Ali Majid—who had sprouted into a loose-limbed lad of seventeen—Salim Rasa spent hours drawing kashk out of the yogurt, pounding walnuts and almonds, steaming huge pots of fragrant rice. By the average standards of the people of Tan-Arzhan, it would be a humble meal. But to the brothers, it would be a feast.
On the morning of the celebration, Nouri lay on his bed in Habbib’s cell thinking about the dream he’d had the night before. He was wandering through the streets of Tan-Arzhan, yet it was the city and not the city, familiar and yet utterly strange. As he made his way along, he took note of the girl carrying the large clay jug upon her head, the pure white horse drawing the bright green cart, the haggard woman beating the rug. It was a bright day, full of smiles and good cheer. Wherever he looked, there was a sense of purpose. As he approached the town square, however, he felt something dark and sinister dogging his heels. And when he turned he saw a ferocious-looking creature following behind him. He quickened his pace, but he could not seem to lose it. He broke into a run, but the creature did too. Before it could reach him, however, he awoke, heart pounding, in Habbib’s cell.
It took a while for Nouri to shake off the dark dream. But eventually he rose and, with the help of Habbib, began to prepare for the celebration. He put on a fresh tunic and trousers and tied a bright blue sash around his waist. Habbib removed his head garment, brushed his hair, and neatly rewound it. Then they went out to the courtyard, where Sheikh Bailiri and the others were waiting.
When Sheikh Bailiri saw Nouri, he led him to a long wooden table laden with food. He gestured to the boy to sit; then he and Habbib took their places on either side. Then the other brothers joined them and the Sufi master raised his cup.
“We celebrate your birth, Nouri! May you live to be ten times seven. And more!”
The brothers raised their cups. “To Nouri!” they cried. Then Salim Rasa leaned forward and shouted, “Say something, Nouri!”
Nouri looked around at the expectant faces. He feared that the brothers endowed his words with a greater wisdom than they possessed. But he closed his eyes and murmured:
“I am the bell on the collar of the cow.
Tinkling. Tinkling.
And I am the breeze that blows the bell.”
The brothers were silent. Then Sheikh Bailiri reached for one of the bowls and the feast began.
“You’re a poet, Nouri!” said Salim Rasa, as he ladled some of the mirza ghasemi onto his plate.
Nouri said nothing. He simply grasped the four withered fingers of Habbib’s hand and turned his attention to the meal. No one, in fact, said anything more. Instead, they slipped into a communal trance as the savory tastes danced upon their tongues. Only when the last grain of rice had been devoured did Piran Nazuder suddenly cry out, “We mustn’t forget the sema!”
The others turned to him, their eyes glazed over.
“Do we have to?” said Jamal al-Jani.
“I’m too stuffed,” said Hajid al-Hallal, “to rise up to heaven!”
“One is never too heavy to strive toward God,” said Sheikh Bailiri. “And never too humble to perform the sema.”
Centered on the chanting of litanies and accompanied by the playing of music, the sema was deep at the heart of Sufi practice. Some, overcome by the words, would begin to weep. Others, inflamed with joy, would throw their heads back and fall to their knees. But the most sublime response to the chanted words—which had been introduced to the order by Piran Nazuder, who had learned it on a visit to Anatolia—was to spread one’s arms on either side and begin to whirl. There were differing theories as to how the practice had begun. Some claimed a Sufi had been so shattered by the loss of his teacher he’d found that only whirling could ease his pain. Some claimed a bowl of oversalted stew had caused a Sufi to start spinning, and when his comrades followed suit they found the movement to be a tonic for the soul. There were rules to observe: one must never move in an affected manner; one must never cry out while one turned. But for those who sought a true union with God, it was an ecstatic form. So the brothers cleared away the cups and the plates and the bowls and removed the table. Then they donned their woolen hats and dark mantles and spread out across the floor. When all were in place, Sheikh Bailiri began reciting verses from the Qur’an, which the others repeated in unison. Then Ali Majid stepped forward with his ney.
The brothers would never have thought that Ali Majid would become a musician. He seemed too scattered—too dim—to coax prayer from a simple flute. One morning, however, he saw a ney lying in the assembly hall and when he raised it to his lips a perfect note rose into the air. He quickly returned it to where he’d found it, fearful that he’d be punished for touching it. But Hajid al-Hallal heard the clear, sweet sound, received permission from Sheikh Bailiri to give him lessons, and in no time the boy’s gift was revealed. He still washed the pots and the pans and sharpened the knives. But his playing became the pulse of the brothers’ dance.
Now, as he began to play, Sheikh Bailiri stepped back and the brothers bowed low to the floor. They turned and began to walk in a circle, pausing to bow to one another when they reached the place where the Sufi master stood. When they’d made three rounds, they removed their mantles. Then they folded their arms across their chests and began to whirl. It started slowly, a gentle turning that expressed their longing to be released from their bodies. As the pace quickened, their arms rose up over their heads. Then they spread them wide—their right hands turned upward to receive the grace of heaven, their left dangling down to release their passions to the earth.
Nouri was not permitted to join in the dance like a true dervish, for despite his gifts he was only seven years old. In honor of his birthday, however, Sheikh Bailiri agreed that he could do a bit of turning. So as the music of Ali Majid’s ney dizzied his ever-sensitive ears, he took his place at the edge of the circle and, in his own simple fashion, began to whirl.
Sharoud whirled too. Inspired by the fever of the festivities, he spun like a giddy top. He was aware of the others as he moved through the space, but he was mostly aware of Nouri. He felt his pulse quicken and his heart pound each time they drew near. And on the tenth revolution—as his taut body floated past the child—he suddenly reached out and grabbed the slender tail of his tightly wrapped head garment.
It was like a spool of white ribbon unfurling. A cocoon being unraveled. A present being unwrapped. But it was only when the music stopped—and the brothers, shaken from their trance, suddenly turned and gaped at him—that Nouri understood that his secret had been revealed.