‌The Aficionado

This is what followed inside the station after the first few moments of incomprehension. The sergeants in attendance pounced on my brother and stripped him of his belongings. Every item was tagged and placed in the black plastic bag Mustafa had been carrying with him at the time. When I received the news of his arrest and rushed to the station, I was handed the bag without a word. Bewildered, I emptied it on my lap and found, among his things, a small inkwell such as scribes use, carved out of red soft stone in the shape of a lion. I sat there, clutching that little lion, my mouth dry, my mind blank. I turned that lion over and over in my hand, thinking about how strange life is, when all is said and done. We think that it is all about memories, chronicles, situations, testimonies, comprehensions and ostensible conclusions, and yet, at the end of it, we are left irredeemably ignorant. Ya Allah! I raged silently. Where is the meaning to anything? Is life nothing but illusions?

I gazed at the lion and felt my eyes fill with helpless tears.

The constable on duty looked at me curiously but also with sympathy. What’s that? he said, pointing to the lion.

It’s an inkwell, I replied.

More to distract myself while I waited to meet with Mustafa than for any other reason, I decided to tell the policeman the story of where the inkwell came from.

Wait a moment, he said, surprising me with a smile. First let me get you some mint tea to moisten your throat. Let it not be said that we are ignorant of basic notions of hospitality here.

The tea was piping hot and too sweet for my taste, but I thanked the constable for his consideration. He sat down across from me, crossing his legs and waiting expectantly, for my prowess as a storyteller was well known and, as he told me later, he liked to think of himself as something of an aficionado.