Samarkand Read online

  Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese journalist and writer. He was formerly director of the weekly international edition of the leading Beirut daily an-Nahar, and editor-in-chief of Jeune Afrique. He now lives with his wife and three children in Paris.

  Samarkand won the Prix des maisons de la presse and The Rock of Tanios was the 1993 winner of the Prix Goncourt.

  Russell Harris is a translator and researcher who lives in Amsterdam.

  ‘Maalouf’s novels recreate the thrill of childhood reading, that primitive mixture of learning about something unknown or unimagined and forgetting utterly about oneself … His is a voice which Europe cannot afford to ignore’

  Claire Messud, the Guardian

  Also by Amin Maalouf

  LEO THE AFRICAN

  THE FIRST CENTURY AFTER BEATRICE

  THE ROCK OF TANIOS

  THE GARDENS OF LIGHT

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978-0-74813-124-2

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Amin Maalouf 1989

  Translation copyright © Quartet Books 1992

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Also by Amin Maalouf

  Copyright

  Book One: Poets and Lovers

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Book Two: The Assassins’ Paradise

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Book Three: The End of the Millennium

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Book Four: A Poet at Sea

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  To my Father

  Look ’round thee now on Samarcand,

  Is she not queen of earth? her pride

  Above all cities? in her hand

  Their destinies?

  Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49)

  At the bottom of the Atlantic there is a book. I am going to tell you its history.

  Perhaps you know how the story ends. The newspapers of the day wrote about it, as did others later on. When the Titanic went down on the night of 14 April 1912 in the sea off the New World, its most eminent victim was a book, the only copy of the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam, the Persian sage, poet and astronomer.

  I shall not dwell upon the shipwreck. Others have already weighed its cost in dollars, listed the bodies and reported peoples’ last words. Six years after the event I am still obsessed by this object of flesh and ink whose unworthy guardian I was. Was I, Benjamin O. Lesage, not the one who snatched it from its Asian birth-place? Was it not amongst my luggage that it set sail on the Titanic? And was its age-old journey not interrupted by my century’s arrogance?

  Since then, the world has become daily more covered in blood and gloom, and life has ceased to smile on me. I have had to distance myself from people in order to hear the voice of my memory, to nurture a naive hope and insistent vision that tomorrow the manuscript will be found. Protected by its golden casket, it will emerge from the murky depths of the sea intact, its destiny enriched by a new odyssey. People will be able to finger it, open it and lose themselves in it. Captive eyes will follow the chronicle of its adventure from margin to margin, they will discover the poet, his first verses, his first bouts of drunkenness and his first fears; and the sect of the Assassins. Then they will stop, incredulous, at a painting the colour of sand and emerald.

  It bears neither date nor signature, nothing apart from these words which can be read as either impassioned or disenchanted: Samarkand, the most beautiful face the Earth has ever turned towards the sun.

  BOOK ONE

  Poets and Lovers

  Pray tell, who has not transgressed Your Law?

  Pray tell the purpose of a sinless life

  If with evil You punish the evil I have done

  Pray tell, what is the difference between You and me?

  OMAR KHAYYAM

  CHAPTER 1

  Sometimes in Samarkand, in the evening of a slow and dreary day, city dwellers would come to while the time away at the dead-end Street of Two Taverns, near the pepper market. They came not to taste the musky wine of Soghdia but to watch the comings and goings or to waylay a carouser who would then be forced down into the dust, showered with insults, and cursed into a hell whose fire, until the end of all time, would recall the ruddiness of the wine’s enticements.

  Out of such an incident the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat was to be born in the summer of 1072. Omar Khayyam was twenty-four and had recently arrived in Samarkand. Should he go to the tavern that evening, or stroll around at leisure? He chose the sweet pleasure of surveying an unknown town accompanied by the thousand sights of the waning day. In the Street of the Rhubarb Fields, a small boy bolted past, his bare feet padding over the wide paving slabs as he clutched to his neck an apple he had stolen from a stall. In the Bazaar of the Haberdashers, inside a raised stall, a group of backgammon players continued their dispute by the light of an oil lamp. Two dice went flying, followed by a curse and then a stifled laugh. In the arcade of the Rope-Makers, a muleteer stopped near a fountain, let the cool water run in the hollow formed by his two palms, then bent over, his lips pouting as if to kiss a sleeping child’s forehead. His thirst slaked, he ran his wet palms over his face and mumbled thanks to God. Then he fetched a hollowed-out watermelon, filled it with water and carried it to his beast so that it too might have its turn to drink.

  In the square of the market for cooked foods, Khayyam was accosted by a pregnant girl of about fifteen, whose veil was pushed back. Without a word or a smile on her artless lips, she slipped from his hands a few of the toasted almonds which he had just bought, but the stroller was not surprised. There is an ancient belief in Samarkand: when a mother-to-be comes across a pleasing stranger in the street, she must venture to partake of his food so that the child will be just as handsome, and have the same slender profile, the same noble and smooth features.

  Omar was lingering, proudly munching the remaining almonds as he watched the unknown women move off, when a noise prompted him to hurry on. Soon he was in the midst of an unruly crowd. An old man with long bony limbs was already on the ground. He was bare-headed with a few white hairs scattered about his tanned skull. His shouts of rage and
fright were no more than a prolonged sob and his eyes implored the newcomer.

  Around the unfortunate man there was a score of men sporting beards and brandishing vengeful clubs, and some distance away another group thrilled to the spectacle. One of them, noticing Khayyam’s horrified expression called out reassuringly, ‘Don’t worry. It’s only Jaber the Lanky!’ Omar flinched and a shudder of shame passed through him. ‘Jaber, the companion of Abu Ali!’ he muttered.

  Abu Ali was one of the commonest names of all, but when a well-read man in Bukhara, Cordova, Balkh or Baghdad, pronounced it with such a tone of familiar deference, there could be no confusion over whom they meant. It was Abu Ali Ibn Sina, renowned in the Occident under the name of Avicenna. Omar had not met him, having been born eleven years after his death, but he revered him as the undisputed master of the generation, the possessor of science, the Apostle of Reason.

  Khayyam muttered anew, ‘Jaber, the favourite disciple of Abu Ali!’, for, even though he was seeing him for the first time, he knew all about the pathetic and exemplary punishment which had been meted out to him. Avicenna had soon considered him as his successor in the fields of medicine and metaphysics; he had admired the power of his argument and only rebuked him for expounding his ideas in a manner which was slightly too haughty and blunt. This won Jaber several terms in prison and three public beatings, the last having taken place in the Great Square of Samarkand when he was given one hundred and fifty lashes in front of all his family. He never recovered from that humiliation. At what moment had he teetered over the edge into madness? Doubtless upon the death of his wife. He could be seen staggering about in rags and tatters, yelling out and ranting irreverently. Hot on his trail would follow packs of kids, clapping their hands and throwing sharp stones at him until he ended up in tears.

  As he watched this scene, Omar could not help thinking, ‘If I am not careful, I could well end up a wretch like that.’ It was not so much that he feared drunkenness for he and wine had learnt to respect each other, and the one would never lay the other low. What he feared was the idea that the mob could break down his wall of respectability. He felt overly menaced by the spectacle of this fallen man and wanted to distance himself from it. He knew however that he could not just abandon a companion of Avicenna to the crowd. He took three solemn steps, and struck a detached pose as he spoke firmly and with regal gesture.

  ‘Leave the poor man alone.’

  The gang leader who had been bent over Jaber came and planted himself upright in front of the intruder. A deep scar ran across his beard, from his right ear to the tip of his chin, and it was this puckered profile that he thrust towards Omar, as he uttered in judgement, ‘This man is a drunkard, an infidel.’ Then he hissed out the last word like a curse, ‘a failasuf!’

  ‘We want no failasuf in Samarkand!’

  A murmur of approval arose from the crowd. For these people, the term ‘philosopher’ denoted anything too closely associated with the profane Greek sciences, and more generally anything which was neither religion nor literature. In spite of his tender age, Omar Khayyam was already an eminent failasuf and as such a greater catch than poor Jaber.

  The man with the scar had certainly not recognized him, since he turned back to Jaber who was still speechless. He grabbed him by the hair, shook his head three or four times and made as if to smash it against the nearest wall, but then suddenly released him. Although brutal, it was a gesture of restraint, as if the man while showing his determination hesitated to commit a murder. Khayyam chose this moment to intervene again.

  ‘Leave the old man alone. He is a widower. He is sick – a lunatic. Can’t you see, he can hardly move his lips.’

  The gang leader jumped up and came towards Khayyam, poking Khayyam’s beard.

  ‘You seem to know him quite well! Just who are you? You aren’t from Samarkand! No one has ever seen you in this city!’

  Omar brushed aside the man’s hand haughtily but not abruptly enough to give him the excuse for a fight. The man took a step back, but persisted, ‘What is your name, stranger?’

  Khayyam hesitated to deliver himself into their hands. He tried to think of some ploy. He raised his eyes to the sky where a light cloud had just obscured the crescent moon. He remained silent and then uttered a sigh. He longed to immerse himself in contemplation, to enumerate the stars, to be far off, safe from crowds!

  The gang had surrounded him and some hands were brushing against him. He came back to himself.

  ‘I am Omar, son of Ibrahim of Nishapur. And who are you?’

  The question was for the sake of form only. The man had no intention of introducing himself. He was in his home town and he was asking the questions. Later on Omar would learn his name. He was a student called Scar-Face. With a club in his hand and a quotation on his lips, he was soon to make all Samarkand tremble but for the moment his influence only extended to the circle of youths around him, who hung on his every word and gesture.

  Suddenly his eyes lit up. He went back toward his disciples, and then turned towards the crowd triumphantly and shouted, ‘By God, how did I not recognise Omar, son of Ibrahim Khayyam of Nishapur? Omar, the star of Khorassan, the genius of Persia and Mesopotamia, the prince of philosophers!’

  As he mimed a deep bow, he fluttered his fingers on both sides of his turban and succeeded in drawing out the guffaws of the onlookers, ‘How did I not recognize the man who composed such a pious and devotional rubai:

  You have broken my jug of wine, Lord.

  You have barred me from the path of pleasure, Lord.

  You have spilt my ruby wine on the ground.

  God forgive me, but perchance You are drunk, Lord.

  Omar listened indignantly, but worried. This provocation could provide an excuse for murder on the spot. Without wasting a second, he shot back his response in a loud, clear voice lest anyone in the crowd be fooled. ‘I do not recognize this quatrain. Indeed this is first time I have ever heard it. But here is a rubai which I myself have composed:

  They know nothing, neither do they desire to know.

  Men with no knowledge who rule the world!

  If you are not of them, they call you infidel

  Ignore them, Khayyam, go your own way.

  Omar really should not have accompanied the words ‘men with no knowledge’ with a scornful gesture toward his opponents. Hands came at him, grabbing his robe which started to rip. He tottered, his back struck someone’s knee and then landed on a paving stone. Crushed under the pack, he did not deign to fight his way out but was resigned to having his clothing ripped from him, being torn limb from limb, and he had already abandoned himself to the numbness of a sacrificial victim. He could feel nothing, hear nothing. He was closed in on himself and laid bare.

  So much so, that he viewed as intruders the ten armed men who came to break up this sacrifice. On their felt hats they wore the pale green insignia of the ahdath, the town militia of Samarkand. The moment they saw them, his assailants drew back from Khayyam, but to justify their conduct they started to shout, ‘Alchemist! Alchemist!’, calling upon the crowd as their witness.

  In the eyes of the authorities being a philosopher was not a crime, but practising alchemy could mean death.

  However, the chief of the patrol did not intend to enter into an argument.

  “If this man is in fact an alchemist,’ he pronounced, ‘then he must be taken before the chief qadi Abu Taher.’

  As Jaber the Lanky, forgotten by all, crawled toward the nearest tavern, and inched his way inside resolving never to step foot outdoors again, Omar managed to raise himself up without anyone’s help. He walked straight ahead, in silence. His disdainful mien covered his tattered clothing and bloodied face like a veil of modesty. In front of him, the militiamen bearing torches forged ahead. To the rear followed his attackers, and behind them the group of gawkers.

  Omar did not see or hear them. To him the streets were deserted, the country was silent, the sky was cloudless, and Samarkand was still the
place of dreams which he had discovered a few years earlier.

  He had arrived there after a journey of three weeks and, without taking the least rest, had decided to follow closely the advice of voyagers of times long past. Go up, they had suggested, onto the terrace of Kuhandiz. Take a good look around and you will see only water and greenery, beds in flower, cyprus trees pruned by the cleverest gardeners to look like bulls, elephants, sturdy camels or fighting panthers which appear about to leap. Indeed, even inside the wall, from the gate of the Monastery, to the West and up to the China Gate, Omar had never seen such dense orchards and sparkling brooks. Then, here and there, a brick minaret shot up with a dome chiselled by shadow, the whiteness of a belvedere wall, and, at the edge of a lake which brooded beneath its weeping willows, a naked swimmer spreading out her hair to the burning wind.

  Is it not this vision of paradise that the anonymous painter wanted to evoke, when, much later, he attempted to illustrate the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat? Is it not this which Omar had in mind as he was being led away towards the quarter of Asfizar where Abu Taher, chief qadi of Samarkand, lived? He was repeating to himself, over and over, ‘I will not hate this city. Even if my swimming girl is just a mirage. Even if the reality should be cold and ugly. Even if this cool night should be my last.’

  CHAPTER 2

  In the qadi’s huge diwan the distant chandeliers gave Khayyam an ivory hue. As he entered two middle-aged guards pinned him by the shoulders as if he was a violent madman – and in this posture he waited by the door.

  Seated at the other end of the room, the qadi had not noticed him as he gave out a ruling on some affair and carried on a discussion with the plaintiffs, reasoning with the one and reprimanding the other. It seemed to be an old quarrel amongst neighbours, consisting of tired old gripes and pettifoggery. Abu Taher ended by loudly showing his weariness, ordering the two heads of family to embrace, there and then in front of him, as if they had never quarrelled. One of the two took a step forward but the other, a giant with a narrow forehead, objected. The qadi gave him a mighty slap on the face at which the onlookers trembled. The giant cast a quick look at this chubby, angry and frisky man who had had to hoist himself up to reach him, then he lowered his head, wiped his cheek and complied.