The Geometry of God, page 13
The last time I saw Petrov, I noticed that he was wearing a huge emerald on his little finger. It was just before the war in Afghanistan ended. He returned Selections from Charles Darwin to me, grumbling:
- "It's like unrolling a scroll." The fucking hijra was right!
Later Faisal the Vulgar and I walked home alone.
-And good? -I wonder.
"Well what?"
"Didn't you see the piece of emerald she was wearing on her finger?"
-Yes of course.
"Where do you think he got it from?"
"You're the journalist," I replied after shrugging.
"From the Panjshir Valley." He gestured with his chin as if he were watching Afghanistan loom over my shoulder. The rebels mine gems on a large scale. Petrov sells them in Chitral, Peshawar and even here.
Another thing must be said about Faisal, apart from his vulgarity: he is capable of getting the most out of a news item. From a solid rock he manages to distill a conspiracy. And Petrov could turn out to be a rock. I remember the way he looked at me when we said goodbye. As if his war never ends or, perhaps, his peace, which shows that he is a man who has neither friends nor enemies.
"What do you do with the money?" -I asked for.
-What do you think? Finance the mujahideen, yaar. The next time you see a pretty girl with lapis around her neck, think: that's a bullet in the neck of a red one. ”He patted me on the back. It is our duty as believers to adorn our sisters.
"Is Petrov helping destroy his own army?" He was surprised by the news and confused by my reaction.
"His army has destroyed him." He looked at me. Why are you so impressed? Better that they kill us.
In other words, almost three years later, the Mujahideen factions fight each other with the same ferocity with which they once faced the infidels, while smuggling continues to flourish. Petrov must have always known the best place to find the rarest gems: the refugee camps on the Afghan-Pakistani border. I imagine him coldly negotiating each stone while dodging the bullets. But it pains me that in all that time he has not tried to contact me even once. So I go to look for him in the park where we used to meet from time to time, the one on a hill frequented by prostitutes, journalists and junkies.
Instead of Petrov, I meet Ali, the tennis star, and Faisal the Vulgar. I have seen little of them too since I am busy traveling with Aba.
Since there are no ladies around, I can tell you how Faisal got his nickname: because of his constant restlessness in thinking that the Almighty had created his seed to serve humanity and he was wasting it because of his addiction to porn movies.
Now he's rolling a joint.
"What are you writing about?" I ask him. I already know the answer: smuggling, corruption.
"Look who's come!" He says without looking up. He asks me to bring him some tea.
"Very good," I take a seat. What is the history? Ali paces around like a camera is focusing on him as his wife gives birth in the next room. Narcotics? I look at Faisal. Adultery?
-Why are you here? Ali asks, stopping his coming and going. Weren't you busy solving the crisis in our minds?
I look at Faisal.
"You mean the crisis of our hands," he says with a frown.
Ali laughs and watches the path down the hillside.
"Elizabeth is crossing the street." Well! —He ran off to greet his current girlfriend, leaving me alone with Faisal.
"Have you seen Petrov?" I ask him.
"They told me he was in Baltistan," he says, shrugging.
"In Baltistan?"
"The warlords are interfering in the business, especially the men of Hekmatyar." They rob the miners. But not in the country of Baltistan. I wouldn't be surprised if Petrov started a business on a glacier.
"What's in Baltistan?"
-I do not know. Have you heard of tamaline or beryllium or something like that?
-No. How do you find out about all this?
He smiles, he knows he has me in his hands.
"You've been going around the world and you have no idea what's going on around here."
-For instance?
He takes his time, gloating over his advantage. I do not care. The poor man has never had a chance. Finally, speak.
"For example, that Petrov and Salman are partners."
-That?
“The last time I was at Salman's house,” she says, grinning, “he offered Ann, you know, the German one, a beryllium or whatever it's called, pink and six carats. Ali almost hit him!
"And she accepted it?"
-I guess so.
-Wow!
He nodded, still smiling.
"Let me guess: Salman uses the profits to feed the masses."
Faisal looks up at the sky dramatically, happy to be able to criticize Salman, but turning him green soon loses its charm. We accept his food, we drink his whiskey, and in return we hate him. Pathetic! He is much better friends with Petrov than I would ever be. I try to cheer myself up by imagining myself in Salman's house, on my knees in front of my neighbor Unsa, offering her a six-carat pink beryllium while confessing all the times I have eagerly watched her.
Like, for example, this spring when I saw Unsa running home in a dust storm, hugging some loquats to her chest. Two fell off and rolled down the sidewalk and I was dying to act like a hero and go rescue them before they fell down the gutter, but Unsa's brother was on the roof watching how I watched his sister from mine, both of us half-blind from the dust swirling around us. I went inside the house for her sake.
And I confess that from my rooftop I have watched her eat strawberries sitting in front of my door. How he nibbles each fruit ten times before eating it, how he rubs it against his lips, turns it a little and rubs it again. The only reason I don't run downstairs is because if I do, she will run too. So I just watch her kiss five strawberries in fifteen minutes and moan to myself. Does she look up? Of course not. Do you know I'm up there? Of course yes. If not, why would he sit down to eat in front of my door?
I am still engulfed in my fantasy, imagining myself kneeling at Unsa's feet with a pink beryllium that transforms into a strawberry and that she places in my mouth with a kiss, when Faisal abruptly pulls me out of my sweet reverie.
"What would your father say about that?"
-About what?
Faisal shrugs with the same frustration with which he puts a tape into his VCR every night.
Then I realize what he means.
—My father would say that God intervenes every second to punish those who do evil. So stay away from candles and stoves.
"Then it's not just my fault," he says, nodding. Do you want tea? I'm thirsty.
So we head down the hill and that's when I see her again. The voluptuous sister, now less plump and with more tousled hair if possible. Almost three years have passed since I first saw her. Looks like she was… eighteen? Nineteen? Sehr's age. But my sister is still a child, and compared to this girl, even Unsa would seem like it. Next to her is Zahoor, with his long legs and without any appearance of being a threatened man, imbued with ostentatious dignity. Something I've never had and never will have. Next to him, Mehwish. She is taller, but just as skinny. A mini-replica of Grandpa, she walks upright with calculated uncertainty. He does not carry a cane or lean on anyone but extends his right hand forward without slowing down. Of the three, her face is the one that has changed the most. It has been fine-tuned. She even has more prominent cheekbones than before, darker skin, and a well-delineated mouth. She is no longer a naughty girl. Like her sister, she is engrossed in the process of becoming a woman.
Why am I so excited? It is as if I have seen a niece who has become a woman. After all, I'm turning twenty-five this year and that girl, try as she might, can't be more than twelve. The first time I saw them, it was Zahoor and the older sister who piqued my curiosity. It is now Mehwish. There is something about her that is familiar to me, but I don't know what it is. Is it something that I have lost, or found? An inner longing, the longing for a dialogue. I mean a spiritual dialogue.
The image of that curious trio remains with me. The curvy girl hastily untangling her hair that now reaches her waist; Mehwish determined not to depend on her sister; Zahoor determined to change us all.
That triangle needs a fourth vertex.
Amal
Look at Mehwish. Your inner eye grows as the outer one diminishes. It is like that strange whale, the narwhal, which has a tooth that is over a meter long and another that is barely two centimeters long. The short tooth represents his eyes. The long one, your imagination. Where will it take her? He complains about having to be at school, in a classroom packed with students and with teachers who do not know how to answer his questions. They are not interested in your silent lyrics.
And look at Nana, she is still the same in her pursuit of the primitive whale, but her attitude towards me has changed. It is likely that the same thing happened between my mother and him. She grew up and it affected my grandfather. He only changes his attitude when we are in public, so I am still his pride. His trophy.
This afternoon he said:
"You have to pay attention to the riddles." For example, between the two bookends, the primitive whale, Pakicetus, and the modern one, Basilosaurus, there must be some fossil of whales that were beginning to swim. Some things we have overlooked might be as valuable a clue as the skull fragment that she, I mean my granddaughter, sitting there, found eleven years ago.
I didn't stand up or say my name was Amal because I'm practical and what I like is action. I did not say that I would rather find another key piece, not become one. No, I just sat there and smiled.
Noman
I'm traveling with Aba again. This time in Europe.
I close my eyes and listen to how the Mediterranean slides between the continents, joining fish and stories. And He is the one who created man from this same water.
I open my eyes. We have drawn water from every living thing.
Lately, wherever I go, there is always someone who points out some fragment of the Book to me. But no one points me to the fragments that I expect. They do not point out those that help to rewrite other books. The snippets you quote me are the ones you shouldn't take into account, like those references to water.
You could use them to show that we have followed certain stages of development, starting with, for example, a lizard coiled inside an embryonic fluid. Instead of starting with an idea and searching for its clues (and running the risk of going anywhere), like Aba, you could start with the conclusion (the sticky membrane of a newborn is a holdover from its reptilian origins) to end by pointing to the Koran.
I have climbed up to these ruins. Whenever I can, I climb to the highest point, like a rooster looking for a strategic position. The roof of the house; the coffee on the terrace of Rabat; Simia Hill in Lahore (the only mound in the entire city); these cliffs in Greece. I don't cluck. I am attentive to the headlands from which you can see the landscape. But everyone scanning the horizon around me on this windswept ledge is a tourist. Some are watching and shivering, like me, others are big and bombastic, like Aba.
God has created all animals from water.
I have become a man who cannot even look at the stars, or tune into a radio station, without looking for a verse that proves that one thing or another exists. Or look for another verse that eliminates any reason that justifies walking up to this temple, since It Has Been Climbed Before.
Atheism is a cancer that has its favorite organ in its pen. We must resort to all available means to try to eradicate it, otherwise there is a risk that it will spread. And since we touched on the topic of cancer treatment, remove all reference to Marie Curie and her alleged radiation.
Again in Lahore. Lethargy. Headaches. Please let me sleep. Someone closes the door.
I force myself to write: Today we have a problem with our children….
Why am I writing it?
When is it needed?
I can't remember. I go back to bed.
Today we have a problem with our children. They have lost touch with the true story; They believe that Pakistan was created in 1947 when, in fact, Mohamed bin Qasim discovered it in 712. Qasim was only seventeen years old when he liberated this land from the infidels, but what are the young people of today doing? They are weirdos from a cultural point of view and only know how to pronounce strange words.
Was it me who wrote that? I hear a soft whisper: Take, for example, the bee.
-Now it is OK! Ama says. Your father has been very patient with you, but you have to get up — he serves me the same soup that he gives to his grandchildren when they are sick. Then he puts the notebook on my pillow. Your fever is down. Try to sit down and finish his speech.
Someone (me?) Has written:
THE KEY TO LIFE AFTER DEATH
Let's be like Al-Ashari and Al-Ghazali, who a thousand years ago saved the soul of Islam….
I have a vague idea that Aba has to make this speech very soon and that I have been trying to finish it for days. My clothes suck. My face is greasy. My cheeks itch from my unshaven beard. I lean across the desk and shake my pen. Ink splatters my face. Think of something. I review all my notes from the last five years. My brain is dead. I go out to the roof.
I don't see Unsa outside my front door. I only see a small swarm of bees by the driveway. They clean their paws in front of their wax temples. I marvel at his methods: point, line, space. It is the magic of abstract space displayed in perfect proportions! The bees of Al-Jwarizmi. A honeycomb paradise. I hear again: Take, for example, the bee.
Where have I read that?
I go back to my room, flip through several pages, find the verse: Think about how your creator has inspired the bee… that eats all kinds of fruits… (and who would have thought?) From within them (the bees) comes a liquid of many colors.
The translator chose to write "inspired" rather than "divinely revealed."
I visit the Queen Bee. She is in the kitchen preparing the soup.
-I'm happy that you're here. Nadir has a cold. As soon as this is done, you can bring it closer.
Nadir is my nephew, who is three years old. He is a spoiled child and that is why I call him the Nadir Shah, conqueror of India and Persia.
"He only sneezed once." In the XVIII century. I'll take it myself.
"You're fine now," my mother replies, and serves me some soup anyway.
As it cools, I take out the pot of honey and stick a finger inside. Honey has a slightly pungent taste. A bright blue spot has been left floating in the golden sea contained in the boat. The tendrils of ink begin to fade just as the bitterness slowly fades from my tongue, leaving a pleasant itch with a grassy aftertaste. I dip a thumb into the honey and leave an even larger dark green stain on it.
"Use a spoon." Ama looks up from the seething pot of chicken bones and pepper and hands me a spoon.
I dip the spoon into the jar and scoop it out full of green honey. An amber thread falls back into the pot from the bottom of the spoon.
"Eat it." Don't play with it. You will never grow up. Do you at least know what year we are in?
With each passing year his hair is less dark, but, except for that, almost nothing has changed. Go on without wrinkles, without getting fat and without getting nervous. Even his hairstyle is the same. Her hair is fine and straight like gray bamboo shoots, parted in the middle, pulled over her tiny ears and tied in a bun. Tiny gold hoops swing below the bow that the hair draws above the ears. They were from his mother. It is her only flirtation. Turn off the gas in the kitchen and say a prayer over the soup.
Then he tells me everything that happened during the week I was ill: the wear and tear of the alliance between the religious parties and the Government; the decline in both foreign funding and the popularity of the executive at the national level.
"... and all that despite the passing of the Sharia Law last year," he says. I did not know that my mother was so well informed. He continues with his speech. People don't talk about anything else, yet you play with honey! This meeting in Lahore is very important to your father. He is always in a bad mood. Finish the speech and then take this to Shaista. ”Wraps the pot in a kitchen towel.
I return to my room with a mild aftertaste of honey and I am surprised to see everything I have already written.
the key to life after death
Let us be like Al-Ashari and Al-Ghazali, who a thousand years ago saved the soul of Islam from infidels like Al-Farabi and Avicenna. Remember that as recently as the last century, the roots of Islam were rotting away again. The infidels who stole the earth from us taught us to think in a universe without beliefs. And those times have returned. Again we must fight to avoid becoming slaves of the senses.
Which brings us to the question: what is science? For some it is "blind nature." Among the defenders of this science are men like Zahoor ul Din, who prevent access to the true message of Islam, turning it into a riddle full of hidden metaphors and poetry, distorting it here and there and getting great support for their thesis. But they are the blind and the blind must create what they cannot see. Those who see and comply with Sharia have the gift of a "third" eye. We see the Revelation of the Divine Trials. We have removed the veil from our eyes. We do not need to "interpret" or even "read." We see everything, the visible and the invisible, the angels and demonic geniuses.
Those born without vision will not be able to overshadow us. They will burn forever while we will be rewarded for fulfilling our Sharia and our destiny.
I know Aba will be very happy, especially with the last line and the title, but I can't believe I wrote this. Was it Mistress?
I go back to the kitchen to ask her, but she kicks me out of there saying she's late for Isha's prayers.
Who taught me to think that Aba was wrong and at the same time prove that he was right? I have returned to the starting point. Or I have crashed. I can defend any point of view. I have no ideas of my own. Light and darkness cancel each other out. The ions in my brain are in a completely frozen state. This is Noman, which is an island. It is not a synthesis, not even a cultural freak. But an absence.
