At last, a name! The third dervish is no longer just ‘the third dervish’ – he is Ajib ibn Khadib. A name that rolls over the tongue, melodious, mysterious, equivalent to John Smith for all I know but with clanging syllables that ring out the fabled Orient.
But it is a name accursed.
Twelfth-century Arab design showing, from the centre: the ancient planets (the Moon with a mirror; Mercury as a scribe; Venus with a dulcimer; a haloed Sun; Mars as a warrior; Jupiter as a worthy; Saturn as an ascetic), the signs of the Zodiac in a clockwise order, the Moon's phases in an anti-clockwise order aligned with the Mansions of the Moon.
It is the name of the murderer of the single beloved boy born very late in life to a father who had given up all hope of children. It says so in his horoscope. How can you challenge someone else’s horoscope, or turn down the starring role assigned to you by the stars in their fate? Supposing you find out about it?
When it comes to himself, Ajib has no doubt that God has it all worked out for him, although not in a good way:
As for me, Almighty God preserved my life as it was his intention to distress, torture and afflict me further.
He does not question why God would want to treat him like this, nor does he fail to call on God’s name and offer praise and prayer at every turn. God’s will will be done. But when God’s plans at last bring him and the boy together, the cat gets out of the bag and the full horror of foreknowledge overwhelms Ajib.
It surely overwhelms the spellbound audience too. We now know, and Ajib now knows, who it is who is fated to be the death of the boy.
But the boy does not know.
And there is a teensy weensy loophole.
The horoscope says the boy will die at Ajib’s hands at the age of fifteen. But if he escapes the danger for forty days, he will live a long life. Horoscopes are often like that, it seems. It’s a bit of an issue in predestination theory.
Ajib is already more than half in love with the lovely lad
a tender branch, enchanting every heart with his grace and enslaving all minds with his coquetry
and can think of nothing but caring for him and keeping him company during his lonesome forty day trial and returning him at last safely to his old father
a skeletal figure, crushed by Time and worn away … wearing a tattered blue robe through which the wind blew east and west.
They are marooned on a tiny island. There is nowhere to go.
What would you do, in Ajib’s shoes? What, exactly, is God’s will?
Well, I could tell this enchanting coquettish boy about the prophecy and get him to bind me tight with lianas for forty days so that I can come to no mischief, whether it be murder, seduction by the boy’s coquetry, or both.
Or on the other hand I might say “to hell with that plan!” If it is God’s will that I am here, and I am to kill the boy, let us enjoy one another’s company for thirty-nine days and then I shall imitate Abraham and bind the boy to an altar. I’ll wait ten minutes to see if a ram appears caught in a nearby bush, as an alternative sacrifice.
If no ram appears, and I manage to get off the island, I won’t be going any time soon to pay a social visit to the old father.
[...] is too busy telling us how he is the blameless victim of fate, cast by the unfeeling stars as the unwilling murderer of innocent [...]