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NABIL ALAIHI, AGE UNKNOWN, BEDOUIN
It made me very happy to know that Athena had kept a photo of me in a place of honor in her apartment, but I don't really think what I taught her had any real use. She came here to the desert, leading a three-year-old boy by the hand. She opened her bag, took out a cassette tape player, and sat down outside my tent. I know that people from the city usually give my name to foreigners who want to experience some local cooking, and so I told her at once that it was too early for supper.
"I came for another reason," she said. "Your nephew Hamid is a client at the bank where I work and he told me that you're a wise man."
"Hamid is a rather foolish youth who may well say that I'm a wise man, but who never follows my advice. Mohammed, the Prophet, may the blessings of God be upon him, he was a wise man."
I pointed to her car.
"You shouldn't drive alone in a place you don't know, and you shouldn't come here without a guide."
Instead of replying, she turned on the tape player. Then all I could see was this young woman dancing on the dunes and her son watching her in joyous amazement; and the sound seemed to fill the whole desert. When she finished, she asked if I had enjoyed it.
I said that I had. There is a sect in our religion that uses dance as a way of getting closer to Allah--blessed be his name. [Editor's note: The sect in question is Sufism.]
"Well," said the woman, who introduced herself as Athena, "ever since I was a child, I've felt that I should grow closer to God, but life always took me farther away from him. Music is one way I've discovered of getting close, but it isn't enough. Whenever I dance, I see a light, and that light is now asking me to go further. But I can't continue learning on my own; I need someone to teach me."
"Anything will do," I told her. "Because Allah, the merciful, is always near. Lead a decent life, and that will be enough."
But the woman appeared unconvinced. I said that I was busy, that I needed to prepare supper for the few tourists who might appear. She told me that she'd wait for as long as was necessary.
"And the child?"
"Don't worry about him."
While I was making my usual preparations, I observed the woman and her son. They could have been the same age; they ran about the desert, laughed, threw sand at each other, and rolled down the dunes. The guide arrived with three German tourists, who ate and asked for beer, and I had to explain that my religion forbade me to drink or to serve alcoholic drinks. I invited the woman and her son to join us for supper, and in that unexpected female presence, one of the Germans became quite animated. He said that he was thinking of buying some land, that he had a large fortune saved up and believed in the future of the region.
"Great," she replied. "I believe in the region too."
"It would be good to have supper somewhere, so that we could talk about the possibility of--"
"No," she said, holding a card out to him, "but if you like, you can get in touch with my bank."
When the tourists left, we sat down outside the tent. The child soon fell asleep on her lap. I fetched blankets for us all, and we sat looking up at the starry sky. Finally, she broke the silence.
"Why did Hamid say that you were a wise man?"
"Perhaps so that I'll be more patient with him. There was a time when I tried to teach him my art, but Hamid seemed more interested in earning money. He's probably convinced by now that he's wiser than I am: he has an apartment and a boat, while here I am in the middle of the desert, making meals for the occasional tourist. He doesn't understand that I'm satisfied with what I do."
"He understands perfectly, and he always speaks of you with great respect. And what do you mean by your 'art'?"
"I watched you dancing today--well, I do the same thing, except that it's the letters, not my body, that dance."
She looked surprised.
"My way of approaching Allah--may his name be praised--has been through calligraphy, and the search for the perfect meaning of each word. A single letter requires us to distill in it all the energy it contains, as if we were carving out its meaning. When sacred texts are written, they contain the soul of the man who served as an instrument to spread them throughout the world. And that doesn't apply only to sacred texts, but to every mark we place on paper. Because the hand that draws each line reflects the soul of the person making that line."
"Would you teach me what you know?"
"First, I don't think anyone as full of energy as you would have the patience for this. Besides, it's not part of your world, where everything is printed without, if you'll allow me to say so, much thought being given to what is being published."
"I'd like to try."
And so, for more than six months, that woman--whom I'd judged to be too restless and exuberant to be able to sit still for a moment--came to visit me every Friday. Her son would go to one corner of the tent, take up paper and brushes, and he too would devote himself to revealing in his paintings whatever the heavens determined.
When I saw the immense effort it took her to keep still and to maintain the correct posture, I said: "Don't you think you'd be better off finding something else to do?" She replied: "No, I need this, I need to calm my soul, and I still haven't learned everything you can teach me. The light of the Vertex told me that I should continue." I never asked her what the Vertex was, nor was I interested.
The first lesson, and perhaps the most difficult, was: "Patience!"
