The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction Read online

Bin Ayyub replied to her purring, rippling syllables, speaking some language unknown to me; and then the tapestried portieres closed and hid her from sight.

  “You will surely pardon me, effendi. Though Djénane Hanoum speaks English, she prefers her native language,” he remarked, then clapped his hands to summon Saoud.

  Fresh coffee was served. And then, as my cigarette smoldered to its finish, bin Ayyub rose, rolled up the precious Isphahan and again offered it to me.

  “And in ten days or two weeks the throne-rug of Saladin will be spliced by skilled weavers. I would be very glad to have you return and see it after it is restored.”

  The clicking of the latch behind me reminded me that I was again in the city of Chicago; and the Isphahan did not let me forget that I had actually been awake the past few hours.

  Whenever there has been a killing, the vultures assemble. I had marveled that Morgan Revell had not stumbled across the throne-rug of Saladin before I did. Thus it was that I was not surprised to have him call at my apartment that very evening.

  “Well…most extraordinary, that. Where did you get it?” he demanded, as he paused in the doorway, stripping off his gloves in preparation for the inspection of the Isphahan that bin Ayyub had so generously given me. “Shades of Shah Abbas! Strike me blind, but it seems genuine. And perfect.”

  He then parked his bulk in my favorite chair, and poured himself a drink, and proceeded to extract the story. And naturally I was not at all averse to enlightening him; for this would about even up for his eternal boasting of the mosque carpet of Eski Shehr: a remarkable tale, but one which eventually wears on one’s nerves.

  “On the level now, did anyone actually make you a present of this Isphahan?” he inquired as I concluded my account of the day’s doings.

  “Idiot,” said I, “do you think I could have bought it?”

  “Well, no. But still—” His features parted in a reminiscent grin. “Perhaps you remember the mosque carpet of Eski Shehr?”

  “Lay off that mosque carpet! No, I got this honestly and without any of your clever devices.”

  “Score one for you! But really now, old egg, don’t you know, this is a most unusual tale you’re telling. Quite preposterous, quite! First of all, this bin Ayyub person is a rara avis, and all that, if at all. Who ever heard of one of those beggars who had any appreciation of an antique rug?”

  “What about—?”

  “Rot! Whoever you were going to cite is probably a dealer. It’s simply preposterous, this bin Ayyub who collects ancient rugs. And that descendant of Saladin; why really, old fruit, that doesn’t hold water at all.”

  I insisted that there were Orientals who did appreciate the beauty of the wondrous rugs which they wove.

  “Quite so, quite so. But just consider,” countered Revell, “that this Isphahan which you treasure as an antique was painfully new in the days when good old Shah Abbas was so partial to fine weaving and inventing new designs. That jolly prince had nothing but antiques on his hands, and he craved new ones; also new patterns. So much so that he sent artists to Italy to study design.”

  “But, damn it, I tell you—”

  “Ah yes, surely. Nevertheless, I insist that the appreciation of antiques is an Occidental taste, and one which is jolly well artificial. Remember that little Armenian in Ashjian’s showrooms and how much he felt that we were upset above the ears for preferring a threadbare Kabistan to a new Sarouk?”

  I remembered.

  “Well, now go to Ashjian’s and let that same lad catch you admiring a Kirman rose-rug. Hear him sigh with much ecstasy; see him caper about; get the gallons of praise he pours on the heads of those fine old eggs who really knew how to weave a rug. He knows his litany now; but he wasn’t born that way.”

  Revell scored.

  “But bin Ayyub is a cultured gentleman. I’ll take you out to his house, and then you’ll be convinced about it all, including his being a descendant of Saladin.”

  “Very well, have it your own way. You know, it really may be quite possible. Only, it’s just a bit unusual, if you know what I mean,” Revell finally conceded as I completed my repetition of the story, and added bits of color I had omitted the first time. “Not that I doubted your word. But in all honesty, old onion, can you blame me for being a shade skeptical? When even the Shah’s palace in Teheran is cluttered with gilt bric-a-brac, and modern Sultanieh rugs, and all that sort of atrocious thing. Beastly taste these beggars show. But this bin Ayyub fellow may be the exception; though I contend that whatever the art the Orient provides is the result of instinct and not intent.”

  I granted most of his contentions. And then we discussed the great jar of attar, and the surpassing loveliness of bin Ayyub’s “family.”

  “Most fascinating, really. This sounds like what people think the Orient ought to be, but never actually is. Houris, and incense, and all that sort of thing.” Then, just as he left: “By the way, did you ever read the quaint little tale of Aladdin’s lamp?”

  “Sure. What of it?”

  “Nothing, really nothing at all. Merely curious, you know.”

  Now what had that buzzard meant by that remark? A subtle way of calling me an out-and-out romancer? Or did he mean that in getting my Isphahan I had stumbled into something Aladdin-like?

  And then I carefully examined the Isphahan. No, Revell had not palmed it and left a replica in its place. Strangely enough, he had not even tried to trade or bargain for it.

  * * * *

  It was fully two weeks before I could find time to call on bin Ayyub to inspect the restoration of the throne-rug. But finally I did contrive to find some spare time, and just to convince Revell that I had not been releasing an Arabian fantasy, I decided to take him along.

  “Cheers, old bean!” greeted Revell. “I was just thinking… But how do you like it?”

  It, the throne-rug of Saladin, stared me in the face: rich, lustrous, magnificent, now that it had been cleaned, and the pieces spliced together.

  “Where in—?”

  Revell laughed at my amazement. “Most amazing, what? But don’t rub your eyes. It is exactly what it looks like: the rug of the justly popular Saladin. I was just thinking of asking you to translate the inscription. Couldn’t remember the exact wording you gave me several nights ago.”

  “Devil take inscriptions! How did you get it? Unless he suddenly needed the money.”

  “You could have done the same thing,” Revell began, as he poured himself a drink, then painstakingly selected a cigar. “Especially after I told you in so many words how to go about it.”

  “How come, told me how to go about it?”

  This was too much for me. He’d been up to dirty work of some kind. It was unbelievable that he had purchased that rug; and I doubted that he was clever enough to have outwitted bin Ayyub. Then what? Breaking and entering? Well, not very likely.

  “The last thing I said the other night was something about Aladdin’s lamp. I fancy you recollect. But I was jolly well certain you’d not follow my train of thought. Well…the magician from El Moghreb paraded up and down in front of Aladdin’s palace, offering to exchange old lamps for new ones. And the princess—Mrs. Aladdin—was tickled pink to take an unfair advantage of an old man’s foolishness. So she joyously swapped the greasy, tarnished old magic lamp for a nice, new one. Never occurred to Aladdin to tell the young person his wife that the rather crude old lamp was of some value. Simple, really.”

  “Do you mean to say—?”

  “Oh, yes, quite. Exactly, in fact. Mrs. bin Ayyub greatly fancied a lovely Anatolian silk rug about the same size as the revered Saladin’s throne-rug, which, by the way, she thought was a bit passé. Liked my silk rug; bright colors, and not at all worn, and all that sort of thing. So we swapped; and I fancy I noted a gleam of triumph or something like that in her most fascinating eyes. Charming creature, yes?”

>   And then I exploded.

  “You ought to be shot! He’ll beat the tar out of her. He’ll flay her alive—”

  “Regrets, and all that, surely. But caveat emptor still holds good. She had no business messing around with the master’s trinkets. After all, a bit of deceit—”

  “And that girl will surely smell hell—”

  “Much regret, certainly. But really, would you have me pass up such an opportunity? I’d cheerfully have committed murder for that rug. As it is—”

  Revell smiled at the memory of his exceeding cleverness, and gazed at the throne-rug of Saladin with that fanatic affection comprehensible only to a collector.

  And that smile drove me mad. Thanks to my babbling, Revell had turned a very clever trick; and thanks also to me, that dainty girl’s shoulders…no, bin Ayyub wouldn’t beat her himself; he’d have black Saoud lay aside his duties of footman, pipe-bearer and coffee-grinder, and peel every inch of skin off her shoulders. The noble Turk is a man of few words and short temper when dealing with his family. All of which went to my head, seeing that it was mainly my fault for having set Revell on the trail.

  “Listen, you damned coyote!”

  I gripped Revell by the shoulder by way of emphasis. He blinked in amazement.

  “Listen and get me straight: you’re going to return that rug here and now. Bin Ayyub treated me like a gentleman. And moreover, it’s my fault if that girl gets the daylights hammered out of her; my fault, and yours.”

  “Come now, try and act naturally,” mocked Revell, who had mastered his amazement at my outburst. “I return that rug? Absurd. Really preposterous. Why, as I said, I’d have committed—”

  And then Revell stared as I leaped to the arm of a davenport, reached up, and yanked Saladin’s throne-rug from its place on the wall.

  “Wait a minute. This is getting a bit thick. I say—”

  By this time I was seeing red and also other colors.

  “One more word out of you and I’ll knock your head off! I’m taking this rug back to its owner. Get me?”

  Revell is far from yellow. But somehow, I convinced him. The last glimpse I had of him, he was the color of an old saddle, and choking for breath.

  “Really now, but this is a bit thick,” he contrived, as I slammed the door. I missed the rest, but I am sure that for the next fifteen minutes it was a bit thick in the Revell apartment.

  Throne-rug trailing over my shoulder, I hopped a taxi and proceeded to bin Ayyub’s house.

  Bin Ayyub himself admitted me. I recognized him simply because no mask could disguise those lean, aquiline features; but this which faced me was but a simulacrum of the vital personality I had met two weeks ago. His face was unshaven; his eyes were cavernous and dull, lifeless; gone was all save the shell of Saladin’s descendant. The change was so startling, so dismaying, that for the moment I forgot the throne-rug I carried, rolled up under my arm.

  In view of the denunciation and wrath I expected, accusations of having played a part in the trickery of Revell, this listlessness of bin Ayyub left me dazed and wondering.

  “I am glad to see you, effendi,” he murmured, as he conducted me into the salon. He had not offered to take my hat and coat; had not noticed the bundle I carried.

  “The throne-rug,” I began, offering him the precious roll. “I regret—”

  “Spare your regrets. It was my fault. I should have told Djénane Hanoum of its value.”

  He took the rug with a listlessness that amazed me, and, moving as one suddenly aroused from sound sleep, spread it across a couch.

  “I feared—”

  “That I suspected you?” interrupted bin Ayyub. “No. I knew you were not guilty. You know who is guilty; but since he must be one who has eaten your bread and salt, I can not ask you to betray him.”

  Bin Ayyub seemed to forget that I was not bound by the Moslem’s belief in the sanctity of bread and salt. But now that I had returned the rug, why bother about the trickster, Revell?

  “Nor have I time to hunt him,” continued bin Ayyub. “I have been waiting for you to return Saladin’s throne-rug. And now that that is done, I have little time for hunting him.”

  “But now there’s no need of hunting him,” I suggested. “You have your rug.”

  Which I fancied was a sensible answer. But the look that flitted across bin Ayyub’s face and took form in his eyes told me that my remark had been the thrust of incandescent iron.

  Bin Ayyub rose. I wondered if this was to terminate the interview. It seemed that he might at least have thanked me, despite my having been the cause of his annoyance.

  “I have dismissed Saoud for the day. But I myself will prepare coffee. One moment, please.”

  The aura of unbounded misery and corroding despair remained, lingering after the portieres had hidden bin Ayyub from sight. Not even the clanging of the brazen pestle wherewith he pulverized the freshly roasted coffee could infuse a trace of life into the somber magnificence of that rich salon. The order of nature had been upset: this was the house of one whose spirit had died a thousand deaths without having deprived the body of life. Not even the return of the throne-rug had aroused a sparkle of the vital, predatory spirit of that fierce Kurd whose eyes had but two weeks ago flamed exultantly as he told of the enemy who had unwisely walked by moonlight.

  Bin Ayyub’s entry with a tray interrupted my reflections.

  One of the tiny eggshell cups was white, the other, deep blue.

  “No, effendi, blue is the color of mourning; take the white one.”

  A light began to dawn on me. The color of mourning…he had taken this tactful way of letting me know that my presence was an intrusion on his sorrow. But, if there had been a death in the family, why that flash of abysmal despair when a few moments ago I had suggested that since he once more had the throne-rug, he need not bother to hunt whoever it was that had tricked Djénane Hanoum?

  “Bismillahi!” murmured bin Ayyub, then tasted his coffee. After a moment’s silence, he continued, “I bear you no ill will for what has happened. Naturally you would speak to your friends of the Isphahan I gave you, and of the throne-rug. It was my fault; I should have told her.”

  Worse and worse! That rug again. Hadn’t I returned it? Wasn’t he sitting on it even as he spoke? Well then…

  “It was my fault. I should have told her,” he repeated.

  He drained his cup.

  The brooding silence forbade even an attempt at making conversation. My nerves were rapidly getting on edge; and I hoped bin Ayyub would end the interview.

  “I am leaving very soon, effendi,” he finally resumed. “Saoud will pack up my goods. I have been waiting for you to return the throne-rug; and I was right in waiting. For the sake of my illustrious ancestor, I treasure it. But much has happened in the last few days. I do not care to have it in my house any longer. My brother’s son in Tekrit will take it.”

  I could think of no appropriate comment.

  “Here is the piece which was exchanged for the throne-rug. Take it with you when you leave, and return it to its owner.”

  Which was also fair enough; though Revell deserved no such fortune after his shabby trick. The loss might be a lesson to him.

  “May I ask you to be so kind as to lift the cover of the jar of attar?” requested bin Ayyub, as he set aside his empty cup.

  I could see that he was momentarily becoming paler. There was not a drop of blood beneath his bronzed skin. The corners of his mouth and the muscles of his cheeks twitched perceptibly; so that his request did not seem at all out of order. Though if I myself felt as he looked, the last thing in the world I’d want would be a whiff of that overpowering perfume.

  “Certainly,” I replied.

  Poor devil! He seemed to be having a chill, shivering noticeably. No wonder he wanted me to take Saoud’s place in the ritual of the perfume jar.<
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  As I advanced across the wondrously carpeted floor, I heard him mutter to himself, “One is at times hasty…”

  I parted the curtains that veiled the great urn of Byzantine glass, and lifted the heavy cover; then, dizzied by the overwhelming surge of sweetness, recoiled a pace.

  And then I dropped the cover.

  Christ in heaven! But why deny my own eyes? In the throbbing, glowing rosy-amber jar was the shapely form of Djénane Hanoum! Faintly distorted by the refraction of the curved surfaces of the urn and the attar, but nevertheless and beyond any mistake, that was the Gurjestani girl. I stared, fascinated, then looked behind the jar, hoping…ridiculous hope!…to find that she was standing on the other side, and that I had seen her through, and not in, the urn.

  It is strange how in such a moment one notices trifles.

  “La illah illa allah…wa Muhammad rasul allahi…” came the murmuring accents of bin Ayyub, very low, but distinct.

  Even in the grip of that horribly lovely sight, I had distinctly caught the Moslem’s, “There is no God but Allah…” And then, scarcely perceptible, “Djénane…”

  My movements must have been those of a mechanical toy.

  As I caught the curtains on the hilts of the scimitars hanging at each side of the alcove, I noted that the fine, hard-woven cord of silk was missing. And then I found myself wondering what poison the blue cup of mourning had contained.

  Not until fully a minute later did it dawn on me why bin Ayyub’s eyes had flamed with immeasurable despair when I had reminded him that since I had returned the throne-rug of Saladin, he had no cause to concern himself about the thief.

  That awful sweetness was rolling from the uncovered jar, strangling me with its richness. I wondered how a girl in the heart of an ocean of perfume could endure its fragrance…and whether the silken cord was chafing her throat.

  Bin Ayyub’s drawn features were now overlaid with a shadow of a smile.

  “If it were given me to elect the manner of my death, I would choose to be drowned in that perfume…” he had once said. So instead of covering the jar, I left Ilderim Shirkuh bin Ayyub enthroned on the rug of Saladin, and facing the loveliness which he had imprisoned in attar.