Baal

"Here," Musallim said as he took two thimble-sized silver cups from a tray held by a white-uniformed servant, "some tea would cool you. This heat, I know, must be unbearable to foreigners. Me, I was born in the desert."

Naughton took the proffered cup and drank. The tea was black and very strong, with an aftertaste of cloves. The two men sat within Musallim's magnificent gold-embroidered tent at the fringe of the encampment. Rich red and gold carpets were spread across the sand. Musallim sat behind a wide ornate desk and Naughton occupied one of two canvas armchairs in the tent's blessed shade. Naughton said, "This is very good."

"Someday I'll control the desert," Musallim said. "Already I've cut across it like the most skilled surgeon of your country. Water lines, gas lines... I've strung them through the sand as if I were," he made a needle-and-thread gesture, "sewing stitches. The people appreciate me for that."

Naughton nodded. In the distance, over Musallim's droning voice, he could still hear the din of the people bubbling in the pot of the encampment. "Could you find out about my friend, please?" he asked.

"Your friend?"

"Yes, the man I was with. Mr. Kaspar."

Musallim waved a hand and leaned back in his chair. Against the startling white of his dishdashah the man's flesh was the color of rust. "He's well taken care of. That rabble out there can be quite annoying. It is hot, isn't it?"

Naughton finished the tea and put the cup down on a circular table beside his chair. He looked up into the flat, hooded eyes of the man across the desk. "I don't understand what's going on here," he said. "I've been researching my book for several weeks and I've watched this crowd grow. Now it seems as though they've finally gotten out of control. I don't know..." he ran a hand across his forehead to soak up the droplets of sweat that hung, eager to break, over his eyebrows, "I've never seen anything like this before. It's ugly. It - I don't know."

Musallim sat in silence for a moment, his ring-laden fingers toying with the golden scrolls that decorated the arms of his chair. "Mr. Naughton," he said finally, "there are many things in this life that seem ugly. But later, on close and logical scrutiny, they begin to take on a special beauty. You're disturbed by what is happening here because you do not yet understand. I'm at ease because I do. And I would not have donated this land for such a purpose if I did not feel it was worthwhile and very important. You'll see, Mr. Naughton. History will record this flat plain of sand as a place of exquisite and divine purpose."

Naughton had looked up sharply. "You own this land?"

"Yes, this land and miles beyond. Would you like more tea?"

"No. Thank you." From the corner of his eye Naughton caught the sudden brilliance of a diamond as it gleamed from Musallim's hand. "Please explain this to me. I see madness and death here. Do you see something else?"

"I see everything else," the other man said. He gazed at Naughton for a few seconds and then his dark eyes flickered around the confines of the tent. He seemed to be choosing the correct words. "My family was of very poor stock, Mr. Naughton... or so I thought at the time." He held up a finger for emphasis. "They were Bedouins, nomads of the desert. My father - oh I remember my father, his teeth flashing in the sun, astride a great foaming white horse. He was a strong-willed man who took what he wanted when he wanted and who," he glanced at Naughton and smiled self-consciously, "beat his wife and children when he felt the need. He was a man of the desert, Mr. Naughton, and more important, he was a man of the spirit."

"The spirit... ?" Naughton asked.

"When he was still a young man he controlled six families and their water wells. He was a man to be reckoned with. Of course he... had his enemies. They despised him as cowardly dogs fear all noble wolves. And even his own family moved against him. I remember one night our camp was set up on stone bluffs where he could stand and look out to the gulf... I remember there was a full moon. And I remember our tents stirring in the breeze and the gulf crashing beyond. It was his brother Assaid who was the enemy... his own brother. He came to tell my father that he'd gone too far. Too far, said Assaid. Like telling the gulf to stop its gnawing of the land.

"My father had killed someone - one of the well-keepers who had cheated him - and he'd left his head on a stake to drip blood into the water, to poison it as a message to those who would not give my father the respect he deserved. And his brother had come to tell him that his family was through with him. He had disgraced their name, said Assaid. And he spit at my father's feet. I remember that because I saw the spit gleam in the moonlight."

The man's eyes were shining. He leaned forward, his fingers tracing pictures in the air before Naughton's face.

"Assaid turned to walk back to his horse," Musallim said, "but that was not the end of it. Oh no. That could never be the end of it My father, as I said, was a strong-willed man. There was a knife at his belt. He unsheathed it and my mother put her hands over my eyes but I pulled away. And around the fire the rest of the men grinned as they saw the naked Made. My father never drew a knife and sheathed it clean. So he struck at his brother and the knife caught him here, up above the shoulder blade. But Assaid was a strong man too, though weak in the ways of the world. He turned and grasped my father around the throat; they battled there in the moonlight, my father cursing and Assaid gasping for air with the knife in him up to its black hilt. They reached the edge of the bluff and my father, with a twist of the knife that scraped against bone - I remember hearing that - tossed Assaid over onto the rocks at the foot of the gulf." He looked up suddenly into Naughton's eyes. "With no regrets."

Naughton was shocked by the unconcern in Musallim's tone of voice. The man didn't seem to realize he had been witness to a coldblooded murder. Naughton said, "He killed his brother? Why?"

Musallim smiled faintly, cruelly, and there was something about his smile that mirrored a strange satisfaction. "Why? Why does a lion hunt a lamb? Why does a vulture wait for the last gasp of death? It's the nature of the beast, Mr. Naughton; the glorious beast stalks, waits for the right moment, then - " he reached out as if catching something in the air " - the prize. The world spins on that circle of victims, Mr. Naughton. All of us either stalk or are stalked. It's an inescapable fact."

"But," Naughton said, "hopefully a man has progressed far enough over the lions and vultures that he no longer needs to stalk."

"Ah," said Musallim, holding up a hand. "The God that created this earth and all on it was wise. He created the natural rhythm of life and death, the circle of victim and survivor. We act in blasphemy if we fail to observe His sacred wisdom."

Naughton sat still. The din outside was rising. It seemed to thrash the folds of the tent.

"What noble creatures the lions are," Musallim said, "to make themselves stronger over the bodies of the weak. How wise and kind are the talons of vultures, to rend away the dead and dying flesh and in so doing clear the way for the strong. The struggle of life and death is not a purposeless game, Mr. Naughton, it's a thing of special beauty. Do you understand?"

Naughton reached for the cup of tea and swirled the residue at the bottom. He did not want to look into the face of the man before him because a strange and terrible philosophy glittered in Musallim's eyes.

"The land my father left to me wasn't much," Musallim said, "but the secrets hidden from him were revealed to me. One day I found my land swimming in a thick dark pool that had flowed up from the depths. I scooped it up by the bucketful. I smeared it over my face and rolled in it. On that day I traded my modest clothing for the raiment of a wealthy man. On that day I finally knew the power my father had left to me. And now I can build cities and move mountains and change the course of water. Now I finally have the opportunity to communicate to the world the logic of my father."

"I don't understand."

Musallim motioned for the servant to carry away the two silver cups. The man bowed and backed out of the tent. "I have met a man," Musallim said after another moment, "who has taught me what I failed to see before. Through him I have grasped the beauty of power. It's so clear to me, Mr. Naughton. He is the tooth of the lion, the talon of the vulture. I have given myself to him in order to live in glorious honor."

The name the old man had spoken. Naughton couldn't remember it. What had it been?

"At first I thought him only a prophet. Now I see him as so much more, so much more. The old prophets spoke of a god who saw things as they could never be. Baal sees what is and what shall always be."

Naughton tensed involuntarily. Baal. Baal. That was it. He'd read something about it somewhere before. The word Canaan briefly came into his mind.

Naughton said, "Baal."

"Yes," Musallim said. "Baal. The living Muhammad."

The other man stood up abruptly and walked to the tent opening. He could see the mad dancing figures in the encampment beyond; the rising smoke dimmed the setting sun. He was breathing heavily though he didn't know why; he wondered if it was safe to try to get back to the city. He said, "This is madness. This is... madness."

"No, my friend. The madness lies in not accepting the reality of the world as it is. To suddenly find oneself seeing life for the first time after so long being deceived... that is a recovery from madness, isn't it?"

He was silent. He could see, in the shadows cast by the dying sun, the great oval tent erected beyond the encampment. He said, "This man has taken the name of a heathen god. No more, no less."

"Has he?" the other man whispered. Musallim had moved quietly up behind Naughton. He touched the American gently, up over the shoulder blade, and the fingers reminded Naughton, oddly, of the touch of a knife. "That was my reaction also, until I saw evidence of his miracles. I've seen the holy fire leap from his fingers. I've seen him kiss the sand and cause a flower to grow. You'll soon discover a truth that will silence all the lying voices. The crowd waits for Baal. His disciples have roamed this land whispering his name to those who would hear. I've seen the converts arriving, in increasing numbers, day after day. But this night, Mr. Naughton, Baal breaks his silence... there." He pointed beyond to the huge tent and the humming generator. "And tomorrow will be the first day of a new world."

Naughton turned and said hurriedly, "I need to send a cable immediately. Is there a telegraph office this far from the city?"

Musallim held up his hand to quiet the other man. "No time, my friend. No time." And almost with the end of his sentence there began the deep hollow clamor of a bell somewhere in the encampment, over and over until it seemed as if first one person moaned with the bell, then a dozen, then a hundred, until the encampment reverberated with the sound.

"He is come," said Musallim, his voice trembling with excitement. "He is come!"