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The Gold
Fish
by R.B. Cunninghame
Graham
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Outside
the little straw-thatched café in a small
courtyard trellised with vines, before a miniature
table painted in red and blue, and upon which
stood a dome-shaped pewter teapot and a painted
glass half filled with mint, sat Amarabat, resting
and smoking hemp. He was of those whom Allah
in his mercy (or because man in the Blad-Allah
has made no railways) has ordained to run. Set
upon the road, his shoes pulled up, his waistband
tightened, in his hand a staff, a palm-leaf
wallet at his back, and in it bread, some hemp,
a match or two (known to him as el spiritus),
and a letter to take anywhere, crossing the
plains, fording the streams, struggling along
the mountain paths, sleeping but fitfully, a
burning rope steeped in saltpeter fastened on
his foot, he trotted day and night—untiring
as a camel, faithful as a dog. In Rabat as he
sat dozing, watching the greenish smoke curl
upwards from his hemp pipe, word came to him
from the Khalifa of the town. So Amarabat rose,
paid for his tea with a handful of defaced and
greasy copper coins, and took his way towards
the white palace with crenelated walls, which
on the cliff, hanging above the roaring tide-rip,
just inside the bar of the great river, looks
at Salee. Around the horseshoe archway of the
gate stood soldiers, wild, fierce-eyed, armed
to the teeth, descendants, most of them, of
the famed warriors whom Sultan Muley Ismail
(may God have pardoned him!) bred for his service,
after the fashion of the Carlylean hero Frederic;
and Amarabat walked through them, not aggressively,
but with the staring eyes of a confirmed hemp-smoker,
with the long stride of one who knows that he
is born to run, and the assurance of a man who
waits upon his lord. Some time he waited whilst
the Khalifa dispensed what he thought justice,
chaffered with Jewish pedlars for cheap European
goods, gossiped with friends, looked at the
antics of a dwarf, or priced a Georgian or Circassian
girl brought with more care than glass by some
rich merchant from the East. At last Amarabat
stood in his presence, and the Khalifa, sitting
upon a pile of cushions playing with a Waterbury
watch, a pistol and a Koran by his side, addressed
him thus:
“Amarabat, son of Bjorma,
my purpose is to send thee to Tafilet, where
our liege lord the Sultan lies with his camp.
Look upon this glass bowl made by the Kaffir,
but clear as is the crystal of the rock; see
how the light falls on the water, and the
shifting colors that it makes, as when the
Bride of the Rain stands in the heavens, after
a shower in spring. Inside are seven gold
fish, each scale as bright as letters in an
Indian book. The Christian from whom I bought
them said originally they came from the Far
East where the Djin-descended Jawi live, the
little yellow people of the faith. That may
be, but such as they are, they are a gift
for kings. Therefore, take thou the bowl.
Take it with care, and bear it as it were
thy life. Stay not, but in an hour start from
the town. Delay not on the road, be careful
of the fish, change not their water at the
muddy pool where tortoises bask in the sunshine,
but at running brooks; talk not to friends,
look not upon the face of woman by the way,
although she were as a gazelle, or as the
maiden who when she walked through the fields
the sheep stopped feeding to admire. Stop
not, but run through day and night, pass through
the Atlas at the Glaui; beware the frost,
cover the bowl with thine own haik; upon the
other side shield the bowl from the Saharan
sun, and drink not of the water if thou a
day athirst when toiling through the sand.
Break not the bowl, and see the fish arrive
in Tafilet, and then present them, with this
letter, to our lord. Allah be with you, and
his Prophet; go, and above all things see
though breakest not the bowl.”
And Amarabat, after the manner of his kind,
taking the bowl of gold fish, placed one hand
upon his heart and said: “Inshallah, it shall
be as thou hast said. God gives the feet and
lungs. He also give the luck upon the road.”
So he passed out under the horseshoe arch,
holding the bowl almost at arm’s length so as
not to touch his legs, and with the palmetto
string by which he carried it, bound round with
rags. The soldiers looked at him, but spoke
not, and their eyes seemed to see far away,
and to pass over all in the middle distance,
though no doubt they marked the smallest detail
of his gait and dress. He passed between the
horses of the guard all standing nodding under
the fierce sun, the reins tied to the cantles
of their high red saddles, a boy in charge of
every two or three: he passed beside the camels
resting beside the well, the donkeys standing
dejected by the firewood they had brought: passed
women, veiled white figures going to the baths;
and passing underneath the lofty gateway of
the town, exchanged a greeting with the half-mad,
half-religious beggar just outside the walls,
and then emerged upon the sandy road, between
the aloe hedges, which skirts along the sea.
So as he walked, little by little he fell into
his stride; then got his second wind, and smoking
now and then a pipe of hemp, began, as Arabs
say, to eat the miles, his eyes fixed on the
horizon, his stick stuck down between his shirt
and back, the knob protruding over the left
shoulder like the hilt of a two-handed sword.
And still he held the precious bowl from Franquestan
in which the golden fish swam to and fro, diving
and circling in the sunlight, or flapped their
tails to steady themselves as the water danced
with the motion of his steps. Never before in
his experience had he been charged with such
a mission, never before been sent to stand before
Allah’s viceregent upon earth. But still the
strangeness of his business was what preoccupied
him most. The fish like molten gold, the water
to be changed only at running streams, the fish
to be preserved from frost and sun; and then
the bowl: had not the Khalifa said at the last,
“Beware, break not the bowl”? So it appeared
to him that most undoubtedly a charm was in
the fish and in the bowl, for who sends a common
fish on such a journey through the land? Then
he resolved at any hazard to bring them safe
and keep the bowl intact, and trotting onward,
smoked his hemp, and wondered why he of all
men should have had the luck to bear the precious
gift. He knew he kept his law, at least as far
as a poor man can keep it, prayed when he thought
of prayer, or was assailed by terror in the
night alone upon the plains; fasted in Ramadan,
although most of his life was one continual
fast; drank of the shameful but seldom, and
on the sly, so as to give offence to no believer,
and seldom looked upon the face of the strange
women, Daughters of the Illegitimate, whom Sidna
Mohammed himself has said, avoid. But all these
things he knew were done by many of the faithful,
and so he did not set himself up as of exceeding
virtue, but rather left the praise to God, who
helped his slave with strength to keep his law.
Then left off thinking, judging the matter was
ordained, and trotted, trotted over the burning
plains, the gold fish dancing in the water as
the miles melted and passed away.
This is an excerpt.
To read the rest, please continue your travels
in the Republic by purchasing
Nos. 14/15, Fall/Winter 2004.
Robert
Bontine Cunninghame Graham (1852–1936) was known
as ‘Don Roberto’ and ‘the Modern Don Quixote’
because of his Spanish blood and impetuous lifestyle,
and as ‘the Uncrowned King of Scotland’, because
of his descent from King Robert II. After an
early period as an adventurer, when he worked
as a cattle rancher and horse-dealer in South
America and Texas, he embarked on a stormy political
career. He was the first socialist in Parliament,
was jailed after assailing the police at the
Battle of Trafalgar Square on Bloody Sunday,
1887, later became the founder and president
of the first Labour Party, and was eventually
elected president of the Scottish National Party.
Meanwhile he travelled in Morocco disguised
as an Arab sheik and prospected for gold in
Spain. He was also a writer of tales, essays,
histories and biographies – many of them set
in Mexico and South America – and enjoyed a
high reputation among his contemporaries as
a bold and original ironic realist.
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