Scorpion Soup Read online

  SCORPION SOUP

  A story in a story

  Tahir Shah

  Secretum Mundi Publishing

  London

  MMXIII

  Also by Tahir Shah

  Timbuctoo

  Travels With Myself

  In Arabian Nights

  The Caliph’s House

  House of the Tiger King

  In Search of King Solomon’s Mines

  Trail of Feathers

  Sorcerer’s Apprentice

  Beyond the Devil’s Teeth

  Secretum Mundi Publishing

  3rd Floor

  36 Langham Street

  London W1W 7AP

  United Kingdom

  www.secretum-mundi.com/

  [email protected]

  Secretum Mundi, 2013.

  © TAHIR SHAH

  Visit: www.tahirshah.com/scorpionsoup

  ISBN: 978-1-78301-030-1

  Tahir Shah asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form of by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Descend down through the layers of an onion’s skin and you will find true wisdom.

  Afghan saying

  This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather,

  the Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah – savant, storyteller, and man of men.

  Contents

  Also by Tahir Shah

  Introduction

  The Fisherman

  Idyll

  Capilongo

  Mittle-Mittle

  The Tale of the Rusty Nail

  The Shop That Sold Truth

  Frogland

  The Book of Pure Thoughts

  The Fish’s Dream

  Scorpion Soup

  The Clockmaker’s Bride

  The Most Foolish of Men

  The Man Whose Arms Grew Branches

  The Hermit

  Cat, Mouse

  The Singing Serpents

  The Princess of Zilzilam

  The Unicorn’s Tear

  Introduction

  When I was small I was told stories from morning till night.

  I was told stories about genies and witches and about great birds that could carry away elephants on their wings… and stories about distant kingdoms and magical lands ruled by warrior-kings.

  I was told stories of good and bad… and stories of hope and others of despair.

  I was even told stories about stories.

  And all the while, I listened, amazed.

  The more I listened, the more my mind worked. And the more I came to understand that these stories had a power about them, a secret life-blood all of their own.

  They were magical instruments, machineries that could alter states of mind and change the way we think.

  Stories are part of the default programming of Man. They are within us all, born into us, and they make us who we are – they make us human.

  Since earliest childhood, I have feasted on these stories, especially those contained in The Thousand and One Nights.

  A treasury of storytelling and culture that is in itself a labyrinth of worlds, The Nights conjures realms more fantastical than any other I know.

  What I like best is when there are tales concealed within tales – interwoven, complex, mesmerising to the senses and the soul.

  To descend down through the layers of stories is to be reborn, into a dominion of fantasy, one touched by real magic.

  Scorpion Soup is a small hymn to The Thousand and One Nights… and to the stories that have made me who I am.

  Tahir Shah

  Casablanca

  The Fisherman

  When I was young and foolish, but so certain I was wise, I took any work offered.

  Sometimes I toiled days at a stretch without ever sleeping – cleaning fish, bailing water from flimsy craft, scrubbing filth from the decks. And at other times I would lose myself in strange lands, listen to the tales that sailors so like to tell, and would think of the love I had left a world away at home.

  The years passed.

  Look at my hands and you will see I tell you the truth. My palms are coarse and calloused, tattooed with adventure and with the trials of fate.

  Frequently, I promised myself to quit the life of roaming, to settle down in Haifa, where my family was from. But each time I reached my own port, I was talked into embarking on yet one more journey.

  And another.

  Then, one night in the month of August, my fishing vessel was wrecked during a violent summer gale off the coast of North Africa. The only survivor, I was captured and taken prisoner by a band of Barbary pirates.

  Nothing pleased them more than gaining another seaman for nothing, a lost soul to barter in the slave market at Oran.

  They had in their party thirty others already. Each one a rough sea dog scraped up from Barbary shores; each just enough alive to coax a ransom.

  Day after day after day we marched, dawn until dusk.

  One foot after the other, as the dreaded destination of Oran inched closer. And, each day, we appreciated a little more the freedom we had once known, but hadn’t realised that we possessed.

  Weeks passed, and the wretched captives descended towards Hell. It came one night in the shape of the cells at the infamous Oran death camp. No description however wanton could do justice to that place.

  We were trussed up in a long stone barrack in the dark. Emaciated bundles of sinew and bone, we were chained together in rows of a dozen and a half. The dead were left where they had expired. Only when their putrefied flesh was quite rotten, were they removed, their bones pulled from the manacles like a roasted chicken.

  I languished there for months, quite certain I would never see the light of day again. I prayed for God to take me, to release me.

  And I gave up all hope.

  But, one night, the captive beside me murmured a mouthful of words.

  I dared not reply or greet him. For if the jailer heard so much as a whisper coming from the cells, he had a habit of severing the windpipes of innocent men.

  In no more than the faintest mumble, he recounted a tale.

  And it was by that tale’s sustenance that I survived:

  Idyll

  The heat more terrible than I can describe, we sailed into a small cove far to the south, a cove nestled on the coastline of far-off Senegal.

  We went ashore, slung hammocks in the trees, built a fire on the beach, and cooked up some langoustines.

  I can taste their meat now: all juicy and tender, a hint of coconut and spice. That cove was idyllic, a paradise known only to one who has courted the sea. Close my eyes and I see the shadows thrown by the palm fronds in late afternoon, and I hear the sound of the birds chirruping in the heat.

  As the evening approached, we sat round and shared stories, stories of our travels and of our lives.

  I remember it, clear as I am here with you now.

  The man beside me was a Spaniard. His name was Alfonso, and he had one of those faces you could never forget: hollow features and an expression baked through from ordeal and tribulation.

  Drawing a little on his pipe, he stooped forwards to stoke the fire for a m
oment, his eyes lost in memory.

  ‘I will tell you a tale,’ he said softly. ‘A tale of another time, a time when I was not a sailor, but an apprentice to a master bookbinder, in Toledo. The bookbinder was the greatest craftsman of his age, from a family of ancestral binders to royalty no less. Clients would arrive at his workshop from across Spain. Sometimes they even came from France, and beyond. And it was a Frenchman, a famous writer from Troyes, with whom this tale is concerned...’

  Capilongo

  One day the French writer made a special journey to Toledo to meet the master bookbinder. He arrived by appointment as he always did. For days before his arrival, the apprentices polished and cleaned the workshop, and laid out the finest leathers and samples of the very best work.

  On the morning that the writer was due to come, there was a great sense of expectation. We put on our best clothes, polished our shoes until they shone like silver, and greased back our hair with lavender pomade.

  At a little after ten, a lacquered carriage pulled up in front of the workshop. The bookbinder, whose name was Fernandez, swept up to the door and opened it wide. Greeting the author with deep respect, he invited him in.

  Under the Frenchman’s arm was a handwritten manuscript.

  It was not so big, about the size of a prayer book, but was printed on very fine paper. Each folio was watermarked with the author’s crest, and had an uneven deckle edge.

  The writer explained to Señor Fernandez that the manuscript was very important indeed. It was his masterwork, and was to be a gift destined for the Pope. Accordingly, the volume was to be bound in the very best leather, the title embossed with the most expensive gold leaf.

  For an hour or more the author went over the details, the exact method of binding that was to be used. He said that price and time were no object. The most superlative materials were to be sought out and used, and only the master craftsman himself was to work on the binding itself.

  When Señor Fernandez enquired how long he would be given to complete the task, the writer shrugged.

  ‘Take all the time you require,’ he said. ‘But remember that I am expecting the best work of your life!’

  With that, the French author opened a briefcase and removed a purse filled with gold coins. After he had poured them onto the bookbinder’s palm, the two men shook hands.

  A moment later, the writer was gone.

  As soon as he had left, my master collapsed onto a chair and thrust his head into his hands.

  ‘Where will I get a piece of leather worthy of this manuscript?’ he asked, over and over.

  I motioned at the swatches on display.

  ‘None of them will do, you fool!’ the bookbinder cried. ‘Don’t offer me coal when I am in need of a diamond!’

  A few days passed, and then weeks, and months.

  Señor Fernandez slipped into a terrible depression. He began to drink heavily, and we feared he had forgotten about the French author’s commission altogether. Whenever any of the apprentices mentioned it, the craftsman would fly into a rage and bawl at us. Without the right leather, he declared that he could never begin.

  Then, one morning in September, Señor Fernandez was reading a letter from a correspondent at his desk when, suddenly, he leapt to his feet. Waving the paper in the air, his face gripped with mania, he yelled:

  ‘This is the answer! This is the answer!’

  The apprentices gathered round.

  I took the paper and read aloud from the bottom of the page:

  ‘A new species of mammal has been seen for the first time in the Spice Islands. It has been named the “Capilongo”, and it is a cross between a boar and a bird, with the hands of a monkey, and with the intelligence of a human child. No one has yet managed to catch the Capilongo alive.’

  The old bookbinder instructed his apprentices to line up and to clear their minds. We did so, and he then asked for a volunteer – for a man sufficiently brave or foolhardy to go and capture the Capilongo. Only the creature’s leather would do, he insisted, for the manuscript destined for the Pope.

  No one volunteered.

  One by one, the apprentices stepped back in fear. After all, they were bookbinders, not explorers. Unsure quite why, I leant forward, no more than an inch or two, but it was enough.

  ‘I will do it,’ I said in less than a whisper. ‘I will go and capture the jungle beast and bring back its hide.’

  The next day I set off.

  I travelled first to Constantinople, and from there by sailing ship, dhow and hollowed-out canoe, until I reached the pristine waters of the Spice Islands. Never has an adventurer embarked on a journey with less preparation or know-how than I.

  Until then, I was a raw page waiting for a story of its own.

  All I knew was that the Capilongo was out there, somewhere, and that if I could hunt it, capture it, and take its hide, then there would be a smile on the lips of an old bookbinder, a writer, and possibly the Pope as well.

  The voyage was uncomfortable in the extreme.

  But, in my untested condition, I hardly knew the meaning of the word – discomfort. Had I any inkling of what was to come, I would have savoured the weeks I spent upon turbulent seas.

  The one meeting of interest was with a missionary who was drunk from one dawn to the next. He was accompanying a shipment of bibles, printed in Sintra. He told me that they were destined for tattooed savages.

  ‘Where are they, the savages?’ I asked.

  ‘Deep in the jungle,’ came the reply.

  After a great many deviations, the vessel docked at a ramshackle port. I descended the gangplank onto the quay, the name of a mythical creature filling my head and my mouth. With no idea how to proceed, I followed the bales of bibles destined for savages.

  There is no feeling quite so contrary as arriving in a foreign land, with no grasp of language or etiquette. The heat was the first thing that hit me, dead straight between the eyes.

  The bales of bibles were unloaded by sweat-drenched stevedores and hauled in fits and starts towards that terrible seething undergrowth.

  And I followed them.

  The missionary bought a bottle of home-made liquor, quaffed it down, and thanked God for protecting him.

  ‘Pray to the Lord so that you, too, might be blessed,’ he said caustically. ‘Neglect the Saviour, and the Angel of Death will be your shadow.’

  Draining the bottle, he reeled about.

  ‘The jungle…’ he said after a long pause, rolling the word off his tongue as if it were a bitter olive, ‘it will swallow you whole, devour you, crush your bones to dust.’

  We progressed on wagons and on mule carts, on hollowed-out logs, and skiffs, until at last the precious cargo was unloaded on the banks of a great russet-brown river. It was all murky and warm like bathwater left through a long sultry afternoon, and it stank of both life and of death.

  The missionary drank another bottle of liquor.

  Then another… and declared that the Word of the Lord would be the salvation of the savages.

  I asked him again where they were, the savage peoples of whom he spoke so often and with such trepidation. Raising a fist out before him, he pointed at the trees.

  ‘They live on the Mountains of Medusa,’ he said.

  With no other plan having presented itself, I tagged along, in the hope that the savages would in turn lead me to the elusive Capilongo.

  A team of porters were hired.

  The bibles and supplies having been laden onto their backs, we set out from the river and into the canopy.

  After a few minutes of staggering under loads, we found ourselves in a fearful realm of nature. The towering trees reminded us of our frailty. The creepers and the vines tripped us, the chorus of unfamiliar sounds haunting each step.

  The missionary kept the porters content with a ration of dates in honey. But it soon ran out. When it did so, he resorted to a whip.

  Any man who refused to pull his weight was lashed to the bone.

 
Each night we slung hammocks, squeezed water from oversized tubular flowers, and we prayed.

  The missionary prayed that the bibles would reach the savages, and I prayed that I would find the Capilongo, smite it, and return to my master with its skin.

  The porters had never ventured into the undergrowth before. They spent their lives down at the river and said that only a madman would wish to trek towards the hinterland. When I asked them about the Mountains of Medusa, they seemed to shake with fear. Then, one morning, the missionary and I awoke to find ourselves alone.

  The porters had absconded, and they had taken the supplies with them. The only thing they left was the bibles. We called out, our voices lost in the trees.

  ‘We can try and retrace our steps to the river,’ I said limply.

  The missionary spat at the idea. He opened one of the boxes and removed half a dozen of the bibles. They were well bound in indigo buckram with silver lettering down the spine.

  ‘The savages need the Word of the Lord,’ he said firmly, ‘and so I will go on.’

  ‘You will die,’ I replied.

  The missionary smiled at my remark, smoothed a hand down over his grey beard and said,

  ‘The Lord is my protector and my guide.’

  With that, he turned on his heel and moved boisterously into the undergrowth, clutching an armful of the holy books.

  I stood there in silence for a long time, unsure of what to do. There would have been safety in numbers, but the missionary was hell-bent on suicide. Without food or equipment, he had no hope of survival, with or without the Word of the Lord.

  Standing there, the jungle encroaching around me, I was suddenly overcome with a vision. In my mind’s eye I glimpsed a great and unwieldy creature with the snout of a pig and the feathers of a bird. Poised erect on two feet, taller than a man, it appeared to have a very singular presence. As I watched the hallucination, the creature, what I supposed to be the Capilongo, opened a leather bag, removed a book, and began to read.

  I blinked, and the vision was gone.