My heart beat faster, for I had started seeing something. At first dimly, as if behind a veil, then with
increasing clarity, a scene appeared in front of my eyes.
A young woman with chestnut hair, bare feet with black tattoos, and an embroidered red shawl
draped over her shoulders.
“You have lost a loved one,” I said, and took his left palm in my hand.
Her breasts swollen with milk and her belly so huge it looks as if it could rip apart. She is stuck in a
hut on fire. There are warriors around the house, riding horses with silver-gilded saddles. The thick
smell of burning hay and human flesh. Mongol riders, their noses flat and wide, necks thick and short,
and hearts as hard as rocks. The mighty army of Genghis Khan.
“You have lost two loved ones,” I corrected myself. “Your wife was pregnant with your first child.”
His eyebrows clamped down, his eyes
fixed on his leather boots, and his lips tightly pursed, the
innkeeper’s face creased into an unreadable map. Suddenly he looked old beyond his years.
“I realize that it’s no consolation to you, but I think there is something you should know,” I said. “It
wasn’t the fire or the smoke that killed her. It was a wooden plank in the ceiling that collapsed on her
head. She died instantly, without any pain. You always assumed she had suffered terribly, but in reality
she did not suffer at all.”
The innkeeper furrowed his brow, bowed under a pressure only he could understand. His voice turned
raspy as he asked, “How do you know all that?”
I ignored the question. “You have been blaming yourself for not giving her a proper funeral. You still
see her in your dreams, crawling out of the pit she was buried in. But your mind is playing games with
you. In truth, your wife and son are both fine, traveling in infinity, as free as a speck of light.”
I then added, measuring each word, “You can become a lamb again, because you still have it in you.”
Upon hearing this the innkeeper pulled his hand away, as if he had just touched a sizzling pan. “I don’t
like you, dervish,” he said. “I’ll let you stay here tonight. But make sure you are gone early in the morning.
I don’t want to see your face around here again.”
It was always like this. When you spoke the truth, they hated you. The more you talked about love, the
more they hated you.