Part Eight
Chapter Twenty-Six
In the courtyard, naked soldiers grapple in mock combat. Nut walks past them without looking up. He walks through a doorway and moves down the corridor toward the cell that holds Ganj. Outside, below the horizon, the round-moon awakens.
= =
“What did it feel like to kill a man?” asks Nut.
“It was not fair,” says Ganj.
“What? What was not fair?”
“Nothing is fair,” says Ganj.
“You are talking crazy.”
“Perhaps. I merely wished to hurry the process.”
“Do you wish to die?”
“Who shall live forever? On the day that I was born the heavenly scribe etched my name in the book of fate. He said, ‘Ali-Ganj, where are you wandering? Life, which you seek, you will never find. For when the gods created you, they let death be your share, and withheld life for themselves.”
“No!” shouts Nut.
“So, fill your belly. Day and night make merry. Let your life be full of joy. Dance and make music. These things alone are the concern of men.”
Nut falls to his knees. He clutches Ganj’s legs. He sobs.
Ganj runs his hands through Nut’s hair and says, “Do not trouble yourself, my friend. I go to another place. Far to the west where the sun sleeps. An island in a great bay. I go to the land of Yma, home of the Great Tree. A tree that is covered with breasts from which flow Haoma, the Milk of Life.”
A jailor sticks his head in the door. “Minstrel, -urp- your time has arrived”
Ganj nods to the jailor. He turns to Nut. “Now we must part ways. But first let me give you a song.” He rises to his full height, spreads his arms, closes his eyes, and sings:
“Rain will come, winds will blow,
Wild deer die in the mountain snow,
Birds will beat at heaven’s wall,
What comes to one must come to all.”
They embrace.
As Nut leaves, he turns and asks. “What is that song?”
After a pause Ganj says, “It is an old song.”
“I have not heard you play it for the King.”
Ganj smiles. “I played it for him once. I was beaten. It frightened him. I mostly sang songs about the cowardice of his enemies. And songs that made the women laugh.”
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nut’s eyes are red from crying. He lies on his bed looking up at the round-moon peeking through the window above. Suddenly, someone tumbles in through the door.
Nut springs to his feet.
It is a woman. She lies sprawled across the floor in the moonlight, scantily dressed in flimsy cloth. Her arms are adorned with bracelets.
She rolls onto her back and giggles. She sits up and looks at Nut. She narrows her eyes and speaks slowly and deliberately. “Who? … Are? … You?”
“I am Nut.”
“No!” she answers sharply. “You are the slave who serves the wine!” Then she laughs and says, “Let me serve you!”
She clumsily crawls to her knees and presents a wine jug. “I am Ishta, the King’s least favorite whore. Because I am no longer young. Young like you.”
She offers the wine to Nut. “Drink,” she says, swaying in the moonlight.
Nut hesitates.
She shoves the jug into his face and squints her painted eyes. “Drink!” she barks.
Nut takes a drink.
“More!” she screams.
Nut takes a bigger drink.
She pounds him with her fists and screams, “More!”
As Nut raises the jug again, she snatches it away. She attempts to take a drink, but teeters and falls sideways. Lying on the ground, she giggles, “Don’t drink it all! Save some for me!”
She rolls over. “Oh, look!” she says, pointing. “There is where poor Ali-Ganj slept.” Her eyes get wide. “What is it like to sleep in a dead man’s bed?” She crawls over onto the straw mattress, then collapses, her eyes clenched shut.
She abruptly sits up and shouts, “Wheee!” She takes the pendants from her ears and tosses them across the room. She plucks the jewels from her breasts and tosses them. Then she stretches out. Her nipples are huge and dark. She smells like rotting swamp-flowers.
“Do you want me?” she purrs.
Nut picks up the wine jug and takes a very big drink, draining what is left.
= =
Nut is laying on his back. He jerks his foot and knocks over the empty wine jug.
Ishta rides him and screams with each spasm of her hips. She screams and wails and howls until soldiers come and grab her and rip her by the fingernails from Nut’s body.
Nut is taken to a jail cell. Ishta is taken to the temple of Inanna where her heart is torn out and thrown into the sacred fire.
* * *
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