Chapter 7
Arlemay in Damascus ~ continued from Chapter 7 | You Know Not What You Do
The Rose’s eyes burned as she spoke, glaring at the two assailants.
The two looked up and were immediately blinded by the sight of her. They stumbled around in pain and fear while clutching each other.
Later that evening when the marketplace was empty and the merchants had all gone home, another crowd waited in the dark for the open-air theater to begin.
The group of gypsies standing in their bright Roma tunics of blue and red raced through the empty bazaar looking for their comrade, the man-child who had brought them so much money in their few days in the city.
Two horse-drawn wagons waited while women and children waited for their men to return.
The gypsies ducked behind a large curtain draped over a doorway only to see him sitting at a table applying makeup and dressed in a pure white tunic with long sandals laced to his knees. A dagger was placed in his belt and a wig was on the table before him.
“You are late, my friends,” he said calmly.
“Little Nuri,” one man exclaimed. “We looked everywhere for you.”
“Here I am,” the beautiful man-child replied.
The men looked at each other in disbelief but carried on in silence. They prepared for the next show, each man changing clothes or preparing his lines with the other.
‘Regret’ first?” one man asked.
Men and women with loud voices called for the actors to begin and threw loaves of bread and tomatoes at the empty stage.
“Where is Little Nuri?” one woman cried out. The crowd clapped at this and began to chant. “Nuri, Nuri, we want Little Nuri. The gypsy boy.”
One actor in a long, black robe and dark wig walked onto center stage and began.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Damascus!” he yelled while holding a tablet. “We bring you ‘Regret,’ ‘Alexander the Great’ and ‘Roxanne, the Daughter of Darius, a Comedy of Love.’”
The chant continued while the tomatoes flew across the stage, hitting the actor.
“We want Nuri, we want Nuri, the gypsy king.” The crowd pushed forward against the makeshift stage and continued their wild behavior.
The open-air market was lit. A wooden table and one large flask of wine with two goblets were on the makeshift stage. Three entertainers sat in the corner and began quiet, drunken discussions.
One player bowed while the others began to walk the stage.
“My lords and ladies,” he began. “Here is a simple tale of loss twice told.”
The player took off his cap and gestured toward the crowd in a humble fashion.
Two men faced each other and one poured the ale while the other waited in silence.
“She only comes out at this time of night, the trees creaking, the wind blowing with the rain upon our faces.”
“Oh no, she haunts the waking hours also.”
He took the drink and poured it into the two glasses.
The voice of an innkeeper sounded throughout the hall as a man wearing an apron appeared.
“Last call, gents, we’re closing.”
The drunken couple threw their arms around each other and headed to stage left while a single drunk lay on a couch dead to the world.
“She is always with us, waiting and watching…”
“Why does she watch?”
“She preys on weakness; she waits for the right time to strike,” said the player who stood up and drunkenly grabbed an invisible dagger. “And when you least expect it.”
He drove the knife into the other man. “Right into the heart.”
The other man agreed in drunken laughter while turning to face his friend and wrapped his hands around the invisible dagger. “Bad, that is.”
He shook his head and poured more wine.
“Not bad,” the other player drew close to his friend. “Evil, I say, evil.”
“No, I need a pint of courage to keep her away but she comes free-flowing with the drink,” the player admitted.
“But she is always there just below your waking senses, watching you as you bring in the harvest or pull the old mule out of the ditch.”
“But I don’t think of her then.”
The other man stood up again and shook his drunken friend.
“But she is thinking of you.”
He got down on his knees and looked into the man’s face.
“She is thinking of ways, weaving more stories that you have yet to be part of.”
He grabbed the man’s lapels. “Don’t you see it?”
He looked up and pointed to one ray of light. “There, look, look at the beautiful web how it shines in the light and how intricate it is with all of its tentacles perfectly aligned, all there to entrap you.”
The drunken player stared up at the light as did the audience rapt with the player’s words.
“See how she attracts the eye, see her terrible beauty.” He waited as the man continued to look up. “See how she transforms when you look at her from different sides, new colors, new shapes and new poisons to slip into your consciousness.”
“Come,” he said as he stood up and walked to center stage and called to the audience. “Come, come and make ready to hear a story, come and feel the pain of loss. Come and see how your action sets all in motion, a pebble into a raging stream of loss.”
Suddenly a bell tolled slowly three times, forcing the two men to look up from their drunken stupor and realize how alone they were. They huddled together, pure humanity in front of an eternal fire as the bell stopped.
One man slowly returned to center stage and began again.
“Three years of trouble and torment: the loved ones that are broken and left behind while you push on without thought or care. At first you are jubilant, free and without a care to hold you.”
He turned to the audience and looked up again at the imagined spider web.
“Look,” he cries, “look at how she turns slowly weaving a tale of loss.” He took his hands and wrapped them around himself.
“The web is new and you can still move through it without worry but she is imperceptibly wrapping herself around you.”
The other man took a drink and gulped it down, worrying about what would happen next.
The audience was deathly quiet as they all felt their own shortcomings and lost chances that had rolled away, dice in a dreadful game of chance.
“But you continue through the years not thinking of your actions long ago but worrying about new situations, not realizing that the ones you made long ago are catching up to you. The spider is wrapping you up now.”
He stopped and looked at his friend.
“See yourself, what you have become and done in those three years. You haven’t accomplished what you wanted. You still have the same worries, still the same fears to face.”
The other man drank deeply from his ale. He cupped his face with both hands and ran them slowly down the sides of his cup while straining to see himself in the light. He stood and faced the crowd.
“What have I done, what can I do now?”
He covered his face and sobbed loudly.
The stage was dark but a single flame of a torch was lit and slowly a body appeared from stage left.
A tall, thin waif of a girl wearing nothing but rags and heavy makeup, white on the face and red lipstick, appeared holding a torch.
The two men at first were afraid of this being that appeared before them at this sad time of night. They quickly realized that it was only a poor child perhaps lost and in need of help.
“Child, it is too late to be up now,” one man offered quietly.
“Yes,” the other agreed. “You should be sleeping.”
The men approached the waif and tried to help her.
“I fear it is much too late,” she whispered. The entire audience was transfixed by this child and strained to hear her. “The road is pitch black and very late at night.”
“Yes, yes,” the one player sympathized. “Better to go back to sleep.”
He motioned to the upstairs rooms above.
“It is much too late for that now,” she laughed.
“Not too late, a good night’s sleep is what you need.” He guided her to stage left.
She laughed at the player in a wild-mannered way, which made him upset.
“Well enough child, go to bed,” he retorted. “I am not your parent.”
“Look,” she cried while pointing out and up across the audience.
The two men followed her gaze and stopped in fear at what they saw.
“The web,” the one man shuddered. “See it in all its menacing glory.”
The other man covered his face in fear. “Enough,” he cried.
The waif continued to laugh at the two men and finally looked at both of them.
“Poor souls, do not worry about me.” She turned on the drunks who were still staring out into the distance. “It is too late for you!”
The candle was extinguished and the players left the stage quickly.
The stage was quiet and then suddenly Little Nuri appeared. He looked angelic in a long, white tunic, with a laurel of thorns in his blond hair and piercing blue eyes.
He walked cat-like onto the stage and eyed the crowd with evil intent. His manner was haughty and with an air of condescension that drove the women crazy. The men laughed but felt inferior to his blatant sexuality. His lips were ripe, his shoulders bare.
He turned his back on the crowd.
They loved his stage presence and shouted for more as he danced quickly from left to right in a dazzling display of athleticism and pure sensuality.
He came at the crowd again from center stage.
“Oh, you rubes,” he cried. “You do not understand love but want to feast on it like a banquet.”
“Yes, please,” one woman near the stage pleaded.
He came close to her, bent down and reached out as if to touch her and then abruptly threw up his hands in disgust.
“I’ll have you later, whore,” he laughed and disappeared to stage left.
The audience was silent as it waited . Moments later, King Darius stood with a white shirt open and a sword at his side. He wore a crown on his head and had a beard and long sideburns pasted on his face.
The two men met in the middle and drew swords.
“You want to marry Roxanne and then I want my kingdom,” Darius cried while striking a blow with his sword.
The other man avoided the sword and replied, “You want to sit on your throne as much as I want her sitting on mine.”
He lunged lustfully forward and thrust his hips forward twice. The crowd roared at the lewd gesture and clapped widely.
Darius grew large in rage and went for Little Nuri but time and time again was too slow for the man-child who danced like a boxer and taunted the heavier actor at every turn.
“You shall not have her ever.”
“I have conquered all the known world but it is she who has stolen my heart.”
“You have no heart,” the angry Darius cried as he lunged again.
“It’s not a heart that satisfies a woman,” said Nuri as he turned to the crowd and lustfully thrust his hips out again. His lips were red with sensuality and his hair blown back by a breeze that came ripping off the river and settled over the marketplace.
Roxanne, the princess, a man in a long dress with large melons stuffed in his chest, appeared on stage in mock terror at her father and Alexander fighting over her.
“What,” she cried . “Why are you fighting like this?”
Darius set foot toward center stage, his chest brimming with fatherly pride.
“I am fighting for your honor and virginity.”
“And I am as well,” countered Nuri.
The princess turned to the crowd and talked directly to them in a deep-throated, bawdy voice.
“Two men fighting for things that were lost years ago.”
The princess turned to the two men on stage, wiggling her behind to the crowd and leaving them hooting at her vulgar walk.
“My honor,” she began, putting herself in between the two men.
“Yes,” Darius yelled. “He may have my lands but should he not ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage.”
“I wager it’s not my hand that he so desperately seeks, my good father.”
The princess turned to the crowd waving her behind in the air.
“And when he is done with you?” Darius asked as he sheathed his sword. “What then, my sweet daughter?”
“I’ll suspect that he will,” she said as she turned to the crowd and winks, “come again.”
“Will you give me her hand in marriage, great Darius?”
Nuri comes to meet the two at center stage and takes the bawdy princess by the hand while turning to the crowd and holding his nose in disgust.
The crowd loves this and claps loudly while yelling wildly at the scene before them.
After the crowd leaves, Nuri is by himself and cries. He takes off his gloves and looks at his ravaged fingers.
“I cannot continue,” he says as he scratches at his legs and feet. “I am unclean.”
Nuri pulls up his sleeves and pinches his dark-patched skin. “Who will look at me and smile now?”
He buries his head in his hand. “At the leper.”
Continue reading… Chapter 8 | Show Us The Way
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