Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [162]
The bowl was removed. Another dervish, kneeling, unfolded before the Baba and set up a small stool, placing in the slung straps of its top a large shallow brass bowl of food, in which he laid a spoon, its face down. The Baba ate, and taking from a third man a folded napkin of white silk, embroidered in violet silk calligraphy, he wiped his lips. A murmur ran through the hall. The Baba put the spoon to his mouth, and a second time wiped his lips; then a third time repeated the ritual. ‘Allah Eyvallah!’ said the man on Jerott’s left, and the cry was taken up from group to group of the spectators. ‘Allah Eyvallah! Allah Eyvallah!’
Moving heads extinguished Jerott’s view. All around him people were shifting, talking; groups were changing and re-forming; servants, pressing in among the mats and cushions, had trouble setting up tables and ferrying vessels in and out of the darkness which was no longer quite so dark, as candle after candle was lit round the walls and from the great hooped holders he now saw swaying in the hot scented currents over his head. Although the dervishes were still there, all the activity in the centre of the arena seemed to be unimportant and forgotten. The ceremony was over.
Marthe’s face was flushed. She said, There is a special food, the aşure, they will bring first. You will not dislike it—it is made of raisins and almonds and dates and hazelnuts and such things. Then they will bring pilaf and other dishes.’
‘What were they drinking?’ said Jerott.
She said, ‘The bowl is the holy vessel, the Meydan Tasi; and the stone he took from it was the Kanaat Tasi, the stone of contentment. The big candle with the twelve pleats, for the twelve Imams, is the Kanun Ciragi, with the three wicks representing God, Mohammed and Ali. The throne, of course, is the Throne of Mohammed. The Haji Bektash Veli was a very great man, born over three hundred years ago.’
‘He didn’t lack for imagination,’ said Jerott. ‘What were they drinking?’
‘In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Lord, quench thy thirst.’ It was the dervish, the dervish of Mehedia, a drinking-bowl in his hands.
‘Mademoiselle?’ said Jerott. It looked like thickish, uncoloured water. She shook her head.
‘I am not thirsty. Taste it.’
‘What is it?’ said Jerott.
‘It is what the Baba drank. It is safe, Lord,’ said the dervish gravely, irony in his black eye, and lifting the bowl: ‘If the Efendi will permit, I shall sip from it.’
And he drank too, while Jerott watched him, stonily showing no trace of humiliation or resentment, or of the gloom which enveloped him. The drink was almost certainly safe. He would probably get pleurisy, quinsy and pox from the cup. He took it back and sipped from the other side, holding the stuff in his mouth. The dervish moved on and spoke, bending, to Marthe before stepping away. In Jerott’s mouth, the liquid was sweetish and thick, and rather savourless. Harmless, anyway.
He swallowed. ‘What did he say?’ And as he spoke the words the stuff roared down his throat, drawing a chariot and six horses and taking the lining of his soft palate with it. He broke off, his mouth shut, staring open-eyed at Marthe, and then said, thickly, ‘My God. What was that?’
‘Al yazil. Raki. You might call it a brandy,’ said Marthe. Her face was grave, as the dervish’s had been.
‘Brandy!’ said Jerott, his voice louder than it should have been both for safety and propriety. ‘I thought … Does no one read the Qur’ân here? What’s all the talk about Wine the Red Insane One? I thought every Moslem who drank went to hell?’
‘Wine,’ said Marthe softly. ‘We are forbidden wine. The Prophet said nothing of spirits. In any case, it is symbolic in the Bektashi Order. You have heard of the Bektashi breathings? The breath which they believe cures the flesh, and instils the spirit of God? The word for breath is also the word for wine, or raki: dem. The other name for the tekke is humhane, or wineshop. Bade is