Daydream in Vang Vien

---

Still in that town. I liked that river trip on the tire so much I go right back and do it again. It's all about the landscape. Thomaz my new pal doesn't like floating down rivers. He's rented a moto again and taken off roaming the countryside. I'm on my tire smoking a ciggie. I dream again:

TOGREB
"What will you do now, Togreb?"
The old man turned his head towards his companion while steadying his nervous horse. He hadn't heard the question, lost in thoughts of the past as he was. The sound of Korosh's voice had been a mere jumble of indistinct syllables. It suddenly occurred to Togreb that he couldn't remember when he had last been this distracted: him! This paragon of concentration and awareness!
And another thing also occurred to him now.
"Korosh, do you realize that we have ridden, together or separately, for almost fifty years...fifty years?!"
"I can't remember the time when I was a boy," Korosh answered. They both again turned their gaze towards the sea, a calm pool of green beneath a spotless blue sky. It was windy, but with that sort of warm air that feels like a silken pillow stroking against your face. Yes, they were home at last. Iran! The coast of Narmara! The holy land of Arun the Great God. And retirement, too. Lazy days spent in the tents, loafing about on Persian carpets listening to war stories, sprawled upon rugs from India, munching on grapes or veal cakes served by bare-chested lady-slaves! Life had been rather good for Korosh and Togreb, old horse-warriors of the line, mercenaries for the conquerors of Iran, Bactria, Afghanistan, Pamir, Kashmir, and Darosastan, and Armenia, and Pontus. Bodyguards for countless merchant caravans that took them to Arabia, across the Sinai, up and down the land of Egypt, across the Sahara to Cyrenea on the Libyan coast, Old Cartage and Tunis, and as far west as Mauretania, by the Great Sea. Proud wielders of enormous scimitars, able to plant an arrow into a moving enemy while themselves at full gallop and fully armoured. They had survived it all because they were good, very very good.
Togreb and Korosh were not of the same nations. Togreb was Turk, Korosh Iranian: hereditary enemies, in truth. Yet, chance, adventure, hardships and conquests had brought this unlikely pair together. Both were great horsemen and great archers. Both were fearless and greedy. Both despised work and only loved hunting.
"By the way, Korosh asked, how many girls did you bring back?"
Few subjects could pull Togreb from his meditations on the beauty of the seas, but this was one of them.
"Let's see, two Iranian girls, two from Afghanistan, one Armenian, one Byzantine, one from India, and, get this--a Chinese girl I acquired during my campaign with Tuglag Shah, on the Oxus!"
"Add to these your second wife, plus her maidservants. Are there any men at all left in your camp??"
"None, friend. Save my retainers, but they camp outside my own and guard my sheep and goats. As for me, I will spend my declining years like I have spent my earliest ones surrounded by women giving me the suckle."
"If the Magi could hear you! You still talk like an adolescent sometimes!"
"That's the secret of longevity, Korosh. Never grow up. Let others be responsible. No work. And all play. You should understand that."
But Korosh quickly forgot about the girls and not growing up. He was now sixty-seven and half a century of war on horseback had done his loins irreparable damage. His desire for women was now long extinguished and he saw it as a blessing. Henceforth he would devote his time more constructively--like to the fishing boats that he had purchased and the stallions that he intended soon to put out to stud.
"Praise Arun, but how did we ever get ourselves into these adventures, and how could we have stayed on in the army for this long?! We could have retired twenty years ago, do you realize that?"
Togreb answered: "We hated this region, remember?"
Korosh chuckled: "We really did...”
"And we wanted to see the world, and rob it of some of its revenues. A man steals your goat and it's theft. My nation loots another and we call that conquest. But I'm not complaining."
Sixty years had come and gone since Murad the Shaman, their mentor, had passed away. Korosh and Togreb, who had grown up together in Elam, got fed up with nomadic life early and joined the mounted army of Shaphur the Arcasid, just as it set out for the Oxus to invade Bactria for the first time. They were only fifteen, then. But a childhood spent on horseback hunting with the bow had already made them fearsome. Anyway, the Turanians and Parthians allied for the first time vanquished in style and Bactria was ours for the taking. Korosh and Togreb stayed there awhile, got promoted, were given some responsibilities. Their respective rise in the ranks was steady over the years. Shaphur marched on the Romans, smashed them at the battle of Harran, and took Armenia from the Emperor. Our two old cronies had played their part there, too.
Then, another war to the East. Panchir this time, then Kashmir, Sodgia, victories over Sarmates, and then the Cathays. Then Darosastan, with those strange-looking Hindus and their elephant worship.
Throughout all this time, Togreb had kept wandering to himself: "Why do I always find =myself in deserts? I was born in one. Iran is a vast plateau of wasteland. Bactria is worst. The Chinese Altai is worse. Only rocks grow in Pontus. Armenia is dismal. I expected jungles in Darosastan and what did I find? Another desert. It is not that I dislike the sand. But why could I not enjoy a little diversity? A forest or a snowy mountain peak. Everywhere I ride is more barren than the last place. What is the point of conquering half the world if that half we chose looks exactly like Baluchistan?! I have never really left home."
In time, Togreb and Korosh had separated. The latter was sent down the Hindus river to command a fort while Togreb stayed north in Pamir, helping his emir administer a vast tract of pasture land and collecting more taxes than they he knew what to do with. Hence, Togreb had gotten pretty rich: his combined share in the loot of such places like Ispehan, Samarqand, Kabul, and Peshawar had netted him a roomful of precious items, including gold, rubies, pearl, and the like. He also got his share of personal retainers, guards, menservants, horse trainers, squires, an accountant, a bookkeeper, horses, sheep, camels, expensive rugs and precious fabrics, and girls, girls, girls.
Suddenly, a verset of the Secret Book, which Murad had taught him, darted into Togreb's rambling thoughts:
"The life of this world is made to seem fair to a sinner. But when thou art secure, remember thy God, who made thee like a fortress."
"Well, thought the Turanian, I am tired, I am sixty seven. I did some very evil things in my time. Killed lots of men. But I believe I am a simple fellow and I've never yet had the time to regret anything."
And he also remembered that nagging question that had begun creeping into him when he had turned fifty. A nagging question, you say? Amidst all the chaos and slaughter, the adventure, the revelries, the mortal combats, the days of fear and distress, of famine and of raging thirst, the nights of high fever and the utter discomfort and embarrassments of indigestion and tapeworms, and the stink--yes, the stink! No one who has not been in an army on the move can understand what it smells like when you travel with a great company of sweaty men who cannot bathe often months at a time. Add to this the fact that they are all on horseback, and your picture of the odours of hell is complete.
Well, the stink even had not allowed Togreb to stray too far from his nagging personal question: "Why am I going to die? Why is there nothing certain and absolute? Why is no one sure of anything. Even death is not inevitable, since they tell us that there is an afterlife. Why in the Shatan's name is no one certain about any single thing? Why live amidst such fog and mush, galloping the Iranian plateaus with one eye closed? Take a look at a magnificent Persian fresco, or gaze and measure the infinite galaxies in the night; yet, no one man ever sees an absolute, for each see only his own eyes."
Togreb turned again to his old friend: "Korosh, if you don't mind, I would like to ride alone for a while. I've lots of things on my mind and they need sorting out."
Korosh gave a smirk, saying: "No, I don't suppose you're agonizing over what we'll be having for dinner tonight. I'll see you back at the camp. And don't get lost."
Korosh turned his horse and galloped away towards the beach, whilst Togreb turned his own mount from the sea and towards the vast, sprawling inland of a desert. Looking at this vast expense now and hearing the faint sound of the waves behind him, he thought of the desert:
"I have been turning my back on you all my life. My protector. My nurturer and toughener..My source."
He peered at his horse, which by now had grown so accustomed to his voice that it obeyed on verbal command: "All right, forward. And don't start trotting." Then, the old soldier advanced into the wilderness and the sound of the waves behind him faded to silence.
-------------------
"Arun, my God. Ye surely know how improper it is to pray on horseback, and Ye also know how often I have done it on the eve of battle. So, if Ye have not stricken me down for these occasions, I pray Ye will not do it now, for these are the only chances I get to talk with You."
The stillness of the wilderness was overwhelming.
"What I want to know is this: why do I still feel a need for some certainty? Why do I desire that, at the very least, one thing in this world or in my life be utterly absolute? Why do I not accept the fact that everything is all "Ifs", "Buts", and "Maybes"? Why am I so uncomfortable swimming in this blurry fog of chance encounters and hazards, which has been my life? I am a professional robber and plunderer, yet I have been granted most of my wishes, provided that I took the risk to charge at them and grab them. Why can I not just settle for this good luck?"
Then, there was a very long silence; save for the muffled sounds of the horse hoofs ploughing through the soft sands of the desert.
Togreb came within sight of a chain of high cliffs, and as he approached them, they began to seem as the gigantic walls of some natural fortress for giants. The sun made them reddish in colour and this contrasted strongly with the yellowish white of the flat sands. All was still, staggeringly still. Togreb slowed his horse to a stop, and now all was staggeringly silent, too.
"Fantastic," Togreb said aloud as he stared in wonderment at the endless chain of high cliffs protecting the horizon: "The fortress of Arun."
A bizarre feeling had come over him. He wasn't worried about anything. And he wasn't thinking about anything. And he wasn't feeling anything perceivable either. Yet, he was able to remain in this strange state for hours, sitting there astride his stilled horse, staring at this unending landscape that made no sound or movement. He remained in this posture for hours because it made him feel extremely good, though it was not exactly a feeling of pleasantness or joy. Yet, his mind did not even interrupt this splendid peace with wonderment as to its source. The sun began to set.
"Let me go, now, O Arun. I must return to the camp."
There is, it seems, a foreboding and a silence, and purity about the desert, and such scarcity of creatures, that makes it a place fit for a God. And surely this is where He dwells whenever He deems the earth worthy of a visit. And this is where He calls His servants to come, that He may give them an instruction. As to the others who come, mere men who travel there out of their own volition, He has nothing to say to them. But He readily makes them feel His presence, and the presence is this: Infinitely vast and utterly silent. Perfectly still and indestructible. Foreboding and grave, indifferent to the conquests and searching of men, unless they enter the desert--at their own peril--and draw near Him. And there, they may feel His presence, if they are quiet enough, that is.
"Fantastic!" said Togreb aloud again. "Unbelievable!"
The Turk turned his horse round and headed again towards the sea, and then the camp, saying to himself: "For what few years I have left, not a day shall go by that I will not repeat this excursion to the desert, my home, my protector and nurturer, my rebuker and toughener..My, my Father..my Father: Ye have truly given me everything."
Taken with a sudden joy, he hit the flanks of his horse with his heels, signalling it was time for a full gallop. That poor horse must have been very bored, because it gave out a loud cry of joy at the command to at last do some galloping. Besides, there was fresh hay and a new mare waiting at the camp.

---