The Prophet's Ladder Read online

  “They are well sir, though my mother still has a cold, as before. I may take her to see the doctor before long if she doesn’t feel better soon.” Ali accepted the coffee gratefully, and sipped it. It was extremely hot and spiced with cloves, ginger, and cinnamon.

  “Well, were you true family I would offer to have my daughter take your mother to the clinician's, just around the corner. Any more thoughts on that front?”

  “Of course sir. Once I am able to afford my own place…”

  “Well I’d help out in that respect, it goes without saying,” replied Hassan, a rapid-fire response.

  “Thank you sir. That is very generous of you.” Ali noted that Amina's father was in a congenial mood this evening, mercifully.

  The two men continued to talk and sip their coffee for another thirty minutes or so, speaking of Tunisia’s performance in yesterday’s CAF Confederation Cup football qualifier and of the recent tragic industrial accident in Turkey, the second in several months. Finally, Amina and Mohammed entered the living room carrying a washing bowl, a towel, and a pitcher of water so those partaking of dinner could rinse their hands before eating. Najwa entered then with the couscous and soup bowls carried on a small, round, knee-high serving table.

  Ali washed his hands and greeted the rest of the family. He turned to his beloved.

  “Hello Amina. Peace be with you.” She smiled as he spoke; she was always so beautiful, and she looked at him with an amused, penetrating light in her eyes.

  “Yes indeed.” Hassan turned to his daughter. “Ali and I were just discussing the matter of your impending matrimony.”

  “Dad! You were speaking of nothing of the sort!” Amina replied as her father laughed. “I could hear you both from the kitchen.”

  Hassan's laughter was contagious, and soon everyone was smiling and laughing along with him. They all partook of the delicious vegetable couscous, using spoons to eat out of the communal central dish. The family inquired about Mohammed's schooling, and Amina's newest graphic design work for the bank.

  As the evening wore on and various individual conversations were taking place across the table, Amina asked Ali if he had worked at all on his blog. "Yes, a little this morning," he replied cautiously. Amina's father pounced on the subject immediately.

  "What's this about a blog?" Hassan asked.

  "Oh, it's nothing. Just a side project. I've been working analyzing historical trends in North Africa, that sort of thing. Nothing that exciting." Ali equivocated.

  "Really?" Hassan's eyes probed Ali's face. "Well I hope it isn't anything too inflammatory. This country barely survived the ar-rabīˁ al-ˁarabī. You were both teenagers then. You don't remember what it was like."

  Amina protested. “Dad, Ali and I were both nineteen then. Of course we remember. We marched and protested along with lots of our friends.”

  Hassan continued to probe Ali about his blog. “Ali, you aren’t writing anything, heretical are you? I remember that column you wrote about that Imam several month’s back…”

  “With respect sir, that gentleman was embezzling funds, charitable contributions from the faithful.”

  Amina’s father’s voice took on a darker tone. “I don’t recall anything ever being proven in the courts concerning his alleged abuses. Just you be careful. Not all Tunisians are as understanding as Najwa and I when a man goes and questions God’s will. Perhaps I will read up on this ‘blog’ of yours.”

  The dinner took on a muted tone, and the family finished their meal in moody silence. Ali thanked his hosts and bade farewell to Amina before beginning his long walk home. He felt embarrassed and slightly ashamed. He’d done his best to be cheerful and gregarious: a suitable fiancé for Amina, and he’d practically ruined the dinner. Why did I have to go and challenge Hassan? I need to learn to just shut up every now and then.

  It was a moonlit night, and Tunis was still alive with activity. The streets were full of shoppers and youthful couples daring to hold hands in the darkness of a shady street corner. Men crowded the cafes watching footballers or the evening news. A number of foreign tourists could be seen: Europeans, Americans, even a few Chinese walking down the main boulevards, some led by tour guides pointing out the various attributes of the ancient city.

  Ali arrived at his family’s apartment after winding his way through the gates of the old medina and its narrow alleyways. The cramped home was dimly lit, in stark comparison to Amina’s family’s bright house. The place was ancient, built many centuries ago and modified and rebuilt several times since then. The cold stones and brick of each room echoed with the history and stories of old Tunis, of generations of family who were born, lived, and died within the walls of his home. Ali loved it here, and would not move for all the world. And yet, tonight it appeared more drab, more run down than usual. His mother coughed from her corner bed, a harsh, bilious sound.

  “Mother, how are you? Are you feeling alright?” Ali approached her form, frail, desiccated. It wasn’t a simple cold, as he had told Hassan. She was dying, and had thus far refused treatment despite his protestations.

  “Praise be to God, I am well enough my son.” She looked up from her bed, her eyes slowly focusing on Ali. “Your father is at the Jamea, praying. He will be back soon. I am sorry I did not make anything for dinner…”

  “Mother it is alright, don’t worry. I have already eaten with Amina’s family.”

  “Ahh, how is lovely Amina? When will you be married?”

  “Not soon enough for your liking.” Ali smiled at his mother. A lifetime of manual labor coupled with the birthing and raising five sons had made her look far older than she was, a woman of fifty. She was a devout woman, so proud of her children. She did not understand Ali’s work, being illiterate, but she had clipped and saved each piece Ali had written for the newspaper, and would always show off the scrapbook to her friends, commenting on each editorial and column as if she were an expert.

  “Mother I am going to go write on my computer now. Do you need anything?”

  “No my son, thank you. I am going back to sleep.” Her frail form rolled ever so slowly to one side and her breathing slowed. Ali crept away and picked up his laptop from his room. Once he had shared this room with his three older brothers, but they were gone now. Two had moved out after marrying; they continued to work the hanut shop with his father. Another had signed up with the army and was stationed in the south on the Libyan frontier.

  He turned on his computer, a ten year old laptop that he had refurbished in his spare time, and logged on to his blog. The number of subscribers had upticked slightly since he’d last checked, which was good news. He wondered if Amina’s father would carry through with his threat of reviewing the blog; he had never known the man to even look at a computer, let alone browse the internet for a specific website.

  The comments on his most recent post were a mixture of rabid support, trolling, criticism, and dismissal. He had expected as much. One post in particular alarmed him; the author was clearly a Wahhabist, an Islamic ‘fundamentalist’, and he had threatened painful deaths both for Ali as the author and his family for begetting him, in addition to their assured, everlasting damnation. Ali ignored the comment and pushed on. He had set up everything using a pseudonym, so there was no real danger. Some of his long-time subscribers had posted more nuanced critiques, and these were much appreciated.

  A few hours passed as Ali checked the news outlets, agglomeration sites, and his social media accounts. His eyes strained and he shut his laptop, hands rubbing his face. His father had not yet returned home. The man had probably finished his devotions and had stopped at a friend’s house or the cafe; he was rarely at home with his wife, preferring to ignore the truth rather than face her impending passing. Ali sighed and retired to his sleeping mat; he wished things had gone differently at Amina’s house tonight. Would Hassan permit their marriage if he saw what he had written?

  He fretted for an hour, unable to fall asleep. Finally, in order to sooth his frayed ner
ves he reminded himself of a favorite verse from the Quran: “O you who have believed, seek help through patience and prayer. Indeed, Allah is with the patient.”

  He repeated the line to himself until he drifted off. His father hadn’t come home.

  ****

  670 CE, North Africa

  The army’s march across the untamed wilderness had slowed to a crawl, its vanguard having chosen a copse of palm trees, a break in the vast range of brittle thicket, wherein the animals might graze and the men find shelter for the evening. To the south of the encampment there was a dry riverbed, the banks to either side were steep, with the bed itself consisting of a multitude of pebbles and smooth rocks. Dusk in the desert was brutally cold and the men lit dung fires to warm themselves, their tents and banners flapping as the wind picked up. They were five thousand strong, cavalrymen and retainers, bowmen and spearmen, scribes and cooks, and the camp quickly swelled to an impressive city of cloth and rope. The army was far from any known trade route; this was the true country, which Allah had sent his faithful to traverse. Westward, ever westward, he led them. Emissaries of the Umayyads: the true believers.

  General Uqba ibn Nafi sat and watched as his men roasted game caught in the wilds: hare pierced by arrows, wild birds snared with nets, other creatures of the desert. The men did not waste any water to cook, as the region they now traversed was barren and dry; any water they possessed was kept in sealed skins and reserved for drinking.

  One man, a cavalryman of a low station, barely above the infantry in esteem, was leading his horse to a large boulder that served as a windbreak. Uqba started as the horse seemed to stumble, almost falling and crushing the dismounted rider. The beast recovered, and Uqba strode over to assist the man, who knelt to inspect the ground beneath his mount’s legs. Suddenly the rider leapt back and shouted with amazement.

  “Merciful Allah, what is this?” The cavalryman lifted from the sand beneath him the object his horse had stumbled over; it was a cup of radiant gold, seemingly glowing in the dim light of dusk. Uqba and his men stared in amazement. Who had left such a priceless treasure in the middle of the desert?

  The General approached the man who held the cup at arms length, and asked kindly if he might inspect it. The soldier bowed with deep respect and handed Uqba the artifact. Upon the rim of the vessel was inscribed one sentence in his own native language: “drink that you might persevere.” The general with sudden insight recognized the cup; it had belonged to the Caliph Muawiyah, a relation to the Prophet himself, peace be upon him. He had heard complaint of this cup, a treasure beyond compare, having gone missing some years before in Mecca.

  Uqba suddenly felt his feet grow wet, and he looked down to see that, strangely, a good amount of water was flowing out of the ground beneath him. Shocked and bewildered, the general and his men leapt away from the torrent that quickly began to fill the depression they’d stood in. The water flowed unceasingly, and many soldiers cheered with pleasure, for they and the animals both could slake their thirsts in full tonight.

  Uqba bent over and sipped from the growing pool. The water was refreshing and clean, not brackish or muddied in the slightest! He knew he’d not had water this pure in an age; the liquid tasted as if it were from the sacred well of Zamzam itself, thousands of miles away. How was such a thing possible?

  “This is a miracle from the Exceedingly Compassionate, the Shaper of Worlds!” Uqba exclaimed. “We are all as Ishmael was tonight. Truly we are blessed.” And the men drank their fill, then and thereafter, for Uqba knew that this Kairouan was a holy place, destined to become a site of pilgrimage comparable to Mecca or Jerusalem itself.

  Uqba ibn Nafi smiled, for he knew Allah watched and shielded him and his men, guiding them on their journey across this vast, immeasurable land.

  ****

  Todd faced his computer screen in the empty coffee shop. It was late in the evening, and the only other soul in the room was the barista who was busy cleaning the espresso machine. Todd glanced at the tiny box that displayed his head on the video-chat program. He combed back his dirty blond hair, which was always slightly unkempt for some reason, and took a deep breath. He never liked interviews, even informational ones. They always reeked of superficiality and bullshit in his opinion, and Todd assumed that whatever he said during this type of thing was being dissected and overanalyzed for hidden meaning a hundred times by the interviewer, just as he would do afterwards. To his mind the added burden of communicating via a computer screen and the slight delay in sound and speech it always entailed simply exacerbated the difficulty of it all. Abruptly, an unfamiliar face appeared on the screen as the call connected.

  “Good afternoon Mr. Wittry,” said a man with dark hair and sharp brown eyes in accented, intelligible English. “My name is Karim Al Thawadi. I am in the employ of Al-Hatem Aerospace. I am pleased you’ve decided to speak with us today about our offer.”

  “Yes, thank you. I’ve reviewed the documents you’ve sent me, very interesting. I’ve also asked my colleagues about your company, and I must be honest Mr. Thawadi…”

  “Please, call me Karim,” interjected the man on the screen. He was wearing a fitted suit and tie, gold and black. He appeared sharply dressed and fashionable, a man in his mid forties.

  “Karim,” Todd corrected himself. “Not many have heard of your organization.”

  “Well, we are indeed a nascent aerospace engineering firm that is true,” said Karim, nodding, “but I believe some of our recent accomplishments, noted in the literature we sent you, speak for themselves as to the quality of our team and our willingness to innovate. You would be well suited here, Mr. Wittry. We’ve reviewed your CV as well, and we are quite impressed. Your work on the Curiosity project is quite exciting. Our CEO himself specifically asked me to bring you on board.”

  Todd smiled, despite himself; when it came to his work he was as susceptible to flattery as the next underappreciated engineer. “That is very kind of you, Karim. I have a few questions for you, if I may?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is it true that you’ve secured access rights and construction permits for a spaceport launch facility in the Rub al Khali desert?” Todd asked.

  “That is correct, Mr. Wittry,” replied Karim. “In truth, construction is already well underway on the state-of-the-art facility. We expect full operational status in a few months time.”

  “And what is your operational budget?” asked Todd.

  “Officially or unofficially?” Karim smiled.

  “Is there a difference?” Todd’s interest was piqued.

  “Oh yes indeed. We are a public-private partnership, Mr. Wittry. Nominally we have some funding and grants from the UAE government, approximately $1.5 billion, as well as some capital from our private investors, totaling some $1 billion in additional funds this fiscal year. Unofficially... well, I can’t really discuss that since we are not face to face, but let me assure you that there are some...interested parties who wish to assist us in our work, benefiting themselves in turn.”

  Todd head was reeling from the numbers he had just heard. He centered himself, trying to maintain a dispassionate mien. “Even so, $2.5 billion is nearly 15% of NASA’s budget. How can the UAE afford such a thing?”

  Karim appeared slightly miffed at Todd’s crudeness, though he swiftly masked his expression. “You need not concern yourself with the politics of it all Mr. Wittry, we leave that to our board and CEO, and they have it all well in hand. Did you find the salary offer and benefits package to your liking?”

  “Yes, thank you, it is very generous.” Todd humbled himself. The offer on the table was lavish in the extreme for an engineer who had spent his whole career in the public sector. “I must admit, Karim, the offer is tempting. May I consider it for a few more days? I would like to discuss all of this with my wife.”

  “Take all the time you need, Mr. Wittry,” Karim replied. “You may contact me at my email or by phone.”

  “And may I ask you one more questi
on?”

  “Certainly.”

  “What project would I be working on initially, were I to come aboard? Satellite test launches, general groundskeeping, getting things up and running, that sort of thing?”

  “Oh no, Todd.” Karim’s face had changed, his pleasant disposition shifted to something akin to deadly seriousness. “ We would have you managing a team of engineers, some 20 or so, working on tether component construction, access, and remote handling.”

  Todd’s world dropped out from under him. “Tether components? You mean…”

  Karim’s eyes seemed to sparkle on the computer screen, betraying a hint of childlike enthusiasm. His accented voice returned after a slight buffering delay. “Yes, indeed Mr. Wittry. Tethers. Elevator tethers.”

  ****

  At 3 o’clock in the afternoon the following day, Ali entered his father’s favorite corner cafe, across the street from the local jamea, or mosque. Immediately, as always, the profusion of noises, smells, and sounds overloaded his senses. There were thirty or so men in the narrow, smoke filled establishment. Two televisions attached to the walls were loudly playing at once; one displayed a football match around which many of the patrons had gathered expectantly, shoulder to shoulder. The other TV had on a 1980’s Hollywood action film, one starring that droll Austrian muscleman, Ali reckoned, with subtitles both in Arabic and French.

  Men sipped liters of coffee and scalding hot mint tea, spooned bisara into their mouths, and smoked cigarettes to excess. Some older haji in brown and blue djellabas sat around a checkerboard as two of their number played, faces furrowed in deep concentration, each attempting to preempt the other’s stratagem with every move. There were no women in the cafe; such a place would not have them.

  Ali scanned the establishment where his eyes eventually fell upon his father, who was pouring tea from a silver teapot into three small red glasses for himself and two of his friends. The water streamed steaming from the pot at an impressive height, a full meter above the table. This was a prime example of a display of tea pouring prowess unique to the peoples of the Maghreb. He approached with some hesitance, not wanting to interrupt his father’s performance.