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| Sufrah Illustration by George Barbier |
S U F R A H
Geomancer
by Marcel Shwob
The story of Aladdin is in error when it tells how the African magician was poisoned in his palace and how his body, burned black by the drug, was thrown to the dogs and cats. His brother was so deceived by these appearances that he stabbed himself after donning the robes of the blessed Fatima, but it is nevertheless certain that Moghrabi Sufrah (for that was the magician’s name) only slept under the influence of the powerful narcotic. He escaped through one of the twenty-four windows of the great hall while Aladdin was tenderly embracing the princess.
Hardly had he reached the ground after sliding down easily enough by one of the golden drain pipes to the terrace, when the palace disappeared completely, leaving Sufrah alone on the open desert. Nothing remained, not even one of the bottles of African wine for which he had gone to the cave at the command of the treacherous princess. Desperate, he sat down under the fierce sun, knowing well how infinite was the torrid expanse of sand in every direction, so he wrapped his head in his cape, waiting for death. Not one magic charm was left to him, no spell-casting perfumes, nor even a dancing ring with which he might have sought some hidden source of water to quench his thirst. Night came on blue and hot, but it relieved the inflammation in his eyes a little, then he decided to trace one magic figure on the sand to learn if he were destined to perish so, lost in the desert. He drew the four main lines with his finger, set out the points for the invocation of Fire, Water, Earth and Air, then for the Equator, the Orient, the Occident and the Septentrion. At the end he collected all the points, odd and even, arriving finally at the first figure. To his joy he saw it was Fortune Major. And he knew then that his escape was certain. Now the first figure must be placed in the first house of astrology, the house of the Geomancer. In that house, called the House of Heaven, Sufrah found again the figure of Fortune Major pronouncing success and glory to his ventures. But in the eighth house, the House of Death, he came upon the figure of the Red One, messenger of blood, fire and omen sinister. When Sufrah had conjured the figures of the twelve houses he took two proofs and from these proofs one judgment, thus testing well the accuracy of his calculations. The Prison was the figure in the Judgment, so Sufrah knew by that he would find glory at great peril in some shut and secret place.
Since he was not to die, the magician meditated now in confidence. The lamp had been transported to the very center of China with the rest of the palace. He could not hope to retrieve it. He recalled the fact that he had never discovered the identity of the lamp’s first master, who was also the owner of the treasure and of the garden of precious fruits. On the sand he traced a second figure, reading it by the letters of the alphabet. First the characters S.L.M.N. were revealed, and when the tenth figure confirmed them Sufrah knew at once that the magical lamp had been part of King Solomon’s treasure. He continued to study all the signs attentively until the Dragon’s Head gave him the information he sought, for it was joined by the figure of The Boy, emblem of riches hidden in the earth, and by the figure of The Prison, where the position of any hiding place may be deciphered. Sufrah clapped his hands for happiness.
Now the geomancy showed King Solomon buried under those very sands of Africa, while on his finger was the all powerful signet ring that gives immortality to its wearer. So King Solomon slept on as he had slept through the myriad ages. Sufrah waited eagerly for the dawn. In the blue half-light he saw Bedouins riding by. When hs hailed them they pitied his distress, giving him a little sack of dates and a gourd of water.
He started then on foot, traveling steadily until he came to an arid stony place between four bare cliffs w stretching like fingers toward the four corners of the heavens. There he drew a circle and pronounced certain words; the fearth trembled, opened, showed a marble slab with a bronze ring in it, and Sufrah seized the ring, calling out three times in Solomon’s name. As the stone swung from its place Sufrah went down a stair into the earth.
Two fiery dogs bounded from niches opposite him, spitting tongues of flame as they sprang, but Sufrah had only to say the magic name again to make them disappear. He found an iron door, it turned silently at his touch and he passed through it into a deep corridor carved out of living porphyry. An eternal glow was there, emitting from numberless seven branched candelabras, while at the end of the long corridor Sufrah saw a room with jasper walls. A golden brazier burned richly in the center. On a couch, hewn like a block of frozen fire out of one single diamond, stretched the form of an old, white-bearded man who wore a crown. Near the King stood a mummy, her thin hands still graciously extended, though the warmth of her kisses was long gone. And an the fallen hand of the King Sufrah beheld the great shining seal.
He crawled to it on his knees, raised the shriveled fingers and snatched off the precious seal.
So were the predictions of the unknown Geomancer fulfilled and the immortal sleep of Solomon brought to end. In less than a moment the King’s body crumbled to a little handful of dust and bones, which the gracious form of the mummy seemed still to watch over. Crushed at that same instant by the Red One from the House of Heath, Sufrah spent all the blood of his life in one vermilion gush before the deep sleep of earthly immortality swallowed him up. With Solomon’s ring on his finger, he laid him down on the diamond couch to be preserved from corruption during the myriad years, in that shut and secret place disclosed to him by the figure of The Prison. The iron door of the porphyry corridor fell closed as the fiery dogs took up their guard over the immortal Geomancer.
Marcel Schwob
Imaginary Lives
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