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The tailor was moved.
‘Your Highness, I will do what you ask. You will not be disappointed. I will make the most splendid robe you have ever seen, and I will bring it myself to your palace.’
‘I thank you, tailor. I have every confidence in you.’
And with that, they left.
For several weeks the tailor did not sleep as he made the arrangements for the new robe. First of all he needed a bank loan to cover the enormous costs of the materials he was to buy. Luckily, news of the fabulous order had immediately spread across the town and the quiet tailor had acquired a new fame. Within a few days he had managed to find funds and take on an assistant to help with the work. He set off immediately on a tour of the surrounding towns to look at the finest fabrics, and when nothing was satisfactory he sent the incredulous merchants away to find better. Normally a thrifty and reclusive man, the tailor suddenly became bold and extravagant in the accomplishment of this fantastic project. He bought books of old artworks to ensure he had understood every nuance of the traditional styles. The usually silent alleyway outside his shop became crowded with the vans and cars of merchants bringing samples and deliveries. The racks inside were packed away to make space for the accumulating piles of luxurious silks and brocades.
He meditated on the antique familiarity of the royal crest until it came to life in his head as a magnificent design: while the stars circled at the edges and a grand city twinkled in the distance, the whole chain of animal life arranged itself among the trees to gaze upon the stag who stood alone in a clearing, silvery in the silken light of the crescent moon.
For days at a time the tailor would not move from his workbench as he drew and cut, pinned and sewed. New lamps were brought in to allow him to carry out the intricate work at night, and with astonishing rapidity the flimsy panels of silk assembled themselves into a robe as had not been seen since the days of the old court. After four months the job was finished, and the robe was carefully laid out in the workshop, complete with its own shirt, pantaloons, and matching slippers. The tailor rented a small van, loaded up his precious cargo, and set out for the capital city.
The skies were full of the radiant expectation of morning when the tailor made his approach to the royal palace. In the busy streets trestle tables were juddered and clacked into readiness, and a procession of vans spilled forth the goods that would festoon their surfaces: sparkling brassware, colourful fabrics, beeping alarm clocks, and novelties for tourists. People were everywhere. Men smoked and talked by the side of the road, waiting to see how the day would progress, village women found patches of ground to arrange displays of woven bedspreads and wicker baskets, and boys hawked newspapers full of morning conversation.
As he drove through the unfamiliar streets the tailor felt elated by the crowds. ‘What wonders can be achieved here!’ he thought to himself. ‘Everywhere there are great buildings housing unheard-of forms of human pursuit, new things being made and bought and sold, and people from all over the world, each with their own chosen destination. Even the poor know they are treading on a grander stage: they look far into the future and walk with purpose. What clothes might I have made had I spent my life here!’
The road leading to the royal residence was generous and pristine, with lines of trees and fountains converging in the distance on the domed palace that already quivered in the heat of the morning. The tailor stared at the big cars with diplomatic license plates, marvelled at the number of people that worked just to keep this street beautiful and clean. He arrived at the palace.
At the entrance, two guards signalled to him to stop. Their uniforms were tight-fitting, made of fabrics the tailor had never seen, and packed with a fascinating array of weapons and communications devices. ‘What is your purpose?’ The tailor explained.
‘Do you have any paperwork? A purchase order from the palace?’ ‘No.’ The tailor hesitated. ‘It wasn’t like that, you see–’ ‘Every delivery must have a signed purchase order from the appropriate department. Go away and obtain the necessary documentation.’ The tailor explained his story again. ‘Please inform Prince Ibrahim that I am here. He is expecting me. My name is Mustafa the tailor. He has ordered a silk robe from me.’
‘Please leave at once and do not come peddling to the king’s palace.’ ‘Will you speak to the prince? He will remember me…’ But the guards would listen no more. The tailor had no option but to get back in his van and drive away.
He camped in the van and came every day to the palace to wait outside the gates. The guards proving intransigent, he scanned the windows for signs of the prince’s presence, looked in every arriving car for any of the faces that had come to his shop that day, tried to imagine how he would get a message into the palace. All to no avail.
Where could he go? He owed more money than he had seen in his whole life, and it was unlikely that anyone except the prince would buy such an extravagant, outmoded robe. All he could do was to wait until someone vindicated his story.
He ate less every day in order to save his last remaining coins, and he became dirty and unkempt. By day he sat and tracked every coming and going with eyes that grew hollow with waiting. By night he had nightmares in which the prince and his band of laughing noblemen walked right by him as he lay oblivious with sleep.
The van became an expense he could not support. He drove into the desert to hide the robe, which he wrapped carefully in paper, placed in an old trunk, and buried in a spot by some trees. And he sent the vehicle back.
He became a fixture by the palace gates. The guards knew him and tolerated his presence as a deluded, but harmless, fool. Passers-by threw him coins, and some stopped to listen to his story of when the royal prince had once come to visit him and how he would one day come again. He became used to every indignity of his life happening in the full view of tourists and officials.
At night when the streets were free he wandered the skein of the city. His face shadowed by a blanket, he trudged under spasmodic street lights, and gazed into shadowy shop windows where mannequins stood like ghosts in their urban chic. Everything seemed to be one enormous backstage, long abandoned by players and lights, where dusty costumes and angular stage sets lay scattered amid a dim and eerie silence. There danced in his head the memory of a search, a saviour, but it too was like the plot of a play whose applause had long ago become silence.
Years passed. He knew not how many.
One night, as he walked past a cheap restaurant where taxi drivers and other workers of the night sat under a fluorescent glow shot through with the black orbits of flies, he saw that there were some unaccustomed guests eating there. A crowd of men sat eating and drinking and laughing with beautiful women, all of them in clothes not from this part of town. And with a shock that roused him from years of wearied semi-consciousness, he realized that one of them was Prince Ibrahim.
‘Your Highness!’ cried the tailor, rushing into the restaurant and flinging himself to the floor. Everyone looked up at the bedraggled newcomer, and bodyguards immediately seized him to throw him out. But the prince interjected, looking round at his friends and laughing, ‘Wait! Let us see what this fellow wants!’
Everyone fell silent and looked at the tailor as he stood in the centre of the room, fluorescent lights catching the wispy hair on the top of his head.
‘Your Highness, many years ago you came to my tailor’s shop in a small town far from here and ordered a silk robe with your royal insignia of the stag and crescent moon. I spent four months making the finest robe for you, but when I came to your palace no one believed my story or allowed me to make my delivery. I wrote you letters and waited for you day and night, but all to no avail. I have spent all the years since then living in the gutter and waiting for the day I would find you again. And now I appeal to your mercy: please help me.’
Everyone looked at Ibrahim. ‘Is he speaking the truth?’ one of the men asked.
The prince looked irately at the tailor, saying nothing. Another man spoke up.
‘I was with you that day, Prince. The tailor’s story is true. Do you not remember?’
The prince did not look at him. Slowly he said: ‘Of course I remember.’
He continued to stare at the insignificant figure in the centre of the room. ‘But this is not the man. He is an impostor. The tailor I saw that day never brought what I ordered. Get this cheat out of here.’
And the bodyguards threw the tailor into the street.
But the prince’s companion, whose name was Suleiman, felt sorry for him. As the party of men and women heated up behind steamed-up windows and its separate elements began to coalesce, he sneaked out to catch up with him.
‘Sir! Stop!’ The tailor turned round, and Suleiman ran up to meet him.
‘Allow me to present myself. My name is Suleiman, and I was present when the prince came to your shop several years ago. I feel partially responsible that you are in this situation. Tell me your story.’
Standing in the dark of the street, the tailor told him everything. Suleiman was much moved. Overhead, the night sky glistened with stars like sequins.
‘Listen Mustafa, I would like to buy this robe from you myself. I know it will be an exquisite object, and I feel unhappy at the idea that you will continue to suffer as you are now. Take my car, fetch the robe, bring it to my house, and I will pay you for it.’
In the splendid steel surrounds of a black Mercedes the tailor flew along the smooth tarmac of the national highway as it cut into the rippling desert and its lanes reduced from six to four, to two. He watched the prudently designed cars of the national automobile company flash past each other in 180-degree rectitude, and, fighting off the drowsiness of the heat and the hypnotic landscape in order to concentrate on the road, he looked out for the lone group of trees under which he had deposited the trunk.
When at last the Mercedes came to rest at the spot, he was surprised to see that there was a crowd of people there. It looked as if some sort of major construction was going on. Muddy jeeps were parked around the area, and under the blinding glare of the sun a team of men painstakingly measured out the land with poles and ropes while local people stood around and watched. Terror wrung the tailor’s organs as he approached one of the spectators to ask what was happening.
‘You don’t know? A great discovery has been made here! A poor villager found a trunk containing a magnificent silk robe right in this spot. He took it to the city where an antique specialist identified it as royal ceremonial wear from the eighteenth century. He sold it to a French museum, who paid seven million dollars! Now everyone is looking for the rest of the treasure!’
What could the tailor say? Which of these people who laboured all around him in pursuit of some ancient hoard would believe his unlikely story? All he could do was to climb slowly back into the Mercedes and return to the city.
Eventually the car returned to the leafy streets it knew well, all iron railings and columns, and the tailor found himself climbing the stone steps to the mighty front door of Suleiman’s residence. He was greeted by his would-be patron’s wife, who welcomed him warmly, sat him down and surrounded him with a plush arrangement of mint tea and sweetmeats. Finally Suleiman himself entered.
‘You return empty-handed, tailor! How could this be?’
The tailor told him what he had found. Suleiman, looked at him with some uncertainty.
‘How do I know that there ever was a robe?’
The tailor had no answer.
The three of them sat in a tense silence that was flecked only with the occasional sound of cup on saucer. Finally the tailor got up to leave. Suleiman took him aside.
‘My good fellow. You do seem honest enough, but given the circumstances, I don’t know if I can really help you. Here’s some money for your board and food. I hope your lot improves.’
Once a year in that land there was a festival whose name roughly translates as the ‘Day of Renewal’. This was an ancient custom, a day of merrymaking and of peace between all citizens. Gifts were given to children, prisoners were set free, and there were public feasts. All the royal residences were opened up to the general public, who could enjoy food and music in the gardens. Everyone was happy on that day: there was handshaking in the streets between strangers, flags fluttered gaily from every rooftop, and the sky became thick with kites. Of late, foreign corporations wishing to show their commitment to the nation had become particularly extravagant in their support for this festival. Pepsi gave out free drink in all public places, Ford selected ‘a worthy poor family’ to receive the gift of its latest model, and Citibank surprised its ATM customers with cash prizes given out at random throughout the day. And, in the afternoon, the king would hear the cases of those who were in need of redress.
The tailor came to the palace early, but there was already a row of aggrieved citizens waiting. As each one arrived, a kindly attendant noted down the details of the case. Then a bailiff called them, one by one. At length, it was the tailor’s turn.
At the far end of the vast marble room, the king sat on a throne surmounted by a canopy of silk and jewels. Down either side sat rows of learned men. To the right of the king was Prince Ibrahim. His blue pinstriped suit contrasted elegantly with his sandstone face, on which a shapely beard was etched like the shadow of butterfly wings.
‘Approach, tailor,’ said the king patiently. ‘Tell us your matter.’
Pairs of bespectacled eyes followed the tailor as he walked across the echoing expanse towards the throne in the new shoes he had bought for the occasion. He stood for a moment trying to collect himself. And then, once again, he told his story.
As the king listened, he became grave.
King Saïd believed that the simple goodness and wisdom of village people was the best guarantee of the future prosperity and moral standing of the country. The possibility that his own son might have taken it upon himself to tread down this small-town tailor was therefore distressing. The prince’s lack of constancy was a continual source of disquiet for the king, and the tailor’s narrative unfortunately possessed some degree of verisimilitude. On the other hand, he received many claims of injustice every day and most turned out, on inspection, to be false.
As the tailor finished, he spoke thus:
‘This is a case of some difficulty, tailor. There is much here that it is impossible for me to verify. What say you, my son?’
‘As you know, my Lord and Father, I have the greatest sympathy with the needy of our land. But his story is preposterous.’
‘Is it possible that you could have failed to recall the events of which the tailor speaks?’
‘Of course not.’
King Saïd pondered.
‘Tailor, our decision in this case will hinge on your moral character. It will not be possible today for us to verify the details of what happened so long ago, the fate of the clothes you say were made, or your financial situation. I am therefore going to ask you to demonstrate your moral worth by telling us a story. According to our traditions.’
Utter silence descended on the room, and all watched the tailor, expectantly.
‘Your Highness, I have now been in this capital city for some time. And I recently met another tailor who told me the following tale.
‘There once came to his shop a wealthy man who was about to be married. This man ordered a luxurious set of wedding clothes. The tailor was honoured and overjoyed and went out to celebrate with his family.
‘It so happened that the bridegroom had a lover, a married woman from the city. Each visit she made to him he vowed would be the last. But he never seemed to be able to broach the subject of their rupture before their clothes and their words had dissolved between them and they were left only with their lovemaking.
‘Ignorant of this, the tailor began to order the finest fabrics for the wedding clothes. But as he set to work on the new garments, the cloth simply melted away as he cut it. Again and again he chalked out designs–but each time the same thing happened, until all of the valuable cloth had disappeared.
‘When the bridegroom came to collect the clothes he was furious to discover they were not ready, and demanded an explanation.
‘“I think the explanation lies with you,” replied the tailor. “Since your wedding clothes refused to be made, I can only suppose you are not ready to wear them. Tell me this: what colour are the eyes of your bride-to-be?”
‘The bridegroom thought hard, but the image of his lover stood resolutely between him and the eyes of his betrothed, and he was unable to answer.
‘“Next time you come to me for clothes,” said the tailor, “make sure you are prepared to wear them.”
‘With that, the young man left the tailor, called off his marriage, and left the city.’
The tale hung in the air for a while, and dispersed.
‘What do you say, scholars, to the tailor’s story?’ asked the king.
‘Sire, it is a fine story, constructed according to our traditions, and possessing all the thirteen levels of meaning prized in the greatest of our writings.’
‘My son, what do you think?’
‘There is no doubt,’ replied the prince, ‘that this fellow is accomplished in the realm of fantasy.’
The king looked pained.
‘I myself feel that the tailor has proved himself to be a man of the greatest integrity and probity. Such a man will never seek to advance himself through untruth. Tailor, I can see there has been a series of culpable misunderstandings as a result of which you have suffered greatly. Tell me what you would like from us.’
‘Sire, I am sunk so low that all I can ask for is money.’
‘Consider it done. We shall settle all your debts. Please go with this man, my accountant Salim. He will tell you what papers you need to provide and will give you all the necessary forms to fill in. We are heartily sorry for the difficulties you have had to encounter. Go back to your village and resume your life.’ Mustafa the tailor was anxious to leave the city, whose streets had by now become poisoned with his memories. But he did not wish to return to his village. It seemed too small to contain the thoughts he now had in his head.
He took up residence in a distant seaside town where he made a living sewing clothes and uniforms for sailors. In the afternoons, when his work was done, he would sit by the shore looking into the distance, and tell stories to the masts of boats that passed each other on the horizon.
Faces were in shadow. The ceiling lights were far above their heads, and not all of them still worked. You could not really tell what people were thinking. Perhaps the game was slightly outlandish, perhaps it was not for everyone. Some would surely fall asleep–or pretend to do so. There would be a loner who would stroll off, unnoticed, to the gloomy recesses of the arrivals hall only to discover there a listless and yet thoroughly absorbing interest in the health warnings posted on the wall, the rows of leaflets outlining visa requirements, tobacco and alcohol allowances, and the lists of objects prohibited in hand luggage. Surely!–for in everyone’s head there were still so many Issues of purely private concern that twitched distractingly, that flickered behind the glass of vacant stares.
She spoke with authority:
Next!
She was broad and tall, she sat back in her seat with some abandon, hands on the back of her head, elbows wide. The kind of person who liked groups, not afraid to rally people she had only just met. There was an ease about her: she had already taken off her high heels. There were smiles all around but she did not give up.
Who will be next?
THE MEMORY EDITOR The Second Story (#ud98b70ee-d5f5-5e54-a637-bc1b9a088093)
IN THE CITY of London there was once a wealthy stockbroker who had three sons. Even when they were all still young, everyone could see that while the first two sons were able and hardworking, the youngest, Thomas, had his head in the clouds.
Thomas liked nothing better than to bury himself in history books and read of how the world was before. He thrilled at the struggles of Romanovs and Socialists and put his face close to black-and-white photographs of firebrand Lenin and little haemophiliac Alexei, trying to envisage the lives that hid behind the scratched surfaces and foreign-seeming faces. He read of places that were now summer holiday destinations where millions were killed just a few decades ago, and wondered at how death had in that short time become so exotic. He could never quite become accustomed to the idea that people were growing old long ago when the world was so much younger; so he knew he had not truly understood the scale of time.
One day Thomas sat in his customary reading seat in the Islington Public Library, not two minutes from the monumental black front door of his father’s Georgian townhouse that sat in a serene row of precisely similar houses on Canonbury Square. He read of the slow rot in the Ottoman Empire, of schemes hatched in Berlin, London, and St Petersburg to divide the imperial carrion, and of Bulgarian and Romanian revolutionaries studying poetry and explosives in Paris. The library was still save for a few occasional page-turners and the strenuous silence of the librarian who wheeled a cart of books and re-shelved them under Crime and Local Interest. Thomas thought of Thrace and Thessaly.
An old woman entered the library and sat down next to him. She lowered herself slowly into her seat and began to lay out things: a raincoat (on the back of her chair), a handbag, an umbrella in a nylon sleeve, a stick, a set of keys, a Tupperware lunchbox. The ritual was so deliberate that Thomas could not shut it out of his head, and he wished she had not chosen that particular place.
He tried to concentrate on sensational insurgencies and brutal massacres but now she had unwrapped the tin foil from her egg sandwiches and the smell was banishing the past. NO EATING said the big bright sign with the green logo of the Borough of Islington: Thomas looked hopefully around for someone who might enforce the rule, but suddenly there was no one else there. The old woman began to mash her bread noisily with toothless gums and he stole at her what was calculated to be an intimidating glance. He saw that she was blind.
‘I can see’–she hesitated, as if playing with his thoughts–‘you don’t like me being here.’ She spoke loudly, oblivious to the silence of the library. Thomas felt ashamed. She was fragile and tiny.
‘No it’s not that. It’s just–’
‘You don’t think I should eat egg sandwiches in a library. Luckily there’s no one here to catch me!’ She shot him a conspiratorial grin. ‘And anyway, a blind woman is not likely to drop her mayonnaise on the pages of a book, is she?’ Her eyes were like marble.
‘You are reading about the past. Making mental notes of dates and names, fitting together all the little things you know about a place and a time. Trying to remember what happened long ago. But here’s a question. Can you remember what will happen? In the future?’
She seemed to expect an answer.
‘Clearly not,’ Thomas ventured. ‘Remembering is by definition about the past.’
‘Why so? Is to remember not simply to make present in the mind that which happens at another time? Past or future?’
‘But no one can make present that which hasn’t happened yet.’
‘How do you know the future hasn’t happened yet?’
