The Cave

Jahanzaib was the exact mirror of Bibi. One a man, the other a woman. One might have expected greater difference in character. After all, they were fraternal twins, not two halves of a single being. Yet it was often difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. Their lives were so entangled. This had always been the case, until the day Jahanzaib returned from the cave.

From childhood, he had been drawn to the cave. Perhaps that was the greatest difference between the twins. While Bibi had always feared the irregular slope of the mountain, it had always beckoned to Jahanzaib. Its interruption of the mountain’s harmony stood out as a blemish of beauty. A promise of more, of something beyond the ordinary eye. A disharmony that completed the perfection of the whole.

They had played on the small patch of grass in the centre of the house, surrounded by low walls. The house enclosed the garden. A small refuge. A small prison. Bibi played in safety. Jahanzaib in longing. There had to be more.

Illustration © Inda Zahri

Their father sat with his cup of green tea, watching the two children. Thus they had always played. Thus they had grown up. Bibi had become a beautiful young woman, Jahanzaib a graceful young man. Children of a good family. Beauty and intelligence intertwined. Above all, good manners. The father was proud. Both of his children were a delight to behold and to know. They brought pride not only to him but to the entire family. They lived as they ought to. Until that day.

It was Jahanzaib’s eighteenth birthday. A fact neither he nor anyone else in the family had been conscious of. No one remembered the date of his birth, only that it had been the year of the great earthquake. It had never seemed important. Life was lived. Life ended. At least in this world. That had always been the way, and it would remain so for a time yet. There was no need to measure or mark it.

Yet it was his eighteenth birthday. Whether he realized it or not. Perhaps it meant nothing. Perhaps it meant everything. For it was on this day that he left his home. He had a goal in mind. The small cave near the mountain’s summit.

He gently pushed aside the little piece of cloth that served as a door. Outside stretched a narrow alley, flanked by open drains on either side. The summer heat brought a stench that hit him immediately, a sharp contrast to the scent of freshly cut grass within the garden. He already missed the lemon tree in the corner. The bright red roses. But he had to continue. To reach the cave, he would have to pass through the narrow alley leading to the main road.

The first sound he heard was a man’s voice, sharp with swearing, mixed with the crack of a whip. A man in long robes, graying beard, beat a weary donkey pulling a cart piled high with goods. The man cursed and shouted.

Jahanzaib looked into the donkey’s eyes. They were beautiful, though sorrowful. As if pleading for salvation. Or at least a way out of suffering. Its long lashes seemed to hide a shame it did not deserve.

Despite his eighteen years, Jahanzaib was slight. He knew his own weakness. He observed the injustice without intervening. A believer might be expected to stop injustice with his hand or, failing that, with his voice. Jahanzaib chose the third, weakest form. He felt against the injustice in his heart.

The sounds of cursing and whipping faded as he moved further through the crowd. The donkey had fallen silent. Whether it had stopped suffering, he could not tell. He had to keep his gaze forward.

Colors swirled around him. Mostly dark, matching the dusty ground. Figures, shapes, tall, short, old, young, strong, weak, beautiful in all ways. No red roses. No green leaves. No yellow lemons. No soft curves as in the lattice surrounding Jahanzaib’s beloved lawn.

Illustration © Inda Zahri

The mountain loomed closer than he had imagined. Even larger. More intimidating. Yet there was some solace in the crowd at its base. Men with long hair, eyes blank, immersed in conversations. With themselves? With the unseen? Jahanzaib knew he was on the right path. Finally leaving the confines not only of the house, not only of the city, but of the world itself.

The feet led the way. There was no path. The voices dissolved into the depths behind him as he ascended. Closer and closer he came to his destination while an unrelenting sun caressed his fine skin.

There were no traces of the vegetation that had surrounded him in his previous life. The ground he walked was barren. The sky above him deep. Only the cave held his gaze. It drew nearer.

Bibi had grown older in just a few months. Her dark hair turned white overnight. She had lost her other half. That he was alive, she did not doubt. Everyone else had given up. She had not. She knew he was out there somewhere.

It was nearly sunset, the call to prayer echoing, when a group of men brought him into the house. One would have sufficed, for Jahanzaib was so frail that a single man could have carried him over his shoulder. Her brother remained unconscious. Impossible to say whether he was asleep, or in some other state.

Jahanzaib’s father, like his daughter, was beside himself. The house’s best room was prepared. The maid laid cushions so the returning favourite could lie comfortably while regaining his strength. He needed peace, it was said. They feared he had lost his mind. The children, once a delight to the family, were now on the brink of madness. One had lost the other. The other had lost, or found, himself.

Jahanzaib had left home in the height of summer, returning on the coldest day of the year. Perhaps he had not noticed the change in temperature. He could not bear to sleep within the walls. He longed for his grass, his lemon tree. The tree stood bare. The lawn covered in thick snow. Jahanzaib lay in the snow. His skin still sun-bronzed. His hair darker than ever. His clothing deep blue. Those who glimpsed him said it was a beautiful sight. The next day, he was gone. He had found his home.