Every morning, before school, Reza cleared the flowerbed and watered the garden, which his father had entrusted to his care.
The flowerbed looked like a five-pointed star, and his father had designed it that way. He had explained him, five is the number of harmony, in fact the pentagram has five points.
There was a pomegranate tree in the middle of the flowerbed, and different herbs grew around the tree, each one linked to a sign of the zodiac. Vervain for Aries, coriander for Capricorn, honeysuckle for Virgo, cumin for Scorpio, mint or balm-mint for Pisces, and so on.
Reza did not forget , as he had been told, to rotate the herbs during the year according to the constellation motion, so that the influence of the stars could improve their medicinal properties.
Close to the high stone wall, on the side which faced the Crescent Desert, there was a bamboo hedge. The bamboo leaves, when the moon was full, got a quite sweet tastey like strawberry honey.
In a corner of the garden a big chestnut tree stood, so old that nobody could say since when it was a sapling. Its foliage interlaced so tightly that one could not even see the branches. Up there where Reza used to climb for fun.
The chestnut was much taller than the house. But you should keep in mind that Reza’s home was just a two-storied building, and in the city where he lived, that was a remarkable exception.
Samar, Reza’s father, was always busy. The demand of umbrellas never decreased , all the year round, so that sometimes he and his assistants had to work late in the evening to cope with orders.
His shop was crammed with ribs, especially bamboo ribs, with rolls of fabric and with a special kind of parchment, so delicate and yet in great demand since, in the shadow, it turned translucent.
Samar used to get more orders for women umbrellas than men’s, maybe because he was so patient, even when the requests were especially extravagant.
In any case, for Samar to devote himself mostly to women umbrellas was something that he liked.
First, you had to choose the fabric, which was no easy matter, since there were almost endless choices : some clients asked for a mousseline or a thin organza, some others for a light cotton, or a double silk, or a parchment coated with shellac.
Then, in addition to the color, one had to decide whether to use a printed cloth or an embroidery and, furthermore, there were fringes in just as many varieties.
Some clients required their umbrellas lined in a different color, perhaps to match or contrast the hue of the ribs.
Another most important choice concerned the handle.
It could be made out of wood, plain or carved, or out of bone, or metal. But in any case the shape was extremely important, since it was known that some shapes, for instance a dragon head, could bring bad luck, while others, like the acanthus leaf, were not suitable for women umbrellas.
There were also the most sophisiticated ones,who did not carry any umbrellas, they just pretended to. It was however necessary to move very gracefully not to look ridiculous, pretending to carry an umbrella.
And yet, as years went by, Samar realized that the foremost important point was that the various parts of an umbrella blended harmoniously. And when he achieved that he was always surprised as if the parts had gone together so well, without he enen knowing it.
And that was precisely how it happened.
Ten year old Reza was a nice, good-looking boy. He was curious, he was fond of studying, as he used to find answers in books to questions that mill around in a young boy’s mind.
When he finshed studying, Reza used to meet with his friend Sivat. At times they enjoyed playing with magic squares. The simplest one was the Saturn’s : one had to arrange the numbers fron one to nine into a square with nine squares, so that the sum of the vertical, horizontal, or diagonal lines was the same.
Saturn Square :
2 9 4
7 5 3
6 1 8
But there were more complex magic squares, as the Jupiter’s, with sixteen squres ,one had to arrange the numbers from one to sixteen so that the sum was thirtyfour. And even more complicated were Mars’s and the Sun’s.
The previous fall, on a starry night, Reza could not fall asleep and was listening to the distant voices of the desert. Suddenly, when he went and opened his window, he observed something amazing.
A big bird, bigger than a peacock, landed, silently, on the chestnut. The moon was full, and in the moonlight Reza had been able to discern the birds deep-red wings, and the golden yellow of his neck and head.
Was he a Phoenix? Judging by the colors, he might be. Reza could hardly believe it, since he had heard many tales about the Phoenix. While everybody agreeded the they existed, very few people asserted that they had seen one. Even those who swore they were telling the truth were scrutinized.
Apparently the Phoenix’s plumage colors changed according to his life seasons. It was said that the bird was semi-immortal. In fact, according to some scholars, his lifespan was of 400 years, according to others of only 140. At the end of each life-cycle, he settled into his nest, and with a single clap of his wings, set himself afire.
But, as the flames died down, a yoiung phoenix emerged from the ashes in all the glory of his plumage.
People would also say that he used to come back to his usual places, and always at night : perhaps the chestnut , Reza thought, was one of the places the Phoenix used to come to.
Reza wanted to look at the bird close up, but was also afraid. At last curiosity prevailed. But first of all he fetched some bamboo leaves, choosing the most tender ones, in the hope that their sweet taste could, perhaps, please him. He climbed up the tree, and he stretched his hand out, to offer the leaves to the bird. To his great surprise the bird, whe he saw him approaching, did not fly away, he took the leaves and started eating them.
Since that night, the phoenix had appeared a few more times, always noiselessly, at night, when the moon was full. Reza would to climb up the chestnut and give the Phoenix the bamboo leaves and then he stayed there, plunging his face into the birds plumage and listening to his slow heartbeat, petting it. Before daybreak the phoenix flew away and Reza went back to bed. A few of the birds feathers clung to his ankle.
Reza had decided not to mention to anybody what had happened . He thought that, if he had
disclosed his secret, he would have, somehow, deceived a friend, and they would think of him as crazy anyway.
Hamra, where Reza lived, was a city bounded on the North and the East by the Crescent Desert, so named because it kept enlarging towards the East. The Desert was a gray, flat, barren land, where not even a shrub grew, let alone a tree.
On the South and the West, Hamra bordered on the Overland Sea.
In the distance, but so far away that it was almost impossible to make them out, although they were very high, the Delectable Mountains stood, always covered with snow. Beyond the Moutains the Aquatic Empire was situated : it could be reached only by sea.
All the water that Hamra needed came from those Mountains.
As years, even centuries passed they built irrigation ditches, drains and ducts, many of them underground, had been built. They branched out within the city as a network, reaching every square, every street, every house. An ingenious system, similar to the one utilized by the big trees in forests, brought the water up to the top floors. Hamra in fact, being sorrounded by a desert and the sea, had been able to grow in height only.
All buildings were tall, but some were of a dizzy height. Some went up straight to a certain altitude, and then bent; other spiralled up. This was not due to some architect strange fancies, but to a careful analysys of how fluids move around in nature.
In fact, architects had observed, many plants bend or grow askew, and yet water and nutrients flow through them uninterruptedly. They observe complex systems in the human body as well.
Hamra was by far the most important city of the Country. Its great harbour had helped the city to grow rich by trading with the East and the West and by exchanging ideas and knowledge.
Persians wearing long garments, Circassians with buffalo skin boots, Indians with colored turbans and precious diadems, Armenians with pants tied at the ankles and embroidered babouches, Tartars with long, drooping moustache, were coming and going every day in the streets. Not to mention women. Most of them with a charm and a refinement difficult to find in other cities, strolling along, carrying their umbrellas.
In Hamra, however, it never rained. The sky was always clear and blue, in every season. To carry an umbrella had been, at the beginning, a coquetry. To this coquetry everybody had, in time, conformed, so that, in the end, it had become a habit.
We already mentioned tha Hamra had grown in height. Nevertheless, the passion for gardens had never decreased among the inhabitants. And since it was impossible to find even an handkerchief sized plot where to grow anything, architects had found an extremely original and ingenious solutions. Every buiding floor was itself a garden. In the middle of each garden a single storey house was built, and therefore such a house was sorrounded by a meadow, by flowers or by an orchard.
In front there was a wooden fence, invariably painted in white.
But there were also buildings that, had a small house built outside on every floor. Joined to the floor by a footbridge leading to the meadow, or the garden, or the orchard.
Looking up from below, one would see all those white fences and the green of the gardens. In Springtime they were full with all kinds of colors.One floor white and yellow from the daisies, another one lilac due to the vervain, and further on a pink or a geranium red one. Shades and colors mixed and combined together, as one’s glance went up, causing a delightfully chromatic symphony.
The Wisdom Palace was Hamra’s tallest buiding. But it also was the only one with a façade of windows only. There were no gardens or fences.
The first few floors were reserved as halls where professors, scholars and men of learning from various Countries gave lessons, delivered lectures or had debates. Other floors were for the experts who translated all the library books into seven languages. It took up so many stories that nobody ever bothered to count them. New volumes about dialectics or mathematics, astronomy or rethoric, were constantly arriving from every corner of the East and the West every day.
Higher up, it was rumoured that the amanuenses lived. They spent their lives copying and classyfing the books that had not yet been translated. They never left or went outside.
At the top floors, where even a glance could hardly get, dwelled the astrologers, alchemists and mathematicians of the Prince. By studying the course of the stars and the mysterious relation between the properties of metals and the interpretation of numbers, they were trying to locate the Celestial City.
Finally, so high that no one could see it, the Palace turned into a tower of dizzying height, more than going up, it got lost in the sky.
There was no doubt , it was a cloud.
It had been established by the Council of Astrologers, convened by the Prince in a hurry.
It stayed there, still, right above the Wisdom Palace, and it did not look as if it intended to move. And this, the astrologers had concluded, put at risk the entire city since in three days there would be the new moon, and then the cloud could turn from white to red, which could create serious misfortunes for the city and it’s citizens.
But how could they get rid of the cloud ?
Reza had reached the top floor of the Wisdom Palace and was now standing in front of a small door, in a dark landing. The door was covered with cobwebs and there was no handle. His heart was beating fast and he was on the verge of going back when a thought stopped him.What would he tell his friend Savat? In fact he was there because he had bet his friend that he would get on top of the tower and get rid of the cloud.
He picked up his courage, as he had done the night he had climbed the tree to have a close look at the Phoenix, and pushed the door. It was locked. He pushed again, with all his strenght, but in vain. He sat on the floor, leaning against the door, thinking that he had no other choice but to accept defeat.
He was sitting there, disheartened, when the door opened noiselessly behind him.
He could not have known it, but the Phoenix feathers had this magical property,no door could hold out against a person who had them in his possession. And some feathers had remained therewedged into his sandle, without him even knowing it.
In the dark in front of him he saw a winding staircase, and he started going up.
It seemed to go on for hours, every now and then he would sit down on a step, and then he would start again. But it looked as if the staircase would never end. He noticed , however, that as he was going up, his weariness decreased, and his steps got lighter.
He found himself in front of a high blue door. When he tried to open it, he realized that it was made of light, so he went right through it and found himself on a tiny terrace, with a tall stone windowsill.
Reza tried to look down, but his head got just to the balustrade. He thrust his feet against the wall and tried hard to pull himself up, grasping the windowsill with both his hands. At last he managed to stick his head out.
What he saw left him astonished, dumbfounded.
He had expected to recognize Hamra, but he was so high up. Instead down there he saw something that made him think of an unknown city, which extended as far as the farthest borders of the earth.
He couldn’t see any people, just stately buildings and impressive monuments. Huge amphiteathers, each one with twelve doors and with an endless series of tiers of seats, and around them boundless, shining green expanses, meadows, he thought.
He saw vast octagonal squares, turquoise in color. At their eight corners imposing triumph arches stood with, on their tops, white marble angels, their wings outspread. In the distance, spires and pinnacles were shining brightly, and fluid curves designed domes covered with blue and gold majolicas.
Farther away, wide roads, going in every direction, were flanked with elegant columns as green as jasper. At the height of the golden section of each column, on a pedestal, glittering, golden statues gave emotional life to the landscape.
Flights of large, ochre steps led to magnificent, multi-storied temples, as tall as the sky.
And an azure, fluid light, which seemd to originate from everywhere, enveloped everything. He could hear no sound : just a distant, soft, white music, barely audible.
It was a fantastic, unreal sight.
Just then Reza looked up . If before he had been dazzled by what he had seen, now he felt stunned, incapable of believing his own eyes.
Because he saw that the sky was taken up by many other cities. All similar to the one below and yet different, as if each one belonged to a distinct sky, one on top of the other. And the cities filled up so many skies that it was impossible to imagine when they ever ended.
It was something his mind couldn’t absorb, something that made him feel giddy and infinitely small.
However stunned, he remembered the reason why he was there: to turn that cloud away. But how could he ever do it ? Who could help him ?
All of a sudden he heard a strong wingbeat and saw, hovering magnificently high in the sky, the Phoenix. The big bird dove down and shot through the cloud and reappeared on the other side. As if it had been unhooked, the cloud started moving, slowly at first, then faster and faster, towards the Delectable Mountains.
The Phoenix made a big turn and the light, bouncing off his wings, made his plumage colors appear even more spectacular. The bird came up to Reza, gently grabbed him, and carried him away.
Reza felt completely safe : he tried to look around, but was overcome by weariness and sank his face into the Phoenix plumage, as he used to.
When he opened his eyes the Phoenix was approaching the chestnut tree.
From the ground Reza looked upwards, scanning the sky, looking for the Celestial Cities of which he had caught a glimpse. Although he was trying very hard, he only manged to see the depth of the blue sky, into which he felt lost.
Suddenly, he got impression, indistintinctly, up there, where the sky curved above the horizon, a flicker as a crescent of golden light. He stared as hard as he could, but that glimmer had already disappeared.
Had it been an illusion ?
As answering his silent question the sky, from its remotest borders, reflected his astonishment.