Chapter 13: Sa-N'sa

June sunshine poured through the window of his bedroom in the Ritz; and Cleves had just finished dressing when he heard his wife’s voice in the adjoining sitting-room.

He had not supposed that Tressa was awake. He hastened to tie his tie and pull on a smoking jacket, listening all the while to his wife’s modulated but gay young voice.

Then he opened the sitting-room door and went in. And found his wife entirely alone.

She looked up at him, her lips still parted as though checked in what she had been saying, the smile still visible in her blue eyes.

“Who on earth are you talking to?” he asked, his bewildered glance sweeping the sunny room again.

She did not reply; her smile faded as a spot of sunlight wanes, veiled by a cloud--yet a glimmer of it remained in her gaze as he came over to her.

“I thought they’d brought our breakfast,” he said, “--hearing your voice ... Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, Victor.”

He seated himself, and his perplexed scrutiny included her frail morning robe of China silk, her lovely bare arms, and her splendid hair twisted up and pegged down with a jade dagger. Around her bare throat and shoulders, too, was a magnificent necklace of imperial jade which he had never before seen; and on one slim, white finger a superb jade ring.

“By Jove!” he said, “you’re very exotic this morning, Tressa. I never before saw that negligee effect.”

The girl laughed, glanced at her ring, lifted a frail silken fold and examined the amazing embroidery.

“I wore it at the Lake of the Ghosts,” she said.

The name of that place always chilled him. He had begun to hate it, perhaps because of all that he did not know about it--about his wife’s strange girlhood--about Yian and the devil’s Temple there--and about Sanang.

He said coldly but politely that the robe was unusual and the jade very wonderful.

The alteration in his voice and expression did not escape her. It meant merely masculine jealousy, but Tressa never dreamed he cared in that way.

Breakfast was brought, served; and presently these two young people were busy with their melons, coffee, and toast in the sunny room high above the softened racket of traffic echoing through avenue and street below.

“Recklow telephoned me this morning,” he remarked.

She looked up, her face serious.

“Recklow says that Yezidee mischief is taking visible shape. The Socialist Party is going to be split into bits and a new party, impudently and publicly announcing itself as the Communist Party of America, is being organised. Did you ever hear of anything as shameless--as outrageous--in this Republic?”

She said very quietly: “Sanang has taken prisoner the minds of these wretched people. He and his remaining Yezidees are giving battle to the unarmed minds of our American people.”

“Gutchlug is dead,” said Cleves, “--and Yarghouz and Djamouk, and Yaddin.”

“But Tiyang Khan is alive, and Togrul, and that cunning demon Arrak Sou-Sou, called The Squirrel,” she said. She bent her head, considering the jade ring on her finger. “--And Prince Sanang,” she added in a low voice.

“Why didn’t you let me shoot him when I had the chance?” said Cleves harshly.

So abrupt was his question, so rough his sudden manner, that the girl looked up in dismayed surprise. Then a deep colour stained her face.

“Once,” she said, “Prince Sanang held my heart prisoner--as Erlik held my soul ... I told you that.”

“Is that the reason you gave the fellow a chance?”

“Yes.”

“Oh ... And possibly you gave Sanang a chance because he still holds your--affections!”

She said, crimson with the pain of the accusation: “I tore my heart out of his keeping ... I told you that ... And, believing--trying to believe what you say to me, I have tried to tear my soul out of the claws of Erlik ... Why are you angry?”

“I don’t know ... I’m not angry ... The whole horrible situation is breaking my nerve, I guess ... With whom were you talking before I came in?”

After a silence the girl’s smile glimmered.

“I’m afraid you won’t like it if I tell you.”

“Why not?”

“You--such things perplex and worry you ... I am afraid you won’t like me any the better if I tell you who it was I had been talking with.”

His intent gaze never left her. “I want you to tell me,” he repeated.

“I--I was talking with Sa-n’sa,” she faltered.

“With whom?”

“With Sa-n’sa ... We called her Sansa.”

“Who the dickens is Sansa?”

“We were three comrades at the Temple,” she said timidly, “--Yulun, Sansa, and myself. We loved each other. We always went to the Lake of the Ghosts together--for protection--”

“Go on!”

“Sansa was a girl of the Aroulads, born at Buldak--as was Temujin. The night she was born three moon-rainbows made circles around her Yaïlak. The Baroulass horsemen saw this and prayed loudly in their saddles. Then they galloped to Yian and came crawling on their bellies to Sanang Noïane with the news of the miracle. And Sanang came with a thousand riders in leather armour. And, ‘What is this child’s name?’ he shouted, riding into the Yaïlak with his black banners flapping around him like devil’s wings.

“A poor Manggoud came out of the tent of skins, carrying the new born infant, and touched his head to Sanang’s stirrup. ‘This babe is called Tchagane, ‘ he said, trembling all over. ‘No!’ cries Sanang, ‘she is called Sansa. Give her to me and may Erlik seize you!’

“And he took the baby on his saddle in front of him and struck his spurs deep; and so came Sansa to Yian under a roaring rustle of black silk banners ... It is so written in the Book of Iron ... Allahou Ekber.”

Cleves had leaned his elbow on the table, his forehead rested in his palm.

Perhaps he was striving in a bewildered way to reconcile such occult and amazing things with the year 1920--with the commonplace and noisy city of New York--with this pretty, modern, sunlit sitting-room in the Ritz-Carlton on Madison Avenue--with this girl in her morning negligee opposite, her coffee and melon fragrant at her elbow, her wonderful blue eyes resting on him.

“Sansa,” he repeated slowly, as though striving to grasp even a single word from the confusion of names and phrases that were sounding still in his ears like the vibration of distant and unfamiliar seas.

“Is this the girl you were talking with just now? In--in this room?” he added, striving to understand.

“Yes.”

“She wasn’t here, of course.”

“Her body was not.”

“Oh!”

Tressa said in her sweet, humorous way: “You must try to accustom yourself to such things, Victor. You know that Yulun talks to me ... I wanted to talk to Sansa. The longing awakened me. So--I made the effort.”

“And she came--I mean the part of her which is not her body.”

“Yes, she came. We talked very happily while I was bathing and dressing. Then we came in here. She is such a darling!”

“Where is she?”

“In Yian, feeding her silk-worms and making a garden. You see, Sansa is quite wealthy now, because when the Japanese came she filled a bullock cart with great lumps of spongy gold from the Temple and filled another cart with Yu-stone, and took the Hezar of Baroulass horsemen on guard at the Lake of the Ghosts. And with this Keutch, riding a Soubz horse, and dressed like an Urieng lancer, my pretty little comrade Tchagane, who is called Sansa, marched north preceded by two kettle-drums and a toug with two tails--”

Tressa’s clear laughter checked her; she clapped her hands, breathless with mirth at the picture she evoked.

“Kai!” she laughed; “what adorable impudence has Sansa! Neither Tchortcha nor Khiounnou dared ask her who were her seven ancestors! No! And when her caravan came to the lovely Yliang river, my darling Sansa rode out and grasped the lance from her Tougtchi and drove the point deep into the fertile soil, crying in a clear voice: ‘A place for Tchagane and her people! Make room for the toug!’

“Then her Manggoud, who carried the spare steel tip for her lance, got out of his saddle and, gathering a handful of mulberry leaves, rubbed the shaft of the lance till it was all pale green.

“‘Toug iaglachakho!’ cries my adorable Sansa! ‘Build me here my Urdu![2]--my Mocalla![3] And upon it pitch my tent of skins!”

[Footnote 2: Urdu = An imperial encampment.]

[Footnote 3: Mocalla = A platform used as a Moslem pulpit.]

Again Tressa’s laughter checked her, and she strove to control it with the jade ring pressed to her lips.

“Oh, Victor,” she added in a stifled voice, looking at him out of eyes full of mischief, “you don’t realise how funny it was--Sansa and her toug and her Urdu--Oh, Allah!--the bones of Tchinguiz must have rattled in his tomb!”

Her infectious laughter evoked a responsive but perplexed smile from Cleves; but it was the smile of a bewildered man who has comprehended very little of an involved jest; and he looked around at the modern room as though to find his bearings.

Suddenly Tressa leaned forward swiftly and laid one hand on his.

“You don’t think all this is very funny. You don’t like it,” she said in soft concern.

“It isn’t that, Tressa. But this is New York City in the year 1920. And I can’t--I absolutely can not get into touch--hook up, mentally, with such things--with the unreal Oriental life that is so familiar to you.”

She nodded sympathetically: “I know. You feel like a Mergued Pagan from Lake Baïkal when all the lamps are lighted in the Mosque;--like a camel driver with his jade and gold when he enters Yarkand at sunrise.”

“Probably I feel like that,” said Cleves, laughing outright. “I take your word, dear, anyway.”

But he took more; he picked up her soft hand where it still rested on his, pressed it, and instantly reddened because he had done it. And Tressa’s bright flush responded so quickly that neither of them understood, and both misunderstood.

The girl rose with heightened colour, not knowing why she stood up or what she meant to do. And Cleves, misinterpreting her emotion as a silent rebuke to the invasion of that convention tacitly accepted between them, stood up, too, and began to speak carelessly of commonplace things.

She made the effort to reply, scarcely knowing what she was saying, so violently had his caress disturbed her heart, --and she was still speaking when their telephone rang.

Cleves went; listened, then, still listening, summoned Tressa to his side with a gesture.

“It’s Selden,” he said in a low voice. “He says he has the Yezidee Arrak Sou-Sou under observation, and that he needs you desperately. Will you help us?”

“I’ll go, of course,” she replied, turning quite pale.

Cleves nodded, still listening. After a while: “All right. We’ll be there. Good-bye,” he said sharply; and hung up.

Then he turned and looked at his wife.

“I wish to God,” he muttered, “that this business were ended. I--I can’t bear to have you go.”

“I am not afraid ... Where is it?”

“I never heard of the place before. We’re to meet Selden at ‘Fool’s Acre.’”

“Where is it, Victor?”

“I don’t know. Selden says there are no roads, --not even a spotted trail. It’s a wilderness left practically blank by the Geological Survey. Only the contours are marked, and Selden tells me that the altitudes are erroneous and the unnamed lakes and water courses are all wrong. He says it is his absolute conviction that the Geological Survey never penetrated this wilderness at all, but merely skirted it and guessed at what lay inside, because the map he has from Washington is utterly misleading, and the entire region is left blank except for a few vague blue lines and spots indicating water, and a few heights marked ‘1800.’”

He turned and began to pace the sitting-room, frowning, perplexed, undecided.

“Selden tells me,” he said, “that the Yezidee, Arrak Sou-Sou, is in there and very busy doing something or other. He says that he can do nothing without you, and will explain why when we meet him.”

“Yes, Victor.”

Cleves turned on his heel and came over to where his wife stood beside the sunny window.

“I hate to ask you to go. I know that was the understanding. But this incessant danger--your constant peril--”

“That does not count when I think of my country’s peril,” she said in a quiet voice. “When are we to start? And what shall I pack in my trunk?”

“Dear child,” he said with a brusque laugh, “it’s a wilderness and we carry what we need on our backs. Selden meets us at a place called Glenwild, on the edge of this wilderness, and we follow him in on our two legs.”

He glanced across at the mantel clock.

“If you’ll dress,” he said nervously, “we’ll go to some shop that outfits sportsmen for the North. Because, if we can, we ought to leave on the one o’clock train.”

She smiled; came up to him. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Because I also am nervous and tired; and I mean to make an end of every Yezidee remaining in America.”

“Sanang, too?”

They both flushed deeply.

She said in a steady voice: “Between God and Erlik there is a black gulf where a million million stars hang, lighting a million million other worlds.

“Prince Sanang’s star glimmers there. It is a sun, called Yramid. And it lights the planet, Yu-tsung. Let him reign there between God and Erlik.”

“You will slay this man?”

“God forbid!” she said, shuddering. “But I shall send him to his own star. Let my soul be ransom for his! And may Allah judge between us--between this man and me.”

Then, in the still, sunny room, the girl turned to face the East. And her husband saw her lips move as though speaking, but heard no sound.

“What on earth are you saying there, all to yourself?” he demanded at last.

She turned her head and looked at him across her left shoulder.

“I asked Sansa to help me ... And she says she will.”

Cleves nodded in a dazed way. Then he opened a window and leaned there in the sunshine, looking down into Madison Avenue. And the roar of traffic seemed to soothe his nerves.

But “Good heavens!” he thought; “do such things really go on in New York in 1920! Is the entire world becoming a little crazy? Am I really in my right mind when I believe that the girl I married is talking, without wireless, to another girl in China!”

He leaned there heavily, gazing down into the street with sombre eyes.

“What a ghastly thing these Yezidees are trying to do to the world--these Assassins of men’s minds’!” he thought, turning away toward the door of his bedroom.

As he crossed the threshold he stumbled, and looking down saw that he had tripped over a white sheet lying there. For a moment he thought it was a sheet from his own bed, and he started to pick it up. Then he saw the naked blade of a knife at his feet.

With an uncontrollable shudder he stepped out of the shroud and stood staring at the knife as though it were a snake. It had a curved blade and a bone hilt coarsely inlaid with Arabic characters in brass.

The shroud was a threadbare affair--perhaps a bed-sheet from some cheap lodging house. But its significance was so repulsive that he hesitated to touch it.

However, he was ashamed to have it discovered in his room. He picked up the brutal-looking knife and kicked the shroud out into the corridor, where they could guess if they liked how such a rag got into the Ritz-Carlton.

Then he searched his bedroom, and, of course, discovered nobody hiding. But chills crawled on his spine while he was about it, and he shivered still as he stood in the centre of the room examining the knife and testing edge and point.

Then, close to his ear, a low voice whispered: “Be careful, my lord; the Yezidee knife is poisoned. But it is written that a poisoned heart is more dangerous still.”

He had turned like a flash; and he saw, between him and the sitting-room door, a very young girl with slightly slanting eyes, and rose and ivory features as perfect as though moulded out of tinted bisque.

She wore a loose blue linen robe, belted in, short at the elbows and skirt, showing two creamy-skinned arms and two bare feet in straw sandals. In one hand she had a spray of purple mulberries, and she looked coolly at Cleves and ate a berry or two.

“Give me the knife,” she said calmly.

He handed it to her; she wiped it with a mulberry leaf and slipped it through her girdle.

“I am Sansa,” she said with a friendly glance at him, busy with her fruit.

Cleves strove to speak naturally, but his voice trembled.

“Is it you--I mean your real self--your own body?”

“It’s my real self. Yes. But my body is asleep in my mulberry grove.”

“In--in China?”

“Yes,” she said calmly, detaching another mulberry and eating it. A few fresh leaves fell on the centre table.

Sansa chose another berry. “You know,” she said, “that I came to Tressa this morning, --to my little Heart of Fire I came when she called me. And I was quite sleepy, too. But I heard her, though there was a night wind in the mulberry trees, and the river made a silvery roaring noise in the dark ... And now I must go. But I shall come again very soon.”

She smiled shyly and held out her lovely little hand, “--As Tressa tells me is your custom in America,” she said, “I offer you a good-bye.”

He took her hand and found it a warm, smooth thing of life and pulse.

“Why,” he stammered in his astonishment, “you are real! You are not a ghost!”

“Yes, I am real,” she answered, surprised, “but I’m not in my body, --if you mean that.” Then she laughed and withdrew her hand, and, going, made him a friendly gesture.

“Cherish, my lord, my darling Heart of Fire. Serpents twist and twine. So do rose vines. May their petals make your path of velvet and sweet scented. May everything that is round be a pomegranate for you two to share; may everything that sways be lilies bordering a path wide enough for two. In the name of the Most Merciful God, may the only cry you hear be the first sweet wail of your first-born. And when the tenth shall be born, may you and Heart of Fire bewail your fate because both of you desire more children!”

She was laughing when she disappeared. Cleves thought she was still there, so radiant the sunshine, so sweet the scent in the room.

But the golden shadow by the door was empty of her. If she had slipped through the doorway he had not noticed her departure. Yet she was no longer there. And, when he understood, he turned back into the empty room, quivering all over. Suddenly a terrible need of Tressa assailed him--an imperative necessity to speak to her--hear her voice.

“Tressa!” he called, and rested his hand on the centre table, feeling weak and shaken to the knees. Then he looked down and saw the mulberry leaves lying scattered there, tender and green and still dewy with the dew of China.

“Oh, my God!” he whispered, “such things are! It isn’t my mind that has gone wrong. There are such things!”

The conviction swept him like a tide till his senses swam. As though peering through a mist of gold he saw his wife enter and come to him;--felt her arm about him, sustaining him where he swayed slightly with one hand on the table among the mulberry leaves.

“Ah,” murmured Tressa, noticing the green leaves, “she oughtn’t to have done that. That was thoughtless of her, to show herself to you.”

Cleves looked at her in a dazed way. “The body is nothing,” he muttered. “The rest only is real. That is the truth, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I seem to be beginning to believe it ... Sansa said things--I shall try to tell you--some day--dear ... I’m so glad to hear your voice.”

“Are you?” she murmured.

“And so glad to feel your touch ... I found a shroud on my threshold. And a knife.”

“The Yezidees are becoming mountebanks ... Where is the knife?” she asked scornfully.

“Sansa said it was poisoned. She took it. She--she said that a poisoned heart is more dangerous still.”