The Moghul

around.
    The passageway was long, freshly plastered, and floored in marble mosaic. It was cool, as though immune from the heat of the day, and scented faintly with rose incense that had been blended with the oil in the hanging lamps.
    At the end of the corridor was another stairway, again of white marble, and as they moved up its steps the man who had greeted Hawksworth extinguished his lamp with a brass cup he carried.
    Beyond the stair was another corridor, then another door that opened as they approached. Hawksworth realized they were in an upper story of a large building directly behind the mosque. They passed through the door and emerged into a room facing a balcony that overlooked the abandoned square below.
    In the center of the room was a raised dais, covered with a thick Persian carpet. The man who had been Hawksworth's guide moved to the dais, mounted it, and seated himself. With a flourish he dropped his white hood and the wrap that had been around him. Hawksworth realized with a shock that his long white hair streamed to his waist. He was naked save for a loincloth. He gestured for Hawksworth to sit, indicating a bolster.
    "Welcome, English." He waited until the surprise had registered in Hawksworth's face. "We've been expecting you, but not quite so soon."
    "Who are you?"
    "I was once a Persian." He smiled. "But I've almost forgotten my country's manners. First I should offer you some refreshment, and only then turn to affairs. Normally I would offer sharbat , but I understand you prefer wine?"
    Hawksworth stared at him speechless. No pious Muslim would drink wine. That much he knew.
    "Don't look so surprised. We Persian poets often drink wine. . . for divine inspiration." He laughed broadly. "At least that's our excuse. Perhaps Allah will forgive us. ‘A garden of flowers, a cup of wine, Mark the repose of a joyous mind.’"
    He signaled one of the men, and a chalice of wine appeared, seemingly from nowhere. "I once learned a Latin expression,'in vino Veritas.’ As a Christian you must know it. 'In wine there is truth.' Have some wine and we will search for truth together."
    "Let's start with some truth from you. How do you know so much about me? And you still haven't told me who you are."
    "Who am I? You know, that's the most important question you can ask any man. Let us say I am one who has forsworn everything the world would have . . . and thereby found the one thing most others have lost." He smiled easily. "Can you guess what that is?"
    "Tell me."
    "My own freedom. To make verse, to drink wine, to love. I have nothing now that can be taken away, so I live without fear. I am a Muslim reviled by the mullahs, a poet denounced by the Moghul’s court versifiers, a teacher rejected by those who no longer care to learn. I live here because there is no other place I can be. Perhaps I soon will be gone, but right here, right now, I am free. Because I bear nothing but love for those who would harm me." He stared out over the balcony for a moment in silence. "Show me the man who lives in fear of death, and I will show you one already dead in his soul. Show me the man who knows hate, and I will show you one who can never truly know love." He paused again and once more the room grew heavy with silence. "Love, English, love is the sweetness of desert honey. It is life itself. But you, I think, have yet to know its taste. Because you are a slave to your own striving. But until you give all else over, as I have done, you can never truly know love."
    "How do you think you know so much about me? I know nothing about you. Or about why I'm here."
    "But I think you've heard of me."
    Hawksworth stared at him for a moment, and suddenly everything came together. He could have shouted his realization.
    "You're Samad. The Sufi. . . ." He stopped, his heart racing. "Where is . . .?"
    "Yes, I'm a poet, and I'm called a Sufi because there is nothing else to call me."
    "You're not really a Sufi?"
    "Who knows what a Sufi is, my English friend? Not even a Sufi knows. Sufis do not teach beliefs. They merely ask that you know who you are."
    "I thought they're supposed to be mystics, like some of the Spanish Catholics."
    "Mystics yearn to merge with God. To find that part within us all that is God. Sufis teach methods for clearing away the clutter that obscures our knowledge of who we are So perhaps we're mystics. But we're not beloved by the mullahs."
    "Why not? Sufis are Muslims."
    "Because Sufis ignore them. The mullahs say