The Book of Khalid

by Ameen Fares Rihani

““No more voyages, I trust, O thou Sindbad.” And he replied, “Yes, one more; but to our dear native land this time.” In fact, I, too, was beginning to suffer from nostalgia, and was much desirous of returning home.” But Shakib is in such a business tangle that he could not extricate himself in a day. So, they tarry another year in New York, the one meanwhile unravelling his affairs, settling with his creditors and collecting what few debts he had, the other brooding over the few blank pages in his Text. 101

One day he receives a letter from a fellow traveller, a distinguished citizen of Tammany Land, whom he had met and befriended in Bohemia, relating to an enterprise of great pith and moment. It was election time, we learn, and the high post of political canvasser of the Syrian District was offered to Khalid for a consideration of––but the letter which Shakib happily preserved, we give in full.

“Dear Khalid:

“I have succeeded in getting Mr. O’Donohue to appoint you a canvasser of the Syrian District. You must stir yourself, therefore, and try to do some good work, among the Syrian voters, for Democracy’s Candidate this campaign. Here is a chance which, with a little hustling on your part, will materialise. And I see no reason why you should not try to cash your influence among your people. This is no mean position, mind you. And if you will come up to the Wigwam to-morrow, I’ll give you a few suggestions on the business of manipulating votes.

“Yours truly,
“Patrick Hoolihan.”

And the said Mr. Hoolihan, the letter shows, is Secretary to Mr. O’Donohue, who is first henchman to the Boss. Such a letter, if luckily misunderstood, will fire for a while the youthful imagination. No; not his Shamrag Majesty’s Tammany Agent to Syria, this Canvassership, you poor phantom-like zany! A high post, indeed, you fond and pitiful dreamer, on which you must hang the higher aspirations of your soul, together with your theory of immanent morality. You would not know this at first. You would still kiss the official notification of Mr. Hoolihan, and hug it fondly to your breast. Very well. At last––and 102 the gods will not damn thee for musing––you will stand in the band-wagon before the corner groggery and be the object of the admiration of your fellow citizens––perhaps of missiles, too. Very well, Khalid; but you must shear that noddle of thine, and straightway, for the poets are potted in Tammany Land. We say this for your sake.

The orator-dream of youth, ye gods, shall it be realised in this heaven of a dray-cart with its kerosene torch and its drum, smelling and sounding rather of Juhannam? Surely, from the Table of Bohemia to the Stump in Tammany Land, is a far cry. But believe us, O Khalid, you will wish you were again in the gardens of Proserpine, when the silence and darkness extinguish the torch and the drum and the echoes of the shouting crowds. The headaches are certain to follow this inebriation. You did not believe Shakib; you would not be admonished; you would go to the Wigwam for your portfolio. “High post,” “political canvasser,” “manipulation of votes,” you will know the exact meaning of these esoteric terms, when, alas, you meet Mr. Hoolihan. For you must know that not every one you meet in Bohemia is not a Philistine. Indeed, many helots are there, who come from Philistia to spy out the Land.

We read in the Histoire Intime of Shakib that Khalid did become a Tammany citizen, that is to say, a Tammany dray-horse; that he was much esteemed by the Honourable Henchmen, and once in the Wigwam he was particularly noticed by his Shamrag Majesty Boss O’Graft; that he was Tammany’s Agent 103 to the Editors of the Syrian newspapers of New York, whom he enrolled in the service of the Noble Cause for a consideration which no eloquence or shrewdness could reduce to a minimum; that he also took to the stump and dispensed to his fellow citizens, with rhetorical gestures at least, of the cut-and-dried logic which the Committee of Buncombe on such occasions furnishes its squad of talented spouters; and that––the most important this––he was subject in the end to the ignominy of waiting in the lobby with tuft-hunters and political stock-jobbers, until it pleased the Committee of Buncombe and the Honourable Treasurer thereof to give him––a card of dismissal!

But what virtue is there in waiting, our cynical friend would ask. Why not go home and sleep? Because, O cynical friend, the Wigwam now is Khalid’s home. For was he not, in creaking boots and a slouch hat, ceremoniously married to Democracy? Ay, and after spending their honeymoon on the Stump and living another month or two with his troll among her People, he returns to his cellar to brood, not over the blank pages in his Text, nor over the disastrous results of the Campaign, but on the weightier matter of divorce. For although Politics and Romance, in the History of Human Intrigue, have often known and enjoyed the same yoke, with Khalid they refused to pull at the plough. They were not sensible even to the goad. Either the yoke in his case was too loose, or the new yoke-fellow too thick-skinned and stubborn.

Moreover, the promise of a handsome dowry, made 104 by the Shamrag Father-in-Law or his Brokers materialised only in the rotten eggs and tomatoes with which the Orator was cordially received on his honeymoon trip. Such a marriage, O Mohammad, and such a honeymoon, and such a dowry!––is not this enough to shake the very sides of the Kaaba with laughter? And yet, in the Wigwam this not uncommon affair was indifferently considered; for the good and honourable Tammanyites marry off their Daughters every day to foreigners and natives alike, and with like extraordinary picturesque results.

Were it not wiser, therefore, O Khalid, had you consulted your friend the Dictionary before you saw exact meaning of canvass and manipulation, before you put on your squeaking boots and slouch hat and gave your hand and heart to Tammany’s Daughter and her Father-in-Law O’Graft? But the Dictionary, too, often falls short of human experience; and even Mr. O’Donohue could at best but hint at the meaning of the esoteric terms of Tammany’s political creed. These you must define for yourself as you go along; and change and revise your definitions as you rise or descend in the Sacred Order. For canvass here might mean eloquence; there it might mean shrewdness; lower down, intimidation and coercion; and further depthward, human sloth and misery. It is but a common deal in horses. Ay, in Tammany Land it is essentially a trade honestly conducted on the known principle of supply and demand. These truths you had to discover for yourself, you say; for neither the Dictionary, nor your friend and fellow traveller in 105 Bohemia, Mr. Hoolihan, could stretch their knowledge or their conscience to such a compass. And you are not sorry to have made such a discovery? Can you think of the Dowry and say that? We are, indeed, sorry for you. And we would fain insert in letter D of the Dictionary a new definition: namely, Dowry, n. (Tammany Land Slang). The odoriferous missiles, such as eggs and tomatoes, which are showered on an Orator-Groom by the people.

But see what big profits Khalid draws from these small shares in the Reality Stock Company. You remember, good Reader, how he was kicked away from the door of the Temple of Atheism. The stogies of that inspired Doorkeeper were divine, according to his way of viewing things, for they were at that particular moment God’s own boots. Ay, it was God, he often repeats, who kicked him away from the Temple of his enemies. And now, he finds the Dowry of Democracy, with all its wonderful revelations, as profitable in its results, as divine in its purpose. And in proof of this, we give here a copy of his letter to Boss O’Graft, written in that downright manner of his contemporaries, the English original of which we find in the Histoire Intime.