Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples (Vintage International) by Naipaul V.S

Author:Naipaul, V.S. [Naipaul, V.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307828415
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

And then, beyond an iron-barred door, we were in the quiet of the manuscript room, and among old things of great beauty. So that, abruptly, after the disorder of the streets, and my nerves, and the obstructiveness downstairs, we were again in another world.

It was already half-past eleven. Even if Emami came now we would be an hour late for Khalkhalli. I began mentally to write that meeting off, and thought that, rather like the people downstairs leaning against the aluminum cage to get the healing emanations of the dead holy man, it might be good for me, after all, to linger here for half an hour or so, in the calmer emanations of an older world. I thought of the library of the University of Salamanca in Spain, another collection of idle learning, or its mirror image, almost from the same period. But without warning the English-speaking guide who had been deputed to show us round was taken away, and there came a young cleric in a tunic and gown who, small and frowning, saying nothing, marched us from case to case, the skirt of his robe swinging above his small, light-colored slippers, and finally marched us out of the manuscript room, closing the iron-barred door with a bang behind us.

He led us then without speech or friendliness to other sections of the library: printed books, conservation, fumigation, copying. And then to rooms with more and more printed books: the unending stream of Islamic theology, elaborated without haste in places like Qom, and put out in “sets” of many volumes, uniformly and garishly bound: so many sets they made you wonder how far they had been checked and proofed, whether they were intended to find readers, or whether they were issued as sacred objects, the emanations of a revered ayatollah, their publication or manufacture being somebody’s act of piety or charity.

So many sets to see, now, in the company of our surly attendant, that at last I said no and stopped. I felt that we should be content with the adventure we had had, should go and look at the shrine of Hazrat Masumeh, eat lunch or something, and drive back to Tehran. Mehrdad agreed. He thought we had drawn too much attention to ourselves. It worried him that I had written down my name and address; and he didn’t think that we should hang around.

We broke off from our attendant, walked down two floors to where the library proper began. And found Emami, the talebeh.

He was relaxed and easy, a tall and slender man of about thirty, and he didn’t seem to know that he had kept us waiting an hour. He wasn’t in tunic and robe and turban, but in trousers and a silky or shiny white shirt with a textured pattern. No word from him—or Mehrdad transmitted none—about how he happened to be where he was, or why he hadn’t telephoned, or even why he hadn’t been there an hour earlier. All that came from him, in his calm, soft way, was yes, he knew where Khalkhalli lived, and would take us there.

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