from My Thousand & One Nights

Ice Flame

The first donkey my father owned was a Yemenite bred in the mountains of Sunaa. It was brought to him by a haji, a pilgrim from Yemen who traded it to pay his expenses in the Holy Land. It was customary for Yemenite pilgrims to enter Mecca shepherding three to seven donkeys. The city’s markets welcomed these beautiful animals, because they contributed so much to the grandeur of the pageants orchestrated by the sheiks and other wealthy personages. Donkeys were the monarchs of Mecca’s endless pageants, carrying crowds of people from one neighborhood to another, all on their way to the Holy Mosque.

There were artists who did nothing but create spectacular paintings on the animals’ long-suffering hides. There were craftsmen who fabricated ingenious devices that rang and tinkled and rattled every time the donkeys twitched. It was not unusual to see a donkey adorned with pagan designs done in henna, with silver rattles and charms, cowry shells, and stunning golden amulets. The effect of all this imagery and noise, when caravanning in a pageant, was charming; the donkeys were trailed by crowds of admirers, and there seemed always to be a pageant in preparation for some festival or other: a trip to the Prophet’s city, a graduation ceremony for scholars of the Holy Book, the anniversary of the Prophet’s birth, a marriage, a victory over evil, the birth of a child.

It happened that Haji Swayn, a pilgrim from Yemen, entered Mecca leading but one donkey, a female whose hide was pure white, white as quartz. He planted himself next to his beast and stood in the middle of the market, waiting for a buyer, surrounded by fellow pilgrims selling their herds as fast as they could display them. Before long the other pilgrims were on their way to the inns reserved for visitors to the Holy Mosque. Some had already started the ritual of circumambulating the Holy Mosque and reverencing God’s holy name.

Haji Swayn stayed behind, invisible to the buyers and sellers rushing back and forth. Perhaps they were blinded by the she-donkey’s whiteness, which was so uniform and unblemished that the beast might well have been an icon cautioning against the follies of polytheism. All day long Haji Swayn stood in his spot. Nothing like this had ever happened, not in the entire history of trading Yemenite donkeys, whose remarkable qualities were the envy of the world. Haji Swayn stood patiently. The sun set. Darkness fell. The market was illuminated solely by the glow of the donkey’s eyes, which the pilgrim had covered with a veil.

My father happened to pass by. The veiled donkey immediately caught his attention, and he wasted no time buying it. Mohammed al-Maghrabi never could recall how much he paid for that white she-donkey—probably quite a bit. Then again, it’s conceivable he got a bargain, if one takes into account the pilgrim’s weariness and his pessimism about being able to get a good price for such a weird-looking animal.

Mohammed al-Maghrabi adjusted his elegant turban, tucked in his hair, and hitched his strange new donkey to a post by the gate of the slave market. It was here that the course of life—the life of a slave, at any rate—took some very wild turns. Here a slave’s life stopped being one thing and started being something else altogether, careening in all directions down strange roads in the Holy Land. My father hurried off to answer the call to evening prayer.

All the merchants and worshippers in the area were drawn like moths to the donkey’s inner fire, which, under the veil of night, took on an irresistible glow. It was easier now to get a closer look at the brilliant beast and contemplate the energy that made it shine. Mohammed al-Maghrabi was inundated with many offers for the animal at prices that grew more incredible by the minute. But my father was enthralled by his snow-white beauty. All offers were declined. The...