My
grandfather and great uncles used to sing it when I was very young:
the story of Al-Quivir. And even now, on a summer night when the
orange trees are sleeping, dusty and warm, and the grapes hang heavy
and sweet, you can hear it. It is well-known among all of our folk.
Al-Quivir, the cricket who taught the Caliph, instructed the
teachers, danced the words and lived long in the palace of the
Alhambra. It is a long story; from dusk to moonfall it is chirped
and sung, retold and recited.
Here
is how it begins.
Under
a prickly grape leaf, in a farmer's field, outside the town of Jerez,
in the country of Al-Andalus, 10,000 tiny crickets struggled to be
born. By nightfall, 4,976 had been gobbled by the busy sparrows that
hopped about working at the ground under the grape vines. 4,923 had
skipped away to live their useful lives in the vineyards and barns of
Senor Perez. One sat dreaming at the center of a fat bunch of grapes
as green as moonlight, ripening to gold in the sun.
As
he munched the tender leaves, he moved slowly, spiralling, hopping
this way and leaping that way. Behind him the leaf took on a pattern
of graceful lines where he had eaten and munched, tasted and
crunched. As he rested on the curve of a grape, Al Quivir saw what
he had made on the leaf and was pleased. Turning about to retrace
his path he felt better still. When other crickets were singing and
leaping, munching and taking care of the business of the cricket
world in the fields of Senor Perez of Jerez, Al Quivir made more and
still more swirls and lines.
Al
Quivir, young cricket, had a poet's soul. That is what the people
came to say of him, but he didn't think of it that way; he merely
hopped and munched to an unheard music in a way that pleased him.
And
so life went on in this pleasant way for some time, until one hot
afternoon, when Javier, Senor Perez's son, came picking along the
grape vines, filling his broad basket with bunches of grapes to be
sold in Cadiz. "What a perfect bunch that is!" he said to
himself, "I'll put that one on top and bring it in to Mama for
our dinner." And so he did.
Mama
Perez lifted the golden dusty grapes, heavy with Andalusian sunshine.
"Such a fine bunch of grapes for the table," she said to
herself, "deserves something special. Ah, I know the perfect
thing."
Inside
the house, she set the grapes on the scrubbed table, and squinted in
the dim light as she rummaged around carefully on the high shelf
where the candlesticks were kept. Sure enough, there was the bit of
parchment her husband had brought home. All covered with elegant
black lines; writing, he said it was. Good Christian farmers, not a
one of the Perez family could read, but they had seen writing around
the windows of the mosque, like vines and branches running up the
sides of the painted carvings. Senor Perez had noticed when this
scrap fluttered from the sleeve of a scholar as he argued with a
merchant in the market at Cadiz, and he had quietly put his foot over
it until the scholar had strode away. They had smoothed it out on
the table when he came home and wondered at the lovely patterns.
Senora
Perez set the perfect bunch of grapes on the parchment and went to
the fire to stir another handful of onions into the soup.
When
the jostling stopped and did not start again, Al Quivir ventured out
from between two grapes where he had been clinging, curious and
cautious, alert and hungry. Hopping down he landed on something that
whispered beneath his feet. It tasted dry, not like leaves at all.
A little further on there was a strong smelly darkness, and just as
suddenly the dry stuff began again. Though none of this seemed good
to eat, Al Quivir began to follow, sensing a pattern unfolding.
Since there was less of the darkness, he followed that, and began to
crawl along the letters, for we know what they were, do we not? Over
and over he traced the lines, turning and swirling, smooth and
curved, even more beautiful than his own lacy marks on the grape
leaves.
He
did not heed the slurps and munchings of the family as they ate their
dinner, any more than he would have paid attention to the wind or the
rustles of the vines around him. He was in love with these lines and
crawled and hopped over and over again. "Go on with you,
cricket," a big voice boomed, "on the hearth not on our
table for you." A big hand casually swiped Al Quivir from the
paper, from the table and through the air.
Stunned,
Al Quivir huddled where he landed while the big boots and bare feet
thudded and thumped around him. As soon as it was quiet again, he
felt ravenous, with a curious hunger beyond a cricket's ceaseless
craving for food. Crawling and hopping, sniffing and feeling his way
across the floor, the pounded clay not unlike the flattened dirt
between the rows of vines, he set off to search for food in this new
place.
Al
Quivir, the cricket who taught the Caliph, lived for a time in the
house of the farmer Perez - searching for food and hiding places,
singing and chirping through the night. His songs were restless, and
gave the sleepers yearning dreams they did not understand. And all
day long as he searched, the beautiful patterns repeated themselves
in his mind. So time went on, days and nights, cold and hot,
darkness and light.
One
day Senora Perez took down the big broom and began to thump about,
raising big clouds of dust. Al Quivir took refuge, climbing higher
and higher. Perched on the back of a chair, the cricket sensed a
quiet space behind him. Just before Senora's big hand descended to
move the chair out of her way, Al Quivir jumped. Slipping on a waxy
bit of candle, he squeezed underneath the clay sides of an oil lamp.
Senora Perez bustled out of the house, coughing in the dust, and
quiet reigned again.
Al
Quivir's antenna quivered. There was food here, but also something
else. Something tantalizing, something he had been looking for. Ah,
it was the dark inky smell of the lines! Al-Quivir was overjoyed.
Undisturbed on his high shelf, Al Quivir dreamed along the line of
writing, from one end to the other and back again. More days and
nights passed by, noisy and quiet, wet and dry, darkness and light.
Chewing
on a sticky bit of tallow, Al Quiver was running his line one day
without paying attention and ran right off the paper. He kept right
on twisting and dancing just as though he were smelling and tasting
his line as he hopped. "Interesting!" he thought. The
dance could be danced even without the tastes and smells. He kept
on.
About
a grape's length from the end of the line he came to the end of the
shelf. Al Quivir's momentum carried him right into empty space.
Through the air, through the dust motes, through hot sun light and
cool shadow, thump onto the floor he fell into a patch of sun
streaming in from the open door.
Al
Quivir leaped instinctively, and found himself in a familiar world of
farmyard smells and tastes. A line or two brought him to the solid
wheel of a cart, and he climbed up the crannies and cracks in the
wood, drawn by a familiar smell above him. As Senor Perez gave the
harness on his cart horse a last tug, Al Quivir settled happily on a
grape leaf and began to munch. The horse clumped down the path,
Senor Perez waved to his wife as she called, "Sell to the
highest now, and don't forget my salt!" The jolts and bumps of
the cart reminded Al Quivir of the wind in the vines so long ago and
he settled in comfortably wedged between two golden grapes.
There
was no room for more than a bit of his line on a grape leaf, but Al
Quivir did his best to engrave as much as he could as they travelled
along. As they bumped over the bridge into town, the leaves on the
top layer of grapes took on the appearance of lace as fine as a green
mantilla.
Now
in this time the port of Cadiz bustled with turbanned Moors, bearded
Jewish musicians, Etruscan diplomats black as night in their long
white robes, merchants of maps, paper and salt, veiled housewives
fingering silks and sighing as they bargained for cottons. Donkeys
brayed and stamped, chickens protested their cages and their fate,
flies buzzed and quarreled, ducks stretched out their necks and added
to the din.
Through
the dust and the shimmering heat, the calls of the vendors and the
cooing of doves, strode Muhammad Ibn Arabi, scholar and friend of the
Caliph Banu 'l-Ahmar. In his head a new poem spun its silky lines,
fine as a spider web, sweet as a dream. The poet scholar mused in
his poem on the tendrils of a grape vine, delicate and clinging,
tender yet strong. The poem dwelt lovingly on the heavy grapes
testing the strength of the vine and the tenacity of its holding
tendrils. The scholar hoped to share his poem with the Caliph when
he returned to Granada, and for the Caliph to see in his poem praise
for his own gentle strength. Suddenly he paused, the image in his
mind visible before him in Farmer Perez' harvest, laid out for sale.
Down
came his hand, sweet and fine, white with dust and black with ink.
Gently cradling, swiftly rising, his scholar's hands held up the
golden grapes with the lacy leaves, his voice asking, arguing,
agreeing, laughing. A cool white cloth shut out the sights of Cadiz;
a perfect bunch of grapes to accompany a poem and a cricket with the
soul of a poet were tucked away as a gift to the Caliph in Granada
itself.
Quiet
and contented, Al Quivir clung to his grape leaf in the bright white
light as the sounds of the port town gave way to the slap and roll of
waves, the gruff calls of sailors, the yearning cries of seabirds and
the high thin song of the scholar's prayers.
A
darkness later the scholar walked musing up the winding road to the
Alhambra, intoning the passwords when challenged, humming bits of
sailor's songs and the Christian Cantigas de Santa Maria he had heard
on his travels. In the clear light of the sun, he brought the gift
of grapes to his lord and they sat in a courtyard murmuring with
water falling, dappled with leaf screened light, glowing from
sun-warmed walls, refreshed by the lightest of breezes.
The
scholar had been instructing the Caliph in the latest style of poetry
that he had heard was popular in Baghdad so far away. As
illustration he offered his own poem, modestly, just as the Caliph
was enjoying the grapes from Jerez. His pen swirled the ink across
the page as the Caliph watched and plucked the grapes one by one. The
motion wakened Al-Quivir, who crawled sleepily away from the
quivering grapes and took refuge in the shadow of the scholar's
sleeve. As Al-Quivir warmed and wakened himself he was delighted by
the smells of oranges cut and juicy, wine sour in the cup, figs sweet
and sticky, and a pomegranate sharp and dry. Venturing away from the
scholar's elbow, the first thing that the cricket encountered was a
small pool of spilled ink. His hopping progress began to leave a
trail.
As
Caliph and scholar sucked their oranges and watched, bemused by the
tiny life of one of Allah's humblest beasts, Ibn Arabi laughed and
quoted a familiar poem about the songs of crickets heralding the
coming of summer. Al Quivir was feeling contented and somehow at
home on the Caliph's table and when he was content he invariably fell
into his favorite activity. As he began to twist and wind, hop and
crawl in his beloved pattern, his ink-stained feet left a message
behind for any eye to see. "Wa al-Ghalib bi'llah", read
the scholar in wonder. "Only God is the Conqueror,"
repeated the Caliph.
"So
I must say to all my people," he said in a loud and sure voice,
so that Al-Quivir paused, uncertain whether he should seek cover from
a summer storm approaching. But the Caliph, Banu 'l-Ahmar, of
Granada, was delighted and grateful to Allah for the gift of Al
Quivir. Only God is the Conqueror! Just the message he wanted to
carry to his people in these hard and conflicted times. A message of
humility, yet comforting in the reminder of Allah's everlasting
strength. Wa al-Ghalib bi'allah.
And
this was the way that Al-Quivir's message came to the lips of the
Caliph Banu 'l Ahmar and to the people of Granada and on into
history. And his beloved swirls and lines were inscribed around
every niche and lacy window, across the clay tiled lintels and carved
doorways of the great and lovely palace of the Alhambra. And so they
remain until this very day.
Now
people tell this story, too, not only we crickets. But in their
story they say that this Caliph had gone away to march and fight at
the side of the Christian king Ferdinand. We remember that time.
There was a great trampling of feet and a stomping of hooves; insects
all over Granada hid away from the glare and shine of the swords and
shields. Then after a time of quiet and unease, of murmuring and
watching, the Caliph returned. Then the bells and yelling, the
toasting and singing, and the Caliph saying over and over, in answer
to their praise and cheering, "Wa al-Ghalib b'llah," "Only
God is the conqueror," for he was a man both great and good,
proud and pious.
All
that may be true, but who whispered into his ear those words to say
to his people, and who showed him how to decorate his windows and
walls, fountains and halls with the curves and lines of these
thoughts and words? Surely that was our ancestor, Al-Quivir, the
humble cricket who taught the Caliph greatness from his poet's soul.
