He raised an apologetic hand. “Forgive me, but I must mention it. My firm policy: Cash in advance.”

  “And my firm policy,” replied Baksheesh, while I produced the coins Khabib demanded, “I buy nothing blindfolded. A pig in a poke, as the ferenghis put it. I’ll just take a look at what you have in mind to foist off on me.”

  “The procedure does not permit it.” Khabib snapped shut his cash box. “You can’t see until you’ve already seen, so to speak. You understand that, of course.”

  “What if I don’t like it?” returned Baksheesh.

  “Hardly possible,” Khabib assured him. “Such a thing has never happened. Dear friend, I stand behind my merchandise.

  “Ask anyone. They’ll all tell you no one is more reliable. However, in the extremely unlikely event that you are not completely satisfied, I shall, of course, replace it. Naturally, there would be a modest fee for extraction, reconditioning, repacking, wear and tear on the product—”

  “I knew there was a catch somewhere,” Baksheesh retorted. “One other thing. All said and done, bought and paid for, it’s mine. I get to keep it. No coming at me later and telling me the lease has run out, or some other sort of chicanery.”

  “The transaction is permanent,” said Khabib. “You own it, exclusively yours in perpetuity. Do as you please, use it whenever it suits you, as often as you like. My merchandise is durable, it won’t wear out.

  “Or, simply keep it in storage,” he added. “Summon it up from time to time; on a special occasion, perhaps. It stays fresh. It will, I assure you, last indefinitely.”

  “So you say, so you say.” Baksheesh shrugged. “Well, it’s not my money being flung about. Go ahead, Kaboob. Get on with your business. But I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

  Being fitted for a dream, I supposed, would demand at least as much time and thought as being fitted for a pair of trousers.

  Khabib, however, went about his work very briskly. He paced back and forth, sizing up each of us with a quick glance. His lips moved slightly, as if he were reciting the multiplication table in his head.

  After only a few moments, he nodded, satisfied by his calculations or whatever they were. Salamon impatiently shifted from one foot to the other. Baksheesh kept a leery eye on Khabib.

  Shira—I had never seen her much frightened by anything. But now she looked on edge. Which made me wonder why I let us be tangled up with a so-called dream-seller. Rubbing his hands, flexing his pudgy fingers, Khabib, for all I knew, could be a murderous lunatic at worst; a plump-cheeked swindler at best.

  My curiosity got the better of my concerns. He had, so far, shown no interest in trying to murder us; whether he was a swindler remained to be seen.

  Khabib ushered us past a beaded curtain and into a dim hallway. I could make out a row of open doors. He motioned for each of us to step through one of them.

  I found myself in a stuffy little cubicle. Khabib lit an oil lamp on a wooden table. I had somehow expected us to stay all together. I did not like being separated, certainly not from Shira.

  “The procedure is private and personal for each individual,” he said when I raised that question. “Have every confidence. I am, after all, a professional.”

  He pointed at a low divan strewn with cushions. “I shall return momentarily. Be at ease, make yourself comfortable.”

  As if such a thing were possible in this stifling chamber. It had a heavy odor of stale perfume. I stretched out, neither at ease nor comfortable. To my surprise, and despite my apprehension, I began feeling drowsy.

  Khabib soon popped in again. As best I could see beyond my heavy eyelids, he carried a milky glass phial and some other objects on a tray.

  With his back to me, I could not guess what he was doing at the table. The lamplight made his shadow loom enormous on the wall.

  He hummed a little tune, like any carpenter or cobbler going about a long-familiar and somewhat boring task. After a time, he came to peer down at me.

  “Excellent,” he said. “You’re doing splendidly.”

  It seemed to me I was doing nothing at all. Between his being a murderer or a swindler, I began favoring the latter.

  He produced a silver cup about the size of a large thimble and told me to drink it down straightaway. When I put it to my lips, I could have sworn it held nothing.

  I was starting to get impatient. I asked when his rigmarole would be done.

  He blinked at me. “Done? Why, my dear young friend, it has been done already.”

  In that case, I said, where was my dream?

  “Look around you.” Khabib made a vague gesture. “Look— but don’t open your eyes.”

  I believe he went away after that. I tried to do as he instructed, and found it more difficult than I expected. For a moment or two, I saw only darkness. Disappointed, I would have gotten up from the divan and gone after him. My arms and legs paid no attention to what I ordered them to do.

  Then, suddenly—and I’ll say this much for Khabib’s merchandise—it was marvelous. Shira was there. But where? Were we in Keshavar? The hills above Magenta? I couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter. We were tender and loving, we made discoveries, we laughed. A poem kept drifting through my head. I had never heard it before, but I seemed to know it by heart:

  I gave you flowers;

  You gave me a flight of doves.

  I gave you pomegranates;

  You gave me songs.

  I gave you ripe figs;

  You gave me voyages. …

  At one moment, we were standing by a riverbank. Shira had woven a wreath of willow branches; so beautiful, but I recalled no more. Khabib was prodding me awake, hauling me to my feet and out of the cubicle. Shira, Salamon, and Baksheesh were in the hallway, all of them glassy-eyed, as I must have been.

  Khabib herded us into the shop. Now that he had done his part of the business, he was eager for us to be gone.

  “Thank you for your patronage. Recommend me to your friends,” he said, hustling us along. “Now, if you please, I have other appointments.”

  Before I stepped out, he took my arm. Drawing me aside, he cocked his head and gave me a buttery smile. “Did you have a pleasant dream, Messire Carlo Chuchio?”

  Later, even after I got my wits about me, I couldn’t remember having mentioned my name to him.

  So here we all were in the street, rubbing our eyes in the blinding sunlight, with Khabib calling peace upon us and banging his door at our heels.

  I stood there, still befuddled, trying to get my bearings. I suppose we were all curious to compare notes and find out what Khabib had sold us; but I had no intention of telling my dream. If Khabib’s methods were, as he said, private and personal, the same applied to his product. I meant to keep mine to myself.

  Not so with Salamon. He was bubbling over. “Magnificent,” he said, completely enraptured. “Remarkable. Most noteworthy, indeed. I had reached the sea. Yes, goodness me, I was on the shore, at the water’s edge. And there, shining in front of me, stretching as far as I could see, why, I believe there was no horizon at all.

  “Just as astonishing, all my old friends were there. My schoolfellows, too, young as we had been in those days. We laughed, embraced, so glad to see one another.”

  “And?” said Baksheesh. “What next?”

  Salamon blinked at him. “I don’t understand—”

  “Didn’t you splash around? Have a swim? Put at least a toe in the water?”

  “No, not at that moment. Khabib woke me up, you see. He told me there might be some left over for another time. But this was wonderful enough.”

  “Well, old Sarsaparilla,” Baksheesh said, “it doesn’t take much to satisfy you.”

  “Oh, I was more than content,” replied Salamon. “I only hope yours was as delightful as mine.”

  “That lard-faced pickpocket!” Baksheesh snapped. “Oily sneak thief! Slithering serpent in the oasis of my existence! I’ve a good mind to get my money back—your money, O Noble Master,” he added to me. “I’ll shake it loose of him—”

  I couldn’t resist asking what he’d dreamed.

  “I went home,” he muttered.

  “Then,” Shira said, “it was a happy dream.”

  “So what if it was?” Baksheesh retorted. “That’s beside the point. It was ridiculous. Impossible. I never had a home.”

  Baksheesh kept grumbling about getting his—or my— money back. Face shining, Salamon was still caught up in his vision of the sea. I would have started on our way to the khan; but Shira, saying nothing until now, held my arm and we lingered a little behind them.

  “Kharr-loh,” she said, “you did not speak your dream.”

  “Neither did you,” I said.

  This did not seem a very good answer. She had her eyes on me, giving me an odd sort of look, waiting for me to go on. And so I had to—no, the truth is, I wanted to.

  I intended to be frank and forthcoming, but that turned out more difficult than I thought. For parts of the dream, I found no words that made any kind of sense. Some of it—maybe the best moments—I meant to keep to myself. Though it came out in confused bits and pieces, I did tell her what I could.

  When I got to the part about the verses, I had to pause. There were other lines; I couldn’t quite bring them to mind again.

  Shira had been listening closely. “Yes, there’s more.”

  With that, she repeated word for word exactly what I had dreamed, as if answering me:

  I gave you blood oranges;

  You gave me four seasons.

  I gave you tamarinds;

  You gave me sunrise.

  I gave you a caged bird;

  You set it free.

  I stopped short in the middle of the street. It can be off-putting, even a little frightening, to have your own dream recited back to you. There was a reasonable explanation. It was no doubt an old, well-known poem. She must have read or heard it before.

  I interrupted to suggest this. Shira shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I had the same dream.”

  I stared like an idiot, trying to make heads or tails of it.

  “Khabib!” I burst out. “What’s he done?”

  He must have made a mistake. How else had he given the same dream to both of us? Or—and this puzzled me still more—had he done it on purpose? Why? Was he a swindler, after all? Had he meant to cheat us?

  Baksheesh was motioning for us to hurry along. I had to find out. I turned and ran to the shop. Shira called something to me. I didn’t catch what it was.

  Khabib’s door was locked. I tried to force the latch. It had been bolted from inside. I knocked hard. No answer. I pounded with all my might.

  By then, I was in such a state that I considered kicking his door off the hinges. Meantime, a street urchin had sauntered up. He stood, hands on hips, observing my efforts. Even his rags looked impudent.

  “They say all ferenghis are mad,” he remarked. “I think this must be true. Why, mirza, would you wish to break down a perfectly good door?”

  I stopped for a moment. I had already skinned my knuckles, they had begun to smart. I told him, not too politely, it was none of his business, I wanted a few strong words with Khabib.

  “Not home,” he said. “He is never home.”

  Now I was out of patience. “I may be a ferenghi, but I’m not a fool. I was there a minute ago. He sold me a dream—”

  “Did he, now?” The boy raised an eyebrow. “For a fact? Bought yourself a nice little dream? Where’d you put it? Safe and sound in your pocket? You’re a clever one, I see that. Shall you be interested in a sack of fresh air? I’ll sell it to you half price.”

  I had swallowed enough of his sauce. I was tempted to thump him instead of the door.

  He went on slowly and carefully, as if I weren’t the ripest grape in the bunch. “Mirza, you should stay out of the sun. It will jangle your brain. Let me tell you why Khabib is never home. Because there is no Khabib. There never was a Khabib. So how could he be at home? Also, there is no home. The house is empty, and empty longer than I can remember. But”—he shrugged—“if it amuses you, pound away and peace be with you.”

  I would gladly have laid hold of him and shaken out a better explanation; but he dodged away and nipped around the corner. Before I could chase him down, Baksheesh hurried up to fetch me.

  “O Unbesmirched Innocence!” He sighed and rolled his eyes when I babbled what the urchin had said. “Have you not learned? These Keshavaris will tell a ferenghi whatever pops into their heads.

  “Pay it no mind,” he urged. “I know exactly what happened. That dream-hawker, that buttery rogue, must have smelt I wasn’t pleased with the goods he fobbed off on me. He was afraid I’d want the money back.

  “So, nothing simpler. He’ll have ducked out a back door. He’s lying low, sure we’ll never find him.

  “Who cares what some ragamuffin street urchin tells you? Remember, Noblest of Masters, I was there with you. So was old Sarabanda and your girl.

  “Now,” said Baksheesh, “who are you going to believe? A young layabout having a bit of fun confusing the ferenghi? A natural-born liar who wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the rear end? Or your devoted, honest, trustworthy servant?”

  His explanation satisfied me. It had to. If I thought about it any other way, my wits would have slipped their mooring. What perplexed me: Khabib had addressed me by name. Or had he? I was, at the time, still halfway in my dream; I may have imagined it. Had I told him and forgotten?

  I let it go, deciding to trust Baksheesh, always a slender reed to hang on to. But it made me feel better.

  We caught up with Shira and Salamon. I said little about what happened, only that Khabib was unavailable, and made no more of it.

  At the khan, Salamon and Baksheesh went to tend our animals. We had a lot to do before our provisions arrived the next morning. Especially, I wanted to talk with Shira about the new map.

  We sat at a table in the khan. I unfolded the map that Cheshim had painted. Shira seemed distracted, barely studying what roads to follow. She only mentioned vaguely that we were fairly close to her caravanserai.

  “Good,” I said. “You’ll soon be home.”

  “And then? What am I to do about you?”

  I didn’t answer. On that question, I assumed, she had already made up her mind: nothing.

  She looked away. “Salamon was right, the first day we met him. Do you remember what he told me? There were things I didn’t want to know.”

  She said no more for a while. I waited. She turned back to me, her eyes set on mine. “One thing I didn’t want to know, that I was afraid to know: I loved you from the start.”

  Well. And well. That sent my heart into my throat. Between suddenly dumbstruck and deliriously happy, all I came out with was an eloquent mumble.

  “Yes,” she said. “I fell in love with you many times. When I saw you on the quay at Sidya, when you were seasick and green as grass. And you still thought I was Khargush the Rabbit.

  “And again at the inn, when you were jumping around like a madman in your underdrawers. And again when you thought you were defending me against that pig of a trader. And a dozen times after that. Except when you took my horse.

  “I called to you when you ran to Khabib’s shop. I understood, then, I had to admit it straight out, not hide from it. Khabib made no mistake. He knew exactly what he was doing. He gave us what we wanted most.

  “Kharr-loh,” she said, smiling, “who but lovers dream alike?”

  IV

  The

  Crown Prince

  of

  Ferenghi-Land

  I wasn’t as happy as I should have been. After what Shira told me, I imagined we would be closer than ever. Instead, during the days that followed, she kept mostly to herself, withdrawn into her thoughts. Something was painfully amiss. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I realized she had never answered her own question: What to do about me?

  Nor did I have an answer. It hung constantly chafing in my mind. I had to force myself to pay attention to the everyday details, such as not getting lost again. I was still the karwan-bushi, though in name more than anything else.

  Luckily, we met no serious difficulties. Cheshim’s map was accurate—in large terms, if not always in small ones. Sometimes, we found no trail where a trail was shown to be. Then we would have to backtrack and scout out a different path.

  The landscape changed the farther south we rode. The slopes grew gentler, well watered, green with woodlands; later, I glimpsed vast stretches of grassy meadows. Still streaked with snow, the highest mountains I had ever seen rose behind us. Since they were not in front of us, I actually enjoyed the sight.

  We stayed generally in good spirits, Salamon more eager than usual.

  “Marvelous!” he said to me one day. “Our young lady will soon be at the end of her journey.” Then he added, “And what of yours?”

  I told him I didn’t know, it remained to be seen.

  “Of course, of course,” he said. “What remains to be seen is always the most interesting.”

  When I asked about his own journey, he smiled happily.

  “Mine, I’m glad to say, will have hardly begun. Whatever else, I shall certainly press on to the sea.”

  As for Baksheesh, he rarely had fewer than three mishaps a day, usually when he was needed to do something useful. Mornings, for example, the camels would gleefully spit on him; afternoons, the donkey might try to kick him; before sundown, he predictably sprained his back when he tried to light our cook fire. Between times, he kept up his ordinary grumbling. But I had the impression his heart wasn’t in it, and that he complained mostly for the sake of staying in practice.

  By my reckoning, we were now less than a day’s travel from the main road and Shira’s caravanserai. I counted on reaching it comfortably by the following afternoon. I believe we would have done so if my plan hadn’t begun to unravel.

  It started when Baksheesh nearly lost a camel. It would seem difficult to lose a camel in open country. Baksheesh came close to succeeding.