Dawn was long since past as Rajib made his way among the palaces. The morning sun's piercing beams cut even into the shadows along the street and beat heavily on the walls and ways. Rajib climbed the hill of the palaces with curiousity. The steward of the councillor to the prince himself was calling for a carpenter. What sort of buildings of wood did they plan for this desert land? Rajib stopped at a public hall to pull on his finest cloak. He wished he did not need it at all, it was much too warm for the sun, but it was the custom, and one must follow custom to gain favor in the palace, so he had been told.
Rajib crossed over the top of the hill and started down the far side to reach the palace of the councillor to the prince. The palace itself was huge and full of rooms and halls, lights and stairs and fountains, all arranged so distastefuly and in such confusion that Rajib would have been ashamed to do such work. But palaces are not built by carpenters. He had to wander through the palace for several minutes before he found the way to the steward's rooms. There he entered, gave greetings to the steward and those who were with him, and sat down.
"I am Rajib, the carpenter."
The steward and those with him studied the papers before them. It seems that such men have always some file of papers which pertain, even if not very well, to whatever matter is at hand.
"We have a house, Rajib," the steward said, "which seems not to be in good condition. Perhaps it was not built well at the first. In any case, it has been changed and added to so many times that it is no longer servicable. Can you build us a new house, Rajib?"
"I can, indeed, favored ones," Rajib replied. "I have been employed in many parts to build houses of several kinds, with every type of wood, of various sizes and shapes, and with different purposes in mind. Whatever may be your needs, I assure you that I can build as well as any man."
Then the steward and the others asked Rajib how he would go about the job of building this house, and what he knew of wood and nails and the pitch of roofs. And at length the steward granted Rajib the commission to build the house.
On the day appointed to begin the work, the steward to the councillor to the prince himself took Rajib to see the old house. They travelled several miles into the desert, to a place hardly accessible, far into the desert dunes.
"Here is the house we have," said the steward. "You can see at once the shape it is in. Study it well so that you can advise us well concerning its replacemnt." So Rajib looked carefully at the old house. There were holes in the roof and cracks in the walls, but these were only the result of recent neglect. Rajib could see that the real poblems were deeply imbedded in the very structure of that house. The original frame was of a most unusual design, but even that was hardly visible now under the collection of cornices, gables, dormers, and suspended walls that defined the bulding's current shape. Rajib could not help but wonder how such a situation had come to pass, and what possesssed people to so abuse the original work. He knew at once that he could copy nothing from this house to make the new one. So he began with a most basic question.
"Where is the new house to be built, favored one?" asked Rajib.
"Here," replied the steward, "next to the old one." This seemed an odd decision to Rajib, but he shrugged it off. Is it not their house? If they want to travel among the dunes to reach their house, what is that to Rajib?
"In that case, I shall work here to develop my plans," Rajib told the steward. So the steward left him to his work. Rajib carefully measured the rooms of the old house and closely observed their arrangement. His keen and practiced eye took in the doorways and the crooked halls, where the floors were worn and where the dust collected in the corners. Each day Rajib visited the house and studied it under the brilliant desert sun. Every night he lay wakeful under the silver moon, turning the ideas about in his head. At last he had a plan, and he returned to the palace of the councillor to the prince.
The councillor's steward and all the steward's assistants gathered in a minor hall to hear Rajib expound his design. But he had hardly explained the arrangement of the rooms when the second assistant to the steward interrupted him.
"Can such a house be built using the boards from the existing house?" she asked him.
The boards of the exiting house to make the new house? Could such an idea be? Rajib looked to the steward.
"Perhaps there will be some new boards, Rajib," said the steward, "but we would like your design to use the existing boards as much as it can."
"Yes," agreed the fifth assistant steward. "We should use the same boards. After all, they are already cut. But how they are to be put together, Rajib, that is all for you to decide."
"They are cut," agreed Rajib. "But they may not be cut correctly for a new building. You limit how well I can build if you maintain this decision." But sensing that the steward would not yield, Rajib added, "Have you at least a saw for me to use, established ones?"
The steward smiled gently. "No, we have no saw for you, Rajib," he said. "But do not feel badly. We will give you a hammer and all the nails you need to build this house."
So Rajib returned to the desert to prepare.
The desert sun is always hotter when you do no good, thought Rajib as he tore apart the old house and stacked the wood. The sun laughs at the foolishness of men and adds to their bitterness.
Each stud and rafter told Rajib how sad his work that day was. Odd lengths of wood, cut to fit strange shapes and angles … Even when they were not split by the dry heat, how could he use such boards to build a house he would be proud of?
It was just as Rajib was pulling apart the last two boards that the steward arrived to see him, to ask how the work was going.
"I am prepared to begin, established one. I need only to know what we are to use for a foundation," Rajib told him.
"A foundation?" asked the steward.
"Yes, a foundation. To support the weight of the new house. To keep it from collapsing in the wind. Shall we use stones from the dry riverbed, or shall we have mud bricks brought in from the city? Of course, the very best foundation is made of quarried stone, shapped and dressed."
"We had thought," replied the steward, "to found it upon the sands, just as the previous house was set on the sand."
Rajib was taken completely by surprise. "It would be a better house if I could lay in even a shallow foundation," he said. "If we do nothing, then this house may soon be no better than the old one."
"You no doubt speak the truth, Rajib," said the steward. "But as we have not the time to build a foundation, what are we to do? No, it is best that you go ahead and build as well as you can. I am sure that you will make a fine house."
"Just as you please, decisive one," said Rajib, and the steward left him standing alone beneath the pounding sun. Unhappily, Rajib set out two of the longest board on the sand as a base for the walls. He knew that such a house could never stand for long.
"Perhaps," he said to himself, "perhaps I can build well enough that I can take my pay in good conscience. Perhaps we shall be lucky and no storms will come."
But even as he spoke he felt a zephyr spring up from the dunes. The light wind called to the sand and the fine grains began to race across the desert floor. Rajib watched the thin layer of floating sand swirl around his feet and along the sides fo the dunes. At the corner of the two boards he had just laid out the sand was trickling away as from the upper bell of an hourglass. Rajib sat down in despair.
"To think that a carpenter of my merit should come to this," he cried. "Evil wind! Is it not enough that I should have to build a house against my best judgement? Is it not enough that I may not cut my own boards, but use the legacy of confusion that I was to replace? Are you determined to utterly destroy my work, that you should choose to blow today?"
The wind shrieked laughter in reply, and the deepening flow of sand began to run over Rajib's folded legs.
December 7, 1981
May, 1999