Aziz took Bonanza Bus Lines. They had the best price between New York and Boston, thirty-three dollars one way. The old man tried to stop him from going. At first it was touching, then a sharp nettle. Maybe the old Yemeni was more selfish and canny than Aziz had wanted to see. But what stopped the old fool from making the coffee himself? The cups were easy too. Aziz had shown him how. “They come to see you, your young face,” the old man kept saying.

His eyes were wet when Aziz said his last goodbye, and he pressed one of his used books into Aziz’s hands for the ride. It was Manteq at-Tayr by the Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar.

The original was in medieval Farsi. This was the Arabic translation, so when Aziz got on the bus he tried to read it. It was about a hoopoe. This bird was supposed to lead all the other birds to a king of birds they had never seen. Even though all the birds had gotten together and said they needed a king, when they saw how difficult a trip it would be, they started making excuses. The nightingale said he loved his mate so much he couldn’t leave. The parrot said she wanted immortality, not a king. The peacock said he wanted paradise, not a king. On it went. Everyone had an excuse.

Reading on the bus gave him a headache, so he stopped after a while. He wished he could fall asleep. His impatience irritated him. Fifty-two days in the hold, and he was unsettled on a five-hour bus ride? He decided to skip around the book, just read a line here and there.

Here the Self rages like an unquenched fire,
And nothing satisfies the heart’s desire—
Encompass all the earth, you will not find
One happy heart or one contented mind.

Everyone said that. He had read it before. He closed the book and opened to another page.

The hoopoe answered him: “You do not know
The nature of this sea you love: below
Its surface linger sharks; tempests appear,
Then sudden calms—its course is never clear,
But turbid, varying, in constant stress;
Its water’s taste is salty bitterness.

“You do not know the nature of this sea you love.” It was like his army tour. He had loved an idea of Benane, as rescuer, that carried only little resemblances to the real Benane. Benane’s crying on his knees at Aziz’s feet; that was what was left of the rumors that Benane had a conscience. Benane cried and did what he did, long before Aziz and long after; he cried some more and did what he did some more.

All things are possible, and you may meet
Despair, forgiveness, certainty, deceit.
The Self ignores the secrets of the Way,
The mysteries no mortal speech can say;
Assurance whispers in the heart’s dark core,
Not in the muddied Self. . . .