It was a beautiful morning in Nineveh, that great city. Ori looked out the window of the top floor of Nisaba's hotel on the splendour six short weeks had wrought. Everywhere the eye could see – and that was pretty far, considering the flatness of the landscape and the dearth of tall buildings (nobody wanted another Babel, word had got around) – the maze of houses, squares, and marketplaces was dotted with green. Assiduous group gardening coupled with expert irrigation engineering had done wonders for the city. There were places to sit. There was fresher air. There were even ponds, shaded by awnings and fast-growing vines in order to minimize evaporation. There was even birdsong.

The Big Pomegranate looked and sounded like a different city.

It hadn't been easy at first. The City Council, puppets of the moneyed merchant classes, had reacted sharply to the public's takeover of public land.

'Not allowed!' they'd shouted. 'Improper permits! Lack of eminent domain! Etc, etc.' They'd sent armed guards to tear out the plants and trees and destroy the irrigation canals.

The guards had been disarmed and beaten by teenage gangs. Cooler-headed adults had taken the guards aside and persuaded them that they really ought to be on the side of their fellow citizens rather than those ungrateful oligarchs, who were forever firing them at no notice just to prove how powerful they were. Who withheld their wages on a whim or fired their colleagues and expected them to take up the slack with no benefit to themselves. Besides, their fellow citizens knew where the guards lived. Soon the City Council was faced with a severe henchmen shortage.

'Hire more!' screamed the Chief Councillor.

'From where?' retorted the Sergeant-at-Arms. 'Warka's a long way off. We've tried Halab. They just laughed at us and offered to sell us some cats.'

When he heard this, Jonah laughed. The teenage gangs had been Jonah's idea, drawing on his misspent youth. The prophet was a founding member of the Nineveh Redemption Society, which was basically a coordinating committee for the urban renewal projects. He wasn't the leader, though: most people went to Nisaba, who was older and wiser, for good advice. Jonah was content to help out where he could, but he and Gili were still in their honeymoon phase and tended not to be available 24/7.

The City Council was also short of cash with which to attract new henchmen...er, peace officers. This was because its patrons, the city's merchants and import/export tycoons, were experiencing a severe cash flow problem.

This had nothing to do with prophets, or angels.

The merchants' problems were due to the dispute they'd got into with the donkeymen.

It seemed that the donkeymen who had brought Ori and Jonah to Nineveh had been talking to the other caravan operators in town. These donkeymen had been with Ori and Jonah since they left the Mediterranean coast, and they had seen some things. They'd been impressed with the situations in Halab and Wassukanni. They thoroughly approved of the civic improvements now going on all around Nineveh.

They had put their heads together and concluded that public participation in the regulation of city affairs was a good thing – not only for the citizens, but most particularly for the caravan men and their donkeys.

Smaller-scale merchants didn't make unreasonable demands. Small-scale operations didn't change schedules on no notice or alter the terms of payment with an airy 'take it or leave it.' Smaller-scale merchants were a lot easier to deal with.

Also, like the guards, some of these caravan men lived in Nineveh. They liked having parks and gardens and pools to splash in. They liked having better food at better prices. They appreciated not being cheated when they bought donkey feed. They were hopeful about the educations their kids were getting at the new community schools.

In short, this new combination of republicanism and civic pride was sitting very well with just about everyone except the previous ruling class. The previous ruling class wasn't ruling anything right now because they couldn't get anybody to do the enforcing for them. In the last few weeks, big-shot merchants and city officials had scarcely been seen. Nobody was quite sure where they'd got to – some said they'd gone to visit their richer relatives somewhere, but nobody was sure and frankly, nobody cared enough to inquire.

In fact, only one of the old oligarchs was still around. His name was Manishtushu. For years, his firm had been the biggest dealer in cloth and notions on this stretch of the Tigris. His wife and daughters were carried about the city on stately litters, decked in the best of his finery. They held court at elaborate banquets.

Manishtushu was an aged widower now. His daughters had married Assyrian nobles and moved away: their trousseaus had been truly awe-inspiring. Manishtushu was left alone with his factories and his boardroom. When the Nineveh Redemption Society started its activities, Manishtushu's workers had simply walked off the job. A lot of them had taken their tools with them. All of them had taken their expertise. With the other oligarchs doing midnight flits to avoid creditors, strikers, or mobs of aggrieved employees, Manishtushu had nobody to answer to – or to demand answers from – other than a housekeeper, a chariot driver, and a factory foreman. They were all as old as he was and stayed with him out of habit.

Thus it was that Ori and Hani, out on a stroll through the now-bustling Nineveh garment district, came upon an unusual sight under one of the awnings: an old man in a rather nice robe weaving on a loom while an equally old woman operated a spinning wheel. They were singing, one after the other, alternate verses to a song that was so old nobody knew where it had come from.

I will bring you, I will bring you plucked flax,

I will bring you plucked flax, sister mine.


Who will comb it, who will comb the plucked flax?

Who will comb the plucked flax, brother mine?


I will bring you, I will bring you combed flax, etc.

And thus the song went on, until the flax had been spun and braided and woven and dyed. And then a god and a goddess went to bed together – a development that startled Ori and made Hani laugh.

Ori thought to have perceived a chuckle from Prajapati as well, only quietly, because Prajapati was still not letting on to Hani that he knew about the new addition to the team. Ori had the sneaking suspicion that Hani might be on probation, as it were, until Prajapati could be sure this wasn't another elaborate practical joke on Hani's part.

As Ori and Hani stood by and watched, two other old men arrived at the booth with a handcart full of more flax. They, too, were singing.

The gakkul vat, the gakkul vat!

Which makes us happy, just like that!

I'm spinning in a lake of beer,

My mood is blissful, full of cheer,

My heart is joyful, my liver is happy,

More beer, more beer, and make it snappy!

The song made the angels laugh out loud, which in turn made the flax workers look up in surprise, since they hadn't been aware that anyone was paying attention to them.

'We're sorry to interrupt,' Ori apologised. 'We enjoyed your singing.'

The old people bowed ironically, but Ori could tell that they were pleased by the compliment.

'Aren't you Manishtushu?' Ori asked the man at the loom.

Manishtushu looked around to make sure nobody else was around and made shushing motions with his hands. 'Less of that, please, good sir. I tell people my name is Mani these days. And these are my friends, Utu and Nabu – ' he gestured to the two men, 'and Degi is at the spinning wheel.' The old folks grinned their greetings, displaying gap-toothed smiles.

Ori and Hani bowed in turn, not ironically. Ori asked, 'Are you sorry that you lost your mercantile empire?'

The four looked at each other – and laughed. 'Not a bit of it!' said Manishtushu...r, Mani. 'Life had got pretty dreary once the girls moved away. We only did all that society stuff to please them, anyway. Once they'd snagged their dream husbands, there didn't seem to be much point to it. And then when the wife died...'

He looked pensive. 'I was just going through the motions, you know? Showing up at the polo matches out of habit, going to the baths...but all the gossip was just boring me to death, I'd heard it all before, many times. When the bottom fell out of the fashion industry – good thing, too, these young folk have some really good ideas, they ought to get their turn at it – I'll admit I was worried for a bit.'

Mani's face took on a puzzled expression. 'I mean, what if everybody was so mad about how bad things had got that they just threw us all to the wolves? I wondered if I'd die of loneliness or be abandoned and starve to death. But...' he gestured to the other three, 'it turned out I had friends.'

'Oh, pish and tosh, old man,' grumbled Degi. 'We were just used to you. Besides, I like you a lot better now that you aren't anybody's boss.'

Ori and Hani hung around a bit longer, admiring their cloth, making a purchase, and learning the spinning and drinking songs. On their way back to the hotel, they stopped at the Nineveh Redemption Society to tell the people there about Mani and his group and recommending that someone keep an eye on them to make sure they had everything they needed.

'Will do,' said the young man on duty, making notes on his tablet. 'We'll add them to the list for the Committee on Seniors to check up on.

'I wonder,' mused an airborne Ori that midnight while flying about over the city. Hani wasn't along, being preoccupied with singing the beer song to some appreciative waterfowl while taking a late-night dip in the Tigris.

What do you wonder? asked Prajapati.

'Is it really that simple? Get rid of greed and people get better?'

Well, not exactly. But it helps once they figure out that there are a lot of things more important to them than acquiring goods and status. Things like friendship. Love. Something rewarding to do with their time. Greed makes messes, yes. Letting the greedy people set the agenda is a recipe for disaster. Nothing gets better, because everybody's too busy figuring, 'What's in it for me?' Sooner or later, everything runs down. Greed and competition will lead to the heat death of the universe if you let it. I'm not going to let it.

Ori sighed. 'Me, neither. Not if there's anything I can do about it.'

You're a good kid.

Ori shrugged, a gesture that startled several bats out looking for mosquitoes. 'Are we done here in Nineveh? It doesn't seem like I did much.'

You did more than you think, and no, you're not done. But let's let the humans do some work for a change. I've got an errand for you and Hani, but I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

And so Ori continued to make lazy circles above the surprising city of Nineveh, while below, a lot of revolutionaries who didn't know they were revolutionaries slept the sleep of the tired and happy.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

17.07.23 Front Page

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