FIVE
You left al-Kubran dreaming about a new world, and went to your room. Your mind was incapable of explaining how popular imagination had endowed the Moroccan magician with supernatural powers that could alter the shape of destiny.
Ripples of the Marshal’s tour were relayed to you by common folk with overactive imaginations. Rumours spread that in addition to Haj al-Mahdy’s acquiring a new house, and the wealth that had suddenly rained down on him, he and the Moroccan magician had also split a treasure they had found buried under the doorstep of his old house. They invented stories about fictional characters wrumoured to have experienced the same luck as that of Haj al-Mahdy and had become suddenly wealthy after meeting the magician. These imaginary people were said to include a stree
