The Black Tree #2
Ancient texts assert that Goat Foot, banished princess of the kingdom of Sheba, lion of the desert, came to own tremendous treasures and riches without measure.
But how did she go from the extreme poverty of her early days in Hadhramaut to the endless wealth and abundance that followed?
There’s the heart of the matter. It unfolds by chance, without her seeking it.
It takes place during one of those frigid insomnias during which the Scorpion bleeds from its wounds.
A long series of droughts has robbed both people and animals of food, there’s endless lack and need, and the starved goats and camels can’t even produce the excrement the Bedouins burn to keep warm by the fire.
Crushed by cold and hunger, Goat Foot comes out of her tent, stares out at the great void, and scolds it.
“You give us nothing!” she shouts at the desert.
“We bind ourselves to you and bring you our hope, but you don’t give us anything in return.
We’re your children, but you won’t feed us.
We’re cold, and you don’t clothe us. You don’t care if we die of thirst. You give us nothing but this wind that won’t cease, the brutal heat of day, and the hypothermia of our nights. Nothing, you give us. Nothing.”
The mirages of the infinite require a great deal of looking before you can see, and that night Goat Foot finally sees clearly.
In the midst of darkness, and as the desert’s response to her words, there emerges, in the distance, the sad shape of a leafless tree.
It rises from the sand and rocks, growing alone among the cliffs and ravines, withered, shorn, stony, branching in the shape of coral, black as if scorched by fire.
The poet Bassam Hajjar would say it’s not a tree but a tree’s sorrow, and that it gives no shade because it is itself the shadow of a tree.
Even so, it seems to hold human traces. Under its burned bark lies a tender, living red fiber: a bleeding muscle, yellow fat, white bone.
As if you’d torn the skin from a man’s arm.
That’s what the branches look like of this bush the botanists call Boswellia sacra and that oozes pus or weeps milk tears, depending on whom you ask.
The Bedouins fear it and stay away. They call it al lubban, “weeper of milk.”
Al lubban: olibanum. One who festers, weeps.
Its bitter-tasting resin tears aren’t to be trusted; they’re believed to spread infection and sadness.
From the skin outward, al lubban is a poor tree, no life, no beauty, barely a memory.
Under its skin its true nature is exposed, that of a flayed man.
It’s always been there, not far from Goat Foot, but its insignificance made it go unseen.
Until now. On this freezing night, she looks, she sees.
Eager for warmth, she breaks off branches, bundles them, and lights them for a fire.
The fire works its alchemy. It burns the wood, frees its spirit, and that’s when it happens: Fragrant, narcotic smoke spirals up to fill the night, anointing it with an oily balm, like copal or myrrh.
“We’re dying of hunger and squalor while sitting on a gold mine,” Goat Foot says.
She shares the secret she’s just discovered with the local people, persuades them to cultivate Boswellia sacra and harvest its resins, which they will give the names of olibanum, frankincense, and true incense.
Little by little, through tests and trials, Goat Foot, who is Sheba, finds several uses for that startling matter: It cures swelling and diarrhea, seals ulcers, disinfects wounds, stops vomiting, revives sexual appetites, promises to be the base of fine perfumes, and, as if that weren’t enough, repels snakes, spiders, mosquitoes, and bad spirits.
The Hadhrami, who’d always been nomadic, now root to the ground so they can grow these redemptive plants, harvesting more and more from them to meet demand.
They find that, just like beasts of burden, these trees respond to punishment and yield more when they’re insulted.
When they’re hurt by night with many-tailed whips, they weep more copiously and fester through the breaks in their skin, and it’s enough to scrape their trunks at dawn to get a good load of curdled milk tears.
Hadhramaut, the stony hollow, turns into the Valley of Balsam.
But there is still more that will come to pass.
Business takes off quickly when frankincense rises to the sky and pleases the gods, who find it sweeter than honey and more intoxicating than wine.
It drives them wild to inhale its smoke, and they go off the deep end, leaping naked into the sea to delight in swims, games, and orgies.
Gérard de Nerval aptly deciphered the inner workings of that process: When true incense pours, the gods fuse the real with the delusional, expanding their realms and feeling more ethereal, gorgeous, and powerful than ever.
More generous too. Grateful for the new offering, and moved by it, they decree that from this moment forward, the earth shall receive the clear, ingenuous waters that make deserts blossom.
But there are conditions; they respond to praise in mysterious, elusive ways.
They don’t grant water when people need or ask for it, but when their own divine whims choose.
And not in the desired amount, but very little—a few drops immediately swallowed by the sand—or, if not, too much: enough to flood the world.
Largesse and avarice are both traits of the gods, givers of everything or nothing.
Humans, being needy by nature, deduce that they can hook the gods on olibanum and thereby keep them trapped. They won’t only ask for water, but also another even more longed-for blessing: forgiveness from sin. To wash their guilt, they burn huge amounts of incense in the gods’ honor.
Purification ceremonies, libations, and initiations spread.
Altars and temples rise up throughout the desert and beyond.
The gods are avid beings, and the more they receive, the more they demand; the more valuable the offering, the more generous the pardon.
A crowd begins to form around olibanum, seeking salvation, or at least solace, troubled souls who’d rather blame themselves for their own wrongs than accept that perhaps the source of wrong was really those very gods before whom they grovel for forgiveness.
Stockholm syndrome, perhaps, this honoring of your tormentor, since, as the Italian writer Bufalino said, sin was invented by men to deserve the sentence of living, so as not to endure punishment for no reason.
The olibanum of Hadhramaut turns into the epicenter of a growing trade of indulgences and pardons. Over the centuries, it will become so valued that, along with gold and myrrh, the Three Wise Men will offer it to the King of Kings soon after his birth.
For the time being, frankincense transforms the Hadhrami, with Sheba at their head, into the richest people on earth.