Henri Rousseau Negro Attacked by a Jaguar painting

Henri Rousseau Negro Attacked by a Jaguar paintingHenri Rousseau Monkeys in the Jungle paintingHenri Rousseau Merry Jesters painting
for outward show. The instant it touches my lips, it turns to water_. Fiend, the Imam is wont to thunder. Apostate, blasphemer, fraud. When the future comes such individuals will be judged, he tells his men. Water will have its day and blood will flow like wine. Such is the miraculous nature of the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations. Who has not dreamed this dream, of being a king for a day? -- But the Imam dreams of more than a day; feels, emanating from his fingertips, the arachnid strings with which he will control the movement of history.
No: not history.
His is a stranger dream.
o o o
His son, water-carrying Khalid, bows before his father like a pilgrim at a shrine, informs him that the guard on duty outside the sanctum is Salman Farsi. Bilal is at the radio transmitter, broadcasting the day's message, on the agreed frequency, to Desh.