by Antonio Napoli
No one knows for certain when the lost city of the Kalahari was founded, the city where the sun wrote its glory, as in the sky, upon ivory walls, and from which the wind set off, drunk on perfumes and spices, like a seductive lie. But among all its wonders, it was famous for one thing alone: the magical arts of its soothsayers.
It was well known that these seers not only divined the future and the most hidden secrets, but also forged enchanted objects to protect the kingdom. Among the most feared were the Mirrors of the Kalahari, which were said to compel anyone who gazed into them to confess, against their will, the accusing truth. For this reason, liars and traitors carefully avoided looking into them, while foreigners, aware of their unsettling reputation, refused any gift that included one.
Thus, when an embassy arrived in the city, the rulers, following the soothsayers’ advice, gifted the envoys one of these mirrors, well aware that their king, greedy and overbearing, sought an alliance only to mask his war preparations. The ambassadors could not refuse the gift without casting suspicion upon their mission, and so they carried it to their sovereign, warning him of its power.
Left alone, seated on his ebony throne, the king was tempted to gaze into the mirror. But he resisted.
Days passed, yet the thought of the mirror never left him. Until one morning, an old court nurse appeared before him. No one had recognized her, perhaps because her skin was rough and cracked like dry earth scratched by the sun. Was it truly her or someone else? Who knows. Time preserves some things and alters others.
What is certain is that the old woman stopped before the king and, in a stentorian voice, with an insolence perhaps born of familiarity with such surroundings, asked,
— What punishment would you give to a man who has taken another’s place, usurping his rights and privileges?
The king sprang to his feet, as if struck by a blade.
— Silence! — he shouted, his face aflame. — What are these insinuations? Who sent you?
— For too long you have believed — the old woman continued undeterred, surveying the hall — that truth is only what is spoken aloud. But truth is also the trembling of a hand, the uncertainty of a gaze, the curling of a nose. And above all, truth is what a man fears to see reflected.
She turned to the assembled court.
— We know of the gift given to you by the soothsayers of the Kalahari. Look into it before us, if you have nothing to hide!
A shudder ran through the sovereign. But, to avoid betraying himself through hesitation, he seized the mirror and looked into it.
— Am I truly the king? — he murmured.
Anguish clutched his throat like a dry wind. The truth about himself seemed to waver before the reflection. To stifle the words he feared to utter, he bit his tongue until he tasted its metallic tang. He wanted to order the old woman to be cast out, but it was not her he was fighting: his body remained motionless, like stone, while his spirit spun in a whirlwind of unease. In the hall, all held their breath.
— If a man has stolen the throne, betrayed his people’s trust, deceived his own lineage, no punishment is great enough — said an old and fearless counselor, his voice grave and troubled.
The old woman stepped forward and pointed once more at the mirror.
— Look again. Tell me what you see.
The king hesitated. Then he looked into the mirror once more.
— Am I truly the king? — he cried out, his voice trembling so violently with doubt that the court believed they had an imposter before them. The counselor called the captain of the guards and had the king arrested—or rather, the man whom all had now recognized as a fraud. The mirror had enthralled the entire court, and then the entire people.
For many centuries to come, foreign lands would believe that the Kalahari mirror held a supernatural power, forcing all who gazed into it to tell the truth.
There was no enchantment in the mirror given to the king.
It was merely an ordinary mirror. A mirror like any other, the kind that makes us doubt even our certainties.