The Hakawati (20 page)

“Poor Anahid sent me to our room and told me not to come out no matter what was happening. I stayed there for hours and heard all kinds of things going on in the house. Then one of the pigeoneer’s assistants arrived. I thought he was going to ask me to go to work, but he told Zovik that Mehmet no longer had any need for my services. Mehmet also suggested that I leave town, because Eshkhan had vowed to kill me in front of four witnesses. He had been told that I whistled, captured his peşenk, and killed him with my own hands.

“It wasn’t true, of course. But who would believe me? I wouldn’t be able to convince Eshkhan. And if I did, then maybe Mehmet would kill me. I was in trouble. Zovik and Poor Anahid were crying in our room. The doctor’s wife was crying in hers.

“Poor Anahid and Zovik decided that I should leave as soon as possible.
They were at their wits’ end and knew no one I could be sent to. I told them that I knew someone who might help. We left our room quietly, tiptoeing along the corridor, hoping not to be seen, and went to see Serhat Effendi. The effendi said I should go far away. He had a cousin stationed in Cairo. He had not written to him in a while, wasn’t sure where he was exactly, but the effendi could find out his address in a month’s time. Poor Anahid told him I didn’t have a month. He said I should go to Cairo anyway. There should be no problem finding his cousin, since there couldn’t be that many Turks in Cairo. He gave me a letter and money to buy train and boat tickets.

“The only thing I knew about Egypt was that Abraham and Moses and Hagar left it and were happy never to return. Back at home, Poor Anahid packed my few clothes. ‘You can’t go to Cairo,’ she said. ‘How will you find his cousin? That’s just crazy.’ ‘And do you think a Turk will take in an Armenian orphan just because his cousin asked him to?’ said Zovik. ‘You must go somewhere safer,’ said Poor Anahid. ‘Beirut. Go to Beirut. Seek out the Christians. Go to a monastery. They will feed you and care for you.’ I knew less about Beirut.

“I said my last goodbyes to Zovik and Poor Anahid. I didn’t say goodbye to my father,” my grandfather said to me. “I came to Beirut and created our story.”

The cold made me shiver, and I huddled closer to the stove. My grandfather drank his bitter tea, a palliative for his digestive problems. “When I’m no longer in this world,” Grandfather said, “and they ask whether you believed me, what will you say?”

I didn’t think he expected a reply. He sat next to his stove, looking dejected. His pant legs were pulled up high enough that I could see his pale, hairless shins.

“You’re eleven now,” he said, “and I was eleven.…” His voice trailed into nothingness before he whispered, “You know now who I am.” He removed the metal lid of the stove with the spatula and threw in his spent cigarette. He stood slowly, creakily, and stomped to his room. When he came out, he handed me an old white kerchief. “You are my blood,” he said. “This is for you.”

Inside the kerchief was a jewel, a tiny turquoise Fatima’s hand with dark-brown and black blood encrusted in its grooves.

Five

T
he entire palace buzzed with stories of Fatima’s arrival. Some said the slave girl had come back on a flying carpet, which rose back into the heavens after the traveler alighted. Fatima had returned with a herd of jeweled elephants. She was accompanied by a band of brigands or a thousand jinn. She wore a crown of rubies. She wore a robe of gold.

The emir and his wife interrupted their breakfast on the terrace and hurried into the palace. The vizier and the courtiers were gathered around Fatima in the throne room. Fatima greeted the emir and his wife with the requisite courtesy. The emir was oblivious to the change, but his wife realized, not without some weariness and concern, that the woman before them was no longer a slave. Fatima bowed too well. The emir insisted she regale them with stories of her adventures, and she did, albeit with a few omissions: adventures, yes; assignations, no.

“Will the healer be able to help us?” the emir’s wife asked.

“Absolutely. She gave me the cure.”

“And the underworld? You entered Afreet-Jehanam’s domain and he gave you back your hand?” the emir asked.

“He felt I earned it.”

“Preposterous,” the vizier scoffed.

“It was as I said,” Fatima replied.

“Are you certain?” the emir said. “No one can doubt your courage, Fatima. There is little need to salt and pepper the story.”

“She arrived on a flying carpet,” said one of the courtiers. “I saw her. She descended from the heavens.”

“The underworld is not up there,” the vizier said. “No man has ever
descended to a demon’s lair and made it back alive. This tale is a lie. I would suggest the slave girl offer some proof of her exotic journey.”

“Would you be willing to place a wager?” Fatima asked. “If I produce proof, are you willing to surrender everything you have on you at this moment?”

And the vizier agreed. Fatima brought her left palm to her face and blew on it. Red dust appeared, multiplied, and formed a cloud that hovered before her. The imp Ishmael ran out of the dust. His brother Isaac followed, toward the vizier. “I claim all the gold,” he said. Fatima’s breath turned into orange dust upon touching her palm, and Ezra jumped out. Jacob ran out yelling, “The jewelry is all mine.” Job disagreed. “It is mine, I tell you.” The dust kept swirling above Fatima’s palm, then turned blue, and Noah emerged, followed by Elijah. Violet Adam was last.

“I must catch my breath,” Fatima said.

The eight little demons climbed all over the vizier, undressed him, relieved him of all possessions. They left him naked, mouth agape in shock. A mistake. “Help me, Ishmael,” Isaac said, pointing at the vizier’s mouth. The red brothers jumped back onto the vizier’s head. Isaac and Ishmael came away with his gold teeth.

“Quite a reasonable return,” Noah said.

“She bargains well,” Isaac said. “She is from Alexandria. We shall be rich in no time. A most fortunate partnership.”

“Next time, try to bet with someone wearing fur,” Ezra said. “I love sable.”

“You think as small as your mother’s vagina,” said Adam. “Next time, Sitt Fatima, have someone wager a harem.”

Fatima blew into her palm again, and white dust appeared. The imps sauntered into the cloud and faded. “I think that was proof enough,” she said, smiling lazily at the emir and smoothing the creases of her robe with the palms of her two hands.

When I arrived at the hospital room the second morning, my father was sitting up in bed, pillows fluffed behind his back, white tabs attached to his chest, smiling, trying his hardest to appear jovial and nonchalant. Another brush with the unmentionable inevitable averted. His face was pale and fatigued, but his eyes darted about the room as if
operating on a separate generator. Lina suppressed her wariness, and weariness, doing her best imitation of Auntie Mame. “It’s going to be a glorious day,” she chirped. “We should call the restaurant and order. They just might run out of lamb.”

It was half past nine. Soon sunlight would begin to creep along the floor and fill the room, reducing the fluorescents to redundancy.

“I don’t think that’s necessary.” Even though my father hadn’t used his oxygen mask all morning, he held it in his hand.

“We can’t break with tradition just because we’re here. I’ll ask the restaurant not to use salt, and if they can’t, you’ll only eat a little. We can’t have Eid al-Adha without lamb.”

“I don’t think it’s wise to order,” my father said. “Samia will probably send us some of her meal when they’re done. She’ll be insulted if we order.”

“She doesn’t have to know,” Lina said. “She may forget about us, and if she doesn’t, do we really have to eat it? Can’t we have good lamb for a change?”

“You’re being mean. If anything is our tradition, it’s that we celebrate together, with Samia’s meal.”

I walked to the glass sliding door, saw a sliver of the sun perched atop a building across the street. The newer building looked colossal next to the little house with rotted shutters, two incompatible siblings with different genes.

The emir and his wife dragged Fatima into their private quarters to inquire about the cure. “The healer said it is about the stories,” Fatima said, “the tales you choose to tell. Your lordship likes romance, which is why you have twelve daughters. Girls like love stories, whereas boys love adventure stories. The next time you make love, make sure to tell an adventure story and not one of romance.”

“But I love stories of unrequited love,” the emir said, “of exalted suffering. I love desire and the obstacles lovers have to overcome. I do not like tales of killing, maiming, and trying to prove who is stronger than whom. Those can be devastatingly boring.”

“But adventure stories are the same as love stories,” his wife argued. “And no matter, you must tell me an adventure story tonight. It has been prescribed. This is so exciting. I will hear a new tale. Do not take
offense, my dear, but your stories have been getting stale for a while, the buzzing of listless houseflies and not the bites of mosquitoes. I have cravings for adventure.”

That night, after coitus, the emir’s wife demanded her tale. “No romance,” she said. “No star-crossed lovers. I want a story that will engage a different organ, not my heart.”

“A sexual story, then,” the emir said.

“No, I want death and destruction. I want virile heroes who overcome evil. At least one city must be destroyed. I want a son and you want a son.”

“Virile heroes? How about faithful heroes? Wait. Wait. I know which story. I know now. Listen.” The emir began his story thus:

In the name of God, the most compassionate, the merciful.

Once, long before our age, the king of Egypt, ruler of the lands of Islam, was despondent because his realm was in disarray. The Crusaders thrived along the coast, behaved as if they owned the land. Corruption and perfidy dwelt in the hearts of the administrators of his realm. The foreigners were able to bribe, hoodwink, and deceive any official they chose. King Saleh wept in shame, for he knew that if he did not rule more wisely his great-grandfather Saladin, the great Kurdish hero who crushed the Crusaders and unified the lands, would not welcome him in paradise. King Saleh was watching that kingdom slowly crumble and putrefy.