The Hakawati (24 page)

Please tell my story. It is surely as weird as the story of Moses’s staff, the resurrection of Jesus, and the election of the husband of a lady bird to the presidency of the United States.

Emile Habibi,
The Secret Life of Saeed, the Pessoptimist

 … stories do not belong only to those who were present or to those who invent them, once a story has been told, it’s anyone’s, it becomes common currency, it gets twisted and distorted, no story is told the same way twice or in quite the same words, not even if the same person tells the story twice, not even if there is only ever one storyteller …

Javier Marías,
Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.

Isak Dinesen, cited by Hannah Arendt in
The Human Condition

Six

S
o—what do you think of the emir’s story?” Fatima asked Afreet-Jehanam. She was lying in her lover’s arms, on the bed of slithering snakes, relaxing and unwinding. She could feel the changes in her body, but she still did not look pregnant.

The jinni, stroking her sensuously, said, “The emir is a good storyteller.”

She shifted her naked weight onto her elbow so she could face him. The snakes released by her movement rearranged themselves. “Is it a good adventure story?”

Afreet-Jehanam stretched and yawned. “The story of Baybars is many lifetimes old. There are numerous versions.”

“I am loving it,” said Ishmael, who was on his knees scrubbing the floor. The imps busied themselves with their chores. Hither and thither they ran.

“Me, too,” Noah chimed in. “It is a delightful story.”

“True,” said Fatima, “but it sounds to me like many of his other stories, without the sentimental romance. Is this tale adventuresome enough? Will this story, unlike his earlier ones, produce the desired effect, a son to inherit his throne?”

“That was your rule,” said the jinni. “I thought you made it up.”

“I did, but I know it to be true.”

“Maybe fate does not wish them to have a son.”

“Ah, fate,” she said. “Is fate anything more than what man chooses to do? Is fate not our expectations of ourselves?”

“If it is true, they will have a son,” Afreet-Jehanam said, “but since the tale being told is not the most traditional of adventure stories, not enough killing and pillaging, he will not grow to be the greatest of warriors.”

“Then he will grow to be wise,” she said. “But the emir’s tale and its hero are young yet. Let us be patient and see what transpires.”

“Whatever may transpire, we can be sure the son will be different,” said the jinni.

“Wonderful.” Ishmael jumped up and down gleefully. “He will be able to decorate that horror of a castle.”

“Oh, great,” said Isaac. “Just what the world needs, another accessorizer.”

Suddenly all the snakes hissed as one, and the scorpions raised their tails and readied their stingers. The crows and bats descended in droves from above. Afreet-Jehanam sat up, a snarl upon his face. But the snarl remained frozen like that of a once-feared predator after a visit to the taxidermist. A magician in white robes and a long white beard materialized out of nothingness. His hand unleashed a white beam that froze the jinni stock-still. The crows attacked first, but hit an invisible shield around the magician and fell stunned to the floor. The bats followed. The snakes spat their venom from below, but it hit the shield and dripped down slowly to the ground. The traces left by the viscous poisons showed the shield to be egg-shaped. With his other hand, the magician let loose a force upon each imp and sent them all crashing into the walls. And his eyes turned to naked Fatima. He waved his arm and waved it again. Fatima felt the talisman, the turquoise hand with its inlaid eye, grow warm between her breasts. Regaining her senses after the initial shock, she bent down, picked up her sword, and charged the magician. Before she reached him, he began to fade. “Whore,” he called before he completely disappeared. She turned around to find her lover gone.

On a Monday morning in June 1967, near the end of term, Madame Shammas entered our class without knocking, not allowing us time to stand up and greet her respectfully. Businesslike, she marched swiftly to Nabeel Ayoub and announced, “Please get your things, son. Your father is here to take you home.” Voice gentle yet authoritative.

Nabeel stood up, bewildered initially, then looked slyly at his classmates, his seated nonspecial friends. He hurriedly packed his things and left the room behind Madame Shammas.

Our teacher, Madame Saleh, stared at the closing door, outside which a muffled rush of high heels echoed. “I want you to behave
yourselves, children,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She walked to the door, stopped, turned around, almost caught me stuffing a piece of paper in my mouth. She addressed the bespectacled girl two seats to my right. “Mira, I’m leaving you in charge.”

My spitball missed Mira’s back. Her chestnut pigtail swung like a pendulum as she walked to the front. The class was atwitter, nervous with pent-up energy. We knew we were supposed to misbehave because Madame Saleh was out, but we didn’t know exactly what to do. We settled on throwing crumpled paper at Mira and hissing every time she yelled, “Shut up.”

Ten minutes later, the class was in an uproar. Madame Shammas announced on the intercom that we all should get our things ready to be picked up. The Israelis had begun the war.

Traffic congealed as parents came to collect their children. Some of the adults were nervous, some angry, a few nonchalant. I saw a tiny bump of an accident and two almosts, because the cars were in a hurry. I waited, but no one came for me. The maid had told Madame Shammas that my mother was at her weekly visit to the hairdresser.

One of my favorite programs was
Lost in Space
. I thought of the Israelis as space aliens. They’re not like us, people said. They come from all over the place and keep coming. They’re foreigners, people said. Godless.

Finally. “There you are, champ,” Uncle Jihad said. He had walked from his apartment, which was right next to ours, not too far from school—five streets, four turns, three jasmine vines, two jacarandas, and one white-oleander bush away.

“There’s a war,” I yelled, jumping up and down.

“Don’t worry.” Uncle Jihad’s belly shook as he laughed, his bald head glittered in the sun. “It’s very far from here.” I hadn’t thought of worrying.

Uncle Jihad walked in a manner that suggested all was proper in the world. I trotted behind him, my eyes unable to stray from the back of his turquoise jacket. He wore his clothes the way a peacock fanned his tail. “Keep up with me,” he said cheerfully.

I grasped the offered hand. I loved his well-manicured fingers and the light smell of lotion emanating from them. We walked hand in hand down the street, a spring in our step.

A radio from a coffee shop across the street screamed that we must
dig trenches with our fingernails. “The Palestinian Resistance can be so delightfully melodramatic,” Uncle Jihad said.

The beasts of the underworld looked to Fatima for guidance. The snakes coiled about themselves, holding their heads high, waiting. They looked like thousands of miniature minarets, tiny lighthouses in an infinite sea without a shore. The bats and crows, too stunned to fly, began to gather in groups of their own kind. Fatima sought the imps. One by one she found them, shocked and woozy.

Adam wept. Ezra wailed. “My brother,” Job cried. Each imp shed tears of skin-matching color. “Our brother is gone,” Elijah moaned. “We’ll never see him again,” Noah added. And the scorpions and spiders and the beasts of the underworld joined in mourning.

“Wait,” interrupted Fatima. “What happened? Who was that white son of a whore? Where has he taken Afreet-Jehanam?”

“Do not mention the name of the departed to the bereaved,” Isaac said. “It grates our hearts.” He shook his head in dismay.

“The name of the magician is King Kade, the master of light,” Ishmael said.

“He loathes the underworld and its inhabitants,” Ezra said.

“Considers us parasites,” added Noah.

“His mission is to rid the world of dark,” said Jacob. “That is his vow. Are we dark? Look at me. I am yellow.”

“He is obsessed with jinn,” Ishmael said, “but he does not attempt to use our power. He kidnaps the powerful jinn and tortures them. He chains and whips them, forces them to work on his palaces before he kills them. He had Mithras, the mighty demon, paint a giant mural of bucolic scenes. As he painted, King Kade’s angels threw darts at him and they touched up the mural with dabs of white, dab, dab, dart, dab, dab, dart. And then King Kade sucked the life out of Mithras. Oh, Afreet-Jehanam, my poor brother. What tragedy awaits you.”

“Stop this,” Fatima yelled. “What has become of you? Why are you bemoaning your brother’s fate already? First, we will find that white idiot and kill him; we will annihilate him for coming into our realm without an invitation. After that, we will bring my lover home.”

“No,” said the imps, all eight of them in one voice. “We cannot.”

“Then I will go alone,” Fatima said. “You sit here and cower if you choose. I will fight the bastard myself.”

“There is no hope,” said Ishmael. “He wove a potent spell eons ago. Nothing from the underworld, living or not, can harm him. The most powerful jinn have tried to no avail. Creatures mightier than all of us combined have declared war upon him. The spell he wove cannot be undone. He cannot be conquered by anyone from the underworld.”

“But I am not from here,” announced Fatima. “I will defeat him.”

One by one, the little imps’ facial expressions changed, their demeanor transformed. Ishmael stood up first. “I may not be of any use at the great encounter, but I will make sure you get there.”

“And I will confound his armies,” Job said.

“I will get the carpet,” said Noah.

“Get a few,” said Elijah. “It is a long trip—why be cramped?”

“Come, my lovelies,” Jacob said. He raised his arms and created a yellow orb of mist above his head. The bats flew into it and disappeared. Elijah invited the crows into his sphere, and Adam brought the snakes, the scorpions, and the spiders.