The Hakawati

by Rabih Alameddine

In winter, the stove became the center of his universe. He cooked on it, brewed his maté, his tea, his coffee. He moved his bed next to it. He left his sitting room only to go to the bathroom at the back of the house.

  The next day, Lucine’s ankle was swollen and her leg blue to the knee. The doctor’s wife brought her a pink oleander and placed it in a chipped glass beside her bed. She raised the bottom end of the bed on bricks. She cleaned Lucine’s bedpan. Lucine mumbled incoherent apologies, too shy to speak directly to her madame.

  Two weeks later, the doctor stood next to his wife in the doorway of the maids’ room, watching Zovik, the second maid, help Lucine vomit into a rusty metal pail.

  “Make sure the ankle doesn’t move,” the doctor instructed Zovik.

  “This is the will of God,” his wife whispered to him.

  Lucine’s ankle remained swollen for the rest of her life, all thirteen months of it.

  “Play me something,” my grandfather said. He slumped on his small couch, the cigarette between his fingers a nub, totally forgotten.

  “But you don’t like what I play,” I said.

  My grandfather heaved a sigh of impatience. The cigarette burned his finger. He dropped it on the couch. He stared at his hand, astonished. He stamped the cigarette with the palm of his hand. The butt bounced off the cushion, hit the floor already extinguished. “Pfflt. I never said I don’t like what you play.” He raked his curly white hair with both hands, but it remained as unruly as it always was, as unruly as he was. “You’re my flesh and blood.” His beard was scraggly but clean. His clothes were unruly as well.

  “You said I play like a donkey.”

  “Well, then, come here and play something different and don’t play like a donkey.” He patted the cushion next to him, took out his tobacco pouch, and began to roll. I didn’t move. Keeping his eyes fixed on his cigarette, he said, “There’s nothing worse than a reluctant performer. All this ‘I don’t know if I can’ and ‘I’m really not ready’ is shit on shit. Someone asks you to play, just play. Enjoy your time in the sun and don’t whine about it.”

  I brought his oud and sat next to him. “I don’t like your oud. It has the wrong strings.”

  His eyes rolled. “Pfflt. Who cares about stupid things? Just play.”

  I started with a simple scale to limber up my fingers, just as Istez Camil taught me. My grandfather sank deeper into the couch, the collar and shoulders of his black jacket rising above his ears, almost to the top of his head. I moved slowly into a maqâm, but it didn’t sound right. The oud was no good. I tried to compensate, but my grandfather stood up suddenly.

  He walked to the stove, opened the top, and threw his cigarette in. “You play like a donkey. What has that idiot of a musician been teaching you? Who listens to all that Iraqi crap?”

  “People love what I play. Everybody says I play like an angel, like a sweet angel.”

  “You play like a donkey angel.” He scrunched up his face. He lifted his hands to his cheeks, pretended to make them talk. “Plunk, plunk, plunk. I can make music. Look. Tum, tum, tum.” He took out his dentures, held them in front of his mouth. “I can play music, that nobody wants to listen to. Can you? Can you?”

  I turned my back to him. “I’m not listening to you. You don’t know good music and your oud is horrible.”

  “Why don’t you play something interesting?” I didn’t have to look at him to know that he had put his dentures back where they belonged. “Play a song instead of that donkey shit. Songs are better. Tell me a story. Sing a story for me.”

  “I don’t want to. You do it.”

  He picked up his oud and sighed. He shook his head and said, “In Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and northeastern Iran, the word ‘bakhshi’ means a player of the oud, singer, and storyteller. I am a bakhshi, you are a bakhshi. The word comes from Chinese and arrived with the advent of the smelly Mongols.” He plucked two notes before going on: “On the other hand, the storytelling musicians of Khorasan in Iran think ‘bakhshi’ comes from ‘bakhshande,’ which means a bestower of gifts, because of the musical gift God has bestowed on them. I have always appreciated thinking of the oud player as a storyteller, as a bestower of gifts.”

  He played horribly, had a lousy voice that was always off-key. He sang a song about a boy who had more luck than brains.

  • • •

  In the summer, by Lucine’s fifth month, everyone knew she was carrying a boy. The signs were obvious: she had already gained twelve kilos (boys are bigger); her belly was completely round (girls are awkward, the uterus never fills out perfectly); she was constantly in pain, having spent her entire first trimester on her back (boys are always too much trouble); she did not recover easily, her ankle remained swollen (boys are self-centered, draining all the mother’s healing energies); she was radiant (boys make their mothers happy).

  On a hot day, a hobbling Lucine sprinkled well water on the ground to keep the dust from rising. One of the tortoises retracted into its shell when it felt the water drops. Lucine wanted to make sure that the spot beneath it did not remain utterly dry. She waddled indelicately. She pushed the tortoise with her bare foot and her ankle gave out. She almost stumbled.

  She touched her ankle, which had refused to heal, and prayed to the Virgin. She dragged herself over to the mulberry tree and sat in its shade. She stretched her legs, pointed her toes. To test the ankle’s strength, she pushed against a rock the size of a melon and moved it slightly. She placed her toes under it and pushed again. The pain this time was piercing, causing her to faint.

  “It’s the ankle,” the wife said.

  “I’m not so sure,” the doctor said. He massaged Lucine’s ankle, noted a red mark on the top of her right foot. He showed it to his wife. “Are the girls inside?” he asked. It did not take him long to find the white scorpion. Under the rock, crushed as thin as a sheet of paper, its sting its last defiant act. “This is not a good sign.”

  When I told my grandfather I was hungry, he gave me a piece of dry bread sprinkled with sea salt. “Your midmorning refreshment, my little lord. That’s what I used to have every morning for a snack when I was your age. All the orphans waited impatiently for this, between breakfast and lunch. Just taste it. You’ll like it.” I refused to look at him. He moved around incessantly, like a windup toy that never completely unwound. “Here I am trying to infuse you with culture, my flesh and blood, my own kin. You don’t want this, you want that. When I was your age, I had to eat what I was given.”

  I turned. I made sure that my back was toward him wherever he moved.

  “You won’t eat my bread. There are children who’d kill to have a piece of bread. You have so many things and you’re still not happy. I didn’t have any toys when I was your age. But I entertained myself. I didn’t need toys like you do. I used to make myself slingshots. I’d climb the only high tree in our backyard, a black mulberry, and use the fruit as ammunition against the Muslim boys. I didn’t use stones, because I’d have gotten in trouble, but hitting a boy with a mulberry was a lot more fun anyway. The fruit stained a rich purple. Every time I hit a boy, I’d raise my arms like a champion and almost lose my balance, but I never fell. Those boys used to call us names. They called us unbelievers and without history. I didn’t care, mind you, but the doctor’s daughters always cried. Barbara and Jane. Those were their names. See, I still remember, even after all these years. I can still remember their names. I haven’t lost anything. Or was it Barbara and Joan? It was one or the other. Ah, who cares?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Listen,” he said. “Listen. Our house was right outside the city walls. I mean right outside—the remnant of the ancient Roman wall was the back wall of our house. The wall extended beyond the house and marked half our garden. I’d climb the wall at night and yell without any sound, yell at the world: I am here. I’m here, like Abraham. I could see Abraham’s pool when I stood on the wall. It shimmered in starlight. It bubbled eternally. Full of sacred fish, guarded and fed regula
rly.”

  “Who fed them?”

  “The Muslims, of course. When Nimrod ordered Abraham into the fire, God intervened and manifested his glory to the hunter-king. The sycophants opened the oven door expecting to see nothing but charred remains, except there the prophet was, as glorious as ever; the young Abraham was singing, sitting indolently on a bed of red roses, red like the color of fresh blood. Thousands upon thousands of crimson rose petals. The courtiers ran away in terror as if they had seen a jinni or an angel. Abraham, unblemished and untouched, walked out of the furnace, smirked as he passed Nimrod, and went home. The king, the mighty warrior, frightened and furious, called his army. He built the greatest catapult the world had ever seen. But no, he said, one is never enough. He built another, an exact replica. In the catapults’ cradles, his men put pile upon pile of burning wood. He doused the fire with more oil, added pinecones for sound effects. He gave the order to unleash his fury at his nemesis. But God changed the catapults to minarets. He transformed the fire to water, and the pool of Abraham came to exist. He changed the fagots to carp, and the fish gave life to the pool. For thousands of years, the freshwater pool has given sustenance and nourishment to Urfa’s people. The dervish Muslims guard the pool and give back to God by taking care of his sacred fish. I played there when I was your age. I swam with the fish of God.”

  Sunlight finally broke through the windows. The air smelled sweet and fragrant. “Were they like other fish?” I asked.

  “No, of course not.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, his pale, bony wrists protruding from frayed white cuffs. “They were special fish. Sparkled like gems at night, colors you’d never see. If only I could show them to you. And the dervishes looked so holy in their traditional outfits, the white robes and red hats.”

  “Aren’t they the ones that dance? I’ve seen them. They’re beautiful and grand.”

  “They twirl. That’s how they pray. And they are beautiful.”

  “I want a God that makes me twirl.” I jumped off the couch. I untucked and unbuttoned my shirt so it would flow like a robe. “Like this. I can do this for God.” I held my hands out. I twirled and twirled and twirled. “Look,” I said. “Look.”

  The Dutch painter Adriaen van der Werff, an accomplished, rather sentimental and repetitive minor master, painted a Biblical scene of Sarah offering her Egyptian slave girl, Hagar, to Abraham. Of course, Hagar looks nothing like an Egyptian. Chestnut hair—close to blond, even—and she has the lightest skin of all three figures, Nordic features, too young and beautiful. She is at the bottom of the painting; only her torso is shown, naked from the waist up. A piece of clothing (a petticoat?) and her right forearm cover her right breast. The right hand on her left breast serves to accentuate the sumptuous nipple. She kneels beside the bed, looks down at her naked belly, demure, submissive, excluded from the discussion between Sarah and Abraham.

  Sarah, a crone, stands behind Hagar, talking to her husband. She is fully clothed in drab material, her white hair partially veiled. Abraham is naked on the bed, a navy-blue sheet covering everything below his navel. He has a thick brown beard, but his muscular chest is completely hairless, his abdominals defined. His hand rests on Hagar’s sensuous bare shoulder beneath him. He looks happy with the offer, smug almost.

  “You see,” Sarah says, “that the Lord has prevented me from having children. Go into my Egyptian slave girl. It may be that I build my family through her.”

  Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah and went into her Egyptian slave girl.

  Months later, the sky swelled with glory, and the valley began to color and bloom. Abraham’s face had lost its winter pallor; his hair remained black, never-changing, with its widow’s peak. Sarah’s eyes were swollen, full of tears, her face blotchy. She stared at Abraham, hoped he would not notice her. She had urged him to sleep with her Egyptian. God spoke through her. Hagar would provide him with a male heir, and Sarah would be elevated, if not in his eyes, then surely in her own. Sarah never imagined that Abraham would fall in love with the slave, treat her as a wife. He had such affection for Hagar. And she grew. She still behaved herself, but the look on her face was no longer that of a slave. It was more graceful, more self-assured, the look of someone who belonged. The slave had quickly gotten used to salvation.

  “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering,” Sarah informed her husband. “I put my servant in your arms, and now that she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”

  “She is your slave,” Abraham replied. “Do with her what you think best.”

  “We should call the midwife,” the doctor’s wife said. “We don’t want people to talk.”

  “Fine. Fine. Call the witch. I will make sure she doesn’t make things worse. Tell her to keep her mouth shut. I don’t want to listen to her tiresome life story once more.”

  Zovik interrupted the midwife’s supper—boiled rice and lentils with a touch of cumin. She told Zovik she would come soon after she finished her meal, but then she actually heard Lucine’s wail. She jumped up off the ground, almost knocking over the brass tray and the dish of lentils. Nimble for a woman her age and weight, she ran out the door, with a concerned Zovik trailing behind. “Why did you wait so long?” the midwife asked. “Why does everybody wait so long?”

  A crowd milled outside the doctor’s house. Some had come from as far as two or three neighborhoods away to discover the source of the wails and to discuss their significance. The midwife squeezed through the crowd, ran into the house, and found the children clustered outside the maids’ room. As she approached, the wail started as a low rumble, rolled forward like a tumbleweed in harsh winds, and reached a crescendo that almost brought her to her knees. The children’s faces registered shock, followed by dismay, and then they slowly began to cry. The doctor’s wife came out of the room. “I can’t take this anymore,” she said to no one in particular. “To your rooms, children. You have no business here. Don’t forget your prayers, your teeth, and your eye drops. Now go to sleep.” She disappeared into the hallway.

  Lucine lay in bed, her eyes staring at the ceiling, her lips praying, her brows and forehead anticipating the next contraction. The doctor seemed agitated and slightly bewildered. The midwife asked if the water had broken and whether the baby had begun to reveal itself.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “It’s definitely a boy. Boys don’t like to come out if there’s another male in the room. Boys like to be enticed into coming out. Boys want to be made to feel special.”

  “That’s nonsense. I wish you’d stop it.”

  “O Holy Virgin. This boy seems to be having problems finding his way out.” She stroked Lucine’s belly. Once, twice, three times. “Listen to me, my boy. We want you out here. You’re our special boy. If you come, I’ll tell you a story. Come.”

  Once, there was a little boy who lived with his grandfather in a small hut in a small village. This boy was so tiny that everyone called him Jardown, the rat. Jardown loved his grandfather, who in turn loved Jardown more than anything in the world. His grandfather took care of him, cooked for him, and told him stories.

  One day in fall, his grandfather told the other village men that he was getting old and could not bring home as much firewood as he used to, and that the boy, Jardown, was too small to carry all they needed for the approaching winter. The other men told him not to fret. They would all send him their sons the following day, and they should be able to collect enough firewood to last for two or three winters.

  The next day, all the village boys arrived at the cottage. Jardown’s grandfather gave each boy a piece of bread, a piece of chocolate, and two drops of condensed milk. “This is to thank you for helping us. Go into the forest and bring back as much firewood as you can. Take care of Jardown while you’re out there. He is younger and much smaller than any of you.”

  The boys went into the forest, each carrying his brea
d and chocolate and condensed milk. Some began to collect firewood while others chopped down dying trees. Every boy was doing his share, except for Jardown, who sat on a big rock with his feet dangling above the forest floor.

  “Jardown,” one of the boys said, “why aren’t you cutting wood?”

  “My grandfather gave you a piece of bread so you would cut wood for me, too.”

  So the boys cut more wood. When they thought they had enough, they gathered all the wood in bundles to carry back to the village. Each boy carried his own bundle—each boy except for Jardown, who still sat in the same place.

  “Jardown,” another boy said, “why aren’t you carrying a bundle?”

  “My grandfather gave you all a piece of chocolate so you would carry my bundle.”

  The boys picked up Jardown’s bundle and began to leave, but then they noticed that Jardown was not moving. “Why aren’t you coming with us, Jardown? We are going home.”

  “My grandfather gave you all two drops of condensed milk so you would carry me when I got tired.”

  A boy much bigger than Jardown lifted him onto his shoulders. They began the long trek home. Soon, however, the sun shrank and everything grew dark. The boys walked and walked and walked and walked, but they couldn’t find their way out of the forest.

  “Which way is the right way?” one of the boys asked.

  “This way.” “That way.” “No, that way.” “No, this way.”

  In the distance the boys heard the vicious barking of a dog. In the opposite direction from the barking, they saw a light. They wondered which they should walk toward, the barking or the light. After much deliberation, they asked Jardown: “Which way should we go, Jardown? In one direction we have a dog barking. Should we go there, or should we go where there is light?”

  Jardown, the smart one, pondered the question. He said, “If we go toward the dog, it might bite us. I think we should go toward the light.”

  The boys walked toward the light, which was coming from a cottage in the middle of the forest. They knocked on the door, but no one answered. They entered and decided to wait there till morning, when they would be able to see their way back.