The Hakawati

by Rabih Alameddine

  After they settled in the cottage, the boys heard a loud noise that sounded like a huge wild animal outside the door. The boys scuttled about and hid behind every piece of furniture. Some went behind the curtains, two crouched under the sofa, one even went up the unlit chimney flue. The door opened, and a big, hairy monster walked in—big as in bigger than a camel standing on its hind legs, but not quite as big as an elephant; hairy as in even hairier than a bear and with a big beard and long hair. He walked in, the sound of each step echoing through the house. The monster took a deep breath. “What’s this I smell?” he asked. “It smells like I have humans in here. Young, tasty flesh. I love the smell of boys. Where are they? Where are the yummy boys?”

  He searched behind the chairs, under the sofa. He found each boy, one by one. He even located the boy in the chimney. The boys huddled in the middle of the room.

  “What are you boys doing in my house?” the monster asked. One of them said in a low, quivering voice, “We can’t find our way home.”

  The monster looked at the feast of boys in front of him, the aroma of tender flesh making him drool. He realized that he wouldn’t be able to eat all the boys in one sitting, there were so many of them. The best thing to do would be to get the boys to bed and then eat them one by one while they slept. The monster told the boys: “Allow me to be your host. Spend the night here. I know the way back to your village, but I can only find it when there is light. In the morning, I will show you the way back home. No one finds his way in the dark. Sleep here, where it is safe.”

  The boys relaxed, breathed a sigh of relief, and went off to bed. Not Jardown. Being the smart one, he realized what the monster was up to. He’d stay awake so the monster wouldn’t eat them. The monster waited diligently and uncomplainingly outside the boys’ room, counting out time. He peeked from behind the door and asked quietly, “Who is asleep and who is awake?”

  “Everybody is asleep,” Jardown replied, “but Jardown is awake.”

  “Why is Jardown awake? What does Jardown want?”

  “Jardown can’t sleep because every night before bed his grandfather bakes him a loaf of bread.”

  So the monster went into the kitchen, lit the fire, and began to bake a loaf of bread. When he finished, he brought the bread to Jardown and went back out of the room to wait for the boy to sleep. Dawn was breaking when the monster asked quietly from behind the door, “Who is asleep and who is awake?”

  “Everybody is asleep,” Jardown replied, “but Jardown is awake.”

  “Why is Jardown awake? What does Jardown want?”

  “Jardown can’t sleep because every night before bed his grandfather brings him water from the river in a sieve.”

  The monster thought that Jardown would go to sleep as soon as he brought him water from the river in a sieve. He hurried out of the house to the river. As soon as he was out, Jardown woke all the boys. “Hurry,” he told them. “We must run. The monster wants to eat us. We have to get out of here. It is almost light out, and we can see our way back home. Hurry.”

  The boys ran out of the house. They got to the river and noticed the monster in the distance trying to fill the sieve with water. The boys quickly and quietly swam to the opposite side, the older ones helping the younger ones across. When they had finished, the monster looked up and saw his banquet of boys across the river. He ran after them. “Let me come with you. I know the way back home. I can help you. How did you get across the river?”

  Jardown pointed to the millstones near the monster. “The best way to cross the river is to put one of those stones around your neck and walk across. That’s how we did it.”

  The monster put one of the millstones around his neck. He walked into the river, and the heavy stone pulled him down to the bottom. The boys ran home, and Jardown went to his grandfather, who was very happy to see him, having worried all night.

  This is the story of Jardown, the little boy who outwitted the big monster, and that is why, in winter, when the river gets rough, if you get close to the white, raging water, you will be able to hear it saying, “Everybody is asleep, but Jardown is awake,” followed by a deep, long sigh.

  • • •

  The hakawati, all one and a half kilograms of him, arrived in a lake of blood. His mother had been noisy, but the baby was quiet. After being assured that it was a boy, with ten toes, ten fingers, and an abundance of unruly, matted hair, Lucine took a deep breath and swallowed hard. She asked the midwife if her baby was alive.

  “He breathes,” she said. “But barely. He’s the smallest baby I’ve ever seen. He’s no bigger than a rat.” She lifted him by the right leg, shook him, and spanked his behind.

  “He’s not crying,” his mother said. “Why isn’t he crying?”

  The midwife held the hakawati as if he were a dead ferret. She was about to shake him harder when the doctor admonished her. “Give him to me,” he said. Ismail began to cry the instant he landed in his father’s arms. The doctor passed him right back to the midwife.

  Someone had placed the evil eye on the baby. It wasn’t only that he was a bastard, tiny, and not very healthy. He was an ugly baby and would grow up to be an ugly child, an ugly adolescent, and an ugly man. There was no escaping that. But, of course, his mother loved him.

  “Let me see him,” Lucine said. She reached out her arms for the crying baby. She did not recognize anyone in his face. “What an angry boy.”

  Oh, and he also had colic.

  “Should I try to feed him?”

  The doctor thought there was no point yet, but the midwife disagreed. “Feed him. Feed him. Train him to eat. It’s never too early. You have no milk yet, but all the activity will get you milky. He will probably get nothing but glue first, but it’s all good. He’s so small that he needs every drop of food. If you don’t produce milk, there’s Anahid, but I think you’ll cow fine.”

  Lucine unbuttoned her blouse and took her left breast out. The doctor gasped involuntarily, stared indelicately. The hakawati took to the breast as a hummingbird takes to the air. The breast provided no milk, so he began to cry again. He cried for an hour, for two, for three. The house didn’t sleep. The doctor’s wife went in to look at mother and child but could offer no solace. She sent her husband.

  “I don’t think I have any milk yet,” Lucine said. In the flickering light of the one candle, she showed him her breast, pushed her chest out toward him, squeezed her nipple. “Look,” she said. “Look.” He looked. “No milk yet.”

  He cupped her breast, held its weight in his palm. “Lucine,” he whispered, “I can see now why your name chose you.” He brushed a callused finger across her nipple. “Lucine, my moon.” He bent down and licked it. Milk flowed. She moved his head gently, brought her son’s mouth to it. The hakawati suckled.

  Do you know the story of the mother of us all?

  “Hagar” comes from the Arabic word for “emigrate,” and Hagar did so a number of times. She was a princess in the pharaoh’s court. A beauty promised to the pharaoh at a young age, she had her own rooms and a coterie of slaves at her command. The pharaoh had decided to save her for a rainy night, and drought still reigned over Egypt. Her master-to-be, Abraham, was in Egypt with his wife, Sarah, whom he was trying to pass off as his sister. She was sixty-five and beautiful. Abraham was afraid that if the pharaoh knew she was his wife he would kill Abraham and take her. The pharaoh, besotted with Sarah, took her anyway. The pharaoh prepared himself for an evening of pleasure. He had Sarah wait for him in the palace’s red room, which he reserved for his most special assignations. He walked into the luscious room and found Sarah already naked on red satin. But God made His presence felt again. Suddenly all the pharaoh could see was an old hag, with wilted eyes, withered skin, frizzled gray hair, bosoms like drained yogurt bags. He covered his kohled eyes in horror and disgust and anguish. “Your face has more wrinkles than my scrotum,” he said. “Acch. Get out of this room and leave my sacred realm.”

  However, Hagar, enamored of Abrah
am’s faith, begged the pharaoh to give her to the God-fearing couple before they were forced to flee. The pharaoh asked her why she’d want to leave such luxury. She stood before him, demure, eyes downcast. “Because I believe,” she said.

  The pharaoh was horrified, confused by this encounter with a faith he didn’t comprehend. He wondered whether Hagar would turn into the repulsion that was the other one. “Go,” he commanded in an angry voice for all to hear, all including their strange god. “Leave this world and follow your new masters out of my Egypt.”

  Abraham took her as a slave, a handmaid for Sarah. Hagar left Egypt, becoming rootless, torn, living wherever her master staked his tent. An emigrant.

  • • •

  The hakawati cried and cried. “That makes for strong lungs,” Zovik said.

  He cried, he suckled, he shat, he slept, he cried. By the third day, after the excitement of the new birth had evaporated, Lucine felt the family’s tension. The doctor’s girls no longer wanted to see the baby. The wife walked more heavily in the house. The baby’s lungs grew stronger. His mouth grew stronger as well, hurting her nipples. The baby sucked until her breasts emptied, then screeched for more.

  “I think I should bring Poor Anahid,” Zovik said. “She can feed him as well.”

  Anahid’s son, ten days old, had died the morning of the hakawati’s birth. Anahid’s husband, who couldn’t afford mosquito nets, had gone to the Harrar Plain to find work. Anahid had gotten up that morning later than she would have expected. It took a moment to register that her baby had not woken her up. When she rose up from the floor where she slept and looked at her baby in his basket, her first reaction was to weep. Crimson welts, rashlike bumps, and minute pink protrusions covered his entire body. She carried her only son, his breathing labored, and left her house, calling for help. But by the time others arrived, her son had taken his last breath.

  The gathering crowd discussed who would have been able to place such a powerful curse. Nothing else could explain the number of mosquitoes required to drain all of an infant’s blood. There must be more to it. Look, some said, look at this. Some bites were different from others. Someone lifted the blanket from inside the baby basket. At least three heads stared at the straw within. White lice. Anahid remembered that she had brought the straw the day before. She fainted. No one had heard of lice killing a baby, or of mosquitoes killing a baby. Was the combination fatal? Was such a loss of blood possible? What would Anahid’s husband say when he came back? Did he have a powerful enemy?

  Her husband arrived in the afternoon, heard the news, went into his house, and beat Anahid unconscious. He didn’t unpack. He left and wasn’t heard from again.

  Afterward, Anahid walked out of her house in a daze. When the residents of the Armenian quarter of Urfa saw Anahid—childless, with her two black eyes, swollen lips, the hair on the right side of her head more sparse than on the left—they were no longer able to call her by her first name only. She became Poor Anahid.

  And Poor Anahid became the hakawati’s wet nurse. Yet four milky breasts weren’t enough. Ismail ate and ate, and when there was no more milk, he cried.

  “That boy is not human,” the wife told the doctor.

  The days grew warmer in Urfa. The skies became less dark and menacing. Spring approached. Yet the hakawati still couldn’t get enough. His wails kept everyone in the neighborhood awake. He cried, he suckled, he slept, he cried.

  Pregnant, tired, and frightened, Hagar lumbered across the bleak desert. She had fled. Earlier that morning, Abraham had kissed her sweetly, left a tingle in her soul. She blushed, returned the kiss, and watched him leave. Content and hopeful, she resumed her chores.

  Sarah decided to sharpen the cutlery. She fetched the knives and flint stones. With each stroke, she looked up at Hagar; sparks flew. Hagar was not stupid.

  In the desert, she came across no one. The ripening sun dried her throat. She stopped, wiped the sweat out of her eyes. When she reopened them, lo and behold, God stood before her.

  “Hagar, servant of Sarah,” God called out to her, “where have you come from and where are you going?”

  “I am running away from my mistress, Sarah.”

  “Return to your home, Hagar,” God said. “Go back to your mistress and submit to her. I will watch over you. I will protect you. Be not afraid, for you are my daughter. Return and announce to the world that your son will beget many nations. I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count. You will be mother to the world.”

  “You are El Roi,” Hagar said to God.

  “Look,” my grandfather said, pointing at his ankle with his forefinger and his hawkish beak of a nose. “Can’t you see the scorpion sting? See this mark. It has been there since before I was born.” I knelt to look at the mark. The ankle was skinny, bony, and hairless, the skin pale and blue and thin pellucid. “Isn’t this proof? Your eyes can tell you the truth. Whose reality is more real?”

  “But the scorpion bit Lucine and not you,” I said, looking up at him.

  “Don’t you ever listen to what I’m saying?” He rose off the chair, moved toward the stove. He removed the top lid, stoked the fire with an aluminum spatula. “It was a curse, I tell you. Someone placed a curse on me before I was born. Lucine was stung by a white scorpion, and everyone knows white scorpions are magical. The sting was meant for me. I was born poisoned, which is why I cried and cried, but no one understood me. I was unable to get enough food. I needed all the nourishment to fight the evil poison inside me. It was a costly battle, but I won.”

  He lifted his right fist in the air like a champion. “Come,” he said. “Join me.” We walked a victory lap around the stove, cheered by the roar of an invisible crowd, our arms raised in celebration and pride. My grandfather had to crouch to pass under the exhaust pipe.

  Long, long ago, a child was born to the prophet Abraham and his slave, Hagar. He was called Ishmael, Abraham’s first progeny, and would grow up to be a prophet and the father of the Arab tribes. Abraham loved his beautiful baby, who looked like a miniature version of him. Being eighty-six, he had given up hope of ever holding a child of his own. He carried the infant everywhere. And Sarah boiled with bilious jealousy. One evening, after dinner, Sarah confronted Abraham. “I had a dream. God spoke to me, telling me you should send Hagar and her son into the desert and leave them there for a month.”

  By the light of the fire, the prophet saw his wife, a woman grown old. “I do not understand why He would ask that. They cannot survive alone out there.”

  “Who are we to question His commands? Oh, and they should be left there with little food or water. He said that, too.”

  Lucine realized the chicken soup didn’t taste right, but she ate it anyway. What surprised her was that she was the only one who developed diarrhea. She assumed it was because of her weakened condition. Within a few hours, her baby followed suit, and she was no longer allowed to feed him. Poor Anahid was promoted to sole feeder that day. The hakawati wasn’t getting enough from four breasts, reduced to two, his wails grew louder, reaching registers few eardrums could tolerate.

  Lucine’s interminable diarrhea made her weak. She could no longer move or be moved to the outhouse. Bedpans had to be scoured on the hour. By the third day, her skin seemed to collapse about her bones, except for her ankle, which swelled larger. By the fourth day, it became apparent she was not recovering. Her last words were directed to her son: “Just shut up. Just shut up for once.”

  Lucine Guiragossian, almost seventeen, died of acute amoebic dysentery.

  Abraham led his slave and his son across the desert, journeyed for many long and dangerous days and nights, following Sarah’s direction. They stopped at a desolate place. Abraham did not know it then, but the place was already sacred. The first prophet, Adam, had built a temple of worship to the one God on that spot. Nothing of the edifice was left standing. All Hagar saw was the hot sand, the bare hills, the yellow sun, the deathly-blue sky. Abraham gave her a litt
le food and water, prepared to leave her there.

  “How can you abandon us?” Hagar begged her master. “How can we survive with so little water in this forsaken place? Is this your decision or the will of God?”

  “It is His command.” Abraham closed his satchel, avoiding her eyes.

  “Oh, that’s not so bad, then.”

  Abraham left them to the silent and lonely desert. There was not a sprig of grass anywhere in the valley, not one tree, not a bird in the sky, not one insect. Hagar looked at the two hills that enclosed the valley, but they offered scant protection or provision. When she ran out of water, the baby began to cry, which seared her heart like a branding iron. She ran up one hill, reached the top, scanned the desert for an oasis; nothing but scalding sand. She ran up the other hill. Disheartening, bleak, sandy emptiness. She kept hearing her baby cry, no matter how high she climbed. She descended to comfort him. His throat seemed parched. She laid him down once more, ran up one hill, down again, up the other, hoping she had missed something. Finally surrendering, she returned to her child. They would die together. He lay on the ground kicking the sand with his feet. As he kicked and kicked, lo and behold, water gushed from the ground, tumbled over sand and rock—a cold stream was born. Ishmael quieted down once he drank some water, and he slept peacefully in his mother’s arms. Hagar looked up at the sky to thank her Lord and saw flocks of birds. They circled before alighting to drink from the sacred stream. Bedouins and travelers saw the hovering birds, knew that they had found water. The tribes adjusted their routes to find its source. They arrived in the valley, saw how peaceful it was, and were awed by its bewitching beauty. They looked up to where the water source was and saw a comely Egyptian in a blue robe, resting, her infant asleep on her breast, the light of the sun bathing them in a golden sheen. Even though the tribes were still infidels then, they bowed in silence to the mother and child, so as to not disturb them. They decided to settle in the valley. This was the beginning of the holy city of Mecca. When Abraham returned for his Hagar and Ishmael, he found the valley a blooming oasis with hundreds of palms pregnant with juicy dates, and he thanked God for saving his family.