The Hakawati

by Rabih Alameddine

  Bast turned away. “Here, kitty. Come here, Cleopatra.”

  And the three travelers left Alexandria in a hurry. “Could we not have spent the day and seen the sights?” Jawad asked. “Seems a shame. I have never been to any city but my own. Khayal says the lads in Alexandria wear no underpants.”

  “It is true,” Fatima said. “But I could not linger. We must make haste.”

  For seven days, they rode with little rest, until they had crossed most of the Sinai. For seven days, Fatima felt her doom follow her, but spoke nothing of it. She heard the earth thump a rhythm that matched her heart’s. They rode into the deserts of Palestine.

  “We cannot keep up this pace, Sitt Fatima,” Jawad said. “The horses cannot make it without a rest. We must ease up, or none will survive and neither will we.”

  Fatima reluctantly agreed. They set up camp before the sun set. And she waited.

  Fatima heard her name being called from below. She heard the low rumble before the lovers did, before the pack animals. She felt the tremor beneath her feet, and, as if her soles had ears, she heard the sand speak: “Fatima, I come for you, Fatima.”

  The horses whinnied. The noise grew louder; the earth shook. The camels fled. Two untied mares joined them. Jawad seemed to struggle. His instinct was to try and corral them, but he was petrified. The mules stood still. That stillness—there was a moment of it, of unequivocal tranquillity, only an instant—and then the earth exploded. Between Fatima and the two lovers a hole yawned, spewing a hot yellow fire. The flames flickered here and there, but did not change color. Unnatural, they were like giant fronds of an anemone. A giant blue head appeared, the fire its hair. The jinni glared with three red eyes and growled, showing two rows of daggerlike teeth.

  “Save yourselves,” cried Fatima to Jawad and Khayal. Yet she herself remained rooted.

  His putrid stench would have suffocated an infant—the smell of months-old eggs, rotting garbage, and decaying flesh. Hundreds of black crows picked at his teeth for bits of food. They flew in and out of his nose, looked like flies because of his size. The hides of seven rhinos made up his loincloth. He wore a necklace of human skulls that hung to his navel, with two loops around his neck like a pearl collar. Through the space between his legs, she could see Jawad and Khayal fleeing.

  “So—I am supposed to be a plaything of yours?” His voice poured forth, slow and sibilant, dripping like unsweetened molasses.

  She waited until Jawad disappeared behind the jinni’s thigh before replying, “I offer you my sincere apologies, sire. I meant you no disrespect. It was said to escape certain death. We were waylaid. I had no other choice.”

  “It was a boast,” he shouted, with a force that shook everything within leagues.

  “It was silly. Anyone can tell you are no one’s plaything. Why, look at you. You are so grand and powerful, and I am nothing but a helpless maiden. Who would believe what I said?”

  “Quiet.” His voice almost knocked Fatima over. “You think your wit will save you this time?” He opened his hands, and ten red fingernails sprang out, ten swords, each as tall as she was. “I want to smell your fear, woman. I am Afreet-Jehanam.” His blue chest puffed out. “Tremble.”

  “I have forgotten how.” She took out her sword, held it steadily in front of her.

  He laughed. The jinni struck with the nails of his thumb and forefinger, and she scampered away, moved the sword from her right hand to her left, ran toward her attacker. But he was Afreet-Jehanam. He nonchalantly flicked his pinkie and chopped off her hand. She fell to her knees. Looked at her sword-clutching left hand on the ground in front of her. Her wrist sprayed blood. She clutched it with her right arm. Raise it above heart level, she remembered, raise it above heart level. Would it matter?

  “Tremble,” he said.

  “Kill me.”

  He shrugged. He raised a finger. She closed her eyes. She heard the sound of metal hitting metal. Opened her eyes. Jawad was on his back, his sword next to him. “Is today some kind of day of fools?” the jinni asked. “Am I to be attacked by pests?” Khayal arrived running and stopped between Jawad and the jinni, who said, “Yes, definitely the day of dying fools.” He raised his arm with its five finger-swords to strike.

  “Stop,” Fatima yelled. “You have no quarrel with them. I am the one you want.”

  “This one tried to attack me from behind. He must die. They both must.”

  “Spare them. Look at the boy. He has just discovered love. Look into his eyes. Do not end his happiness. Be merciful, sire. He has just begun to live. Kill me, not them.”

  The jinni considered the situation. He raised an arm to the heavens. The crows flew up, circled his lethal fingernails. He moved his arm, and they shot out like javelins into the empty sky. When he brought his arm back down, he announced, “I will not kill the lovers.” The crows began a descent, flew as if they were a flock of black pigeons. “I will not end your life, either, for you are not worthy of being killed by me.” He picked up Fatima’s hand from the dusty ground where it lay and used her sword as a toothpick, sucking the gaps between his teeth, producing a thunderous noise, savoring the taste of his mouth, smacking his lips. “You have begun to bore me. I had expected a better fight. It will be much more entertaining to hear you try to explain how your plaything left you without a hand.” He walked toward the crater in the ground. “Much more fun to watch you muddle handless through your ignoble life.” He stepped into the hole. “If you think you are worthy of being killed by my hand, come to my world and claim yours.” He chortled as his head disappeared. “I am sure you will be able to find your way to the plaything.”

  Jawad, sweating from exertion and the sun’s harsh rays, rushed to check on Fatima’s arm. He tore off his sleeve and tied it around the bleeding wrist. He began to tear off his other sleeve, but Fatima stopped him. She pushed the silver bracelets around her arm farther up. When she could not push anymore, Khayal took over. The rings acted as a tourniquet.

  “We must leave,” Khayal said. “You may not be fit to be moved, but we have no choice.”

  “The jinni might return,” Jawad said.

  “Go,” she said, her voice labored, her breathing shallow. “I must travel a different path. Leave now. Linger not.”

  “You cannot make it on your own,” Jawad said. “You are weak. Where do you wish to go, in any case? We must run away from here.”

  She attempted to stand up, faltered, swayed, and sat back down. “I must retrieve my hand. Leave me.” She placed her only hand on Khayal’s shoulder and used him as leverage to lift herself. “Tell the emir I met my doom.” She did not sway. “Or tell him I will be back soon. Or choose not to return. Find your own place in this world. Take care of each other. Either way. I must descend.” She looked into the crater. “Now, be a good boy,” she said to Jawad, “and find me a staff. The yucca there would do.”

  “How do you propose to retrieve your hand?” Khayal asked. “Do you think Afreet-Jehanam is going to give it back to you? And what good will it do? You cannot reattach it. Be not a fool, Sitt Fatima. Come with us.”

  “I must have my hand.”

  “But it is the devil’s hand, and the devil has it now. An unnecessary appendage.”

  “It is the devil’s hand, and it is also mine. And I must take it back.”

  “Do you know what the Prophet said about left hands?”

  “Stop pestering me. I know my religion. I want my left hand so I can wipe my butt.”

  And Jawad handed her the yucca staff. “May God, the merciful and compassionate, be your guiding light.” And Fatima descended into the hole.

  A starchy nurse jiggled into the hospital room in white pants and white sneakers. “Who’s going to be getting a bath now?” she announced jovially.

  My father was glum, his face furrowed. Seeing his nephew as one of the bey’s lackeys had enraged and disoriented him. I glanced at the board on the wall to read the nurse’s name. With a red felt pen, she had written “Nancy”
in a hippie script and had drawn a smiley face, but one eye had gone missing. She was full of inept cheer. She kept up a steady stream of chatter, more river than stream. She began to undress my father, and remove the electrodes, the white and the blue pads that transmitted his vitals to the nurses’ station. With a postcard smile that showed a large overbite, she said, “This is private. Don’t you think?”

  I had only to look at my sister’s face to realize something was amiss. My father sat on the bed, back slumped, legs dangling above the bright, sterile floors. When he turned toward me, I saw defeat. He tried to smile. “Don’t you have better things to do than hang around here?” he asked, his voice frail.

  “Here, Salwa,” Lina handed the stethoscope to her daughter. “You’re better at this.”

  “You don’t have better things to do, either?” my father asked my niece.

  Salwa, almost nine months pregnant, looking about to explode at any moment, sat behind him on the bed. She moved the stethoscope along his back, as if playing an imaginary game of solitaire checkers. She closed her eyes, and her face sagged, strangely serene. “I hear water,” she said.

  My sister sighed. She hesitated for an instant before regaining her stage persona. “All right,” she announced to the room. “We’ll have to get more Lasix.” Tin Can was on her mobile’s speed dial. She spoke machine-gun style, her voiced pitched high. “Done,” she said. “He’ll call the nurses. We’ll get rid of the water.” She walked around, then abruptly left the room. She returned with a nurse, who proceeded to inject the diuretic into one of the intravenous tubes.

  And my father began to pant. He still had not urinated an hour later. His laborious inhalations gurgled. Shallow breaths. He cracked feeble jokes. He tried to move, but just getting his arm to behave was arduous. Breathe in. Breathe out. Wheeze. Gurgle. He wilted in his bedding, drooped before our eyes. Lina tried to appear composed, but she did not fool anyone.

  Salwa held my elbow and walked me out of the room. “He doesn’t want you to see him in this condition.” I started to go back in, but she held my arm. “Just relax,” she said. “He’s having a fit of pique. He doesn’t want anyone but my mother to see him suffer. He doesn’t want me in there, either. He thinks my seeing him will distress the baby.”

  From the doorway, I could see the lower half of his body, the tension in his legs below the hospital gown, the curling of his toes with each breath.

  Fatima felt weak and moved gingerly. It did not take long for the light to dissipate. She realized she had no plan, no weapon, and no energy to speak of, but the one thing she lacked and needed most was a torch. The ground was uneven, but not dangerous, descending at a reasonable angle. She proceeded into the dark until she could see no more. Blind, she became more careful. One tiny step followed by another. The staff tested where her foot was to land. Quiet was the rule of the place. Quiet until, “I believe you might need this, madame,” and then there was light.

  “It gets more treacherous from here on down,” the red imp said. He sat on a protruding burnt-orange rock, four or five times his size—he was no larger than a boy of three, a miniature jinni, with hooves dangling above the ground. He held out a tiny kettle-shaped oil lamp. “Come. Take it.” He grinned. “I will not hurt you.”

  “I would not know how to carry it. I cannot walk without this staff, and I have only one hand. Look,” she said.

  He jumped off the rock, pranced up to her with no little animation. She jerked her handless arm away. “I just want to see,” he said.

  She extended her arm. “You can look, but do not touch.”

  The little demon stared at her wound. “You need a healer. May I remove the bandage?”

  She shook her head. “I need my hand.”

  “Reattaching it might prove to be a problem,” he said, laughing. “But let us see if we can figure out a way for you to carry the lamp.”

  “You can be my light,” she said.

  “Oh, no. Not where you are going. You received the call.” He circled around her. The top of his bald head seemed to move up and down with each step. “We cannot tie it anywhere on your clothes. Oh, but I can slip the handle onto your finger, and you can hold both the lamp and the staff. Here, try this.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because you need help. Bring down your hand. I cannot reach that high.” And he slipped the lamp onto her forefinger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

  “It is the wrong finger, and you are the wrong species.”

  “And you are dying.”

  “I have not given up yet.” She looked ahead.

  “I hope you will,” said the imp. “Now go. You do not have much time. I must wait here. And when you die, remember me in your prayers. Call me Ishmael.”

  She marched, the lamp illuminating her descent, until the walls, ground, and ceiling converged on a circular gate. She approached, held up her staff to see the gate better, swept the back of her hand against it. It was black agate. She pushed against it, but it would not budge. “Open, Sesame,” she said. The gate did not respond, but there was movement in the shadows.

  “My name is not Sesame.” The imp was the same size as Ishmael, and just as red. She noted that both had horns but no tail, which she took as a good sign. “It is Isaac,” the imp said. “Ishmael is my brother.”

  “I seek entry,” she said.

  “And I seek payment,” Isaac replied.

  “I can pay.”

  “I know that.” He flicked his hand, and the gate creaked open. “I am nobody’s fool. You are top-heavy with money. I will lighten your load. I will take fifty gold dinars.” He had the same silly gait as Ishmael.

  “I will give you ten.” She walked through the gate. “You should have asked when you had a better bargaining position, before I came through. I will not overpay now.”

  “Fifty.” He clenched his fists, tensed his stomach, and jumped twice. “Not one dinar less. I do not compromise. Everyone will make fun of me if I do. I was told you are carrying fifty. That is my price.”

  “Whoever told you I had fifty gold dinars was lying.”

  “Why do I get the troublemakers? You are dying, and with your last breath you haggle. You must be Egyptian.”

  “From Alexandria.”

  “Oy. I am being punished. Give me your money, madame. It is the law. You will not need it where you are going. Save us both the trouble.”

  “I have forty-nine, one dinar less. I will give it for an answer to a question.”

  “Ask.”

  “How many have gotten out of here alive and human?”

  “Wrong question. They always ask the wrong question. None. None have gotten out of here alive and human. Now give me the gold.” He climbed up her robe, stuck his hand in her bosom, and took the coins. Fatima wanted to admonish the imp, but held her tongue. “I shall help you,” Isaac said, counting the gold, “for I am fond of obstinate troublemakers. When you are asked to surrender a belonging, it behooves you to do so without bargaining. Surrender is the key.”

  Fatima descended farther into the tunnel. The air turned moist, made her feel heavier with each step. She held up her staff and lamp, saw moss the color of emerald filling every crevice, yet her path remained barren. Various night insects roamed the moss, feeding, scurrying, creating a living, ever-changing Persian carpet. She wished she could touch; wished her lost hand could graze upon the surface. And she reached the second circular gate, carved of emerald. She pushed, shoved. “Open, Isaac.”

  “My name is Ezra.” A little orange imp jumped out of a cloud of orange dust.

  “I seek entry.”

  “And I seek payment. I will have your robe.”

  “But it is much too big for you. You could fit ten of your kind in this robe.”

  “I have a large family. Give it.” He climbed up the robe, unfastened the clasp, shinnied up above her head, held on to the back of her collar, and jumped. Fatima teetered. Ezra dangled in midair, hanging on to the collar. “Let go,” he s
aid. “It is my robe.”

  “Wait, I am wounded. I lost a hand.”

  Ezra jumped down, ran around. “May I see?” he asked. “Please?”

  “You will have to help me with the robe first.” She patted the pocket of her dress to make sure the vial of potion was there, and not in her robe.

  And the imp Ezra said, “Uncover your wound so I can see.”

  “I cannot, for I do not have a free hand.”

  “You need a healer.” Ezra bunched up the robe and lifted it above his head, almost disappearing under it. “Proceed with your journey,” her bundled robe seemed to say. “Your time is limited. And, for being kind to me, I will offer you help. In this realm, if someone asks you to uncover your wound, do so.”

  Beyond the emerald gate, the air grew heavier still, reeking of an earthy stew. She came upon the mushrooms. Small at first, multihued, reds, sienna, ocher, browns, and greens. As she marched deeper, the numbers increased. Cuddled and coddled by the moist air, a metallic-blue mushroom grew as big as a shed. Next to it was one with velvet skin the color of avocado. Fatima felt hunger pains. The third gate was of lapis lazuli. “Let me guess,” she said to the dark beyond. “Your name is Abraham.”

  “No,” the approaching yellow imp said. “I am called Jacob.”

  The price of entry was her necklace of lapis beads, and she paid it.

  And Jacob said, “I will offer you help, dear mistress. The paths of folly are not always distinguishable from the ways of wisdom. Please, hurry.”

  Below Jacob’s gate, unrecognizable dark fruit seemed to sprout from jutting rocks. The fruit was veined, streaked, with the texture of polished marble. She stopped and reached out with her wounded arm; a bat flew down from above and covered the fruit with its satiny black wings. Its eyeless face snarled at Fatima. Bats everywhere, thousands upon thousands, hanging from fruits, from rocks. Bats flew singly in every direction, creating a barely audible, disconcerting symphony. Yet her path remained clear.