The Hakawati

by Rabih Alameddine

  “In their rooms, the princes huddled and hugged. At least with the first two tasks they had known how to begin, even if they couldn’t have accomplished much without help. But how could one find a child?”

  “A stork.”

  “Of course. The stork tapped at the windowpane, and the princes opened the window. The older prince explained about the miracle. ‘Be not concerned,’ said the good stork. It flew away and returned carrying a bundle swaddled in white cotton. The stork gently placed the bundle on the floor, and out of it crawled the most beautiful baby in the world, and the princes fell in love with him right away and knew that they would cherish this boy forever and ever. The baby crawled over to the oud lying next to the bed and began to play an exquisite melody.”

  “A maqâm?”

  “But of course. The melody was so charming that everyone in the palace began to wake, wanting to know where this music was coming from. They all rushed to the room and saw with their own eyes the miracle of this most special baby playing the oud. The king heard the song, and his heart expanded, and he wept. The beautiful princess loved the baby and she said, ‘This boy will be my son, and this prince will be my husband.’ The older prince married the princess, and their son was the most special boy in the world.”

  “What happened to the nasty vizier?”

  “He went to France, where all the jealous people are.”

  “That’s not a good story. I wasn’t born playing the oud. I learned how to.”

  “You’re simply remembering how to play, my dear boy.” Uncle Jihad drained his glass completely. “You’re claiming what you’ve always known.”

  “What about Lina?”

  “Hers is a different story,” he replied.

  “How can that be? She’s my sister. We can’t have different stories.”

  “Who says?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “A family has one story.”

  And my grandfather said, “The next evening, when the pigeon battle was over, I cleaned everything as fast as I could and ran back to the Masal. But I had arrived late. The hakawati was well into his story and had resolved the cliffhanger.

  “ ‘Please,’ I interrupted, calling to him from outside. ‘How did Antar escape the deadly trap? It would seem impossible. I must know how,’ I said in broken Turkish. I must have confounded him. He glared at me, unblinking. The owner of the café came at me. ‘Get out of here, you dirty scoundrel,’ he yelled. ‘Get back to where you came from, you unbeliever.’

  “Now, mind you, insults meant nothing to me. They bounced off me like iron bounces off a magnet. No, I mean like two magnets or something like that. After all, Barbara and Joan used to insult me every day, and the other assistants at work said horrible things. I felt bad that he thought I was dirty, so I said, ‘I’m only dirty because I’ve been cleaning shit, and that’s why I was late, and if I went home to clean up I’d miss more of the story.’ It obviously didn’t impress the owner, who waved a threatening cane in my direction. ‘If you don’t scram, I’m going to tan your behind,’ and I said, ‘That’s not fair. It’s not my fault I have to work. I want to hear the tale.’ The owner raised his cane, and I was about to flee when I heard a horsy guffaw. A fat man, most respectable, in an expensive fez, suit, and tie, sat laughing at a table outside. Hookah smoke erupted out of his wide mouth. ‘Why are you insulting a future customer, my man? Let the boy stay and listen to the tale,’ he said, and the owner replied, ‘His kind will never be a customer, effendi. He’s a street boy.’ Before I could contradict him, the effendi said, ‘He’s a working boy, not an urchin. How can you turn away a boy who wants to hear a story? Come, my boy. Sit at my table, and open your ears. I don’t mind the smell of shit. And bring this boy some tea and something to eat. We have a story to listen to.’

  “And that was how I was taken under the wing of Serhat Effendi.

  “I was in paradise. I hardly spent any time at home anymore. Each day, as soon as the battle was over, I hurried to the Masal to hear the hakawati. I sat at Serhat Effendi’s table every evening. I was served a highly sweetened glass of hot tea and a cheap sandwich, which was still better than anything I was getting at home. The effendi was nice to me. He didn’t mind my stink, and he treated me with the utmost respect. Once, when I asked how I could repay him for the daily meal, he replied that my job was to keep him company, because he didn’t like being by himself at the café. But we hardly ever talked, except for the times I arrived a bit late and he’d whisper in my ear what I had missed. On my ninth birthday, he bought me a delicious lokum.

  “The hakawati enchanted me, that much I know. Yet I began to notice that the effendi wasn’t as impressed. One night, after the storyteller had left us with another cliffhanger and Serhat Effendi was preparing to leave, I asked him whether he liked the story. You have to remember, he was showing up six nights a week to listen to this. He replied, ‘The story I like very much.’ I realized that what he had said was incomplete and hoped he would elaborate. ‘I have heard it woven more lusciously.’ He realized I didn’t understand, because he went on, ‘The story of Antar is one of the standards. This man tells it well, yet it seems that romance is not his forte. He does wonderfully with the travails and triumphs of the poet but seems to consider Abla, his enchantress and beloved, a trifle. We’re getting half a story. Don’t worry, though. It is very near the end, and we’ll get someone else next week.’

  “Do you know why I’m telling you this, Osama? It’s because you should know that, no matter how good a story is, there is more at stake in the telling.

  “And the effendi was right. The following week, we had a new hakawati, a much older man. At the designated time, he strode up to the dais and greeted his audience. He announced he would like to tell the story of Antar, the great black poet. I shouted, ‘No,’ and I was by no means the only one. The hakawati apologized and asked, ‘Do you not like the story, gentlemen? I assure you it is the best tale ever told. Antar was the greatest of Muslim heroes, the most passionate of lovers, and most devoted to the faith. This story is one of the finest. Trust me. Even though I’m here for only two weeks and will have to resort to an abridged version, I will enchant you.’ The listeners all as one yelled back, ‘But we have just finished hearing it. The hakawati before you told the tale of Antar.’

  “The hakawati paused and contemplated the situation for a brief moment. ‘Shame. It’s an uncalled-for shame that you were forced to listen to a pitiful version of the great story told by an incompetent dunce.’ A man spoke up. ‘It was a delightful version.’ ‘Never mind,’ said the new hakawati. ‘I’ll bewitch you with my version, and you’ll forget everything that came before me.’

  “The audience still objected. A few were angry. It was then that I noticed that Serhat Effendi, wearing a bemused grin, wasn’t participating in the impromptu discussion. ‘We don’t want to hear the same story,’ the crowd shouted, and Serhat Effendi called out, ‘Master Hakawati.’ The room quieted as the hakawati acknowledged the effendi. ‘Your reputation precedes you,’ the effendi said. ‘Your exquisite style is the talk of every connoisseur in our lands. We are blessed to have you here in our humble town, and we beseech you to treat us to your specialty, the tale of Majnoun and Layla. It is said that your rendition had the gracious princess weeping for two whole weeks.’ ‘Seventeen days,’ corrected the hakawati. ‘And that the Christian men of Istanbul who heard your version converted to the true faith.’ ‘That is true,’ said the hakawati. And Serhat Effendi finished with, ‘Is it, then, owing to our modesty that we are to hear the story of Antar instead of your masterpiece?’ ‘I beg your forgiveness, effendi,’ the hakawati said. ‘I would have been honored to tell you my signature tale. Unfortunately, I was instructed that under no circumstances am I to take longer than two weeks for my story. Two weeks, effendi. The only story I can tell in two weeks is that of Antar. I cannot insult my audience with a shorter version of my masterpiece. But please, dear audience, remove those sad masks from your face
s. It pains me so. The happy news is that in a fortnight I’ll be replaced by a young hakawati—a child, really, trying to make a name for himself. The owner says he’s very good—for a Circassian, that is.’ And here the hakawati paused before adding, ‘And it seems the youngster is willing to work for a cup of unsorted and uncooked lentils.’

  “The patrons had a fit; the café exploded. Men screamed at the owner, who tried to placate his customers. ‘Yes, of course you deserve the best,’ he repeated, until, finally, he had to apologize and promise the hakawati he could stay for as long as he needed. The hakawati smiled.

  “After only the opening, Urfa realized it was in for a feast. Word of him and his words spread throughout the town. The next evening, the place was packed. Many couldn’t find a seat. Twenty fully veiled women stood outside, refused seats, and didn’t interact with any of the patrons. They listened, moved and unmoving. The following night, it was forty women on one side and more than a hundred men on the other. And when the masterly hakawati told of Majnoun’s exile in the desert to avoid looking at the sweet face of his beloved, every veil turned moist, and every mustache as well. Zeki, the master storyteller of Istanbul, bewitched our little town for eight months straight.

  “When I die and people begin to tell you that I wasn’t a great hakawati, you tell them I studied with the best, Istez Zeki of Istanbul. Only Nazir of Damascus was as good as Zeki, and I studied with him as well. To find a better hakawati than those two, you’d have had to go to the lands of spices and Shahrazad, to Baghdad and Persia. Zeki was a master. The only reason he ventured into our backwater town was that he had to escape Istanbul for a few years. You see, even though he was in his eighties, he had seduced a vizier’s wife. There was a price on his head. But he was so loved that other Ottoman officials helped him leave the capital. They told him to stay away for a couple of years, until they soothed the vizier’s feelings. He never returned. He was asked by an affluent man to work in Baghdad, where he was killed.

  “Well, maybe I didn’t exactly study with Zeki, but I certainly studied him. Don’t tell anybody that, because it’s hard for people to discern the nuance. I heard him every evening and never missed a session. I studied his technique, his use of voice, tone, and inflection. When he paused, his audience held its breath. He was by far the best at silence. On my walk back home, I would practice saying the same words he did, in the same manner he did. I would move my hands in his way. As he reached a touching moment in the story, he had a habit of holding his hand out in front of him, palm toward God, as if offering Him that lovely moment or, better yet, offering Him the souls of all his listeners. When Zeki told us about the desert birds attempting to distract Majnoun from suicide, he had a different whistle for each bird. On the way home, I was able to whistle the way he did, and I became very good at it. His whistling birds broke open my heart. ‘Oh, Majnoun,’ the desert wren whistled, ‘kill yourself not. Consider all pleasures life can offer,’ and the quail whistled, ‘Rediscover the enjoyment of eating. Do not forsake life.’ Bewitching.

  “Studying him wasn’t as easy as it sounds, because I had to be two different people simultaneously. My first listened to the story and lived in its world, and my second studied the storyteller and lived in his.

  “But, then, I didn’t just learn from Zeki. God smiled upon my face and smote one of the pigeon assistants. I didn’t see what happened, but I heard everything, because I was in the main coop, cleaning. It was peace season. The assistant, his name was Emre, was flying a flock. Mehmet and Hagop were on the roof with him, drinking their tea. It seemed Emre was unable to get the pigeons to fly higher. He kept swinging his stick wider and wider, but the pigeons flew in a low circle. Hagop mocked the boy. My feelings were torn. I was happy, because Emre always mocked me, but I knew he would later take out his frustration on me.

  “A troubled Emre couldn’t understand what was happening. He cursed at the sky. One of the pigeons excreted, and, of all places, the shit fell right into Emre’s eye. Mehmet screeched and said that was good luck. Temporarily blinded and befuddled, Emre covered both his eyes, cursed once more, and tried to walk away. He stumbled and fell off the roof and onto the pavement, headfirst. The building was just one story, and the ground was only hard sand. Mehmet and Hagop thought it was amusing. They roared with laughter before they considered that Emre could be hurt. When they looked over the ledge and witnessed the burgeoning pool of blood, their laughter stopped. The boy Emre became stupid and blind, and I was promoted.

  “I no longer had to clean shit. Now I was responsible for feeding the pigeons. If it’s not one hole it’s another. I was also sent on errands and such. I had another boy, beneath me, to do all the shitty work. I wasn’t paid more, because, after all, Mehmet was a Turk. But I was done with work much earlier, so I was able to leave and check other cafés in the city. At first I couldn’t hear the other hakawatis, because they, too, told their tales in the evening, and I was committed to Zeki. But I would go into a café and ask the patrons to tell me stories. Most of them loved to do it, unless they were playing cards or backgammon. Someone would start a story. ‘There was or there was not,’ a man would say, and take it from there. His friends would help him tell it, correct him when he missed something, and take over if he faltered for even a second.

  “Zeki ended his story when his audience ran out of tears. I felt bereft and alone when he left, but I wasn’t alone, because all his audience felt the same way. I tested every hakawati in Urfa. I even saw a Kurd, and though I didn’t understand any of the words he said, I liked the way he said them. But I didn’t do that for long, because Serhat Effendi expected me at his table. He told me, ‘You can search far and wide for the great stories, but in the end, the best ones come to you.’

  “I practiced. I spun yarns for Zovik and Poor Anahid. I told stories to the uncaring pigeons as they mated. I spoke to trees, flowers, sticks, and stones. One morning, I began to tell a tale to Hagop, and he smacked me. ‘I don’t care about what you have to say,’ he yelled.

  “I practiced singing like Zeki. Whenever there was a song in the story, Zeki sang it. I was happy. I had a job. I had a passion. But I had no family, and that would be my curse. You see, the family I was part of was beginning to crumble like moldy Bulgarian cheese.”

  The first time I saw a real hakawati perform was in the spring of 1971, after I had just turned ten. My grandfather had come down from the mountain unannounced to visit Uncle Jihad. Lina and I were in my uncle’s living room with the two of them. Lina was there to study the paintings in Uncle Jihad’s monographs, and I was there because I had nothing better to do. There were dozens of books and monographs strewn all over the place—on the coffee table, the floor—but I was more interested in the conversation between my uncle and his father.

  “I don’t want to go alone,” my grandfather said, in a tone that was both pleading and astonished that he had to restate his wish. His fingers counted worry beads.

  “I can’t,” Uncle Jihad said. “I have to look after the boy.” That was a lie. I didn’t need looking after.

  “We’ll bring him.” My grandfather’s gestures were becoming more expansive. “It’ll be better that way.” His hair seemed to shoot out in at least eleven different directions. “We can take Lina, too.” He looked strange. He wore the traditional Druze trousers—black, with a billowing pouch below the crotch that could hold a small goat. The religious Druze wore them, and he certainly wasn’t religious. I had never seen him dressed like that before.

  “No,” Lina declared, without removing her eyes from the pictures she was perusing on the coffee table. She had her arms crossed in front of her. “I’m not going to some cheap café in some ugly neighborhood. And you,” she said to me, “stop staring at my breasts.”

  “I’m not,” I replied too quickly.

  Uncle Jihad grinned. “A girl after my own heart. My darling, you can’t control the entire world.”

  “I’m not trying to control the world,” she said, still not m
oving her head. “Just him. I get enough stares from other people. I don’t need it from him, and he’ll stop if he knows what’s best for him.” She contemplated a Brueghel painting of a woman who descends into hell and fills her basket with goodies. Uncle Jihad loved Brueghel.

  “Sweetheart, it’s because they’re new,” Uncle Jihad said. “In a couple of months, everyone will get used to them.”

  “Why are we talking about the girl’s tits?” my grandfather yelled. “We were talking about me. I come down to the city to visit my children, but my children pay no attention to me.”

  Lina looked like a colorful statuette, immobile, trying hard to stifle a laugh.

  “Goddamn it, Father,” Uncle Jihad said. “Watch your mouth. Let’s stop talking about the café. You know that Farid will be furious if you go there, more so if you take his children with you. Why don’t we do something else? We can visit your in-laws. You haven’t done that in ages.”

  “Damn my in-laws,” my grandfather replied. Lina’s lips curled into a full smile. “And damn Farid, too. Who’s the father of whom here? He should be worried about my getting angry, not the other way round. I want to go. I’m seventy-one years old, and I’m dying soon. This could be my last chance. Don’t you have any compassion?”