Majnoun’s sun-colored hair rose and burst into flame, his skin darkened and burst into life. “I know you,” he said.
“Of course, you do,” sneered Isaac. “Of all things, he chooses an owl—in the desert, no less.” And Ishmael said, “At least it was not a waterfowl.”
“Remove your mask, Uncle,” Majnoun said. “I see you.”
“And I see you,” responded Jacob the yellow owl.
“Rise, my nephew,” said Isaac.
“Heed your destiny, my hero,” said Ishmael.
“End your sorrow,” said Jacob. “Your mother calls.”
The emir’s wife concentrated on her intention and directed her energy from her stomach up through her right hand to the hairy mole on the supplicant’s upper lip. “Heal,” she cried. She raised her eyelids discreetly, gently tried to sense with her hand whether the hateful mole was still present, then dramatically swung her arm back, announcing, “Behold!”
The line of seekers gasped and oohed. The supplicant’s hand raced to her lips. “It is gone,” she yelled, and the line broke into applause. The emir’s wife beamed, bowed—she had spent a few hours just that morning practicing her appreciative bows—and sat back on the throne. She waited for the clapping to quiet before calling, “Next.”
A full-figured man genuflected before her and kissed her hand. “I am regaining weight, exalted lady,” he said. “It is not yet a crisis, but it will be soon. I do not wish to regress to where I was before your remarkable son touched me. I would not be able to bear it. I was hoping your gloriousness could give me a booster.”
“But of course.” The emir’s wife slid forward, moving the ostrich-feather cushion halfway beyond the edge of the throne. “Come closer. I do not bite.” She laughed at her joke but then sat bolt upright. A sudden current of heat had shot down her spine, from the top of her head to her behind. “Did you do that?” she asked the man.
“Did I do what?”
She hesitated, looked about her. No one in the temple seemed to have felt what she did. She shut her eyes, recaptured her serene self, and wore her gracious smile once more. “Where were we? Yes, come closer for your booster.” She felt it again, stronger, more delicious, more disconcerting. She shivered in momentary glee, considered whether she was having another pleasant metamorphosis. Would that not be delightful? But what if it were not? She had to go on.
“We strive for perfection,” she advised the attendees, “to reflect God’s. It pleases Him mightily when we achieve our ideal shape. Fat people will always earn lower wages, and they are not pleasant to look at. It is God’s plan. To avoid weight gain, you must look to God and worship. He will teach you to love yourself, and love is the cure for obesity.”
The line hummed in appreciation. The emir’s wife glanced to her left to make sure the scribe was writing down every wise word of her short yet exquisite sermon. An unfamiliar movement in the line caught her eye. She glanced up and noticed a man and his wife raising the robe of the man standing in front of them—thirteenth in line—and fondling his genitals. Before she could open her mouth to demand that they stop, she was struck once more with the surge. This time, she felt her soul shake. This time, she knew it was not going to be pleasant. This time, she was not the only one who felt it. The line was no longer straight; some supplicants looked confused, others terrified, still others lustful. One woman turned toward the temple gate and exposed her plentiful breasts. The floor rumbled, the pillars shimmied, and the emir’s wife felt two more surges rush through. Her skin tingled and her vagina buzzed and the temple gate burst into an infinity of tiny shards and toothpicks.
She wanted to exhort her seekers to calm down. She wanted to shout out a warning. Her lips moved of their own accord, and she heard herself whisper, “He comes.”
And into the diwan came a messenger bearing a letter from the emir of Bursa to the illustrious Baybars. The emir wrote that the Mongol queen of Kirkuk, a sorceress and half-sister of Hulagu Khan, had threatened to destroy his city if he did not comply with the outrageous duty payments she was demanding. “Let us return that barbarian to the hell from which she came,” decreed Baybars. “Taboush will lead an army against her. I pronounce him king of Kirkuk, with all the attendant duties and honors.”
The messenger cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, courage and valor may not be a match for this wily queen’s witchcraft.”
“Then we must certainly send her someone wilier,” Baybars said. “Othman, would you be so kind as to ask your charming wife to attend the diwan?”
Taboush led a few battalions of the slave army out of Cairo, accompanied by a most unwarlike-looking group: Othman, Harhash, Layla, and seven of her luscious-dove friends.
“Why are they traveling with us?” asked Othman.
“I do not know much about witchcraft,” Layla replied, “so I thought I would ask Maysoura, whose tea-leaf reading is unsurpassed. However, she refuses to be anywhere that Lama is not, and hence I had to ask both. Rania thinks she communicates with the spirits of her deceased paramours, and that might come in handy, although it is hard to imagine what use dead philanderers might be. Umm Jihan says she can conjure jinn, but only on full-moon nights and not during Ramadan. Roubaia can do astonishing card tricks, and she has studied necromancy. Soumaya vows that she can change the position of weightless objects with her mind, and Lubna works with potions. I do not know if any of their powers will be helpful, but they are good company, and Lubna brews a marvelously refreshing drink using fermented hops and water.”
“Should I start worrying now?” asked Harhash, and Othman replied, “Why wait?”
The witch queen’s mighty army laid siege to the fort of Bursa. Upon hearing Taboush’s war bugle, the enchantress turned her attention to the slave army. The Mongolian queen babbled, cursed, gestured wildly, and sent forth one of her soldiers to challenge the heroes. The Mongolian’s reek preceded him by a hundred meters. Layla held her nose.
“None of them bathe,” explained Othman. “They mean to frighten enemies with the stench.”
Taboush nudged his horse toward the Mongolian fighter. “I will answer the call. Let us end this quickly.”
“Wait,” cried Layla. She searched through the saddlebags and brought out a jar. “Allow me.” She ran her forefinger inside the jar and dabbed cream beneath Taboush’s nose. “A mix of cucumber, lavender, verbena, and rose petals. You will smell nothing but this.”
Taboush trotted toward the Mongolian. The barbarian was quick and strong. His arms moved like palm fronds in a swirling sandstorm. But Taboush was a great warrior, a scion of great warriors trained by great warriors, and he parried every stroke the maniac attempted. After an hour of sweat and blows, Taboush saw his opening and with one stroke decapitated his enemy. The Mongolian’s head alit five horse lengths away.
“I do not like the looks of this,” said Othman.
“That foreigner was not human,” said Harhash. “Had I not seen blood spurting, I would have sworn he was a jinni. We must find out how this is accomplished.”
Taboush roared victoriously, and another of the witch’s men, a Chechen, trotted out to fight him. The joust followed a similar pattern. An exhausted Taboush returned to his army dragging the two corpses behind him.
“If he goes out tomorrow,” said Harhash, “they will wear him down and kill him.”
“Both fighters fought the same way,” said Layla, “with unusual strength and quickness.”
Othman walked over to the corpses. “I will sneak into their camp,” he said, sounding nasal because he had his nose covered. “I will be a Chechen.”
“His clothes are too bloody,” said Layla. “You will have to wear the Mongolian’s.”
“But I do not look like a Mongolian.”
“Who is going to look at your face when your odor is so sickening? You think you will suffer? I am sending my pigeon, who has to endure being hidden on your person.”
And Majnoun stepped through the temple he had once possessed. Coral
eyes flaring, hair afloat and aflame, he moved across the hall like a lion surveying his realm, like a tiger stalking his prey. His iridescent robe shone and shimmered with the many colors of fire. Three fire-breathing imps walked on his left, three on his right, one before him, and one behind. Neither violet Adam, indigo Elijah, and blue Noah on Majnoun’s right, nor green Job, yellow Jacob, and orange Ezra on the left, looked impish. Isaac and Ishmael, sizzling and smoking, carried their agate-and-gold swords. And when Majnoun halted before the emir’s wife, every ecru robe in the temple turned an inimitable bright color.
“The prophet returns,” the line of seekers said.
“Son,” the emir’s wife said. “You have returned.”
“I am not your son,” Majnoun said, “and never was. You never carried me.” He snapped his fingers. The emir’s wife screamed as Ezra, Jacob, and Job jumped upon her and searched every inch of her body. Job raised his arm triumphantly, clutching Fatima’s hand. Majnoun turned around and strode out of the temple with his fighting imps. The emir’s wife tried to compose herself. The searching, the touching—she had had a divine orgasm, stigmata.
My feet felt heavy upon the broken and jagged stone of the stairs. Hafez bounded up two at a time, but I could barely manage one. Vigor filled his body—even in repose, as he stood waiting for me on each floor.
“We’ll only go to your home,” he said. “I don’t like the squatters in ours, and they don’t like me much, either. The wife in your home is quite nice and will let us in. She’s trying to be accommodating, hoping we’ll let her stay once the courts start dealing with this neighborhood.”
I caught my breath. “Will we?”
“That depends on you. It’s your apartment. You decide.” He turned, climbed the next flight of stairs, and waited on the third floor. “I’m kicking the bastards in our place out.” He lowered his voice as if the walls had ears. “They’re insufferable ingrates. I’ve tried talking to them a few times, but not once have they invited me in. They probably think I’ll steal something. They won’t allow me to see my own home.”
I hesitated on the last step to the fourth floor, but Hafez was already knocking. A young woman opened the door, a colorful scarf hastily wrapped about her face. She held a crying baby in her arms, a toddler clung to her left thigh, and a girl of about four studied us from a few steps away. The woman seemed perplexed but offered Hafez a wan smile. No one moved, and for a moment the family looked as if they were posing for a Diego Rivera mural.
“My husband is away,” she said softly, a southern lilt to her accent.
“That’s quite all right,” Hafez replied. “I apologize for disturbing you. This is my cousin who’s visiting from America. I don’t mean to inconvenience you, but I was wondering if I could bring him in for a few moments. This is the home he grew up in.”
She hesitated, seemed even more perplexed. “I have very little to offer guests,” she said. “I haven’t been to the market in several days.”
“No need to offer us anything. We can’t stay long, for we have to return to the hospital quickly to be at his father’s bedside. My cousin wishes to recall good memories before he departs.”
“Yes, of course,” she said, opening the door wider. “Come in.”
The foyer was no longer a foyer. It had become a storage room, with cartons piled up. A cheap runner probably covered the absence of marble tiles, which had always made a distinctive clack when my mother’s heels stepped on them. The woman led us to a living room that contained nothing but three wooden dining chairs and a rusty metal garden table with a stained-glass top. No curtains covered the windows, which were cheap aluminum-framed sliders. Outside, the balcony no longer had a railing, no whorls of metal roses, nothing to protect one’s heart from falling overboard. I hesitated to look at the dining room, where Lina used to practice her piano daily. In what world would the piano exist now?
“Please, sit,” the young woman said. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“No, please,” said Hafez. “Allow us a few minutes to look around, and we’ll soon leave you be. Don’t trouble yourself.”
Her face reddened. “Do you intend to look at the back rooms?”
“Not if it’ll disturb you. We don’t have to go back there. How about the first room here? That’s his bedroom. Can we go in there for a moment?” When she nodded, Hafez took my arm and dragged me out of the living room, back through the foyer, and into my bedroom. He closed the door behind him. “Do you remember now?”
We were surrounded by crates piled floor to ceiling. There was nothing else, barely a walkway between them. Spiders had spun intricate webs of desolation in three of the ceiling’s corners. I edged to the window. Two bullet holes in each of the top corners radiated jagged scars. Hafez followed me, the crates forcing us closer than I would have liked. I was ill-at-ease and off-kilter, made uneasy by either Hafez’s behavior or the past.
When we were boys, Aunt Samia used to force Hafez to spend time in my room so we’d get closer. “He’s your brother,” she used to admonish him whenever he complained, “your twin.”
“I wonder what’s in those crates,” I said to Hafez. “There sure are a lot of them.”
“Toilet paper,” he said. “That’s what’s in all of them. I checked the last time.”
He seemed so proud, and it confused me. I didn’t know whether he was happy to be back in the old days, or to have known something I did not, or simply to have discovered that a family was storing thousands of rolls of toilet paper in my room. He glowed. “Strange,” I said. The skin on my arms itched.
“Isn’t it, though?” He held both my hands. “You’re upset.” He leaned forward and hugged me. I stepped back and banged my head against one of the toilet-paper crates.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.” He didn’t seem nervous, let alone guilty. “I’m happy.” He smiled and hugged me once more. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Come on, let’s get back to the hospital.” He led the way out of my room.
“And where is the lair of the monster Hannya?” asked Majnoun.
“I know not,” said Adam. “I searched the world, its attic and its basement, but found no trace of her cursed lair.”
“And I asked every human, demon, and beast,” said Ezra, “but none seemed to know.”
“Or was willing to divulge what they knew,” said Noah. “A Bedouin tribe gathered at an oasis thirteen leagues away seemed terrified when I asked about Hannya, and their camels shunned me.”
“I will crush them,” yelled Majnoun. “I will char their flesh, and their bones will speak.”
“Wait,” said Ishmael. “Gold may get us the information.”
“No,” said Isaac. “Lust will, with just a touch of the devout. I will announce to the tribe that the fine-looking prophet will offer the informer seven kisses and one lick of the teeth.”
A boy and a girl were willing to inform. “A day’s camel ride due northwest,” said the boy, and the girl said, “You will come across a giant crater. Look for eight palms set in the shape of two diamonds.”
“May I have my kisses?” asked the boy.
“May I have my lick?” said the girl.
At the entrance to the lair of Hannya, the imps stood in a circle around Majnoun. Each placed his left hand upon his brother’s shoulder and his right hand upon Majnoun’s body. “We are with you,” they said in unison. “Once and forever.”
“There will be seven gates, each guarded by a demon,” said Ishmael. “You cannot enter without payment.”
“Here are seven gold coins,” said Noah. “Give one to each demon.”
“And here are two diamonds,” said Adam. “Just in case.”
“Here are two date cakes,” said Elijah. “We need one to get by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and another to distract him on our way out.”
“Be patient,” said Job.
“Be wary,” said Jacob.
“Be amazing,” said Ezra.
&nb
sp; And Majnoun, blood and fire shining in his eyes, descended into the crater followed by the imps. Daylight faded with each step, and a flame rose out of Majnoun’s hair and lit their way.
The first gate was agate and guarded by a red demon in the shape of a gargoyle with a wolf’s head. “Hackneyed,” muttered Isaac.
“I seek payment,” said the guard, in a voice that sounded like a lap-dog’s yelp.
Majnoun took a gold coin. He paused for an instant. “No, I will not pay.” He raised his hands, and a gush of fire shot out of them, blasting the gate.
“But that is not allowed,” whimpered the trembling guard as Majnoun walked by. “You cannot enter without permission. You must surrender something.”
Isaac smacked the demon and followed the rest down the path.
“Your style is so different from your mother’s,” said Elijah. “More Vesuvian, if one were to hazard a description.”
The demon of the second gate was not so lucky. He took the form of a giant snake, coiled behind his emerald gate, and hissed poison at the invaders. Majnoun roasted him and pushed through. The bats attacked after the third gate. Elijah swung his arms in the air to unleash his own bats, but Majnoun was much too quick. He exhaled, and the bats fell dead in mid-flight. He shattered the fourth gate with a snap of his fingers. The crows and ravens appeared after the fifth gate. Every one of them exploded when he looked in their direction. Majnoun and his company of imps moved through a cloud of black feathers. When the hordes of walking dead came after the sixth gate, he dispatched them with a flick of his wrist.
After the seventh gate, the fierce Cerberus blocked the path. He was massive, bigger than any demon. “Date cake?” asked Elijah, holding the gift out.
One of the heads snarled, baring its teeth, and the other two barked. Majnoun yawned, and the dog was reduced to ashes. The company followed the path.
“I would like to know who taught you all this,” said Isaac. “I certainly did not.”
“Nor did I,” added Ishmael.
The Hakawati Page 57
