“I surrendered,” said Majnoun.
Hannya towered in her underground lair in her most menacing guise. “Swear that you will not attack me,” said the monster to Majnoun. “Swear that you and yours will leave me alone for now and forever, that none of you will molest me—not you, not Fatima, not Afreet-Jehanam, and certainly not those silly dolls you travel with.” The monster, inhabiting her largest size, was surprised that Majnoun had entered her lair in his awkward human teenage form. Her hair grazed the ceiling, and her arms reached from one end of the cave to the other. Dozens of demons of various shapes and kinds, frozen and imprisoned in translucent egg-shaped crystals, cluttered the lair. Majnoun’s mother, Fatima, was in a half-shell, a sword hanging over her unconscious head.
“If you do not swear,” the monster said, “she dies. If you swear, she lives. Give me your word that none of you will try to kill me and I will release your mother. All of us can go on as we were before, pretending that nothing happened.”
The imps could not keep still. Isaac chomped his teeth. Ishmael cracked his knuckles. Job snarled.
“Release my mother,” said Majnoun.
“Leave me,” roared the monster. “It is enough that I will not set eyes on any of you again.”
The red pigeon circled in the dark sky until he saw his mistress lounging around a campfire with her seven friends. “What does the message say?” asked Maysoura.
“Every evening, the witch brews a potion that gives her fighters inhuman strength,” Layla said. “The men line up at the cauldron in the morning.”
“What are we to do?” asked Soumaya.
“Well,” said Lama, “we do have a potion expert. What do you think, Lubna?”
“Me?” asked Lubna. “How would I know what to do about a potion like that? If I did, I would be wealthy. The one thing I do know is that if a potion is to succeed, all the ingredients must be mixed exactly right. If Othman can throw something into the brew, it will be ruined.”
“He cannot get close enough,” Layla said. “Maybe we can—or at least our pigeons can.”
“Brilliant,” cried Umm Jihan. “I have trained my pigeons to be strong. They can even carry a small olive branch.”
“What should we add to the brew?” asked Rania.
“We cannot drop anything large,” said Layla, “or it will be noticed. No olive branches.”
“I have sage,” said Soumaya, “and coriander.”
“I have a better idea,” said Lubna. “My pigeons will hate me, but I do know how to make one special potion. It comes in handy every now and then.”
“Inspired,” said Layla. “That is positively inspired.”
“My poor pigeons,” said Lubna. “I will try to explain to them that the effect will not last long and their bowels will settle in time.”
In the morning, the Mongolian queen’s men drank the odd-tasting potion out of the cauldron. As soon as the first was within range of Taboush’s sword, his severed head lay on the dry earth with an immortalized look of shock. The second soldier to accept Taboush’s challenge fared no better and was dispatched in seconds. The sorceress cursed her cauldron. “Have you nothing better?” cried Taboush. “Is there no warrior worthy of being killed by my sword?”
Layla mounted her mare and descended to the jousting field. “Allow me,” she said to Taboush. She sat up in her saddle and let out a cry. “You ignorant barbarian. You are nothing but an amateur, a pretender, not a queen. I heap insults and curses upon you. If you have any honor, heed my call. Your minions are not worthy of our warrior and never will be. I proclaim you to be as insignificant as your underlings. Come out and prove me wrong.”
The witch queen fumed. “A kingdom that sends its whores to defend its honor has none.” She turned to one of her Mongolians. “Come with me. I must prepare. I will teach that scarlet harlot a lesson that will serve her well when she arrives in hell.” She entered her yak-skin tent, followed by the Mongolian. “She calls me a pretender? I will show her what a real queen’s wrath looks like. I will bring down the force of thunder upon her head. By the way, I do like all that blood around your collar. I shall have all my warriors follow your sartorial example.”
When the queen rode out to meet her challenger, Taboush warned Layla, “Be careful. She is a mighty witch. How are you going to fight her?”
“I can tell by the way she holds her head that she is not a sorceress, let alone mighty. She is my beloved.”
Othman, dressed in the Mongolian queen’s garb, trotted up to them. “The wicked witch no longer breathes. I do not think her men will offer much resistance now.”
Taboush blared his war horn, and the army of innocents attacked their enemy. The battle was short-lived, for the barbarians surrendered quickly, having lost the will to fight. The hero of the lands traveled to Kirkuk, where he was to rule, and Othman, Layla, and their friends returned to Cairo.
Fatima’s eyes sprang open as she was being carried aloft by Noah, Elijah, Ezra, and Jacob. She saw the mossy cave with shards of marble embedded in the ceiling, the remnants of a shattered gate. “Stop,” she demanded, still groggy. “Put me down.” She looked around and directed her question to Majnoun, “Where is your brother?”
“My brother is no more.”
Fatima disentangled herself from the arms of the imps and stood up. She measured her surroundings and held out her hand, and Job placed her talisman in it. She marched back down the path, followed by the imps and her son, who kept staring at the ground before him.
She stormed into Hannya’s lair, and the ground shuddered with each step, the walls quaked with her rage. “Explain yourself before you die,” Fatima commanded. “Why did you kill my son? Did you not consider the consequences?”
Hannya let out a long, loud sigh. “We do what we must. Does the extinguished candle care about the darkness?”
“Your time has come,” Fatima cried.
“No, it has not. You are bound by your son’s word not to harm me. Begone. You and your son may be mightier, but you no longer have dominion over me.”
“Foolish, foolish woman. You should have killed me when you had the chance.” Fatima raised her arms in the air. “Death will expiate death.”
The monster rolled her three eyes. “Useless theatrics. You can cast no spell against me.”
“What you have fed upon,” Fatima declared, “will now feed upon you,” and she unyoked Hannya’s imprisoned demons and watched the monster’s gigantic face blanch.
“Wait,” screeched Hannya. “Wait. Let us bargain. I have something to offer you. I have something you need. I have the—” But the demons, set free from their shackles, descended upon their torturer. Hannya fended off the first three, and the fourth, and the fifth, but she was shortly overwhelmed, was slowly devoured. Her dying scream vanished first, and then her hands and arms, her legs, her head, until naught but space was left of her.
Twenty-one
In the early morning, before it was light enough to tell a white thread from a black one, Beirut was pristine and shockingly loud—two apparently interrelated phenomena. The streets were empty except for gigantic green garbage-trucks, and I got stuck behind a particularly noisy one. There were many strange differences between my two homes, Los Angeles and Beirut, but for some reason none seemed more telling than garbage-collecting: in L.A., garbage was picked up once a week; in Beirut, four times a day. Farting and chugging, the truck stopped every few meters and wouldn’t let me pass. Finally, when the dark-skinned garbagemen jumped off to the right to empty the next building’s Dumpster, I steered left onto the curb and passed the truck. The driver seemed despondent and oblivious.
The hospital’s main entrance was still locked. Around the corner, the emergency-room entrance sucked me in with a barely audible hum. The hum of the fifth floor’s low fluorescent lights was more than audible. I followed the crayon lines along the floor, past the visitors’ lounge, past the unmanned guard’s desk, into the cardiac unit, past the rooms with their aquarium-window exhibits of ag
ed, frightened patients.
No one would have recognized my father. What I remembered of him was nothing like what lay before me. I wanted to slap myself, wake up. I stroked his forehead. Fatima was snoring on the gurney. My sister was awake on the recliner, staring at my father’s prostrate form.
I went to her, touched her shoulder. “I couldn’t sleep,” I whispered.
“Neither could I.” She reached for my hand, either as a comfort or to comfort me. “Every time I dozed, I dreamed he and I were having a big fight. He was angry and unforgiving.” She leaned into my arm. “I’m terrified of sleeping.”
“Now that Hannya is no longer in this world,” said Majnoun, “I will make her world mine. Her lair will be my home.” He began to sweep the floor with a makeshift broom while humming a dirge.
“Your son has not been well,” Isaac said to Fatima.
“But he is getting better,” said Ishmael. “Night and day.”
“He will soon be healthy and thriving, if incomplete,” said Jacob.
“It would have grieved me,” said Fatima, “had he been anything but devastated. With the aid of time we shall heal him. Yet we must also find his brother.”
All eight imps stared at their hooves.
“We have been trying,” said Noah. “We have searched everywhere.”
“That fornicating demon Hannya cut him up,” said Adam, and Fatima wept.
Majnoun swept his broom into a corner and felt a prickle travel up through the handle. He bent and picked up an obsidian box the size of his hand. “Mother,” he called across the commodious cave. “I have found him.” Fatima and the imps ran toward him. She stared at Layl’s heart, lifted it, held it to her own. She let out a piercing wail and was joined by the imps. But grief, the vampire, did not overcome Majnoun. His face shone red, and his hair burst into flames once more. He reached for his lover’s heart, took it from his mother. Coddled in the palm of his hand, the heart glowed and pulsed.
“We can rebuild him,” said Elijah. “We have the ability.”
“Resurrect him,” said Adam.
“In our nephew’s hand, the heart lives,” said Job.
“Layl will rise once more,” said Ezra.
“We will need all of him,” said Fatima, “as well as a miracle.”
With his beloved’s heart close to his, Majnoun said, “I know where my adored is.”
When Baybars was informed that Othman and Layla were almost at Cairo’s gates, he announced, “It is time for our city to honor my friends. Let us celebrate their victory over the Mongolian queen. Taboush has to deal with the affairs of Kirkuk. We will have another celebration when he arrives. Let us surprise Othman and his wife.” Cairenes clogged the streets; shouts of joy and ululations erupted throughout the city. Before thousands, Baybars lauded Othman and Layla for their victory over the witch queen and for their longtime service to his kingdom. He covered their bodies in gold and covered their heads with turbans of valor.
“I do not understand,” said Taboush as he sat in his diwan in Kirkuk. “Why does the sultan choose to insult me so? He honored the face-cream woman for my victory. Am I not deserving? Have I not served faithfully? How can I show my face in public after being shamed? I led the army. I am the war hero. Why honor his friends at my expense? This cannot be.”
And the steward opened the doors of the hall and announced, “There is a priest by the name of Arbusto who begs a moment of your time.”
Wan and serene, Aunt Samia appeared in the visitors’ lounge, flanked by two of her boys, Anwar and Munir. Salwa, sitting on my right, looked as if she would sacrifice her firstborn to be back in my father’s room, or anywhere but the visitors’ lounge. Hovik had his arm around her shoulders. She reached out and held my hand. I lifted hers to my lips and kissed it.
“He’s coming soon,” she whispered. “I can feel it.” She mistook my incomprehension for shock and concern. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong. He’s just kicking. He wants out.”
“But you’re not due for another week, are you?”
She shrugged. “I know when I’m due. I’m not saying he’s coming this minute. Soon.”
“She would know,” Aunt Samia interjected. “I always knew, long before the pain.” She paused, looking at no one in particular. “What are you going to call him?”
Hovik started to answer, but my niece was quicker. “We’re not sure yet,” she said.
“Call him Farid,” my aunt said. “That would be such a nice gesture. Your grandfather would be so pleased.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” Salwa said. “I don’t see how. I’d never be able to yell at him. How could I punish my child if he was named Farid?”
Aunt Samia looked confused. “Another name, then. Keep it in the family. ‘Jihad’ wouldn’t be good. ‘Wajih’? You didn’t know him, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Hovik decided that was the moment to begin participating in the family sport: teasing Aunt Samia. “We’re thinking of calling him Vartan, after my father,” he said.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “An Armenian name. Is saddling your son with such a burden a good idea?”
“It’s a great name,” replied Hovik. “It means ‘the one who brings roses.’ ”
“In what language?” asked Aunt Samia.
“In the grammatically incorrect one,” I heard myself say.
Hovik leaned forward to see if I was channeling a spirit. He chuckled. Salwa smiled. Her turn—she brought my hand up to her lips and kissed it.
“I think it’s a good name,” Hovik said.
“Isn’t the first son supposed to be called Antranig?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t.”
“And you weren’t called Hagop or Zaven. I thought all of you were called either Hagop or Zaven.”
“That’s bad,” Hovik said, laughing. “That’s so unfunny.”
Salwa seemed about to break into grateful tears. She brought my hand to her stomach and covered it with her own. “We’re going to call him Murad,” she told my perplexed aunt. “I’ve always loved the name. When I was a little girl, Osama used to tell me stories when he came to visit.” She paused to settle her voice. “A lot of them were your father’s stories.”
“And none of my father’s stories were true,” my aunt said.
“It doesn’t matter. One story was about a gorgeous dervish boy called Murat. I swore I would name my son Murat so he would grow up to be handsome and loved.”
“We can’t use the Turkish form of the name,” explained Hovik, “because I have relatives who’d slit my throat for even considering it. We’re going with a beautiful Arabic name. Murad.”
Aunt Samia clasped her hands around the purse on her lap and said, “And may he grow up to be handsome and loved.”
“From your lips to God’s ear,” said Hovik.
“Help me up,” said Salwa. “We should go check on him.”
She was so surprisingly heavy that I almost tumbled on top of her as she stood. As soon as we cleared the doors, she began to weep. “You will be Murad’s storyteller, won’t you?”
First the torso. Up in the sky, upon the carpet, Majnoun said, “I will deal with the lions.”
“They are mighty beasts,” said Jacob.
“Do not be excessively cruel,” suggested Isaac. “They did not kill your brother.”
“And in your time of need,” said Ishmael, “they were a comfort.”
The cave was in a rocky oasis in the middle of the desert. It was guarded by seven lions that roared as soon as the company alit in their midst. The rest of the pride dribbled out of the cave one by one, a solid fifty strong. The king of the beasts announced his arrival by unleashing a forceful roar. “I am here for my son,” Fatima said.
“You might as well have stayed at your lair,” the king of lions said. “I will not give up our treasure, whose presence has increased our strength a hundredfold.” And those were his last words. Majnoun held the heart before him, and the king of be
asts exploded into nothingness.
“I will recover my love,” said Majnoun, walking toward the cave.
And then the legs. Into darker Africa they traveled, along the Nile and beyond its seven mouths. “Be wary,” warned Ishmael. “The monkeys are tricksters, and Hanuman is their god. We cannot allow ourselves to fall for their wiles.”
Majnoun pointed toward a dense carpet of sausage trees and baobabs. Upon landing, they were beset by a large band of monkeys, who tried to appear threatening but could only manage irritating. They floated between branches with ease and grace and jumped impossible distances.
“All travelers who pass through my realm must answer my riddle or die.” The monkey king’s voice, like its master, traveled from branch to branch.
“You said they followed Hanuman,” Isaac told his brother, “not the Sphinx.”
“I will reduce you and yours to ashes,” said Majnoun, “and char your timber into ember.”
“Ask now,” commanded Fatima.
“Riddle me this,” said the monkey king. “What has one voice, is four-footed at dawn, two-footed at noon, and three-footed at dusk?”
“Oh, please,” said Job.
“Not that again,” said Isaac.
“Who cares?” said Elijah.
“Now give me what belongs not to you or your kind,” warned Fatima.
“I will do no such thing,” said the monkey king. “Solving the riddle only wins you safe passage. I will not—” The monkey king was no more.
I would be Murad’s storyteller, and I hoped he would one day hear me. My grandfather told stories to his children, but only Uncle Jihad heard him, and even he stopped listening by the time he became an adult. My father pointedly refused to listen, neither to his fairy tales nor to his family stories. “I have very little interest in lies and fabrications,” he used to say.
A week before he died in that awful spring of 1973, my grandfather told me a story in my room, a tale he hadn’t told me before. Maybe it was because he’d thought I had finally reached an age, twelve, when I could understand more, when I could listen better. Maybe he knew he was dying. He was in a good mood, though—ebullient, the corners of his lips pointing toward the ruffles of hair in his ears. His version of the death of Abraham he told me that day.
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