A Djinni Named Conscience tsops-3

by Henry Lion Oldie

  Yet his Conscience was found in the usual place.

  “This one you may not give charity,” informed the djinni impassively, answering the mute question. “He is a fraud and a trickster. Both his legs are whole. Alas, he lacks conscience...”

  “So you may go to him!” the merchant was enraged. “Or to a city qadi[6] ! Do you know what bribes he takes?! Why have you stuck to poor me?!”

  The beggar pricked up his ears, and Jammal hurried to go away, just in case. Meanwhile the djinni was pontificating: “You must finally understand: I am your Conscience, not of your qadi or of this cheat! I have vowed to repay you, and I’ll fulfil my oath by any means.”

  A groan of despair broke from Jammal’s throat: “O Allah, why?! For what sins?!”

  For four days the merchant restrained himself. Tried not to answer the djinni in front of people, lest he would become reputed as a madman. Clenching his teeth, he tolerated all the reproofs. It appeared that he, a poor merchant, would perform improper deeds a hundred times a day, if not all the time. At least, thus considered Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid. Yet while on account of rejecting to give charity the djinni only grumbled squeamishly at his ear, when the merchant came to the city qadi in order to give him the habitual bribe for the current month (all the same it was cheaper than paying the taxes in their full), the djinni literally boiled up. “How can you indulge this thief and embezzler?! Spit in his eyes! Don’t give him money! Inform the mayor immediately! Let him put the qadi in prison! Let him cut off his ungodly right hand! Don’t you dare defile your honest name with a foul bribe! Pay your taxes and sleep well! And you should unmask the villain who has the insolence to take the post of qadi. The entire city will thank you!”

  It was very hard to refrain and not answer the foolish djinni. However, Jammal perfectly understood what would happen if he’d argued with an empty space in front of the qadi’s eyes. For the vile Conscience remained invisible for other people. Nevertheless, while receiving the money the qadi was looking at the merchant suspiciously. Either Jammal couldn’t control his expression completely, or evil tongues had time to inform the qadi about the strange behaviour of the merchant, Allah save his mind...

  That was just what he needed!

  Until the end of the week the merchant restrained his anger and behaved as before, ignoring the reproaches of Conscience. However, except for the djinni Jammal had as much as three wives, and none of them was noted to have a compliant character. And if the whole three of them, uniting temporarily, badgered their husband together – it was even harder to oppose them than the tedious Abd-al-Rashid! The old slave woman Zukhrah, who had served even the deceased father of Jammal, didn’t satisfy the women as a servant anymore. She became decrepit, weak-sighted. You would call for her and get no answer. In short, they needed a new slave woman in the house.

  For this the wives badgered their beloved husband.

  The merchant understood himself the wives were right, yet he delayed the purchase as much as possible. He didn’t want to spend the money. Besides, were he to buy a young and pretty one – there would be no end for jealousy. Were he to buy an old and pockmarked one – a scandal again: skinflint, niggard! Yet he had nothing to do about it; so early in the morning Jammal went to his acquaintance Tyafanak, a slave-trader.

  The djinni, naturally, followed.

  Even along the way he started nagging: you’ll buy a new slave woman, he was saying, and what about the old one? You’ll throw her out, it’s written all over you! She had served your father and mother, wiped your snot, dressed and combed your wives, swaddled your children – and you, as repayment... Jammal went on his way, clenching his teeth, yet the Conscience’s reproaches did their dirty deed gradually: to the slave-trader’s house the merchant came quite irritated.

  Tyafanak came out to meet him in person, invited him to drink coffee with sweets. While the host and the guest, reclining on soft pillows, were drinking coffee and talking, the servants set out in the yard the slave women meant for sale. The merchant was observing the women captiously. This one is a bit too old; that one is squinting – must be obstinate; this one seems to be good, even winked me stealthily. Maybe she thinks I’ll buy her for love amusements. You may dream of it: the wives will drive the both of us into the grave... While that one, with a child in her arms, will probably do. She’s looking at the ground, eyes lowered; middle-aged, unsightly but not ugly...

  Tyafanak understood the guest’s choice immediately. “Ay, what an eye you have, my dear! An eagle eye! And only one hundred and fifty dinars. One hundred and twenty for the woman, thirty for the child.”

  “For Allah’s sake, my dear! For one hundred and fifty dinars I’ll buy a young beauty! I need her not for a harem but for house-cleaning. Ninety dinars. And keep the child for yourself.”

  “Excuse me, my dear, but she’s for sale together with the child. All right, one hundred and thirty five for both. Don’t you understand your profit? For this price you’re buying two slaves at once!” Tyafanak demonstrated two thick fingers to be more convincing. “The boy will grow up, and you’ll get an excellent servant. Take them, you won’t be wrong!”

  “Until he grows up I’ll become old! I won’t have the money to feed him until then! While his mother will run to her son every now and then, ignoring her work. No, I need only her. Ninety five dinars.”

  It was then that the djinni opened his mouth – as usual, in the most improper moment: “What’s wrong with you? Even this slave-trader’s heart is kinder than yours! Separating a mother from her child?! Listen,” Abd-al-Rashid suddenly moved closer to the merchant, whispering enthusiastically right into his ear. “You have a possibility to do a really good deed. This woman will thank you all her life! She has been captured by bandits near her native village Nashitze, not far from Osiak. Redeem the poor woman, free her and let her go home together with her son! Come on, make up your mind!”

  From such insolence Jammal’s mind darkened for a moment, and forgetting where he was he screamed in answer, spitting: “Have you gone crazy, son of a snake and a jackal?! What Nashitze, what Osiak?! Have you decided to ruin me? To make a fool out of me in front of people?! Get out, you beast, leave me alone!”

  Tyafanak’s servants, stunned, were looking at the cursing guest; Tyafanak himself, who had taken the insults personally, was slowly reddening with rage; while the woman with the child, having heard familiar words in the customer’s speech, fell to his feet, sobbing, and only with difficulty could be dragged away. The child was crying aloud. To the child’s screams Jammal, disgraced, hastily left the slave-trader’s house.

  Having discovered that he came back without a new slave woman, all three of his wives assailed their husband with reproaches:

  “Surely you haven’t even gone anywhere!”

  “You’ve been sticking in a coffee-shop, wasting money!”

  “Gadding about, searching for whores!”

  “Throw the old woman out tomorrow!”

  “Throw her out! She’s gone totally mad, the witch!”

  Jammal spat with the irritation, shouted at his wives and categorically refused to throw out the old woman. “I’ll leave her to spite them!” he thought. “Who has ever seen that wives would rule their husband? It will be as I say.”

  However, the djinni, strange as it was, kept silent throughout this ugly scene, and it seemed to the merchant that Abd-al-Rashid’s silence was an understanding one. It may be even said, approving.

  Nevertheless, it didn’t save Jammal from Abd-al-Rashid’s importunity during the next days. Who could have thought there were so many ordinary deeds that Conscience may consider improper?! And after a week, when the merchant was about to go to sleep after a day of work, the djinni appeared before him once again and sat down opposite to him. “It’s time to sum up,” announced the villain. “So, during this week you have been unfaithful to your wives twice; and it wouldn’t be so bad if you were only unfaithful – I’m a male too, I’m able to understand you! But you have spe
nt on wenches the money that has been put aside for gifts to Fatima, Rubike and Balah, and this is truly very bad! You have bribed the mayor Abdullah, and in doing this you’ve humiliated yourself and encouraged him for further extortion; you’ve cheated on your customers, you’ve refused to loan the needy weaver Omer Chitian, you’ve been foul-mouthed, you’ve hit your junior wife on her back with a chibouk... By the way, do you know why your wives are so quarrelsome? Because they desire your love and care! How often do you share bed with each of them? Shame on you, Jammal – to avoid your faithful wives while wasting your strength and money on loose women!”

  The merchant thought it best to remain silent, having decided it would be better to wait till the end of this moralising talk and then to fall asleep quietly. It wouldn’t do any good to argue with the djinni. Then again, what kind of a quiet sleep could it be?! After the troubles that had fallen on him, impersonated in his Conscience, Jammal began suffering from insomnia.

  “In addition, you have committed an especially shameful deed: you’ve taught your own son to lie to customers! You have no conscience, Jammal, I have to say!”

  “Now I have. You...” muttered the merchant sleepily.

  “Don’t sleep!” roared the djinni so that the merchant jumped up in his bed from unexpectedness. “I haven’t told you everything yet! You’re right: I’m your Conscience. And it seems you have never had any other one. So, if you have a conscience now, you must be gnawed with remorse and conscience-smitten.”

  The djinni was silent for a long time, pondering. “No, I don’t think I’ll be gnawing you,” drawled Abd-al-Rashid at last, still reflecting. “Yet to smite... to smite you would be worthwhile. I’ll beat you just a little for a start. Do you agree?”

  “Hey, stop it! Don’t you dare beating me!” Jammal got anxious and for some reason began wrapping himself with the blanket: thus children try to hide from non-existent monsters that lurk in the dark room. “Get out, in the name of Allah!”

  Yet neither the blanket nor the repeated Word of Liberation helped.

  “Alas,” the djinni sighed heavily.

  After the first blow in the ear Jammal fell from his bed head over heels. He tried to resist the vile djinni, to kick him back with his leg, and at once got one more slap and after it – a telling stroke under his ribs...

  The master’s scream alarmed the entire house immediately.

  The servants and wives came running in and, to their astonishment, found the merchant moaning on the floor. Jammal was gripping either at his face or at his waist, and to the anxious question: “What’s wrong with you, oh master?” he began groaning and cursing djinn and some pugnacious conscience, while alternating screams and foul words. To the timid suggestion to call for a doctor he ordered everyone to get out so unambiguously that the perplexed household had nothing else to do.

  “Stop screaming,” advised the djinni to the moaning merchant when they remained alone in the room once again. “They may think you’ve gotten crazy. Just stand it, all right? Only a couple of blows more. It’s your own fault: you don’t want to do it out of your own good will, so maybe at least beating will affect you...”

  With this the Slave of Justice sadly, but quite painfully struck the merchant on his back with his huge fist twice. Jammal gritted his teeth, refraining from screaming – indeed, it would be the last straw, in addition to all his troubles, to gain the reputation of madman!

  In the morning, having examined his body that was aching after yesterday’s beating, the merchant, strange as it was, didn’t discover bruises or grazes, or any other traces of the punishment. It appeared that he should keep silent about the beating, and if the djinni decided to beat him again he was to tolerate it without a word. There were no traces! While people have long tongues... Jammal was not worried in vain. Soon the rumours of his oddities began spreading all over the city, and after that even if the merchant behaved quite normally those around him would certainly notice in his behaviour the signs of madness. Customers passed Jammal’s shop by, acquaintances avoided meeting him and when he invited them to visit they would refuse on various definitely invented excuses.

  In his grief the merchant tried to go on a spree of drinking and revelling – in vain. A lot of people witnessed how Jammal, without any visible reason, spilled upon himself one after the other three cups of wine, forbidden by the Prophet, and then broke a big jug of the aforementioned drink, spattering with it all those assembled. And when the merchant tried to visit one dancer girl he knew, he disgraced himself much more: in the most crucial moment, when the clothes were thrown off, the Slave of Justice said plaintively: “Sorry, but I cannot allow this!” and hit the merchant straight in his crotch with all his might.

  Jammal’s life became veritable hell. His faint attempts to defend himself led to nothing: the djinni was much stronger and what more – fought like a shaitan! Thus a month passed, then another one. The merchant grew thin and hollow-cheeked from such a life, notwithstanding that the djinni didn’t beat him as frequently any more and sometimes would even cheer him up: “Hold on, my friend! You are on the right way! Soon your torments will bear fruit!”

  “Of course! If you beat up a man twice a day, even Iblis himself will gain the fruits of righteousness!” thought the merchant in his mind, dreaming secretly to get rid of the hated djinni. Finally he made a decision. First of all Jammal visited the renowned exorcist who lived at the south outskirts of Vlera.

  “A charlatan,” announced Abd-al-Rashid confidently scarcely had they stepped at the threshold. “He doesn’t see me at all.”

  “He’ll drive you away without looking at you!” objected the merchant in a whisper. Without much hope, however.

  The djinni only snorted contemptuously in response.

  Abd-al-Rashid proved to be right: the exorcist cavorted around till he fainted, smoked the entire house with stinky incenses, and yet the merchant returned home together with his Conscience. Nevertheless, now Jammal was clutching straws. He visited all the sorcerers, quacksalvers and hermits in the area, turned to a mullah, to a doctor... And he saw they didn’t believe him. They pretended, trying to draw as much money as they could out of the insane simpleton. The merchant no longer needed the djinni’s acrimonious comments to understand this.

  Once there stopped in Vlera, in passing, the renowned mage Hussein al-Murally; having heard about his visit, the merchant rushed to the mage. The djinni was moving nearby, squinting gloomily at his ward and muttering: “Aren’t you ashamed? I wish you well, and you... Ungrateful!” From time to time he would give Jammal a cuff on his nape.

  The merchant didn’t answer obstinately.

  The great wizard had glanced at Jammal – more exactly, over his shoulder – just once, turned slightly pale and hurried to step farther from the merchant. As if from a leper. And then declared firmly: “You’ve come in vain. I cannot help you.”

  “But king Suleiman knew how to confine djinn!” cried out the merchant in despair, seeing that hope, which had barely sparkled, was threatening to disperse. “I’ll pay you! I’ll shower you with gold!”

  The mage stretched his arms to the sides: “Alas, oh my respectable guest. I am not king Suleiman.”

  “But how can I get rid of him?”

  “I don’t know. Someone else would deceive you, whereas I tell you honestly: I don’t know. And if anybody declares he’s able to help you, spit this liar in his eyes!”

  “And to kill? Is it possible to kill him?!” cried out the merchant desperately, feeling how the reproaching glance of Abd-al-Rashid sent shivers down his spine.

  “It is said djinn were killed by an enchanted weapon. If the wound is serious enough, the fire that substitutes their blood leaks out – and the djinni turns to a handful of ashes.”

  “Where?! Where can I find such a weapon?!”

  The merchant couldn’t get rid of an odd feeling. A surprising feeling. Unusual. Blood rushed to his face, and there was a gnawing in his heart. Maybe he was sick?

&nbs
p; “Excuse me, oh my respectable guest,” the mage shrugged. “If I knew...”

  The door closed.

  However, evidently there was a witness to this talk, who had quite keen ears and an equally long tongue. Because the very next day there came to Jammal an antiquarian and brought a rusty dagger, claiming that the dagger had a spell on it, and with it to slaughter any djinni was piece of cake. After this people would come in flocks, offering the merchant all sorts of rubbish at exorbitant prices. And each of them swore on his father’s memory and his mother’s honour that it was exactly his weapon that was fit to disembowel the djinni’s flaming guts. Watching how Jammal drove away the next fraud Abd-al-Rashid would only make a squeamish grimace: “These ones definitely have no conscience!”

  Finally the merchant decided to leave Vlera for a little house on the beach, at the mountainous peninsula of Karaburuni that bordered Vlera Gulf on the South-West. He decided to leave the business to his eldest son and have a rest. Gradually the rumours would settle, excitement would calm down and it would become possible to come back as if nothing had happened. And the djinni... Well, what about the djinni? Strange as it was, Jammal got used a bit to the constant presence of Abd-al-Rashid. It’s true that a man can get used to everything.

  “That’s right,” approved the djinni of his intentions. “Have a rest, think about your soul. It would be also nice to go to hajj to Mecca. But this is later on.”

  For a week Jammal was just resting, doing nothing and recovering from the insanity of the last months. He hurried to send his servants away, remaining alone, not counting the djinni. However, the life of a hermit soon bored the merchant who was active by nature, and he began conversing with Abd-al Rashid more and more frequently. Formerly the merchant had despised fairy tales, but now he would eagerly listen to the djinni’s stories about the days of old, about his service at king Suleiman’s; yet about the cause of his imprisonment into the amulet the djinni preferred not to speak. The sandy shore where they now would walk together was desolate, Jammal could not worry that somebody would hear their conversations and once again consider the merchant to be insane. Besides, the even sound of the waves calmed him down, returning peace of mind and immersing him in a meditative state which hadn’t been characteristic of the merchant before.